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Part 6, Chapter XLVI
Perplexities
“Does the road wind up-hill all the way?”
While Violante was in London James Crichton, at some happy juncture, brought his wooing to a crisis, and became the accepted lover of Helen Hayward. His choice was equally surprising and delightful to his mother, who threw herself with the greatest interest into all his preparations for his marriage in the autumn, invited Helen whenever her mother would spare her, and regained all her elastic spirits in this new interest; while James smiled more than ever, and talked about Helen to everyone who would listen. Both his cousin and his brother were naturally strongly affected by this new love-story working itself out beside them. Lengthening days, summer weather, summer flowers, and summer habits, could not but remind both of them of what these young days of last year had been to them. There awoke in Hugh all the old questioning with himself; all the old arguments that he had thought laid at rest for ever; all the old passion, which jealousy and self-reproach had for the time overclouded. He hardly knew how; but his belief in the causes which he had for jealousy had gradually faded, and he no longer believed that Violante was either engaged to the manager or that she was pining for his loss. A little reflection convinced him that all that Arthur had told him of her sadness might have been caused by the memory of himself, and something in the look of her eyes at their two brief meetings confirmed this thought. As Hugh’s mind gradually freed itself from the hard, bitter judgment of himself and of others that had followed the stern self-reproach and self-pity which had for so long occupied it, as his new kindliness towards Arthur warmed and softened him, he came to view things in a more natural light, and ceased to tell himself that his love, like everything else, was turned to bitterness. No, it was sweet and soft and strong as in the May-days of last year; but Hugh had become far more conscious of the difficulties attending it, and Hugh had lost in this year of sorrow and self-distrust the bounding energy by which he had intended to overcome them. Besides, he was no longer quite the authority that he had been at home, and, though Violante was doubtless really more fitted to marry him by her school-life, she had lost a great advantage in having become known first to his mother as a girl whom there was not the slightest likelihood of his fancying. A wonderful Italian unknown beauty was one thing; a little foreign, penniless girl, half-singer, half-school-teacher, was quite another. And though Hugh was, of course, his own master, his relations to his family formed so large a part of his life that he hardly knew how to disturb them, and the Crichtons belonged to exactly the class most easily disturbed by an incongruous marriage. He had given up the notion that he ought to punish himself for the destruction of Arthur’s happiness by destroying his own; but his feelings strongly revolted against any deliberate effort to secure it just at the time then coming, and there was nothing morbid in the belief that he was bound to make Arthur his first consideration; for Arthur’s sake, not for that of his own conscience. And what was to become of Arthur was a problem that grew in difficulty.
The recurrence of these once happy summer days, perhaps spite of himself, Jem’s bright hopes, and the return to the amusement and occupations of which Mysie had been the centre, were more than he could bear, and cost him such heart-sickness as he had never yet known.
It seemed as if his light-hearted youth had been beaten at last in the struggle, and efforts to brave it out only made matters worse; and, though he had, perhaps, never fought so hard with himself, he got none of the credit that had attached to his first home-coming. They did not cease to pity him for his sorrow, but it did become wearisome to sympathise with the indications of it, and it was impossible to order matters only with reference to him. He was out of place among them, and he felt it keenly, yet he could not resolve to go away by himself, he had grown very reserved, and certainly tried as much as possible to avoid notice; and even Hugh, who saw the most of him, found it very difficult to know how to deal with him, and turned over many plans in his mind, none of which appeared to him quite satisfactory.
They were walking home together one afternoon by the field-path from Oxley. The summer heat was beginning to be felt in the air, the summer look was coming over the woods and fields. The summer silence would soon succeed to the perpetual song and twitter of the birds. They were walking on silently, when, tripping down the path came a smartly-dressed girl, with fair hair flying. It was Alice Wood, who had been absent all the year. As she recognised them, she started violently and stopped, a sudden look of agitation in her face as she made a half-curtsey.
Arthur hesitated, then went up rather eagerly, and shook hands with her.
“How d’ye do – you have been away?” he said.
“Yes, sir, at my aunt’s, learning dressmaking. I – I hope you are pretty well, Mr Arthur,” she added, faltering.
Arthur seemed unable to say more; he turned away from her, and she hurried on, crying as she went.
