CHAPTER XIX.
The minister and Evan Sinclair came to say good-bye; the minister hasaccepted our approaching departure with his usual philosophy. "Youwould soon tire of this place in the winter-time," he said. "And evenlooking at it from the other point of view, I believe that summervisitors should not prolong their stay above a few months. I admitthat we have enjoyed your sojourn amongst us; but were you and yoursister to become residenters in the place, our intercourse would haveto be reconstructed from the foundation." The minister crossed hislegs, and, without being pressed to continue the subject, he went on:"There is a certain conventionality, not to say forbearance, admittedand allowed between friends with whom one's acquaintance is to beshort; but there is a basis stronger than that upon which any lengthyfriendship must be made."
"And that basis?" I asked.
"That basis, I take it," said the minister, "should be astraightforward disregard for one another. I do not believe inpoliteness between near neighbours; it cannot last."
"I had hoped," said Palestrina, pouting a little, "that you would allmiss us, Mr. Macorquodale."
"We shall miss you," said the minister quickly, but with judgment. "Weshall see the merits as well as the demerits of the case. Forinstance, one of your friends cost me a sovereign for a favouritecharity of hers."
Evan Sinclair said very kindly, blinking his fair eyelashes in a shyway, "Well, I know I shall miss you. The place will seem very dullwith only Alexander and me left in it."
"_I_ shall have my wife," said the minister brutally.
"Yes," said Sinclair; "and her mother! You have kept that pretty darkfrom us, Taurbarrels."
"It is only a visit," said Mr. Macorquodale shortly. And he went on ina truculent tone, "And I need not have her unless I want to."
"I hear she is strict," murmured Evan. "I hope you will be allowed tolook out of the window on the Sabbath, my man."
"I am master in my own house," said Mr. Macorquodale magnificently.
"Believe me," said Evan, "that's a courtesy title, supported by novalid claim, and still less precedent. A man never has been master ofhis own house when there is a mistress in it. I remember when mybrother got married he had just your very ideas, and he gave his wifethe keys of the linen-press and the store-cupboard, 'But the rest ofthe bunch,' he said, 'I keep to myself.' And he put them all in hispocket. It was not six months after that," said Evan, "that I went tostay with them, and I heard him ask my sister-in-law if she would mindhis having two pocket-handkerchiefs on Sundays."
Palestrina and I were alone, for Ellicomb had left us a few daysbefore, and we hear from the Jamiesons that he is a daily visitor attheir house. Thomas and Anthony were out shooting, and Mrs. Fieldenhad gone for a walk over the hills.
"I have a thousand things to do," said Palestrina, when Evan and theminister had departed.
"I also have a thousand things to do," I replied.
"Don't tire yourself," said Palestrina. "What are you going to do?"
"I am going to re-write my diary," I said.
"But, my dear," said Palestrina, "that would be the work of months."
"I am only going to correct all the mistakes I have made in it," Ireplied; and I took my book and a pen, and went and sat in the littleroom on the ground-floor which they call my den.
We once had an old aunt, Palestrina and I, who kept a diary all herlife, and when any of the relatives whom she mentioned in its pagescame to die, she used to go through all the back numbers of her journaland insert affectionate epithets in front of the names of the deceased.For instance (my aunt's existence was not marked by any thrillingevents), the entry would perhaps be as follows: "Maria was late forbreakfast this morning. In the afternoon she had her singing-lesson,and afterwards we did some shopping, when Maria tried on her new gown."But the amended entry after Maria's death would be, "Our darling Mariawas (a little) late for breakfast this morning; in the afternoon shehad her singing-lesson"--and here would probably be a footnote praisingMaria's voice--"afterwards we did some shopping, and"--Maria struckout--"my sweet girl tried on her new gown." Any one's death, or even asuccessful marriage of one of the family, would cause her to revise andcorrect her diary in this way, and she used to fan the wet ink with apiece of blotting-paper to make it dry black, and thus preventposterity from knowing that the words written over the lines were anafterthought induced by subsequent events.
