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                       THE MYSTERY of BLENCARROW


                                  BY

                            MRS. OLIPHANT.


                               CHICAGO:
                       DONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & CO.
                         407-425 DEARBORN ST.




                                  THE

                      MYSTERY OF MRS. BLENCARROW.




CHAPTER I.

THE BLENCARROW HOUSEHOLD.


The house of Blencarrow, which, without being one of the great houses of
the county, was as comfortable and handsome as a country gentleman not
exactly of the highest importance could desire, stood in a pretty little
park of its own, by the side of a bright little mountain river, either
in Cumberland or Westmoreland or North Lancashire--for the boundaries
of these counties are to me somewhat confused, and I cannot aver where
one ends and another begins. It was built, as is not unusual in
North-country houses, on the slope of a hill, so that the principal
rooms, which were on a level with the great entrance, were on the other
side elevated by at least one lofty story from the flower-garden which
surrounded the house. The windows of the drawing-room commanded thus a
delightful view over a finely diversified country, ending in the far
distance in a glimpse of water with a range of blue hills behind, which
was one of the great lakes of that beautiful district. When sun or moon
caught this distant lake, which it did periodically at certain times of
the day and night, according to the season, it flashed suddenly into
life, like one of those new signals of science by which the sun himself
is made to interpret between man and man. In the foreground the trees of
the park clustered over the glimpses of the lively North-country river,
which, sometimes shallow and showing all its pebbles, some times
deepening into a pool, ran cheerfully by towards the lake. To the right,
scarcely visible save when the trees were bare in winter, the red roofs
of the little post-town, a mile and a half away, appeared in the
distance with a pleasant sense of neighbourhood. But the scenery, after
all, was not so interesting as the people inside.

They were, however, a very innocent, very simple, and unexciting group
of country people. Mrs. Blencarrow had been a widow for five or six
years, having lived there for some dozen years before, the most beloved
of wives. She was not a native of the district, but had come from the
South, a beautiful girl, to whom her husband, who was a plain gentleman
of simple character and manners, could never be sufficiently grateful
for having married him. The ladies of the district thought this
sentiment exaggerated, but everybody acknowledged that Mrs. Blencarrow
made him an excellent wife. When he died he had left everything in her
hands--the entire guardianship of the children, untrammelled by any
joint authority save that of her own brothers, whose names were put in
the will as a matter of form, and without any idea that they would ever
take upon them to interfere. There were five children, the eldest of
whom was a slim girl of sixteen, very gentle and quiet, and not very
strong; two boys of fourteen and twelve, at school; and two little
ones, aged eight and nine respectively. They lived a very pleasant,
well-cared-for, happy life. Mrs. Blencarrow’s means, if not very large,
were comfortable enough. The house was handsomely _montée_, the children
had everything they could desire; the gloom of her first widowhood had
been over for some time, and she ‘saw her friends’ like any other lady
in the county, giving very pleasant dinner-parties, and even dances when
the boys were at home for their holidays--dances, perhaps, all the more
gay and easy because the children had a large share in them, and a
gentle license prevailed--the freedom of innocence and extreme youth.

It is not to be supposed, when I say this, that anything which could in
the remotest degree be called ‘fast’ was in these assemblies. Indeed,
the very word had not been invented in those days, and Mrs. Blencarrow
was herself an impersonation of womanly dignity. The country-people were
even a little afraid of her, if truth must be told. Without being stiff
or prudish, there was a little air she had, at the faintest shade of
impropriety, which scared an offender more than denunciation. She had a
determined objection to scandal, even to gossip, and looked coldly upon
flirtation, which was not then a recognised pastime as it is now.
Nothing ever filled the neighbours with greater consternation than when
a passing visitor from London, seeing Mrs. Blencarrow for the first
time, declared that she was a woman who looked as if she had a history.

A history! When people say that, they do not mean anything noble or
saintly; what it means is scandal, something that has been talked about.
There was a general cry, which overwhelmed the unwary stranger. Mrs.
Blencarrow a history! Yes, the very best history a woman can have--the
record of a blameless life.

‘Nevertheless,’ said the unfortunate man, ‘there is something in her
eyes----’

‘Oh yes, there is everything that is good in her eyes,’ said Lady
Tremayne, who was young and enthusiastic, a sentiment in which most of
the others agreed. At a later period, however, Mrs. Bircham, of The
Leas, shook her head a little and said, ‘Now that one thinks of it,
there is something curious in Mrs. Blencarrow’s eyes.’

‘They are very fine eyes, if that is what you mean.’

‘No; that is not what I mean. She looks you too full in the face with
them, as if she were defying you to find out anything wrong about her.
Now, when there is nothing wrong to find out, a woman has no occasion to
defy you.’

‘It must be a strange kind of wrong that has not been found out in
eighteen years.’

‘Well, it might have happened before she was married--before she came
here at all; and when you know that there is something, however long the
time may be, you never can forget it, don’t you know,’ said Mrs.
Bircham, shaking her head.

‘You seem to speak from experience, my dear,’ said her husband.

‘No; I don’t speak from experience,’ cried the lady, growing red; ‘but I
have seen a great many things in my time. I have seen so many fine
reputations collapse, and so many people pulled down from their
pedestals.’

‘And helped to do it, perhaps,’ said Lady Tremayne. But she made the
observation in an aside, for no one liked to encounter Mrs. Bircham’s
enmity and power of speech. She was one of those people who can develop
a great matter from a small one, and smell out a piece of gossip at any
distance; and a seed of this description sown in her mind never died.
She was not, as it happened, particularly happy in her surroundings.
Though she was irreproachable herself, there was no lack of histories in
the Bircham family, and Kitty, her second daughter, was one of the
little flirts whose proceedings Mrs. Blencarrow so much disapproved.
Mrs. Bircham was often herself very angry with Kitty, but by a common
maternal instinct could not endure to hear from another any echo of the
same reproof which she administered freely.

Mrs. Blencarrow was, however, entirely unaware of this arrow shot into
the air. She was still, though approaching forty, as handsome as at any
period of her career, with all the additional charms of experience and
understanding added to the still unbroken perfection of her features and
figure. She was tall and pale, with large gray eyes, singularly clear
and lustrous, which met every gaze with a full look, sometimes very
imposing, and which always conveyed an impression of pride and reserve
in the midst of their full and brave response to every questioning eye.
Mrs. Bircham, who was not without discrimination, had indeed made a
very fair hit in her description of her neighbour’s look. Sometimes
those proud and steadfast eyes would be overbearing--haughty in their
putting down of every impertinent glance. She had little colour
habitually, but was subject to sudden flushes whenever her mind or
feelings were affected, which wonderfully changed the character of her
face, and came and went like the wind. She dressed always with a rich
sobriety, in black or subdued colours--tones of violet and gray--never
quite forgetting her widowhood, her friends thought, though always
cheerful, as a woman with a family of children is bound for their sakes
to be. She was an excellent woman of business, managing her estate with
the aid of a sort of half-steward, half-agent, a young man brought up
by her husband and specially commended to her by his dying lips. People
said, when they discussed Mrs. Blencarrow’s affairs, as the affairs of
women and widows are always discussed, that it would have been better
for her to have had a more experienced and better instructed man as
steward, who would have taken the work entirely off her hands--for young
Brown was not at all a person of education; but her devotion to her
husband’s recommendation was such that she would hear of no change. And
the young fellow on his side was so completely devoted to the family, so
grateful for all that had been done for him, so absolutely trustworthy,
that the wisest concluded on the whole that she was doing the best for
her son’s interests in keeping Brown, who lived in the house, but in
quite an humble way--one of the wisest points in Mrs. Blencarrow’s
treatment of him being that she never attempted to bring him out of his
own sphere.

Besides Brown, her household included a governess, Miss Trimmer, who
bore most appropriately that old-fashioned educational name; and an old
housekeeper, who had been there in the time of Mrs. Blencarrow’s
mother-in-law, and who had seen her late master born--an old lady always
in a brown silk dress, who conferred additional respectability on the
household, and who was immensely considered and believed in. She came
next to their mother in the affections of all the children. It was a
very harmonious, well-ordered house, ringing with pleasant noise and
nonsense when the boys came home, quiet at other times, though never
quite without the happy sound of children, save when the two little
ones, Minnie and Jimmy, were out of the way. As for Emmy, the eldest,
she was so quiet that scarcely any sound of her ever came into the
house.

Such was the house of Blencarrow on a certain Christmas when the boys
had come home as usual for their holidays. They came back in the highest
spirits, determined that this should be the jolliest Christmas that ever
was. The word ‘jolly,’ as applied to everything that is pleasant, had
just come into use at school--I doubt even whether it had progressed
into ‘awfully jolly.’ It sounded still very piquant in the ears of the
youngsters, and still was reproved (‘Don’t be always using that dreadful
word!’) by mothers; the girls were still shy of using it at all. It was
Reginald who declared it to be the jolliest Christmas that ever had
been. The weather was mild and open, good for hunting, and the boys had
some excellent runs; though all idea of frost and skating had to be
given up. They were pleased with their own prowess and with everybody
and everything round them, and prepared to act their part with grace and
_bonhomie_--Reginald as master of the house, Bertie as his lieutenant
and henchman--at the great ball which was to be given at Blencarrow on
Christmas Eve.

The house was quite full for this great ceremonial. At Christmas the
mixture of babes and grown-up young ladies and gentlemen is more easily
made than at any other time of the year. The children mustered very
strong. Those who were too far off to drive home that evening were with
their parents staying at Blencarrow, and every available corner was
filled. The house was illuminated all over; every passage and every
sitting-room open to the bands of invaders--the little ones who played
and the older ones who flirted--and the company was in the fullest tide
of enjoyment, when the little incident occurred which I am about to
record.

Mrs. Blencarrow had never looked better in her life. She wore a new gray
velvet dress, long and sweeping, without any of the furbelows of the
time, which would not have suited the heavy material nor her own
admirable figure. It was open a little at the throat, with beautiful
lace surrounding the fine warm whiteness. Her hair was worn higher than
was usual at the time, in a fashion of her own, and fastened with
diamond stars. The children were very proud of their mother. She was
like a lady out of a book, said Emmy, who was a romantic girl. Reginald
felt himself more grand than words can say when he stood up beside her
at the door to receive the guests. Her eyes were something like her
diamonds--full of light; and she met every glance more proudly than
ever, with that direct look which some people thought so candid and
open, and Mrs. Bircham believed to be a defiance to all the world to
find out something that was not right. There was nothing, certainly, to
find out in that open house, where every stranger might penetrate into
every corner and welcome. Mrs. Blencarrow was a little pale, but now and
then her countenance would be covered by one of those sudden flushes of
emotion which made her radiant. She put one hand on Reginald’s shoulder
with a proud gesture, as though he were supporting her as she stood at
the door welcoming everybody; and the boy drew himself up to his fullest
height, trying to look twenty. He shook hands with everyone in the most
anxious, hospitable way. Never was the part of master of the house more
thoroughly played; and thus, with every expectation of pleasure, the
ball began.




CHAPTER II.

‘IS IT YOU?’


Kitty Bircham had been a flirt almost from the time she could speak; but
even to a flirt Fate sometimes comes in the midst of her frivolity, as
well as to the simplest girl. She had played with so many hearts without
being the worse for it, that it was the greatest surprise to herself, as
well as to her mother and interested friends, to find that at last this
little witch was herself caught. I need not say that the man was the
last person whom, in her sober senses, Kitty would have chosen, or any
of her family consented to. Man! He was not even a man, but a boy--only
two or three years older than herself--a young fellow who had to go
through one of those ordeals, quite new-fangled then--things which
nobody understood--an examination for an appointment; and who had
nothing in the world but the prospect of that, a prospect daily becoming
less probable since he and she had fallen in love with each other. They
were neither of them of that high strain which is stimulated by love.
They had not force of mind to think that every day which was spent in
love-making, quarrelling and folly made it less easy for Walter Lawrence
to work the next, or to work at all; and that without work he was as
little likely to pass his examination as to fly; and that if he did not
pass that examination they could not marry.

Both of these young fools knew all this perfectly well, but the
knowledge made no difference in their behaviour. When he was not running
after her by his own impulse, which was generally the case, Kitty used
all her wiles to draw him away from his books, sending him notes, making
appointments, inventing ways and means of meeting. His mother made
appeals to him with tears in her eyes, and almost cursed the girl who
was making her boy lose all his chances; and _her_ mother made Kitty’s
life a burden, asking her how she intended to live, and whether she
meant to support her husband by her needlework (at which everybody knew
she was so clever!), by taking in washing, or by what?--since he neither
had a penny nor would ever be able to make one for himself. This
discipline on both sides naturally threw these foolish young people
more and more into each other’s arms, and the domestic discomforts
became so great that it at last became apparent to both that there was
nothing for it but to run away.

‘When we are married they will see that it is no use making a fuss,’
Walter said to Kitty. ‘They will acknowledge that once it is done it
can’t be undone.’

‘And they _must_ lay their heads together and get you a post, or give us
something to live on,’ said Kitty to Walter.

‘They will never let us starve,’ said he ‘after.’

‘And they will never give us any peace,’ said she, ‘before.’

So that they were in perfect accord so far as the theory went. But they
hesitated to take that tremendous step; their minds were made up, and
it was a delicious subject of conversation during the hours which they
daily spent together; but neither of them as yet had quite screwed up
courage to the sticking-point.

This was the state of affairs on the evening of the Blencarrow ball. It
had happened to both to be unusually tried during that day. Kitty had
been scolded by her mother till she did not know, as she said, ‘whether
she was standing on her head or her heels.’ Her uncle, who had come from
a distant part of the country for Christmas, had been invited to
remonstrate with her on her folly. Papa had not said anything, but he
had been so snappish that she had not known what to do to please
him--papa, who usually stood by her under all circumstances. And Uncle
John! Kitty felt that she could not bear such another day. Walter, on
his side, had again had a scene with his mother, who had threatened to
speak to her trustees, that they might speak to Walter to show him his
duty, since he would not listen to her.

It was some time before this suffering pair could get within reach of
each other to pour out their several plaints. Kitty had first to dance
with half a dozen uninteresting people, and to be brought back demurely
to Mrs. Bircham’s side at the end of every tedious dance; and Walter had
to ask a corresponding number of young ladies before a happy chance
brought them together out of sight of Mrs. Bircham and Mrs. Lawrence,
who were both watching with the most anxious eyes. Kitty could not even
lose time dancing when they had thus met.

