Hathercourt

“Will you step into the library while I ask?” he said, amiably, and Mary judged it best to do as he proposed.

There was no one in the library, and one of Mary’s but half-acknowledged wild hopes faded away as she entered the empty room. She had had a dream of perhaps meeting with Alys in the first place – the girl with the beautiful face and bewitching smile – of her guessing her errand, and pleading on her side.

“She looked so sympathisingly at me that night at Brocklehurst,” thought Mary – “almost as if she suspected my anxiety. Oh! if only I could talk to her, instead of that proud, cold brother of hers!”

But there was no Alys in the library, and an instant’s thought reminded Mary that of course she, a stranger calling on “business,” would not have been ushered except by mistake into Miss Cheviott’s presence, and she gave a little sigh as she mechanically crossed the room and stood gazing out of the window.

The servant’s voice recalled her thoughts.

“Your name, if you please, ma’am?” he was asking.

Mary was prepared for this.

“It would be no use giving my name,” she said quietly. “If you will be so good as to say to Mr Cheviott that I am only in this neighbourhood for a day or two, and have called to see him purely on a matter of business, I shall be much obliged to you.”

The man left the room. He went into Mr Cheviott’s Study by another door than the one by which it communicated with the library, but through this last, firmly closed though it was, in a moment or two the murmur of voices caught Mary’s quick ears, then some words, spoken loudly enough for her to distinguish their Sense.

“Where, do you say – in the library? A lady! Nonsense, it must be some mistake.”

Then the servant’s voice again in explanation. Mary moved away from the vicinity of the treacherous door.

A minute or two passed. Then the man appeared again.

“I am sorry, ma’am,” he began, apologetically, “but particularly obliged by your sending my master your name. He is so much engaged to-day – would like to understand if it is anything very particular, and – ” He hesitated, not liking to repeat his own suggestion to Mr Cheviott that very likely the young lady was collecting for the foreign missions, or a school treat, and might just as well as not send her message by him.

“It is something particular,” said Mary, chafing inwardly not a little at the difficulty of obtaining an audience of Mr Cheviott – “as if he were a royal personage almost,” she said to herself. “You can tell Mr Cheviott that the business on which I wish to see him is something particular; and my name is Miss Western.”

Again the envoy disappeared. Again the murmuring voices through the door, then a hasty sound as of some one pushing back a chair in impatience, and in another moment the door between the rooms opened, and some one came into the library. Not the man-servant this time, nor did he, lingering behind his master in the study in hopes of quenching his curiosity, obtain much satisfaction, for Mr Cheviott, advancing but one step into the library, and catching sight of its occupant, turned sharply and closed the door in the man’s face before giving any sign of recognition of his visitor – before, in fact, seeming to have perceived her at all. Then he came forward slowly.

Mary was still standing; as Mr Cheviott came nearer her, she bowed slightly, and began at once to speak.

“I can hardly expect you to recognise me,” she said, calmly. “I am Miss Western, the second Miss Western, from Hathercourt.”

Mr Cheviott bowed.

“I had the pleasure of being intro – I had the honour of meeting you at one of the Brocklehurst balls,” he said, inquiringly.

“Yes,” said Mary, “and once before – at Hathercourt Church one Sunday when you and your friends came over to the morning service. Before that day I do not think I ever heard your name, and yet I have come to your house to-day to say to you what it would be hard to say to an old friend – to ask you to listen while I try to make you see that you have been interfering unwarrantably in other people’s affairs; that what you have done is a cruel and bad thing, a thing you may sorely repent, that I believe you will repent, Mr Cheviott, if you are not already doing so?”

She raised her voice slightly to a tone of inquiry as she stopped, and, for the first time, looked up, straight into Mr Cheviott’s face. She had been speaking in a low tone, but with great distinctness and without hurry, yet when she left off it seemed as if her breath had failed her, as if her intense nervous resolution could carry her no further. Now she waited anxiously to see the effect of her words; she had determined beforehand to plunge at once, without preamble, into what she had to say, yet even now she was dissatisfied with what she had done. It seemed to her that she had made her appeal in an exaggerated and theatrical fashion; she wished she had waited for Mr Cheviott to speak first.