The two young men stood still, each of them overpowered by the sight of her. Then Hugh saw that Arthur shivered, and was very pale. He turned towards a tree-trunk near, and sat there with hidden face, trying to recover himself, while all Hugh’s agony of remorse once more came over him.
“God knows, Arthur, I wish the stroke had fallen on me!” he said. “It is from me you should shrink. How can you bear the sight of me!”
Arthur did not answer, but he looked up after a few minutes, and said simply:
“I am very sorry. I wish I could get over these things.”
“This was not a thing to be got over.”
“No. But, Hugh, the canal – the meadows – it’s like a nightmare – I can’t forget them. I have trial to go there – to conquer it, but I never could. Yet I have dreamt over and over again of it.”
“You never spoke of this?” said Hugh.
“Oh, no. Hugh, have you ever been there?”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “often at first. It was better than thinking of it.”
“Will you come with me, and get it done? I think I could – with you.”
“Oh, my dear boy, I don’t think I ought to let you do that.”
“It would be over. But I don’t know – In the morning, when it looks different.”
“Yes, not now,” said Hugh, firmly. “See here, Arthur. I have guessed at these feelings of yours. I know too well how natural and inevitable they are. But Redhurst is no fit place for you just now, and I have a plan. Should you like to come back to the Bank House and stay there with me? I think it’s comfortable, and you could rest, and there would be no discussions about society, and no worries. If you could like to be alone with me?”
“I should like it very much,” said Arthur, decidedly. “I know I’m no good at home, but I cannot bear the thought of wandering about.”
“Well, then, shall we come back now? You are tired and shaken, and I will go and explain things at home.”
“Yes. Hugh, we shan’t rake up all these matters again; but I want to tell you, once for all, that you mistook my feeling about yourself. I need not say I never blamed you – how could I? But all this nervous folly can only belong to – to indifferent objects. You suffered too, only at first I could not think of that. But you do help me – you always know the right thing for me.”
“I would lay down my life for you,” said Hugh, passionately.
“No. But you will help me to recover myself. I’m glad I have told you. And as for what must remain, when – when I have ‘got over it,’ as they say – life without her – though you wouldn’t think it after this, I believe I am learning to look forward to it a little better, and I shall have you to help me.”
“I have been very miserable about it,” said Hugh, moved to equal simplicity by Arthur’s straightforwardness. “It was my first comfort when you said I helped you. Nothing shall ever come between us: you shall be my first thought, for ever.”
Hugh’s voice swelled and quivered; he did nothing but hold Arthur’s hand for a moment, but no sign or gesture of passionate emotion would have seemed exaggerated to his feeling then. “I can make atonement,” he thought.
Arthur, who, after all, cared far less about the relations between them, though his affectionate expressions had been perfectly genuine, said more lightly:
“Then are we to turn back to Oxley?”
“Yes; then you will not have to talk it all over at home; I’ll settle it.”
So they retraced their steps; and Hugh took Arthur into the Bank House and upstairs, where he had never been for years. It was rather a large house, in the time of their grandfather the largest in Oxley, and was well-furnished and handsome. The drawing-room had never been used by Hugh; but he had established himself in the library, a stiff, old-fashioned room, with two long, narrow windows, with high window-seats in them. His writing-table, with its untidy masculine papers, had intruded on the orderly arrangements in which his grandmother, who had long survived her husband, had delighted. Arthur sat down in one of the window-seats while Hugh gave the orders rendered necessary by this unexpected decision.
“Do you remember how we used to come here to see grandmamma?” he said.
“Yes, but I should have thought you were too small to recollect it.”
“I remember it, perfectly. You used to be desired to keep Jem and me from walking on the grass; and you obeyed implicitly!”
“You may walk on the grass now, if you like,” said Hugh.
“It was a nice old garden. And, I declare, Hugh, there are the cats!”
“Cats? I haven’t got a cat.”
“The velvet cats on the mantelpiece – the first works of art I ever appreciated.”
And he pointed out two cats cut out in black velvet, and painted into tortoiseshell, with fierce eyes and long whiskers, objects of delight to the infant mind of any generation.
“I declare I never noticed them. You had better find out some more old friends, while I go over to Redhurst.”
