The Laurel Walk
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Her daughter-in-law half rose from her seat: “I think,” she said, “in my turn I had better leave you; you must have a lot to talk about.”
“Nothing but what I flatter myself you may be interested in, too, Elise,” replied Horace quickly, gently advancing her chair again. “I am very lucky to have got down here at all to have a glimpse of you and Con. But I am sorry to say it will be only a glimpse. I have to leave again to-morrow night, mother.”
His mother’s face fell, for though she did not desire his prolonged stay at Craig-Morion, she hated parting with him, and she feared that this recall to his work meant business.
“To-morrow!” she repeated, rather blankly. “That is very soon, but,” as a new idea struck her, “it means, I hope, that you are only joining at the depot preliminary to – what you know I long for! Otherwise you would have had all your leave clear, till you had to go back to India, would you not?”
He had sat down beside her, and took her hand in his.
“Not exactly that, mother dear,” he replied. “I am not forced to join at the depot, but my doing so will be a great help to them just now, as one or two are on sick leave, and they are unexpectedly short-handed. I may get a month or two, later on, just before I shall have to start.”
“Oh, Horace!” his mother exclaimed.
“Are you really deciding to go out again,” said Elise, “when mother does so want you to give it up? Are you so devoted to your profession, Horace? It isn’t as if there were active service in prospect. I do think you have had enough of it.”
“But remember, my dear Elise,” answered Horace, “that I am not a second Con, and I am quite content to be myself. But I could not stand nothing to do, and no distinct position. I should hate hanging about.”
“But you know, my dear boy,” said his mother, “there are plenty of things you could get to do.”
“Not without some capital,” said Horace pointedly.
“Perhaps not,” she replied, flushing a little. “All the same you need not talk as if you were alone in the world. There is nothing I long for more than to see you settled down with – plenty to do, and – ” but she did not finish her sentence – “that would come no doubt in good time.”
“I don’t know that it would,” said Horace, not affecting ignorance of her meaning, “not if I give up my only certainty, or, practically speaking, my only certainty of better things in the future, at any rate.”
For though Horace was not entirely unprovided for on the paternal side as a younger son, the family property was strictly entailed on the elder brother, leaving the others to a great extent dependent on their mother.
Mrs Littlewood made a movement as if to withdraw her hand.
“You pain me, Horace,” she said, “when you say such things.”
He retained her fingers in his clasp.
“Heaven knows I don’t mean to do so in the least, mother dear,” he said. “But you, and Elise too,” with a little smile towards her, “are not the sort of women to respect a man less for wishing to guard his independence, for wishing to feel that he is doing some work in the world, earning enough at least not to feel himself a fainéant.”
“There is always useful work to do,” said Elise, “though, perhaps, the most useful to others does not directly repay the doer of it. Look at Conrad, how he devotes his time to our tenants, and the many dependent on us.”
“Of course,” said Horace, “and he is quite right, but the positions are perfectly different. I want to feel – well – ” he stopped, and, getting up, strolled towards the window. The two ladies exchanged glances. Then Elise, by a gesture, made her mother-in-law understand that she thought it would be better for her herself to leave the room; but Mrs Littlewood negatived the suggestion in the same way. And in a moment or two, Horace came back again and took up his position by the fire.
“It’s really too bad of me,” he said, “to be entertaining you with all this talk about myself.”
“No, my dear boy,” said his mother, “but I just wish I understood you a little better.”
“You are rather enigmatical, you know,” said Elise. “If it were not – ” but here she hesitated.
“Go on,” said Horace smiling, and, as this was followed by no hint of caution from his mother, Elise did go on.
“After all, it was something silly I was going to say!” the younger woman continued, “for I know you have been quite out of the way of anything of the kind for ever so long, but except for that, I was going to say I should almost have suspected it was a case of the ‘not impossible she’ with you!”
Mrs Littlewood glanced up, for her, nervously at her son. He was quite calm and apparently in no way annoyed by his sister-in-law’s speech.
