Julius answered more warily, "Does he wish it?"
"No; but he is too weak yet, and is hipped and morbid."
"Well, Phil, I would not put it into his head. No doubt you would take very good care of him, but I doubt whether your father would like the Bishop to hear of him-under the circumstances-going to disport himself at the dragoon mess. Besides, I don't think he will be well enough before Lent, and then of course he could not."
This outer argument in a man's voice pacified Phil, as Julius knew it would, much better than the deeper one, and he contented himself with muttering that he should write to his father about it, which every one knew he was most likely not to do.
Who could have foretold last Christmas who would be the party at that dinner? Mrs. Poynsett at the head of her own table, and Miles in the master's place, and the three waifs from absent families would have seemed equally unlikely guests; while of last year's party-Charlie was in India, Tom De Lancey with the aunts in Ireland, Cecil at Dunstone. Mrs. Duncombe was perfectly quiet, not only from the subduing influence of all she had undergone, but because she felt herself there like an intruder, and would have refused, but that to leave her at home would have distressed her hostess. Mrs. Poynsett had never seen her before, and after all she had heard about her, was quite amazed at the sight of such an insignificant little person as she was without her dash and sparkle, and in a dress which, when no longer coquettish, verged upon the slovenly.
Poor thing, she was waiting till the Christmas visit of the elder Mrs. Duncombe's own daughter was over, so that there might be room for her, and she was thankful for the reprieve, which left her able to spend Christmas among the privileges she had only learnt to value just as she was deprived of them. She looked at Mrs. Poynsett, half in curiosity, half in compunction, as she remembered how she had helped to set Cecil against her.
"But then," as she said to Rosamond, in going home, "I had prejudices about the genus belle-mere. And mine always knew and said I should ruin her son, in which, alas! she was quite right!"
"She will be pleased now," said Rosamond.
"No, indeed, I believe she had rather I were rapidity personified than owe the change to any one of your Rector's sort. I have had a letter or two, warning me against the Sisters, or thinking there is any merit in works of mercy. Ah, well! I'll try to think her a good old woman! But if she had only not strained the cord till it snapped, how much happier Bob and I should have been!"
What a difference there is between straining the cord for one's self and for other people! So Julius could not help feeling when Herbert, in spite of all that could be said to him, about morbid haste in renunciation, sent for the village captain of the cricket- club, and delivered over to him the bat, which had hitherto been as a knightly sword to him, resigning his place in the Compton Poynsett Eleven, and replying to the dismayed entreaties and assurances of the young farmer that he would reconsider his decision, and that he would soon be quite strong again, that he had spent too much time over cricket, and liked it too well to trust himself at it again.
That was the last thing before on a New Year's Day, which was like an April day, Herbert came into church once more, and then was carried off in the Strawyers carriage, lying back half ashamed, half astonished, at the shower of strange tears which the ecstatic shouts and cheers of the village boys had called forth.
CHAPTER XXXVI. Rockpier
For Love himself took part against himself
To warn us off.-TENNYSON
Rosamond was to have a taste of her old vocation, and go campaigning for lodgings, the searching for which she declared to be her strongest point. Rockpier was to be the destination of the family; Eleonora Vivian, whose letters had been far fewer than had been expected of her, was known to be there with her father, and this was lure sufficient for Frank. Frank's welfare again was the lure to Mrs. Poynsett; and the benefit Rosamond was to derive from sea air, after all she had gone through, made Julius willing to give himself the holiday that everybody insisted on his having until Lent.
First, however, was sent off an advanced guard, consisting of Rosamond and Terry, who went up to London with Frank, that he might there consult an aurist, and likewise present himself to his chief, and see whether he could keep his clerkship. All this turned out well, his duties did not depend on his ears, and a month's longer leave of absence was granted to him; moreover, his deafness was pronounced to be likely to yield to treatment, and a tube restored him to somewhat easier intercourse with mankind, and he was in high spirits, when, after an evening spent with Rosamond's friends, the M'Kinnons, the trio took an early train for Rockpier, where Rosamond could not detain Frank even to come to the hotel with them and have luncheon before hurrying off to Verdure Point, the villa inhabited by Sir Harry. All he had done all the way down was to impress upon her, in the fulness of his knowledge of the place, that the only habitable houses in Rockpier were in that direction-the nearer to Verdure Point the more perfect!
