CHAPTER XXX
This made, however, but a very temporary breach between Bee and her brother. They were a little stiff next morning at breakfast, and elaborately refrained from talking on any but the most trivial things, but by noon this reserve had broken down, and in the evening, though Bee proudly refrained from any reference to Laura, they were as confidential as ever. Bee’s mind had passed through various vicissitudes in respect to the object of Charlie’s adoration. Her first overwhelming interest had given way to a little doubt, and this was naturally strengthened by the overweaning estimate of the unknown which Charlie thrust upon her. A girl is very willing to admire at second-hand her brother’s love, but when she is told that it is presumption to compare herself with that divinity, her sympathy is strained too far. Bee began to have an uneasy feeling about this unknown Laura. It was one thing to stimulate Charlie to work, to stir up all that was best in him, to urge him to distinguish himself, for Charlie’s sake or for their joint sakes, if they married and became one – which was the only thing that could happen in Bee’s idea – but it was quite another thing to pretend an enthusiasm for this in order that Charlie should be kept within her reach and at her feet during that quiet time of the long vacation. Bee knew enough to know that severe work is not compatible with much love-making. She imagined her brother strolling away from his books to take Laura out on the river, or lie at her feet in the garden, which had become the habit of his life, as he betrayed to her accidentally. Bee thought, with a little indignation, that the lofty intentions which would probably end in these proceedings were of the nature of false pretences, and that the girl whom Charlie endowed with the most superlative qualities should not attempt to take him from his home for such reason; or, at least, if she did should do it frankly for love’s sake – which was always a thing to be forgiven – and not on any fictitious pretence.
For Charlie, being refused that heroic way of working, “going up to read,” did not read at all, as was apparent to his sister’s keen eyes. He did not attempt to do the best he could, being prevented from doing what he desired. He settled himself, it is true, in the library after breakfast, with his books, as if with the intention of working, but before Bee got through the little lesson which she gave every morning to the little ones, Charlie was out strolling about the garden, or lying on the grass in the shade with a book, which was usually a novel, or one which lay closed by his side while he abandoned himself to thought – to thought, not about his books it was to be feared, for Bee, with tremors of sympathy in her heart, recognised too well the dreamy look, the drooped eyelids, the air astray from anything going on around. From questions of study, as far as Bee had perceived in her short experience, the merest footstep on a path, the dropping of a leaf, was enough to rouse the student. Charlie’s thoughts were of a far more absorbing kind.
Colonel Kingsward suggested once more the week in town, when he came on another Saturday evening to Kingswarden. He was a man not very open to a perception of the wants of others, but as time went on, and he himself became more and more sensible of the ameliorating influences of society and occupation, the stagnant atmosphere at home, where his two elder children were vegetating, so much against all their previous habits, struck him with a sensation which he could not wholly get the better of. It was only right that Bee, at least, should remain in the country and in retirement the first summer after her mother’s death. It would have been most unbecoming had she been in town seeing people, and necessarily, more or less, been seen by the world. But yet he felt the stillness close round him like a sensible chill, and was aware of the great quiet – aggravated by his own presence, though of this he was scarcely aware – as if it had been a blight in the air. It made him angry for the moment. In other times his house in the country had always been refreshing and delightful to him. Now, the air, notwithstanding that it was full summer, chilled him to the bone.
When you are escaping from the atmosphere of grief, anything that draws you back to it feels like an injury. He was very cross, very impatient with the silence at table, the subdued looks of the young people, and that they had nothing to say. Was it not worse for him than for them? He was the one who had lost the most, and to whom all ministrations were due, to soften the smart of sorrow. But afterwards his thoughts towards his children softened. It was very dull for them. On the Sunday evening he took the trouble to press that week in town upon Charlie. “There’s a spare closet you can have at my rooms at the office,” he said. “It’s very central if not much else, and I daresay your friends will ask you out quietly as they do me. I think even you might bring up Bee for the day to see the pictures. She could stay the night with the Hammonds and see Betty.”
