Lady Cassandra

Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (continued 7)

Reading edition

The tears came into the Squire’s eyes as he stood by his mother’s bed, he knelt on the floor beside her, and stroked her brow with his big sunburnt hand; with extraordinary sharpness he divined the meaning of her muffled speech. Throughout that evening, and for hours at a time throughout the days which followed, he sat by her bedside, ministering to her wants with clumsy eagerness. Cassandra was for the time being too intensely absorbed with the tragedy of her own life to feel any active interest in what was passing before her eyes, but subconsciously the various pictures photographed themselves on her mind. Bernard smiling, indifferent to snubs, persuading his mother to eat, to swallow her medicine; Bernard, suppressing yawns, sitting up to the small hours to be “at hand”; Bernard holding the cold hand between his own warm palms, and by force of his strong electric current soothing the patient to sleep. He was not trying to be patient; he was patient, out of pure loving kindness and compassion. Slowly, gradually, the knowledge penetrated into Cassandra’s brain, and she asked herself sadly wherein she had failed, that this quality of tenderness was so lacking towards herself! For some months after their marriage Bernard had been the most ardent of lovers, then passion waned, and with no appreciable second stage, neglect had taken its place. She had been bitterly surprised, bitterly wounded, but what had she done to recapture her husband’s love, and turn it into a more enduring form? Had she once realised, as Grizel Beverley had realised in the midst of her bridal joy, that love is a tender plant, which can only preserve its fragrance when tended with unremitting care? Cassandra looked back and saw herself retiring into a chilly reserve, meeting neglect with neglect, indifference with indifference, disdaining to invite a love which was not voluntarily bestowed. It had seemed, at the time, the only way of preserving her dignity, but as she watched her husband by his mother’s bedside, there came a sudden realisation that if she had thought less of pride, and more of love, the barrenness of their joint lives might have been averted. If she had used her woman’s wiles,—smiled, cajoled, even in those early days, wept a few,—just a few, pretty, becoming tears, to enforce her need, the barrier would never have grown so high: Cassandra had been accustomed to put all the blame on her husband’s shoulders, and to congratulate herself on being immaculately free from blame; never till this moment had she realised that to a man of the Squire’s temperament, her attitude of chill detachment, and smiling indifference, was of all things the most exasperating. If she had blazed in anger, even to the extent of facing an occasional battle royal, the corroding bitterness would have found a vent, and reconciliation opened the way to fresh tenderness.

“It’s my fault as much as his!” Cassandra acknowledged, and the admission softened her heart.

The old Mater did not die. The critical days dragged slowly past, and she grimly held her own. In all human probability she would live on for months, for years, until the lightning fell for the third time. To Cassandra such a recovery seemed a piteous thing, but the Squire’s rejoicings were whole-hearted, and the old Mater herself wore an air of triumph. Apparently life was dear to her still, and the prospect of lying in bed, with one half of her body already dead, held more attractions than the celestial choirs on which she pinned her faith. There was a grim irony in hearing the twisted lips murmur fragments of her favourite hymn—“Oh, Lamb of God, I come!” and Cassandra’s sense of humour could not resist the reflection that the old lady was exceedingly loath to go!

Grizel wrote that she had given Dane the necessary explanation, and after four days’ incessant consideration, Cassandra wrote and despatched the following letter:

“I was coming to you, as I promised; I had counted every moment of every day as it passed, longing for the time to arrive; in another minute I should have been on my way, and then,—what was it?—fate, chance, providence, God?—Something intervened, and it became impossible for me to meet you, then, or later. I don’t know how long we shall be here. My husband’s mother is recovering, but she cannot bear him out of her sight. He is an angel of goodness to her, and in some wonderful way seems to be able to lend her some of his own strength. We may be here for months; it will certainly be many weeks; so I can’t come, Dane, I can’t have the one joy I longed for... the one more hour together, before we said good-bye!

“It may be for the best. I may look back in years to come, and be thankful, but I’m not thankful now. It seems hard, and cruel, and unjust, that I could not have that little hour, and it made it harder, being so near. Oh, Dane, that journey! Can you for a moment imagine how desperately, achingly miserable I was, steaming farther and farther away with every moment; thinking of you sitting waiting! I wonder what you thought.—I wonder what you feared? But you must have been sure of one thing, at least,—that my heart was with you!

“Dane! I want you to burn this letter after you have read it. I must tell you all that is in my heart, but it is best for both of us that it should not be preserved. I was going to say, that you should forget it, but I know that will not be possible.

“I am going to stay at my post, Dane, and try to make more of it than I’ve done till now. I told you that in making my decision I had no consideration for Bernard, but that was a mistake. I must consider him, for he is the principal person in life. He does not love me, but since coming here, I have begun to see that that is partly my own fault. I was very young when we married, and I took it for granted that he would remain for ever an adoring lover. When he grew cool and careless—it was humiliatingly soon!—my miserable pride made me treat him as indifferently as he treated me, and so we have grown apart. I thought he was incapable of tenderness, but watching him with his mother, I wonder if it is simply that I have shown no need. Oh! I’ve made a failure of it all—with the boy too, it seems, though I did love him; I did pour out my love... What is wrong with me, that the people who should love me don’t, and when someone comes along who does, we must be parted?

“Did you think I should come to you that night? Now that it is past and over, I can tell you that I very nearly did! An impulse came over me about nine o’clock, so overwhelmingly strong, that it was all I could do not to rush out, as I was, and make my way to you, bareheaded, across the park. The effort to resist left me cold and faint.—I wondered if you were thinking of me, willing me to come! And once again, though never quite so violently, the impulse returned, but each time I resisted, and the end finds me here, tied in a sick room, doing my duty, and bidding you goodbye.

“It’s hopeless, Dane; it’s hopeless! There is too much between. You must banish me from your life, and make the most of what is left. Isn’t it strange how in one of our first real talks we discussed makeshifts, and I asked you if you could manage to be happy, if you were denied the best. You answered so certainly; seemed to think it so poor-spirited to waste life in regrets. My poor Dane, now you will have to turn your words into deeds!

“By the time we return home, you will probably have left Chumley. I can feel that it would be better so. The agony of knowing that you were near, not seeing you, or seeing you only in public, would be more than I could bear, and—there is your engagement! I can’t write of that, or of her—but surely for a time at least, you would be better apart! And we must school ourselves, Dane—we must get accustomed.

“Oh, beloved, just once, before it is good-bye, I thank you for loving me,—I thank you for all you have given, I thank you for all you have received. It was only for a little time, but you did open the gates of Eden! we did walk in Paradise; we did taste and know the perfection of content! It was all beautiful, all clean, all white, and because it can’t live on and keep its beauty, we’ll bury it, Dane, deep in our hearts, and live on as bravely as we may!

“Cassandra.”

Dane’s reply came by return of post:

“Beloved! Mrs Beverley sent for me and gave me your message. I have been to see her every day since you left. I don’t know how I should have existed without her. Every day has seemed a year. I made sure you would write; I knew you must write, but it was a long waiting.