She looked at him, and for an instant there was silence. His countenance was not so stern and impassive as she had once before seen it, but its expression was even more unpromising. It bespoke extreme annoyance and surprise, “disgusted surprise,” said Mary to herself; “he thinks me lost to all sense of propriety, I can see.”

She could not see her own face; she was unconscious of the pale anxiety which overspread it, of the wistful questioning in the brown eyes which Mr Cheviott remembered so bright and sunny; she could not know that it would have needed a more than hard heart, an actually cruel one, not to be touched by the intensity in her young face – by the pathos of her position of appeal.

At first some instinct – a not unchivalrous instinct either – urged Mr Cheviott to refrain from a direct reply to Mary’s unmistakably direct attack.

“Will she not regret this fearfully afterwards?” he said to himself. “When she finds that I remain quite untouched, when she decides, as she must, that I am a brute! I will give her time to draw back by showing her the uselessness of all this before she commits herself further.”

But Mary saw his hesitation, and it deepened the resentment with which she heard his reply.

“Miss Western,” he said, “you must be under some extraordinary delusion. I will not pretend entire ignorance of what your words – words that, of course, from a lady I cannot resent – of what your words refer to, but pray stop before you say more. I ventured once before to try to warn you – or rather another through you, and this, I suppose, has led to your taking this – this very unusual step,” (“what a mean brute I am making of myself,” he said to himself, “but it is the kindest in the end to show her the hopelessness at once”) – “under, I must repeat, some delusion, or rather complete misapprehension of my possible influence in the matter.”

Mary was silent.

“You must allow me to remind you,” continued Mr Cheviott, hating himself, or the self he was obliged to make himself appear, more and more with each word he uttered, “that you are very young and inexperienced, and little attentions – passing trivialities, in fact, which more worldly-wise young ladies would attach no significance to, may have acquired a mistaken importance with you and your sister. I am very sorry —very sorry that any one connected with me should have acted so thoughtlessly; but you must allow, Miss Western, that I warned you – Went out of my way to warn you, as delicately as I knew how, when I saw the danger of – of – any mistake being made.”

Mary heard him out. Then she looked up again, with no appeal this time in her eyes, but in its stead righteous wrath and indignation.

“You are not speaking the truth,” she said, “at least, what you are inferring is not the truth. If it were the case that Captain Beverley’s ‘attentions’ to my sister were so trifling and meaningless – such as he may have paid to other girls scores of times —why did you go out of your way to warn us? It could not possibly have been out of respect for us; you knew and cared as little about us as we about you, and if you had said it was out of any care for us, the saying so would have been an unwarrantable freedom. No, Mr Cheviott, you knew Captain Beverley was in earnest, and your pride took fright lest he should make so poor a marriage. That is the truth, but I wish you had not made matters worse by denying it.”

The blood mounted to Mr Cheviott’s forehead; his dark face looked darker. That last speech of his had been a false move, and Mary knew it, and he knew it; still his presence of mind did not desert him.

“Believing what you do, then, Miss Western – I shall not again trouble you to believe anything I say – may I ask how, supposing my cousin to have been, as you express it, in earnest, you explain his not having gone further?”

“How I explain it?” exclaimed Mary. “You ask me that? I explain it by the fact that brought me here; you stopped his going further.”

“Influenced, no doubt, by the pride you alluded to just now.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Mary, dejectedly. “Influenced, at least, by some motive that blinded you to what you were doing. A girl’s broken heart is a trifle, I know, but the loss of a good influence over a man’s life is not a trifle, even you will allow. Captain Beverley thinks he owes you a great deal; I strongly suspect he owes you a great deal more than he at present realises. Mr Cheviott, do you not know that what you have done is a wrong and bad thing?”

Again her eyes took the pleading expression. Mr Cheviott turned away to avoid it. Then he said, very coldly:

“It is extremely unpleasant to have to say unpleasant things, but you force me to it. Supposing, for argument’s sake – supposing things were as you believe, I should certainly act as you believe I have acted. I should by every means in my power, endeavour to prevent my cousin’s making a marriage which would be utterly ill-advised and unsuitable, which would destroy his happiness, and which I cannot believe would be for the happiness of any one concerned.”