“Provided it were ‘a not impossible she,’” said his mother pointedly. “Few things, indeed nothing, would give me greater pleasure!” Horace did not reply for a moment or two.
“I quite believe you, my dear mother,” he said at last, “but,” as the sound of approaching wheels was heard, “there’s the dog-cart again and Conrad. I hope it was in time for him.”
“By-the-by, Elise,” said her mother-in-law, “we must settle about asking the old people at Fir Cottage to dine here soon. We must make sure of Conrad. I don’t think we need ask any of the daughters again, and really, poor girls, I doubt if it gives them any pleasure – they are so painfully shy.”
“Not the eldest one,” said Elise. “To me she would be much more attractive if she were less self-confident, I might almost say self-asserting, but I suppose it is a natural result of the kind of life they have led, that they should fall into one extreme or the other. I almost wonder Miss Morion hasn’t taken some line of her own, like the rather emancipated young women of the day. Especially as, in their practical reasons for this being advisable. Surely no foolish family pride can be in the way.”
“I really don’t know,” said Mrs Littlewood. “Where people have nothing but a good old name to fall back upon, they are, I fear, apt to overestimate its value. Of course,” with a little hesitation, “I cannot in anyway think of them as relations of yours, Elise!”
“Naturally so,” said her daughter-in-law indifferently. “Nor can I feel as if they were except in so far that I should really be glad to be of use to them if any opportunity offered itself. And I must say,” with a certain softening in her tone, “there is something very sweet and lovable about the younger one.”
“I am glad you feel that,” said the elder woman, “dear little Betty. Yes, her shyness is certainly an additional charm. I really love the child.”
Horace had taken no part in this conversation; up till now he had remained standing on the hearth-rug with an impassive countenance. Now, he turned abruptly, murmuring something about his brother, towards the door. But as the movement caught her attention, Elise, whose ears were very keen, glanced up at him. Somewhat to her surprise, there was a slight smile on his face, a smile that no one could have mistaken for one of anything but pleasure, and – or was it her fancy? or the glow from the fire? No, he had not been facing it, and, as she glanced again, she felt sure she was not mistaken – a distinct heightening of colour through the still remaining sunburn on her brother-in-law’s cheeks and forehead.
“Really,” thought the younger Mrs Littlewood, “the plot thickens. I cannot make him out. I wonder if Ryder could explain things? But he is sometimes so absurdly Quixotic, unconventional; a man in his position may, of course, take up that line if he chooses without detriment to himself, though I hope he would not be unwise enough to back up poor old Horace in anything absurd; still, all men are contradictory. I don’t think it would be well to consult Ryder. And, at present, at any rate, I will not say anything to mother.”
For Elise was not fond of giving an opinion or taking a distinct line on any subject till she was fairly sure of her data; a characteristic caution which, perhaps, had a good deal to do with the reputation for wisdom which she enjoyed, and that in the literal sense of the word, among her special friends.
The dinner invitation to Mr and Lady Emma Morion was duly sent, and duly – declined, though with all the expressions of regret that courtesy could demand. Mr Morion’s expected bronchitis was still hovering about somewhere – ready to pounce upon him, or, so at least, he believed, which in the present instance served the purpose quite as well. For Lady Emma did not care to spend an evening at the big house without a daughter, and was glad of a civil excuse. She had not “taken to” the new Mrs Littlewood, and in her secret heart – the home of more genuine maternal pride and affection than would easily have been believed – it was to this new influence that she attributed the fact of none of her daughters being included in the invitation.
And with this interchange of notes the more formal intercourse between the two houses practically ceased. Mr Morion called on the younger Mrs Littlewood in spite of the sword of Damocles, in the shape of bronchitis, hanging over him, and seemed, on the whole, to have been more favourably impressed by her than were the ladies of his family – possibly because she had taken more pains in his case that it should be so.