‘Oh, I have a dozen things to tell you!’ she said; ‘I must tell you, or
I shall die.’

They went into the conservatory, but there were some people there, and
into room after room, without finding a solitary corner. It was in the
hall that the dance was going on. The servants were preparing the
supper-table in the dining-room. The library was being used by the elder
people (horrid elder people, always getting in one’s way, who had no
feeling at all!) for their horrid cards. The morning-room was given up
to tea. People, _i.e._, other young pairs, were seated on the stairs and
in every available corner.

‘Oh, come down here; there is nobody here,’ said Kitty, drawing her
lover to the staircase at the end of a long passage which led down to
the lower part of the house.

Both of them knew the house thoroughly, as country neighbours do. They
had been all over it when they were children, and knew the way down into
the flower-garden, and even the private door at the back, by which
tenants and petitioners were admitted to Mrs. Blencarrow’s
business-room. The lights were dim in these deserted regions; there was
perfect silence and quiet--no other couples to push against, no spying
servants nor reproachful seniors. The young pair hurried down the long
stairs, feeling the cold of the empty passage grateful and pleasant.

‘The old dining-room is the nicest place,’ said Kitty, leading the way.
This room was in the front of the house under the drawing-room, and
looked out upon the lawn and flower-beds. It was part of the older
house, which had served all the purposes of the Blencarrows in the days
when people had not so many wants as now. There was no light in it
except a faint glimmer from the fire. The shutters had not been closed,
and the moon looked in through the branches of the leafless trees. The
two lovers went in with a rush and sat down with quiet satisfaction upon
a sofa just within the door.

‘Nobody will disturb us here,’ whispered Kitty with a sigh of
satisfaction. ‘We can stay as long as we like here.’

They were both out of breath from their rush; and to find themselves
alone in the dark, and in a place where they had no right to be, was
delightful. They sat quiet for a moment, leaning against each other
recovering their breath, and then there happened something which,
notwithstanding Kitty’s intense preoccupation with her own affairs, gave
her such a prick of still more vivid curiosity as roused every sense and
faculty in her. She became all ear and all observation in a moment.
There was a soft sound as of a door opening on the other side of the
room--the side that was in the shade--and then after a moment a voice
asked, ‘Is it you?’

Walter (the idiot) suppressed with pain a giggle, and only suppressed it
because Kitty flung herself upon him, putting one hand upon his mouth
and clutching his coat with the other to keep him quiet. She held her
breath and became noiseless as a mouse--as a kitten in the moment before
a spring. The voice was a man’s voice, with something threatening in
its tone.

‘How long do you think this is going to last?’ he said.

Oh, what a foolish thing a boy is! Walter shook with laughter, while she
listened as if for life and death.

Then there was a pause. Again the voice asked anxiously, ‘Is it
you?’--another pause, and then the soft closing of the door more
cautiously than it had been opened.

Walter rose up from the sofa as soon as the door was shut. ‘I must get
my laugh out,’ he whispered, sweeping Kitty out into the passage. Oh,
that foolish, foolish boy! As if it were a laughing matter! A man, a
stranger, asking somebody how long ‘this’ was to last! How long what was
to last? And who could he be?

‘Oh, Wat, you might have stayed a moment!’ Kitty said, exasperated; ‘you
might have kept quiet! Perhaps he would have said something more. Who
could he be?’

‘It is no business of ours,’ said Walter; ‘one of the servants, I
suppose. Let’s go upstairs again, Kitty. We have no business here.’

‘Oh, don’t be so silly,’ cried Kitty; ‘we must find a quiet place, for
I’ve scores of things to tell you. There is a room at the other end with
a light in it. Let us go there.’

Their footsteps sounded upon the stone passage, and Kitty’s dress
rustled--there could be no eavesdropping possible there. She went on a
step in front of him and pushed open a door which was ajar; then Kitty
gave a little shriek and fell back, but too late. Mrs. Blencarrow, in
all her splendour for the ball, was standing before the fire. It was a
plainly-furnished room, with a large writing-table in it, and shelves
containing account books and papers--the business-room, where nobody
except the tenants and the workpeople ever came in. To see her standing
there, with all her diamonds flashing in the dimness, was the strangest
sight.

‘Who is there?’ she cried, with an angry voice; then, ‘Kitty! What are
you doing here?’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Blencarrow. We did not know what room it
was. We couldn’t find a cool place. Indeed,’ said Kitty, recovering her
courage, ‘we couldn’t find a place at all, there is such a crowd--and we
thought the house was all open to-night, and that we might come
downstairs.’

Mrs. Blencarrow looked at them both with the fullest straight look of
those eyes, whose candour was sometimes thought to mean defiance. ‘I
think,’ she said, ‘that though the house is all open to-night, Walter
and you should not make yourselves remarkable by stealing away together.
I ought, perhaps, to tell your mother.’

‘Oh, don’t, Mrs. Blencarrow!’

‘It is very foolish of you both.’

‘It was my fault, Mrs. Blencarrow. Don’t let Kitty be blamed. I
remembered the old way into the garden.’

‘I hope you did not intend to go into the garden this cold night. Run
upstairs at once, you foolish children!’ She hesitated a moment, and
then said, with one of her sudden blushes dyeing her countenance: ‘I
have got a bad headache; the music is a little too loud. I came down
here for a moment’s quiet, and to get some eau de Cologne.’

‘Dear Mrs. Blencarrow,’ cried Kitty, too much unnerved for the moment to
make any comments upon the lady’s look or manner, ‘don’t please say
anything to mamma.’

Mrs. Blencarrow shook her head at them, looking from one to another,
which meant gentle reproof of their foolishness, but then nodded an
assent to Kitty’s prayer. But she pointed to the door at the same time,
rather impatiently, as if she wanted to be rid of them; and, glad to
escape so easily, they hastened away. Kitty felt the relief of having
escaped so strongly that she never even asked herself why Mrs.
Blencarrow should come down to the business-room in the middle of a
ball, or if that was a likely place to find eau de Cologne. She thought
of nothing (for the moment) but that she had got off rather well from
what might have been an embarrassing situation.

‘I don’t think she’ll tell on us,’ Kitty said, with a long-drawn breath.

‘I am sure she will not,’ said Walter, as they ran up the long stone
flight of stairs, and came back to the sound of music and dancing.

Mrs. Bircham had just broken the monotony of a chaperon’s vigil by
taking a cup of tea. She was issuing forth from the door of the tea-room
upon the arm of one of those portly old gentlemen who are there for the
purpose, when Kitty, breathless with haste, pushing Walter along in
front of her, suddenly came within her mother’s view.

That mother’s side Kitty did not again leave, save for the brief limits
of a dance, all the evening. She read in the glance with which she was
regarded from time to time the lecture that was in store for her.
Indeed, she knew it all by heart; there was no novelty in it for Kitty.
She gave Walter a despairing look as he passed her by, and they had time
for a moment’s whisper as to the spot where they must meet to-morrow;
for all that she had intended to confide to him lay still in Kitty’s
heart unrevealed, and she began to feel that affairs had come to a
crisis which demanded action at last.




CHAPTER III

AN ELOPEMENT.


The ball was the most brilliant and the most successful that ever had
been at Blencarrow, and nothing was wanting to make it intoxicating and
delightful to the boys, whose every whim had been thought of and all
their partialities taken into account. Mrs. Blencarrow was perfect as a
mother. She gave the young heir his place without showing any
partiality, or making Bertie one whit less the beloved and favoured son
of the house; and no one could say that she spoilt either of them,
though she considered their every wish. They were as obedient and
respectful as if they had been held within the severest discipline, and
yet how they were indulged!

When everybody was preparing to go in to supper, Mrs. Blencarrow called
Reginald to her in sight of all the crowd. She said to him, ‘I think you
may go and fetch your friend Brown to supper, Rex. He will like to come
to supper; but I am sure he will be too shy unless you go and fetch
him.’

‘Oh, may I, mamma?’ said the boy.

He was enchanted with the commission. Brown was the young steward--Mrs.
Blencarrow’s chief assistant in the management of the estate--the young
fellow whom her husband recommended to her on his death-bed. The group
which gathered round Mrs. Blencarrow, ready for the procession in to
supper, thought this was the most charming way of acknowledging the
claims of Brown. To have brought him to the dance would have been out of
place; he would have felt himself out of it. He could not have ventured
to ask anybody to dance, and to look on while you are young is dull
work. But to ask him to supper was just the right compromise. The old
gentlemen promised to themselves that they would notice Brown; they
would ask him to drink a glass of wine (which was the custom then); they
would show him that they approved of a young man who did such excellent
work and knew his place so well.

It must be allowed that when he came, triumphantly led by Reginald, with
Bertie dancing in front of him (‘Oh, come along, Brown; mamma says
you’re to come to supper. Come along, Brown; here is a place for you’),
his looks did not conciliate these country gentlemen. He was a handsome
young man in a rather rough way, with that look of watchful suspicion so
often to be seen on the face of a man who is afraid of being
condescended to by his superiors. He was in a sort of evening dress, as
if he had been prepared for the invitation, with a doubtful coat of
which it was difficult to say whether it was a morning coat of peculiar
cut, or an old-fashioned one for evening use. He yielded unwillingly, it
seemed, to the encouragements of the boys, and he was placed far down at
the other end of the table, among the children and the youngest of the
grown-up party, where he was totally out of place. Had he been near the
other end, where the honest country gentlemen were, quite prepared to
notice and take wine with him, Brown would have been more at his ease.
He cast one glance at his mistress as he passed, a look which was
gloomy, reproachful, almost defiant. Scotch peasant faces get that look
sometimes without any bad meaning, and Cumberland faces are very like
the Scotch. He was no doubt upbraiding her for having forced him to
appear at all.

At last it was all over, the last carriage rolling away, the last sleepy
group of visitors sent to bed. Mrs. Blencarrow stood on her own hearth,
leaning her head on the marble mantelpiece, looking down into the fire.
She had been very gay to the last, smiling upon her guests; but her face
when in perfect repose, and in the ease of solitude, no one near to spy
upon it, was very different. Anxiety and trouble came into every line of
her fine pale features. She changed her attitude after awhile, and
looked straight into the darkness of the great mirror, behind the clock
and the candelabra which stood in front of it. She looked into her own
face with a determined, steady look, her eyes opened widely. She seemed
to ask herself what she should do, but shook her head afterwards with a
vague, sad smile. The mirror repeated all these changes of countenance,
but gave no counsel. Someone came into the room at this moment, which
made her start. It was one of the ladies staying in the house, who had
forgotten something, and come back to fetch it.

‘Not gone to bed yet?’ she said.

‘No,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow; ‘after a business of this kind, however
tired I may be, I don’t sleep.’

‘I know what you are doing,’ said her friend. ‘You are asking yourself,
now that it’s all over, “What’s the good?”’

‘No; I don’t think so,’ she said quickly; then changed her look and
said, ‘Perhaps I was.’

‘Oh, I am sure you were! and it is no good except for such pleasure as
you get out of it.’

‘Pleasure!’ said Mrs. Blencarrow. ‘But the boys liked it,’ she said.

‘Oh, the boys! They were more happy than words could say. I think you
measure everything by the boys.’

‘Not everything,’ she said with a sigh; and, taking up her candle, she
followed her friend upstairs.

The house had fallen into perfect quiet. There was not a sound in all
the upper part; a drowsy stillness was in the broad staircase, still
dimly lighted, and the corridor above; only a distant echo from below,
from the regions which were half underground--a muffled sound of
laughter and voices--showed that the servants were still carrying on the
festivity. Mrs. Blencarrow said good-night at the door of her friend’s
room, and went on to her own, which was at the further end of the long
gallery. She left her candle upon a small table outside, where it burned
on, a strange, lonely little twinkle of light in the darkness, for half
the wintry night.

Neither Kitty nor Walter could rest next day until they had eluded the
vigilance of their several guardians and escaped to their usual
meeting-place, where they poured into each other’s ears the dire
experiences of the previous night. Kitty had been badly scolded before,
but it had been as nothing in comparison with what she had suffered on
the way home and after her return. Mamma had been terrible; she had
outdone herself; there had been nothing too dreadful for her to say. And
papa had not stood by Kitty--the best that could be said for him was
that he had taken no active part in the demolition of all her hopes.

‘For I am to be sent away to-morrow to my aunt’s in
Gloucestershire--fancy in Gloucestershire!’ as if there was something
specially diabolical in that county.

‘You shall not be sent away; the time has come for us to take it into
our own hands,’ said Walter soberly, with a strain of resolution.

He had to tell her of not unsimilar barbarities on his side. His mother
had written to her trustees. She expected Mr. Wadsett from Edinburgh,
who was also her man of business (for her property was in Scotland),
next day.

‘To-morrow is the crisis for both of us; we must simply take it into our
own hands and forestall them,’ said Walter. ‘I knew that one day it
would come to this. If they force it on us it is their own doing,’ he
said, with a look of determination enough to make any trustee tremble.

‘Oh, Walter!’ cried Kitty, rubbing her head against his shoulder like
the kitten she was.

His resolute air gave her a thrill of frightened delight. Usually she
was the first person in all their conjoint movements; to be carried
along now, and feel it was not her doing, but his, was a new, ecstatic,
alarming sensation, which words could not express.

They then began to consider without more ado (both feeling themselves
elevated by the greatness of the crisis) what was to be done. Kitty had
fondly hoped for a postchaise, which was the recognised way of romance;
but Walter pointed out that on the railway--still a new thing in that
district--there was an early train going to Edinburgh, which they could
enter far more easily and with less fear of being arrested than a
postchaise, and which would waft them to Gretna Green in less time than
it would take to go ten miles in a carriage. Gretna Green was still the
right place to which lovers flew; it was one of the nearest points in
Scotland, where marriage was so easy, where the two parties to the
union were the only ones concerned.

