CHAPTER IV
Next day I had a number of visitors. Mrs. Spencer had made it so well known in Dinglefield that nobody was to invite Lady Isabella to meet the new officers, that my unexampled temerity startled the whole neighbourhood. ‘Of course they have met, notwithstanding all our precautions—and fancy, at Mrs. Mulgrave’s! She was almost the only person Mrs. Spencer had not told,’ my neighbours said; for the place is so small, that of course everybody knows what everybody else is doing on the Green. The Stokes were the first to call, and they were full of it.
‘Fancy not telling us that Lady Isabella had been here?’ cried Lottie. ‘You must have known there was something, or you would have told us. And what did you mean by it? Did you think they ought to have another chance; or did you think–? Oh, I do so wish you would tell me what you meant!’
‘Another chance, indeed!’ said Lucy. ‘As if Colonel Brentford—a handsome man, and just a nice age—would look twice at that old thing!’
‘He is a good deal older than the old thing,’ said I; ‘and it is a poor account of both men and women, Lucy, if everything is to give way to mere youth. You yourself will not be seventeen always. You should remember that.’
‘Well, but then I shall be married,’ said Lucy; ‘and I sha’n’t mind if nobody pays me any attention. I shall have my husband and my children of course; but an old maid–’
‘Be quiet, Lucy,’ said her sister angrily. ‘If you girls only knew how to hold your tongues, then you might have a chance; but please tell me, Mrs. Mulgrave—you won’t say you did not mean anything, for of course you knew–?’
‘I don’t intend to say anything about it, my dear; and here is Mrs. Spencer coming, if you would like to make any further inquiries,’ I said. I was quite glad to see her, to get rid of their questionings. Mrs. Spencer was very much flurried and disturbed, out of breath both of mind and body.
‘Oh, my dear Mrs. Mulgrave, what an unfortunate business!’ she said, the moment the girls were gone. ‘I have nobody but myself to blame, for I never told you. I thought as you did not give many parties—and then I know you don’t care much for those dancing sort of men: and how was I to suppose he would be thrown upon your hands like this? It has upset me so,’ she said, turning to me, with her eyes full of tears; ‘I have not slept all night.’
Her distress was a great deal too genuine to be smiled at. ‘I am so sorry,’ I said; ‘but, after all, I do not think it is serious. It did not seem to disturb her much.’
‘Ah, that is because she does not show it,’ said Mrs. Spencer. ‘She is so unselfish. You might stab her to the heart and she would never say a word, if there was any one near who could be made unhappy by it. She would not let
me
see, for she knows it would make me wretched. And I
am
quite wretched about her. If this were to bring up old feelings! And you know she nearly died of it—at the time.’
The tears came dropping down on poor Mrs. Spencer’s thin nose. It was too thin, almost sharp in outline, but such tears softened all its asperity away. I could not help thinking of those dreadful French proverbs, which are so remorseless and yet so true; about ‘
l’un qui aime, et l’autre qui se laisse aimer
;’ about ‘
l’un qui baise et l’autre qui tend la joue
.’ Is it always so in this world? I could have beaten myself for having interfered at all in the matter. Why should anybody ever interfere? Life is hard enough without any assistance to make it worse.
Lady Isabella herself came in late, when, fortunately, I was alone; and she was in a very different mood. She came in, and gave a curious, humorous glance round the room, and then sat down in the chair by the window, where she had sat the day before, and asked Colonel Brentford for that rose.
‘Is it possible it has been and is over,’ she said, in her mocking way; ‘that great, wonderful event, to which I looked forward so much? It happened just here: and yet the place is exactly the same. How funny it is when one remembers that it has happened, and yet feels one’s self exactly like what one was before–’
‘You are not sorry, then?’ I cried, not knowing what to say.
‘Sorry? oh, no,’ she said with momentary fervour: and then blushed scarlet. ‘On the contrary, I am very glad. It proved to me– I got all I wanted. I am quite pleased with myself. I can’t have been such a fool after all; for—he is not clever, you know—but he is a man a woman need not be ashamed to have been in love with: and that is saying a great deal.’