“Yes! I willed you to come to me that night. I nearly succeeded, it appears. God forgive me, I wish it had been quite! Every hour of those long days I hoped against hope for a summons from you, and then at last Wednesday came, and I made sure of meeting.—I nearly went mad, sitting in that summer-house, realising that you were not coming, imagining all kinds of wild, impossible things. It was balm to know that at least you had wanted to come.

“God bless you, my beautiful, for your sweet, words! My love for you has been the glory of my life. From the first moment that we met, you have been my Queen, and I your servant, waiting to obey. I will obey you now. Since it will be easier for you if I am at a distance, I will arrange to leave Chumley at once. Things fit in easily. I dropped Paley a hint that I was unsettled, and he sends me the kindest invitation to join him in Italy. I shall go there, I think, for the next few months, and your wonderful Grizel is already planning for the future. There are a number of wealthy relations, so to speak, at her feet, having come into their wealth through her disinterestedness in marrying Beverley, and amongst them such a thing as a small land agency should be easily obtained.

“We’ll see! I can’t think about the future at present, or anything but just—thee! There is much in your letter that I can’t answer; daren’t trust myself to answer. How could a man grow cold? But it is not for me to make things more difficult. When I realise how little I have to offer and how much you stand to lose, my lips are sealed. There could be no happiness for me, if I ruined your life.

“Mrs Beverley has done me good. I was a madman when I went to her, but she has calmed me into my right mind. She understands. I retract all I have ever said in disparagement of ‘Grizel.’ But I was jealous of her happiness, seeing You sad.

“One word I must add... My engagement will formally continue. I have explained everything. She knows that at any time a word from you would bring me to your side; but she still wishes me to take no public step, until a year has passed. If I were to remain in Chumley the thing would be impossible, but at a distance,—as it makes things easier for her, I can hardly refuse. She is very generous to me, Cassandra; very sweet. I wish I could love her as she deserves. For her sake, and yours, I am torn with regret; for my own, even now in the first smart of the wound, I have none. When I philosophised so lightly, I spoke without experience. I had never known the best. Now I do know, and the knowledge is worth its price. Our own door is barred, Cassandra, but we have a key in our hands which opens many doors!

“Dane.”

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Major Mallison, or The Dart of Death.

It was a spring morning, a year from the day when Mary Mallison had left home, and the remaining three members of the family at the Cottage were seated round the breakfast table. The passage of a single year leaves little impression in the appearance of grown men and women, but this instance was the exception to the rule, for an observant eye would have noted in each countenance something that had been missing twelve months before.

The Major had aged, in spirit as well as body. He ate little, but moved his lips continually in nerve-racked fashion, his faded eyes wandered here and there with a pitiful unrest. Mrs Mallison had noted the symptoms and ordered cod-liver oil, and the Major swallowed the doses with resignation, feeling the cure less obnoxious than continuous argument. A large bottle of the oil stood in readiness on a table near the door.

Mrs Mallison was stout and bustling as ever, but had lost her erstwhile complacency. In truth, though the good lady kept up a valiant presence in public, she was little pleased with the way things were going with her two daughters. A year ago both had been on the wave of prosperity, but the wave had floated them into a backwater, rather than to the haven where she would have them be. Mary was still wandering about the Continent, and mentioning no date for her return.

After several months in Switzerland she had crossed the frontier into Italy, had visited Rome and Florence and Venice, and was now domiciled in Paris. She wrote regularly once a fortnight, but her letters were extraordinarily unenlightening. Travellers’ letters are as a rule boring in their minutiae, but Mary never attempted a word of description. She simply gave a list of the things she had seen, with an occasional addition of “it was very beautiful,” which fact, as Mrs Mallison tartly remarked, her readers knew without being told. She sent home no presents as mementoes to the stay-at-homes. As a rich, independent daughter Mary could not be considered a success.

Teresa’s marriage hung fire! Mrs Mallison was a talkative woman, and it was to her credit that even to her husband she had not allowed her growing distrust of Dane Peignton to find vent in words. But day after day she asked herself the same question. Since the man cared enough for Teresa to ask her to be his wife, why did he not show a natural desire to be married? It was no question of means, for the new agency was sufficiently good, and included the use of a delightful house. It could be no question of health, since he had not been laid up a day the whole winter, and if, as was represented, his responsibility was such that he could not spare even a week at Christmas to visit Chumley, all the more reason that he should have a wife to look after his home! Teresa herself appeared to accept the delay as a matter of course, but her mother’s eyes were sharp enough to see through the pretence. The girl was unhappy; the girl was fretting; her persistent cheerfulness was a cloak to cover a wound; when she thought herself unobserved her face fell into weary lines. Yes! Teresa was unhappy, but with a mother’s jealous pride in a daughter’s attractiveness, Mrs Mallison told herself that, thank goodness! it hadn’t spoiled the girl’s good looks. She looked thinner perhaps; a trifle older, but there was something which added to her charm. She did not acknowledge in so many words that a hard face had softened, but told herself reassuringly that Dane would notice the improvement,—when he returned!

Anxiety about her daughters had made Mrs Mallison more than usually unobservant of her husband during the last few months. She cherished one or two axioms concerning him which lived on unchanged from year to year. One was that “Papa was always ailing,” another that “Papa was so tiresome,” a third that in dealing with Papa, it was wisdom to “take no notice.” The cod-liver oil was the only concession she had made to the increasing weakness which she could not ignore.

Breakfast was finished, and half a dozen letters were distributed round the table. Teresa turned over her share with an eager hand, and paled into indifference. It was with an obvious effort that she tore open an envelope, and made a pretence of reading. This morning at least she had made sure of a letter from Dane. It was eight days since she had heard from him last, and up till now he had written regularly once a week. They were not lover-like letters, those chronicles of daily doings, and allusions to the leading events of the day, but such as they were, they made the sum of Teresa’s life. She read each letter many times, yearning to find in it some trace of returning love, and once or twice of late she had believed the search successful. On one occasion her own weekly letter had been delayed, and Dane wrote that he had been uneasy all day fearing that she was ill. Again, writing of the loneliness of a life among strangers, he had afterwards inserted a closely written phrase: “Less lonely after your sweet words!” Teresa read that sentence with a thrill of intensest relief. Throughout the months of separation, she had persistently written to Dane in the same outspoken loving manner as she had done before the fateful visit to Gled Bay. He knew that she loved him, she was trusting to that love as the magnet which should draw him back to her side, and would not allow pride to stand in its way. Nevertheless, receiving those formally written answers, it was inevitable that she should experience moments of smarting doubt. Was she humbling herself to reap only impatience and contempt? And then, after five long months, had come that blessed reassurement.

“Less lonely, after your sweet words!”

Teresa had gone proudly after the receipt of that message, but she was hungry for more. The waiting seemed longer than ever, now that hope revived.

This morning at breakfast Teresa’s thoughts were so busily occupied with her fiancé that she barely realised the meaning of the words on the sheet before her. She was automatically turning to read them once more when her attention was attracted by a movement at the end of the table where her father had his place.

