_ CHAPTER XXI. 'HE IS VERY BRAVE'
'Ah! life grows lovely where you are;
Only to think of you gives light
To my dark heart; within whose night
Your image, though you hide afar,
Glows like a lake-reflected star.'
MATHILDE BLIND.
For the first time Audrey closed the little gate of Vineyard Cottage with a sense of relief that her visit was over. The two hours she had just passed had been quite an ordeal to her. True, she had exerted herself to some purpose: she had talked and amused her old friend; she had partaken of Mrs. Baxter's cakes; she had even summoned up a semblance of gaiety that had wholly deceived them. But all the time her heart had been heavy within her, and her remembrance of Cyril's grieved look came between her and enjoyment.
It had been a lovely afternoon when she had started for her walk, but now some heavy clouds were obscuring the blue sky. The air felt heavy and oppressive, and Audrey quickened her steps, fearing lest a storm should overtake her in the long unsheltered lanes that still lay between her and home. She drew her breath a little as she approached the place where she had parted with Cyril more than two hours ago. Then she gave a great start, and again the blood rushed to her face, for through a gap in the hedge she could see a brown tweed coat quite plainly. He was still there--still in the same position. She could see the line of his shoulders as he stooped a little over the gate, with the peak of his cap drawn over his eyes.
Audrey slackened her pace. She felt a little breathless and giddy. She would have to pass him quite close, and, of course, if he meant to speak to her----But no: though he heard her footsteps, and half turned his head and seemed to listen, he did not move his arms from the gate. He evidently meant to take no advantage, to let her pass him if she wished to do so. Audrey could read this determination in his averted face. Most likely he wished her to think that his abstraction was too great to allow him to notice her light footfall; he would make it easy for her to pass him--a man's eyes can only see what they are looking at. But this time Audrey's prudence counselled her in vain; her soft heart would not allow her to go past him as a stranger. She stopped and looked at him; but Cyril did not turn his head.
'Mr. Blake,' she said gently; and then he did move slightly.
'I am not in your way, I hope,' he said rather coldly. 'I did not know it was so late, or I would have gone back. Please do not let me keep you, Miss Ross; I am afraid there will be a storm directly.'
'In that case you had better come with me,' she returned, trying to speak with her usual friendly ease. But his proud, sad look rather daunted her. How could she leave him and go on her way, when he seemed so utterly cast down and miserable; and it was all her fault? 'Please do not shake your head, Mr. Blake. I know you are hurt with me because I was rather abrupt just now; but I meant nothing at all, only that I was in a hurry, and----'
'That you did not wish for my company,' he added bitterly.
'Oh, Mr. Blake!'
'You are right--quite right,' he went on, in a tone that pierced Audrey's heart, it was so hopeless, so full of pain; and now he did place himself at her side. 'I do not blame you in the least; it was the truest kindness. I can see that now. It is not your fault that I have been a fool. Miss Ross, I wished you to pass; I never meant to speak or to obtrude myself on you, but you stopped of your own accord.'
'I wished to apologise to you for my abruptness. I did not like you to think me unkind.'
'You are never unkind, you could not be if you tried,' he returned in the same passionate tone; 'you are only so absolutely true. You saw what I ought never to have shown you, and you thought it only right to check me. Yes, I was hurt for a moment, I will allow it. Perhaps in some sort of sense I am hurt now. I suppose a man may own to being hurt when his heart is half broken.'
'Please, please do not talk so.'
'I will promise never to talk so again,' he returned with sad humility; 'but I have gone too far to stop now.'
'No, oh no!' trying to check him; but she might as well have tried to check a river that had broken bonds. For once Cyril determined that he would be heard.
'It is your own fault,' he returned, looking at her; 'you should have passed on and left me to my misery. Yes, I am miserable; and you have made me so: and yet for all that you are not to be blamed. How could I see you, how could I be with you, and not love you? I have loved you from the very first hour I saw you.'
'Oh, hush, hush!' Audrey was half sobbing. There were great tears rolling down her face; she could hardly bear to hear him or to look at him, his face was so white and strained.
'I must always love you,' he went on in the same low concentrated voice. 'I have never seen anyone like you; there is not another girl in the world who would do as you are doing. How can I help losing my heart to you? No man could, in my position.'
'I am very sorry,' she murmured.