As regarded Madeleine, however, things were quite different; that is to say, they remained to the last on the old familiar footing. As often as was possible for her, she made her escape from Craig-Morion during her sister-in-law’s visit, if but for half-an-hour or so at a time, to her friends at Fir Cottage, where she was always welcomed with the same affection that on her side brought her thither. But she seemed, for her, almost dull and depressed, and, when taxed with this by Eira, tried to evade any definite reply, attributing it only to her regret at leaving and that circumstances should have so interfered with the pleasant conditions of things previous to “the Conrads’” appearance on the scene.
“If they had come earlier in the winter,” she said, “it wouldn’t have mattered so much. We should have had time to get over it again before this, and I should have had Horace to back me up at home. As it is I really feel like a caged bird sometimes, mentally as well as physically. I couldn’t stand much more of it, and I know that nothing would be so foolish as any sort of ‘squabbling’ among us.”
“And they are staying longer than you expected?” inquired Frances.
“Yes, indeed, a whole week longer,” was the reply; “they only leave two days before we go ourselves. They seem to have rather taken a fancy to the place. Elise is becoming quite interested in family lore. She should have applied to some of you on the subject.”
She did not add, as she might have done, that her sister-in-law had announced on more than one occasion that such matters were of no real interest to so very remote and junior a branch of a family, for Madeleine was the very reverse of a mischief-maker, and, much as she would have appreciated the full sympathy of her friends had she entered more into detail as to the difficulties of her present position, she even blamed herself for the little she had allowed herself to say.
“And your brother Horace,” said Eira, “is not coming back at all?”
“I am afraid not,” was the reply, with an unmistakable sigh, which it took some self-restraint on Eira’s part not to echo.
A sort of cloud seemed to be falling over the brightened life at Fir Cottage again. The day before that of Madeleine’s leaving, when she ran in to say good-bye, it was all that Eira at least could do, not to speak of her sisters, to repress the tears very near her eyes – tears in which disappointment, as well as the natural regret in parting with their friend, had no small part.
Chapter Twenty
An Afternoon Letter
Ten days, a fortnight passed, a few hurried words from Madeleine reporting the re-installation of her mother and herself in their London house for the season, full of affectionate assurances of her constant thought of them, Frances especially, and regret that they were now so separated, seemed the only break in the old monotony settling down again over the sisters.
Eira frankly owned herself to be feeling “terribly dull.” Betty said nothing, though she looked not only depressed but really ill. Frances, on the contrary, was cheerful, by fits and starts that is to say, though her old equability had strangely deserted her. She was restless and preoccupied. The reasons for this change were suspected by those about her more than she knew or ever did know, though, in time to come, her sisters and even her mother became convinced that they had been entirely mistaken.
There came a crisis.
One afternoon, chance – a most fortunate chance, she afterwards saw that it had been – led to her going alone to the village on some little errand, and on her way back she called at the post-office for the letters which otherwise, if there were any, would not have reached the cottage till the following morning.
It was a lovely day. A typical spring day, showing to the greatest advantage the peculiar beauties, greatly enhanced by clear light and shade, of that part of the country. On her way to the village Frances could not help stopping now and then, arrested by sheer admiration of the loveliness around her. Her spirits rose high, as in those days they were more apt to do; misgivings, half-acknowledged apprehensions, disappeared. She felt as if on the eve of some great happiness such as life had not yet brought her.
And when, in reply to her inquiry, “Any afternoon letters?” the smiling postmistress handed to her three or four, some for her father, but one, yes one, in recognised, though scarcely familiar handwriting, her heart gave a great throb of anticipation.
“It has come,” she thought to herself, as she turned to make her way homewards by the least frequented route. “Now I must pull myself together, and think it well —well over!”
Yet now that it had come, she almost shrank from facing the “it.” Now that she believed the matter to be in her own hands, she wished she could put it from her. But soon her natural womanly feeling reasserted itself, and she realised – whatever her own decision might be – the gratification, the satisfaction to her self-respect of the definiteness, the actual expression in plain terms of Horace’s regard for her, which, as she believed, the letter in her hand contained.
