CHAPTER XXIV. A STARLIT NIGHT IN A GARDEN
It was late at night, verging indeed on morning, when Maitland finished his letter. All was silent around, and in the great house the lights were extinguished, and apparently all retired to rest. Lighting his cigar, he strolled out into the garden. The air was perfectly still; and although there was no moon, the sky was spangled over with stars, whose size seemed greater seen through the thin frosty atmosphere. It was pre-eminently the bright clear elastic night of a northern latitude, and the man of pleasure in a thousand shapes, the voluptuary, the viveur, was still able to taste the exquisite enjoyment of such an hour, as though his appetite for pleasure bad not been palled by all the artifices of a life of luxury. He strolled about at random from alley to alley, now stopping to inhale the rich odor of some half-sleeping plant, now loitering at some old fountain, and bathing his temples with the ice-cold water. He was one of those men – it is not so small a category as it might seem – who fancy that the same gifts which win success socially, would be just as sure to triumph if employed in the wider sphere of the great ambitions of life. He could count the men he had passed, and easily passed, in the race of social intercourse, – men who at a dinner-table or in a drawing-room had not a tithe of his quickness, his versatility, his wit, or his geniality, and yet, plodding onwards and upwards, had attained station, eminence, and fortune; while he – he, well read, accomplished, formed by travel and polished by cultivation – there he was! just as he had begun the world, the only difference being those signs of time that tell as fatally on temperament as on vigor; for the same law that makes the hair gray and the cheek wrinkled, renders wit sarcastic and humor malevolent Maitland believed – honestly believed – he was a better man than this one here who held a high command in India, and that other who wrote himself Secretary of State. He knew how little effort it had cost him, long ago, to leave “scores of such fellows” behind at school and at the university; but he, unhappily, forgot that in the greater battle of life he had made no such efforts, and laid no tax on either his industry or his ability. He tried – he did his very best – to undervalue, to his own mind, their successes, and even asked himself aloud, “Which of them all do I envy?” but conscience is stronger than casuistry, however crafty it be, and the answer came not so readily as he wished.
While he thus mused, he heard his name uttered, so close to him, too, that he started, and, on looking up, saw that Mrs. Trafford’s rooms were lighted, and one of the windows which “gave” upon a terrace was open. Voices came from the room within, and soon two figures passed out on the terrace, which he speedily recognized to be Alice and Mark Lyle.
“You mistake altogether, Mark,” said she, eagerly. “It is no question whatever, whether your friend Mr. Maitland goes away disgusted with Ireland, and sick of us all. It is a much graver matter here. What if he were to shoot this old man? I suppose a fine gentleman as he is would deem it a very suitable punishment to any one who even passingly angered him.”
“But why should there be anything of the kind? It is to me Maitland would come at once if there were such a matter in hand.”
“I’m not so sure of that; and I am sure that Raikes overheard provocation pass between them, and that the Commodore left this half an hour ago, merely telling Sally that he had forgotten some lease or law paper that he ought to have sent off by post.”
“If that be the case, there’s nothing to be done.”
“How do you mean nothing to be done?”
“I mean, that as Maitland has not consulted me, I have no pretence to know anything about it.”
“But if you do know it, and if I tell it to you?”
“All that would not amount to such knowledge as I could avail myself of. Maitland is not a man with whom any one can take liberties, Alice.”
“What?” said she, haughtily, and as though she had but partly heard his speech.
“I said that no man takes liberties with Maitland.”
A very insolent laugh from Alice was the answer.
“Come, come,” cried Mark, angrily. “All these scornful airs are not in keeping with what you yourself wrote about Maitland to Bella just two days ago.”
“And had Bella – did she show you my letters?”
“I don’t believe she intended me to see the turned-down bit at the end; but I did see it, and I read a very smart sketch of Norman Maitland, but not done by an unfriendly hand.”
“It’s not too late to revoke my opinion,” said she, passionately. “But this is all quite beside what I’m thinking of. Will you go down and see Mr. Maitland?”
“He’s in bed and asleep an hour ago.”
“He is not. I can see the light on the gravel from his windows; and if he were asleep, he could be awakened, I suppose.”
“I have not the slightest pretext to intrude upon him, Alice.”
“What nonsense all this is! Who is he, – what is he, that he must be treated with all this deference?”
“It ‘s somewhat too late in the day to ask who and what the man is of whom every society in Europe contests the possession.”
“My dear Mark, be reasonable. What have we to do just now with all the courtly flatteries that have been extended to your distinguished friend, or the thousand and one princesses he might have married? What I want is that he should n’t, first of all, make a great scandal; and secondly, shoot a very worthy old neighbor, whose worst sin is being very tiresome.”
