That Girl in Black; and, Bronzie

Chapter Three

The London season was over. Mr Norreys had been longing for its close; so, at least, he had repeated to his friends, and with even more insistence to himself, a great many, indeed a very great many, times, during the last hot, dusty weeks of the poor season’s existence. He wanted to get off to Norway in a friend’s yacht for some fishing, he said; he seemed for once really eager about it, so eager as to make more than one of his companions smile, and ask themselves what had come to Norreys, he who always took things with such imperturbable equanimity, what had given him this mania for northern fishing?

And now the fishing and the trip were things of the past. They had not turned out as delightful in reality as in anticipation somehow, and yet what had gone wrong Despard, on looking back, found it hard to say. That nothing had gone wrong was the truth of the matter. The weather had been fine and favourable; the party had been well chosen; Lennox-Brown, the yacht’s owner, was the perfection of a host.

“It was a case of the workman, not of the tools, I suspect,” Despard said to himself one morning, when, strolling slowly up and down the smooth bit of gravel path outside the drawing-room windows at Markerslea Vicarage, he allowed his thoughts to wander backwards some little way. “I am sick of it all,” he went on, with an impatient shake, testifying to inward discomposure. “I’m a fool after all, no wiser, indeed a very great deal more foolish, than my neighbours. And I’ve been hard enough upon other fellows in my time. Little I knew! I cannot throw it off, and what to do I know not.”

He was staying with his sister, his only near relation. She was older than he, had been married for several years, and had but one trouble in life. She was childless. Naturally, therefore, she lavished on Despard an altogether undue amount of sisterly devotion. But she was by no means an entirely foolish woman. She had helped to spoil him, and she was beginning to regret it.

“He is terribly, quite terribly blasé,” she was saying to herself as she watched him this morning, herself unobserved. “I have never seen it so plainly as this autumn,” and she sighed. “He is changed, too; he is moody and irritable, and that is new. He has always been so sweet-tempered. Surely he has not got into money difficulties – I can scarcely think so. He is too sensible. Though, after all, as Charles often says, perhaps the best thing that could befall the poor boy would be to have to work hard for his living – ” a most natural remark on the part of “Charles,” seeing that he himself had always enjoyed a thoroughly comfortable sufficiency, – and again Mrs Selby sighed.

Her sigh was echoed; she started slightly, then, glancing round, she saw that the glass door by which she stood was ajar, and that her brother had arrested his steps for a moment or two, and was within a couple of yards of her. It was his sigh that she had heard. Her face clouded over still more; it is even probable that a tear or two rose unbidden to her eyes. She was a calm, considering woman as a rule; for once she yielded to impulse, and, stepping out, quickly slipped her hand through Mr Norreys’ arm.

“My dear Despard,” she said, “what a sigh! It sounded as if from the very depths of your heart, if,” she went on, trying to speak lightly, “if you have one that is to say, which I have sometimes doubted.”

But he threw back no joke in return.

“I have never given you reason to doubt it, surely, Maddie?” he said half reproachfully.

“No, no, dear. I’m in fun, of course. But seriously – ”

“I’m serious enough.”

“Yes, that you are – too serious. What’s the matter, Despard, for that there is something the matter I am convinced?”

He did not attempt to deny it.

“Yes, Madeline,” he said slowly, “I’m altogether upset. I’ve been false to all my own theories. I’ve been a selfish enough brute always, I know, but at least I think I’ve been consistent. I’ve chosen my own line, and lived the life, and among the people that suited me, and – ”

“Been dreadfully, miserably spoilt, Despard.”

He glanced up at her sharply. No, she was not smiling. His face clouded over still more.

“And that’s the best even you can say of me?” he asked.

Mrs Selby hardly let him finish.

“No, no. I am blaming myself more than you,” she said quickly. “You are much – much better than you know, Despard. You are not selfish really. Think of what you have done for others; how consistently you have given up those evenings to that night school.”