A moment before the Major had opened a long business-like letter which he still clasped in both hands, but he had fallen back in his chair, and his face was blanched and terrible to behold. As Teresa stared in amaze it seemed to her that with every second his body was changing, growing smaller, and more helpless. “Father!” she cried loudly. “Father!” but he had no eyes for her, he was staring across the table into his wife’s face.

“Margaret!” he gasped. “Margaret. It is ruin! I am a murderer, Margaret, a thief—I’ve played with the money that belonged to you, and the children, and it’s gone. We are ruined, Margaret!—it is all gone. What have I done! What have I done!”

Mrs Mallison rose from her seat and hurried round the table. She opened her arms as she went; they were wide open when she reached her husband’s side, and he shrank into them, his head sliding downward on her shoulder with a strange unnatural looseness. “As if he had no neck,” Teresa thought to herself as she looked on, “as if he had no neck!”

“There, my dear, there!” cried the wife tenderly, “don’t get upset! Whatever you’ve done, you meant it for the best. We know you well enough to be sure of that. There, my dear, there! You’ve been good to us for thirty-five years—we’re not going to blame you if you’ve made a mistake now... Teresa! speak to your father... comfort him... Henry, look up!... My God... Henry, speak!”

Her voice rose to a wail, for even as she spoke, even as she cradled him in her arms, the bolt fell,—so suddenly, so swiftly, that one second it was not, and the next it was there. One side of the face crumpled and fell, the eye closed, the mouth stretched in a ghastly grin. His wife seized his right arm, and shook it violently, but it fell to his side, heavy as lead. Within the loose tweed coat the shoulder seemed to disappear.

“Mother, Mother!” cried Teresa wildly, “you were so kind to him. You were so kind... You didn’t blame him one bit.”

They got him to bed and sent for the doctor, but he never regained consciousness. Before the afternoon was over he had breathed his last.

“And now, I suppose,” Mrs Mallison said dully, “Mary will come home.”

Chapter Thirty.

A Meeting.

Mary came speeding home by the first train after receipt of the telegraphic message, and arrived at the Cottage on the afternoon of the following day.

A strange maid with a scared expression opened the door, and stared aghast as the new arrival pushed past her into the dining-room.

The room was empty, and Mary stood upon the threshold looking round the familiar scene, which seemed so strangely altered by her year’s absence. The blinds were drawn, but even in the half-lights its proportions appeared shrunken, its furnishings shabby and poor. On the centre table stood a bowl of spring flowers, and two or three store catalogues, certain pages of which were marked with strips of writing paper. It seemed to Mary that those books had lain in identically the same positions on the morning on which she had left home, but then the marked pages had been those of Trousseaux, and now... Instinctively she opened the nearest volume, and shrank at the sight of monumental stones and crosses.

The next moment the door opened, and Mrs Mallison entered the room. From an upper room she had heard the sounds of arrival, and for the moment the mother in her forgot everything but the fact that her child had returned. She held out her arms, and smiled with twitching lips, and Mary ran to her, and clung round her neck, with arms which seemed as if they would never let go. It was not the thought of her father that prompted that close embrace, it was the remembrance of a year of days spent in establishments, a year of aimless hours, a year of living among strangers, who cared nothing, noticed nothing! neither praised nor blamed. She had tasted liberty, and liberty had been sweet, but there was a great loneliness in her heart, and the clasp of mother arms were as balm to a wound.

“Mother, Mother!” gasped Mary sobbing.

“Mary, Mary!” quavered Mrs Mallison in reply, then at last they drew apart, regarding each other, with half-shy scrutiny. Mrs Mallison had rushed into the orthodox fitments with a haste which seemed to Teresa positively indecent, but it obviously soothed the widow to don her new cap, and stitch muslin cuffs and collar on a black silk dress. The result, taken in conjunction with a natural paleness of complexion, was undoubtedly softening, and made a further appeal to Mary’s heart.

“You look pale, Mother. You are not ill? Oh, don’t be ill! We can’t spare you too!”

“No, no, my dear. I am quite well. It was a great shock... but there was no nursing. It would have been worse if he’d been ill long. Sit down, my dear... You must have some milk... He came down to breakfast quite himself, but depressed. He had been depressed—” She saw Mary wince, and hurried into explanations.—“About business... Not you, my dear! He had got over that. So interested in your letters... Poor Papa! investments had been bad, and he was led into speculation. I never suspected.—He never confided in me. He knew that I should object. Papa could be very self-willed. It’s the way with these mild characters; all of a sudden they get the bit in their teeth, and there’s no stopping them.” She saw Mary wince again, and gave a peal to the bell. “You must have some milk! Or tea? Shall I hurry up tea? Tea, please, Mason, and don’t toast the muffin until you’ve brought in the tray. It was cold yesterday.—I was telling you, Mary, that he had had bad news... opened a letter after breakfast and there it was.—He read it through, and called out to me: ‘Margaret! Margaret!’...” The large, complacent face shivered suddenly into tears. “It was years—years—since he had called me that!”

Mary took out her handkerchief, and wiped her own eyes. She was sorry for her mother, but the habit of thinking first of herself had grown too strong to be overcome.

“Did he—did he speak of me?”

“My dear, there was no time. It fell on him at that very moment—the stroke! He never spoke again. Those were his last words, ‘Margaret! Margaret!’—as he used to call to me when we were young, before you children were born.”

There was evident solace in the remembrance, despite the tears which it evoked. Mary made a futile effort to conjure up a picture of youthful parents, loving each other, living in happy comradeship, and then reverted to her mother’s words of a few moments before.

“Bad news! Speculations?... How much had he lost?”

Mrs Mallison’s hands twitched, she clasped them tightly upon her knee.

“He said—all! He said—ruin! It’s too early yet to be sure. Mr Maitland will make enquiries... I knew he had been selling out shares. I thought it was to reinvest in some better security. Papa was always close about business. If he speculated with the principal, and it has gone, it will be”—the hands jerked once more—“ruin!”

“You will have five hundred a year, Mother,” Mary said quietly. “Teresa will marry, and you and I—we can be quite comfortable on five hundred a year.”

Mrs Mallison’s eyes shot out a sideways glance, and beheld before her the Mary of old, seated with bowed back and bowed head in her old chair in the corner by the fire-place, and the year that had passed rolled from her memory like a worrying dream.

“Of course,” she said briskly, “we must remove. There will be no necessity for so many rooms. If we put out the washing we can manage quite nicely with one maid, and you to assist in the mornings. After being idle for so long, you will enjoy making yourself of use.”

“I think I shall,” said Mary. And she meant it.

The maid brought in the tray at that moment, the subject was necessarily dropped. Probably a fortune of ten thousand pounds has never changed hands so swiftly and silently! From that hour to the day of her death, Mrs Mallison showed no sign of realising that she was living on her daughter’s money, not her own.

The tea was poured out, the muffin was brought in, piping hot, under its silver cover, before Teresa made her appearance, and Mary, staring with blank eyes at a tall, thin girl, with pale cheeks and listless eyes, felt that this was not the Teresa of yore, but a stranger with whom she had no acquaintance.