Kitty was slow to give up the postchaise, but she yielded to Walter’s
argument. The train passed very early, so that it would be necessary for
her to start out of the house in the middle of the night, as it were, to
join her lover, who would be waiting for her; and then a walk of a mile
or two would bring them to the station--and then! Their foolish hearts
beat high while they made all the arrangements. Kitty shivered at the
idea of the long walk in the chill dark morning. She would have so much
preferred the sweep of the postchaise, the probable rush in pursuit, the
second postchaise rattling after them, probably only gaming the goal ten
minutes too late. She had imagined that rush many a time, and how she
might see her father or brother’s head looking out from the window,
hurrying on the postilion, but just too late to stop the hasty ceremony.
The railway would change it all, and would be much less triumphant and
satisfactory; but still, if Walter said so, it must be done, and her
practical imagination saw the conveniences as well as the drawbacks.

Walter walked back with Kitty as near as he dared to The Leas, and then
Kitty walked back again with him. They thus made a long afternoon’s
occupation of it, during which everything was discussed and over again
discussed, and in which all the responsibility was laid on the proper
shoulders, i.e., on those of the parents who had driven them to this
only alternative. Neither of them had any doubt as to the certainty of
this, and they had at the same time fair hopes of being received back
again when it was all over, and nothing could be done to mend it. After
this, their people must acknowledge that it was no manner of use
struggling, and that it behoved them to think of making some provision
for the young pair, who after all were their own flesh and blood.

Kitty did not undress at all, considering the unearthly hour at which
she was to set out. She flung off her evening dress into a corner,
reflecting that though it must be prepared after, instead of before, her
marriage, she must have a trousseau all the same, and that no bride puts
on again her old things after that event. Kitty put on her new winter
dress, which was very becoming, and had a pretty hat to match it, and
lay down to snatch an hour or two’s rest before the hour of starting.
She woke reluctantly to the sound of a handful of pebbles thrown against
her window, and then, though still exceedingly sleepy and greatly
tempted to pay no attention to the summons, managed at last to rouse
herself, and sprang up with a thump of her heart when she recollected
what it was--her wedding morning! She lighted a candle and put on her
hat, studying the effect in the glass, though she knew that Walter was
blowing his fingers with cold below; and then, with a fur cloak over her
arm, she stole downstairs. How dark it was, and how cold! The country
black with night, nothing visible but the waving, close to the house, of
some spectral trees. But Walter pulled her hand through his arm the
moment she slipped out, and her spirits rose. Two can face the darkness
where one would shrink before it. They had the strangest, merriest
walk--stumbling in the maddest way, jolting over stiles, going astray
into ploughed fields, rousing all the dogs in all the farms and cottages
for miles round--but at last found their way, worn out with stumbling
and laughing, to the station, where the train had not yet arrived. And
then came the rush and sweep through the night, the arrival in the gray
morning at the station, the rousing up of the grim priest known as ‘the
blacksmith’--though I am not sure that this was his trade. Kitty found
time to smarten herself up a little, to straighten the brim of her hat
and put it on as if she had taken it fresh out of its bandbox, and to
put on her white gloves--the only things truly bride-like, which she
had put in her pocket before she left home--and then the ceremony,
whatever it was, was performed, and the boy and girl were made man and
wife.

After it was all over, Kitty and Walter looked at each other in the gray
morning light with a pale and frightened look. When the thing was done
the excitement suddenly failed, and for a moment everything was black.
Kitty cried a little, and Walter, if it had not been for his pride of
manhood, was very near following her example. What awful thing was it
they had done? Kitty was the first to recover her courage.

‘I am dreadfully hungry,’ she said, ‘and so tired. Walter, do go and see
if we can have some breakfast anywhere. I must have some breakfast, or I
shall die.’ Kitty was very fond of this alternative, but had shown no
intention of adopting it as yet.

‘I’ll go on to that public-house over there; but won’t you come too,
Kitty?’

‘No; go and order breakfast, and then come and fetch me. I’ll look over
the books and see who have gone before us,’ said Kitty.

He left her seated, half leaning over the table, studying the records
which she had spread out before her. At that moment Kitty had a great
sympathy for everybody who had been married, and a wondering desire to
know what they had felt.




CHAPTER IV.

A DISCOVERY.


When Walter came back, having ordered a meal such as was most easily
procurable in those regions, that is to say, tea and stale bread and
fresh oatcakes and a dish of ham and eggs, he found Kitty waiting for
him in a fever of impatience. She had one of the blacksmith’s big
register-books opened out upon the table, and her eyes were dancing with
excitement. She rushed to meet him and caught him by the arm.

‘Wat!’ she said, ‘oh, how soon can we get back?’

‘Get back!’ he cried; ‘but we are not going back.’

‘Oh yes, but we are, as quick as we can fly. Go and order the horses
this minute--oh, I forgot, it’s a train! Can’t we have a train directly?
When is there a train?’

‘For goodness’ sake, Kitty, what do you mean? But we are married! You
can’t be going to turn your back upon me.’

‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’ said Kitty, in her excitement; ‘who talks of turning
their back? I’ve found out something that will make mamma jump; it makes
me jump to begin with!’ exclaimed the girl, performing a dance on the
floor. ‘They’ll never say a word to us. They’ll be struck dumb with
this. Look! look!’

Walter looked with great surprise, without the slightest conception of
what it could be to which his attention was called. His eyes wandered
along the page, seeing nothing. A long array of names: what could there
be in these to call for all this commotion? Kitty pushed him aside in
her excitement. She laid her finger upon one short signature written
very small. He read it, and turned and looked at her aghast.

‘Kitty! what do you mean? Who is it? It can’t--it can’t be----’

‘Well!’ cried Kitty, ‘and who could it be? “Joan Blencarrow”--there’s
only one person of that name in all the world.’

‘Good heavens!’ Walter cried. He had more feeling than she had, for he
stood aghast. Mrs. Blencarrow! He seemed to see her suddenly in all her
dignity and splendour, as he had seen her standing receiving her
guests. Kitty jumped with excitement, but Walter was appalled.

‘Mrs. Blencarrow! I can’t believe it! I don’t believe it!’ he said.

‘What does it matter whether you believe it or not, for there it is?’
said Kitty, triumphant. ‘Oh, what a state mamma will be in! She will
never say a word to us. She will pay no attention, any more than if we
had been out for a walk. Oh, how she will like to pull down Mrs.
Blencarrow!--she that was always so grand, and people thinking there was
nobody like her. And all this time--three years----’

Kitty’s eyes danced with delight. To think that she should be the one to
find out such a wonderful secret intoxicated her with satisfaction and
pleasure.

‘Kitty,’ said Walter, with hesitation, ‘we have found it out by
accident.’

‘Oh, don’t say _we_! _I’ve_ found it out. It would never have come into
your head to look at the books.’

‘Well, _you_ then. You have found it out by accident, and when we’re
happy ourselves, why should we try to make other people miserable?
Kitty!’ He put his arm round her, and pleaded with his lips close to her
ear.

‘Oh, nonsense!’ she said; ‘all men are taken in like that; but I can’t
let her off; I won’t let her off. Why, it wouldn’t be right!’

‘There are some people who would think what we are doing wasn’t right,’
said Walter.

‘Oh, you coward,’ cried Kitty, ‘to turn round on me when we haven’t
been married an hour! As if it was my doing, when you know that but for
you----’

‘I am not turning round on you. I never said it was your doing. Kitty,
darling, don’t let us quarrel. You know I never meant----’

‘I shall quarrel, if I like,’ cried Kitty, bursting into tears; and they
had it out, as they had already done a hundred times, and would a
hundred more, enjoying it thoroughly. It suddenly occurred to Walter,
however, as the little episode drew near a close, that the ham and eggs
must be ready, and he threw in an intimation to this effect with very
telling results. Kitty jumped up, dried her eyes, straightened her hat,
and declared that she was dying of hunger.

‘But whatever happens, and however serious things may be, you always
will go on,’ she said.

He was magnanimous, being very hungry too, and restrained the retort
that was trembling on his tongue, that it was she who would go on; and
they flew across to the little alehouse, arm in arm, and enjoyed their
ham and eggs even more than they had enjoyed their quarrel.

They found out that the next train ‘up’ was not till eleven o’clock,
which set their minds at rest, for they had meant to go to London before
Kitty’s mind had been all unsettled by that discovery. Walter had begun
to hope she had forgotten all about it, when she suddenly jumped up from
the table--not, however, before she had made a very satisfactory meal.

‘Oh, what a fool I am!’ cried Kitty. ‘I never paid any attention to the
man!’

‘What man?’

‘Why, the man she was married to, you goose! A woman can’t be married
all by herself. It was a long name--Everard something. I didn’t know it,
or I should have paid more attention. Haven’t you finished yet?--for I
must run this instant----’

‘Where, Kitty?’

‘Why, to look up the book again!’ she cried.

‘I wish you’d give this up,’ said Walter. ‘Do, to please me. We’ve got
all we wish ourselves, and why should we worry other people, Kitty?’

‘If you have got all you wish, I have not. I want to please them--to
make them do something for us; and when a thing like this turns up--the
very thing!--why, mamma will hug us both--she will forgive us on the
spot. She’ll be so pleased she’ll do anything for us. I don’t know about
Mrs. Lawrence----’

‘It won’t do us any good with my mother,’ said Walter, with a thrill of
dread coming over him, for he did not like to think of his mother and
that terrible trustee.

‘By the way,’ cried Kitty, with a pirouette of delight, ‘it’s I that am
Mrs. Lawrence now, and she’s only the Dowager. Fancy turning a person
who has always made you shake in your shoes into the Dowager! It’s too
delightful--it’s worth all the rest.’

Walter did not like this to be said about his mother. He had deceived
and disappointed her, but he was not without a feeling for her.

‘That is all nonsense,’ he said. ‘It is not as if I had come into the
property and my mother had to turn out; for everything is hers. I hope
you don’t mind being Mrs. Walter, Kitty, for my sake.’

Kitty considered a moment whether she should be angry, but concluded
that it was too soon after the last quarrel, and would be monotonous and
a bore, so she caught up his hat instead and thrust it into his hand.

‘Come along,’ she said; ‘come along. We have sat a long time over
breakfast, and there is no time to lose; I must make out the other name
in that book.’

But here the young lady met with an unexpected check, for the blacksmith
stopped them as they entered his house, striding towards them from the
kitchen, where he, too, had finished a very satisfactory meal.

‘What will ye be wanting?’ he said. ‘Ye will maybe think I can unmarry
ye again? but it’s not possible to do that.’

‘We don’t want to be unmarried,’ said Kitty; ‘we want just to look at
the book again, to see a name.’

‘What book?’

‘The register-book that is in that room,’ said Walter; ‘my wife,’ and he
gave Kitty’s arm a squeeze, ‘saw a name----’

‘My book!’ The blacksmith stood in the doorway like a mountain, not to
be passed by or pushed aside. ‘I’ll have no one spying into the names in
my book.’

‘I don’t want to spy,’ said Kitty;’ it’s somebody I know.’

But the big man would hear no reason; he looked at the little couple
before him, so young and so silly, as if he had been a bishop at least.

‘I couldn’t refuse to marry ye,’ he said; ‘I hadn’t the right. But if I
had followed my own lights, I would just have sent ye home to your
parents to be put back in the nursery; and ye shall see no books of
mine, nor tell tales upon other folk.’

And nothing could move him from this resolution. Kitty nearly cried with
vexation when they got into the train again; her own escapade dwindled
into something quite secondary.

‘It was so silly of me not to make sure of the name. I am sure the first
name was Everard, or something like that. And what a brute that man is,
Walter! If you had really loved me as you say, you would have pushed him
away or knocked him down.’

‘Why, he was six times as big as me, Kitty!’

‘What does that matter,’ she said, ‘when it’s for the sake of someone
you love?’

But perhaps this is rather a feminine view.

There had been, as may be supposed, a great commotion in The Leas when
it was found that Kitty’s room was vacant in the morning. A girl’s
absence is more easily discovered than a boy’s. Mrs. Lawrence thought
that Walter had gone off for the day to see some of his friends, and
would come back to dinner, as he had done many times before; and though
she was angry with him for leaving his work, she was not anxious. But a
young lady does not make escapades of this sort; and when it was
discovered that Kitty’s best things had disappeared, and her favourite
locket, and that she had evidently never gone to bed in a proper and
legitimate way, the house and the neighbourhood was roused. Mrs. Bircham
sent off messengers far and near; and Mr. Bircham himself, though an
easy-minded man, went out on the same errand, visiting, among other
places, Blencarrow, where all the gaiety of a Christmas party was still
going on, and the boys were trying with delight the first faint film of
ice upon the pond to see when it would be likely to bear. Then, after a
hasty but late luncheon, he had gone to see whether Mrs. Lawrence knew
anything about the fugitive; and Mrs. Bircham, at her wits’ end, and
not knowing what to do, was alone in the drawing-room at The Leas,
pondering everything, wishing she had Kitty there to shake her, longing
to pour forth floods of wrath; but at the same time chilled by that
dread of something having happened which will come in even when a mother
is most enraged. She was saying to herself that nothing could have
happened--that it must be that young Lawrence--that the girl was an
idiot--that she washed her hands of her--that she would have nothing to
do with them--that, oh, if she had only thought to lock her up in her
bedroom and stop it all!

‘Oh, Kitty, Kitty! where are you, child?’ she cried nervously at the
conclusion of all.

There was a rustle and a little rush, and Kitty ran in, flinging
herself upon her knees upon the hearthrug, and replied:

‘Here I am--here I am, mamma!’

Mrs. Bircham uttered a shriek. She saw Walter behind, and the situation
in a moment became clear to her.

‘You young fools!’ she said; ‘you disobedient, ungrateful
children--you----’

‘Oh, mamma, one moment. We have been to Gretna Green--Walter and me!’

‘How dared you, sir?’ said Mrs. Bircham, turning upon the hapless
lover--‘how dared you steal my innocent child away? And then you come
here to triumph over us. Begone, sir--begone, sir, out of my house;
begone out of my house!’

Kitty jumped up off her knees and caught Walter by the arm.

‘He does not go a step without me,’ she cried. ‘But, mamma, if you would
have a moment’s patience, you would not think any more about it. We were
going to London; but I came back, though I knew you would scold, to tell
you. Listen to me one moment,’ cried Kitty, running all the words into
one; ‘it’s something about Mrs. Blencarrow.’

Mrs. Bircham had her hands raised, presumably to draw down the curse of
heaven upon the pair, but at this name she paused; her countenance
changed.

‘Mrs. Blencarrow?’ she gasped, and could say no more.