“One a week – what’s that? And there’s no credit in doing a thing one likes. I enjoy those evenings, and it’s more than I can say for the average of my days.”

But his face cleared a very little as he spoke.

“Well,” she went on, “that shows you are not at heart an altogether selfish brute,” and now she smiled a little. “And all the more does it show how much better you might still be if you chose. I am very glad, delighted, Despard, that you are discontented and dissatisfied; I knew it would come sooner or later.”

Mr Norreys looked rather embarrassed.

“Maddie,” he began again, “you haven’t quite understood me. I didn’t finish my sentence. I was going on to say that at least I had done no harm to anyone else; if no one’s any better through me, at least no one’s the worse for my selfishness – oh, yes, don’t interrupt,” he went on. “I know what you’d like to say – ‘No man liveth to himself,’ the high-flown sort of thing. I don’t go in for that. But now– I have not even kept my consistency. You’d never guess what I’ve gone and done – at least, Maddie, can you guess?”

And his at all times sweet voice sweetened and softened as he spoke, and into his eyes stole a look Madeline had never seen there before.

“Despard,” she exclaimed breathlessly, “have you, can you, have fallen in love?”

He nodded.

“Oh, dear Despard,” she exclaimed, “I am so very glad. It will be the making of you. That’s to say, if – but it must be somebody very nice.”

“Nice enough in herself – nice,” he repeated, and he smiled. “Yes, if by nice you mean everything sweet and womanly, and original and delightful, and – oh, you mustn’t tempt me to talk about her. But what she is herself is not the only thing, my poor Maddie.”

Mrs Selby gave a start.

“Oh, Despard,” she exclaimed, “you don’t mean that she’s a married woman.”

“No, no.”

“Or, or any one very decidedly beneath you?” she continued, with some relief, but anxiously still.

Despard hesitated.

“That’s exactly what I can’t quite say,” he replied. “She’s a lady by birth, that I’m sure of. But she has seen very little. Lived always in a village apparently – she has been in some ways unusually well and carefully educated. But I’m quite positive she’s poor, really with nothing of her own, I fancy. I’m not sure – it has struck me once or twice that perhaps she had been intended for a governess.”

Mrs Selby gasped, but checked herself.

“She has friends who are kind to her. I met her at some good houses. It was at Mrs Englewood’s first of all, but since then I’ve seen her at much better places.”

“But why do you speak so doubtfully – you keep saying ‘I fancy’ – ‘I suppose.’ It must be easy to find out all about her.”

“No; that’s just it. She’s curiously, no – not reserved – she’s too nice and well-bred for that sort of thing – but, if you can understand, she’s frankly backward in speaking of herself. She’ll talk of anything but herself. She has an old invalid father whom she adores – and – upon my soul, that’s about all she has ever told me.”

“You can ask Mrs Englewood, surely.”

Despard frowned.

“I can, and I have; at least, I tried it. But it was not easy. She’s been rather queer to me lately. She would volunteer no information, and of course – you see – I didn’t want to seem interested on the subject. It’s only just lately, since I came here in fact, that I’ve really owned it to myself,” and his face flushed. “I went yachting and fishing to put it out of my head, but – it’s been no use – I won’t laugh at all that sort of thing again as I have done, I can tell you.”

“He’s very much in earnest,” thought Mrs Selby.

“What – you don’t mind telling me – what is her name?” she asked.

“Ford – Miss Ford. I fancy her first name is Mary. There’s a pet name they call her by,” but he did not tell it.

“Mary Ford – that does not sound aristocratic,” mused Mrs Selby. “Despard, tell me – Mrs Englewood is really fond of you. Do you think she knows anything against the girl, or her family, or anything like that, and that she was afraid of it for you?”

“Oh, dear no! Quite the contrary, Mai – Miss Ford is a great pet of hers. Gertrude was angry with me for not being civil to her,” and he laughed.

“Not being civil to her,” she repeated. “And you were falling in love with her? How do you mean?”

“That was afterwards. I was brutally uncivil to her at first. That’s how it began somehow,” he said, disconnectedly.