‘And is it only a “have been?”’ said I; for after all when one had taken so much trouble it was hard that nothing should come of it. I felt as if I had taken a great deal of trouble, and all in vain.
‘Indeed, I should hope so!’ cried Lady Isabella, getting up and drawing her shawl round her hastily. ‘You surely did not think that I meant anything more. I am in a great hurry, I have only a few minutes to spare; and thanks to you, good friend, I have had my whim, and I am satisfied. I don’t feel at all ashamed of having been fond of him—once.’
And with these words she ran away, silencing all questions. Was this indeed all? Was it a mere whim? To tell the truth, when I tried to put myself in her position, it seemed to me much wiser of Lady Isabella to let it end so. She was very well off and comfortable: she had come to an age when one likes to have one’s own way, and does not care to adopt the habits of others; and what an immense
bouleversement
it would make if she should marry and break up that pleasant house, and throw herself upon the chances of married life, abandoning Mrs. Spencer, who was as good as married to her, and who, no doubt, calculated on her society all her life. I said to myself—if I were Lady Isabella! And then there was the great chance, the almost certainty that he would never attempt to carry it any farther. He was a young-looking man, and no doubt (though it is very odd to me how they can do it) he felt himself rather on the level of a girl of twenty than of a woman of thirty-five. He had been a good deal startled and touched by the meeting, which was not wonderful: but he had returned to Edith’s side all the same; and, no doubt, that was where he would stay. Edith was very young, and her parents were poor, and the best thing for her would be to marry a man who was able to take care of her, and make her very comfortable, and to whom, in return, she would be entirely devoted. Edith could consent to be swallowed up in him altogether, and to have no life but that of her husband; and except by means of a husband who was well off the poor child never was likely to do anything for herself or her family, but would have to live a life of hard struggling with poverty and premature acquaintance with care. This was of course the point of view from which the matter should be regarded. To Lady Isabella Colonel Brentford’s means or position were unnecessary. She was very well off, very fully established in the world without him. And she could not be swallowed up in him, and renounce everything that was her own to become his wife. She was an independent being, with a great many independent ways and habits. It was better for him, better for her, better for Edith that nothing should come of this meeting; and yet—how foolish one is about such matters: what vain fancies come into one’s head!
Everything sank into its ordinary calm however from that day. I did not see Mrs. Spencer and Lady Isabella for a week after, and then they were exactly as they had always been. Lady Isabella made no remark to me of any kind on the subject, but Mrs. Spencer took me aside to give me her opinion. ‘I am so glad to tell you,’ she said, ‘that your little inadvertence has done no harm. Oh, I forgot: it was not an inadvertence on your part, but my own fault for not telling you. It has done no harm, I am so glad to say. Isabella seems to have quite settled down again. I don’t believe she has given him another thought. Of course it was a shock just at the moment. But you must not blame yourself, indeed you must not. Probably she would have met him somewhere sooner or later. I really feel quite glad that it is over; and it has done her no harm.’
This was all I gained by my exertions; and I made a resolution that I would certainly never be persuaded to do anything of the kind again. For, indeed, it had complicated my relations with various people. What could I do, for instance, about the Bellingers? In the meantime I simply dropped them, after having rushed into such an appearance of intimacy. If anybody else had done it, I should have been indignant; but how could I help myself? I could not have Edith in my house and see him wooing her, after having taken such an interest in the other side. I could not insult Lady Isabella by letting that go on under her very eyes. And though I wondered sometimes what the respectable Major would think, and whether poor dear Mrs. Bellinger would be wounded, I had not the fortitude to continue the acquaintance. I simply dropped them: it was the only thing I could do.
And then the winter came on all at once, which was a sort of excuse. There was a week or two of very bad weather and I caught cold, and was very glad of it, for, of course, nobody could expect me to drive to Royalborough in my little open carriage with a bad cold, through the rain and wind. A very dreary interval of dead quiet to me, and miserable weather, followed this little burst of excitement. I felt sore about it altogether, as a matter in which I had somehow been to blame, and which was a complete failure—to say the least. One day when I had been out for half an hour’s walk in the middle of the day, Colonel Brentford called; but the card which I found on my table was the only enlightenment this brought me, and my cold kept me away from all the society on the Green for six weeks, during which time I had no information on the subject. Sometimes, as usual, I saw Lady Isabella, but there was no change in her. She had quite settled down again, was the same as ever, and Mrs. Spencer had ceased to keep any watch upon her. And so it was all over, as a tale that is told.