Terry listened with smiling eyes, sometimes viewing the lover as a bore, sometimes as a curious study, confirming practical statements. Terry was thoroughly well, only with an insatiable appetite, and he viewed his fellow convalescent's love with double wonder when he found it caused oblivion of hunger, especially as Frank still looked gaunt and sallow, and was avowedly not returned to his usual health.
Rosamond set forth house-hunting, dropping Terry ere long at the Library, where she went to make inquiries, and find the sine qua non. When she reached the sitting-room at the hotel, she found Frank cowering over the fire in an arm-chair, the picture of despondency. Of course, he did not hear her entrance, and she darted up to him, and put her hand on his shoulder. He looked up to her with an attempt at indifference.
"Well, Frank!"
"Well, Rose! How have you sped?"
"I have got a house; but it is in Marine Terrace. I don't know what you'll say to me."
"I don't know that it signifies."
"You are shivering! What's the matter?"
"Only, it is very cold!"
(Aside. "Ring the bell, Terry, he is as cold as ice.") "Did you see her?"
"Oh yes. Did you have any luncheon?" ("Some port-wine and hot water directly, please.")
"Yes, I believe so. You are not ordering anything for me? There's nothing amiss-only it is so cold."
"It is cold, and you are not to be cold; nor are we to be cold, sir. You must go to bed early in the evening, Terry," said Rosamond, at last. "I shall make nothing of him while you are by, and an hour's more sleep will not be lost on you."
"Will you come and tell me then, Rosey? I deserve something."
"What, for sleeping there instead of here, when you've nothing to do?"
"Indeed, but I have. I want to make out this little Chaucer. I shall go down to the coffee-room and do it."
"Well, if you like poking out your eyes with the gas in the coffee-room, I have no objection, since you are too proud to go to bed. Wish him good night first, and do it naturally."
"Nature would be thrown away on him, poor fellow," said Terry, as he roused Frank with difficulty to have 'Good night' roared into his ear, and give a listless hand. He was about to deal with Rosamond in the same way, but she said-
"No, I am not going yet," and settled herself opposite to him, with her half-knitted baby's shoe in her hands, and her feet on the fender, her crape drawn up from the fire, disposed for conversation. Frank, on the other hand, fell back into the old position, looking so wretched that she could bear it no longer, picked up the tube, forced it on him, and said, "Do tell me, dear Frank. You used to tell me long ago."
He shook his head. "That's all over. You are very good, Rosamond, but you should not have forced her to come to me."
"Not!"
"My life was not worth saving."
"She has not gone back from you again?-the horrible girl!" (this last aside).
"It is not that she has gone back. She has never changed. It is I who have forfeited her."
"
You!-You!-She has not cast you off?"
"You know how it was, and the resolution by which she had bound herself, and how I was maddened."
"That! I thought it was all forgiven and forgotten!" cried Rosamond.
"It is not a matter of forgiveness. She put it to me whether it was possible to begin on a broken word."
"Worse and worse! Why, when you've spoken a foolish word, it is the foolishest thing in the world to hold to it."
"If it were a foolish word!" said poor Frank. "I think I could have atoned for that day, if she could have tried me; but when she left me to judge, and those eyes of sweet, sorrowful-"
"Sweet! Sorrowful, indeed! About as sweet and sorrowful as the butcher to the lamb. Left you to judge! A refinement of cruelty! She had better have stayed away when I told her it was the only chance to save your life."
"Would that she had!" sighed Frank. "But that was your doing, Rosamond, and what she did in mere humanity can't be cast back again to bind her against her conscience."
"Plague on her conscience!" was my Lady's imprecation. "I wonder if it is all coquetry!"
"She deserves no blame," said Frank, understanding the manner, though the words were under Rosamond's breath. "Her very troubles in her own family have been the cause of her erecting a standard of what alone she could trust. Once in better days she fancied I came up to it, and when I know how far I have fallen short of it-"
"Nonsense. She had no business to make the condition without warning you."