“And what I want is, first, that Maitland should n’t carry away from this county such an impression that he’d never endure the thought of revisiting it; and secondly, I want to go to bed, and so good-night.”
“Mark, one word, – only one,” cried she; but he was gone. The bang of a heavy door resounded, and then a deep silence showed she was alone.
Maitland watched her as she paced the terrace from end to end with impatient steps. There was a secret pleasure in his heart as he marked all the agitation that moved her, and thought what a share he himself had in it all. At last she withdrew within the room, but the opening and shutting of a door followed, and he surmised that she had passed out. While he was disputing with himself whether she might have followed Mark to his room, he heard a footstep on the gravel, and saw that she was standing and tapping with her finger on the window of his chamber. Maitland hurried eagerly back. “Is it possible that I see you here, Mrs. Trafford,” cried he, “at this hour?”
She started, and for a moment seemed too much overcome to answer, when she said: “You may believe that it is no light cause brings me; and even now I tremble at what I am doing: but I have begun and I ‘ll go on. Let us walk this way, for I want to speak with you.”
“Will you take my arm?” said Maitland, but without anything of gallantry in his tone.
“No, – yes, I will,” said she, hurriedly; and now for some paces they moved along side by side in silence.
“Mr. Maitland,” said she at last, “a silly speech I made to-day at dinner has led to a most serious result, and Commodore Graham and you have quarrelled.”
“Forgive me if I interrupt you. Nothing that fell from you has occasioned any rupture between Commodore Graham and myself; for that I can pledge you my word of honor.”
“But you have quarrelled. Don’t deny it.”
“We had a very stupid discussion, and a difference; and I believe, if the Commodore would have vouchsafed me a patient hearing, he would have seen that he had really nothing to complain of on my part. I am quite ready to make the same explanation to any friend he will depute to receive it.”
“It was, however, what I said about your driving over with Miss Rebecca Graham to the Burnside that led to all this.”
“Nothing of the kind, I assure you.”
“Well, I don’t care for the reason,” said she, impatiently; “but you have had a quarrel, and are about to settle it by a duel. I have no doubt,” continued she, more rapidly, “that you, Mr. Maitland, can treat this sort of thing very lightly. I suppose it is part of your code as man of the world to do so; but this old man is a father; his life, however little you may think of it, is of very great consequence to his family; he is an old friend and neighbor whom we all care for, and any mishap that might befall him would be a calamity to us all.”
“Pray continue,” said he, softly; “I am giving you all my attention. Having given the sketch of one of so much value to his friends, I am waiting now to hear of the other whom nobody is interested for.”
“This is no time for sarcasm, however witty, Mr. Maitland; and I am sure your better feeling will tell you that I could not have come here to listen to it. Do not be offended with me for my bluntness, nor refuse what I have asked you.”
“You have not asked anything from me,” said he, smiling.
“Well, I will now,” said she, with more courage in her tone; “I will ask you not to go any further in this affair, – to pledge your word to me that it shall stop here.”
“Remember I am but one; any promise I may make you can only take effect with the concurrence of another.”
“I know nothing – I want to know nothing – of these subtleties; tell me flatly you’ll not give this old man a meeting.”
“I will, if you ‘ll only say how I am to avoid it. No, no; do not be angry with me,” said he, slightly touching the hand that rested on his arm. “I’d do far more than this to win one, even the faintest smile that ever said, ‘I thank you;’ but there is a difficulty here. You don’t know with what he charges me.”
“Perhaps I suspect it.”
“It is that after paying most marked attention to his daughter, I have suddenly ceased to follow up my suit, and declared that I meant nothing by it.”
“Well?” said she, quietly.
“Well,” repeated he. “Surely no one knows better than you that there was no foundation for this.”
“I! how should I know it?”
“At all events,” replied he, with some irritation of manner, “you could n’t believe it.”
“I declare I don’t know,” said she, hesitatingly, for the spirit of drollery had got the better even of the deep interest of the moment, – “I declare I don’t know, Mr. Maitland. There is a charm in the manner of an unsophisticated country girl which men of the world are often the very first to acknowledge.”
“Charming unsophistication!” muttered he, half aloud.
“At all events, Mr. Maitland, it is no reason that because you don’t admire a young lady, you are to shoot her papa.”
“How delightfully illogical you are!” said he; and, strangely enough, there was an honest admiration in the way he said it.