“Oh, don’t think of me, papa,” cried Bee. “I would rather, far rather, stay at home. I don’t care for the pictures – this year.”
“That is foolish, my dear,” said the Colonel. “There is nothing in the least unbecoming to your mourning in going there. Indeed, I wish you to go. You ought not to miss the pictures, and it will be a little change. Of course, I cannot go with you myself, but Charlie will take you, and you can go to Portman Square to sleep. You will see Betty, who must be thinking of coming home about now; indeed, it is quite necessary you should settle that with her. She can’t stay there all the season, and it is rather heartless leaving you like this alone.”
“Oh, no, papa. It is I that wish her to stay. She would have come back long ago but for me.”
Bee’s generous assumption of the blame, if there was any blame, excited her father’s suspicion rather than admiration. He looked at her somewhat severely. “I cannot conceive what object you can have in preferring to be alone,” he said. “It is either morbid, or – In either case it makes it more desirable that Betty should come back. You can arrange that. We will say Wednesday. I suppose you will not be nervous about returning home alone?”
“But, papa – ”
“I consider the question settled, Bee,” said Colonel Kingsward, and after that there was nothing more to be said.
Poor Bee wept many tears over this compulsory first step back into the world – without her mother, without – She did not mean (as she said in her inmost thoughts) anyone else; but it made the whole world vacant around her to think that neither on one side nor the other was there anyone to walk by her side, to take her hand, to make her feel that she was not alone. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that, in the morning, this was the first thought that came into her mind, with a faint expansion of her young being. The change, though it was not joyful, was still something; and when she set out with Charlie on Wednesday morning her heart, in spite of herself, rose a little. To see the pictures! The pictures are not generally very exciting, and there was not, as it happened, a sensation in any one of them in this particular year, even had Bee been capable of it, which she was not. But yet she had a sensation, and one of the most startling description. As she was going languidly along, looking at one picture after another, mechanically referring to the catalogue, which conveyed very little idea to her mind, her attention was suddenly attracted by a lady standing in front of one of the chief pictures of the year. She was talking with great animation to some friends who surrounded her, pointing out the qualities and excellencies (or non-excellencies, for Bee was not near enough to hear) of the picture. She was picturesquely dressed in black, a tall and commanding figure, with a great deal of lace about her, and a fine profile, clearly cut and impressive. Bee’s whole attention was called to her as by a charm. Where had she seen her before? She seemed acquainted with every detail of her figure, and penetrated by a vague reminiscence as of someone who had been of personal importance to herself, though she could not tell when or how. “Who is she? Oh, who is she?” Bee asked herself. She was very handsome – indeed Bee thought her a beautiful woman; not young, which is a thing always noted with a certain pain and compassion by a young girl – but full of grace and interest. While Bee gazed, open-eyed, forgetful of herself – a young figure, very interesting, too, to behold, in her deep mourning, and with the complete forgetfulness of herself involved in that wistful, inquiring, and admiring gaze – the lady turned round, presenting her full face to the girl’s troubled vision. Bee felt her breath come short, her heart beat. She fell back hurriedly upon a vacant place on one of the benches which someone had charitably left empty. Bee did not know who the woman was, nor what possible connections she could have with her own fate, and yet there was a conviction in the girl’s heart that she had to do with it, that somehow or other her life was in this woman’s hands. It was the lady whom she had met that autumn morning last year in the firwoods round the Baths, where Bee had gone to finish her sketch – the lady who had appeared suddenly from among the trees, who had sat down by her, and pointed out the errors in the little picture, and advised her how to put them right. The black lace which was so conspicuous in the stranger’s dress, seemed to sweep over Bee as she passed, with the same faint, penetrating odour, the same thrill of unaccountable sensation. Bee could not take her eyes from this figure as it moved slowly along, pausing here and there with the air of a connoisseur. Who was she? Who was she? Bee turned as she turned, following her with her eyes.
