Quite alone in that vast and magnificent room, she looks wearily round. The care of Mr. Tarpey, on whom devolves the arrangement of flowers and of newspapers, has spread a table in a corner near the window with these latter luxuries.
Maud looks out; the rain is still tumbling continuously, and plashing heavily, though the sky looks lighter. She turns her eyes on the newspapers, and goes over to the table, and looks down upon them with listless eyes.
She carelessly plucks the county paper from among its companions, and in that garrulous and homely broad-sheet a paragraph catches her suddenly earnest eye. She reads it twice. The annual Wymering ball is to come off three weeks earlier than usual. She takes the paper to the window and reads it again. There is no mistake about it. “Three weeks earlier than the accustomed day!” There is an unusual colour in her cheeks, and a lustre in her eyes. She fancies, as she muses, that she hears a step in the passage, and she drops the paper. She is afraid of Lady Vernon’s all-seeing gaze, and the dreadful question, “Have you seen anything unusual in the paper? Allow me to look at it.” And she feels that her face would proclaim, to all who cared to look, that the Wymering ball was to take place three weeks earlier than usual.
No one is coming, however. She hastens to replace the paper on the table, and she sits down, with a beautiful flush, determined to think.
She does not think very logically, or very much in train, and the effort subsides in a reverie.
Well, what is to be done now? The crisis has taken her by surprise; then fancy leads her into the assembly-room at Wymering. There are lights, and fiddles, and — oh, such a strange meeting!
Cousin Max must be with her. With that spirited veteran by her side she would fear nothing.
Very glad she was when one of Lady Vernon’s broughams drove up to the door a few minutes later.
In that great house you cannot get as quickly to the hall as, on occasions like this, you may wish. But Maud overtakes her at the foot of the stairs, as in her cloak and bonnet Maximilla Medwyn is about to ascend to her own room.
“Mamma is in the library; and there are three men, with ill-made clothes and lank hair, a deputation, as usual, waiting in the shield-room to talk to her about a meeting-house at Heppsborough; and two clergymen are waiting in the blue drawingroom, to see her afterwards about plate for the church of Saint Hilary. So you and I shall be very much to ourselves for a time; and do you know we have had a new arrival — a guest. I dare say you know him. Such an odd little figure, as solemn as a conjurer. His name is Dawe.”
“Dawe? Why, for goodness sake, has Richard Dawe appeared again?” exclaims Miss Max, stopping on the stair, and leaning with her back against the massive banister in great surprise.
“His name is certainly Dawe, and I’ll tell you what he’s like.”
And forthwith Maud describes him.
“Oh! there’s no mistaking the picture,” cries Miss Max; and then she is taken with a fit of laughing, very mysterious to Miss Maud.
Recovering a little, she continues:
“Mr. Dawe? We were very good friends. I like him — at least, all I could ever know of him in twenty years. He keeps his thoughts to himself a good deal. I don’t think any one else in the world had half his influence with your poor grandpapa; but, certainly, I never expected to see him here during Barbara’s reign. My dear! I thought she hated him. He was the only person who used to tell her, and in the simplest language, what he thought of her. Have they been fighting yet?”
“No, I think not — that is, they had not time. I don’t know I’m sure what may be going on now.”
“Where are they?”
“In the library,” says Maud.
“I think he is the only person on earth she ever was the least afraid of. I wonder what he can have to say or do here. He has never been inside this door since — yes, he did come once, for a day or two, a few years after your poor papa’s death, and that, I think, was simply because he had some direction of your grandfather’s, about the Roydon vault, which he had promised to see carried out; but, except then, he has never once been here, till now, since your poor grandpapa’s death.”
“How did he come to have such an influence here?” asked Maud.
They had resumed their ascent, and were walking up the stairs, side by side.
“I believe he understands business very well, and he is, I fancy, the best keeper of a secret on earth. His influence with your grandpapa increased immensely toward the close of his life; and he knew he could talk to him safely about that wonderful will of his.”
“I wonder he allowed him to make that troublesome will,” said Maud.
Miss Max laughed.
“I said the very same thing to him once and he answered that he could not dissuade him, but that he had prevented a great deal. So, here we are.”
The latter exclamation accompanied her entrance into her room.
Maud was more curious than ever.
“He’s not the kind of person, then, who would have come here, under all the circumstances, without good reason,” she said.
“Not he. He has a reason — a strong one, you may be very sure of that. It is very odd. I can’t imagine what it can possibly be about. Well, leave him to me. I think he’s franker with me than with any one else; and I’ll get it from him, one way or other, before he goes. You’ll see.”
In this sanguine mood Miss Maximilla Medwyn put off her things, and prepared very happily for luncheon.
Mr. Dawe and Lady Vernon are, in the mean time, holding a rather singular conference.
CHAPTER XXVI.
COLLOQUY.
On reaching the library, Lady Vernon touched the bell.
“You know this room very well, Mr. Dawe? You see no change here?”
“This house has seen many generations,” said he, looking up to the cornice and round, “and will see out a good many generations more.”
He steps backward two or three steps, looks up at the Vandyck over the mantelpiece, nods to that very old acquaintance, and says “Yes.”
