Hathercourt

“Oh, yes!” said her father, with a sigh. “They would all enjoy a change, and no one needs it more than yourself, Margaret. It makes me very anxious when I think about these girls sometimes.”

“But, at the worst, they are far better off in every other way than I was at their age,” said Mrs Western, “and see how happy I have been.”

“Ideas of happiness differ so,” said her husband. “I fear a quiet life in a country parsonage on limited means would hardly satisfy Lilias. As to Mary, I somehow feel less anxiety. She takes things so placidly.”

“Not always,” said Mrs Western, under her breath; but she was glad that her husband did not catch the words, and that little Brooke’s running in with some inquiry about his lessons interrupted the conversation – for it was trenching on dangerous ground.

“I am afraid papa thinks there is something vexing me,” said Lilias, when Mary and she were alone together for a little.

“You have yourself to blame for it,” said Mary, with some asperity; “why did you speak so indifferently of Mrs Greville’s invitation? Usually you would have been very pleased to go.”

“Oh, Mary, don’t scold me,” said Lilias, pathetically. “I couldn’t go to Uxley – you forget how near Romary it is – I should be sure to hear gossip about him – perhaps that he was going to be married, or some falsehood of the kind. I could not bear it. I almost wondered at your saying you would like to go.”

“It will only be for a couple of days,” said Mary.

“But you are not intending to make any plan with Mrs Greville for my leaving home, I hope, Mary?” said Lilias, anxiously. “It may be better for me to go away after a while, but not yet. And if you came upon the subject with Mrs Greville in the very least, she would suspect something. Promise me you will not do anything without telling me.”

“Of course not,” said Mary. “I would not dream of doing such a thing without telling you.”

But her conscience smote her slightly as she spoke. Why?

A design was slowly but steadily taking shape in her mind, and Mrs Greville’s note this morning had strangely forwarded and confirmed it. Practically speaking, indeed, it had done more than confirm it – it had rendered feasible what had before floated in Mary’s brain as an act of devotion scarcely more possible of achievement than poor Prascovia’s journey across Siberia. And though Mary was sensible and reasonable, there lay below this quiet surface stormy possibilities and an impressionability little suspected by those who knew her best. Her mind, too, from dwelling of late so incessantly on her sister’s affairs, had grown morbidly imaginative on the point, though to this she herself was hardly alive.

“I am not superstitious or fanciful – I know I am not. I never have been,” she argued, “yet it does seem as if this invitation to Uxley had come on purpose. If I were superstitious I should think it a ‘sign.’”

And who is not superstitious? – only for no other human weakness have we so many names, so many or such skilfully contrived disguises!

Two days later, “the day after to-morrow,” found Mary on her way to Uxley Vicarage. Mrs Greville had sent her pony-carriage to fetch her. The old man who drove it was very deaf and hopelessly irresponsive, therefore, to the young lady’s kindly-meant civilities in the shape of inquiries about the road and commendation of the fat pony, so before long she felt herself free to lapse into perfect silence, and as they jogged along the pretty country lanes – pretty to-day, though only February, for the sky was clear and the air mild with a faint odour of coming spring about it – Mary had plenty of time to think over her plan of action.

But thinking it over, after all, was not much good, till she knew more of her ground.

“I must to some extent be guided by circumstances,” she said to herself, but with a strong sense of confidence in her own ability to prevent circumstances being too much for her. She had never before felt so certain of herself as now, when about, for the first time in her life, to act entirely on her own responsibility, and the sensation brought with it a curious excitement and invigoration. She had not felt so hopeful or light-hearted since the day of the Brocklehurst bail, and she was thankful to feel so, and to be told by Mrs Greville, when she jumped out of the pony-carriage and was met by her hospitable hostess at the gate, that she had never seen her looking so well in her life.

“There is no fear of her suspecting anything about Lilias,” thought Mary, with relief, “if she thinks me in such good spirits.”

“And how are you all at home, my dear?” said Mrs Greville, as she led Mary into her comfortable drawing-room, and bade her “toast” herself a little before unfastening her wraps. “Your poor dear mother and all?”

“They are all very well, thank you,” Mary replied. “Mamma is quite well, and so pleased at Basil’s getting on so well – we have such good news of him.”