‘You never heard such a thing in your life!’ cried Kitty. She dropped
Walter’s arm, and came forward in front of him. ‘Mamma, I saw her name
in the register; there it is--anyone can see it: Joan Blencarrow--there
couldn’t be another person with such a name.’

‘In the register? What--what do you mean?’

‘Mamma, I mean that Mrs. Blencarrow is married--to somebody else. She’s
been married these three years. I read her name this very day. It’s in
the register at Gretna Green.’

Mrs. Bircham staggered back a few steps and dropped into a chair.

‘Married!’ she cried. ‘Mrs. Blencarrow married!’

‘Three years ago,’ cried Kitty glibly. ‘Fifth January--I saw the
date--three years ago!’

Mrs. Bircham sat with her hands clasped and her eyes glaring, ‘as if,’
Kitty said afterwards, ‘they would come out of her head.’ She uttered a
succession of cries, from little shrieks to breathless exclamations.
‘Married!--Mrs. Blencarrow! Oh, oh, Kitty! Oh, good heavens!--Mrs.
Blencarrow! Three years ago--the time she went off to Scotland to see
her sister. Oh, oh, Kitty! In the register! Get me a glass of water, or
I think I shall die.’

Walter disappeared for the water, thinking that after all his
mother-in-law was a good-hearted woman, and didn’t feel as Kitty said
she would; but when he returned, his admiration of Mrs. Bircham turned
into admiration for his wife, for Kitty and her mother, sitting close as
if they were the dearest friends, were laying their heads together and
talking both at the same time; and the horror and amazement in Mrs.
Bircham’s face had given way to the dancing of a malicious light in her
eyes, and a thrill of eagerness all over her.

‘I am not at all surprised,’ she was saying when Walter came in. ‘I felt
sure something of the kind would come to light sooner or later. I never
would have trusted her--not a step beyond what I saw. I felt sure all
wasn’t right in that house. What a mercy, Kitty, that you saw it!’

‘Wasn’t it a mercy, mamma!’

Kitty gave her young husband a look aside; she had made her peace with
her news. But Mrs. Bircham thought of nothing--neither of her daughter’s
escapade, nor her own just anger--of nothing but this wonderful news,
and what would be the best thing to do.




CHAPTER V.

‘ARE WE QUITE ALONE?’


Mrs. Blencarrow had just been saying good-bye to a number of her guests,
and, what was of more importance, her boys had just left her upon a
visit to one of their uncles who lived in a Midland county, and who, if
the weather was open (and there had been a great thaw that morning),
could give them better entertainment than could be provided in a
feminine house. There was a look in her face as if she were almost glad
to see them drive away. She was at the hall-door to see them go, and
stood kissing her hand to them as they drove off shouting their
good-byes, Reginald with the reins, and Bertie with his curly head
uncovered, waving his cap to his mother. She watched them till they
disappeared among the trees, with a smile of pride and pleasure on her
face, and then there came a dead dulness over it, like a landscape on
which the sun had suddenly gone down.

‘Emmy, you should not stand here in the cold,’ she said; ‘run upstairs,
my dear, to a warm room.’

‘And what are you going to do, mamma?’

‘I have some business to look after,’ Mrs. Blencarrow said. She went
along the stone passage and down the stairs where Kitty and Walter had
gone on the night of the ball. She had a weary look, and her footsteps,
usually so elastic, dragged a little. The business-room was as cheerful
as a large fire could make it; she opened the door with an anxious look
in her eyes, but drew a breath of relief when she saw that no one was
there. On the mantelpiece was a note in a large bold handwriting: ‘Out
on the farm, back at five,’ it said. Mrs. Blencarrow sat down in the
arm-chair in front of her writing-table. She leant her head in her
hands, covering her face, and so remained for a long time, doing
nothing, not even moving, as if she had been a figure in stone. When she
stirred at last and uncovered her face, it was almost as white as
marble. She drew a long sigh from the very depths of her being. ‘I
wonder how long this can go on,’ she said, wringing her hands, speaking
to herself.

These were the same words which Kitty and Walter had overheard in the
dark, but not from her. There were, then, two people in the house to
whom there existed something intolerable which it was wellnigh
impossible to bear.

She drew some papers towards her and began to look over them listlessly,
but it was clear that there was very little interest in them; then she
opened a drawer and took out some letters, which she arranged in
succession and tried to fix her attention to, but neither did these
succeed. She rose up, pushing them impatiently away, and began to pace
up and down the room, pausing mechanically now and then to look at the
note on the mantelpiece and to look at her watch, both of which things
she did twice over in five minutes. At five! It was not four yet--what
need to linger here when there was still an hour--still a whole hour?
Mrs. Blencarrow was interrupted by a knock at her door; she started as
if it had been a cannon fired at her ear, and instinctively cast a
glance at the glass over the mantelpiece to smooth the agitation from
her face before she replied. The servant had come to announce a
visitor--Mrs. Bircham--awaiting his mistress in the drawing-room. ‘Ah!
she has come to tell me about Kitty,’ Mrs. Blencarrow said to herself.

She went upstairs wearily enough, thinking that she had no need to be
told what had become of Kitty, that she knew well enough what must have
happened, but sorry, too, for the mother, and ready to say all that she
could to console her--to put forth the best pleas she could for the
foolish young pair. She was so full of trouble and perplexity herself,
which had to be kept in rigorous concealment, that anything of which
people could speak freely, upon which they could take others into their
confidence, seemed light and easy to her. She went upstairs without a
suspicion or alarm--weary, but calm.

Mrs. Bircham did not meet her with any appeal for sympathy either in
look or words; there was no anxiety in her face. Her eyes were full of
satisfaction and malice, and ill-concealed but pleasurable excitement.

‘I can see,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow, ‘that you have news of Kitty,’ as she
shook hands with her guest.

‘Oh, Kitty is right enough,’ said the other hastily; and then she cast a
glance round the room. ‘Are we quite alone?’ she asked; ‘there are so
many corners in this room, one never knows who may be listening. Mrs.
Blencarrow, I do not come to speak of Kitty, but about yourself.’

‘About myself?’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Bircham, with a gasp, ‘you speak in that innocent tone
as if it was quite surprising that anyone could have anything to say of
you.’

Mrs. Blencarrow changed her position so as to get her back to the light;
one of those overwhelming flushes which were habitual to her had come
scorching over her face.

‘No more surprising to me than--to any of us,’ she said, with an attempt
at a smile. ‘What is it that I have done?’

‘Oh, Mrs. Blencarrow--though why I should go on calling you Mrs.
Blencarrow when that’s not your name----’

‘Not my name!’ There was a shrill sort of quaver in her voice, a keen
note as of astonishment and dismay.

‘I wish,’ cried Mrs. Bircham, growing red, and fanning herself with her
muff in her excitement--‘I wish you wouldn’t go on repeating what I say;
it’s maddening--and always as if you didn’t know. Why don’t you call
yourself by your proper name? How can you go on deceiving everybody, and
even your own poor children, living on false pretences, “lying all
round,” as my husband says? Oh, I know you’ve been doing it for years;
you’ve got accustomed to it, I suppose; but don’t you know how
disgraceful it is, and what everybody will say?’

Had there been any critic of human nature present, it would have gone
greatly against Mrs. Blencarrow that she was not astonished at this
attack. She rose up with a fine gesture of pride.

‘This is an extraordinary assault to make upon me,’ she said, ‘in my own
house.’

‘Is it your own house, after disgracing it so?’ cried the visitor. And
then she added, after an angry pause for breath: ‘I came out of
kindness, to let you know that everything was discovered. Mr. Bircham
and I thought it was better you should have it from a friend than from
common report.’

‘I appreciate the kindness,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow, with something like a
laugh; then she walked to the side of the fire and rang the bell. Mrs.
Bircham trembled, but her victim was perfectly calm; the assailant
looked on in amazed expectation, wondering what was to come next, but
the assailed stood quietly waiting till the servant appeared. When the
man opened the door, his mistress said: ‘Call Mrs. Bircham’s carriage,
John, and attend her downstairs.’

Mrs. Bircham stood gasping with rage and astonishment. ‘Is that all?’
she said; ‘is that all you have got to say?’

‘All--the only reply I will make,’ said the lady of the house. She made
her visitor a stately bow, with a wave of the hand towards the door.
Mrs. Bircham, half mad with baffled rage, looked round as it were for
some moral missile to throw before she took her dismissal. She found it
in the look of the man who stood impassive at the door. John was a
well-trained servant, bound not to look surprised at anything. Mrs.
Bircham clasped her hands together, as if she had made a discovery, made
a few hasty steps towards the door, and then turned round with an
offensive laugh. ‘I suppose that’s the man,’ she said.

Mrs. Blencarrow stood firm till the door had closed and the sound of her
visitor’s laugh going downstairs had died away: then she sank down upon
her knees in the warm fur of the hearthrug--down--down--covering her
face with her hands. She lay there for some time motionless, holding
herself together, feeling like something that had suddenly fallen into
ruin, her walls all crumbled down, her foundations giving way.

The afternoon had grown dark, and a gray twilight filled the great
windows. Nothing but the warm glow of the fire made any light in the
large and luxurious room. It was so full of the comforts and brightness
of life--the red light twinkling in the pretty pieces of old silver and
curiosities upon the tables, catching in ruddy reflection the
picture-frames and mirror, warming and softening the atmosphere which
was so sheltered and still; and yet in no monastic cell or prison had
there ever been a prostrate figure more like despair.

The first thing that roused her was a soft, caressing touch upon her
shoulder; she raised her head to see Emmy, her delicate sixteen-year-old
girl, bending over her.

‘Mamma, mamma, is anything the matter?’ said Emmy.

‘I was very tired and chilly; I did not hear you come in, Emmy.’

‘I met Mrs. Bircham on the stairs; she was laughing all to herself, but
when she saw me she began to cry, and said, “Poor Emmy! poor little
girl! You’ll feel it.” But she would not tell me what it was. And then I
find you, mamma, looking miserable.’

‘Am I looking miserable? You can’t see me, my darling,’ said her mother
with a faint laugh. She added, after a pause: ‘Mrs. Bircham has got a
new story against one of her neighbours. Don’t let us pay any attention,
Emmy; I never do, you know.’

‘No, mamma,’ said Emmy, with a quaver in her voice. She was very quiet
and said very little, but in her half-invalid condition she could not
help observing a great many things that eluded other people, and many
alarms and doubts and suppressed suspicions were in her mind which she
could not and would not have put in words. There was something in the
semi-darkness and in the abandon in which she had found her mother which
encouraged Emmy. She clasped Mrs. Blencarrow’s arm in both of hers, and
put her face against her mother’s dress.

‘Oh, mamma,’ she said, ‘if you are troubled about anything, won’t you
tell me? Oh, mamma, tell me! I should be less unhappy if I knew.’

‘Are you unhappy, Emmy?--about me?’

‘Oh! I did not mean quite that; but you are unhappy sometimes, and how
can I help seeing it? I know your every look, and what you mean when you
put your hands together--like that, mamma.’

‘Do you, Emmy?’ The mother took her child into her arms with a strong
pressure, as if Emmy’s feeble innocence pressed against her own strong,
struggling bosom did her good. The girl felt the quiver in her mother’s
arm, which enfolded her, and felt the heavy beating of the heart against
which she was pressed, with awe and painful sympathy, but without
suspicion. She knew everything without knowing anything in her boundless
sympathy and love. But just then the clock upon the mantelpiece tingled
out its silvery chime. Five o’clock! Mrs. Blencarrow put Emmy out of her
arms with a sudden start. ‘I did not think it was so late. I have to see
some one downstairs at five o’clock.’

‘Oh, mamma, wait for some tea; it is just coming.’

‘You are very late,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow to the butler, who came in
carrying a lamp, while John followed him with the tray. Tea in the
afternoon was a very novel invention, at that time known only in a few
houses. ‘Do not be so late another day. I must go, Emmy--it is business;
but I shall be back almost directly.’

‘Oh, mamma, I hate business; you say you will be back directly, and you
don’t come for hours!’

Mrs. Blencarrow kissed her daughter and smiled at her, patting her on
the shoulder.

‘Business, you know, must be attended to,’ she said, ‘though everything
else should go to the wall.’

Her face changed as she turned away; she gave a glance as she passed at
the face of the man who held open the door for her, and it seemed to
Mrs. Blencarrow that there was a gleam of knowledge in it, a suppressed
disrespect. She was aware, even while this idea framed itself in her
mind, that it was a purely fantastic idea, but the profound
self-consciousness in her own soul tinged everything she saw; she
hurried downstairs with a sort of reluctant swiftness, a longing to
escape and yet an eagerness to go.




CHAPTER VI.

‘IS IT TRUE?’


A few days passed without any further incident. Mrs. Blencarrow’s
appearance in the meantime had changed in a singular way. Her wonderful
self-command was shaken; sometimes she had an air of suppressed
excitement, a permanent flush under her eyes, a nervous irritation
almost uncontrollable; at other moments she was perfectly pale and
composed, but full of an acute consciousness of every sound. She spent a
great part of her time in her business-room downstairs, going and coming
on many occasions hurriedly, as if by an impulse she could not resist.
This could not be hidden from those keen observers, the servants, who
all kept up a watch upon her, quickened by whispers that began to reach
them from without. Mrs. Blencarrow, on her side, realized very well what
must be going on without. She divined the swiftness with which Mrs.
Bircham’s information would circulate through the county, and the effect
it would produce. Whether it was false or true would make no difference
at first. There would be the same wave of discussion, of wonder, of
doubt; her whole life would be investigated to see what were the
likelihoods on either side, and her recent acts and looks and words all
talked over. She was a very proud woman, and her sensations were
something like those of a civilized man who is tied to a stake and sees
the savages dancing round him, preparing to begin the torture. She
expected every moment to see the dart whirl through the air, to feel it
quiver in her flesh; the waiting at the beginning, anticipating the
first missile, must be, she thought, the worst of all.

She watched for the first sound of the tempest, and Emmy and the
servants watched her, the one with sympathy and terror, the others with
keen curiosity not unheightened by expectation. She was a good mistress,
and some of them were fond of her; some of them were capable of standing
by her through good and evil; but it is not in human nature not to watch
with excitement the bursting of such a cloud, or to look on without a
certain keen pleasure in seeing how a victim--a heroine--will comport
herself in the moment of danger. It was to them as good as a play. There
were some in her own house who did not believe it; there were some who
had long, they said, been suspicious; but all, both those who believed
it and those who did not believe it, were keen to see how she would
comport herself in this terrible crisis of fate.