And, as soon as she found herself in a part of the road where interruption was improbable, she broke the seal – for sealed the letter was, which in itself marked it as something out of the common – and drew forth the sheet it contained.
It was dated from his club, and had been written only the day before.
“My dear Miss Morion,” it began – why did these four words, correct and natural enough under the circumstances, cause to pass through her a little thrill of – she scarcely knew what? Misgiving? Apprehension? Neither word expressed it clearly. It was more a sort of intuitive anticipation of some great impending change in the aspect of things, something which would cause her bewilderment as well as pain, which would, as it were, necessitate a reconstruction of all the theories as to herself and her own life, in which of late she had been living.
She read on.
“My dear Miss Morion, – First of all, I feel that I must thank you, and that most heartily, for your goodness to me of late. You have cheered and encouraged me more than you know; in no way resenting the, in one sense, unsatisfactory degree of confidence which was all I felt free to give you hitherto. No one could have been wiser than you have been, no one, I am well assured, could have been more entirely trustworthy. Sometimes, I may confess, I could scarcely have borne it all but for feeling and knowing that I had your sympathy and good wishes, and pity, even, for the miserable uncertainty in which I was forced to leave things; the uncertainty, I mean, as to her feeling towards me, as to the possibility, which now and then seems to me a wild dream, of her in any way responding to what I feel for her. But now I have come to a certain decision. I must know the best or the worst, by which of course you will understand that I mean my chances at head-quarters – with your sister herself. I have sounded my mother so far as I felt it expedient to do so, for I am most anxious to keep Betty’s name out of the way of all remark till I know how I stand with her. I am delighted to find that my mother has a strong personal liking for her – though how could it be otherwise? But I will not trust to this in any practical way. I have decided not to give up my profession, which, with the small private means I am sure of, makes marriage possible without any wild imprudence. Scores of men, especially in India, get on all right with less, and without things being too hard upon their wives. That I could not bear. And even as it is, I dread the thought of the climate for one so tender and fragile. Still, all things considered, I think the time has come for laying it before her, not hiding from her the sacrifices it might have to entail upon her, though these, I need not say, so far as it lies within the power of man to do so, should be counterbalanced by the entire and absolute devotion of my whole life. I intend coming down to Craig-Morion in the course of a few weeks, nominally to settle up some things there for my mother and myself, in reality to learn my fate. I may perhaps write a word or two to your father, just to allude to my coming, in a commonplace way, which may come round to her. You will, I know, do whatever is judicious as to this, although you will see that it is best for her never to suspect that you have been my confidante. And now you must forgive this long letter; selfish, I should feel it, were it not that I well know the depth of your sisterly devotion, and that nothing concerning her can fail to ensure your heartiest interest. So I will not inflict more apologies upon you. I will only thank you again and again.
“Yours most sincerely, —
“Horace Bertram Littlewood.”
Did she read it once or twice or twenty times? or had she not read it at all? Was it all a dream, a miserable dream of shameful self-disgust and mortification? For some minutes, I doubt if Frances knew, or that she could have replied with any accuracy to any of these questions.
She was utterly, completely stupefied, and when at last her ideas began to take coherent form again it was only in the shape of increasingly definite pain and self-abasement. Unselfish, radically unselfish as she was, it became for some little time impossible for her to think of, to care for any one but herself, in the shock of revolted, almost outraged, feeling that overwhelmed her. For she was of a nature to be terribly sensitive to mortification, and with such natures, proud, dignified, mentally and morally on a high plane, recognising high ideals as the goal of all endeavour, mortification, paradoxical though it may sound, can be almost a passion.
Not that she dreaded or even thought as yet for a moment of others – outsiders – in this terrible mistake. It was herself as judging herself that she cowered before.