She always felt inclined to make the very best of the family chronicle in answer to Mrs Greville’s inquiries, for though unmistakably prompted by the purest kindness her want of tact often invested them with a slight tone of patronage which Lilias herself could scarcely have resented more keenly than her less impulsive sister. The “poor dear mother,” especially grated on Mary’s ears. “Mamma,” so pretty and young-looking, was no fit object for the “poor dears” of any one but themselves, thought Mrs Western’s tall sons and daughters.

But of course it would have been no less ungrateful than senseless to have taken amiss Mrs Greville’s well-meant interest and sympathy, even when they directed themselves to more delicate ground.

“And what about Lilias, Mary dear?” she inquired next. “I had been longing to hear all about it, and wishing so I had authority to contradict the absurd rumours that I have heard about Captain Beverley. I was dreadfully disappointed at Lilias’s not coming, but consoled myself by thinking you would tell me all about it.”

“But what are the rumours, and what have they to do with Lilias?” asked Mary.

“That’s just what I want to know,” replied Mrs Greville. “Captain Beverley has left Romary suddenly – of course you know that – and some people say he has made a vow never to return there because Miss Cheviott refused him the night of the Brocklehurst ball. That story I don’t believe, of course. Others say it was not Miss Cheviott, but another young lady, whose name no one about here seems to know, but whom he was seen to dance with tremendously that night, who refused him.”

Mrs Greville stopped and looked curiously at Mary, who smiled quietly, but said nothing, and felt increasingly thankful that Lilias had not accompanied her to Uxley.

“And there are stranger stories than these even,” pursued Mrs Greville. “You will think me a terrible gossip, Mary, but in a general way I really don’t listen to idle talk, only I felt so interested in Captain Beverley after what I saw, and I can’t believe any harm of him.”

“Who can have said any harm of him?” inquired Mary. “I should have thought him quite a general favourite; he is so bright, and kindly, and unaffected.”

“Yes, I thought him very nice,” said Mrs Greville. “But there are dreadful stories about, as to the reason of his leaving Romary so suddenly. One is that he has been gambling so furiously that he is embarrassed past redemption, and that he will only come into his property for it to be sold; and another is that Mr Cheviott found out that he had secretly made some low marriage, and turned him out of the house on that account, it having been always intended that he should marry Miss Cheviott.” Mary was standing by the fire looking down on it as Mrs Greville spoke – the reflection of its ruddy glow hid the intense paleness which came over her face, and explained, too, the burning flush which almost instantly succeeded it. She felt obliged to speak, for silence might have seemed suspicious.

“What a shame of people to say such things!” she exclaimed, looking up indignantly. “No, I certainly don’t believe them, but I am glad to know about it all, for it shows what disagreeable gossip there might have been about Lilias had her name been mixed up with it.”

“Yes, indeed, but my dear child, you are scorching your face to cinders – you should not play such pranks with your complexion, though that brawny pink skin of yours is a very good kind to wear, and quite as pretty in my opinion, as Lilias’s lilies and roses – but what was I saying? Oh, yes, by-the-bye, I do wish you would tell me – I shall be as discreet as possible —is Lilias engaged to him?”

Mary hesitated a moment, then she said, gently:

“Dear Mrs Greville, I wish you wouldn’t ask me, for I can’t tell you.”

“Ah, well, never mind,” said her hostess, good-naturedly. “You’ll tell me whenever you can, no doubt, and I hope it will all come right in the end, however it stands at present.”

“Thank you,” said Mary, with sincerity.

Then they went on to talk of other things. Mrs Greville described to Mary the “young people” who were staying with her, two girls and their brother, cousins of Mr Greville’s first wife, and counselled her to make herself as pretty and charming as possible, to fascinate young Morpeth, who would be a conquest by no means to be despised.

“He is nothing at present,” she said; “he has a thousand a year, and his sisters the same between them. They are orphans and have had no settled home since their mother’s death. Vance Morpeth is talking of going into the cavalry for a few years, but his elder sister is against it, and he will be too old if he isn’t quick about it. They have been abroad all the winter. Now remember, Mary, you are to do your best to captivate him, unless, indeed,” she went on, as Mary was turning to her with some smiling rejoinder – “unless you have some little secret of your own too, with that haughty-looking Mr Cheviott for its hero.”