The experiment proved very successful on both sides. It gave Arthur the rest he needed; the absence of association without the strain of novelty. His cheerfulness revived; and, perhaps, Hugh had rarely found life more pleasant: for, though he was tenderly desirous of making his cousin comfortable, of saving him fatigue, and amusing without oppressing him, it was really Arthur who twisted the things about till the room looked homelike and cheerful; found out how cool and shady the garden was, and how pretty a few changes might make it, and started agreeable subjects of conversation. Though not so amusing and argumentative as Jem, he was a wonderfully pleasant person to live with, even when languid and only half himself; and Hugh, delighted to find that the companionship suited Arthur, grew quite lively himself under its influence. They saw James whenever he came to Oxley, and frequently Mrs Crichton; and Hugh dutifully went over, at short intervals, to Redhurst, and, though he avoided without regret many summer gaieties, was obliged to share in a few, and, among others, went to a large musical party given by Mrs Dysart.
There had been some croquet and archery in the afternoon; but Hugh did not make his appearance till just as the music was going to begin.
“How late you are, Hugh!” said his mother, as he came up and joined her. “And no Arthur?”
“No; he was tired with the heat. I never meant to let him come. I am sure I’m early enough. They’re just going to begin.”
And Hugh sat down by his mother, and listened decorously to an instrumental piece. It was still early, some of the company were still wandering in the gardens, and the windows were open, letting in the soft evening air. But some wax candles were lighted at one end of the drawing-room, where the performers were gathered, and as Hugh, after listening to one or two songs and to a violin solo, was politely suppressing a yawn, a young lady stepped into the light. It was Violante – Violante, the same as when she had stood in the hot Italian sunlight, and sung to her father’s pupils. The same, and yet different. It seemed to Hugh’s confused eyes that she had turned into a fashionable lady, in her trailing white muslin, with its puffs and flounces, with her soft, curling hair, done up in an attempt at the prevailing fashion. She looked taller, older somehow – more unmistakably a beauty; but not, he thought, at first – his own Violante. She held her head up too, and if she was frightened managed to conceal it. Hugh made a snatch at his mother’s programme.
“Who – what – how?”
“Don’t you know?” said Clarissa Venning, who was near them. “Miss Mattei’s voice has come back. I suppose she will sing again in public; but this you know is quite in a private capacity. She was asked to come with Florence.”
Hugh looked at the programme: – “Song. – Miss Violante Mattei.”
He was just about to commit himself to a vehement exclamation of astonishment that no one had thought of telling him she was going to sing – how could they overlook such a fact? – when the old, sweet notes fell again on his ear, as lovely as ever he thought, and he listened, breathless, till they ceased amid loud applause and exclamations of admiration.
Violante smiled and curtseyed her thanks, with elaborate grace, and as no young lady amateur would have thought of doing.
“She has such pretty foreign manners,” cried a lady; and one of the young men of the house, laughing, tossed her a little bunch of flowers, and she picked it up and curtseyed again, just as she had been taught to do by old Madame Cellini, long ago in Civita Bella.
She was to sing once again, and Hugh waited in breathless expectation; but though the applause was as ardent as ever, she only acknowledged it this time by a dignified little bow, and retreated.
“Oh,” said one of the Dysarts, “someone has been telling her her pretty curtsey was not selon les règles. What a shame!”
“She is a very beautiful girl,” said Mrs Crichton, who, now that there was no need to fear Jem’s foolishness, was ready to be interested in Violante.
“Yes,” said Clarissa. “She is too fine a bird for us, which is a pity, as she is a nice little thing; and never so happy as when she is playing with the little ones. Ah, here she comes!”
Violante came up to Clarissa, without immediately perceiving her companions.
“Miss Clarissa, Miss Florence says they are going to dance. May we stay a little longer?”
“No one could think of carrying you away, Miss Mattei,” said Mr Dysart. “Pray, let me thank you for your songs. And, of course, Miss Venning, you are not thinking of stirring yet? Let me find you a partner.”
“Thank you, I am acting chaperone. You may stay if Florence likes, Violante. I think you have not seen Mrs Crichton?”
“Let me thank you for your sweet music, my dear,” said Mrs Crichton, in her kind way. “I think it was my other son you knew in Italy?”
“Mother, you mistake. It was I. I knew Mademoiselle Mattei once.” And Hugh started forward and held out his hand, imploringly. Violante put hers into it; but she stood passive and still.