Then he rolls his prominent eyes again about the room, unusually shadowy on this dark day, and spying a marble bust between two windows, the little man walks solemnly towards it.
“That is Mr. Howard, who was our vicar, long ago,” says Lady Vernon.
The blue livery is standing, by this time, at the opened door.
“Poor papa placed that bust there,” she continues, “and it has remained ever since.”
“Indeed!” says Mr. Dawe, and peers at it, nose to nose, for some seconds.
“They took casts from it,” she continues, “for the statue that the bishop wished to place to his memory in the church.”
“Here?” says Mr. Dawe, turning his profile, and rolling his brown eyes suddenly on her.
“Yes, in the church of Roydon, of course, where, as vicar, he preached for so long.”
“I see,” says Mr. Dawe.
“I shall be engaged for some time particularly on business,” says Lady Vernon to her footman, “and you are to admit no one.”
“Yes, my lady.”
And the apparition of gold, azure, and powder steps backward, the door closes, and they are alone.
Lady Vernon is smiling, with bright hectic patches in her cheeks. There is something a little piteous and deprecatory in her smile.
“We are quite alone now. Tell me what it is,” she says, in a voice that could have been scarcely heard at the door.
Mr. Dawe turns on his heel, walks briskly up, and seats himself near her. He takes out his old silver box, with groups of Dutch figures embossed on it, and takes a pinch of snuff preparatory, with his solemn eyes fixed on her.
“Is it anything — alarming — what is it?” she almost gasps.
“There has been illness,” he says, with his unsearchable brown eyes still fixed on her.
“Oh, my God! Is he gone?” she says, turning as white as the marble Mr. Dawe had just been looking at.
“Captain Vivian has been
very ill, very dangerously ill,” says the imperturbable little man in the black wig; “but he’s out of danger now, quite — that’s all over.”
There was a silence, and Lady Vernon was trembling very much. She placed her fingertips hard against her forehead, and did not speak for a few minutes.
Mr. Dawe looked at her with stoical gravity, and taking his spectacles from a very shabby case, put them on, and occupied himself with a pocketbook, and seemed to be totting up some figures.
“You guessed, of course, that I must have something to say on that subject?” he said, raising his eyes from the page.
“I thought it possible,” she answered, with an effort.
“I could not in the drawing room, you know.”
“No, of course,” she said, hastily, and the colour returned with two hot flushes to her cheeks.
There was in her bearing to this elderly gentleman an odd embarrassment, something of pain and shame; a wounded pride struggling through it.
She rose, and they walked together to the window.
“He has got his leave. His troop is still at Chatham. The doctor says he must go to some quiet country nook. He has been thinking of Beaumaris,” said the old gentleman.
“Is he as beautiful as ever?” she asked. “Oh, why should I ask? What does it matter? Is there any gift that God gives his creatures that is not more or less a curse?”
“You should not talk in that wild way, Barbara. If people can’t control their feelings, they can, at least, control their words. It is only an effort at first. It becomes a matter of habit. You shan’t talk so to me.”
She looked at him angrily for a moment of silence.
“You treat me with a contempt, sir, that you never could have felt if I had not trusted you so madly,” she cried, passionately.
The tone, fierce and plaintive, was lost on the phlegmatic old man in the black wig.
He delivered a little lecture, with his thin brown finger raised, and his exhortation was dry, but stern.
“You have been rash and self-willed; you have been to blame. Your unjust imputation shan’t prevent my saying that, and whatever else truth requires. Your difficulty is the creation of your own passions. I don’t say look your difficulty in the face, for it will look you in the face; but take the lesson it teaches, and learn self-command.”
“Don’t blame me for this. I met him first in a railway carriage. Who can prevent such accidental acquaintances? He was so attentive, and so agreeable, and so gentlemanlike. I had chosen to travel alone, without even a maid. You’ll say I had no business doing so. I say, at my years, there was nothing against it; it was more than four hours; there were other people in the carriage. I never meant to seek him out afterwards; it was the merest accident my learning even his name. I had not an idea that you knew him. When I met him next, it was in town, at Lady Stukely’s. I recognised him instantly, but he did not know me, for my veil had been down all the time.” This narrative Lady Vernon was pouring out with the rapid volubility of excitement. “I was introduced to him there. Perhaps I have been a fool; but there is no good, now, in telling me so. I have seen him since, more than once, and gone where I thought I was likely to see him, and I succeeded. If I have been a fool, God knows I suffer. My difficulty, you call it! My difficulty! My agony is the right word. To love as I love, without being loved, without being loved ever so little!”
“So much the better,” said Mr. Dawe, phlegmatically. “What are you driving at? You ought to consider consequences. Don’t you know the annoyance, and possibly litigation, to which your folly would lead? In a woman of your years, Barbara, this sort of thing is inexcusable.”
“Why did you come at all? Why did you come in so suddenly, and — before people? Would not a letter have answered? Hast thou found me, oh! mine enemy?” she suddenly almost cried, and clasped her fingers for a moment wildly upon his arm.
“A letter?” he repeated.
“Yes, a letter. You should think. It would have been more merciful,” she answered, vehemently.