The sisters embraced, in silence, and with a listlessness as pronounced on one side as the other. There was no sign in Teresa’s manner of the remorseful affection which her letter had expressed. “She looks—like me!” said Mary to herself, and her eyes strayed to her sister’s left hand. The flash of diamonds showed that there was no avowed breach with Dane, though the mystery of the deferred marriage was still to be solved. Mary found no clue thereto in her mother’s continued monologue, though it was discursive enough to take in the whole countryside.

“Teresa will be glad to have you back—so much to do... The bell has been ringing all day long. Lovely flowers! A wreath of lilies from the Court. And there will be the cards... We shall have to draw one out. There were no kind enquiries, so we can’t thank for them. It was so sudden; only a few minutes. He called out for me—I went to him, and held his poor head. Teresa said I was kind. Of course I was kind! He called me ‘Margaret,’ and then—in a minute... wasn’t it only a minute, Teresa? he was gone!... Poor Henry! Poor Papa! The shock was too much... ‘Mrs and the Misses Mallison return warm thanks for kind sympathy in their sad and sudden bereavement,’ something like that... They have a book at the stationer’s, with a selection drawn out. I’ve seen them at the end of the Christmas mottoes. We’ll telephone... The Vicar will be in again presently. Most attentive. He enquired for you, Mary. I said we had wired. He felt quite sure you would come. Mrs Evans sent a cross. Mrs Beverley’s were coloured. Pale pink roses, and a note with them. Very feeling, I must say. Being an orphan herself, she can understand. Only cards from the Court. We’ve seen nothing of them this last year. The Squire’s mother died, so they don’t entertain, and Lady Cassandra and Mrs Beverley are always together. Of course, as I tell Teresa, she’s so much younger. Teresa is looking thinner, Mary, isn’t she? Quite slim. You haven’t altered, my dear. I see no difference. I thought perhaps you’d have changed your hair.—No! Papa didn’t speak of you specially; he hadn’t time, but he spoke of his children,—something about ruining me and the children—he thought of us, not himself. I said to him, whatever he had done, he had done it for the best. Mr Hunter said the same thing this morning. He came in to offer to help. He is looking after the—er,... arranging for Thursday. Quite simple, I told him, but good. I could not bear to skimp for Papa. The dressmaker’s coming at six...” Her face quivered and a stray tear rolled slowly down her cheek. “He looks so peaceful!... Afterwards—you must come up...”

Mary shrank. She did not want to see the still, changed effigy of what had been; she wanted to remember her father as the quiet man who had kissed her on the doorstep, and said: “My dear, I hope you may have a pleasant time,” but she had not the courage to refuse. She looked appealingly at Teresa, and saw a sudden wave of feeling sweep over the pale face. From without came the sound of wheels, a heavy, lumbering sound which to Chumley ears announced the advent of one of the venerable station flies. The next moment the bell rang, and a man’s footstep was heard in the hall. “The Vicar!” murmured Mrs Mallison, but Mary knew it was not the Vicar; the look on her sister’s face announced too surely the name of the new-comer.

There came a pause, while the new maid was escorting the visitor into the drawing-room, and came back to announce his name.

“Captain Peignton.”

Teresa took the words out of her mother’s mouth.

“Ask him to come here.”

She rose from her seat, and stood waiting, so calm, so dignified, so arresting in her slim young pallor, that Mrs Mallison’s reproaches died on her lips. She rose in her turn, and stood beside her daughter with an unconscious air of protection, and then Dane entered, and the long-dreaded, long-prayed-for meeting had taken place.

He came forward, eager, sympathetic, his own embarrassment forgotten in affectionate concern. Looking at him as he entered, one divined that his impulse was to kiss and caress, as he had been accustomed to do in the early days of his engagement, but that impulse received a check at the sight of the two waiting figures,—Mrs Mallison in her widow’s trappings, and beside her, the white silent girl. Dane shared Mary’s dazed feeling of meeting a stranger, as he shook Teresa’s limp hand, which yet had strength enough to hold him at arm’s length. He heard her voice enquiring as to the comfort of his journey, offering him tea and cakes; there was in it a note of detachment which he had never before heard when she was addressing himself.

As he drank his tea, and listened to the hum of Mrs Mallison’s reiterated reminiscences, Dane was conscious of a feeling of flatness and disappointment. The year’s absence from Chumley had wrought the inevitable result. He loved Cassandra none the less, but the eyes that had been blinded by passion could now discern that he had been saved from a great wrong, and if life still appeared grey and barren, he acknowledged that he had escaped the harder fate of attaining his desire at the cost of bitterness of soul. And throughout the months of struggle, this girl’s tenderness had enveloped him, an unfaltering tenderness, undaunted by neglect. It was only during the last few months that Dane had begun to realise the healing quality of that tenderness, to count the days until the arrival of the weekly letter, to find himself mentally repeating its phrases; slowly, but surely, his wounded heart had been opening to take comfort in Teresa’s love, and when suddenly she was plunged into trouble, he had hurried to her, with a genuine impulse of tenderness. In imagination he had seen her face lighten with joy, had felt her arms around his neck.—It was the most startling thing in the world to find Teresa cold!

When tea was over Mary lifted her gloves and veil murmuring some unintelligible words, whereupon Teresa rose so quickly as to give the idea that she was glad of the excuse.

“I will come with you! Your room is not quite ready. You must come to mine.” She turned to Dane holding out her hand with a flickering smile. “You will excuse me, Dane. We are so busy... The Vicar is coming in later, and Mr Hunter, and the dressmaker... There’s so much to be done... We will see you again?”

She turned away, without waiting for a reply, and Dane reseated himself in silence. To say that he was surprised, but feebly expresses his sentiments; he was stunned, he could hardly persuade himself that he had heard aright. He looked eagerly at Mrs Mallison, seeking a clue from her, and beheld a kindred surprise, mingled with an unmistakable complacence. Obviously the mother approved of her daughter’s reserve, and felt a natural satisfaction in his rebuff, but before the silence had continued long enough to become awkward, she remembered her duties as hostess, and vouchsafed an explanation:

“Mary arrived just before tea... They have not seen each other for a year.—So much has happened...”

“Of course. Just so... I quite understand,” Dane said vaguely. Then, after a moment’s pause, “Teresa looks thin!” he added anxiously. “This has been a great shock to her.”

“M-yes!” Mrs Mallison said. Just the one word, yet Dane found himself flushing guiltily, and realising that he was meant to realise that no shock, however great, could alter a girl’s physique, as Teresa had altered since he had seen her last. He dropped the subject, and tried another.

“I came as quickly as I could after getting the news. I hoped I might be in time to help. What arrangements,... can I help you to make arrangements?”

“Thank you very much, but everything is settled. Mr Hunter is looking after everything. I expect him this evening to talk over details. The day after to-morrow, at twelve o’clock. Will it be possible for you to stay?”

Again Dane was conscious of shock, followed by a pang of something curiously like irritation. Hunter? How did Hunter come to be on such intimate terms? Then he remembered that Hunter was a doctor, and felt a rising of spirits. Of course! Quite natural! Hunter had been in attendance.

“Of course I shall stay. I hope I may be of some use to you later, on. I’m glad you had someone on the spot. Hunter is the young doctor, isn’t he? Extraordinarily kind, these doctor fellows on occasions like these!”