"She knows more of me than only that," muttered poor Frank. "I was an ass in town last summer. It was the hope of seeing her that drew me; but if I had kept out of that set, all this would never have been."
"It was all for her sake." (A substratum of 'Ungrateful, ungenerous girl.')
"For her sake, I thought-not her true sake." Then there was a silence, broken by his exclaiming, "Rose, I must get away from here!"
"You can't," she called back. "Here's your mother coming. She would be perfectly miserable to find you gone."
"It is impossible I should stay here."
"Don't be so chicken-hearted, Frank. If she has a heart worth speaking of, she'll come round, if you only press hard enough. If not, you are well quit of her."
He cried out at this, and Rosamond saw that what she called faintness of heart was really reverence and sense of his own failings; but none the less did she scorn such misplaced adoration, as it seemed to her, and scold him in her own fashion, for not rushing on to conquer irresistibly; or else being cool and easy as to his rejection. He would accept neither alternative, was depressed beyond the power of comfort, bodily weariness adding to his other ills, and went off at last to bed, without retracting his intention of going away.
"Well, Terry, it is a new phase, and a most perplexing one!" said Rosamond, when her brother came back with arch curiosity in his brown eyes. "The girl has gone and turned him over, and there he lies on his back prostrate, just like Ponto, when he knows he deserves it!"
"Turned him over-you don't mean that she is off? I thought she was a perfect angel of loveliness and goodness."
"Goodness! It is enough to make one hate goodness, unless this is all mere pretence on her part. But what I am afraid of is his setting off, no one knows where, before any one is up, and leaving us to confront his mother, while he falls ill in some dog-hole of a place. He is not fit to go about by himself, and I trust to you to watch him, Terry."
"Shall I lie on the mat outside his door?" said Terry, half meaning it, and somewhat elated by the romantic situation.
"No, we are not come to quite such extremities. You need not even turn his key by mistake; only keep your ears open. He is next to you, is he not?-and go in on pretext of inquiry-if you hear him up to mischief."
Nothing was heard but the ordinary summons of Boots; and it turned out in the morning that the chill had exasperated his throat, and reduced him to a condition which took away all inclination to move, besides deafening him completely.
Rosamond had to rush about all day, providing plenishing for the lodging. Once she saw Sir Harry and his daughter in the distance, and dashed into a shop to avoid them, muttering, "I don't believe she cared for him one bit. I dare say she has taken up with Lorimer Strangeways after all! Rather worse than her sister, I declare, for she never pretended to be too good for Raymond," and then as a curate in a cassock passed-"Ah! some of them have been working on her, and persuading her that he is not good enough for her. Impertinent prig! He looks just capable of it!"
Frank was no better as to cold and deafness, though somewhat less uncomfortable the next day in the lodging, and Rosamond went up without him to the station to meet the rest of the party, and arrange for Mrs. Poynsett's conveyance. They had accomplished the journey much better than had been, hoped, but it was late and dark enough to make it expedient that Mrs. Poynsett should be carried to bed at once, after her most unwonted fatigue, and only have one glimpse and embrace of Frank, so as to stave off the knowledge of his troubles till after her night's rest. He seconded this desire, and indeed Miles and Anne only saw that he had a bad cold; but Rosamond no sooner had her husband to herself, than she raved over his wrongs to her heart's content, and implored Julius to redress them, though how, she did not well know, since she by turns declared that Frank was well quit of Lenore, and that he would never get over the loss.
Julius demurred a good deal to her wish of sending him on a mission to Eleonora. All Charnocks naturally swung back to distrust of the Vivians, and he did not like to plead with a girl who seemed only to be making an excuse to reject his brother; while, on the other hand, he knew that Raymond had not been satisfied with Frank's London habits, nor had he himself been at ease as to his religious practices, which certainly had been the minimum required to suit his mother's notions. He had been a communicant on Christmas Day, but he was so entirely out of reach that there was no knowing what difference his illness might have made in him; Eleonora might know more than his own family did, and have good and conscientious reasons for breaking with him; and, aware that his own authority had weight with her, Julius felt it almost too much responsibility to interfere till the next day, when his mother, with tears in her eyes, entreated him to go to Miss Vivian, to find out what was this dreadful misunderstanding, which perhaps might only be from his want of hearing, and implore her, in the name of an old woman, not to break her boy's heart and darken his life, as it had been with his brother.
