Flixton waited for no more. Perhaps he had no mind to be bored, now that he had gained what he wanted. He hurried after the slim figure with the white floating skirts and the Leghorn hat, which had descended the steps of the house, moved lightly across the lawns — and vanished. He guessed, however, whither she was bound. He knew that she had a liking for walking in the wilderness behind the house; a beech wood which was already beginning to put on its autumn glory. And sure enough, hastening to a point among the smooth grey trunks where three paths met, he discerned her a hundred paces away, walking slowly from him with her eyes raised.
“Squirrels!” Flixton thought. And he made up his mind to bring the terriers and have a hunt on the following Sunday afternoon. In the meantime he had another quarry in view, and he made after the white-gowned figure.
She heard his tread on the carpet of dry beech leaves, and she turned and saw him. She had come out on purpose that she might be alone, at liberty to think at her ease and orientate herself, in relation to her new environment, and the fresh and astonishing views which were continually opening before her. Or, perhaps, that was but her pretext: an easy explanation of silence and solitude, which might suffice for her father and possibly for Miss Sibson. For, for certain, amid sombre thoughts of her mother, she thought more often and more sombrely in these days of another; of happiness which had been forfeited by her own act; of weakness, and cowardice, and ingratitude; of a man’s head that stooped to her adorably, and then again of a man’s eyes that burned her with contempt.
It is probable, therefore, that she was not overjoyed when she saw Mr. Flixton. But Sir Robert was so far right in his estimate of her nature that she hated to give pain. It was there, perhaps, that she was weak. And so, seeing the Honourable Bob, she smiled pleasantly on him.
“You have discovered a favourite haunt of mine,” she said. She did not add that she spent a few minutes of every day there: that the smooth beech-trunks knew the touch of her burning cheeks, and the rustle of the falling leaves the whisper of her penitence. Daily she returned by way of the Kennel Path and there breathed a prayer for her mother, where a mother’s arms had first enfolded her, and a mother’s kisses won her love. What she did add was, “I often come here.”
“I know you do,” the Honourable Bob answered, with a look of admiration. “I assure you, Miss Mary, I could astonish you with the things I know about you!”
“Really!”
“Oh, yes. Really.”
There was a significant chuckle in his voice which brought the blood to her check. But she was determined to ignore its meaning. “You are observant?” she said.
“Of those — yes, by Jove, I am — of those, I — admire,” he rejoined. He had it on his tongue to say “those I love,” but she turned her eyes on him at the critical moment, and though he was doing a thing he had often done, and he had impudence enough, his tongue failed him. There are women so naturally modest that until the one man who awakens the heart appears, it seems an outrage to speak to them of love. Mary Vermuyden, perhaps by reason of her bringing up, was one of these; and though Flixton had had little to do with women of her kind, he recognised the fact and bowed to it. He came, having her father’s leave to speak to her; yet he found himself less at his ease, than on many a less legitimate occasion. “Yes, by Jove,” he repeated. “I observe them, I can tell you.”
Mary laughed. “Some are more quick to notice than others,” she said.
“And to notice some than others!” he rejoined, gallantly. “That is what I mean. Now that old girl who is with you — —”
“Miss Sibson?” Mary said, setting him right with some stiffness.
“Yes! Well, she isn’t young! Anyway, you don’t suppose I could say what she wore yesterday! But what you wore, Miss Mary” — trying to catch her eye and ogle her— “ah, couldn’t I! But then you don’t wear powder on your nose, nor need it!”
“I don’t wear it,” she said, laughing in spite of herself. “But you don’t know what I may do some day! And for Miss Sibson, it does not matter, Mr. Flixton, what she wears. She has one of the kindest hearts, and was one of the kindest friends I had — or could have had — when things were different with me.”
“Oh, yes, good old girl,” he rejoined, “but snubby! Bitten my nose off two or three times, I know. And, come now, not quite an angel, you know, Miss Mary!”