The first time I was out after my influenza was at Lady Denzil’s, where, to my surprise, I found Edith Bellinger. She scarcely looked at me, and it was with some difficulty I got our slender thread of acquaintance renewed. Her mother, she thanked me, was better; her father was quite well; they had been sorry to hear of my cold; yes, of course it was a long way to drive. Such was the fashion of Edith’s talk; and I acknowledged to myself that it was perfectly just.
‘Your mamma must think it very strange that I have never gone to see her again,’ I was beginning to say, feeling uncomfortable and guilty.
‘I don’t suppose she has thought about it,’ Edith said hastily; and then she stopped short and blushed. ‘I beg your pardon, I did not mean to be rude.’
‘You are quite right,’ I said—‘not in being rude, but in feeling as you do. I seem to have been very capricious and unfriendly; but I have been ill; and you do not look quite so well yourself as when I saw you last.’
‘Oh, I am well enough,’ said the girl; and then those quick youthful tears of self-compassion which lie so near the surface came rushing to her eyes. ‘It is nothing, I—I am not very strong; and Lady Denzil, who is always kind, has asked me here for change of air.’
‘Poor child,’ I said, ‘tell me what is the matter?’ But I was not to learn at this moment at least. Colonel Brentford, whom I had not seen till now, came forward and bent over her.
‘They are going to sing something, and they want you to take a part. I have come for you,’ he said.
He looked down upon her quite tenderly, and held out his hand to help her to rise. Yes, of course, that was how it must have ended. It was all settled, of that I could have no doubt. I looked at them with, I fear, a look that had some pain and some pity in it, as they left me; and when I withdrew my eyes from them, my look met Lady Isabella’s, who was seated at the other side of the room. She had her usual half-mocking, half-kindly smile on her lips, but it looked to me set and immovable, as if she had been painted so and could not change; and she was pale—surely she was pale. It troubled me sadly, and all the more that I dared not say a word to any one, dared not even make any manifestation of sympathy to herself. She had chosen to renew her old acquaintance with him, had chosen to break down the barrier which sympathizing friends had raised round her, and to meet him with all freedom as if he were totally indifferent to her. This had been her own choice; and now, to be sure, she had to look on, and see all there might be to be seen.
But he was very civil to me when he chanced to be thrown near me. He said, in a much more friendly tone than poor Edith’s, that Mrs. Bellinger had been sorry to hear of my cold; that he hoped I should soon be able to go and see her; and when I said that Edith did not look strong, he shook his head. ‘She is rather wilful, and does not know her own mind,’ he said, and I thought he sighed. Was it that she could not make up her mind to accept him? Was it– But speculation was quite useless, and there was no information to be got out of his face.
A little after this I went to see Mrs. Bellinger, but was coldly received. Edith was not quite well, she said; she had been doing too much, and had gone away for a thorough change. Colonel Brentford? Oh, he had gone to visit his brother Sir Charles Brentford, in Devonshire. Edith was in Devonshire, too—at Torquay.
‘They are a little afraid of her lungs,’ Mrs. Bellinger said. ‘Oh, not I; I don’t think there is very much the matter; but still they are afraid—and of course it is better to prevent than to cure.’
It seemed to me a heartless way for a mother to speak, and I was discouraged by my reception. When I came away I made up my mind not to take any further trouble about the matter. Perhaps I had been mistaken in them at first, or perhaps– but then, to be sure, I had another motive, and that existed no longer. It was my fault more than theirs.
