Hathercourt

“Like to go? Nowhere,” said Arthur, bitterly. “Where I would have a chance of doing any good is the question. I was thinking I might do worse than take to studying farming, and that sort of thing, systematically – go to Cirencester or one of those agricultural colleges, eh?”

“With a view to settling down at the Edge?” said Laurence, maliciously.

“No, but with a view to getting an agency – the agency of an estate, I mean, once Alys is of age. I don’t see anything unreasonable in that. If Alys doesn’t sell Lydon, perhaps she will take me into consideration.”

“Don’t sneer, Arthur; it is not Alys’s fault,” said Mr Cheviott. “I don’t think your idea is an unreasonable one,” and relieved to find his cousin so practically inclined, he went on to discuss the rival merits of the various agricultural colleges.

It was daylight, or dawn, at least, before the cousins separated, but, tired as he was, Captain Beverley did not go to bed till he had written and rewritten half a dozen times the conceded note of farewell to Mrs Western.

And in the end he, in despair, copied over the first and decided to send it.

“It is merely catching at a straw,” he said to himself. “Far better give up every hope of her at once, but I cannot.”

He left Romary the following afternoon, but his note was not sent to Hathercourt Rectory till late that evening.

Chapter Twelve

“Have I made it worse?”

“Give me good fortune, I could strike him dead,For this discomfort he hath done the house!”Elaine.

So it was not really for from “this time to-morrow” that Lilias had so confidently anticipated, when Mrs Western opened the envelope, addressed to her by Captain Beverley, and read its contents.

“What can it mean? I cannot understand,” she said to herself, tremulously, for she was alone at the time. Then a second thought struck her, and the tremulousness gave place to hot indignation.

“Can he have been playing with her only? My child – my poor Lilias, is it possible?” she exclaimed aloud in her agitation. “What shall I do? How can I tell her?”

Just then a light, firm step sounded along the passage. Mrs Western shivered.

“If it is Lilias!” she whispered.

But it was not Lilias.

“Oh, Mary, my dearest, how thankful I am it is you!” she cried, as her second daughter entered the room. “Mary, what does this mean? Read it. How can we ever tell Lilias?” and as she spoke she held out the paper that trembled in her hands.

Mary trembled too, for an instant only, however. Then she drew herself together, as it were, by a vigorous effort, and read:

“Romary, February 19.

“My Dear Mrs Western, —

“I hardly know how to find words in which to apologise sufficiently for the ingratitude and discourtesy of which I shall appear guilty when I tell you that this note is to bid you all good-bye. For a time only, I trust and believe, but a time which seems terribly long for me to look forward to – for I am absolutely obliged to leave this neighbourhood at once, and for two years. I do not know how to thank you for all your goodness. I have never, in all my life, been so happy as under your roof, yet I have no choice but to go, without even bidding you all farewell in person.

“Will you think of me as kindly as you can, and will you allow me to send, through you, my farewell to Miss Western and her sisters, and the rest of the family? and believe me, —

“Yours most gratefully and truly, —

“Arthur Kenneth Beverley.”

Mary stood motionless. Her face grew pale, her lips compressed, but she did not speak.

“What does it mean? Mary, speak, child, tell me what it means,” said Mrs Western, with the petulance born of extreme anxiety. “It cannot be that Lilias has refused him?”

“No, mother, it is not that,” said Mary, “I wish it were.”

“What is it, then? Can he be so utterly base and dishonourable?”

“Not of himself,” replied Mary, bitterly; “weak fool that he is, he is not so bad as that. No, mother, he is not, or has been made to think he is not, his own master; it is all that man – that bad man’s doing.”

“Whose doing?” said Mrs Western, bewilderedly. “That Mr Cheviott – Mr Cheviott of Romary. Don’t you see the note is dated from there? I see it all; he found it out at the ball. Very likely he went there for the purpose of finding it out, having heard rumours of it, and at once used all his influence, whatever it is, to make that poor fool give it up. And yet he isn’t a poor fool! That is the worst of it; there is so much good in him, and Lilias cares for him – yes, that is the worst of it. Mother, she does care for him. Will it break her heart?”