Mary’s face grew white as death. It was all over, then. She had lowered herself to this man for nothing. In the misery of thoroughly realising her defeat – the downthrow of all the hopes which unconsciously she had been cherishing more fondly than she had had any idea of – she, for the moment, forgot to be angry – she lost sight, as it were, of Mr Cheviott; in the depth of her disappointment, he became simply the incarnation of a cruel fate.

But he, at this juncture, was very far from losing sight of Mary. Her silent pallor frightened him, he thought she was going to faint, and he felt as if he were a murderer. A rush of pity and compunction roused his instinct of hospitality.

“Miss Western,” he said, gently, and with a look in his eyes of which Mary, when she afterwards recalled it, could not altogether deny the kindness and sympathy, “I fear you have overtired yourself. This wretched business has been too much for you. Will you allow me to get you a glass of wine?”

Mary hastily shook her head, and the effort to recover her self-control – for she felt herself on the point of bursting into tears – brought back the colour to her cheeks.

“I will go now,” she said, turning towards the door.

Mr Cheviott interrupted her.

“Will you not allow me to say one word of regret for the pain I have caused you?” he said, anxiously, humbly almost, “will you not allow me to say how deeply I admire and – and respect your courage and sisterly devotion?”

Mary shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I could not believe you if you said anything of the kind, knowing you now as I do. And I earnestly hope I may never see you and never speak to you again.”

The words were childish, but the tone and manner gave them force, and their force went home. Mr Cheviott winced visibly. Yet once again he spoke.

“You may resent my saying so at present,” he said, “but afterwards you may be glad to recall my assurance that no one shall ever hear from me one word of what has been said just now.”

Mary turned upon him with ineffable contempt.

“I dare say not,” she said. “For your own sake you will do well to keep silence. For mine you may tell it where and to whom you choose.”

Again Mr Cheviott’s face flushed.

“You are a foolish child,” he said, under his breath. Whether Mary caught the words or not he could not tell, but in a gentler tone she added, as she was passing through the door-way, “I think, however, I should tell you that no one – my sister, of course not —no one knows of my coming here to-day.”

Mr Cheviott bowed.

“I am glad to hear it,” he said, with what Mary imagined to be extreme irony.

He crossed the hall with her, and opened the large door himself. But Mary did not look at him as she passed out. And, when she had got some way down the carriage-drive in sight of the dump of oak trees, she burst into a flood of bitter tears. Tears that Mr Cheviott suspected, though he did not see them.

“Poor child,” he said, as he returned to his study, “I trust she will meet no one in the park. Those gossiping servants – Well, surely I can never have a more wretched piece of work to go through than this! What a mean, despicable snob she thinks me!” he laughed, bitterly. “Why, I wonder, is it the fate of some people to be constantly doing other people’s dirty work? I have had my share of it, Heaven knows; but I think I am growing quite reckless to what people think of me. What eyes that child has – and how she must love that sister of hers! If it had been she that Arthur had made a fool of himself about – ”

Chapter Fifteen

“Doing” Romary

“She told the tale with bated breath —‘A sad old story; is it true?’”

There was no good, there seldom is any, in crying about it. And Mary’s tears were those rather of anger and indignation than of sorrow. The sorrow was there, but it lay a good deal lower down, and she had no intention of letting any one suspect its existence, nor that of her present discomfort, in any way. So she soon left off crying, and tried to rally again the temporarily scattered forces of her philosophy.

“Well,” she reflected, “it has been a failure, and perhaps it was a mistake. I must put it away among the good intentions that had better have remained such. I must try to think I have at worst done Lilias’s cause no harm – honestly I don’t think I have – nothing that I could say would move that man one way or the other. And any way I meant well – my darling! – I would do it all over again for you, would I not? My poor Lily – to think how happy she might have been but for him. As for what he thinks of me I do not care, deliberately and decidedly I do not care, though just now it makes me feel hot,” – for the colour had mounted in her face even while she was asserting her indifference – “or perhaps, to be quite truthful, I should say I shall not care, very soon I shall not, I know. I shall not even care what he says of me – except – it would be rather dreadful if Lilias ever heard of it! but I do not think he will ever speak of it – he has what people call the instincts of a gentleman, I suppose.”