“M-yes,” said Mrs Mallison once more, and there rose before Dane’s eyes a picture of Teresa, in a white dress, dispensing garden tea, with a tall young figure assiduously waiting upon her. Once more he realised that that “M-yes!” was meant to imply that more than mere professional interest was at stake.

The sound of a bell jingled through the quiet house, and Dane rose from his chair. Of old he had been as a son in this house, treated with affection and familiarity, but at this moment he felt an intruder, whose presence was merely an inconvenience, taking up time which should have been bestowed elsewhere. He held out his hand, and said:

“At what hour to-morrow will it be most convenient for me to call to see Teresa?”

“I will ask her,” Mrs Mallison said, and left the room, to return with astonishing quickness. Evidently there had been no hesitation about the reply; evidently also the maternal judgment approved.

“Teresa says she will be glad if you will excuse her to-morrow. There is so much to do. She would rather leave her own affairs until after the funeral. Perhaps you will come in to tea on Thursday.”

“Thank you. I will come in after tea. About five o’clock. I am staying at the hotel. Please let me know if there is anything I can do.”

He kept his voice resolutely controlled, but his anger showed in sparkling eye, and a rising of colour over cheek and brow. Mrs Mallison regarded these signs with a natural satisfaction. It was not in feminine human nature to resist one parting thrust.

“One day,” she said suavely, “cannot matter, when you have waited so long!”

Chapter Thirty One.

The Second Best.

Dane awoke next morning to face a long and difficult day. Idle hours are proverbially dedicated to temptation, and despite many resolutions his thoughts drifted continually towards Cassandra, continually emphasised her nearness, and dallied with the possibility of a meeting. He swore that such a meeting should not be his own doing, but what if chance brought it about?

For some moments he permitted himself to envisage possibilities, then sternly called himself to order. Teresa in sorrow demanded an undivided loyalty; her tenderness during the past year riveted her claims. He determined to telephone to the Squire, apologise for his own inability to call at the Court, and try to arrange a meeting in town, but half an hour later as he stood on the step of the hotel, he saw the familiar dog-cart driving towards him, and heard himself hailed in loud, well-known tones.

“Halloa, Peignton! Heard you were here. Drove round to say how d’you do.” The Squire gave the reins to the groom. “I’ll come inside and have a smoke... Poor old fellow went off in a hurry, eh? S’pose you are staying over the funeral?”

“Yes. Till Friday morning. I’m glad you called. I was going to ring you up, and explain that I should have no time to pay calls...”

“No. No. Of course not. Son of the house; you’ll have the whole show on your hands. And Teresa, eh? Bit of lost time to make up, what? Thought you were never going to turn up again... You know your own business best, of course...”

“I do,” Dane said firmly, but the Squire was not sensitive to rebuffs.

“Well!”—he said slowly—“that is as it may be. All the same, if you leave things much longer, and she falls to pieces as she’s been doing lately, there’ll be no Teresa left... Bad business this money trouble! Who would have thought that solemn old buffer could have been such a giddy owl?”

Dane sat, unlighted cigarette in hand, gazing at him in dismay.

“What money trouble?”

“Mean to say you don’t know? They didn’t tell you?”

“Not a word. Money was not mentioned.”

“Odd!” The Squire cocked a suspicious eyebrow. “Very odd, considering your position. Evans told me. No secret about it. It’s over the whole place. The old man had been selling out shares, and reinvesting under the advice of some unprincipled scoundrel. The old story—a huge fraud, got up for the special benefit of rural investors, ten per cent, interest, paid once; and then—smash! The poor old fellow got the news at the breakfast table, called out to his wife that he was ruined, and fizzled up, then and there. Had a stroke, and died in her arms. Far as Evans understands there’ll be nothing left for ’em but a twopenny pension.”

Dane was silent, digesting the startling news. The ménage at the Cottage had suggested a comfortable, if modest income; in the one official interview which he had had with the Major, he had been informed that Teresa would eventually inherit some seven or eight thousand pounds. Now, by all accounts, the prospective fortune had vanished, and she was left penniless, dependent on—? On what? The answer to that question came in a rush of tender understanding. Poor, poor, little girl! Was this the reason of her coldness? Did she fear that a sense of duty would urge him to a marriage from which his heart still shrank? Poor, proud, little girl! While she had something to give, she could plead her own cause, but a penniless Teresa would accept no favour. On the whole the news of the Major’s losses brought Dane more relief than sorrow. It solved the mystery of his chilling reception.

“Humph—yes! bad business—bad business,” soliloquised the Squire. “Eldest daughter came in for a bit of money, but she’s kicked over the traces... Rather a pill for her to settle down again with the old woman,—what? Of course, you can look after Teresa...”

“I can,” Dane said. After a moment’s pause he continued deliberately. “I shall arrange for our marriage to take place as early as possible. Mrs Mallison may have conventional scruples... she probably will, but she’ll have to give way. I can’t stay longer than Friday, and I must get things settled before I leave.” He rose, and straightened his shoulders with the air of a man throwing off a weight. “You—er—you will tell Lady Cassandra my plans, and explain to her that my time is so limited that I—er—”

“Certainly. Certainly. She wouldn’t expect it, my dear man. As a matter of fact she and Mrs Beverley are off in town for the day,—frock-hunting, I believe. They’re always at it. Ripping little woman, Mrs Beverley! lots of fun, but plenty of common sense tucked away inside. Been a regular godsend to Cassandra...”

“Lady Cassandra is quite well?”

“Humph!” the Squire protruded his under lip. “So, so. Had a bit of a breakdown in autumn. We had a hard time of it, after you left. My old Mater had a stroke, and we were down in Devonshire looking after her for a couple of months. She got on like a house on fire: helpless, you know—couldn’t stir out of bed, but keen as a needle, took in all that was going on. Cassandra nursed her.”

The Squire flicked the ash from his cigarette with a ruminating air. “Rum things, women! Hated each other like poison, those two. That’s to say the Mater hated Cass; jealous, because she was my wife. Cass didn’t hate her... too much trouble. She was simply bored. She’s given to being bored; you know that. She’s bored with your Teresa. Grizel’s the passion nowadays. Grizel is always perfect. But she was good to the old Mater. Nursed her like a brick, and the old Mater lay there by the hour staring at Cass. The last words she spoke to me,—did I tell you she had a third stroke, and died suddenly, just as we were coming home?—her last words were about Cass. Thought she needed looking after, ... cheering up.—It was a great comfort to me, Peignton, that the old Mater and Cass were on good terms at the last!”

“I am quite sure it was,” Dane said sincerely. He was trying to banish a picture that rose before him, of the paralysed old woman with the dead body, and the live eyes that watched, hour after hour, the beautiful tragic face of her son’s wife. How much had the old Mater seen? How much had she divined?

The next morning Dane stood by Teresa’s side in the graveyard of the old church, and drove back to the Cottage by her side. In the afternoon he paid a second visit, and found the Vicar and his wife drinking tea with the mourners. The two girls were silent and self-contained, but the emotions of the day had had an exciting effect on Mrs Mallison’s nerves, with the gruesome result that she appeared to be in the highest of spirits. Her voluble tongue discussed times past, present, and to come, and very pointedly she gave her hearers to understand that no condolences were necessary on the score of poverty.