And Mary, in her innocence and ignorance, looked up to her mother who had gone through life, who must know how it would be, and repeated, wistfully, “Mother, will it break her heart?”

Mrs Western shook her head.

“I do not know – I cannot say; she is so proud. Either it will harden or break her utterly. Oh, Mary, my dear, my instincts were right. Do you remember how I dreaded it from the first?”

“Yes, mother, you were right; nowadays if people are poor, they must forget they are gentle-people. It would be well to bring up Alexa and Josey not to ‘look high,’ as the servants say; a respectable tradesman – Mr Brunt, the Withenden draper’s eldest son, for instance, is the sort of man that girls like us should be taught to encourage – eh, mother?”

“Mary, don’t; you pain me. It is not like you to talk so. If what you say were true, it would make me go back upon it all and think I was wrong to marry your father. He might have done so much better – he, so attractive and popular as he was; he might have married some one rich and – ”

“Hush, mother —dear mother, hush,” said Mary, kissing her; “it is wicked of me to pain you,” and in saying these words she determined to tell her mother nothing of her own personal part of the affair, her bitter indignation at the way in which Mr Cheviott had tried to win her over to take part against her sister; and for this reticence she had another, as yet hardly understood, motive – a terrible misgiving was creeping upon her. Was she to blame? Had her plainly expressed defiance and indignation raised Mr Cheviott to more decisive action than he had before contemplated? She could not tell.

“But so mean as he has shown himself, it is perfectly possible that it is so,” she reflected. “He is small-minded enough to be stung into doing what he has by even my contempt, yet how could I have spoken otherwise? though for Lilias’s sake I could almost have made a hypocrite of myself.”

But as yet she was not at leisure to think this over; she only felt instinctively that it was better it should not be told, and thus deciding, her mother’s voice recalled her to the present.

“Mary,” she repeated again, “how are we to tell Lilias?”

“Leave it to me, mother dear,” she replied, for a moment’s consideration satisfied her that nothing in the shape of sympathy or pity – not even her mother’s – was likely to be acceptable to her sister at the first.

“She may soften afterwards, but she is sure to be hard at first,” Mary said to herself, “and, dear mother,” she went on, aloud, “the less notice we seem to take of his going, to the others, the better, don’t you think? Not even to papa. If he sees Lily looking much the same as usual – and you may trust her to do that – he will not think anything about it, and Alexa and Josey must just be well snubbed if they begin any silly chatter. And you will leave Lilias to me?”

“Yes, dear; but can I do nothing? If we could arrange for her to go away somewhere for a while, for instance?”

“After a time, perhaps, but not at first. Mother, you will try not to take any notice of it at first, won’t you? Just allude to it in a commonplace way; it will be far the best and easiest for Lilias.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“It is so horrible!” said Mary, with a little shudder, “so utterly horrible that a girl should be exposed to this – that even you and I, mother – mother and sister though we are to her, should be discussing her feelings as if we were doctors and she a patient! Oh, it is horrible!”

Lilias was not in her room; she was down-stairs in the drawing-room practising duets with Alexa, while Josey hovered about chattering, and interrupting, and trying to extract gossip from her elder sister on the subject of last night’s ball.

“Josey,” said Mary, as she came in, “it is past your bed-time, and you, too, Alexa, had better go I think. Mamma is in the study, so go and say good-night to her there.”

“Is mother not coming in here again?” asked Lilias. “I hate the evenings papa has to go out; we all seem so unsettled and straggling. Yes, do go to bed, children. I am beginning to feel a little tired, Mary; aren’t you?”

“No – yes, a little. I really don’t know,” said Mary.

Lilias laughed merrily.

“Why, I believe you are half asleep, child!” she exclaimed. “We are evidently not intended to be fine ladies, if one ball knocks us up so. I wonder what all the people who were there last night are doing with themselves now? Very likely they are having carpet dances tonight, and all sorts of fun. The Cleavelands party is broken up, though. The Cheviotts were going back to Romary last night.”

“Yes,” said Mary.

“No note has come for me, I suppose?” asked Lilias, with a little hesitation. “I did not like to ask you before the girls, but one of them said something about a groom on horseback having been at the stable door a little while ago.”

“There was no note for you,” said Mary, her voice sounding even to herself set and hard, “but there was one for mamma. She told me to bring it to you. Here it is.”