“I don’t want to convince, sir; I want to be obeyed. What I insist upon is, that this matter shall end here. Do you mind, Mr. Maitland, that it end here?”
“Only show me how, and I obey you.”
“Do you mean to say that with all your tact and cleverness, you cannot find a means of showing that you have been misapprehended, that you are deeply mortified at being misunderstood, that by an expression of great humility – Do you know how to be humble?”
“I can be abject,” said he, with a peculiar smile.
“I should really like to see you abject!” said she, laughingly.
“Do so then,” cried he, dropping on his knee before her, while he still held her hand, but with a very different tone of voice, – a voice now tremulous with earnest feeling, – continued: “There can be no humility deeper than that with which I ask your forgiveness for one word I spoke to you this evening. If you but knew all the misery it has caused me!”
“Mr. Maitland, this mockery is a just rebuke for my presence here. If I had not stooped to such a step, you would never have dared this.”
“It is no mockery to say what my heart is full of, and what you will not deny you have read there. No, Alice, you may reject my love; you cannot pretend to ignore it.”
Though she started as he called her Alice, she said nothing, but only withdrew her hand. At last she said: “I don’t think this is very generous of you. I came to ask a great favor at your hands, and you would place me in a position not to accept it.”
“So far from that,” said he, rising, “I distinctly tell you that I place all, even my honor, at your feet, and without one shadow of a condition. You say you came here to ask me a favor, and my answer is that I accord whatever you ask, and make no favor of it. Now, what is it you wish me to do?”
“It’s very hard not to believe you sincere when you speak in this way,” said she, in a low voice.
“Don’t try,” said he, in the same low tone.
“You promise me, then, that nothing shall come of this?”
“I do,” said he, seriously.
“And that you will make any amends the Commodore’s friend may suggest? Come, come,” said she, laughing, “I never meant that you were to marry the young lady.”
“I really don’t know how far you were going to put my devotion to the test.”
The pleasantness with which he spoke this so amused her that she broke again into laughter, and laughed heartily too. “Confess,” said she at last, – “confess it’s the only scrape you did not see your way out of!”
“I am ready to confess it’s the only occasion in my life in which I had to place my honor in the hands of a lady.”
“Well, let us see if a lady cannot be as adroit as a gentleman in such an affair; and now, as you are in my hands, Mr. Maitland, – completely in my hands, – I am peremptory, and my first orders are that you keep close arrest. Raikes will see that you are duly fed, and that you have your letters and the newspapers; but mind, on any account, no visitors without my express leave: do you hear me, sir?”
“I do; and all I would say is this, that if the tables should ever turn, and it would be my place to impose conditions, take my word for it, I ‘ll be just as absolute. Do you hear me, madam?”
“I do; and I don’t understand, and I don’t want to understand you,” said she, in some confusion. “Now, good-bye. It is almost day. I declare that gray streak there is daybreak!”
“On, Alice, if you would let me say one word – only one – before we part.”
“I will not, Mr. Maitland, and for this reason, that I intend we should meet again.”
“Be it so,” said he, sadly, and turned away. After he had walked a few paces, he stopped and turned round; but she was already gone, how and in what direction he knew not. He hurried first one way, then another, but without success. If she had passed into the house, – and, of course, she had, – with what speed she must have gone! Thoughtful, but not unhappy, he returned to his room, if not fully assured that he had done what was wisest, well disposed to hope favorably for the future.
CHAPTER XXV. JEALOUS TRIALS
When Mrs. Maxwell learned, in the morning, that Mr. Maitland was indisposed and could not leave his room, that the Commodore had gone off in the night, and Mark and Mrs. Trafford had started by daybreak, her amazement became so insupportable that she hastened from one of her guests to the other, vainly asking them to explain these mysteries.
“What a fidgety old woman she is!” said Beck Graham, who had gone over to Bella Lyle, then a prisoner in her room from a slight cold. “She has been rushing over the whole house, inquiring if it be possible that my father has run away with Alice, that your brother is in pursuit of them, and Mr. Maitland taken poison in a moment of despair. At all events, she has set every one guessing and gossiping at such a rate that all thought of archery is forgotten, and even our private theatricals have lost their interest in presence of this real drama.”
“How absurd!” said Bella, languidly.
“Yes, it’s very absurd to fill one’s house with company, and give them no better amusement than the chit-chat of a boarding-house. I declare I have no patience with her.”
“Where did your father go?”
“He went over to Port-Graham. He suddenly bethought him of a lease – I think it was a lease – he ought to have sent off by post, and he was so eager about it that he started without saying good-bye. And Mark, – what of him and Alice?”