And then there occurred the most wonderful incident, so strange, so unsuspected, so unaccountable, that Bee could scarcely suppress a cry of astonishment. Charlie had been “doing” the pictures in his way, going faster than his sister, and had been roaming down the whole side of the long gallery while Bee occupied herself with one or two favourites. He appeared now at a little distance, having made the round of the room, and Bee was the involuntary, much surprised witness of the effect produced upon Charlie by the sudden appearance which had so much excited herself. He stopped short, with it seemed a sudden exclamation, let the book in his hands drop in his amazement, then, cleaving the crowd, precipitated himself upon the group in which the lady stood. Bee watched with consternation the hurried, eager greeting, the illumination of his boyish face, even the gesture – both hands put forth, and the quiver of his whole eager figure. She even heard a little cry of surprise from the lady, who presently separated herself from her friends and went on with Charlie in the closest conversation. It seemed to Bee as she watched, following them as well as she could through the crowd which got between her and these two figures, that there were no two heads so close together in all the throng. They seemed to drift into a corner where the pictures were of no importance, where they were comparatively undisturbed as if for the most confidential talk. It was not mere acquaintanceship, a chance meeting with some one he knew, it was utter forgetfulness of everything else, complete absorption in this new interest that seemed to move her brother. For a time Bee formed no conclusion, thought of no explanation, but watched them only with all her faculties. The catalogue which Charlie had dropped was shuffled and kicked to her feet by the passers by, a visible sign that something unusual had happened. What was it? Who was she?
And then there darted into Bee’s mind a suggestion, an idea which she could not, would not entertain. Laura! Was it possible that this could be Laura? The thought sent a thrill through and through her. But no! no! no! she cried within herself; impossible! This lady was years older than Charlie – of another generation altogether – not a girl at all. She gazed through the crowd at the two heads in the corner of the room, standing as if they were looking at the pictures. They had their backs to Bee, and she could see nothing but occasionally a side glimpse of Charlie’s cheek and the lace bonnet, with the unusual accompaniment of a floating veil, which covered his companion’s head. She had remembered the veil at once – not primly fastened over her face, as most ladies wore them, but thrown back and falling behind, a head-dress such as nobody else wore. It distinguished from every other head that of the woman who, Bee now felt sure, was like somebody in a tragedy of Fate – somebody who had to do, she could not tell how, with the shipwreck of her own life – for had she not appeared mysteriously, from she knew not where, on the very eve of misery and ruin? – and now was overshadowing Charlie’s, bringing him some calamity. Bee shivered and trembled among all the crowding people on the seat which so many people envied her, and felt that she was retaining far longer than her share. She was too much frightened to do as she could have wished to do, to rush after them, to draw her brother away, to break the spell. Such a dark lady had been known in story long before Bee was born. Could it be true that hateful beings were permitted to stray about even in the brightest scenes, bringing evil augury and all kinds of trouble with them? Many a time had Bee thought of this lady – of her sudden appearance, and of her questions about the Leighs; of something in her look, an air of meaning which even at the moment had confused the unsuspicious, unalarmed girl. And now, What was she? Who was she? Laura? Oh, no, no; a hundred times no. If Bee could have supposed that her respectable father or any member of her innocent family could have wronged anyone, she would have thought it was a ghost-lady ominous of trouble. Oh, what a silly thought in broad daylight, in the Academy of all places in the world! There was very little that was visionary or superstitious in such a place.
Charlie came back to join his sister after a considerable time with a glowing face. “Oh, you are there!” he cried. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I couldn’t think where you could have gone – ”
“I should have seen you had you been looking for me,” said Bee.
“Well, never mind, now that I have found you. Have you seen as much as you wish? It’s time to be moving off if you mean to get to Portman Square in time for tea.”
“Charlie,” said Bee, very gravely, getting up and moving with him towards the door, “who is that lady you were talking to with the black lace about her head?”