“You were not so gracious, Miss Mattei, when we applauded you the second time,” said young Mr Dysart.
“I saw that the young ladies did not curtsey, signor,” said Violante, simply; “but I thank you for listening to me.”
As she spoke the lights flashed up and revealed her standing, facing Hugh, with a sort of desperate self-possession, as the first notes of the dance-music sounded.
“Mr Crichton, I think you don’t dance. Miss Mattei, will you give me this waltz?” said another Dysart, approaching.
Violante was no coquette, but she was a woman, and her pride had been hurt by Hugh’s neglect. So she smiled graciously, and moved away as Florence joined them, before Hugh could get out a somewhat undignified and hurried declaration that he did dance – sometimes.
“We must only stay for three dances, Flossy,” said Clarissa.
But Violante had promised the three dances before she had left their side five minutes; and Hugh returned home, with the discovery that he was not the only man of taste in the world, and the firm conviction that Violante was wholly indifferent to him. It is also remarkable that at the same time he forgot entirely all the excellent arguments by which he had endeavoured to render himself indifferent to her.
Part 6, Chapter XLVII
Thunder-Showers
“But whither would my fancy go?
How out of place she makes
The violet of a legend blow
Among the chops and steaks!”
After Mrs Dysart’s party there ensued a fortnight of intensely hot weather; so close and sultry that it wore a shade or two of pink even off Flossy’s rosy cheeks and accounted partly for Violante’s demeanour being unusually languid and distraite.
Mrs Crichton had gone to London to superintend some of James’ preparations and Frederica had been left at Oxley Manor, so nothing, of course, was heard there of the young men at the Bank House. It seemed to poor Flossy as if, with the discovery of her new feelings for Arthur their old intercourse had vanished away, for on his removal to Redhurst, she ceased to see him, and she could not feel that she counted for anything in his life. Thus separated from him, she felt with and for him every pang of memory and association more keenly than he always felt them for himself.
Poor Flossy! To have given her affection not only without thought of return, but to one lying under such a heavy cloud of trouble, was enough to tame her exuberant brightness; and her lessons lost their liveliness, her own occupations their interest. Miss Venning might have seen that something was amiss; but she was greatly occupied in receiving the two little sons of the brother just older than Clarissa, who had been settled in India for some time; and, if she thought Flossy looking pale, merely suggested a holiday visit to the eldest brother, who was a Lancashire clergyman, or observed that the care of the little boys would make a nice change for her. Flossy was too young to have had much home intercourse with any of her brothers, and not just then in the humour to take up with anything new.
But Clarissa had never been so fond of anyone as of the brother Walter, whose youthful scrapes and youthful interests had all been confided to her ear, and whose departure for India had been the great grief of her girlhood.
“What a blessing they’re not girls!” was her comment on the letter announcing their arrival.
“Indeed!” said Miss Venning. “It would be easier to do for them here if they were.”
“Oh, I daresay they’ll fit in,” said Clarissa. “We want a little change.”
And she went herself to Southampton to fetch them, and took them silently under her special protection, making exquisite and ever-varying grimaces for their amusement and jealous of the character of their favourite aunt. Miss Venning was glad that the children were so well provided for, and Flossy perceived that Clarissa had at last found an interest in life.
One sultry afternoon early in July Flossy, with Violante and two or three elder girls, had been to a lecture which had been held in Oxley by some celebrated personage. Miss Venning had taken the opportunity of paying a visit and had desired them to meet her at a certain shop in the town. As they crossed the marketplace ominous sounds were heard and heavy drops began to fall.
“We’re going to have a thunderstorm,” said Flossy, looking up at the bank of heavy clouds that was rolling up.
“Oh, Miss Florence, what shall we do?” said Violante, rather timidly.
“My new hat!” exclaimed one girl.
“It’s going to pour,” said another.
“We must run across to the station,” said Flossy, “or down to Cooper’s, as my sister said.”
As they stood for a moment hesitating which way to turn, they were suddenly accosted.
“Flossy! There’s going to be a great storm. Come in with me. You will all be wet through,” and Arthur hurried up to them.
“The station – Mary,” murmured Flossy.
“The station? Nonsense! you’ll all be drenched. I’ll send after Miss Venning. Come, Flossy, don’t drown your flock from a sense of propriety. I’m sure Mademoiselle Mattei doesn’t like thunder.”