“Well,” she replied, smiling, “she is not, perhaps, an angel to look at. But — —”
“She can’t be! For she is not like you!” he cried. “And you are one, Miss Mary! You are the angel for me!” looking at her with impassioned eyes. “I’ll never want another nor ask to see one!”
His look frightened her; she began to think he meant — something. And she took a new way with him. “How singular it is,” she said, thoughtfully, “that people say those things in society! Because they sound so very silly to one who has not lived in your world!”
“Silly!” Flixton replied, in a tone of mortification; and for a moment he felt the check. He was really in love, to a moderate extent; and on the way to be more deeply in love were he thwarted. Therefore he was, to a moderate extent, afraid of her. And, “Silly?” he repeated. “Oh, but I mean it, so help me! I do, indeed! It’s not silly to call you an angel, for I swear you are as beautiful as one! That’s true, anyway!”
“How many have you seen?” she asked, ridiculing him. “And what coloured wings had they?” But her cheek was hot. “Don’t say, if you please,” she continued, before he could speak, “that you’ve seen me. Because that is only saying over again what you’ve said, Mr. Flixton. And that is worse than silly. It is dull.”
“Miss Mary,” he cried, pathetically, “you don’t understand me! I want to assure you — I want to make you understand — —”
“Hush!” she said, cutting him short, in an earnest whisper. And, halting, she extended a hand behind her to stay him. “Please don’t speak!” she continued. “Do you see them, the beauties? Flying round and round the tree after one another faster than your eyes can follow them. One, two, three — three squirrels! I never saw one, do you know, until I came here,” she went on, in a tone of hushed rapture. “And until now I never saw them at play. Oh, who could harm them?”
He stood behind her, biting his lip with vexation; and wholly untouched by the scene, which, whether her raptures were feigned or not, was warrant for them. Hitherto he had had to do with women who met him halfway; who bridled at a compliment, were alive to an équivoque, and knew how to simulate, if they did not feel, a soft confusion under his gaze. For this reason Mary’s backwardness, her apparent unconsciousness that they were not friends of the same sex, puzzled him, nay, angered him. As she stood before him, a hand still extended to check his advance, the sunshine which filtered through the beech leaves cast a soft radiance on her figure. She seemed more dainty, more graceful, more virginal than aught that he had ever conceived. It was in vain that he told himself, with irritation, that she was but a girl after all. That, under her aloofness, she was a woman like the others, as vain, passionate, flighty, as jealous as other women. He knew that he stood in awe of her. He knew that the words which he had uttered so lightly many a time — ay, and to those to whom he had no right to address them — stuck in his throat now. He wanted to say “I love you!” and he had the right to say it, he was commissioned to say it. Yet he was dumb. All the boldness which he had exhibited in her presence in Queen’s Square — where another had stood tongue-tied — was gone.
He took at last a desperate step. The girl was within arm’s reach of him; her delicate waist, the creamy white of her slender neck, invited him. Be she never so innocent, never so maidenly, a kiss, he told himself, would awaken her. It was his experience, it was a scrap drawn from his store of worldly wisdom, that a woman kissed was a woman won.
True, as he thought of it, his heart began to riot, as it had not rioted from that cause since he had kissed the tobacconist’s daughter at Exeter, his first essay in gallantry. But onl
y the bold deserve the fair! And how often had he boasted that, where women were concerned, lips were made for other things than talking!
And — in a moment it was done.
Twice! Then she slipped from his grasp, and stood at bay, with flaming checks and eyes that — that had certainly not ceased to be virginal. “You! You!” she cried, barely able to articulate. “Don’t touch me!”
She had been taken utterly, wholly by surprise; and the shock was immensely increased by the facts of her bringing up and the restraints and conditions of school-life. In his grasp, with his breath on her cheek, all those notions about ravening wolves and the danger which attached to beauty in low places — notions no longer applicable, had she taken time to reason — returned upon her in force. The man had kissed her!
“How — how dare you?” she continued, trembling with rage and indignation.