Mrs Selby felt utterly perplexed. Was he being taken in by a designing girl? It all sounded very inconsistent.

“Despard,” she said after a little silence, “shall I try to find out all about her from Mrs Englewood? She would not refuse any information if it was for your sake.”

He considered.

“Well, yes,” he said, “perhaps you’d better.”

“And – ” she went on, “if all is satisfactory – ”

“Well?”

“You will go through with it?”

“I – suppose so. Altogether satisfactory it can’t be. I’m fairly well off as a bachelor, but that’s a very different matter. And – Maddie – I should hate poverty.”

“You would have no need to call it poverty,” she said rather coldly.

“Well – well – I’m speaking comparatively of course,” he replied, impatiently. “It would be what I call poverty. And I am selfish, I know. The best of me won’t come out under those circumstances. I’ve no right to marry, you see – that’s what’s been tormenting me.”

“But if she likes to face it – would not that bring out the best of you?” said Mrs Selby hopefully, though in her heart rather shocked by his way of speaking.

“Perhaps – I can’t say. But of course if she did – ”

“And you are sure she would?” asked Madeline, suddenly awaking to the fact that Miss Ford’s feelings in the matter had been entirely left out of the question.

Despard smiled.

“Do you mean am I sure she cares for me?” he said. “Oh, yes – as for that – ”

“I don’t like a girl who – who lets it be seen if she cares for a man,” she said.

Mr Norreys turned upon her.

“Lets it be seen,” he repeated angrily. “Maddie, you put things very disagreeably. Would I – tell me, is it likely that I would take to a girl so utterly devoid of delicacy as your words sound? And is it so improbable that a girl would care for me?” He smiled in spite of himself, and Mrs Selby’s answering smile as she murmured: “I did not mean that, you know,” helped to smooth him down. “She did her best to make me think she detested me,” he added. “But – ”

“Ah, yes, but – ” said his sister fondly. “Then it is settled, Despard,” she went on. “I shall tackle Mrs Englewood in my own way. You can trust me. You don’t know where Miss Ford is at present?” she added.

He shook his head despondently.

“Not the ghost of an idea. I didn’t try to hear. I thought I didn’t want to know, you see. But – Maddie,” he added, half timidly, “you’ll write at once?”

“As soon as I possibly can,” she replied kindly, for glancing at him she saw that he looked really ill and worn. “And,” she went on, “as my reward, you will go with me to the Densters’ garden-party this afternoon. Charles can’t, and I hate going alone. I don’t know them – it is their first year here, though everybody says they are very nice people.”

“Oh, dear,” said Despard. “Very well, Maddie. I must, I suppose.”

“Then be ready at a quarter to four. I’ll drive you in the pony-carriage,” and Madeline disappeared through the glass door whence she had emerged.

“I wonder if she will write to-day,” thought Mr Norreys, though he would have been ashamed to ask it. “I should like to know it’s done – a sort of crossing the Rubicon. And it’s a good while now since that last day I saw her. She was never quite so sweet as that day. Supposing I heard she was married?”

His heart seemed to stop beating at the thought, and he grew white, though there was no one to see. But he reassured himself. Few things were less likely. Portionless girls, however charming, don’t marry so quickly nowadays.

Madeline’s feelings were mingled. She was honestly and unselfishly glad of what she believed might be a real turning point towards good for Despard. Yet – “if only he had not chosen a girl quite so denuded of worldly advantages as she evidently is,” she reflected. “For of course if she had either money or connection Mrs Englewood would not have kept it a secret. She is far too outspoken. I must beg her to tell everything she knows, not to be afraid of my mixing her name up in the matter in any way. When she sees that Charles and I do not disapprove she will feel less responsibility.”

And it was with a comfortable sense of her own and “Charles’s” unworldliness that Mrs Selby prepared to indite the important letter.

She saw little of her brother till the afternoon. He did not appear at luncheon, having left word that he had gone for a long walk.