The gay voice, the familiar address, chased away half Flossy’s fears and sentiments. She laughed and yielded, and they hurried through the plashing rain-drops across the road and into the Bank House – unknown ground to them all.
“Come upstairs,” said Arthur, and he led the way into his grandmother’s drawing-room, into which for the sake of coolness he had lately penetrated.
The delighted school-girls gathered into a knot, smiling and whispering. Violante glanced round, as in sacred precincts, and Arthur, pointing to the lashing rain, laughed boyishly.
“Here you are, fairly caught in the ogre’s castle. What shall I do – shall I have up Mrs Stedman?”
“Don’t be so absurd,” said Flossy, aside. “What will the girls think of you?”
“No? Then I’ll try to be polite. Isn’t this a quaint room, Miss Mattei?”
It was a long room with three high windows, looking over the garden, against which the rain was beating violently. Everything was slender, prim, and pale-coloured. Old-fashioned prints hung on the walls, on the paper of which long-tailed birds drank out of wonderful vases. Old china was varied by wax flowers and queer little bits of fancy work. Elaborate wool-work chairs were preserved with tight-fitting muslin covers. Arthur made Violante sit down in a tall straight-backed one; he opened a cabinet of curiosities for the amusement of the girls, and was just beginning: “I don’t know when I’ve seen you, Flossy,” when the door opened and Hugh walked in, to find the stiff grandmotherly chamber full of laughing, summer-clothed girls, and in the centre, soft and smiling, Violante herself.
“Hugh looks like a man who has ridden into a fairy ring,” said Arthur, as his cousin paused in utter surprise.
Hugh made a few polite speeches, Flossy some rather hurried explanations, and then their host fell silent, till, after a minute or two, he said, gravely:
“Arthur, don’t you think we could give these young ladies some tea?”
“To be sure. I’ll go and see what can be produced.”
“Arthur has made the house quite habitable,” said Hugh to Flossy.
“He looks much better than when I saw him last.”
“Yes, I think he is better; but he has felt the hot weather, and he always turns the brightest side up, you know.”
Hugh’s affectionate tone turned up quite a new side of himself to Flossy; but Violante recognised the familiar accents which she had missed so sorely at first. He did not speak a word to her; but her heart was beating, she felt intensely happy.
Arthur presently reappeared, followed by Mrs Stedman, with preparations for tea and such a plentiful supply of cakes of all descriptions as Flossy suspected had cost the office-boy a wetting to obtain from the neighbouring pastry-cook’s. The girls were in a state of blissful delight. Was there ever such a fortunate thunder-shower? and, perhaps, their young teachers were not far from the same opinion.
“I’m afraid it’s going to clear up,” whispered one of the younger ones.
“There’s not a chance of it,” said Arthur, gravely. “It’s going to pour for an hour yet.” But struggling sunbeams began to force their way through the clouds and to dance on the rain-drops. Arthur flung up the window and a great rainbow was arching over the sky, while trees, grass, and flowers were brilliant with reflected light.
It had cleared up, and Miss Venning made her appearance in her friend’s waterproof cloak, with —
“Well, young ladies, I need not have been anxious about your getting wet!”
“You’re just in time to have some tea, Miss Venning,” said Arthur. “They were just getting wet through when I met them.”
Miss Venning drank her tea, and carried off her flock; but, though no one had exchanged a word in private, somehow that tea-drinking had left three people much happier than it found them.
It seemed to have restored to Flossy a natural intercourse with Arthur, and to have brought his real self before her again; while to Violante it had restored the gentle, smiling Signor Hugo of last year. The effect on Hugh was less definite, but it was long since he had laughed so much as at Arthur’s account of his finding the girls hesitating and wondering in the fast-coming rain.
He was engaged the next morning for some time by a meeting at which the plans for the gas-works, which had been invested with so incongruous an interest, and the plans for the new railway were brought forward and discussed, and it was with a very grave face that he came back to Arthur with some papers in his hand.
