Kitabı oku: «Airy Fairy Lilian», sayfa 22

CHAPTER _XXVII

"Claud.– In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on." —Much Ado About Nothing.

Because of Archibald's accident, and because of much harassing secret thought, Christmas is a failure this year at Chetwoode. Tom Steyne and his wife and their adorable baby come to them for a week, it is true, and try by every means in their power to lighten the gloom that hangs over the house, but in vain.

Guy is obstinately distrait, not to say ill-tempered; Lilian is fitful, – now full of the wildest spirits, and anon capricious and overflowing with little imperious whims; Archibald, though rapidly mending, is of course invisible, and a complete dead letter; while Cyril, usually the most genial fellow in the world and devoid of moods, is at this particular time consumed with anxiety, having at last made up his mind to reveal to his mother his engagement to Cecilia and ask her consent to their speedy marriage. Yet another full month elapses, and already the first glad thought of spring is filling every breast, before he really brings himself to speak upon the dreaded subject.

His disclosure he knows by instinct will be received ungraciously and with disapprobation, not only by Lady Chetwoode, but by Sir Guy, who has all through proved himself an enemy to the cause. His determined opposition will undoubtedly increase the difficulties of the situation, as Lady Chetwoode is in all matters entirely ruled by her eldest son.

Taking Lilian into his confidence, Cyril happens to mention to her this latter sure drawback to the success of his suit, whereupon she generously declares herself both able and willing to take Sir Guy in hand and compel him to be not only non-combative on the occasion, but an actual partisan.

At these valiant words Cyril is so transported with hope and gratitude that, without allowing himself time for reflection, he suddenly and very warmly embraces his pretty colleague, calling her, as "Traddles" might have done, "the dearest girl in the world," and vowing to her that but for one other she is indeed "the only woman he ever loved."

Having recovered from the astonishment caused by this outbreak on the part of the generally nonchalant Cyril, Miss Chesney draws her breath slowly, and wends her way toward Sir Guy's private den, where she knows he is at present sure to be found.

"Are you busy?" she asks, showing her face in the doorway, but not advancing.

"Not to you," courteously. They are now on friendly though somewhat constrained speaking terms.

"Will you give me, then, a little of your time? It is something very important."

"Certainly," replies he, surprised both at the solemnity of her manner and at the request generally. "Come in and shut the door."

"It is just a question I would ask of you," says Lilian, uncomfortably, now she has come to the point, finding an extraordinary difficulty about proceeding. At length, with a desperate effort she raises her head, and, looking full at him, says, distinctly:

"Sir Guy, when two people love each other very dearly, don't you think they ought to marry?"

This startling interrogation has the effect of filling Chetwoode with dismay. He turns white in spite of his vigorous attempt at self-control, and involuntarily lays his hand upon the nearest chair to steady himself. Has she come here to tell him of her affection for her cousin?

"There must be something more," he says, presently, regarding her fixedly.

"Yes, but answer me first. Don't you think they ought?"

"I suppose so," – unwillingly, – "unless there should be some insuperable difficulty in the way."

"He suspects me; he knows my errand," thinks Lilian, letting her eyes seek the carpet, which gives her all the appearance of feeling a very natural confusion. "He hopes to entangle me. His 'difficulty' is poor dear Cecilia's very disreputable papa."

"No difficulty should stand in the way of love," she argues, severely. "Besides, what is an 'insuperable difficulty'? Supposing one of them should be unhappily less – less respectable than the other: would that be it?"

Sir Guy opens his eyes. Is it not, then, the cousin? and if not, who? "Less respectable." He runs through the long list of all the young men of questionable morals with whom he is acquainted, but can come to no satisfactory conclusion. Has she possibly heard of certain lawless doings of Archibald in earlier days, and does she fear perhaps that he, her guardian, will refuse consent to her marriage because of them? At this thought he freezes.

"I think all unsuitable marriages a crime," he says, coldly. "Sooner or later they lead to the bitterest of all repentance. To marry one one cannot respect! Surely such an act carries with it its own punishment. It is a hateful thought. But then – "

"You do not understand," pleads Lilian, rising in her eagerness, and going nearer to him, while her large eyes read his face nervously as she trembles for the success of her undertaking. "There is no question of 'respect.' It is not that I mean. These two of whom I speak will never repent, because they love each other so entirely."