Mary walked on, she was close to the lodge gates now. Suddenly a quick clatter behind her made her look round – a girl on horseback followed by a groom was passing her, and as Mary glanced up she caught sight of the bright, sweet face of Alys Cheviott. One instant she turned in Mary’s direction, and, it seemed to Mary – conscious of red eyes and a half guilty sensation of having no business within the gates – eyed her curiously. But she did not stop, or even slacken her pace. “She cannot have recognised me,” said Mary.

“And to-morrow,” she thought, with a sigh, half of relief, half of despair, “I shall be home again, and Lilias will be asking me if I came across any of the Romary people, or heard anything about Arthur Beverley.”

And when she got back to Uxley and Mrs Greville’s afternoon tea, she had to say how very much she had enjoyed her walk, and how pretty Romary Park looked from the road.

“Only,” repeated Mrs Greville, “I do so wish the Cheviotts had been away, and that I could have taken you all to see through the house and gardens and everything,” and Mary agreed that it was a great pity the Cheviotts had not been away, thinking in her heart that it was perhaps a greater pity than Mrs Greville had any idea of.

How seldom to-morrow fulfills the predictions of today! On Wednesday evening Mary was so sure she was going back to Hathercourt on Thursday morning, and on Thursday morning a letter from Lilias upset all her plans. It had been arranged that Mr Western should walk over to Uxley on Thursday to lunch there, and be driven home with Mary in Mrs Greville’s pony-carriage; but Wednesday had brought news to Hathercourt of the visit of a school inspector, and Mr Western’s absence was not to be thought of.

“So,” wrote Lilias, “mother and I have persuaded him to go on Friday instead, if it will suit Mrs Greville equally well. If not, we shall expect you home to-morrow, but do stay till Friday, if you can, Mary, for I can see that poor papa has been rather looking forward to the little change of a day at Uxley, and he has so few changes.”

Mary was longing to be home again, but her longings were not the question, and as Friday proved to be equally convenient to Mrs Greville, the matter was decided as Lilias wished.

“But you look rather melancholy about it, Mary,” said Mrs Greville. “Are you homesick already?”

Mary smiled. Mr Morpeth was looking at her with some curiosity.

“Not exactly,” she said, honestly.

She glanced up and saw a smile pass round the table.

“What are you all laughing at me for?” she said, smiling herself.

“You are so dreadfully honest,” said Mrs Greville.

“And unsophisticated, I suppose,” said Mary, “to own to the possibility of anything so old-fashioned as homesickness.”

“It must be rather a nice feeling, I think,” said Mr Morpeth. “I mean to say it must be nice to have one place in the world one really longs for. I have never known what that was – we were all at school for so many years after our father’s death – and since we have been together we have been knocking about so, there was no chance of feeling anywhere at home.”

“It must be dreadful to be homesick when one is very ill and has small chance of ever seeing home again,” said Cecilia Morpeth. “We used to see so much of that at Mentone and those places. Invalids who had not many days to live, just praying for home. Do you remember that poor young Brooke, last winter, Frances?”

“That’s it,” exclaimed the elder Miss Morpeth, emphatically.

Everybody stared at her.

“What is the matter? What are you talking about, Frances?” asked her brother and sister.

Miss Morpeth laughed.

“You must have thought I was going out of my mind,” she said, “but it has bothered me so, and when Cecilia mentioned the Brookes, it flashed before me in a moment.”

“What?” repeated Cecilia.

“The likeness – don’t you remember we were talking about it, last night, in our own room? A curious likeness in Miss Western’s face to some one – I could not tell who. Don’t you see it, Cecilia? Not to Basil Brooke, but to the younger brother, Anselm – the one that used to ride with us.”

“Yes,” said Cecilia, “I see what you mean. It is especially when Miss Western looks at all anxious or thoughtful.”

“It is curious,” said Mary. “If we had any cousins, I should fancy these Brookes you are talking of must be relations. My eldest brother’s name is Basil, and the second one is George Anselm, and my mother’s name was Brooke. But I think she told me all her family had died out – anyway, your friends can only be very distant relations.”