The smile died out of Mary’s face.

“Don’t joke about that man, please, Mrs Greville,” she said, beseechingly. “You do not know how I dislike him. I have never regretted anything more in my whole life than dancing with him that night.”

And just then the time-piece striking five, she was glad to make the excuse that she would be late for dinner unless she hurried up-stairs to get her things unpacked, for fashionable hours had not yet penetrated to Uxley.

“Yes, go, my dear,” said Mrs Greville. “Fancy, we have been a whole hour talking over the fire. I hear the Morpeths coming in – they must have been a very long walk, and it’s quite dark outside. I cannot understand why people can’t go walks in the morning instead of putting off till late in the afternoon, and then catching colds and all sorts of disagreeables. Run off, Mary. I dare say you would rather not see them till you are dressed.”

Which Mary, who cared very little for seeing “them” at all, rightly interpreted as meaning, “I don’t want Mr Morpeth to see you till you are nicely dressed, and looking to the best advantage.”

Her powers of looking her best depended much more on herself than on her clothes, for her choice of attire was limited enough. But the suppressed excitement under which she was labouring had given unusual brilliance to Mary’s at all times beautiful brown eyes, and a certain vivacity to her manner, in general somewhat too staid and sober for her age. So she looked more than “pretty” this evening, though her dress was nothing but a many-times-washed white muslin, brightened up here and there by a little rose-coloured ribbon.

“I thought you told me that it was not the pretty Miss Western that you expected?” said Mr Morpeth to Mrs Greville in a low voice, after the introductions had been accomplished.

Mrs Greville glanced up to the young man as she answered. There was a puzzled expression in his innocent-looking eyes; she saw that he was quite in earnest, and, indeed, she felt sure he was too little, of a man of the world to have intended his inquiry for a compliment.

“Does that mean that you think this one pretty?” she asked.

“Of course it does. I think she’s awfully pretty, don’t you?” he said, frankly.

Mrs Greville felt well pleased, but the announcement of dinner interrupted any more talk between them. Mr Morpeth had to take Mrs Greville, but she took care that Mary should sit at his other side.

“How would you define ‘awfully pretty,’ Mary?” she said, mischievously, when they were all seated at table, and the grace had been said, and nobody seemed to have anything particular to talk about.

“Awfully pretty,” repeated Mary. “Awfully pretty what?”

“An ‘awfully pretty’ girl was the ‘what’ in question,” said Mr Morpeth, shielding himself by taking the bull by the horns, with more alertness than Mrs Greville had given him credit for.

Mary smiled.

“I could easily define, or point out to you rather, what, if I were a man, I should call an awfully pretty girl in this very neighbourhood,” she said, turning to Mrs Greville.

“I know whom you mean,” replied her hostess. “Miss Cheviott, is it not? Yes, she is exceedingly pretty. You have not seen her, Frances,” she went on to the eldest Miss Morpeth. “I wish you could.”

“Shall we not see her at church on Sunday?” said Miss Morpeth. “Are not the Cheviotts the principal people here, now?”

“Yes,” said Mrs Greville, “but they are a good deal away from home.” Here Mary’s heart almost stopped beating – this was what she had been longing yet dreaded to inquire about – what would become of all her plans should Mr Cheviott be away? But it was not so. “They are a good deal away from home,” Mrs Greville went on, “and there is another church nearer Romary than ours, where they go in the morning. But they very often – indeed, almost always the last few weeks, come to Uxley in the afternoon – Mr Cheviott likes Mr Greville’s preaching better than the old man’s at Romary Moor.”

“That’s not much of a compliment, my dear,” said Mr Greville from the end of the table, “considering that poor old Wells is so asthmatic that you can hardly catch a word he says now.”

A little laugh went round, and under cover of it Mary managed to say gently to Mr Greville:

“Then Mr Cheviott is at Romary now?”

“Oh, yes; saw him this morning riding past,” was the reply.

Mary gave a little sigh of relief, yet her heart beat faster for the rest of the evening.

“I wonder if I must do it to-morrow,” she said to herself, “or not till the day after. I have only the two days to count upon, and supposing he is out and I have to go again! I must try for to-morrow, I think.”

“Romary is just two miles from here, is it not?” she said, in a commonplace tone.