Mrs. Poynsett was tremulous and agitated, and grief had evidently told on her high spirit, so that Julius could make no objection, but promised to do his best.
By the time it was possible to Julius to call, Sir Harry and Miss Vivian were out riding, and he had no further chance till at the gaslit Friday evening lecture, to which he had hurried after dinner. A lady became faint in the heated atmosphere, two rows of chairs before him, and as she turned to make her way out, he saw that it was Eleonora, and was appalled by seeing not only the whiteness of the present faintness, but that thinness and general alteration which had changed the beautiful face so much that he asked himself for a moment whether she could have escaped the fever. In that moment he had moved forward to her support; and she, seeming to have no one belonging to her, clung to the friendly arm, and was presently in the porch, where the cool night air revived her at once, and she begged him to return, saying nothing ailed her but gas.
"No, I shall see you home, Lena."
"Indeed, there is no need," said the trembling voice, in which he detected a sob very near at hand.
"I shall use my own judgment as to that," said Julius, kindly.
She made no more resistance, but rose from the seat in the porch, and accepted his arm. He soon felt that her steps were growing firmer, and he ventured to say, "I had been looking for you to-day."
"Yes, I saw your card."
"I had a message to you from my mother." Lenore trembled again, but did not dare to relax her hold on him. "I think you can guess what it is. She thinks poor Frank must ha
ve mistaken what you said."
"No-I wrote it," said Lena, very low.
"And you really meant that the resolution made last year is to stand between you and Frank? I am not blaming you, I do not know whether you may not be acting rightly and wisely, and whether you may not have more reason than I know of to shrink from intrusting yourself to Frank; but my mother cannot understand it, and when she sees him heartbroken, and too unwell to act for himself-"
"Oh! is he ill?"
"He has a very bad cold, and could not get up till the afternoon, and he is deafer than ever."
Lena moaned.
He proceeded: "So as he cannot act for himself, my mother begged me to come to an understanding."
"I told him to judge," said Lena faintly, but turning Julius so as to walk back along the parade instead of to her abode.
"Was not that making him his own executioner?" said Julius.
"A promise is binding," she added.
"Yet, is it quite fair?" said Julius, sure now which way her heart went, and thinking she was really longing to be absolved from a superstitious feeling; "is it fair to expect another person to be bound by a vow of which you have not told him?"
"I never thought he could," sighed she.
"And you know he was entrapped!" said Julius, roused to defend his brother.
"And by whom?" she said in accents of deep pain.
"I should have thought it just-both by your poor sister and by him- to undo the wrong then wrought," said Julius, "unless, indeed, you have some further cause for distrusting him?"
"No! no!" cried she. "Oh, Julius! I do it for his own good. Your mother knows not what she wishes, in trying to entangle him again with me."
"Lenore, will you tell me if anything in him besides that unhappy slip makes you distrust him?"
"I must tell the whole truth," gasped the poor girl, as they walked along in the sound of the sea, the dark path here and there brightened by the gas-lights, "or you will think it is his fault! Julius, I know more about my poor father than ever I did before. I was a child when I lived here before, and then Camilla took all the management. When we came to London, two months ago, I soon saw the kind of people he got round him for his comforters. I knew how he spent his evenings. It is second nature to him-he can't get put of it, I believe! I persuaded him to come down here, thinking it a haven of peace and safety. Alas! I little knew what old habits there were to resume, nor what was the real reason Camilla brought us away after paying our debts. I was a happy child then, when I only knew that papa was gone to his club. Now I know that it is a billiard-room-and that it is doing all the more harm because he is there-and I see him with people whom he does not like me to speak to. I don't know whether I could get him away, and it would be as bad anywhere else. I don't think he can help it. And he is often unwell; he can't do without me when he has the gout, and I ought not to leave him to himself. And then, if-if we did marry and he lived with us in London, think what it would be for Frank to have such a set brought about him. I don't see how he could keep them off. Or even an engagement bringing him down here-or anywhere, among papa's friends would be very bad for him. I saw it in London, even with Camilla to keep things in check." She was almost choked with suppressed agony.
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