“I who thought myself the soul of modesty and delicacy, as I see now that I did —I, to have imagined such a thing! At my age, older than he – oh, it is dreadful to realise,” and she sat down on some rising ground by the side of the road and covered her burning face with her hands, while slow hot tears forced themselves through her fingers. In these few minutes – a quarter of an hour at most – Frances Morion seemed to herself to have lived years.
”‘No fool like an old fool!’ it is like having the measles in middle age – always worse than at the normal time, they say.”
These and other bitter, absurdly exaggerated cynical remarks passed through her mind, not to be harboured there, however, for her real character, her habitual attitude of mind, could not for long be untrue to themselves.
And “Oh, what a selfish, shamefully selfish, woman I am – I must be!” was the next phase. “I needed this lesson to open my eyes. Yes, indeed, I needed it,” and already, though the pain was still so stinging, the wound so raw, curious suggestions began to insinuate themselves. If it had been “the real thing,” would not its overthrow have affected her somewhat differently – would not the true malady have developed other symptoms?
For the moment she put these vague hints aside, to be taken out and examined into more at leisure, with possibly some salutary, health-restoring result, and with new resolution tried to concentrate her mind on what now lay before her – on the thorny, self-effacing path which duty, affection, all the associations and motives of her life pointed out as the only one she could tread.
There were alleviations – alleviations and mitigations – of her present suffering, and by degrees the first, perhaps the greatest, of these gradually crept into her thoughts. No one need ever know; more than this, it would be wrong, disloyal to others, to allow her secret to escape. This was so clearly binding upon her that it reconciled her to the necessity, already making itself felt, of to some extent acting a part. And the very relief of knowing that she must thus shield herself brought with it another, as yet faint, but yet suggestive, source of support.
“If it were really that I had got to care for him – thoroughly, genuinely in that way,” she asked herself, “would I so soon be ready to accept any sort of comfort?” But again for the present she put these ideas aside, concentrating all her powers in the direction of the immediate action required of her. “All I can do to help him, I must do,” she thought; “as to that there can be no sort of question. I must as far as I possibly can tacitly familiarise Betty with the idea of what is coming, for he is good and true, I feel convinced, and worthy of her. Oh if I had but known it sooner! It would have been nothing but happiness.”
And this was true. Six months ago, if Frances had been asked what was the darling wish of her heart, her reply would have been to see one of her sisters, Betty especially, well and safely married.
But, as things were, would Betty respond to him? It almost seemed impossible. Or perhaps the entire dislocation of the positions of all involved made it as yet seem so to her.
“I am to exert myself doubly,” she went on thinking. “It is a case in which non-interference on my part would be a crime. I have so much to make amends for in this horrible, miserable mistake of mine. I must not allow the slightest trace of depression or agitation to appear. And, oh! how unutterably grateful I should be and am that the blow has fallen in this way, by a letter instead of – in any other way; all my thought, all my care now must be for my dear little Betty.”
She rose to her feet, composed and even strengthened, and as her thoughts concentrated themselves more and more on her sister, new and strange suggestions took shape respecting her.
Had Betty been quite like herself of late? Was she not looking less well, less restful than was usual with her? She had been, for her, abnormally energetic, it was true, but all the same, on looking back, Frances began to see that there had been a curious self-repression about the girl. She had certainly avoided any talk about herself; the old, almost childish habit with which she had often been laughingly charged, of “saying out whatever came into her head,” had deserted her. Yes, she had grown strangely reticent.
Was it possible, Frances asked herself, that in her own self-absorption she had been blinded to the true state of affairs with Betty? Was it possible that the child had already learnt to care for Horace? That, anxious as he had been to do nothing to gain her affections till he was justified in doing so, he had unconsciously betrayed himself?
“If it is so,” thought Frances, “I should have still more to be thankful for. For in my determination to forget myself there might be a real danger of my influencing her too much in his favour. And yet the suggestion must in some way be made; perhaps – we shall see – Eira may be brought to help in it. I must at least find this out, for I very much fear that poor Eira, as well as dear Betty herself, has been deceived by her affection for me into imagining what – oh! how could I ever have thought it?”