"What a stress you lay on the word love!" he says, in a half-mocking, wholly bitter tone. "Do you believe in it?"

"I do, indeed. I cannot think there is anything in this world half so good as it," replies she, with conviction, while reddening painfully beneath his gaze. "Is it not our greatest happiness?"

"I think it is our greatest curse."

"How can you say that?" with soft reproach. "Can you not see for yourself how it redeems all the misery of life for some people?"

"Those two fortunate beings of whom you are speaking, for instance," with a sneer. "All people are not happy in their attachment. What is to become of those miserable wretches who love, but love in vain? Did you never hear of a homely proverb that tells you 'one man's meat is another man's poison'?"

"You are cynical to-day. But to return; the two to whom I allude have no poison to contend with. They love so well that it is misery to them to be apart, – so devotedly that they know no great joy except when they are together. Could such love cool? I am sure not. And is it not cruel to keep them asunder?"

Her voice has grown positively plaintive; she is evidently terribly in earnest.

"Are you speaking of yourself?" asks Guy, huskily, turning with sudden vehemence to lay his hand upon her arm and scan her features with intense, nay, feverish anxiety.

"Of myself?" recoiling. "No! What can you mean? What is it that I should say of myself?" Her cheeks are burning, her eyes are shamed and perplexed, but they have not fallen before his: she is evidently full of secret wonder. "It is for Cyril I plead, and for Cecilia," she says, after a strange pause.

"Cyril!" exclaims he, the most excessive relief in tone and gesture. "Does he want to marry Mrs. Arlington?"

"Yes. I know you have a prejudice against her," – earnestly, – "but that is because you do not know her. She is the sweetest woman I ever met."

"This has been going on for a long time?"

"I think so. Cyril wished to marry her long ago, but she would not listen to him without auntie's consent. Was not that good of her? If I was in her place, I do not believe I should wait for any one's consent."

"I am sure" – dryly – "you would not."

"No, not even for my guardian's," replies she, provokingly; then, with a lapse into her former earnestness, "I want you to be good to her. She is proud, prouder than auntie even, and would not forgive a slight. And if her engagement to Cyril came to an end, he would never be happy again. Think of it."

"I do," thoughtfully. "I think it is most unfortunate. And she a widow, too!"

"But such a widow!" enthusiastically. "A perfect darling of a widow! I am not sure, after all," – with rank hypocrisy, – "that widows are not to be preferred before mere silly foolish girls, who don't know their own minds half the time."

"Is that a description of yourself?" with an irrepressible smile.

"Don't be rude! No 'mere silly girl' would dare to beard a stern guardian in his den as I am doing! But am I to plead in vain? Dear Sir Guy, do not be hard. What could be dearer than her refusing to marry Cyril if it should grieve auntie? 'She would not separate him from his mother,' she said. Surely you must admire her in that one instance at least. Think of it all again. They love each other, and they are unhappy; and you can turn their sorrow into joy."

"Now they love, of course; but will it last? Cyril's habits are very expensive, and he has not much money. Do you ever think you may be promoting a marriage that by and by will prove a failure? The day may come when they will hate you for having helped to bring them together."

"No," says Lilian, stoutly, shaking her blonde head emphatically; "I have no such unhealthy thoughts or fancies. They suit each other; they are happy in each other's society; they will never repent their marriage."

"Is that your experience?" he asks, half amused.

"I have no experience," returns she, coloring and smiling: "I am like the Miller of the Dee; I care for nobody, no, not I, – for nobody cares for me."

"You forget your cousin." The words escape him almost without his consent.

Miss Chesney starts perceptibly, but a second later answers his taunt with admirable composure.

"What? Archie? Oh! he don't count; cousins are privileged beings. Or did you perhaps mean Taffy? But answer me, Sir Guy: you have not yet said you will help me. And I am bent on making Cecilia happy. I am honestly fond of her; I cannot bear to see you think contemptuously of her; while I would gladly welcome her as a sister."

"I do not see how her marrying Cyril can make her your sister," replies he, idly; and then he remembers what he has said, and the same thought striking them both at the same moment, they let their eyes meet uneasily, and both blush scarlet.

Guy, sauntering to the window, takes an elaborate survey of the dismal landscape outside; Lilian coughs gently, and begins to count industriously all the embroidered lilies in the initial that graces the corner of her handkerchief. One – two – three —

"They might as well have put in four," she says out loud, abstractedly.