“We shall give up the Cottage—it is unnecessarily large now that Papa’s two rooms will be empty. Is there any chance of Oak Lea falling vacant, Mrs Evans? That’s the kind of house that would suit us, wouldn’t it, Mary? Two nice sitting-rooms, three or four bedrooms, and not too much garden to manage with a man once a week. I should like to keep on the cart. So useful for paying calls at a distance. There is a small stable at Oak Lea, I think? We’ll see! We’ll see! I shall quite enjoy a small, compact house. Mary and I don’t need much space. Teresa says we are not to count on her.”

Everyone looked at Teresa, and Teresa stared fixedly at her cup. Not a tinge of colour stole into her cheek.

When the Vicar rose to leave, his wife slipped her hand through Mary’s arm, and led her across the hall into the dining-room. At such a time it was natural that there should be “private words” and no one exhibited any surprise. Mrs Evans closed the door behind her, and held Mary’s hand in a firm, motherly grasp.

“Mary, dear—I am a very old friend,—may I give you a word of advice? In these days of grief and emotion, don’t be tempted into making plans, which you may regret later on. Wait until you have had time to consider.”

“Thank you, Mrs Evans, but what is there to consider? If Mother has no money, what can I possibly do but give her mine?”

“You must share it with her, of course; no right-minded daughter could do less. But—there are different ways of doing it, Mary, dear! It is your own money. You ought to reserve to yourself the right to decide, and to order your own life.”

But Mary shook her head.

“You don’t know Mother. I do. There would be no peace. I’ll leave it to her to do as she likes. I’ve had my fling, Mrs Evans, a whole year of being alone, and free to do as I liked. I—I was very lonely. I shan’t be altogether sorry...”

Mrs Evans was silent, her keen eyes fixed upon Mary’s face searching for some sign of change or growth, but there was none to be seen. The vagrant year had come and gone, and had left no mark. Its end found her prepared to settle down into her old attitude of dumb submission, “not altogether sorry!” Mrs Evans kissed her silently, and said no more.

In the drawing-room Dane and Teresa faced each other across the tea table. At last they were alone, safe from interruption. As the door shut behind the departing guests Dane held out his arm with a gesture of invitation, but Teresa shook her head, holding him off with a lifted hand.

“Not now. ... Wait! There is so much to be said.—Sit down, Dane. I hope you didn’t think me unkind not seeing you yesterday. I couldn’t! It has been such a shock. I had to think things out. The money question alters everything. There has not been time to go into business matters, but from all we have heard, from what the letter said, it seems that this loss was the last of a series. Poor Father! he must have suffered horribly, but he said nothing; only speculated more wildly than ever, hoping to put things straight. It’s a mercy Mary has her money. She will look after Mother. It’s her duty, but I am different. I could never live on Mary.” She raised her voice, silencing the words on Danes’ tongue. “I have told them that I shall look after myself.”

“I shan’t let you do that! Dear, I have only been waiting till you gave me a chance of speaking. As soon as it can possibly be arranged we must—”

But again Teresa’s voice interrupted, hastily drowning his own.

“Wait, please! You must wait. I’ll tell you my plans, but first, there’s something I must give you back.” To his dismay he saw her draw the diamond circlet from her finger; she held it towards him on an open palm. Her lips twisted in a painful effort at a smile. “You wanted to have it a year ago, and I refused. I must have seemed very bold. I have often wondered since how I could have brought myself to do it. I was thinking of myself, of course. I don’t deny it. I could not bear to give you up, and I hated the thought of the gossip, and the sympathy, and the staring eyes. It hurt my pride to think of being jilted, when I’d been so proud... But most of all—most of all, I thought of you! Dane! tell me one thing! It would help me to know... Has it been any help having my letters this year? Did being engaged to me—as much as we were engaged—make things better or worse? Were you one little scrap less lonely because I cared?”

Dane had refused to take the ring. It was still lying on Teresa’s palm. He stood over her, very pale, very drawn, his eyes gazing unfalteringly into her own.

“Teresa, you have saved me! If it had not been for you I should have taken my life. You have been an angel of patience. It has been your sweetness which saved me from despair. I have taken everything from you in my own trouble, and now, when I am cured, when you have cured me, you want me no more! What about those reasons that influenced you last year? Don’t they still exist? Have you grown tired of me, Teresa?”

She shook her head, refusing to reply.

“God knows it would be no wonder if you had; not one girl in a thousand would have had your forbearance. And—those other reasons? Have you outgrown your fear of what people may say?”

“No, I haven’t. I’m afraid I never shall. But,—it’s over, you see,” Teresa said quickly. “It has happened. A whole year has passed, Dane, and you have never once been to see me. Chumley has been sorry for me for months; it expects me to be jilted. You need not worry about my sufferings in that respect. The worst is over... Besides, I have no intention of staying in Chumley.”

Dane muttered a furious word, controlled himself, and put another question.

“What exactly is your intention, Teresa?”

“I shall take up some work. Girls always say that, and people laugh. I don’t mind if they do. They won’t laugh long. I shall succeed. I am the sort of person who does succeed. I like work, and I like to do it well... For two or three years I shall work hard,—so hard that I shall have no time to think...”

She stopped, leaving the effect of an unfinished sentence, but Dane had no difficulty in divining her thoughts. The sting of jealousy added force to the impulses which swept him forward to her side. This time he ignored her protests, seizing her hands and drawing her close, until her face touched his own.

“We’re talking nonsense, we’re talking nonsense, little girl! What do we care what people say? What does it matter what the whole world chooses to believe? You belong to me, and I’m not going to give you up! You’ve had your own way; now it’s my turn. You are not going to have a chance of succeeding at anything, except at being my wife! Marry me, dear girl, marry me quickly! I need you badly.”

Teresa did not stir. Seen close at hand, her face looked fair, and sweet, and young, but pitifully sad. In the blue eyes there was the same sadness, and the sound of his eager words seemed but to deepen the pain. She had an air of waiting with all her being for the sound of something that had not come. Dane looked into her eyes, and understood. Still with his arms around her he pressed her into a chair, and knelt on the floor at her feet.

“Teresa, answer! Have I always told you the truth?”

She gave a startled look, but answered unhesitatingly “Yes!”

“You can trust me to say just what is in my heart?”

She nodded slightly, motionless in his grasp.

“Teresa, darling,” said Dane softly, “I love you truly. I love you with a full heart. It isn’t remorse, and it isn’t pity, and it isn’t friendship... it’s love, Teresa! Look in my eyes, and see if I am speaking the truth?”

But she had no need to look; the music of love was in his voice, and, God knew, she was hungry to be convinced. A year’s suffering had carried her beyond the point of finding content in mere possession, but the knowledge of Dane’s love was a salve which healed all wounds. The “something fine” in Teresa’s nature showed itself at this moment in a generosity of reticence infinitely endearing to the masculine mind. Dane waited shrinkingly to hear Cassandra’s name, but he waited in vain. Teresa asked no questions, demanded no vows,—all that was past, it was buried for ever out of mind, at the moment when for the second time she promised herself to Dane Peignton and felt his kiss of betrothal on her lips.