“But your father — —”
“How dare you — —”
“Your father sent me,” he pleaded, quite crestfallen. “He gave me leave — —”
She stared at him, as at a madman. “To insult me?” she cried.
“No, but — but you won’t understand!” he answered, almost querulously. He was quite chapfallen. “You don’t listen to me. I want to marry you. I want you to be my wife. Your father said I might come to you, and — and ask you. And — and you’ll say ‘Yes,’ won’t you? That’s a good girl!”
“Never!” she answered.
He stared at her, turning red. “Oh, nonsense!” he stammered. And he made as if he would go nearer. “You don’t mean it. My dear girl! Listen to me! I do love you! I do indeed! And I — I tell you what it is, I never loved any woman — —”
But she looked at him in such a way that he could not go on. “Do not say those things!” she said. And her austerity was terrible to him. “And go, if you please. My father, if he sent you to me — —”
“He did!”
“Then he did not,” she replied with dignity, “understand my feelings.”
“But — but you must marry someone,” he complained. “You know — you’re making a great fuss about nothing!”
“Nothing!” she cried, her eyes sparkling. “You insult me, Mr. Flixton, and — —”
“If a man may not kiss the girl he wants to marry — —”
“If she does not want to marry him?”
“But it’s not as bad as that,” he pleaded. “No, by Jove, it’s not. You’ll not be so cruel. Come, Miss Mary, listen to me a minute. You must marry someone, you know. You are young, and I’m sure you have the right to choose — —”
“I’ve heard enough,” she struck in, interrupting him with something of Sir Robert’s hauteur. “I understand now what you meant, and I forgive you. But I can never be anything to you, Mr. Flixton — —”
“You can be everything to me,” he declared. It couldn’t, it really couldn’t be that she meant to refuse him! Finally and altogether!
“But you can be nothing to me!” she answered, cruelly — very cruelly for her, but her cheek was tingling. “Nothing! Nothing! And that being so, I beg that you will leave me now.”
He looked at her with a mixture of supplication, resentment, chagrin.
But she showed no sign of relenting. “You really — you really do mean it?” he muttered, with a sickly smile. “Come, Miss Mary!”
“Don’t! Don’t!” she cried, as if his words pained her. And that was all. “Please go! Or I shall go.”
The Honourable Bob’s conceit had been so far taken out of him that he felt that he could make no farther fight. He could see no sign of relenting, and feeling that, with all his experience, he had played his cards ill, he turned away sullenly. “Oh, I will go,” he said. And he longed to add something witty and careless. But he could not add anything. He, Bob Flixton, the hero of so many bonnes fortunes, to be refused! He had laid his all, and pour le ban motif at the feet of a girl who but yesterday was a little schoolmistress. And she had refused him! It was incredible! But, alas, it was also fact.
Mary, the moment his back was turned, hurried with downcast face towards the Kennels; to hide her hot cheeks and calm her feelings in the depths of the shrubbery. Oddly enough, her first thoughts were less of that which had just happened to her than of that suit which had been paid to her months before. This man might love her or not; she could not tell. But Arthur Vaughan had loved her: the fashion of this love taught her to prize the fashion of that.
He had loved her. And if he had treated her as Mr. Flixton had treated her? Would she have held to him, she wondered. She believed that she would. But the mere thought set her knees trembling, made her cheeks flame afresh, filled her with rapture. So that, shamefaced, frightened, glancing this way and that, as one hunted, she longed to be safe in her room, there to cry at her ease.
Doubtless it was natural that the incident should turn her thoughts to that other love-making; and presently to her father’s furious dislike of that other lover. She could not understand that dislike; for the Bill and the Borough, Franchise or No Franchise, were nothing to her. And the grievance, when Sir Robert had essayed to explain it, had been nothing. To her mind, Trafalgar and Waterloo and the greatness of England were the work of Nelson and Wellington — at the remotest, perhaps, of Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh. She could not enter into the reasoning which attributed these and all other blessings of her country to a System! To a System which it seemed her lover was pledged to overthrow.