“But the likeness,” said Miss Morpeth. “It is quite romantic isn’t it? I suppose you are like your mother, Miss Western?”

“Yes,” said Mary.

“It is to be hoped the likeness goes no further than the face,” said Cecilia, thoughtlessly. “These Brookes are frightfully consumptive. I beg your pardon,” she added, seeing that Mary looked grave, “I should not have said that.”

“I was not thinking of ourselves,” said Mary. “I know we are not consumptive. I was trying to remember if I had ever heard mother speak of any such cousins.”

“The consumption comes from their mother’s side,” said Miss Morpeth. “I remember their aunt, Mrs Brabazon, telling me so. She was a Brooke, and she was as strong as possible.”

“Basil Brooke is dead,” said Mr Morpeth. “I saw his death in the Times last week, poor fellow!”

“I will tell mother about them,” said Mary, and then the conversation went off to other subjects.

An hour or two later, when Mary and the Morpeths were sitting in the drawing-room together, and Mrs Greville was attending to her housekeeping for the day, she suddenly re-appeared, with a beaming face.

“Frances, Mary, Cecilia,” she exclaimed, “such a piece of good luck! Mr Petre, Mr Cheviott’s agent, has just been calling here to see Mr Greville about some parish business, and I happened to say to him that I had friends with me here who had such a wish to see Romary. And what do you think? Mr Cheviott and his sister are away! They went yesterday evening to pay a visit, somewhere in the neighbourhood, for three days. And Mr Petre was so nice about it – he says he has perfect carte blanche about showing the house when they are away, and Mrs Golding is always delighted to do the honours. So it is all fixed – we are to go this afternoon – we must have luncheon a little earlier than usual. So glad you are not going home to-day, Mary.”

Mary felt– afterwards she trusted she had not looked– aghast. What evil genii have conspired to bring about such a scheme? To go to see Romary – of all places on earth, the last she ever wished to re-enter – to go to admire the possessions of the man who had done her more injury and caused her deeper mortification than she had ever endured before!

“Oh, Mrs Greville,” she exclaimed, hastily. “It is very good of you, but I don’t think I care about going – you won’t mind if I stay at home?”

“If you stay at home!” said Mrs Greville, in amazement. “Of course I should mind. I made the plan quite as much for you as for Frances and Cecilia; and only yesterday – or day before, was it? – you seemed so interested in Romary, and so anxious to see it, you were asking ever so many questions about it. I did not think you were so changeable.”

Mary’s face flushed.

“I did not mean to be changeable or to vex you, dear Mrs Greville,” she began, “only – ”

“Only what?”

Mary had left her seat and come over to where Mrs Greville was standing.

“It is a very silly reason I was going to give,” she said in a low voice, trying to smile. “You remember my saying before how very much I dislike that Mr Cheviott.”

Mrs Greville could not help laughing.

“Is that all?” she said. “Come now, Mary, I had no idea you could be so silly. I have always looked upon you as such a model of good sense. I began to think there must be some mystery you had not explained to me about Lilias’s affairs, of course, I mean,” she added, in a whisper, glancing at Mary with re-awakened curiosity in her eyes.

Mary kept her countenance.

“It is just as I said,” she replied. “I can’t give you any better reason for not wanting to go than my dislike to that man.”

“Very well, then, you must come. That might prevent your liking to see him; it need not prevent your liking to see his house. Your not coming would quite spoil our pleasure.”

Mary hesitated. Suddenly there flashed into her mind some of Lilias’s last words of warning.

“Whatever you do, Mary,” she had said, “don’t let Mrs Greville get it into her head that there has been anything mortifying to us – that Arthur has behaved ill, I mean. I couldn’t stand that being said.”

And Mary turned to Mrs Greville with a smile.

“Very well,” she said. “I won’t be silly, and I will go.”

“That’s all right,” said Mrs Greville, and Mary wished she could have said so too.

After all, why not? It was entirely a matter of personal feeling on her part; there was nothing unladylike or unusual in her going with the others to see the show house of the neighbourhood; and yet the bare thought of her doing so by any possibility coming to Mr Cheviott’s ears made her cheeks burn.