“Not when I had so many things to talk to you about,” he retorted, quietly.
“I would have met you anywhere. You ought not to have come into the room so suddenly,” she persisted. “You alone know my sad secret. You might have remembered that people are sometimes startled. You say I have no self-command. I think I have immense self-command. I think I am a stoic. I know how you tasked it, too. I knew you had something important to tell me, and that he was probably involved.”
“H’m! Yes; I’m an old friend of yours, and I wish you well. And I’m Captain Vivian’s friend, and was once his guardian, and I wish him well. And this kind of thing I don’t approve of. And you’ll get yourself spoken about; you are talked of. People saw you alone at Chatham last year; and if they come to connect your movements with his, think what it will be.”
“He’s the only person on earth I love, or ever shall love.”
“Barbara, you forget your child, Maud Vernon,” said the old man, with hard emphasis.
“I don’t forget her,” she answered fiercely.
The old man turned away his head. There was no change of countenance; that, I believe, never changed; but the movement indicated disgust.
“I say I love him, with all my love, with all,” she repeated.
“Be it so. Still, common prudence will suggest your keeping that love locked up in your own heart, a dead secret.”
“I am determined, somehow or other, to meet him, and talk to him, and know him well,” she persisted; “and you shall assist me.”
“I’m wholly opposed to it.”
“You’d not have me see him again?”
“No.”
“Why? What are you? Who are you? Have you human sympathy? Good Heavens! Am I a free woman?” she broke out again, wildly.
“Certainly, quite free,” said Mr. Dawe, cutting her short with a little tap on his snuff-box. “You can do it, Barbara, when you please; however, whenever, wherever you like best: only you have a right to my judgment, and I’m quite against it.”
“I know, Mr. Dawe, you are my friend,” she said, after a brief pause. “I know how I can trust you. I am impetuous, perhaps. I dare say you are right. You certainly would speak wisely if your counsels were addressed to some colder and happier woman. Why is it that to be cold, and selfish, and timid, is the only way to be happy on earth? If I am sanguine, audacious, what you will, I can’t help it. You cannot understand me — God knows all; for me to live any longer as I am is worse than death. I’ll endure it no longer. Oh! if I could open my lips and tell him all!”
“There, that’s it, you see! You are ready to die now to be on more intimate terms with him; and if you were you would be ready to die again, as you say, to open your heart to him. Don’t you see? Don’t you perceive what it is tending to? Are you prepared for all that? If not, why approach it? You would be in perpetual danger of saying more than you think you should.”
Mr. Dawe had probably not spoken quite so long a sentence for more than a month.
“I may be a better listener, Mr. Dawe, in a little time. Let us sit down. I want to ask you about it. Tell me everything. What was his illness?”
“Fever.”
“Fever! and he was in great danger. Oh! my darling, my darling, for how long?”
“For two days in great danger.”
Her hands were clasped as she looked in his face, and she went on.
“And there is no danger now? It is quite over?”
“Quite,” he repeated.
She looked up, her fingers raised a little, and a long shuddering sigh, like a sob, relieved her.
“I had the best advice — the two best men I could get from London. He’s all right now; he’s fairly under weigh, and nothing can go wrong; with common prudence, of course. I have the account here.” He held his pocketbook by the corner, and shook it a little.
“He was near dying,” she repeated. “Why didn’t you tell me? I knew nothing of his danger.”
/> “The doctors did not tell me the extent of it till it was over,” he replied.
“Think what it would have been if he had died! I should have been in a madhouse. I should have killed myself.”
“Don’t, don’t, don’t. Nonsense. Come, you must not talk so. I admit it is a painful situation; but who has made it? You. Remember that, and control your — your vehemence.”
“Has he been out? Is he recovering strength?”
“Yes. He has been out, and he has made way; but he is still an invalid.”
“I want to know; I must know. Is there any danger still apprehended?”
“None; I give you my word,” said Mr. Dawe, dryly.
“He is still very weak?” she urged.
“Still weak, but gaining strength daily.”
“How soon do the doctors think he will be quite himself?”
“In five or six weeks.”
“And his leave of absence, for how long is that?”
“It has been extended; about four weeks still to run.”
“I think I know everything now?” she said, slowly.
Mr. Dawe nodded acquiescence.
“He’s not rich, Mr. Dawe; and all this must cost a good deal of money. It is only through you I can be of any use.”
“Yes; I was his guardian, and am his trustee. I had a regard for his father, and his grandfather was essentially kind to me. But I have learned to regret that I ever undertook to interest myself specially in his affairs; and you, Barbara, are the cause of that regret.”
“You mustn’t reproach me; you know what I am,” she pleaded.
Mr. Dawe responded with his usual inarticulate “H’m!” and an oracular nod.
“I can’t help it; I can’t. Why are you so cruelly unreasonable? Do you think I can learn a new character, and unlearn the nature that God gave me, in a moment?”
“I say this. If you cultivate Captain Vivian’s acquaintance further, it is against my opinion and protest. I don’t expect either to have much weight. I think you incorrigible.”
Lady Vernon coloured, and her eyes flashed. But she would not, and could not, quarrel with Mr. Dawe.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 580