“What lady?” said Charlie, with a very fictitious look of surprise, and the colour mounting all over his face. “Oh, the lady I met – that lady? Well, she is a lady – whom I have met elsewhere – ”
“I have met her, too,” cried Bee, breathless, “down at the Baths just before – Oh, who is she – who is she, Charlie? I think she is one of the Fates.”
“You little goose,” cried her brother, and then he laughed in an unsteady way. “Perhaps she is – if there was a good one,” he cried. “She is,” he added, in a different tone, and then paused again; “but I couldn’t tell you half what she is if I were to talk till next week – and never in such a noisy, vulgar place as this.”
Then Bee’s mind, driven from one thought to another, came suddenly back with a jar and strain of her nerves to the question about Laura; was it possible that this should be she? – for it was the tone sacred to Laura in which her brother now spoke. “Oh! tell me about her, tell me about her!” she cried, involuntarily clasping her hands – “she isn’t – is she? Oh, Charlie, you will have time to tell me when we get into the park. Didn’t she want to speak to me? Why didn’t you introduce me to her if she is such a great friend of yours?”
“Hush! for goodness’ sake, now; you are making people stare,” said Charlie. He hurried down the stairs and across the road outside, making her almost run to keep up with him. “I say, Bee,” he cried hurriedly, when he had signalled to a hansom, “should you mind going by yourself? I hate driving when I can walk. Why, you’ve been in a hansom by yourself before! You’re not going to be such a little goose as to make a fuss about it now.”
“Oh, but Charlie – I’d rather walk too, and then you can tell me – ”
“Oh, nonsense,” he cried, “you’re tired already. It would be too much for you. Portman Square, No. – . Good-bye, Bee. I’ll look up later,” he cried, as, to Bee’s consternation, the wheels of the hansom jarred upon the curb and she felt herself carried rapidly away.
CHAPTER XXXI
Portman Square had seemed to Bee the first step into the world, after all that had happened, but when she was there this gentle illusion faded. It was not the world, but only another dry and faded corner out of the world, more silent and recluse than even Kingswarden had become, for there were no voices of children within, and no rustle of trees and singing of birds without. The meeting with Betty was sweet, but the air of the little old-fashioned tea-table, the long, solemn dinner, with the butler and the footman stealing like ghosts about the table, which was laid out with heavy silver and cut glass, with only one small bunch of flowers as a sacrifice to modern ideas in the middle, and the silence of the great drawing-room afterwards, half lighted and dreary, came with a chill upon the girl who had been afraid of being dazzled by too much brightness. There were only the old lady and the old gentleman, Betty and herself, around the big table, and only the same party without the old gentleman afterwards. Mrs. Lyon asked Bee questions about her excellent father, and she examined Bee closely about her dear mother, wishing to know all the particulars of Mrs. Kingsward’s illness.
“I can’t get a nice serious answer from Betty. She is such a little thing; and she tells me she was not at home through the worst,” Mrs. Lyon said.
It was not a subject to inspire Bee, or enable her to rise above the level of her home thoughts. Betty did not seem to feel it in the same way. She was in a white frock with black ribbons, for Mrs. Lyon did not like to see her in black, “such a little thing, you know.” Bee wondered vaguely whether she herself, only a year-and-a-half the elder, was supposed to be quite middle-aged and beyond all the happier surroundings of life. Mrs. Lyon gave her a great deal of advice as to what she ought to do, and talked much of the responsibilities of the elder sister. “You must teach them to obey you, my dear. You must not let down the habit of obedience, you must be very strict with them; a sister has more need even than a mother to be very strict, to keep them in a good way.” Bee sat very still, while the old lady prosed. It was so silent but for that voice, that the ticking of the clock became quite an important sound in the large dim room. And Bee strained her ears for the sound of a hansom drawing up, for Charlie’s step on the pavement. Many hansoms stopped at neighbouring houses, and footsteps sounded, but Charlie did not make his appearance. “My brother said he would look in later,” she had told Mrs. Lyon when she arrived. “Well, my dear, we shall hope he will,” the old lady had said, “but a young man in London finds a hundred engagements.” And Betty, who had been so serious, who had been so sweet, a perfect companion at the time of their mother’s death, more deeply penetrated by all the influences of the time than Bee herself, now flitted about in her white frock, with all her old brightness, and sang her little song without faltering, to show Bee what progress she had made since she had been taking lessons. Bee could scarcely yet sing the hymns in church without breaking down, though to be sure a girl who was having the best lessons would be obliged to get over that. After the long evening when they were at last alone together, Betty did not respond warmly to Bee’s suggestion that she should now be thinking of returning home. “You seem to think of nothing but the children,” she said; “you can’t want me,” to which Bee could only reply that there were more things than the children to think of, and that she was very lonely and had no one to talk to —
“But you have Charlie,” said Betty.