Lilias took it, but something in Mary’s manner startled her.

“What is it?” she said, hastily. “Why do you look so strange, Mary?”

“Read the note, Lily, please,” said Mary. “I’m going back to mamma – I won’t be a minute,” and as she spoke she turned to leave the room.

“Don’t go, Mary!” cried Lilias, but Mary had already gone.

Ten minutes after she returned to the drawing-room, but no Lilias was there. Mary’s heart failed her.

“Was I wrong to leave her?” she said to herself. “I thought it would be so horrid for me to seem to be watching how she took it.”

She flew up-stairs to her sister’s bedroom. The door was shut, but not locked. Mary knocked.

“Come in,” said Lilias’s voice, and hardly knowing what she was going to see, Mary entered.

There stood Lilias in the centre of the room, her beautiful fair hair all loosened, hanging about her like a cloud, her face pale, but eyes very bright – brighter than usual it seemed to Mary.

“Lily!” she exclaimed.

“Why do you say ‘Lily,’ and look at me like that?” replied her sister, sharply. “There’s nothing the matter. I’m tired, and going to bed early, that’s all. Please tell mamma so, and do ask her not to come to say goodnight to me. No, don’t kiss me, please, Mary. I’m cross, I suppose, just say good-night.”

“Very well,” said Mary, submissively.

She turned sadly to go, but had not reached the door when her sister’s voice recalled her.

“Oh! Mary,” it cried, and the sharp accent of pain which rang through the two little words went straight to Mary’s heart, “don’t misunderstand me. I want to be unselfish and brave, and just now it seemed to me that, if any one seemed to feel for me, I could not manage to get on. But I don’t want to make you unhappy, and you may talk to me if you like.”

Mary gently closed the door, then she came back to her sister, and drew her down on to a seat.

“What am I to say Lily? I wish I knew.”

“Anything,” replied Lilias; “you may say anything, Mary, except one thing.”

“And what is that?”

“Blame of him,” said Lilias, her eyes sparkling, “that, Mary, is the one thing I could not bear. I have made up my mind absolutely about this – if – if it is never explained, I will still keep to it, he is, in some way, not his own master.”

“But if it is so, Lilias, it still does not free him from blame, though it alters the kind. If he is not his own master, he should not have let himself got to care for you, and, still worse, have taught you to care for him.”

“Oh! yes, I dare say that is true enough – at least, it sounds so,” said Lilias; “but in some way or other it isn’t true, though I can’t explain it, and can’t argue about it. Besides, Mary,” she went on, with some hesitation, her pale face flushing crimson as she spoke, “it isn’t as if he had said good-bye for ever. He says distinctly, ‘two years’.”

“Ah! yes, and that is the mean bit of it,” said Mary, indignantly; “he had no right to allude to any future at all. He should leave you absolutely free, if he cannot claim you openly – leave you, I mean, absolutely free for those two years, even if he really expects to be able to return at their end. What right has he to expect you to waste your youth and happiness for him? If you were engaged a separation of two years would be nothing, or if even he had said that at the end of the time he would be free to ask you to marry him.”

“But that would have been binding me unfairly, most people would say,” replied Lilias, softly. “I believe he means to leave me quite free, but that he could not help catching at a straw, as it were, and therefore said that about two years.”

“I don’t believe in the two years,” persisted Mary; “even if he does not come into his property for two years, you might have been engaged, though not marrying for that time. No, I see no sense in it – it is some clever pretext of that – ” “that scheming Mr Cheviott’s,” she was going to have said, but she stopped in time.

“Mary,” said Lilias, drawing away the hand which her sister had held in hers, “I told you I would not let you speak against him.”

“Forgive me. I won’t,” said Mary, penitently.

“Whatever the future brings – if he marry some one else within the two years,” said Lilias, “I shall still always believe in the Arthur Beverley I have known. He may change – circumstances and other influences may change him, but the man I have known is true and honourable, and has wished and tried to act rightly. This I shall always believe – till I am quite an old woman – an old maid,” she added with an attempt at a smile.