“There’s all the information I can give you;” and she handed her a card with one line in pencil: “Good-bye till evening, Bella. You, were asleep when I came in. – Alice.”
“How charmingly mysterious! And you have no idea where they ‘ve gone?”
“Not the faintest; except, perhaps, back to the Abbey for some costumes that they wanted for that ‘great tableau.’”
“I don’t think so,” said she, bluntly. “I suspect – shall I tell you what I suspect? But it’s just as likely you ‘ll be angry, for you Lyles will never hear anything said of one of you. Yes, you may smile, my dear, but it’s well known, and I ‘m not the first who has said it.”
“If that be true, Beck, it were best not to speak of people who are so excessively thin-skinned.”
“I don’t know that. I don’t see why you are to be indulged any more than your neighbors. I suppose every one must take his share of that sort of thing.”
Bella merely smiled, and Rebecca continued: “What I was going to say was this, – and, of course, you are at liberty to dissent from it if you like, – that, however clever a tactician your sister is, Sally and I saw her plan of campaign at once. Yes, dear, if you had been at dinner yesterday you ‘d have heard a very silly project thrown out about my being sent over to fetch Tony Butler, under the escort of Mr. Norman Maitland. Not that it would have shocked me, or frightened me in the least, – I don’t pretend that; but as Mr. Maitland had paid me certain attention at Lyle Abbey, – you look quite incredulous, my dear, but it is simply the fact; and so having, as I said, made these advances to me, there would have been considerable awkwardness in our going off together a drive of several hours without knowing – without any understanding – ” She hesitated for the right word, and Bella added, “A quoi s’en tenir, in fact.”
“I don’t know exactly what that means, Bella; but, in plain English, I wished to be sure of what he intended. My dear child, though that smile becomes you vastly, it also seems to imply that you are laughing at my extreme simplicity, or my extreme vanity, or both.”
Bella’s smile faded slowly away; but a slight motion of the angle of the mouth showed that it was not without an effort she was grave.
“I am quite aware,” resumed Beck, “that it requires some credulity to believe that one like myself could have attracted any notice when seen in the same company with Alice Lyle – Trafford, I mean – and her sister; but the caprice of men, my dear, will explain anything. At all events, the fact is there, whether one can explain it or not; and, to prove it, papa spoke to Mr. Maitland on the morning we came away from the Abbey; but so hurriedly – for the car was at the door, and we were seated on it – that all he could manage to say was, that if Mr. Maitland would come over to Port-Graham and satisfy him on certain points, – the usual ones, I suppose, – that – that, in short, the matter was one which did not offer insurmountable obstacles. All this sounds very strange to your ears, my dear, but it is strictly true, every word of it.”
“I cannot doubt whatever you tell me,” said Bella; and now she spoke with a very marked gravity.
“Away we went,” said Rebecca, who had now got into the sing-song tone of a regular narrator, – “away we went, our first care on getting back home being to prepare for Mr. Maitland’s visit. We got the little green-room ready, and cleared everything out of the small store-closet at the back, and broke open a door between the two so as to make a dressing-room for him, and we had it neatly papered, and made it really very nice. We put up that water-colored sketch of Sally and myself making hay, and papa leaning over the gate; and the little drawing of papa receiving the French commander’s sword on the quarter-deck of the ‘Malabar:’ in fact, it was as neat as could be, – but he never came. No, my dear, – never.”
“How was that?”
“You shall hear; that is, you shall hear what followed, for explanation I have none to give you. Mr. Maitland was to have come over, on the Wednesday following, to dinner. Papa said five, and he promised to be punctual; but he never came, nor did he send one line of apology. This may be some new-fangled politeness, – the latest thing in that fashionable world he lives in, – but still I cannot believe it is practised by well-bred people. Be that as it may, my dear, we never saw him again till yesterday, when he passed us in your sister’s fine carriage-and-four, he lolling back this way, and making a little gesture, so, with his hand as he swept past, leaving us in a cloud of dust that totally precluded him from seeing whether we had returned his courtesy – if he cared for it. That’s not all,” she said, laying her hand on Bella’s arm. “The first thing he does on his arrival here is to take papa’s rooms. Well, – you know what I mean, – the rooms papa always occupies here; and when Raikes remarks, ‘These are always kept for Commodore Graham, sir; they go by the name of the Commodore’s quarters,’ his reply is, ‘They ‘ll be better known hereafter as Mr. Norman Maitland’s, Mr. Raikes.’ Word for word what he said; Raikes told me himself. As for papa, he was furious; he ordered the car to the door, and dashed into our room, and told Sally to put all the things up again, – that we were going off. I assure you, it was no easy matter to calm him down. You have no idea how violent he is in one of these tempers; but we managed at last to persuade him that it was a mere accident, and Sally began telling him the wonderful things she had heard about Maitland from Mrs. Chetwyn, – his fortune and his family, and what not. At last he consented to take the Chetwyns’ rooms, and down we went to meet Mr. Maitland, – I own, not exactly certain on what terms it was to be. Cordial is no name for it, Bella; he was – I won’t call it affectionate, but I almost might: he held my hand so long that I was forced to draw it away; and then he gave a little final squeeze in the parting, and a look that said very plainly, ‘We, at least, understand each other.’ It was at that instant, my dear, Alice opened the campaign.”