“Not so much,” replied Mr Greville. “Have you never seen it? It is quite a show place.”

“I was there once – some years ago,” said Mary.

“It is very much improved of late. If the family had been away we might easily have driven you over to see it,” said Mr Greville, good-naturedly. “However, some other time, perhaps, when your sister is here too. You must come over oftener this summer,” he added, utterly forgetting, if ever he had quite taken in, all his wife’s confidences about the Western girls’ wonderful successes at the Brocklehurst ball, and her more recent misgiving that something had “come between” Lilias and “that handsome Captain Beverley.”

“Thank you,” said Mary; and after this no more was said about Romary or the Cheviotts.

Chapter Fourteen

Mr Cheviott’s Ultimatum

”‘But methinks,’ quoth I, under my breath,‘’Twas but cowardly work.’”Songs of Two Worlds.

The next morning gave promise of a fine day, and Mary felt that she must be in readiness to seize any favourable opportunity for her meditated expedition.

“For to-morrow,” she said to herself, while she was dressing, “may be wet and stormy, and I must not weaken my position by making myself look ridiculous, if I can help it. And I certainly should look the reverse of dignified if I trudged over to Romary in a waterproof and goloshes! I very much doubt if I should get a sight of Mr Cheviott at all in such a case.”

She was trying to laugh at herself, by way of keeping up her spirits, but of real laughter there was very little in her heart. Even yesterday’s excitement seemed to have deserted her, and but for a curious kind of self-reliance, self-trust rather, which Mary possessed a good deal of, the chances are that she would have given up her intention and returned to Hathercourt and to Lilias, feeling that the attempt to interfere had been impossible for her.

“But I foresaw this,” she said to herself, reassuringly. “I knew I should lose heart and courage when it came to close quarters – but close quarters is not the best position for deciding such an action as this. I must remember that I resolved upon what I am going to do deliberately and coolly. It seemed to me a right thing to do, and I must have faith in my own decision. At the worst, at the very worst, all that can happen to me will be that that man will think I am mad, or something like it, to take such a step – perhaps he will make a good story of it, and laugh me over with his friends – though I must say he hasn’t the look of being given to laugh at anything! But why need I care if he does? I care nothing, less than nothing, what he thinks of me. I can keep my own self-respect, and that is all I need to care about.”

And so speaking to herself, in all sincerity, with no bravado or exaggeration, Mary more firmly riveted her own decision, and determined to go back upon it no more.

But she was paler than usual this, morning when she made her appearance at Mrs Greville’s breakfast-table, and her eyes had an unmistakable look of anxiety and weariness.

“Have you not slept well, my dear Mary?” asked Mrs Greville, kindly. “You look so tired, and last night you looked so very well.”

Mary’s colour rose quickly at these words and under the consciousness of a somewhat searching glance from Mr Morpeth, who was seated opposite her.

“I am perfectly well, thank you,” she replied, to her hostess, “but somehow I don’t think I did sleep quite as soundly as usual.”

“Miss Western’s room is not haunted, surely?” said Mr Morpeth, laughing. “All this sounds so like the preamble to some ghostly revelation.”

“No, indeed. There is no corner of this house that we could possibly flatter ourselves was haunted. I wish there were – it is all so very modern,” said Mrs Greville. “At Romary, now, there is such an exquisite haunted room – or suite of rooms rather. They are never used, but I think them the prettiest rooms in the house. It is so provoking that the Cheviotts are at home just now. I should so have liked you and Cecilia to see the house, Frances – and you, too, Mary, as you had never been there, and we can get an order from the agent any time.”

“I think the outside of the house as well worth seeing as any part of it,” said Mr Greville. “It is so well situated, and seen from the high road it looks very well indeed. By-the-bye, I shall be driving that way this afternoon if any of you young ladies care to come with me in the dog-cart? I am going on to Little Bexton, but if you don’t care to come so far, I could drop you about Romary, and you could walk back. The country is not pretty after that. Would you like to come, Frances? Cecilia has a cold, I hear.”

“Yes,” said Cecilia, “but not a very bad one. But I don’t think either of us can go, Mr Greville, for Miss Bentley is coming to see us this afternoon, and we must not be out.”

“Mary, then?” said Mr Greville.