'Do not be sorry'--and then he saw her tears, and his voice softened from its vehemence and became very gentle. 'You are so kind that I know you would spare me this pain if you could--but it is not in your power; neither is it in mine. Do not be afraid of me,' he went on quickly, as she would have spoken. 'Remember I am asking you for nothing. I expect nothing. What right have I to aspire to such as you? Even if I have dared to dream, my dreams are at an end now, when you have shown me so plainly----' He stopped and turned aside his face, but no words could have been so eloquent as that silence.
'Mr. Blake, will you let me say something? I am grieved, grieved to the heart, that this should have happened. If I could have prevented it, not a word of all this should have been spoken; but it is too late to say so now.'
'Far, far too late!'
'So we must make the best of it. I must try to forget all that has passed, and, Mr. Blake, you must promise me to do the same.'
'I have promised,' he returned proudly. 'I promised you of my own accord that I would never talk to you in this way again; but you must not ask anything more of me.'
'May I not?' in rather a faltering voice.
'It would be useless,' he replied quickly. 'I can never leave off loving you. I would part with my life first. I think I am not one of those men who could ever love twice. I am young, still something tells me this; but all the same you have nothing to fear from me. I know your position and mine.'
'You must not speak as though we were not equal,' she said, in her desire to comfort him and raise him up from his despondency; 'it is not that. What does one's poverty or wealth matter?'
'No, it is not that,' he answered, with a significance that made her lower her eyes; 'in one sense we are equals, for one cannot be more or less than a gentleman, and when one has youth and strength, and a moderate amount of talents, one can always raise one's self to the level of the woman one loves. And if I had thought that you could ever have cared for me----' His voice trembled; he could not proceed.
'Mr. Blake, I must beg, I do entreat you to say no more.' Audrey's lips were quivering; she looked quite pale. At that moment she could bear no more.
'Forgive me,' he said remorsefully. 'I was thinking more of myself than you. I am trying you too much.'
She could not deny this, but with her usual unselfishness she strove again for some comforting word.
'It will be as though you had not spoken,' she said, in so low a voice that he had to stoop to hear her. 'It will be sacred, quite sacred; do not let it spoil everything--we--I have been so happy; let us try to remain good friends.'
'I will try my best, but it will be very hard.' Perhaps, if she had seen his face that moment, she would have known that what she asked was impossible. How could he be friends with this girl? Even while he assented to that innocent request he knew it could never be.
'Miss Ross,' he said suddenly, for his position was becoming too difficult for him, and it was his duty to shield her as much as possible, 'we are just in the town, and perhaps it would be better for me to drop behind a little. It will not do for people to notice; and now the rain is beginning, and if you do not hurry on you will be wet.'
'Very well,' she returned; and then rather timidly she put out her hand to him. Cyril did not ignore it this time; he held it fast for a moment.
'You have been good, very patient with me,' he said rather huskily. 'Thank you for that, as well as for everything else: and then he stepped aside and waited for her to leave him.
Audrey's limbs were trembling; she had never felt so agitated in her life. She hurried on, panting a little with her haste; but the drops fell faster and faster, and just at the entrance to the town she was obliged to take refuge in a shed by the roadside. The street was dark, and she knew no one could see her. She would have time to recover herself a little before she had to answer all her mother's anxious questions. There was a carpenter's bench and a pile of planks; she sat down on them, and looked out at the heavy torrents of rain. By and by Cyril passed, but he did not notice her; he was walking very fast and his head was erect, as though he were not conscious of the rain beating down on him. Audrey shrank back a little as she saw him. 'He is young, but he is strong,' she said to herself; 'he is almost as strong as Michael;' and then her tears flowed again, but she wiped them away a little impatiently. 'I must be strong, too, for his sake as well as my own; it will never do for people to find out his secret. He must be spared as much as possible. I must help him all I can.' But as she argued herself into calmness she told herself again and again how thankful she was that Michael was away. Michael was so observant, so clear-sighted, that it was impossible to hoodwink him. He had a terrible habit of going straight to the point, of putting questions that one could hardly evade. He would have seen in a moment that she had been crying, and any refusal on her part to satisfy his inquiries would only have deepened his suspicions. 'I could not have faced Michael,' she thought, as the rain suddenly stopped and she stepped out into the wet gleaming roads.
Audrey played her part in the conversation so badly that night that Mrs. Ross observed, uneasily, that she was sure Audrey had taken a chill:
'For she is quite flushed, John,' she continued anxiously, 'and I noticed her shiver more than once. She has overheated herself in that long walk, and then being caught in that heavy rain has done the mischief.'