“Provided only that he is not too late for the Densters’,” thought Madeline, with a little sigh over the perversity of mankind.

But her fears were unfounded. At ten minutes to four Mr Norreys made his appearance in the hall, faultlessly attired, apologising with his usual courtesy, in which to his sister he never failed, for his five minutes’ delay, and Mrs Selby, feeling pleased with herself outwardly and inwardly, for she was conscious both of looking well in a very pretty new bonnet, and of acting a truly high-minded part as a sister, seated herself in her place, with a glance of satisfaction at her companion.

“Everybody will be envying me,” she said to herself, with a tiny sigh as she remembered former air-castles in Despard’s behoof. “The Flores-Carter girls and Edith and Bertha Byder, indeed all the neighbourhood get quite excited if they know he’s here. He might have had his choice of the best matches in this county, to my own knowledge, and there are several girls with money. Ah, well!”

The grounds seemed already fall of guests when the brother and sister drove up to the Densters’ door. Mrs Selby was at once seized upon by some of her special cronies, and for half an hour or so Despard kept dutifully beside her, allowing himself to be introduced to any extent, doing his best to please his sister by responding graciously to the various attentions which were showered upon him. But he grew very tired of it all in a little while – a curious dreamy feeling began to come over him, born no doubt of the unwonted excitement of his conversation with Madeline that morning. He had gone a long walk in hopes of recovering his usual equanimity, but had only succeeded in tiring himself physically. The mere fact of having put in words to another the conflict of the last few months seemed to have given actual existence to that which he had by fits and starts been trying to persuade himself was but a passing fancy. And even to himself he could not have told whether he was glad or sorry that the matter had come to a point – had, as it were, been taken out of his own hands. For that Madeline had already written to Mrs Englewood he felt little doubt.

“Women are always in such a desperate hurry,” he said to himself, which, all things considered, was surely most unreasonable. Nor could he have denied that it was so, for even as he made the reflection he began to calculate in how many, or how few rather, days they might look for an answer, and to speculate on the chances of Mrs Englewood’s being acquainted with Maisie’s present whereabouts.

“Maisie,” he called her to himself, though he had somehow shrunk from telling the name to his sister. It was so sweet – so like her, he repeated softly, though, truth to tell, sweetness was not the most conspicuous quality in our heroine. But Despard was honestly in love after all, as many better and many worse men have been before him, and will be again. And love of the best kind, which on the whole his was, is clairvoyant – he was not wrong about Maisie’s real sweetness.

“I do care for her, as deeply, as thoroughly as ever a man cared for a woman. But I don’t want to marry; it’s against all my plans and ideas. I didn’t want to fall in love either, for that matter. The whole affair upsets everything I had ever dreamt of.”

He felt dreaming now – he had managed to leave his sister and her friends, absorbed in the excitement of watching a game of lawn tennis between the best players of the county, and had stolen by himself down some shady walks away from the sparkle and chatter of the garden-party. The quiet and dimness soothed him, but increased the strange unreal feeling, of which he had been conscious since the morning. He felt as if nothing that could happen would surprise him – he was actually, in point of fact, not surprised, when at a turn in the path he saw suddenly before him, advancing towards him, her cloudy black drapery – for she was in black as ever – scarcely distinguishable from the dark shrubs at each side, the very person around whom all his thoughts were centring – Maisie – Maisie Ford herself!

He did not start, he made no exclamation. A strange intent look came into his eyes, as he walked on towards her. Long afterwards he remembered, and it helped to explain things, that she too had testified no surprise. But her face flushed a little, and the first expression he caught sight of was one of pleasure – afterwards, long afterwards, he remembered this too.

They met – their hands touched. But for a moment he did not speak.

“How do you do, Mr Norreys?” she said then. “It is hot and glaring on the lawn, is it not? I have just been seeing my father off. He was too tired to stay longer, and I was glad to wander about here in the shade a little.”

“Your father?” he repeated half mechanically.