It was manifestly an unfair way of keeping a diary. But I can claimher example and hereditary taint as an excuse for my own dishonestythis afternoon. I read through my diary with a sense of utter shame,and wherever I found, for instance, that I had said that Mrs. Fieldenwas frivolous, or even that she raised her eyebrows in an affected way,I corrected the misstatement by the light of the magnificent discoveryI had made that Mrs. Fielden was faultless, and that I loved her. Oh,the beauty of this woman and her blessed kindness! the cunning withwhich she conceals her unselfishness, and her ridiculous attempts atpretending she is frivolous or worldly.
Alas! there were so many misstatements to correct, and so many dearadjectives to fill in, that I was not halfway through my task beforeMrs. Fielden herself tapped at the window and looked in.
I believe I must have grinned foolishly, but what I wanted to do was tostretch out my arms to the beautiful vision, framed in the hecticVirginian creeper round the window, and call out to her to come to me.
Mrs. Fielden came in for a minute, and said with the adorable lift ofthe eyebrows: "I have been educating a pair of young boots by walkingthrough all the bogs on the hillside. Listen, they are quite full ofwater." She raised herself on her toes with a squelching sound of theleather, and gave one of her joyous soft laughs.
"You must change directly," I said, with an idiotic sense ofproprietorship.
"When I have done so I think I shall come and have tea with you," saidMrs. Fielden. And of course then I knew that she had come home earlyon purpose to have tea with me, and that probably she had given upsomething else which she wanted to do, in order that she might sit byme when I was alone--because of course I have found Mrs. Fielden outnow, and exposed her hypocrisy.
Fortunately she took nearly a quarter of an hour to change her wetboots, and this gave me time to ask myself why I was behaving like araving idiot, because I had found out that Mrs. Fielden was absolutelyperfect, and that I loved her.
It was quite the worst quarter of an hour that I have ever spent,because in it I had time to remember that I was a crippled man with oneleg, and that Mrs. Fielden was a beautiful young woman whom of courseevery one loved, and that she owned an old historical place calledStanby, and probably--I realized this also--that she would continue tocome over and sit with a dull man and bewilder him with her beauty andher kindness only so long as he did not allow her to know the supremelyimpertinent fact that he had fallen in love with her.
I must plead ill-health, and a certain weakness of nerve which no doubtalways follows a surgical operation, for the fact that I turned roundand put my face in the pillows for a moment and groaned.
Mrs. Fielden came in in my favourite pale-blue gown which she sometimeswears when she changes her frock at tea-time. She came and took a seatbeside me, and as she never hurriedly plunges into a conversation wesat silent for a time. The afternoon was darkening now, and the lightof a blazing fire leaped and played upon her pale-blue dress, andturned her brown hair to a sort of red-gold.
Mrs. Fielden thinks she is the only person in the world who can make upa fire. And she is perfectly right. She arranged the logs with a longbrass poker, shifting them here and there, while her dear face glowedin the light of the fire. She is not a luxurious woman, in spite ofbeing surrounded always by luxury. For instance, she stands and walksin a very erect way, and I have never seen her stuff a lot of sofacushions at her back in a chair, nor lounge on a sofa. Her glorious,buoyant health seems to exempt her from need of support or ease, andher figure is too pretty for lounging.
When she had finished arranging the log
s she put down the poker andlooked at me with that dear kindliness of hers, and said in her prettyvoice, "What have you been doing with yourself this afternoon?"
"The minister and Evan Sinclair came up to say good-bye," I said.
"And since then?"
I took my diary, which still lay on my knee, and hid it under the sofacushions.
"Since then," I said, "I have been correcting--that is, writing mydiary."
"Oh, the diary!" exclaimed Mrs. Fielden delightedly. "I had forgottenabout that!"