“Look, Arthur,” he said. “I must show you what has been proposed about this railroad. You know they want to connect Fordham and Oxley, and the line proposed would cut right through the Ashenfold woods and along the bed of the canal (which would not be worth keeping up if there was a railroad), and keep by the bank of the river up to the ‘Pot of Lilies’ and then strike across the heath to Fordham. Redhurst would have a station somewhere down by the lock. This is much the most direct line; but it is possible that they might take one round at the back of the woods, and as the property nearly all belongs to my mother we might, perhaps, get it adopted. I want to know how it strikes you.”
Hugh made this long, business-like explanation without pausing, and now he drew the plan forward and pointed out the proposed route.
“It shall not be done if you mind it very much,” he said, vehemently, as there was no answer.
“Does Aunt Lily know?” said Arthur.
“Yes. She is not unwilling. I would not have it talked of till it was necessary to tell you about it.”
“I remember it was talked of once before. We thought it dreadful destruction; but you said then that a good many local interests were involved in it, that it would be a good thing for the place, and that it would be a very unpopular act to oppose it.”
“I don’t care a straw about the unpopularity,” said Hugh.
“What, when you know you’re the Member of the future? No, Hugh; what reason could you give for opposing it? Don’t vex yourself about me. Why should one cling to the mere empty shell of things? To oppose a real public advantage for – for our feelings. It would just be ridiculous, and can’t be done. You would be the first to say so.”
This was perfectly true; yet Hugh could as little bear to hear the effort in Arthur’s voice as if he had not been a sensible, clearheaded man of business, who scorned the notion of acting on sentimental motives. For his own part the removal of all these haunted places was a positive relief; but he knew that to Arthur it was like rifling a grave.
“When is this likely to be carried out?” said Arthur, presently.
“Why, very soon – if they get it through Parliament before the end of the session. To-day is the fifteenth of July – ”
Arthur started up and walked away to the window. Was the fate of the poor old “Pot of Lilies” to be sealed on the very day of the year when, with such mirth and merry-making, they had agreed to revisit it and renew their innocent little celebration; to live over once more the hours that had been so cloudless and so gay? Ah, never, never again!
There came over Arthur one of those agonies of regret that were worse to bear than any nervous horror, even than the daily loneliness to which he was trying to grow accustomed. He seemed to feel again Mysie’s little hand in his; to see her sweet round eyes looking into his own. The air was sweet again with summer fragrance; the sun shone hot and clear in as blue a sky; but that hand – those eyes – He hurried away, and Hugh dared not follow him, and, having no mental picture of the daily events of the past summer till it had broken up into storm and misery, could not tell what had affected him so strongly.
He could only try to be doubly tender and considerate, and, as soon as he thought Arthur could bear any discussion about himself, suggested that they should go together for a little trip to North Wales. He had not been away himself for more than a year, and could easily contrive to take the holiday. His mother, he knew, meant to go to the sea almost immediately; so Redhurst would be shut up, and Oxley was too hot and dusty in August to be endurable. Arthur acquiesced, rather languidly, but as if he knew it was right.
“Jem asked me if I would like to take a last bachelor trip with him; but I should have known all the time that his heart was elsewhere,” he said.
“You will not think I want to be anywhere else,” said Hugh, and, perhaps, just at that time he hardly did.
The trip prospered. Arthur was fond of travelling and clever in contriving plans for it. He was grave and quiet as Hugh had never known him, with fewer ups and downs of spirits, and seemed to be losing the boyishness that had clung to him so obstinately; and so the dreaded days drew near, with nothing whatever to mark their coming, and the first Sunday in August dawned damp and grey over heathery hills and mossy valleys. They were at a place where there was no English service. Arthur went to hear the Welsh one, and Hugh wandered about, anxious and wretched, and yet with his mind perversely filled with hopeful visions of Violante. He would have liked to make this a day of penance, but whenever he let his mind loose, as it were, it sprang back like an elastic band to the image that daily filled it more and more.
“It has not been at all a bad day, Hugh,” said Arthur, gently, as they parted for the night. “I am glad we came here. To-morrow, if you will, we’ll go for a long walk somewhere.”
And so they spent that Monday, so full of memories – though, of course, the Tuesday was the real anniversary of Mysie’s death – beneath cool, dull skies, over hill-sides half shrouded in mountain mists, heather and furze for roses and carnations, cloud for sunshine, wild lonely solitudes for homely quiet. They did not talk very much; but the day had none of the terror that Hugh had anticipated from it. Rather it had a kind of sorrowful peace.