"What?" turning from the window to watch the lovely mignonne face still bent in contemplation of the lilies.

"Nothing," mildly: "did I say anything?"

"Something about 'four,' I thought."

"Perhaps" – demurely – "I was thinking I had asked you four times to be good-natured, and you had not deigned to grant my request. When Lady Chetwoode speaks to you of Cyril and Cecilia, say you will be on their side. Do not vote against them. Promise."

He hesitates.

"Not when I ask you?" murmurs she, in her softest tones, going a little nearer to him, and uplifting her luminous blue eyes to his.

Still he hesitates.

Miss Chesney takes one step more in his direction, which is necessarily the last, unless she wishes to walk through him. Her eyes, now full of wistful entreaty, and suspiciously bright, are still fixed reproachfully upon his. With a light persuasive gesture she lays five white, slender fingers upon his arm, and whispers, in plaintive tones:

"I feel sure I am going to cry."

"I promise," says Sir Guy, instantly, laughing in spite of himself, and letting his own hand close with unconscious force over hers for a moment. Whereupon Miss Chesney's lachrymose expression vanishes as if by magic, while a smile bright and triumphant illuminates her face in its stead.

"Thank you," she says, delightedly, and trips toward the door eager to impart her good news. Upon the threshold, however, she pauses, and glances back at him coquettishly, perhaps a trifle maliciously, from under her long heavily-fringed lids.

"I knew I should win the day," she says, teasingly, "although you don't believe in love. Nevertheless, I thank you again, and" – raising her head, and holding out one hand to him with a sweet bizarre grace all her own – "I would have you know I don't think you half such a bad old guardy after all!"

* * * * * * *

Almost at this moment Cyril enters his mother's boudoir, where, to his astonishment, he finds her without companions.

"All alone, Madre?" he says, airily, putting on his gayest manner and his most fetching smile to hide the perturbation that in reality he is feeling. His heart is in his boots, but he wears a very gallant exterior.

"Yes," replies Lady Chetwoode, looking up from her work, "and very dull company I find myself. Have you come to enliven me a little? I hope so: I have been gêne to the last degree for quite an hour."

"Where is the inevitable Florence?"

"In the drawing-room, with Mr. Boer. I can't think what she sees in him, but she appears to value his society highly. To-day he has brought her some more church music to try over, and I really wish he wouldn't. Anything more afflicting than chants tried over and over again upon the piano I can't conceive. They are very bad upon the organ, but on the piano! And sometimes he will insist on singing them with her!"

Here two or three wailing notes from down-stairs are wafted, weeping into the room, setting the hearers' teeth on edge. To even an incorrect ear it might occur that Mr. Boer's stentorian notes are not always in tune!

"My dear, my dear," exclaims Lady Chetwoode, in a voice of agony, "shut the door close; closer, my dear Cyril, they are at it again!"

"It's a disease," says Cyril, solemnly. "A great many curates have it. We should count ourselves lucky that laymen don't usually catch it."

"I really think it is. I can't bear that sort of young man myself," says Lady Chetwoode, regretfully, who feels some gentle grief that she cannot bring herself to admire Mr. Boer; "but I am sure we should all make allowances; none of us are perfect; and Mrs. Boileau assures me he is very earnest and extremely zealous. Still, I wish he could try to speak differently: I think his mother very much to blame for bringing him up with such a voice."

"She was much to blame for bringing him up at all. He should have been strangled at his birth!" Cyril says this slowly, moodily, with every appearance of really meaning what he says. He is, however, unaware of the blood-thirsty expression he has assumed, as though in support of his words, being in fact miles away in thought from Mr. Boer and his Gregorian music. He is secretly rehearsing a coming conversation with his mother, in which Cecilia's name is to be delicately introduced.

"That is going rather far, is it not?" Lady Chetwoode says, laughing.

"A man is not an automaton. He cannot always successfully stifle his feelings," says Cyril, still more moodily, àpropos of his own thoughts; which second most uncalled-for remark induces his mother to examine him closely.

"There is something on your mind," she says, gently. "You are not now thinking of either me or Mr. Boer. Sit down, dear boy, and tell me all about it."

"I will tell you standing," says Cyril, who feels it would be taking advantage of her ignorance to accept a chair until his disclosure is made. Then the private rehearsal becomes public, and presently Lady Chetwoode knows all about his "infatuation," as she terms it, for the widow, and is quite as much distressed about it as even he had expected.