Dr. Ross looked at his daughter. Perhaps, in spite of his short-sight, he was more observant than his wife, for he took the girl's face between his hands:
'Go to bed, my child,' he said kindly, 'and I will finish that game of chess with your mother;' and Audrey, with a grateful kiss, obeyed him. But as Dr. Ross placed himself opposite his wife he seemed a little absent, as though he were listening in vain for something. For it was Audrey's habit to sing snatches of some gay tune as she mounted the stairs. But to-night there was no 'Widow Miller'; it was the Doctor who hummed the refrain to himself, as he captured an unwary pawn:
'When ye bind up the sheaves, leave out a few grains
To the heart-broken widow who never complains.'
Audrey felt that night as though she should never sing again--as though she had committed some crime that must for ever separate her from her old happy self.
To most people this remorse for an unconscious fault would have seemed morbid and exaggerated. Thousands of girls have to inflict this sort of pain at least once in their lives; the wrong man loves them, and the disastrous 'No' must be spoken. Audrey had not even said 'No,' for nothing had been asked her--she had only had to listen to a declaration of love, an honest, manly confession, that had been wrung from the speaker's lips. Wherein, then, did the blame consist? and why was Audrey shedding such bitter tears as she sat by her window that night looking over the dark garden? For a hundred complex reasons, too involved and intricate to disentangle in one brief hour.
Audrey was accusing herself of blindness--of wilful and foolish blindness. She ought to have seen, she must have seen, to what all this was tending. Again and again Mr. Blake had shown her quite plainly the extent of her influence over him. Could she not have warned him in time to prevent this most unhappy declaration? Would it not have been kinder to have drawn back in the first months of their intimacy, and have interposed some barrier of dignified reserve that would have kept him silent for ever? But no! she had drawn him on: not by coquetry--Audrey was far too high-minded to coquet with any man--but simply by the warm friendliness of her manner. She had liked his company; she had accepted his attentions, not once had she repulsed him; and the consequence was his attachment had grown and increased in intensity day by day, until it had overmastered him. He had said that his heart was almost broken, and it was her fault. What right had she to be so kind to him, until her very softness and graciousness had fed his wild hopes? Was it not true when he had implied that his misery lay at her door?
Audrey felt as though her own heart was broken that night--such a passion of pity and remorse swept over her. What would she not give to undo it all!
'If I could only bear some of his suffering,' she thought, 'if I could only comfort him, I should not care what became of myself. I would sooner bear anything than incur this awful responsibility of spoiling a life;' and Audrey wept again.
But even at this miserable crisis she shrank from questioning herself too closely. A sort of terror and strange beating at the heart assailed her if she tried to look into her own thoughts. Was there no subtle sweetness in the knowledge that she was so beloved? No wish, lying deep down in her heart, that it might have been possible to comfort him?
'It would not do--it would not do. I am sure of him, but not of myself,' she thought, 'and it would make them all so unhappy. If I could only think it right----' and then she stopped, and there was a sad, sad look in her eyes. 'I will not think of it any more to-night.' And then she knelt and, in her simple girlish way, prayed that God would forgive her, for she had been wrong, miserably wrong; and would comfort him, and make it possible for them to remain friends: 'for I do not wish to lose him,' thought Audrey, as she laid her head on her pillow that, for once in her bright young life, seemed sown with thorns.
It seemed to Audrey as though she had never passed a more uncomfortable three weeks than those that followed that unfortunate talk in the Brail lanes; and, in spite of all her efforts to appear as though nothing had happened, her looks and gravity were noticed by both Mrs. Ross and Geraldine.
'I told your father that it was a chill,' observed Mrs. Ross, on more than one occasion. 'She is growing thin, and her eyes are so heavy in the morning. There is nothing worse than a suppressed cold,' she went on anxiously, for even a small ailment in one of her children always called forth her motherly solicitude.
But Geraldine held another opinion. Audrey never took cold; she had often got wet through in Scotland, and it had never hurt her. She thought it more probable that Audrey was troubled about something--perhaps she missed Michael, or--then she paused, and looked at her mother with significance--perhaps, who knows? she might even be a little hurt at Mr. Blake's desertion. For a certain little bird--that fabulous winged purveyor of gossip, dear to the feminine mind--had whispered into young Mrs. Harcourt's ear a most curious story. It was said that Mr. Blake had fallen deeply in love with a Cornish beauty, a certain Miss Frances Hackett, and that his moody looks were all owing to this.