“Lily,” exclaimed Mary, with a touch of actual passion in her tone – “Lily, don’t. You are so beautiful, my own Lily, why should you be so tried? So beautiful and so good!” And Mary, Mary the calm, Mary the wise, ended up her attempt at strengthening and consoling her sister by bursting into tears herself.

It did Lilias good. Now it was her turn to comfort and support.

“I am not an old woman yet, Mary,” she said, caressingly, “and I don’t intend to become one any sooner than I can help. My hair isn’t going to turn grey by to-morrow morning. To-morrow, oh! Mary, do you remember what I said yesterday about ‘this time to-morrow’? I was so happy this time yesterday, and he said he would be here to-day – it was the very last thing he said to me. What can have happened to change it all?”

Again the misgiving shot through Mary’s heart. Had she done harm? She said nothing, and after a moment’s pause Lilias spoke again:

“The great thing you can do to help me just now, Mary, is to prevent any of the others thinking there is anything the matter. Outside people may say what they like – I don’t care for that – but it is at home I couldn’t stand it. Besides, we have so few neighbours and friends, we are not likely to be troubled with many remarks. Except Mrs Greville, perhaps, I don’t suppose any one has heard anything about Captain Beverley’s knowing us.”

“Only at the ball,” said Mary, hesitatingly; “he picked you out so.”

“Yes,” said Lilias, smiling sarcastically, “no doubt all the great people said I was behaving most unbecomingly; but they may say what they like. I know I don’t care for that part of it. Mary, you will say something to mother to prevent her asking me about it.”

“Yes,” said Mary. “Lilias, would you like to go away from home for a while?”

“I don’t know. How could I? There is nowhere I could go, unless you mean that I should be a governess, after all, and – ” She stopped, and her face flushed again.

“And what?”

“I don’t like to say it; you will not enter into my feelings – I don’t like to do anything he would not like.”

Mary looked at her sadly.

“Poor Lilias!” she thought, “is ‘he’ worthy of it all?” – “I was not thinking of that,” she said aloud. “I meant, if it could be arranged, for you to go away for a visit for a little. Mrs Greville’s sister asked you once.”

“Yes, but ever so long ago, and I wouldn’t on any account propose such a thing to Mrs Greville just now.”

“Very well,” said Mary.

Then they kissed each other, and said good-night.

“Two years – two long years!” were the words that Lilias said to herself over and over again that night – words that mingled themselves in the dreams that disturbed such sleep as came to her. “Two years! – what can it all mean? But I will trust you, Arthur – I will trust you!”

“Two years!” thought Mary. “That part of it can be nothing but a pretext. And if Lilias goes on trusting and hoping, it will make it all the worse for her in the end. She has never had any real trouble, and she thinks herself stronger to bear it than she really is. I have always heard that that terrible sort of waiting is worse for a girl than anything. Oh! Lily, what can I do for you? And have I made it worse? If I had been gentler, perhaps, to that hard, proud man – there was a kind look in his eyes once or twice; he cannot know that it is no piece of idle flirtation – he cannot know how Lilias cares. If I could see him again! I feel as if I could say burning words that would make him realise the wretchedness of separating those two.”

Chapter Thirteen

A Tempting Opportunity

“Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.”

Richard III.

The days went on, and things at Hathercourt Rectory looked much the same as usual. But not many had passed before, to Mary’s watching eyes, it seemed that Lilias was flagging. She had kept up, as she said she would, she had seemed as cheerful, almost, as usual, she had not overacted her part either, there had been no excitement or affectation about her in any way. But, all the more, it had been hard work, very hard work, and Mary’s heart ached when she saw the first signs of physical prostration beginning to show themselves.

“She looks so pale and so thin, and her eyes haven’t the least of their old sparkle,” said Mary to herself, “if it goes on, she will get really ill, I know.”

And, in truth, Lilias was beginning herself to lose faith in her own strength and self-control. She had been buoyed up by a hope she had not liked to allude to to Mary. A hope which, long deferred, has made many a heart sick besides Lilias Western’s – the hope of a letter!

There was no reason, which she knew of, why Arthur should not write to her.

“He might say in a letter what, perhaps, he would have shrunk from saying directly,” she thought, forgetting that the same strong influence which had sent Arthur away would have foreseen and guarded against his writing to her. And as day by day came and went, and every morning the post-bag was opened without her hopes being fulfilled, Lilias’s heart grew very weary.