"No, you hadn't," I said to myself. "It is only part of your wilful,uncomprehendable, untranslatable charm that makes you pretend sometimesthat you have no memory. As a matter of fact, you knew from the firstthat it would be a relief to an egotistical grumbler to get rid of hisspleen sometimes on blue ruled essay paper, and so you set him a taskto do, and you have often wondered since how he is getting on with it.
"I think I must see the diary," said Mrs. Fielden.
"That you certainly shall not," I said; and I pushed the book stillfarther under the sofa cushions--just as if it was necessary to fightwith Mrs. Fielden for anything, or any use either!
"I thought you promised," said Mrs. Fielden.
"If I did I have changed my mind," I said firmly.
"You know you mean all the time to let me see it," said Mrs. Fielden.
"I know I do not mean to let you see it for even a minute of time," Ireplied.
One of Mrs. Fielden's special odd little silences fell between us."No," I said to myself. "I will _not_ say I am sorry. I will _not_say I have been a brute, I will _not_ feel a desire to comfort her,even if her eyes have the wistful look in them."
Mrs. Fielden sat still and looked into the fire.
What unexpected thing will she do next, I wonder? Will she suddenlyburst out laughing, or will she turn and take every bit of manhood outof me by smiling? Or shall I find, when I turn and look at her face,simply that she has gone to sleep?
Good heavens! What if she should be crying?
In an agony of compunction I turned and looked at her; and Mrs. Fieldennot only smiled, but held out her hand for the book.... I rummagedunderneath the sofa cushions, and passed it over to her. She bentforward till the firelight from the blazing logs fell full on the openpage, and she read every one of those corrected lines. She saw where Ihad once put "affected" I had now put "beautiful," and for "frivolous"I put a "lovely gaiety," and she read till she came to the lastcorrection of all. I had run a line through the words "Mrs. Fieldencame to sit with me," and had written over it, "My darling came to seeme----"
Then Mrs. Fielden closed the book, and left her chair where she hadbeen sitting. She crossed the hearthrug quite slowly till she reachedmy sofa. And then she kneeled down and took both my hands in her dearstrong ones, and looked at me with misty blue eyes, like wetforget-me-nots. "But, Hugo dear," she said, "why did you not tell melong ago?"
THE END.
_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_
BY Miss MACNAUGHTAN. THE FORTUNE OF CHRISTINA M'NAB.
THE DUENNA OF A GENIUS. M. E. Francis. OWD BOB. Alfred Ollivant. EIGHT DAYS. R. E. Forrest. LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET. Miss Braddon. THE OCTOPUS. Frank Norris. THE PIT. Frank Norris. MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE, Etc. Booth Tarkington. WOODSIDE FARM. Mrs. W. K. Clifford. WHITE FANG. Jack London. THE PRINCESS PASSES. C. N. & A. M. Williamson. THE MAN FROM AMERICA. Mrs. H. de la Pasture. SIR JOHN CONSTANTINE. "Q" INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS. A. and E. Castle. IF YOUTH BUT KNEW! A. and E. Castle. MATTHEW AUSTIN. W. E. Norris. HIS GRACE. W. E. Norris. THE AMERICAN PRISONER. Eden Phillpotts. THE HOSTS OF THE LORD. Mrs. F. A. Steel. THE LADY OF THE BARGE. W. W. Jacobs. THE GOD IN THE CAR. Anthony Hope. QUISANTE. Anthony Hope. THE INTRUSIONS OF PEGGY. Anthony Hope. THE KING'S MIRROR. Anthony Hope. THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE. Sir G. Parker. AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH. Sir G. Parker. THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG. Sir G. Parker. MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM ASHE. Mrs. Humphry Ward HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE. Mrs. Humphry Ward. ROBERT ELSMERE. Mrs. Humphry Ward. CLEMENTINA. A. E. W. Mason. THE RECIPE FOR DIAMONDS. C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne. THE WAGES OF SIN. Lucas Malet.
_Etc., Etc._
_NELSON'S LIBRARY._
A Lame Dog's Diary Page 19