Mary’s heart was beating fast, and she was almost afraid that the tremble in her voice was perceptible as she replied that she would enjoy the drive very much, she was sure.

“But I will not go all the way to Little Bexton, I think, if you don’t mind dropping me on the road. I should like the walk home,” she said to Mr Greville, and so it was decided. And for a wonder nothing came in the way.

It was years and years since Mary had been at Romary. When Mr Greville “dropped her” on the road, at a point about half a mile beyond the lodge gates, all about her seemed so strange and unfamiliar that she could scarcely believe she had ever been there before. Strange and unfamiliar, even though she was not more than ten miles from her own home, and though the general features of the landscape were the same. For to a real dweller in the country, differences and variations, which by a casual visitor are unobservable, are extraordinarily obtrusive. Mary had lived all her life at Hathercourt, and knew its fields and its trees, its cottages and lanes, as accurately as the furniture of her mother’s drawing-room. It was strange to her to meet even a dog on the road whose ownership she was unacquainted with, and when a countryman or two passed her with half a stare of curiosity instead of the familiar “Good-day to you, Miss Mary,” she felt herself “very far west” indeed, and instinctively hastened her steps.

“It is a good thing no one does know me about here,” she said to herself; “but how strange it seems! What a different life we have led from most people nowadays! I dare say it would never occur to Miss Cheviott, for instance, to think it at all strange to meet people on the road whose names and histories she knew nothing of. Young as she is, I dare say she has more friends and acquaintances than she can remember. How different from Lilias and me – ah, yes, it is that that makes what her brother has done so awfully wrong – so mean– but will he understand? Shall I be able to show it him?”

Mary stopped short – she was close to the lodge gates now. She stood still for a moment in a sort of silence of excitement and determination – then resolutely walked on again and hesitated no more. These Romary lodge gates had become to her a Rubicon.

It was a quarter of a mile at least from the gates to the house, but to Mary it seemed scarcely half a dozen yards. As in a dream she walked on steadily, heedless of the scene around her, that at another time would have roused her keen admiration – the beautiful old trees, beautiful even in leafless February; the wide stretching park with its gentle ups and downs and far-off boundary of forestland; the wistful-eyed deer, too tame to be scared by her approach; the sudden vision of a rabbit scuttering across her path – Mary saw none of them. Only once as she stood still for an instant to unlatch a gate in the wire fence inclosing the grounds close to the house, she looked round her and her gaze rested on a cluster of oaks at a little distance.

“When I see that clump of trees next,” she said to herself, “it will be over, and I shall know Lilias’s fate.”

Then she walked on again.

The bell clanged loudly as she pulled it at the hall door – to Mary, at least, it sounded so, and the interval was very short between its tones fading away into silence and the door’s being flung open by a footman, who gave a little start of astonishment when Mary’s unfamiliar voice caught his ear.

“I thought it was Miss Cheviott; I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said, civilly enough, and the civility was a relief to Mary. “Is it Miss Cheviott you wish to see?”

“No, thank you,” said Mary, quietly. “I want to see Mr Cheviott, if he is at home – on a matter of business, perhaps you will be good enough to say.”

The man looked puzzled, and, for a moment, hesitated.

“If it is anything I could say, perhaps,” he began. “Unless it was anything very particular. My master is very busy to-day, and gave orders not to be disturbed.”

“It is something particular – that is to say, I wish to see Mr Cheviott himself. Perhaps you will inquire if he is to be seen,” said Mary, more coldly.

The man looked at her again, and Mary felt glad she had not her old waterproof cloak on. As it was, she was prettily, at least not unbecomingly, dressed in a thick, rough tweed and small, close-fitting felt hat. Her boots were neat, and her gloves – the only new pair she had had this winter – fitted well. There was nothing about her attire plainer or poorer than what would be worn by many a girl of her age, “regardless of expense,” for a country ramble. And Mr Cheviott’s servant was not to know it was all her Sunday best! Then she was tall! An immense advantage, now and then, in life.

“Certainly, ma’am, I will inquire at once,” said the man. He was a new-comer who had served a town apprenticeship to the dangers of indiscriminate admittance, and felt, despite appearances, he must be on his guard against a young woman who so resolutely demanded a personal interview with a gentleman. A man in disguise – what might she not be? But something in Mary’s low-toned “thank you” re-assured him.