The days went by very slowly in this extraordinary tension of spirit;
the first stroke came as such a stroke generally does--from a wholly
unexpected quarter. Mrs. Blencarrow was sitting one afternoon with Emmy
in the drawing-room. The large room looked larger with only these two in
it. Emmy, a little figure only half visible, lay in a great chair near
the fire, buried in it, her small face showing like a point of
whiteness amid the ruddy tones of the firelight and the crimson of the
chair. Her mother was on the other side of the fire, with a screen
thrown between her and the glow, scarcely betraying her existence at
all, in the shade in which she sat, by any movement. The folds of her
velvet dress caught the firelight and showed a little colour lying
coiled about her feet; but this was all that a spectator would have
seen. Emmy was busy with some fleecy white knitting, which she could go
on with in the partial darkness; the faint sound of her knitting-pins
was audible along with the occasional puff of flame from the fire, or
falling of ashes on the hearth. There was not much conversation between
them. Sometimes Emmy would ask a question: ‘When are the boys coming
home, mamma?’ ‘Perhaps to-day,’ with a faint movement in the darkness;
‘but they are going back to school on Monday,’ Mrs. Blencarrow said,
with a tone of relief. It might have been imagined that she said ‘Thank
Heaven!’ under her breath. Emmy felt the meaning of that tone as she
felt everything, but blamed herself for thinking so, as if she were
doing wrong.

‘It is a strange thing to say,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow; ‘but I almost wish
they were going straight back to school, without coming home again.’

‘Oh, mamma!’ said Emmy, with a natural protest.

‘It seems a strange thing,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow, ‘to say----’ She had
paused between these two last words, and there was a slight quiver in
her voice.

She had paused to listen; there was some sound in the clear air, which
was once more hard with frost; it was the sound of a carriage coming up
the avenue. All was so still around the house that they could hear it
for a long way. Mrs. Blencarrow drew a long, shivering breath.

‘There’s somebody coming,’ said Emmy; ‘can it be Rex and Bertie?’

‘Most likely only somebody coming to call. Emmy!’

‘What, mamma?’

‘I was going to say, don’t stay in the room if--if it were. But no,
never mind; it was a mistake; I would rather you did stay.’

‘I will do whatever you please, mamma.’

‘Thank you, Emmy. If I turn to you, go. But perhaps there will be no
need.’

They waited, falling into a curious silence, full of expectation; the
carriage came slowly up to the door; it jingled and jogged, so that they
recognised instinctively that it must be the fly from the station.

‘It will be the boys, after all,’ Mrs. Blencarrow said, with something
between relief and annoyance. ‘No,’ she added, with a little impatience;
‘don’t run to the door to meet them. It is too cold for you; stay where
you are; I can’t have you exposing yourself.’

Something of the irritability of nervous expectation was in her voice,
and presently the door opened, but not with the rush of the boys’
return. It was opened by the butler, who came in solemnly, his white
shirt shining out in the twilight of the room, and announced in his
grandest tone, ‘Colonel and Mr. d’Eyncourt,’ as two dark figures
followed him into the room. Mrs. Blencarrow rose to her feet with a low
cry. She put her hand unconsciously upon her heart, which leaped into
the wildest beating.

‘You!’ she said.

They came forward, one following the other, into the circle of the
firelight, and took her hand and kissed her with solemnity. Colonel
d’Eyncourt was a tall, slim, soldierly man, the other shorter and
rotund. But there was something in the gravity of their entrance which
told that their errand was of no usual kind. When Emmy came forward to
greet her uncles, they turned to her with a mixture of impatience and
commiseration.

‘Are you here, my poor child?’ said one; and the other told her to run
away, as they had something particular to say to her mamma.

The butler in the meantime was lighting the candles on the mantelpiece,
which made a sudden blaze and brought the two gentlemen into sight.

‘I am sorry I did not know you were coming,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow,
recovering her fortitude with the sudden gleam of the light, ‘or I
should have sent for you to the station. Preston, bring some tea.’

‘No tea for us,’ said Mr. d’Eyncourt; ‘we have come to see you on family
business, if you could give us an hour undisturbed.’

‘Don’t bring any tea, then, Preston,’ she said with a smile, ‘and don’t
admit anyone.’ She turned and looked at Emmy, whose eyes were fixed on
her. ‘Go and look out for the boys, my dear.’

The two brothers exchanged glances--they were, perhaps, not men of great
penetration--they considered that their sister’s demeanour was one of
perfect calm; and she felt as if she were being suffocated, as she
waited with a smile on her face till her daughter and the footman, who
was more deliberate, were gone. Then she sat down again on her low chair
behind the screen, which sheltered her a little from the glare of the
candles as well as the fire.

‘I hope,’ she said, ‘it is nothing of a disagreeable kind--you both look
so grave.’

‘You must know what we have come to talk about, Joan.’

‘Indeed I don’t,’ she said; ‘what is it? There is something the matter.
Reginald--Roger--what is it? You frighten me with your grave
faces--what has happened?’

The gentlemen looked at each other again; their eyes said, ‘It cannot be
true.’ The Colonel cleared his voice; he was the eldest, and it was upon
him that the special burden lay.

‘If it is true,’ he said--‘you know best, Joan, whether it is true or
not--if it is true, it is the most dreadful thing that has happened in
our family.’

‘You frighten me more and more,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow. ‘Something about
John?’

John was the black sheep of the D’Eyncourt family. Again the brothers
looked at each other.

‘You must be aware of the rumour that is filling the county,’ said the
younger brother. ‘I hear there is nothing else talked of, Joan. It is
about you--you, whom we have always been so proud of. Both Reginald and
I have got letters. They say that you have made a disgraceful marriage;
that it’s been going on for years; that you’ve no right to your present
name at all, nor to your position in this house. I cannot tell you the
half of what’s said. The first letter we paid no attention to, but when
we heard it from half a dozen different places--Joan--nothing about John
could be half so bad as a story like this about you.’

Mrs. Blencarrow had risen slowly to her feet, but still was in the
shade. She did not seem able to resist the impulse to stand up while she
was being accused.

‘So this is the reason of your sudden visit,’ she said, speaking with
deliberation, which might have meant either inability to speak, or the
utmost contempt of the cause.

‘What could we have done else?’ they both cried together, apologetic for
the first moment. ‘We, your brothers, with such a circumstantial story,’
said the Colonel.

‘And your nearest friends, Joan; to nobody could it be of so much
importance as to us,’ said the other.

‘Us!’ she said; ‘it is of more importance to the children.’

‘My dear girl,’ said the Colonel, putting his hand on her shoulder, ‘I
am most thankful we did not trust to letters, but came. It’s enough to
look at you. You must give us your authority, and we will soon make an
end of these slanderers. By Jove! in the old days it would have been
pistols that would have done it.’

‘You can’t use pistols to women,’ said Mr. d’Eyncourt, ‘if you were the
greatest fire-eater that ever was.’

They both laughed a little at this, but the soul was taken out of the
laugh by the perception slowly dawning upon both that Mrs. Blencarrow
had said nothing, did not join either in their laugh or their
thankfulness for having come, and had, indeed, slightly shrunk from her
brother’s hand, and still stood without asking them to sit down.

‘I’m afraid you are angry with us,’ said Roger d’Eyncourt, ‘for having
hurried here as if we believed it. But there never is any certainty in
such matters. We thought it better to settle it at once--at the
fountain-head.’

‘Yes,’ she said, but no more.

The brothers looked at each other again, this time uneasily.

‘My dear Joan,’ said the Colonel--but he did not know how to go on.

‘The fact is,’ said Mr. d’Eyncourt, ‘that you must give us your
authority to contradict it, don’t you know--to say authoritatively that
there is not a shadow of truth----’

‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Mrs. Blencarrow.

‘Eh? Ah! Oh yes,’ said both men together. They thought for a moment that
she was giving them her ‘authority,’ as they said. The Colonel rolled an
easy chair near to her. Roger d’Eyncourt stood up against the glow of
the fire.

‘Of course, that is all we want--your word,’ said the Colonel.

She was still standing, and seemed to be towering above him where he sat
in that low chair; and there was a dumb resistance in her attitude
which made a strange impression upon the two men. She said, after a
moment, moistening her lips painfully, ‘You seem to have taken the word
of other people against me easily enough.’

‘Not easily; oh no! with great distress and pain. And we did not take
it,’ said the younger brother; ‘we came at once, to hear your own----’

He stopped, and there was a dead silence. The Colonel sat bending
forward into the comparative gloom in which she stood, and Roger
d’Eyncourt turned to her in an attitude of anxious attention; but she
made no further reply.

‘Joan, for God’s sake say something! Don’t you see that pride is out of
the question in such circumstances? We must have a distinct
contradiction. Heavens! here’s someone coming, after all.’

There was a slight impatient tap at the door, and then it was opened
quickly, as by someone who had no mind to be put back. They all turned
towards the new-comer, the Colonel whirling his chair round with
annoyance. It was Brown--Mrs. Blencarrow’s agent or steward. He was a
tall young man with a well-developed, athletic figure, his head covered
with those close curling locks which give an impression of vigour and
superabundant life. He came quickly up to Mrs. Blencarrow with some
papers in his hand and said something to her, which, in their
astonishment and excitement, the brothers did not make out. He had the
slow and low enunciation of the North-country, to which their ear was
not accustomed. She answered him with almost painful distinctness.

‘Oh, the papers about Appleby’s lease. Put them on the table, please.’

He went to the table and put them down, turned for a moment undecided,
and then joined the group, which watched him with a surprised and
hostile curiosity, so far as the brothers were concerned. She turned her
face towards him with a fixed, imperious look.

‘I forgot,’ she said hurriedly; ‘I think you have both seen my agent,
Mr. Brown.’

Roger d’Eyncourt gave an abrupt nod of recognition; the Colonel only
gazed from his chair.

‘I thought Mr. Brown had been your steward, Joan.’

‘He is my--everything that is serviceable and trustworthy,’ she said.

The words seemed to vibrate in the air, so full of meaning were they,
and she herself to thrill with some strong sentiment which fixed her
look upon this man. He paused a little as if he intended to speak, but
after a minute’s uncertainty, with a rustic inclination of his head,
went slowly away. Mrs. Blencarrow dropped suddenly into her chair as the
door closed, as if some tremendous tension had relaxed. The brothers
looked wonderingly at each other again. ‘That is all very well; the
people you employ are in your own hands; but this is of far more
consequence.’

‘Joan,’ said the Colonel, ‘I don’t know what to think. For God’s sake
answer one way or another! Why don’t you speak? For the sake of your
children, for the sake of your own honour, your credit, your family--Is
it true?’

‘Hush, Rex! Of course we know it isn’t true. But, Joan, be reasonable,
my dear; let’s have your word for it, that we may face the world. Of
course we know well enough that you’re the last woman to dishonour
Blencarrow’s memory--poor old fellow! who was so fond of you--and
deceive everybody.’

‘You seem to have believed me capable of all that, or you would not have
come here!’

‘No, Joan, no--not so. Do, for God’s sake, take the right view of it!
Tell us simply that you are not married, and have never thought of such
a thing, which I for one am sure of to begin with.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said, with a curious hard note of a laugh, ‘they have
told you, having told you so much, whom I am supposed to have married,
as you say.’

Again they looked at each other. ‘No one,’ said the Colonel, ‘has told
us that.’

She laughed again. ‘Then if this is all you know, and all I am accused
of, to have married no one knows who, no one knows when, you must come
to what conclusion you please, and make what discoveries you can. I have
nothing to say.’

‘Joan!’ they both cried.

‘You must do exactly what seems good to you,’ she said, rising hastily.
‘Find out what you can, say what you like--you shall not have a word
from me.’




CHAPTER VII.

A NIGHT OF MISERY.


She was gone before they could say another word, leaving them looking at
each other in consternation, not knowing what to think.

For the rest of the night Mrs. Blencarrow shut herself up in her own
room; she would not come downstairs, not even to dinner. The boys
arrived and sought their mother in the drawing-room, wondering that she
did not come to meet them, but found only their uncles there, standing
before the fire like two baffled conspirators. Reginald and Bertie
rushed to their mother’s room, and plunged into it, notwithstanding her
maid’s exhortation to be quiet.

‘Your mamma has got a bad headache, sir.’

They were not accustomed to any régime of headaches. They burst in and
found her seated in her dressing-gown over the fire.

‘Is your head so bad? Are you going to stay out?’ said Reginald, who had
just learnt the slang of Eton.

‘And there’s Uncle Rex and Uncle Roger downstairs,’ said Bertie.

‘You must tell them I am not well enough to come down. You must take the
head of the table and take care of them instead of me,’ said Mrs.
Blencarrow.

‘But what is the matter, mamma?’ said Bertie. ‘You do not look very
bad, though you are red here.’ He touched his own cheeks under his
eyes, which were shining with the cold and excitement of arriving.

‘Never mind, my dear. Emmy and you must do the honours of the house. I
am not well enough to come downstairs. Had you good sport?’

‘Oh, very good one day; but then, mamma, you know this horrid frost----
’

‘Yes, yes. I should not wonder if the ice on the pond would bear
to-morrow,’ she said with a smile. ‘Now run away, dear boys, and see
that your uncles have everything they want; for I can’t bear much
talking, you know, with my bad head.’

‘Poor mamma!’ they cried. Reginald felt her forehead with his cold hand,
as he had seen her do, and Bertie hugged her in a somewhat rude embrace.
She kissed both the glowing faces, bright with cold and fun and
superabundant life. When they were gone, noisily, yet with sudden starts
of recollection that they ought to be quiet, Mrs. Blencarrow got up from
her chair and began to walk hurriedly about the room, now and then
wringing her hands.

‘Even my little boys!’ she said to herself, with the acutest tone of
anguish. ‘Even my little boys!’

For she had no headache, no weakness. Her brain was supernaturally
clear, seeing everything on every side of the question. She was before a
problem which it needed more than mortal power to solve. To do all her
duties was impossible; which was she to fulfil and which abandon? It was
not a small contradiction such as sometimes confuses a brain, but one
that was fundamental, striking at the very source of life. She was not
angry with her brothers, or with the others who had made this assault
upon her. What were they, after all? Had they never spoken a word, the
problem would still have been there, more and more difficult to solve
every day.