She walked until the tumult of her thoughts had somewhat abated; and then, still yearning for the security of her own chamber, she made for the house. She saw nothing of Flixton, no one was stirring. Already she thought herself safe; and it was the very spirit of mischief which brought her, at the corner of the church, face to face with her father. Sir Robert’s brow was clouded, and the “My dear, one moment,” with which he stayed her, was pitched in a more decisive tone than he commonly used to her.
“I wish to speak to you, Mary,” he continued. “Will you come with me to the library?”
She would fain have postponed the discussion of Mr. Flixton’s proposal, which she foresaw. But her father, affectionate and gentle as he was, was still unfamiliar; and she had not the courage to make her petition. So she accompanied him, with a sinking heart, to the library. And, when he pointed to a seat, she was glad to sit down.
He took up his own position on the hearth rug; whence he looked at her gravely before he spoke. At length:
“My dear,” he said, “I’m sorry for this! Though I do not blame you. I think that you do not understand, owing to those drawbacks of your early life, which have otherwise, thank God, left so slight a mark upon you, that there are things which at your time of life you must leave to — to the decision of your elders.”
She looked at him. And there was not that complete docility in her look which he expected to find. “I don’t think I understand, sir,” she murmured.
“But you can easily understand this, Mary,” he replied. “That young girls of your age, without experience of life or of — of the darker side of things, cannot be allowed to judge for themselves on all occasions. There are sometimes circumstances to be weighed which it is not possible to detail to them.”
She closed her eyes for an instant, to collect her thoughts.
“But — but, sir,” she said, “you cannot wish me to have no will — no choice — in a matter which affects me so nearly.”
“No,” he said, speaking seriously and with something approaching sternness. “But that will and that choice must be guided. They should be guided. Your feelings are natural — God forbid that I should think them otherwise! But you must leave the decision to me.”
She looked at him, aghast. She had heard, but had never believed, that in the upper classes matches were arranged after this fashion. But to have no will and no choice in such a thing as marriage! She must be dreaming.
“You cannot,” he continued, looking at her firmly but not unkindly, “have either the knowledge
of the past,” with a slight grimace, as of pain, “or the experience needful to enable you to measure the result of the step you take. You must, therefore, let your seniors decide for you.”
“But I could never — never,” she answered, with a deep blush, “marry a man without — liking him, sir.”
“Marry?” Sir Robert repeated. He stared at her.
She returned the look. “I thought, sir,” she faltered, with a still deeper blush, “that you were talking of that.”
“My dear,” he said, gravely, “I am referring to the subject on which I understood that you requested Miss Sibson to speak to me.”
“My mother?” she whispered, the colour fading quickly from her face.
He paused a moment. Then, “You would oblige me,” he said, slowly and formally, “by calling her Lady Sybil Vermuyden. And not — that.”
“But she is — my mother,” she persisted.
He looked at her, his head slightly bowed, his lower lip thrust out. “Listen,” he said, with decision. “What you propose — to go to her, I mean — is impossible. Impossible, you understand. There must be an end of any thought of it!” His tone was cold, but not unkind. “The thing must not be mentioned again, if you please,” he added.
She was silent a while. Then, “Why, sir?” she asked. She spoke tremulously, and with an effort. But he had not expected her to speak at all.
Yet he merely continued, as he stood on the hearth rug, to look at her askance. “That is for me,” he said, “to decide.”
“But — —”
“But I will tell you,” he said, stiffly. “Because she has already ruined part of your life!”
“I forgive her, from my heart!” Mary cried.
“And ruined, also,” he continued, putting the interruption aside, “a great part of mine. At your age I do not think fit to tell you — all. It is enough, that she has robbed me of you, and deceived me. Deceived me,” he repeated, more bitterly, “through long years when you, my daughter, might have been my comfort and—” he ended, almost inaudibly, “my joy.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 532