Chapter Thirty Two.

Teresa’s marriage.

Teresa’s marriage was arranged for the following August, a month which Mrs Mallison appeared to believe was clearly appointed by Providence.

Three months was the shortest interval which could respectably elapse between a funeral and a wedding: three months, taken in conjunction with the date of half-yearly sales, was the period necessary for the preparation of a trousseau; quarter-day falling in September, there would be time to prepare for a removal after the wedding was over. It must be a quiet wedding, of course, very quiet, but white. Certainly Teresa must have a white wedding. It had been talked of so much, her young friends had been asked to be bridesmaids. Papa would not have liked a hole-and-corner affair. Papa dead was an even more convenient Jorkins than Papa living, and, to judge from his widow’s reminiscences, would seem to have entertained strong opinions concerning the weddings of young girls. Simple, of course; quite simple, but a white dress and bridesmaids, and an assemblage of friends. So sweet to be surrounded by loving hearts! And a cold collation. Champagne cup. Handed round after the tea and coffee. Two or three bottles would be ample. “Teresa,” said the widow beaming, “will look beautiful in charmeuse!”

Peignton, like every other prospective bridegroom, would have preferred to be married in an empty church, but Teresa sparkled at the prospect of recovering her prestige in the eyes of the neighbourhood, and it was not for him to refuse her the satisfaction.

The day after the funeral Peignton left Chumley. Teresa took it for granted that he would not return until the date of the wedding, but it was arranged that during the interval she should procure the chaperonage of a married friend, and pay a week’s visit to her future home, when such important questions as carpets and wall-papers could be discussed.

“We won’t be in a hurry to furnish the whole house. We’ll start with just what is necessary, and amuse ourselves with picking up the superfluities one by one. It will be jolly collecting treasures on our honeymoon. If we go off the beaten route, we shall find lots of happy hunting grounds. It will give the sticks an added value to remember how we bought them,—eh, little girl?” Peignton said, smiling. The old-time interest in the prospect of introducing Teresa to the beauties of new lands was struggling into new life. The prospect of a home gained hourly in sweetness.

During the next few days the Chumley matrons garbed themselves in black, and, with discreetly lengthened visages, repaired to the Cottage on visits of condolence, to emerge half an hour or so later, considerably shocked and bewildered. They were prepared to mourn with a widow for the loss her husband; with a householder for the loss of income, with a mother whose daughter was neglected by her lover—they beheld instead a complacent personage in weeds, shedding a dutiful tear for “Papa,” and hastily whisking it away at the remembrance of “many blessings.”

“So much to be thankful for! Mary home, and so useful. Taken up her old duties, and dear little Trissie so happy! The Captain, devoted. His house to be done up, regardless of expense. The marriage in August. Quiet of course, but white. Just,” the widow declared with a sigh, “as Papa had planned!”

On the subject of finance the good lady was equally complacent. “There had been losses... poor Papa had been ill-advised, but if income were to be reduced, so, most appropriately, would be expenses also. No one but Mary and myself to think of. Between you and me,” said Mrs Mallison to each visitor in turn, “I believe we shall feel quite rich!”

Grizel Beverley delivered a spirited account of her own interview with the widow for the benefit of Cassandra on her first subsequent visit to the Court. She thought it probable that rumour had already carried the announcement of the marriage, but preferred to make sure of this in indirect fashion, rather than by an open question.

“Oh, she is a wonderful woman, is Mrs Mallison,” she quoted mischievously. “The Vicar says she is bearing up wonderfully, I say she is having the time of her life. Notices in the paper, references in church, flocks of callers, everyone talking about her,—what could she wish for more? She looks so imposing, too, in her bombazines. Have you the slightest idea what bombazines are? Neither have I, but you may take my word for it—she’s got ’em! Poor Papa is quite a useful stalking horse, and has a tear dropped to his memory, before she enters upon the real subject of interest.”

“I know,” Cassandra said quietly, “Teresa’s marriage. It’s arranged for August, I hear. I knew it must be. Teresa’s not the sort of girl to live on her sister’s income, and Dane couldn’t,—after all this time, he couldn’t let her turn out to work!” She sat silent for a few minutes, her eyes gazing sightlessly over the terraced gardens. “So at long last, this is the end, Grizel!”

“And at long last—are you still sorry, Cassandra?”

“I—don’t—know!” sighed Cassandra slowly. “In one way I shall be almost glad when the strain is over. I’ve come to see that, for him, it’s the best way out. He wasn’t made to live alone. She will make him happy—not so happy as I could have done, but he has wasted enough time, and it’s useless waiting on... Oh, he will patch up his life, Grizel.—It will be all new—so many interests cropping up.—He won’t have time to think. And I shall settle down better when it’s all over. Teresa’s husband won’t be my Dane! ... My poor little love story! it had a very short course.—I wonder if any other married woman ever loved so wisely and so well!”

Grizel made an eloquent gesture.

“Hundreds! Thousands! Do you suppose you are the only woman who has met the right man too late? Do you suppose you are the only woman who has the decency to keep to her bond? There are thousands of them! You meet them in every street. But they are silent. It’s the other women you hear of,—the women who fill the divorce courts; the women who don’t stay at home, and do their duty...”

“As I am doing mine!” sighed Cassandra again. Then suddenly the colour flew to her face. “There’s one thing, Grizel, that I cannot face, and that is being here for the marriage. Think of the fuss and commotion—all the town agog, flags out of the windows, the church bells ringing... They’ll ring them at Beston, too, at his old church... Grizel.—I could not endure those bells.”

“You won’t hear them. We’re going away. I’ve planned it all, and you’ve nothing to do but to obey. I’m going to have a nervous breakdown,” announced Grizel, with a smirk. “Poor young wife! So sad. Ordered abroad, and her husband absolutely tied at home: obliged to finish a book. Lady Cassandra has taken her. Some sort of retreat, they say. Sounds very suspicious,—but she always was excitable! Pitiful for him, poor man! His second wife!”

“Grizel! How can you?” In spite of herself Cassandra was laughing now. “But you are a darling. It would be salvation. If I were at home I should be obliged to go to the wedding, which would be torture for myself, and they would be happier without me! Oh, let us go, do let us go! I’d be so thankful...”

“We are going. There’s no doubt about that, but it’s as well to be prepared for emergencies. Do you think the Squire will object.”

“Oh no. Not now. He’ll be quite pleased. I have an idea, Grizel, that his mother said something to him about me before she died. She knew I was unhappy, I could see it in her eyes, and ever since he has been more,—how shall I put it?—not affectionate, that’s over,—more human, shall we say? He doesn’t take me quite so much for granted. It occasionally enters his head that I’m not very strong. He would be quite willing for me to have a change, even without the excuse of your breakdown. Poor young wife! ... And where is the Retreat?”