No one disturbed her further that night; she sent word downstairs that
she was going to bed, and sent even her maid away, darkening the light.
But when all was still, she rose again, and, bringing out a box full of
papers, began to examine and read them, burning many--a piece of work
which occupied her till the household noises had all sunk into silence,
and the chill of midnight was within and around the great house full of
human creatures asleep. Mrs. Blencarrow had all the restlessness about
her of great mental trouble. After she had sat long over her papers,
she thrust them from her hastily, throwing some into the fire and some
into the box, which she locked with a sort of fierce energy; then rose
and moved about the room, pausing to look at herself, with her feverish
cheeks, in the great mirror, then throwing herself on her knees by her
bedside as if to pray, then rising with a despairing movement as if that
was impossible. Sometimes she murmured to herself with a low,
unconscious outcry like some wounded animal--sometimes relieved herself
by broken words. Her restlessness, her wretchedness, all seemed to
breathe that question--the involuntary cry of humanity--‘What shall I
do? What shall I do?’ At length she opened her door softly and stole
downstairs. There was moonlight outside, and stray rays from a window
here and there made the long corridors and stairs faintly visible. One
broad sweep of whiteness from a great window on the staircase crossed
the dark like a vast ribbon, and across this ghostly light her figure
appeared and passed, more strangely and in a more awful revelation than
had all been dark. Had anyone seen her, it would have been impossible to
take her for anything but a ghost.

She went down to the hall, then noiselessly along the further passage
and bare stone stairs to the little business room. All was dark and
silent there, the moonlight coming in through the chinks of the closed
shutters. Mrs. Blencarrow stood on the threshold a moment as if she had
expected to find someone there, then went in and sat down a few minutes
in the dark. Her movements and her sudden pauses were alike full of the
carelessness of distracted action. In the solitude and midnight darkness
and silence, what could her troubled thoughts be meditating? Suddenly
she moved again unseen, and came out to the door by which tenants and
other applicants came for business or charity. She turned the key
softly, and, opening it, stood upon the threshold. The opening from the
darkness into the white world unseen was like a chill and startling
transformation; the white light streamed in, opening a narrow pathway in
the darkness, in the midst of which she stood, a ghost indeed--enough to
have curdled the blood of any spectator. She stood for another moment
between the white world without and the blackness of night and sleep
within. To steal away and be lost for ever in that white still
distance; to disappear and let the billows of light and space and
silence swallow her up, and be seen no more. Ah! but that was not
possible. The only thing possible to mortal power was a weary plodding
along a weary road, that led not to vague distances, but to some village
or town well known, where the fugitive would be discovered by the
daylight, by wondering wayfarers, by life which no one can escape. Even
should death overtake her, and the welcome chill extinguish existence,
yet still there would be found somewhere, like a fallen image, her empty
shell, her mortal garment lying in the way of the first passenger. No;
oh no; rather still the struggle, the contradictions, the despair----

And how could she ask God to help her?--that one appeal which is
instinctive: for there was nothing she could do that would not be full
of lies or of treachery, a shirking of one duty or another, the
abandonment of justice, truth, and love. She turned from the world
outside and closed the door; then returned again up the long stairs, and
crossed once more the broad belt of moonlight from the window in the
staircase. It was like resigning all hope of outside help, turning back
to the struggle that had to be fought out inch by inch on the well-known
and common ground. She was chilled to the heart with the icy air of the
night, and threw herself down on the hearthrug before the fire, with a
forlorn longing for warmth, which is the last physical craving of all
wounded and suffering things; and then she fell into a deep but broken
sleep, from which she fortunately picked herself up before daylight, so
as to prevent any revelation of her agitated state to the maid, who
naturally suspected much, but knew, thanks to Mrs. Blencarrow’s
miraculous self-command, scarcely anything at all.

She did not get up next morning till the brothers, infinitely perplexed
and troubled, believing their sister to be mortally offended by the step
they had taken, and by their adoption or partial adoption of the rumours
of the neighbourhood, had gone away. They made an ineffectual attempt to
see her before they left, and finally departed, sending her a note, in
which Roger d’Eyncourt expressed the deep sorrow of both, and their hope
that she would come in time to forgive them, and to see that only
solicitude for herself and her family could have induced them to take
such a step.

‘I hope,’ he added, ‘my dear sister, that you will not misunderstand our
motives when I say that we are bound in honour to contradict upon
authoritative grounds this abominable rumour, since our own character
may be called in question, for permitting you to retain the guardianship
of the children in such circumstances. As you refuse to discuss it with
us (and I understand the natural offence to your pride and modesty that
seems involved), we must secure ourselves by examining the books in
which the record of the marriage was said to have been found.’

Mrs. Blencarrow received this note while still in bed. She read it with
great apparent calm, but the great bed in which she lay quivered
suddenly, all its heavy satin draperies moving as if an earthquake had
moved the room. Both her maid and Emmy saw this strange movement with
alarmed surprise, thinking that one of the dogs had got in, or that
there had been some sinking of the foundation.

‘The bed shook,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow, clutching with her hand at the
quilt, as if for safety. ‘Yes, I felt something; but the flooring is not
very even, and worm-eaten at some places, you know.’

She got up immediately after, making a pretence of this to account for
her recovery so soon after her brothers’ departure, and appeared soon
afterwards downstairs, looking very pale and exhausted, but saying she
felt a little better. And the day passed as usual--quite as usual to
the boys and the servants; a cheerful day enough, the children in the
foreground, and a good deal of holiday noise and commotion going on.
Emmy from time to time looked wistfully at her mother, but Mrs.
Blencarrow took no notice, save with a kiss or an especially tender
word.

‘I think you have got my headache, Emmy.’

‘Oh, mamma, I don’t mind if I can take it from you.’

The mother shook her head with a smile that went to Emmy’s heart.

‘I am afraid,’ she said, ‘no one can do that.’

In the afternoon she sent a man over to the Vicarage, with a note to the
clergyman of the parish. He was a middle-aged man, but unmarried; a
studious and quiet parson, little in society, though regarded with
great respect in the neighbourhood; a man safe to confide in, with
neither wife nor other belongings to tempt him to the betrayal of a
secret entrusted to him. Perhaps this was why, in her uttermost need,
Mrs. Blencarrow bethought herself of Mr. Germaine. She passed the rest
of the day in the usual manner, not going out, establishing herself
behind the screen by the drawing-room fire with some work, ready to be
appealed to by the children. It was the time at which she expected
visits, but there had been no caller at Blencarrow for a day or two,
which was also a noticeable thing, for the neighbourhood was what is
called sociable, and there had been rarely a day in which some country
neighbour or other did not appear, until the last week, during which
scarcely any stranger had crossed the threshold. Was it the weather
which had become so cold? Was it that there were Christmas parties in
most of the houses, which perhaps had not quite broken up yet? Was
it----? It was a small matter, and Mrs. Blencarrow was thankful beyond
expression to be rid of them, to be free of the necessity for company
looks and company talks--but yet----

In the evening, after dinner, when the children were all settled to a
noisy round game, she went downstairs to her business room, bidding them
good-night before she left, and requesting that she should not be
disturbed, for her headaches lately had made her much behind with her
work, which, of course, was unusually heavy at the beginning of the
year. She went away with a curious stillness about her, pausing at the
door to give a last look at the happy little party, all flushed with
their game. It might have been the last look she should ever have of
them, from the expression in her face; and then she closed the door and
went resolutely away. The servants in their regions below sounded almost
as merry as the children, in the after-dinner ease; but they were far
from the business-room, which was perfectly quiet and empty--a shaded
lamp burning in it, the fire blazing. Mrs. Blencarrow sat down at her
writing-table, but, though she was so busy, did nothing. She looked at
her watch with a weary sigh, then leaning her head on her hands,
waited--for whom and for what, who could say?




CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. BLENCARROW’S CONFESSION.


She had been there for some time when the sound of a footstep on the
gravel outside made her start. It was followed by a knock at the door,
which she herself opened almost before the summons. She came back to the
room, immediately followed by a tall man in clerical dress. The
suppressed excitement which had been in Mrs. Blencarrow’s aspect all the
day had risen now to an extraordinary height. She was very pale, with
one flaring spot on either cheek, and trembled so much that her teeth
were with difficulty kept from chattering against each other. She was
quite breathless when she took her seat again, once more supporting her
head in her hands.

The clergyman was embarrassed, too; he clasped and unclasped his hands
nervously, and remarked that the night was very cloudy and that it was
cold, as if, perhaps, it had been to give her information about the
weather that he came. Mr. Germaine giving her his views about the night,
and Mrs. Blencarrow listening with her face half hidden, made the most
curious picture, surrounded as it was by the bare framework of this
out-of-the-way room. She broke in abruptly at last upon the few broken
bits of information which he proceeded to give.

‘Do you guess why I sent for you, Mr. Germaine?’

The Vicar hesitated, and said, ‘I am by no means sure.’

‘Or why I receive you here in this strange place, and let you in myself,
and treat you as if you were a visitor whom I did not choose to have
seen?’

‘I have never thought of that last case.’

‘No--but it is true enough. It is not an ordinary visit I asked you to
pay me.’ She took her hands from her face and looked at him for a
moment. ‘You have heard what people are saying of me?’ she said.

‘Yes, but I did not believe a word. I felt sure that Kitty only meant to
curry favour at home.’

She gave him a strange, sudden look, then paused with a mechanical
laugh. ‘You think, then,’ she said, ‘that there are people in my own
county to whom that news would be something to conciliate;
something--something to make them forgive?’

‘There are people everywhere who would give much for such a story
against a neighbour, Mrs. Blencarrow.’

‘It is sad that such a thing should be.’ She stopped again, and looked
at him once more. ‘I am going to surprise you very much, Mr. Germaine.
You are not like them, so I think I am going to give you a great shock,’
she said.

She had turned her face towards him as she spoke; the two red spots on
her cheeks were like fire, yet her paleness was extreme; they only
seemed to make this the more remarkable.

In the momentary silence the door opened suddenly, and someone came in.
In the subdued light afforded by the shaded lamp it was difficult to see
more than that a dark figure had entered the room, and, crossing over to
the further side, sat down against the heavy curtains that covered the
window. Mrs. Blencarrow made the slightest movement of consciousness,
not of surprise, at this interruption, which, indeed, scarcely was an
interruption at all, being so instantaneous and so little remarked. She
went on:

‘You have known me a long time; you will form your own opinion of what I
am going to tell you; I will not excuse or explain.’

‘Mrs. Blencarrow, I am not sure whether you have perceived that we are
not alone.’

She cast a momentary glance at the new-comer, unnecessary, for she was
well aware of him, and of his attitude, and every line of the dark
shadow behind her. He sat bending forward, almost double, his elbows
upon his knees, and his head in his hands.

‘It makes no difference,’ she said, with a slight impatience--‘no
difference. Mr. Germaine, I sent for you to tell you--that it was true.’

‘What!’ he cried. He had scarcely been listening, all his attention
being directed with consternation, almost with stupefaction, on the
appearance of the man who had come in--who sat there--who made no
difference. The words did not strike him at all for the first moment,
and then he started and cried in his astonishment, ‘What!’ as if she had
struck him a blow.

Mrs. Blencarrow looked at him fixedly and spoke slowly, being, indeed,
forced to do so by a difficulty in enunciating the words. ‘The story you
have heard is--true.’

The Vicar rose from his chair in the sudden shock and horror; he looked
round him like a man stupefied, taking in slowly the whole scene--the
woman who was not looking at him, but was gazing straight before her,
with those spots of red excitement on her cheeks; the shadow of the man
in the background, with face hidden, unsurprised. Mr. Germaine slowly
received this astounding, inconceivable thought into his mind.

‘Good God!’ he cried.

‘I make no--explanations--no--excuses. The fact is enough,’ she said.

The fact was enough; his mind refused to receive it, yet grasped it with
the force of a catastrophe. He sat down helpless, without a word to
say, with a wave of his hands to express his impotence, his incapacity
even to think in face of a revelation so astounding and terrible; and
for a full minute there was complete silence; neither of the three moved
or spoke. The calm ticking of the clock took up the tale, as if the room
had been vacant--time going on indifferent to all the downfalls and
shame of humanity--with now and then a crackle from the glowing fire.

She said at last, being the first, as a woman usually is, to be moved to
impatience by the deadly silence, ‘It was not only to tell you--but to
ask, what am I to do?’

‘Mrs. Blencarrow--I have not a word--I--it is incredible.’

‘Yes,’ she said with a faint smile, ‘but very true.’ She repeated after
another pause, ‘What am I to do?’

Mr. Germaine had never in his life been called upon to face such a
question. His knowledge of moral problems concerned the more primitive
classes of humanity alone, where action is more obvious and the
difficulties less great. Nothing like this could occur in a village. He
sat and gazed at the woman, who was not a mere victim of passion--a
foolish woman who had taken a false step and now had to own to it--but a
lady of blameless honour and reputation, proud, full of dignity, the
head of a well-known family, the mother of children old enough to
understand her downfall and shame, with, so far as he knew, further
penalties involved of leaving them, and every habit of her life, and
following the man, whoever he was, into whatsoever wilderness he might
seek. The Vicar felt that all the ordinary advice which he would give in
such a case was stopped upon his lips. There was no parallel between
what was involved here and anything that could occur among the country
folk. He sat, feeling the problem beyond him, and without a word to say.

‘I must tell you more,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow. At her high strain of
excitement she was scarcely aware that he hesitated to reply, and not at
all that he was so much bewildered as to be beyond speech. She went on
as if she had not paused at all. ‘A thing has happened--which must often
happen; how can I tell you? It has been--not happy--for either. We
miscalculated--ourselves and all things. If I am wrong, I
am--subject--to contradiction,’ she said, suddenly stopping with a gasp
as if for breath.

The shades of the drama grew darker and darker. The spectator listened
with unspeakable excitement and curiosity; there was a silence which
seemed to throb with suspense and pain; but the figure in the background
neither moved nor spoke--a large motionless figure, doubled upon itself,
the shaggy head held between the hands, the face invisible, the elbows
on the knees.