“Charlie is very full of his own concerns. He has not much sympathy with me. All that he wants is to get back to Oxford.”
“To Oxford in the vacation? What would he do there?”
“He says he would work,” said Bee.
“Oh, Bee, how nice of Charlie! I know they do sometimes, Gerald Lyon tells me; but I never thought that Charlie – ”
“No,” said Bee, “and I don’t feel very sure now, there is someone – to whom he writes such long letters – ”
“Oh, Bee! This is far, far more interesting than reading! Do you know who she is? Does he tell you about her?”
“Her name is Laura,” said Bee, “that is all I know.”
“Oh,” cried Betty, “Charlie too!” And then a flush came over the girl’s uplifted face. Bee, poor Bee, absorbed in the many things which had dawned upon her which were beyond Betty, did not observe the colour nor even that significant “too” which had come to Betty’s lips in spite of herself.
“I think he met her or someone belonging to her – at the Academy to-day; and that’s why he hasn’t come – Oh, Betty, I am not happy about it – I am not happy at all!”
Betty put her arms round Bee and kissed her. She thought it was the remembrance of her own disappointment and disaster which made her sister cry out in this heart-broken way. Betty looked very wistfully in Bee’s eyes. She was more sorry than words could say. If she could have done anything in the world “to make it all come right” she would have done so, and in the bottom of her heart she still had a conviction that all would “come right.” “Oh, Bee, Bee!” she cried, “cannot anything be done? If only – only you would have listened to his mother! – Bee – ”
Bee held up a warning finger. “Do you think it is myself I am thinking of?” she said, and then, wringing her hands, she added, “I don’t know what harm we have done to bring it on, but, oh! I think we are in the hands of fate.”
What did this mean? Betty thought her sister had gone out of her mind, and Bee would make no explanation. But I think this strange conversation made Betty rather less willing to return home. She was the darling of the house in Portman Square; though they did not go into society, they had all manner of indulgences for Betty, and took her to the Park, and encouraged the visits of their nephew, Gerald, who was a very merry companion for the girl. He was permitted to take her to see various sights, and the old people, as usual, did not perceive what was beginning to dawn under their very eyes. Betty was such a little thing. The consequence was that, though Bee thought Portman Square still duller than Kingswarden, her little sister was not of that opinion. Bee accordingly went back alone next day, Betty accompanying her to the railway station. Neither at Portman Square nor at the railway station did Charlie appear, and it was with a heavy heart that Bee went home. It seemed to her as she travelled alone, for, I think, the first time in her life – she was not yet quite twenty – that everyone was following his or her own way, and that only she was bearing the whole burden of the family. Her father had returned to his own world, his club, his dinners, official and otherwise. It was indispensable that he should do so. Bee had understood, it being impossible for a man in his position to withdraw from the world on account of any private feeling of his own. And Betty had flashed back again into her music, and her white frock, and was seeing everything as of old. And Charlie – oh, what was Charlie doing, drifting off into some tragic enchantment? The poor girl’s heart was very heavy. There seemed only herself to think of them all in their separate paths, one here and another there, going further and further off in so many different directions from the event which had broken the unity of the family, yet surely should have held them together in their common trouble. That event had gone into the regions of the past. The time of the mother was over, like a tale that is told. There were still the children in the nursery, and Bee, their guardian, watching over them – but the others all going off, each at their separate angle. It is hard enough to realise this, even when age has gained a certain insensibility, but to the girl, this breaking up of the family was terrible. “I – even I alone remain,” she was inclined to say with the prophet, and what could she do to stop the closing of these toils of Fate? Her mind gradually concentrated