What Caroline’s feelings might be was not apparent. She had got command of her countenance by the time that I reached their box. They had risen to curtsy to me upon my arrival but we all sat down immediately and Mrs. Egerton whispered to me that we must not talk, since her sister preferred to listen to the play. I said that I was always happy to be guided by Miss Audley’s taste, and for the rest of the piece remained as silent as I could, without incivility to Mrs. Egerton. I knew that any play must be a treat to Caroline, for she had seen so few. This improved as it went on. The recognition between Lear and Cordelia was truly affecting; it cannot help but be so. Mrs. Egerton had recourse to her pocket-handkerchief. Caroline, I could see, was quite transported. At the words: You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave she gave a great start and after that sat as though she held her breath; whereat I must unconsciously have held my breath too, for at that last Forget and forgive! we both drew a long sigh.
We did not stay for the farce, but walked out together into the warm summer night, where I took my leave, happy to know myself invited to dine upon the following day. I felt this easy opening of the campaign to be a most favourable augury. I had been able to explain my presence in Bath, and to express the hope of seeing them as often as they would allow it.
Dinner next day went off with equal smoothness. Mrs. Egerton made no attempt to thrust us upon one another; she treated me as her brother’s friend rather than as Caroline’s suitor. She could not have entered into my views, or understood my tactics, more thoroughly had I explained them to her in so many words. I think, though, that she thought it diverting to act chaperon to a sister so much her senior, for whom she could never have expected to perform such an office.
Nothing happened, during the next day or two, to advance or retard matters. Mrs. Egerton encouraged my visits. Caroline was her usual calm friendly self, though she talked more than I liked of her pleasure in going to Vienna. I began, indeed, to regard Vienna as my chief obstacle; she had so much wished to travel that she might sigh a little at relinquishing such an opportunity. I felt that seclusion at Troy Chimneys might not strike her as a great improvement upon seclusion at Lingshot, unless I could take her to see the house and to fall in love with it as I had. To get them both there became my principal object. The school was closed for the summer holidays, but I had been over to see the Kings, who had begged me to bring my friends to dine and spend the day, whenever we might please. Mrs. Egerton forwarded the plan, declaring herself devoured with curiosity to see my house.
I insisted that we should set off very early. I wished the morning sun still to be upon the river, so that they might see the reflection in the house, though I had not mentioned this beforehand. It was a surprise which I was saving for Caroline. The ladies were driven and I rode beside them, ecstatic in the prospect of seeing my beloved girl walk into my beloved house. For some reason I pictured her walking all alone up the path to the door, and vanishing into the shadows of the long room, – walking some way before me and unconscious of me, as she had walked in the wood. She was to be so much enraptured with the house that she could think of nothing else. Where Mrs. Egerton and the Kings were to be I did not ask. They were obligingly to vanish and Caroline, ‘lonely as a cloud,’ was to walk up the path to her home.
But of course that could not be. The Kings came out to meet us at the gate. We walked up the path in a chattering group, made the more boisterous by a couple of dogs which leapt and yapped and were reproved by the Kings.
The house is now delightful; my improvements have been well set off by Mrs. King’s good taste. They use the long room as a schoolroom, and reserve the two parlours on the river side of the house for their own use. King took me through to his, at once, to show me some letter that he had had about tithes. When we returned to the other, we found Mrs. King and Mrs. Egerton absorbed in the amazing discovery that they were both acquainted with the same Mrs. Rylands. Caroline sat in the window-seat, her eyes upon the ceiling. She had discovered my secret. I went over to her at once and said, in a low voice:
‘You know now why I bought this house?’
‘How clever of you not to tell us beforehand!’
‘Your sister has not yet found it out, I think.’
‘What if the sun had not shone?’
‘I should have hanged myself.’
Mrs. Egerton’s bonnet ribbons nodded closer and closer to Mrs. King’s cap. This Mrs. Rylands must have been of extraordinary interest to them. What experts in intrigue all women are! They were keenly aware, I am sure, that Caroline and I were whispering together. I will engage that Mrs. King’s opinion was half formed before I had handed the ladies from the carriage; she only waited to find out which was Miss Audley and which Mrs. Egerton.
Later she took us over the whole house. Mrs. Egerton was loud in her praises. My girl said less, but I could see that she was charmed. I grew very happy. I determined that I would take her a walk forthwith, by the river, and let her know the chief of my plans, – that I meant to be living there entirely in a year or two.
After a luncheon, we set out upon this walk. Mrs. Egerton declared for sitting in the shade of my little mulberry tree, which has come on very well, though it is not yet the great old tree that I fancied when I first pictured the house. Mrs. King sat with her, and King, who at first proposed to walk with Caroline and myself, was somewhat peremptorily despatched by his wife to look for some books. I took Caroline through a door in the wall beyond the old wing, which led us into the orchard. Here I showed her the fruit trees that I had planted, and got her approval for leaving some old cherries, which were too large to net from the birds, but which I had preserved for the sake of the blossom.
We then sauntered on to the path which leads through the meadows by the river. I now began upon my revelation.
Caroline was slow to understand me. She seemed to have great difficulty in believing that I genuinely meant to throw up my career. When convinced of it, she made no attempt to conceal her dismay.
Perceiving that her response was not quite what I had expected, I asked her outright if she did not think that such a change would be a happy one for me.
‘You cannot mean it!’ she exclaimed, in obvious distress. ‘This is one of Lufton’s sudden impulses. I am sure that you will think better of it. It is a little setback that you are out of a place, and this has discouraged you. But you are certain to get another; you will go on and go higher. You cannot mean to throw it all away at five and thirty!’
I assured her that I could, – that I had never cared for politics save as a road to fortune, that The M.P. was abhorrent to me, that I meant to be Lufton for the rest of my life, and that she should applaud me for it, since she and Lufton were very good friends.