‘You see?’ she said, with a faint movement of her hands, as though
calling his attention to that silence. There was a painful flicker of a
smile about her lips; perhaps her pride, perhaps her heart, desired even
at this moment a protest. She went on again: ‘It is--as I say; you will
see how this--complicates--all that one thinks of--as duty. What am I to
do?’

‘Mrs. Blencarrow,’ said the clergyman--then stopped with a painful sense
that even this name could be no longer hers, a perception which she
divined, and responded to with again a faint, miserable smile--‘what can
I say to you?’ he burst out. ‘I don’t know the circumstances; what you
tell me is so little. If you are married a second time----’

She made a movement of assent with her hand.

‘Then, of course--it is a commonplace; what else can I say?--your duty
to your husband must come first; it must come first. It is the most
primitive, the most fundamental law.’

‘What is that duty?’ she said, almost sharply, looking up; and again
there was a silence.

The clergyman laboured to speak, but what was he to say? The presence of
that motionless figure in the background, had there been nothing else,
would have made him dumb.

‘The first thing,’ he said, ‘in ordinary circumstances--Heaven knows I
speak in darkness--would be to own your position, at least, and set
everything in its right place. Nature itself teaches,’ he continued,
growing bolder, ‘that it is impossible to go on living in a false
position, acting, if not speaking, what can be nothing but a lie.’

‘It is commonplace, indeed,’ she cried bitterly, ‘all that: who should
know it like me? But will you tell me,’ she said, rising up and sitting
down in her excitement, ‘that it is my duty to leave my children who
want me, and all the work of my life which there is no one else to do,
for a useless existence, pleasing no one, needed by no one--a life
without an object, or with a hopeless object--a duty I can never fulfil?
To leave my trust,’ she went on, coming forward to the fire, leaning
upon the mantelpiece, and speaking with her face flushed and her voice
raised in unconscious eloquence, ‘the office I have held for so many
years--my children’s guardian, their steward, their caretaker--suppose
even that I had not been their mother, is a woman bidden to do all that,
to make herself useless, to sacrifice what she can do as well as what
she is?’

She stopped, words failing her, and stood before him, a wonderful noble
figure, eloquent in every movement and gesture, in the maturity and
dignity of her middle age; then suddenly broke down altogether, and,
hiding her face, cried out:

‘Who am I, to speak so? Not young to be excused, not a fool to be
forgiven; a woman ashamed--and for no end.’

‘If you are married,’ said the Vicar, ‘it is no shame to marry. It may
be inappropriate, unsuitable, it may be even regrettable; but it is not
wrong. Do not at least take a morbid view.’

She raised her drooping head, and turned round quickly upon him.

‘What am I to do?’ she said. ‘What am I to do?’

The Vicar’s eyes stole, in spite of himself, to the other side of the
room. The dark shadow there had not moved; the man still sat with his
head bent between his hands. He gave no evidence that he had heard a
word of the discussion; he put forth no claim except by his presence
there.

‘What can I say?’ said Mr. Germaine. ‘Nothing but commonplace, nothing
but what I have already said. Before everything it is your duty to put
things on a right foundation; you cannot go on like this. It must be
painful to do, but it is the only way.’

‘It is seldom,’ she said, ‘very seldom that you are so precise.’

‘Because,’ he said firmly, ‘there is no doubt on the subject. It is as
clear as noonday; there is but one thing to do.’

Mrs. Blencarrow said nothing; she stood with a still resistance in her
look--a woman whom nothing could overcome, broken down by
circumstances, by trouble, ready to grasp at any expedient; yet
unsubdued, and unconvinced that she could not struggle against Fate.

‘I can say nothing else,’ the Vicar repeated, ‘for there is nothing else
to say; and perhaps you would prefer that I should go. I can be of no
comfort to you, for there is nothing that can be done till this is
done--not from my point of view. I can only urge this upon you; I can
say nothing different.’

Again Mrs. Blencarrow made no reply. She stood so near him that he could
see the heaving of strong passion in all her frame, restrained by her
power of self-command, yet beyond that power to conceal. Perhaps she
could not speak more; at least, she did not. Mr. Germaine sat between
the two, both silent, absorbed in this all-engrossing question, till he
could bear it no longer. He rose abruptly to his feet.

‘May God give you the power to do right!’ he said; ‘I can say no more.’

Mrs. Blencarrow followed him to the door. She opened it for him, and
stood outside on the threshold in the moonlight to see him go.

‘At least,’ she said, ‘you will keep my secret; I may trust you with
that.’

‘I will say nothing,’ he replied, ‘except to yourself; but think of what
I have said.’

‘Think! If thinking would do any good!’

She gave him her hand, in all the veins of which the blood was coursing
like a strong stream, and then she closed the door behind him and locked
it. During all this time the man within had never stirred. Would he
move? Would he speak? Or could he speak and move? When she went
back----




CHAPTER IX.

‘I AM HER HUSBAND.’


A night and a day passed after this without any incident. What the chief
persons in this strange drama were doing or thinking was hid under an
impenetrable veil to all the world. Life at Blencarrow went on as usual.
The frost was now keen and the pond was bearing; the youngsters had
forgotten everything except the delight of the ice. Even Emmy had been
dragged out, and showed a little colour in her pale cheeks, and a flush
of pleasure in her eyes, as she made timid essays in the art of skating,
under the auspices of her brothers. When she proved too timid for much
progress, they put her in a chair and drew her carriage from end to end
of the pond, growing more and more rosy and bright. Mrs. Blencarrow
herself came down in the afternoon to see them at their play, and since
the pond at Blencarrow was famed, there was a wonderful gathering of
people whom Reginald and Bertie had invited, or who were used to come as
soon as it was known that the pond ‘was bearing.’

When the lady of the house came on to this cheerful scene, everybody
hurried to do her homage. The scandal had not taken root, or else they
meant to show her that her neighbours would not turn against her.
Perhaps the cessation of visits had been but an accident, such as
sometimes happens in those wintry days when nobody cares to leave home;
or perhaps public opinion, after the first shock of hearing the report
against her, had come suddenly round again, as it sometimes does, with
an impulse of indignant disbelief. However that might be, she received a
triumphant welcome from everybody. To be sure, it was upon her own
ground. People said to each other that Mrs. Blencarrow was not looking
very strong, but exceedingly handsome and interesting; her dark velvet
and furs suited her; her eyes were wonderfully clear, almost like the
eyes of a child, and exceptionally brilliant; her colour went and came.
She spoke little, but she was very gracious and made the most charming
picture, everybody said, with her children about her: Emmy, rosy with
unusual excitement and exercise, clinging to her arm, the boys making
circles round her.

‘Mamma, come on the chair--we will take you to the end of the pond.’

‘Put mamma on the chair,’ they shouted, laying hold upon her.

She allowed herself to be persuaded, and they flew along, pushing her
before them, their animated, glowing faces full of delight, showing over
her shoulders.

‘Brown, come and give us a hand with mamma. Brown, just lay hold at this
side. Brown! Where’s Brown? Can’t he hear?’ the boys cried.

‘Never mind Brown,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow; ‘I like my boys best.’

‘Ah! but he is such a fellow,’ they exclaimed. ‘He could take you over
like lightning. He is far the best skater on the ice. Turn mamma round,
Rex, and let her see Brown.’

‘No, my darlings, take me back to the bank; I am getting a little
giddy,’ she said.

But, as they obeyed her, they did not fail to point out the gyrations of
Brown, who was certainly, as they said, the best skater on the ice. Mrs.
Blencarrow saw him very well--she did not lose the sight--sweeping in
wonderful circles about the pond, admired by everybody. He was heavy in
repose, but he was a picture of agile strength and knowledge there.

And so the afternoon passed, all calm, bright, tranquil, and, according
to every appearance, happy, as it had been for years. A more charming
scene could scarcely be, even summer not brighter--the glowing faces lit
up with health and that invigorating chill which suits the hardy North;
the red sunset making all the heavens glow in emulation; the graceful,
flying movements of so many lively figures; the boyish shouts and
laughter in the clear air; the animation of everything. Weakness or
trouble do not come out into such places; there was nothing but
pleasure, health, innocent enjoyment, natural satisfaction there. Quite
a little crowd stood watching Brown, the steward, as he flew along,
making every kind of circle and figure, as if he had been on wings--far
the best skater of all, as the boys said. He was still there in the
ruddy twilight, when the visitors who had that privilege had streamed
into the warm hall for tea, and the nimble skaters had disappeared.

The hall was almost as lively as the pond had been, the red firelight
throwing a sort of enchantment over all, rising and falling in fitful
flames. Blencarrow had not been so brilliant since the night of the
ball. Several of the young Birchams were there, though not their mother;
and Mrs. Blencarrow had specially, and with a smile of meaning, inquired
for Kitty in the hearing of everybody. They all understood her smile,
and the inquiry added a thrill of excitement to the delights of the
afternoon.

‘The horrid little thing! How could she invent such a story?’ people
said to each other; though there were some who whispered in corners that
Mrs. Blencarrow was wise, if she could keep it up, to ‘brazen it out.’

Brazen it out! A woman so dignified, so proud, so self-possessed; a
princess in her way, a queen-mother. As the afternoon went on, her
strength failed a little; she began to breathe more quickly, to change
colour instantaneously from red to pale. Anxiety crept into the clear,
too clear eyes. She looked about her by turns with a searching look, as
if expecting someone to appear and change everything. When the visitors’
carriages came to take them away, the sound of the wheels startled her.

‘I thought it might be your uncles coming back,’ she said to Emmy, who
always watched her with wistful eyes.

Mr. Germaine had gone back to his parsonage through the moonlight with a
more troubled mind than he had perhaps ever brought before from any
house in his parish. A clergyman has to hear many strange stories, but
this, which was in the course of being enacted, and at a crisis so full
of excitement, occupied him as no tale of erring husband or wife, or son
or daughter going to the bad--such as are also so common
everywhere--had ever done. But the thing which excited him most was the
recollection of the silent figure behind, sitting bowed down while the
penitent made her confession, listening to everything, but making no
sign. The clergyman’s interest was all with Mrs. Blencarrow; he was on
her side. To think that she--such a woman--could have got herself into a
position like that, seemed incredible, and he felt with an aching
sympathy that there was nothing he would not do to get her free--nothing
that was not contrary to truth and honour. But, granted that
inconceivable first step, her position was one which could be
understood; whereas all his efforts could not make him understand the
position of the other--the man who sat there and made no sign. How
could any man sit and hear all that and make no sign?--silent when she
made the tragical suggestion that she might be contradicted--motionless
when she herself did the servant’s part and opened the door to the
visitor--giving neither support, nor protest, nor service--taking no
share in the whole matter except the silent assertion of his presence
there? Mr. Germaine could not forget it; it preoccupied him more than
the image, so much more beautiful and commanding, of the woman in her
anguish. What the man could be thinking, what could be his motives, how
he could reconcile himself to, or how he could have been brought into,
such a strange position, was the subject of all his thoughts. It kept
coming uppermost all day; it became a kind of fascination upon him;
wherever he turned his eyes he seemed to see the strange image of that
dark figure, with hidden face and shaggy hair pushed about, between his
supporting hands.

Just twenty-four hours after that extraordinary interview these thoughts
were interrupted by a visitor.

‘A gentleman, sir, wishing to see you.’

It was late for any such visit, but a clergyman is used to being
appealed to at all seasons. The visitor came in--a tall man wrapped in a
large coat, with the collar up to his ears. It was a cold night, which
accounted sufficiently for any amount of covering. Mr. Germaine looked
at him in surprise, with a curious sort of recognition of the heavy
outline of the man; but he suddenly brightened as he recognised the
stranger and welcomed him cheerfully.

‘Oh! it is you, Brown; come to the fire, and take a chair. Did you ever
feel such cold?’

Brown sat down, throwing back his coat and revealing his dark
countenance, which was cloudy, but handsome, in a rustic, heavy way. The
frost was wet and melting on his crisp, curly brown beard; he had the
freshness of the cold on his face, but yet was darkly pale, as was his
nature. He made but little response to the Vicar’s cheerful greeting,
and drew his chair a little distance away from the blaze of the fire.
Mr. Germaine tried to draw him into conversation on ordinary topics, but
finding this fail, said, after a pause:

‘You have brought me, perhaps, a message from Mrs. Blencarrow?’

He was disturbed by a sort of presentiment, an uneasy feeling of
something coming, for which he could find no cause.

‘No, I have brought no message. I come to you,’ said Brown, leaning
forward with his elbows on his knees, and his head supported by his
hands, ‘on my own account.’

Mr. Germaine uttered a strange cry.

‘Good heavens!’ he said, ‘it was you!’

‘Last night?’ said Brown, looking up at him with his deep-set eyes.
‘Didn’t you know?’

Mr. Germaine could not contain himself. He got up and pushed back his
chair. He looked for a moment, being a tall man also and strong, though
not so strong as the Hercules before him, as if he would have seized
upon him and shaken him, as one dog does another.

‘You!’ he cried. ‘The creature of her bounty! For whom she has done
everything! Obliged to her for all you are and all you have!’

Brown laughed a low, satirical laugh. ‘I am her husband,’ he said.

The Vicar stood with rage in his face, gazing at this man, feeling that
he could have torn him limb from limb.

‘How dared you?’ he said, through his clenched teeth; ‘how dared you? I
should like to kill you. You to sit there and let her appeal to you, and
let her open to me and close the door, and do a servant’s office, while
you were there!’

‘What do you mean?’ said Brown. ‘I am her husband. She told you so. It’s
the woman’s place in my class to do all that; why shouldn’t she?’

‘I thought,’ said the Vicar, ‘that however much a man stood by his
class, it was thought best to behave like a gentleman whatever you
were.’

‘There you were mistaken,’ said Brown. He got up and stood beside Mr.
Germaine on the hearth, a tall and powerful figure. ‘I am not a
gentleman,’ he said, ‘but I’ve married a lady. What have I made by it?
At first I was a fool. I was pleased whatever she did. But that sort of
thing don’t last. I’ve never been anything but Brown the steward, while
she was the lady and mistress. How is a man to stand that? I’ve been
hidden out of sight. She’s never acknowledged me, never given me my
proper place. Brought up to supper at the ball by those two brats of
boys, spoken to in a gracious sort of way, “My good Brown.” And I her
husband--her husband, whom it was her business to obey!’

‘It is a difficult position,’ said Mr. Germaine, averting his eyes.