“If I had known him anywhere but here,” she said to Mary one day, “I don’t think it would have been quite so hard. But here, at home, he seemed to have grown already so associated with everything. And, Mary,” she went on, with a sort of little sob, “it wasn’t all only about myself I was thinking. He is rich, you know; and I couldn’t help fancying sometimes it might be a good thing for us all – for you and the younger girls, and for mother. He even encouraged this, for he more than once made little allusions to the sort of things he would like to do if he dared. One day, I remember, when mother was tired, he said to me ‘how he would like to choose a pony carriage for her that she could get about in, and have more variety without fatigue.’ We were walking up and down the terrace – it was late in the afternoon, and there was red in the sky that shone through the branches of the group of old oaks at the end – do you remember that afternoon, Mary? The sky looks something the same to-day, but not so bright – it was that that reminded me of it.”

“No,” said Mary, “I don’t remember that particular afternoon. But I do know that he was always kind and considerate, especially to mother, and I cannot believe that it was not sincere.”

She gave a little sigh as she spoke; they were standing together at the window, and as Lilias leaned against the panes, gazing out, her attitude so languid and hopeless, the sharpened lines of her profile, all struck Mary with a chill misgiving.

“Lilias,” she said, suddenly, “you must go away from home for a while. What you have said just now about the associations here strengthens my feeling about it. You must have some change.”

“I don’t think it is possible, and I would much, very much rather stay at home,” said Lilias.

And till she had some definite scheme to propose, Mary thought it no use to contradict her.

But morning, noon, and night she was thinking of Lilias, always of Lilias and her troubles, and revolving in her head over and over again every possible and impossible means of making her happy again.

Two mornings after the conversation in the window the postboy brought a note for Lilias from Mrs Greville. It was at breakfast-time that it came. They were all together at the table.

“A letter for you, Lilias,” said her father, as he handed it to her.

Now letters for the Western girls were a rarity. They had few relations and almost fewer friends, for they had never been at school, and seldom left home. So when Mr Western’s apparently most commonplace announcement was made, six pair of eyes turned with interest, not to say curiosity, in Lilias’s direction, and even her mother and Mary glanced towards her with involuntary anxiety.

“A letter for Lily,” cried Josey, darting up from her seat. “Do let’s see it. Who’s it from?”

“Josephine!” exclaimed Mary, severely, “how can you be so unladylike? Mother, do speak to her,” and the little bustle of reproof of Josey that ensued effectually diverted the general attention.

Mary’s little ruse had succeeded, and her mother understood it. But for this, even little Francie could hardly have failed to notice the deathly paleness which, at her father’s words, overspread poor Lilias’s face. For an instant only; one glance at the envelope, and the intensity passed out of her eyes.

“A note from Mrs Greville,” she said, carelessly, as soon as she felt able to control the trembling in her voice. “She wants Mary and me to go to stay there for two nights – she expects one or two young friends from somewhere or other, and wants us to help to entertain them, I suppose.”

“It is very kind of her to think of the variety for you, I think,” said Mr Western. “Why should you be so ungracious about it, Lilias?”

The girl’s face flushed painfully.

“I don’t mean to be ungracious, father dear,” she said, gently, “but I don’t care about going.”

Mr Western was beginning to look, mystified, when Mary’s voice diverted his attention.

“I shall go,” she said, abruptly, “that is to say,” she added, colouring a little in her turn, “I should like to go, if I can.”

“Dear me,” said her father, “how the tables are turned! It used to be always Lilias who was eager to go, and Mary to stay at home.”

“But there is no objection to Mary’s going, if she likes,” interposed Mrs Western, hastily.

“Objection, of course not. There is no objection to their both going that I can see,” said Mr Western.

“Well, we’ll talk about it afterwards,” said Mrs Western. “Girls, you had better go to the school-room. We are later than usual this morning.”

They all rose, and Lilias was thankful to get away; but as Mary and she left the room together, they overheard a remark of their father to the effect that Lilias was not looking well, had not her mother observed it?

“I dare say she would be the better for a thorough change,” replied Mrs Western. “It is so long since she left home.”