on that last and most alarming theme of all – the woman, the lady, without a name or history, or any evident link with the family, who had thus, for the second time, appeared in the path. Bee tried to fall back upon her reason, to represent to herself that she had no real cause for assuming that the stranger of whom she knew nothing, who might simply have been walking through that German wood, and have stopped by chance to speak to the little English girl with her stupid sketch, had anything to do with the disaster which so soon overtook that poor little English girl in the midst of her happy love. She had no reason, none, for thinking so. She tried to represent to herself how foolish she had been to entertain such a notion, how natural and without meaning the incident had been. And now again, for the second time, what reason had she to believe that anything fatal or even dangerous to Charlie was in this lady’s appearance now? She was a distinguished-looking woman, much older than Charlie. What was more likely than that such a woman, probably by her looks a married lady, a person of importance, should have a great deal of influence over a youth like Charlie if she took notice of him at all? All this was very reasonable. There was far more sense in it than in that foolish terror and alarm which had taken possession of her mind. She had almost persuaded herself that these apprehensions were foolish before she reached home, and yet the moment after she had succeeded in reasoning it all out, and convincing herself how foolish they had been, they had risen up in a crowd and seized her anxious mind again.
It was some days beyond the week which Charlie had been allowed in town when he came back. He was in agitated spirits, with a look of mingled excitement and exhaustion, which gave Bee many alarms, but which she was not sufficiently skilled or experienced to interpret. Colonel Kingsward had not come home in the interval, having gone somewhere else to spend his weekly holiday, and when he did come there were various colloquies between him and his son, which were evidently of a disturbing kind. Some of these were about money, as was to be made out by various allusions. Charlie had either been spending too much, or had set up a claim to more in the future, a claim which his father was reluctant to allow. But it seemed that he had come out triumphant in the end, to judge by their respective looks, when they issued from the library together, just before Colonel Kingsward left for town.
“I hope, at least, you’ll make good use of it,” were the father’s last words – and “you may trust me, sir,” said Charlie, with all the elation of victory.
He was in great spirits all day, teasing the children, and giving Bee half confidences as to the great things he meant to do.
“They shan’t put me off with any of their beastly Governorships at the end of the world,” said Charlie. “I shall play for high stakes, Bee, I can’t afford to be a mere attaché long, but they shan’t shelve me at some horrible African station, I can tell you. That’s not a kind of promotion that will suit me.”
“But you will have to go where you are sent,” said Bee.
“Oh, shall I?” cried Charlie, “that is all you know about it. Besides, when a man has a particularly charming wi – ” He stopped and coughed over the words, and laughed and grew red.
“Do you think your manners are so particularly charming?” said Bee, with familiar scorn, upon which Charlie laughed louder than ever and walked away.
Next day he left home hurriedly, saying he was going to make a run for a day or two to “see a man,” and came back in the same excited, exhausted state on Saturday morning, before his father returned – a process which was repeated almost every week, to the great consternation and trouble of Bee. For Charlie never mentioned these absences to his father, and Bee felt herself spell-bound, as if she were incapable of doing so. How could she betray her brother? And the letters to Laura ceased. He had no time now to write these long letters. Neither did he receive them as used to be the case. Had the correspondence ceased, or was there any other explanation? But Charlie talked but little to his sister now, and not at all on this subject, and thus the web of mystery seemed to be woven more and more about his feet – Bee alone suspecting or fearing anything, Bee alone entirely unable to make it clear.