‘Difficult! I should think it was difficult, and a false position, as
you said. You spoke to her like a man last night; I’m glad she got it
hot for once. By----! I am sick and tired of it all.’

‘I hope,’ said the Vicar, not looking at him, ‘that you will not make
any sudden exposure, that you will get her consent, that you will
respect her feelings. I don’t say that you have not a hard part to play;
but you must think what this exposure will be for her.’

‘Exposure!’ he said. ‘I can’t see what shame there is in being my wife;
naturally I can’t see it. But you need not trouble your head about that.
I don’t mean to expose her. I am sick and tired of it all; I’m going
off to begin life anew----’

‘You are going off?’ Mr. Germaine’s heart bounded with sudden relief; he
could scarcely believe the man meant what he said.

‘Yes, I’m going off--to Australia. You can go and tell her. Part of the
rents have been paid in this week; I have taken them for my expenses.’

He took out a pocket-book, and held it out to the Vicar, who started and
laid a sudden hand on his arm.

‘You will not do that--not take money?’ he cried. ‘No, no, that cannot
be!’

‘Why not? You may be sure she won’t betray me. I am going for her good
and my own; I don’t make any pretence; it’s been a failure all round. I
want a wife of my own age and my own kind, not a grand lady who is
disgusted with all my natural ways. A man can’t stand that,’ he cried,
growing darkly red. ‘She kept it under at first. But I am not a brute,
whatever you think. I have done all I can for her, to save her from what
you call the exposure, and I take this money fairly and above-board; you
can tell her of it. I wouldn’t have chosen even you for a confidant if
she hadn’t begun. You can go and tell her I sail for Australia from
Liverpool to-morrow, and shall never see her more.’

‘Brown,’ said the Vicar, still with his hand on the other’s arm, ‘I
don’t know that I can let you go.’

‘You’ll be a great fool, then,’ Brown said.

The two men stood looking at each other, the one with a smile, half of
contempt, half of resolution, the other troubled and uncertain. ‘They
will say you have gone off with the money--absconded.’

‘She’ll take care of that.’

‘Brown, are you sure she wishes you to go? The exposure will come, all
the same; everything is found out that is true; and she will be left to
bear it alone without any support.’

‘There will be no exposure,’ he said with a short laugh; ‘I’ve seen to
that, though you think me no gentleman. There’s no need for another
word, Mr. Germaine; I’ve a great respect for you, but I’m not a man that
is to be turned from his purpose. You can come and see me off if you
please, and make quite sure. I’m due at the station in an hour to catch
the up-train. Will you come?--and then you can set her mind quite at
ease and say you have seen me go.’

Mr. Germaine looked at his comfortable fire, his cosy room, his book,
though he had not been reading, and then at the cold road, the dreary
changes of the train, the sleepless night. After a time he said, ‘I’ll
take your offer, Brown. I’ll go with you and see you off.’

‘If you like, you can give me into custody on the way for going off with
Mrs. Blencarrow’s money. Mrs. Blencarrow’s money? not even that!’ he
cried, with a laugh of bitterness. ‘She is Mrs. Brown; and the money’s
the boy’s, not hers, or else it would be lawfully mine.’

‘Brown,’ said the Vicar tremulously, ‘you are doing a sort of generous
act--God help us!--which I can’t help consenting to, though it’s utterly
wrong; but you speak as if you had not a scrap of feeling for her or
anyone.’

‘I haven’t!’ he cried fiercely, ‘after three years of it. Half the time
and more she’s been ashamed of me, disgusted with me. Do you think a man
can stand that? By----! I neither can nor will. I’m going,’ he
continued, buttoning his coat hastily; ‘you can come or not, as you
please.’

‘You had better have some supper first,’ said the Vicar.

‘Ah! that’s the most sensible word you have said,’ cried Brown.

Was it bravado, was it bitterness, was it relief in escaping, or the
lightness of despair? Mr. Germaine could never tell. It was something of
all of these feelings, mingled with the fierce pride of a peasant
slighted, and a certain indignant contemptuous generosity to let her go
free--the woman who was ashamed of him. All these were in Brown’s
thoughts.




CHAPTER X.

‘HE HAS GONE--FOR EVER!’


Mrs. Blencarrow spent that evening with her children; she made no
attempt to leave them after dinner. A lull had come into her heart after
the storm. She was aware that it was only temporary, nothing real in it;
but in the midst of a tempest even a few minutes of stillness and
tranquillity are dear. She had found on the mantelpiece of the
business-room the intimation, ‘Away on business till Monday,’ and though
it perplexed, it also soothed her. And the brothers returning with the
proof of Kitty’s statement, the extract which no doubt they would bring
from those books to confound her, could now scarcely arrive to-night. A
whole evening undisturbed among the children, who might so soon be torn
from her, in her own familiar place, which might so soon be hers no
longer; an evening like the past, perhaps the last before the coming of
that awful future when she must go forth to frame her life anew,
loveless and hopeless and ashamed. It was nothing but ‘the torrent’s
smoothness ere it dash below,’ the moment of calm before the storm; and
yet it was calm, and she was thankful for that one soft moment before
the last blow fell.

The children were again lively and happy over their round game; the
sober, kind governess--about whom Mrs. Blencarrow had already concluded
in her own mind that she could secure at least the happiness of the
little ones if their mother were forced to leave them--was seated with
them, even enjoying the fun, as it is a blessed dispensation of
Providence that such good souls often do. Emmy was the only one who was
out of it; she was in her favourite corner with a book, and always a
watchful glance at her mother. Emmy, with that instinct of the heart
which stood her in place of knowledge, had a perception, she could not
have told how, of the pause in her mother’s soul. She would do nothing
to disturb that pause. She sat praying mutely that it might last, that
it might be peace coming back. Naturally Emmy, even with all her
instinct, did not know the terrible barrier that stood between her
mother and peace.

And thus they all sat, apparently in full enjoyment of the sweet
household quiet, which by moments was so noisy and full of commotion,
the mother seated with the screen between her and the great blazing
fire, the children round the table, Emmy with her book.

Mrs. Blencarrow’s eyes dwelt upon them with the tenderest, the most
pathetic of smiles.

    ‘She looked on sea, and hill, and shore,
     As she might never see them more,’

with a throb of tragic wonder rising in her heart how she could ever
have thought that this was not enough for her--her children, and her
home, and this perfect peace.

It was already late and near their bedtime when the fly from the station
drove up to the door. Mrs. Blencarrow did not hear until some minutes
after Emmy had raised her head to listen, and then for a moment longer
she would not hear it, persuading herself that it was the wind rising
among the trees. When at last it was unmistakable, and the great hall
door was heard to open, and even--or so she thought in the sudden shiver
of agitation that seized her--a breath of icy wind came in, sweeping
through the house, she was for the moment paralyzed with dismay and
fear. She said something to hurry the children to bed, to bid them
go--go! But she was inaudible even to herself, and did not attempt, nor
could indeed form any further thought on any subject, except horror of
the catastrophe which she felt to be approaching in this moment of
peace. If it had but waited till to-morrow! Till an hour later, when
she should have been alone!

Motionless, holding by her chair, not even hearing the wondering
question, ‘Who can be coming so late?’ Mrs. Blencarrow, with wide-open
eyes fixed on the door, and her under-lip dropping in mortal anguish,
awaited her fate.

It was the avengers returning from their search; her brothers hurrying
in one after the other. The Colonel said, ‘How delightfully warm!’
rubbing his hands. Roger (Roger was always the kindest) came up to her
and took her hand. She had risen up to meet them, and grasped with her
other hand the only thing she could find to support her--the top of the
screen which stood between her and the fire.

‘Joan!’ her brothers began, both speaking together.

She was hoarse, her lips were baked, it was all she could do to
articulate.

‘Nothing before the children!’ she said, with a harsh and breathless
voice.

‘Joan, this does not matter. We have come to beg your pardon, most
humbly, most penitently.’

‘Fact is, it must all have been a mistake----’

‘Say an invention, Reginald.’

‘An invention--a cursed lie of that confounded girl! Hallo!’

There was a sudden crash and fall. The children all rushed to see, and
Mrs. Blencarrow stood with the light streaming upon her, and the gilt
bar of the screen in her hand. She had crushed it in her agitated grasp;
the pretty framework of gilded wood and embroidery lay in a heap at her
feet. The sound and shock had brought the blood rushing to her ghastly
tragical countenance. She stood looking vaguely at the bar in her hand;
but none of the children had any eyes for her--they were all on their
knees in a group round the gilded ruin. Save Mr. d’Eyncourt and Emmy, no
one noticed the terrible look in her face.

‘Come and sit down here while they pick up the pieces,’ said Roger.
‘Joan, I am afraid you are very angry, and you have reason; that we
should have believed such a slander--of all the women in the world--of
you! But, my dear, we are heartily ashamed of ourselves, if that is
anything.’

‘Most penitent,’ said the Colonel, ‘thoroughly ashamed. I said to
Roger, “If ever there were men who had reason to be proud of their
sister----”’

‘And yet we gave a moment’s credence to such a barefaced lie!’

She heard them dimly as from a far distance, and saw them as through a
fog; but the voices thus echoing and supplementing each other like a
dull chorus gave her time to recover. She said sedately, not with any
enthusiasm:

‘I am glad that you have found out--your mistake.’

Oh, heaven! Oh, miserable fate! But it was no mistake.

Mrs. Blencarrow found herself after a time taking Kitty’s defence.

‘She got her own pardon for it. Her mother is a great gossip, and loves
a tale against her neighbour. Don’t blame the girl too much.’

‘If you excuse her, Joan, who should say a word? But why in all the
world, thinking of an unlikely person to fasten such a slander upon, did
she choose you?’

‘Am I so unlikely, when my brothers believed it?’ she said, with a
strange smile.

An hour full of commotion followed. The boys never tired in showing each
other and everybody else the flaw in the wood where the framework of the
screen had broken.

‘But you must have leant on it very heavily, mamma.’

‘She wanted to break our heads with it,’ said the Colonel, who was in
high spirits.

‘Fancy mamma breaking Uncle Rex’s head with the screen!’ the children
cried with shrieks of laughter; and thus, in a tumult of amusement and
gaiety, the evening closed.

Mrs. Blencarrow went to her room with something cold and hard at her
heart like a stone. They had begged her pardon. They had not found that
record. By some chance, by some miracle--how could she tell what?--she
had escaped detection. But it was true; nothing could alter the fact.
Nothing could spirit away _him_--the husband--the man to whom she had
bound herself; the owner of her allegiance, of herself, if he chose to
exercise his rights. It occurred to her, in the silence of her room,
when she was alone there and dared to think, that her present escape was
but an additional despair. Had they found it, as they ought to have
found it, the worst would have been over. But now, to have the
catastrophe indefinitely postponed--to have it before her every day--the
sword hanging over her head, her mind rehearsing day and night what it
would be! Would it not be better to go and tell them yet, to have it
over? Her hand was on her door to obey this impulse, but her heart
failed her. Who could tell? God might be so merciful as to let her die
before it was known.

The two gentlemen spent a very merry morning on the ice with the
children, and in the afternoon left Blencarrow the best of friends with
their sister, grateful to her for her forgiveness. Mrs. Blencarrow did
not think it necessary to go out to the pond that afternoon--she was
tired, she said--and the skating, which often lasts so short a time that
everybody feels it a duty to take advantage of it, had cleared the
house. She spent the afternoon alone, sitting over the fire, cold with
misery and anxiety and trouble. Everything seemed right again, and yet
nothing was right--nothing. False impressions, false blame, can be
resisted; but who can hold up their head against a scandal that is true?

It was one of the women servants, in the absence of everybody else, who
showed Mr. Germaine into the drawing-room. He was himself very cold and
fatigued, having travelled all the previous night, and half the day,
returning home. He came to the fire and stood beside her, holding out
his hands to the warmth.

‘You are alone, Mrs. Blencarrow?’

‘Quite alone. You look as if you had something to tell me. For God’s
sake what is it? No news can come to me but bad news,’ she said,
rising, standing by him, holding out her hands in piteous appeal.

‘I don’t know whether you will think it bad news or good. I have come
straight from Liverpool, from the deck of a ship which sailed for
Australia to-day.’

‘What do you mean? What do you mean? A ship--which sailed for
Australia?’

‘I have come from--Everard Brown. He has thought it best to go away. I
have brought you a statement of all the affairs, showing how he has
carried with him a certain sum of money. Mrs. Blencarrow, it is too
great a shock; let me call someone.’

‘No!’ She caught at his arm, evidently not knowing what it was upon
which she leant. ‘No, tell me all--all!’

‘He has taken means--I know not what--to destroy all evidence. He has
gone away, never meaning to return. It is all wrong--wrong from
beginning to end, the money and everything; but he had a generous
meaning. He wanted to set you free. He has gone--for ever, Mrs.
Blencarrow!’

She had fallen at his feet without a word.

       *       *       *       *       *

People said afterwards that they had thought for some time that Mrs.
Blencarrow was not looking well, that she was in a state to take any
illness. And there was a flaw in the drains which nobody had discovered
till then. She had a long illness, and at one time was despaired of.
Things were complicated very much by the fact that Brown, her trusted
and confidential agent, had just emigrated to Australia, a thing he had
long set his heart upon, before she fell ill. But her brother, Mr. Roger
d’Eyncourt, was happily able to come to Blencarrow and look after
everything, and she recovered finally, being a woman with a fine
constitution and in the prime of life. The family went abroad as soon as
she was well enough to travel, and have remained so, with intervals of
London, ever since. When Reginald comes of age, Blencarrow will no doubt
be opened once more; but the care of the estate had evidently become too
much for his mother, and it is not thought that she will venture upon
such a charge again. It is now in the hands of a regular man of
business, which is perhaps better on the whole.

Kitty fell into great and well-deserved disgrace when it was found out
that she had seen what nobody else could see. Walter even, with a man’s
faculty for abandoning his partner in guilt, declared that he never saw
it, that Kitty must have dreamt it, that she tried to make him believe
it was Joan Blencarrow when it was only Jane Robinson, and many other
people were of opinion that it was all Kitty’s cleverness to get herself
forgiven and her own runaway match condoned.

That match turned out, like most others, neither perfect happiness nor
misery. Perhaps neither husband nor wife could have explained ten years
after how it was that they were so idiotic as to think that they could
not live without each other; but they get on together very comfortably,
all the same.


THE END.