'Edith has seen her,' went on Geraldine, as she repeated this story with immense relish; 'she is a pretty little thing, a dark-eyed brunette. The Hacketts are very wealthy people, and they say Miss Frances will have a few thousand pounds of her own; so he will be lucky if he gets her. Perhaps the pere Hackett is obdurate, and this may account for Mr. Blake's gloom--for he is certainly very bad company just now.'
'Your father thinks he looks very ill; he was speaking to me about him last night. It is wonderful what a fancy he has taken to him.'
'I think we all like him,' returned Geraldine, who could afford to praise him now her fears about Audrey were removed. 'Miss Frances might do worse for herself. He is very clever--a rising young man, as Percy says--and then he is so handsome: a girl might well lose her heart to him.'
Mrs. Ross was quite willing to regard Mr. Blake as Miss Frances' suitor--an unhappy lover was sure to excite her warmest sympathy--but she was a little shocked and scandalised at Geraldine's hint.
'My dear,' she said, in a more dignified tone than she usually employed to her eldest daughter, 'I do not think you have any right to say such a thing of your sister. Audrey is the last girl in the world to fancy any man was in love with her, or to trouble herself because he chose to fall in love with some one else. I have often seen her and Mr. Blake together--he has dined here a dozen times--and her manner has always been perfectly friendly with him, as frank as possible--just as it is to Michael.'
'I thought she seemed a little constrained and uncomfortable last night when Mr. Blake came into the room,' returned Geraldine, who certainly seemed to notice everything; but she knew her mother too well to say more just then.
With all her softness, Mrs. Ross had a great deal of womanly dignity, and nothing would have ruffled her more than to be made to believe that one of her girls cared for a man who had just given his heart to another woman, and that Audrey--her bright, unselfish Audrey--should be that girl. No, she would never have been brought to believe it.
Audrey was quite aware that her sister's eyes were upon her, and she exerted herself to the utmost on every occasion when Geraldine was present. But gaiety was very far from her, and she felt each day, with a certain sickness of heart, that her burden was growing too heavy for her. Her position with regard to Mr. Blake was becoming more difficult. In spite of his efforts to see as little as possible of her, circumstances were perpetually throwing them together. Every day they met at luncheon; she must still keep her seat between him and her father, but how differently that hour passed now! Instead of that eager, low-toned talk, that merry interchange of daily news and plans, Cyril would be absorbed in his carving, in his supervision of the boys; he seemed to have no leisure to talk to Audrey. A grave remark upon the weather, a brief question or two, and then he turned to his fellow-master, Mr. Greville. Audrey never tried to divert his attention; she listened to the two young men a little wearily. Politics could still interest him, she thought; yes, politics were always safe. Once, when he had no excuse to offer--for he was very ready with his excuses--he joined them at the family dinner. Audrey never passed such a miserable evening. She sat opposite him; there was no other guest to break the awkwardness--only Mr. Blake and her mother and father and herself.
It was the first time she had been compelled to look at him, and she was painfully struck with the alteration in him. Her father was right; he certainly looked ill. He was thinner, older, and there were dark lines under his eyes. Just at that moment Cyril seemed to become aware of her scrutiny; their eyes met, but it was Audrey who blushed and looked embarrassed. Cyril did not flinch, only his right hand contracted under the table-cloth. She played chess with him afterwards. There was no help for it; Dr. Ross had proposed it. Audrey was so nervous that she played shamefully, and lost her queen at the third move.
'How stupid of me!' she said, trying to laugh it off.
Cyril looked at her very gravely.
'I am afraid you find this a bore,' he said, with such evident understanding of her nervousness that the tears came to her eyes.
When they had played a little longer, he suddenly jumbled the pieces together.
'It is unfair to take advantage of you any longer,' he said, jumping up; 'no one can play without a queen, and you have lost your castles and one of your knights, and I was just going to take the other. It is only trying your patience for nothing; the game is mine.'
'Yes, it is yours,' returned Audrey, in rather a melancholy voice.
Why had he ended it so abruptly? Could he have noticed how her hand shook? How very nervous she had been! She did not dare look at him as he bade her good-night.
'I must go,' she heard him say to Dr. Ross. 'I have work to finish;' and then he went out, and she heard the door close behind him.
'Is it always to be like this?' thought Audrey, as she stood by her window. 'Will he never speak to me or look at me again in the old way? To-night he went away to spare me, because he saw how uncomfortable I was. He is very brave; I suppose a man's pride helps him. Somehow, I think it is easier for him than me. Perhaps I am different from other women, but I always feel as though I would rather bear pain myself than inflict it on another person.' _