“In France. In Normandy. It’s a convent, my dear, where they take a few pensionnaires, but I’ll arrange that there shall be no one there but ourselves. I’ve been before when I needed a rest,—not the bodily I, but the other bit, whatever you choose to call it, the bit that feels! Being a good Protestant I should logically hate convents. As a solid fact, I get more good in this particular one than anywhere else in the world. The nuns are so sweet; they have such selfless, crystalline, child-hearts. After you have been with them a few days, some of their calm begins to steal into your own heart, and the fret to die out. You feel such a long, long way from the outside world, that you look at everything from a new perspective. It came upon me with quite a shock that all my trouble had been about myself! ... My own waiting, my own loss. But these sweet things have buried self... Oh, it does one good, Cassandra, and the regular Spartan life, the bare floors, the exquisite, exquisite, cleanliness,—it’s all a tonic and an inspiration. It’s not dull either; don’t think that it’s dull! I take my prettiest clothes, and an assortment of selected jokes. They love ’em, the dear things! I believe they love me too.”

“I’m quite sure of that.”

“Well!” Grizel smirked complacently, “so am I. To tell you the truth I’m a tonic to them, so I give as much as I take. They do me good, and I shock them, so we’re both happy. The Reverend Mother once felt it her duty to reprove me, but her eyes danced, so I went steadfastly on, and did it again.”

“And the services? Do you go to the services too?”

“Of course, and enjoy them so much that they have fond hopes of converting me altogether. They won’t; but that’s a detail. Thank goodness, I am so constituted that it’s always the similarity between creeds that strikes me, never the difference, so I find help in them all... We’ll allow a month for the convent,—I can’t decently recover from a nervous breakdown in less than a month,—but we’ll take a few days off now and then for excursions in the neighbourhood, and then, darling, we come home by Paris! Food for the spirit, and food for the flesh... Nothing is more reviving than a becoming hat. We’ll buy hats, Cassandra, and be blowed to expense... What’s the very most you have ever spent on a hat?”

“I never have told, and I never will,” Cassandra said firmly, “but it had a real lace veil.” She sighed with melancholy resignation. “Somehow, Grizel, even hats lose their savour, when there’s no one to care...”

“Rubbish!” cried Grizel tersely, “and you know it. A woman buys hats to please herself. Half the time her husband calls them ‘The Limit’! and her friends wonder how she can, but so long as she and the mirror are agreed, it doesn’t make a rap of difference. She wears it to the end... Cassandra, darling, I feel it in my bones that I’m going to find the hat of my life! Oughtn’t we to be dreadfully thankful that we go in for different styles? All would be over between us, if we fell in love with the same model!”

Chapter Thirty Three.

“It’s Just—Life!”

Grizel came slowly down the long, straight path leading from the convent to the orchard wall, which marked the boundary of the grounds. It was a high wall rising some eight or ten feet above the path, and serving as a support for fruit trees, but at the farther end a sloping gangway of grass led to a terraced walk from which a view could be obtained over the low-lying country stretching towards the sea. On the terrace stood Cassandra, her white figure strongly outlined against the blue of the skies. She turned at her friend’s approach, and beheld that in Grizel’s eyes which startled her into attention.

“You have something to tell me?”

“Yes!”

“What is it, Grizel?”

“It is a confession. I have told you a lie... I told it deliberately, for your own good.”

“What did you tell me?”

“I said that the wedding day was to be on the twenty-fifth. That would be next Wednesday.”

“Yes?”

“That was the lie! I told you the wrong date. They were married on the tenth,—twelve days ago. It is all over. The meeting is over, the ceremony is over, the honeymoon is nearly over too. They will soon be thinking of going home.”

Cassandra looked at her, and the blood rushed over her face. A tremor passed over it, of shock, of anguish, of incredulous surprise. Her lips quivered, and the fingers of her hands interlaced till the muscles showed white beneath skin. She asked no more questions, and Grizel stood by her side, watching in silence for the first sight of that which was to be her reward. She waited many minutes, but it came at last, shining forth more and more strongly as the shock and the pain lost their keenness,—a look of relief!

Cassandra’s shoulders heaved, she drew a long, fluttering breath, and her eyes grew moist with tears.

“Oh, thank God. Over! I have been dreading, how I have been dreading... Grizel, Grizel, if you only knew—”

“I did know! Every minute of the day you would have been with them,—following them, seeing, imagining, hearing, torturing yourself, squandering your strength! My dear, I am a woman too! I did know. So I lied, and the day passed by in peace, here with the dear nuns, and you knew nothing—nothing!”

“Thank God!” cried Cassandra again. “It was a blessed lie. I shall be thankful to you all my life for what it spared me, Grizel. It’s a weight rolled off.”

She stood silent, with drawn brows, nerving herself to the new facts. Dane married. Dane a husband. Dane happy with his girl wife. For he would be happy. Cassandra realised that fact, and the acknowledgment brought with it, not joy, but at least a chastened relief. He would never altogether forget the woman who had been his ideal mate, but as a sane, honest man he would thrust the thought of her farther and farther into the background, while the tendrils of affection would twine more closely round wife and child. Teresa had been brave and patient; now she would have her reward. The husband of the future would be more her lover than the bridegroom of to-day.

Cassandra leant her arms on the low walls, and gazed over the country beneath. All was flat, and bare, and uninteresting, one square meadow succeeding another, divided by the same dwarfed line of hedgeway; a monotonous outlook, beautified only where the sun lent the glory of colour.

“And so,” said Cassandra slowly, “it all ends! ... I waited for a big thing to fill my heart, and it came, and was more wonderful, more beautiful, than I had ever imagined... And it passed, and I am left to go on. All my life is before me, but the big thing has passed. Grizel! it doesn’t seem possible that it should all be over...”

“You are thirty-two, Cassandra. The big things of life are not all over at thirty-two.”

Cassandra sighed sharply.

“So you say—so you say... You are thinking of the future, of long years ahead, but I have to face life to-day; to walk along a flat, dull road, and leave the sunshine behind.” She flung out her arms towards the country below. “Look at it, Grizel! My lot lies there. And I’ve been on the heights!”

“You are thirty-two, Cassandra,” Grizel said. “The heights are not all over at thirty-two.”

But again Cassandra refused the comfort.

“Oh, of all the things that might have happened to me, this was the last that I expected—to have come through so much,—to have loved, and been loved, to have fought and won, and to be left with—Nothing! No change, no difference. That seems just the hardest ending of all! If there had been a big upheaval, and outside things had changed to match, even if it had been for the worse, it would be easier than to go back,—a woman whose whole nature has been revolutionised,—and fit oneself into the same narrow groove, knowing that the page is turned for ever, and that there is no more hope.”

“You are thirty-two, Cassandra,” Grizel said a third time. “No pages are turned for ever at thirty-two.”

“But, oh, Grizel, Grizel, when you read of these things happening to people in books, there is always Something tangible to take hold of... It may be tragedy, or it may be joy, but at least there is Something to mark the difference, and I have nothing, but a memory which I must try to kill... There’s no poetry in it, Grizel, there’s no romance. It isn’t even—fair!”

“No,” sighed Grizel softly. “It’s just—Life!”

The End.