“Alice! What had Alice to do with it?”
“Nothing, – nothing whatever, by right, but everything if you admit interference and – Well, I’ll not say a stronger word to her own sister. I ‘ll keep just to fact, and leave the commentary on this to yourself. She crosses the drawing-room, – the whole width of the large drawing-room, – and, sweeping grandly past us in that fine Queen-of-Sheba style she does so well, she throws her head back, – it was that stupid portrait-painter, Hillyer, told her ‘it gave action to the features,’ – and says, ‘Take me into dinner, will you?’ But she was foiled; old Mrs. Maxwell had already bespoke him. I hope you ‘re satisfied now, Bella, that this is no dream of mine.”
“But I cannot see any great mischief in it, either.”
“Possibly not. I have not said that there was. Sally ‘s no fool, however, and her remark was, – ‘There ‘s nothing so treacherous as a widow.’”
Bella could not contain herself any longer, but laughed heartily at this profound sentiment.
“Of course we do not expect you to see this with our eyes, Bella, but we’re not blind, for all that. Later on came the project for fetching over Tony Butler, when Alice suggested that Mr. Maitland was to drive me over to the Burns ide – ”
“Was that so very ungenerous, then?”
“In the way it was done, my dear, – in the way it was done. In that ha, ha, ha! manner, as though to say, ‘Had n’t you both better go off on a lark to-morrow that will set us all talking of you?’”
“No, no! I’ll not listen to this,” cried Bella, angrily; “these are not motives to attribute to my sister.”
“Ask herself; let her deny it, that’s all; but, as Sally says, ‘There ‘s no playing against a widow, because she knows every card in your hand.’”
“I really had no idea they were so dangerous,” said Bella, recovering all her good-humor again.
“You may, perhaps, find it out one day. Mind, I ‘m not saying Alice is not very handsome, and has not the biggest blue eyes in the world, which she certainly does not make smaller in the way she uses them; or that any one has a finer figure, though some do contrive to move through a room without catching in the harp or upsetting the china. Men, I take it, are the best judges, and they call her perfection.”
“They cannot think her more beautiful than she is.”
“Perhaps not, dear; and as you are so like as to be constantly mistaken – ”
“Oh, Beck! surely this is not fair,” said she, and so imploringly that the other’s voice softened down as she said, – “I never meant to be rude; but my head is gone wild to-day; for, after all, when matters had gone so far, Alice had no right to come in in this fashion; and, as Sally says, ‘Why did she never encourage him till she saw his attentions addressed to another?’”
“I never perceived that she gave Mr. Maitland any encouragement. Yes, you may hold up your hands, Beck, and open your eyes very wide; but I repeat what I have said.”
“That’s a matter of taste, I suppose,” said Beck, with some irritation. “There are various sorts of encouragements: as Sally says, ‘A look will go further with one than a lock of your hair with another.’”
“But, really, Sally would seem to have a wisdom like Solomon’s on these subjects,” said Bella.
“Yes; and what’s more, she has acquired it without any risk or peril. She had neither to drive half over a county with a gentleman alone, or pass a good share of a night walking with him in the alleys of a garden.”
“What do you mean by this?” asked Bella, angrily.
“Ask Alice; she ‘ll be here, I suppose, this evening; and I ‘m sure she ‘ll be delighted to satisfy all your sisterly anxiety.”
“But one word, Beck, – just one word before you go.”
“Not a syllable. I have said now what I rigidly promised Sally not to mention when I came in here. You got it out of me in a moment of irritation, and I know well what’s in store for me when I confess it, – so good-bye.”
“But, Beck – ”
“Don’t make yourself cough, dear; lie down and keep your shawl round you. If I ‘d thought you were so feverish, I ‘d not have come over to torment you, – good-bye;” and, resisting all Bella’s entreaties and prayers, Beck arose and left the room.