"It is terrible!" she says, presently, when she has somewhat recovered from the first shock caused by his intelligence; "and only last spring you promised me to think seriously of Lady Fanny Stapleton."

"My dear mother, who could think seriously of Lady Fanny? Why, with her short nose, and her shorter neck, and her anything but sylph-like form, she has long ago degenerated into one vast joke."

"She has money," in a rather stifled tone.

"And would you have me sacrifice my whole life for mere money?" reproachfully. "Would money console you afterward, when you saw me wretched?"

"But why should you be wretched?" Then, quickly, "Are you so very sure this Mrs. Arlington will make you happy?"

"Utterly positive!" in a radiant tone.

"And are you ready to sacrifice every comfort for mere beauty?" retorts she. "Ah, Cyril, beware: you do not understand yet what it is to be hampered for want of money. And there are other things: when one marries out of one's own sphere, one always repents it."

"One cannot marry higher than a lady," flushing. "She is not a countess, or an honorable, or even Lady Fanny; but she is of good family, and she is very sweet, and very gentle, and very womanly. I shall never again see any one so good in my eyes. I entreat you, dear mother, not to refuse your consent."

"I shall certainly say nothing until I see Guy," says Lady Chetwoode, tearfully, making a last faint stand.

"Then let us send for him, and get it over," Cyril says, with gentle impatience, who is very pale, but determined to finish the subject one way or the other, now and forever.

Almost as he says it, Guy enters; and Lady Chetwoode, rising, explains the situation to him in a few agitated words. True to his promise to Lilian, and more perhaps because a glance at his brother's quiet face tells him opposition will be vain, Guy says a few things in favor of the engagement. But though the words are kind, they are cold; and, having said them, he beats an instantaneous retreat, leaving Cyril, by his well-timed support, master of the field.

"Marry her, then, as you are all against me," says Lady Chetwoode, the tears running down her cheeks. It is very bitter to her to remember how Lady Fanny's precious thousands have been literally flung away. All women, even the best and the sweetest, are mercenary where their sons are concerned.

"And you will call upon her?" says Cyril, after a few minutes spent in an effort to console her have gone by.

"Call!" repeats poor Lady Chetwoode, with some indignation, "upon that woman who absolutely declined to receive me when first she came! I have a little pride still remaining, Cyril, though indeed you have humbled a good deal of it to-day," with keen reproach.

"When first she came," – apologetically, – "she was in great grief and distress of mind."

"Grief for her husband?" demands she; which is perhaps the bitterest thing Lady Chetwoode ever said in her life to either of her "boys."

"No," coldly; "I think I told you she had never any affection for him." Then his voice changes, and going over to her he takes her hand entreatingly, and passes one arm over her shoulder. "Can you not be kind to her for my sake?" he implores. "Dearest mother, I cannot bear to hear you speak of her as 'that woman,' when I love her so devotedly."

"I suppose when one is married one may without insult be called a woman," turning rather aside from his caress.

"But then she was so little married, and she looks quite a girl. You will go to see her, and judge for yourself?"

"I suppose there is nothing else left for me to do. I would not have all the county see how utterly you have disappointed me. I have been a good mother to you, Cyril," – tremulously, – "and this is how you requite me."

"It cuts me to the heart to grieve you so much," – tenderly, – "you, my own mother. But I – I have been a good son to you, too, have I not, dear Madre?"

"You have indeed," says Lady Chetwoode; and then she cries a little behind her handkerchief.

"How old is she?" with quivering lips.

"Twenty-two or twenty-three, I am not sure which," in a subdued tone.

"In manner is she quiet?"

"Very. Tranquil is the word that best expresses her. When you see her you will acknowledge I have not erred in taste."

Lady Chetwoode with a sigh lays down her arms, and when Cyril stoops his face to hers she does not refuse the kiss he silently demands, so that with a lightened conscience he leaves the room to hurry on the wings of love to Cecilia's bower.

All the way there he seems to tread on air. His heart is beating, he is full of happiest exultation. The day is bright and joyous; already one begins to think of winter kindly as a thing of the past. All nature seems in unison with his exalted mood.

Reaching the garden he knows so well and loves so fondly, he walks with eager, longing steps toward a side path where usually she he seeks is to be found. Now standing still, he looks round anxiously for Cecilia.

But Cecilia is not there!