“Yes – we are staying, he and I, for a few days at Laxter’s Hill. I am so sorry he has gone – I would so have liked you to see him.”

She spoke eagerly, and with the peculiar, bright girlishness really natural to her, which was one of her greatest charms.

Despard looked at her; her voice and manner helped him a little to throw off the curious sensation of unreality. But he was, though he scarcely knew it, becoming inwardly more and more wrought up.

“I should have liked to see him exceedingly,” he began, “any one so dear to you. I may hope some other time, perhaps, to do so? I – I was thinking of you when I first caught sight of you just now, Miss Ford – indeed, I have done nothing – upon my word, you may believe me – I have done little else than think of you since we last met.”

The girl’s face grew strangely still and intent, yet with a wistful look in the eyes telling of feelings not to be easily read. It was as if she were listening, in spite of herself, for something she still vaguely hoped she was mistaken in expecting.

“Indeed,” she began to say, but he interrupted her.

“No,” he said, “do not speak till you have heard me. I had made up my mind to it before I met you just now. I was just wondering how and when it could be. But now that this opportunity has come so quickly I will not lose it. I love you – I have loved you for longer than I knew myself, than I would own to myself – ”

“From the very first, from that evening at Mrs Englewood’s?” she said, and but for his intense preoccupation, he would have been startled by her tone.

“Yes,” he said simply, yet with a strain of retrospection in his eyes, as if determined to control himself and speak nothing but the unexaggerated truth – “yes, I almost think it began that first evening, rude, brutally rude as I was to you. I would not own it – I struggled against it, for I did not want to marry. I had no thought of it. I am selfish, very selfish, I fear, and I preferred to keep clear of all ties and responsibilities, which too often become terribly galling on small means. I am no hero – but now – you will forgive my hesitation and – and reluctance, will you not? You are generous I know, and my frankness will not injure me with you, will it? You will believe that I loved you almost from the first, though I could not all at once make up my mind to marrying on small means? And now – now that I understand – that – that all seems different to me – that nothing seems of consequence except to hear you say you love me, as – as I have thought sometimes – Maisie – you will not be hard on me? – ”

He stopped; he could have gone on much longer, and there was nothing now outwardly to interrupt him. She had stood there motionless, listening. Her face he could scarcely see, it was half turned away, but that seemed not unnatural. What then caused his sudden misgiving?

“Maisie,” he repeated more timidly.

Then she turned – there was a burning spot of red on each cheek, her eyes were flaming. Yet her voice was low and quiet.

“Hard on you!” she repeated. “I am too sorry for myself to think or care much about you. I am – yes, I may own it, I am so horribly disappointed. I had really allowed myself to think of you as sincere, as, in spite of your unmanly affectations, your contemptible conceit, an honest man, a possible friend I was beginning to forgive your ill-bred insolence to me as a stranger at the first, thinking there was something worthy of respect about you after all. But – oh, dear! And to try to humbug me by this sham honesty – to dare to say you did not think you could have cared for me enough to risk curtailing your own self-indulgences, but that now – it is too pitiful. But, oh, dear – it is too horribly disappointing!”

And as she looked at him again, he saw that her eyes were actually full of tears.

His brain was in a whirl of bewilderment, bitterest mortification and indignation. For the moment the last had the best of it.

“You have a right to refuse me, to despise my weakness if you choose – whether it is generous to take advantage of my misplaced confidence in you in having told you all – yes, all, is another matter. But one thing you shall not accuse me of, and that is, of lying to you. I have not said one untruthful word. I did – yes, I did love you, Mary Ford – what I feel to you now is something more like – ”

He hesitated.

“Hate, I suppose,” she suggested mockingly. “All the better. It cannot be a pleasant feeling to hate any one, and I do not wish you anything pleasant. If I could believe,” she went on slowly, “if I could believe you had loved me, I think I should be glad, for it would be what you deserve. I would have liked to make you love me from that very first evening if I could – just to but unluckily I am not the sort of woman to succeed in anything of that kind. However – ”