I heard no more of the Bellingers nor much more of Colonel Brentford for a long time after this. He, to be sure, went and came, as the other officers did, to one house and another, and I met him from time to time, and exchanged three words with him, but no more. And Lady Isabella made no reference whatever to that agitating moment when I, too, had a share in her personal history. Even Mrs. Spencer seemed to have forgotten all about it. Their house was more exquisite than ever that winter. They had built a new conservatory, which opened from the ante-room, and was full of the most bright, beautiful flowers—forced, artificial things to be sure they were, blooming long before their season, but still very lovely to look at in those winter days. The large drawing-room and the ante-room, and the conservatory at the end of all, were as warm and fragrant and soft and delicious as if they had been fairy-land—the temperature so equable, everything so soft to tread on, to sit on, to look at. It was a little drawing-room paradise—an Eden, with Turkey carpets instead of turf, and the flowers all in pots instead of growing free. And here Lady Isabella would sit, with that touch of mockery in her laugh, with little gibes at most people and most things, not quite so friendly or gentle as they once were. Now and then, I have thought, she cast a wistful glance at the door; now and then her spirits were fitful, her face paler than usual—but she had never been more lively or more bright.
It was past Christmas, and already a pale glimmer of spring was in the air, when this little episode showed signs of coming to its conclusion. I remember the day quite distinctly—a pale day in the beginning of February, when everything was quite destitute of colour. The sky was gray and so was the grass, and the skeletons of the trees stood bleak against the dulness. It was the kind of afternoon when one is glad to hear any news, good or bad—anything that will quicken the blood a little, and restore to the nervous system something like its usual tone.
This stimulus was supplied by the entrance to the house of our two neighbours Lucy Stoke—very important, and bursting with the dignity of a secret. She kept it in painfully for the first two minutes, moved chiefly by her reverential admiration for the fine furniture, the beautiful room, the atmosphere of splendour about her. But I was there, unfortunately, of whom Lucy was not afraid. It was to me, accordingly, that the revelation burst forth.
‘Oh, Mrs. Mulgrave,’ she said, ‘you know her! Who do you think I met going down to Lady Denzil’s, in a white bonnet,—though it’s such a dismal day—and a blue dress—quite light blue—the dress she went away in, I should think?’
‘A bride, I suppose,’ I said; ‘but whom?—I don’t remember any recent bride.’
‘Oh, yes, I
know
you know her! Young Mrs. Brentford—Edith Bellinger that was.’
‘Edith Bellinger!’ I cried, with a sudden pang. It was nothing to me. I had no reason to suppose it was anything to anybody, but yet–
‘It must have been the dress she went away in,’ said Lucy: ‘blue trimmed with bands of satin and fringe, and a white bonnet with blue flowers. It was very becoming. But fancy, only three weeks married, and coming to see Lady Denzil alone!’
‘And so she is Mrs. Brentford,’ said Mrs. Spencer, in a tone of genuine satisfaction. She would have suffered herself to be cut in little pieces for Lady Isabella, she would have done anything for her—but she was glad, unfeignedly thankful and relieved, to feel that this danger was past.
And Lucy, well pleased, ran on for ten minutes or more. It felt like ten hours. When she went away at last, Mrs. Spencer went with her to the door, to hear further particulars. All this time Lady Isabella had never said a word. She was in the shade, and her face was not very distinctly visible. When they left the room, she rose all at once, pulling herself up by the arms of her chair. Such a change had come upon her face that I was frightened. Every vestige of colour had left her cheek; her lip was parched, and tightly drawn across her teeth. She laughed as she got up from the chair.
‘We were all wishing for something to stir us up,’ she said; ‘but I never hoped for anything so exciting as Mrs. Brentford’s blue dress.’
‘Where are you going?’ I said, in sudden terror.
‘Up-stairs—only up-stairs. Where should I go?’ she said, with that short hard laugh. ‘Tell Mrs. Spencer—something. I have gone to fetch—Mrs. Brentford’s blue dress.’
Oh, how that laugh pained me! I would rather, a thousand times rather, have heard her cry. She went away like a ghost, without any noise; and Mrs. Spencer, full of thanksgiving, came back.
‘Where is Isabella? Oh, Mrs. Mulgrave, I can’t tell you what a relief this news is,’ she said. ‘I have always been so dreadfully afraid. Of course, anything that was for her happiness I would have put up with; but this would not have been for her happiness. She is no longer young, you know—her habits are all formed—and, even though she was fond of him once, how could she have taken up a man’s ways, an