‘But I could not like a permanent Lufton,’ she objected. ‘Is he not very idle? Forgive me if I am being too frank, but you have asked for my opinion.’
‘What? Would you have me toil at politics all my life?’
‘I cannot believe that you would be happy for long with no serious occupation. Perpetual leisure may look tempting when one is over-tasked. But when you have it you will weary of it. What should you do here all day long? “Sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings”?’
‘Many men lead a life of leisure. Why not I?’
‘Because it would not content you. I am sure that it would not, for you are very ambitious. Indeed, I can understand why you love this house, and you might surely soon spend some part of your time here. But to seclude yourself completely now– No, no! Wait for twenty years! Then your mulberry tree will be so grown that it will give shade to all these friends whom you mean to invite.’
We were both of us, by now, not a little agitated and perplexed. Our saunter by the river had become a strange, unequal sort of progress. Sometimes we would halt and then one or the other would make a sudden start forward again.
I said, with some heat, that The M.P. was a scheming fellow, insincere in his professions and seldom di
sinterested in his friendships. To this she assented more readily than I liked, though I wished her to assent.
‘I daresay you have observed as much,’ I said.
‘I have,’ she agreed, with something like a sigh, ‘and regretted it. But I realise that something of that must be a necessary evil in public life. It is to be excused in a man who must rise entirely by his own exertions, as you have.’
‘You don’t find it repulsive?’
‘You were obliged to secure interest – to get a seat,’ she said hastily. ‘You may have scolded yourself for making use of … for resorting to artifice which was something beneath you … for making professions which … but against that you must put your energy, – your usefulness, the high opinion in which you are held. There is so much to be done! Now that the wars are over, I am sure that great measures will be brought forward, in which you must wish to play a part!’
‘What measures?’
‘Oh, I do not know. It is for you to know that. A great many things seem to be very wrong; they could not be set right during the wars, but now there is an opportunity.’
‘And you condone disgusting artifice in a man, so long as he is righting wrongs?’
‘Not entirely,’ she said, after a slight pause. ‘I merely mean that you are too hard upon The M.P. You censure his faults but you do not recognise his virtues.’
‘And you, I think, are very hard upon Lufton, who is by far the better creature. You must agree that he is better. He has chafed under this bondage for years. He has made a thousand plans for escape.’
‘I know that he resolves and re-resolves, “in all the magnanimity of thought.” What else does he do?’
The dispute continued. She would not yield. Gently, but firmly, she gave me to understand that she thought Lufton my bad angel. His sincerity and his fine feelings led to nothing. The M.P. for all his contemptible qualities, which she owned to disliking, was, in her view, the more respectable creature of the two.
I had asked for her opinion, and I am now convinced that she went no further, in the way of criticism, than a friend is entitled to do, when consulted. But, at the time, I was mortally offended.
The shock was very great. I did not pause to consider how much must be unknown to her. She had never seen Pronto at his worst, and could not therefore perceive how much cause Miles had to revolt. I had myself allowed her to believe that my political ambitions were more disinterested than was actually the case. And all the origins of this conflict within me were hidden from her. They were, at that time, far from clear to me, – the part played by Lady Amersham, the effect of Edmée’s betrayal, the young louts at Winchester who presumed to despise parsons’ sons. I felt that she was shattering my dearest hopes, exalting all that was worst in me, and deriding all that was best. And I daresay that I should feel so still, had I not rashly ventured upon this memoir.
‘If you really think all this,’ said I, deeply mortified, ‘I am sorry for it. It had been my hope to persuade you – I meant to ask you if you would not share my life here. I had no idea that you would consider it so despicable.’
A declaration in such terms deserved no reply. She turned away and walked quickly towards the orchard. After a moment I followed her and started upon some kind of apology. But my resentment was so great that I only made matters worse. I told her, almost in an accusing tone, that I loved her, could not be happy without her, had hoped that she would like my house but was willing to live anywhere she pleased, so long as she would marry me. If a husband in the Cabinet would content her, I would do my best to get there, though I could make no promises.
At last she turned to me and said:
‘Mr. Lufton! Pray let us have no more of this. I am very sorry indeed if I have caused you pain. But I cannot marry you. Whatever feelings you entertain for me – and they seem to be strange ones – I cannot return them. It would never be in my power.’
‘I begin to believe you,’ cried I. ‘If you loved me, you would do me more justice.’
‘Ah no! It is when one loves that one is unjust.’
‘You say so, because you have never loved.’
I added other reproaches. Why had she treated me with such encouraging friendliness, if she did not mean me to love her?
‘How could I suppose that you would ever think of such a thing?’ she cried. ‘Why should I not have been friendly? We had known one another for years, and the difference in our situations – you were as fully alive to that as I, until a very short time ago.’
The M.P. might have taken his rejection with more dignity. But she had wounded Lufton, and he seemed to be intent upon proving that he was ‘very young.’
We were now got to the door into the front court. I tried to pull myself together, to mount my high horse, to end the scene in a more stately way.
‘Madam—’
But at that I got a look from her which silenced me, – a look between laughter and tears, so full of friendly reproach, so like her, that my full loss burst upon me. This was Caroline, my Caroline! She was not to be mine! She had refused me!
We joined the others, dined, and returned to Bath. Mrs. King and Mrs. Egerton talked at dinner with excessive animation. They must have guessed that all had gone amiss and were covering up. We took leave of Troy Chimneys. We got over the long miles of the homeward road. I did not suffer any extreme pangs as yet, for I had taken refuge in anger. Most men will do so, if they have the choice between rage and pain. For rage, while it lasts, can supply a kind of substitute for high spirits, – a destructive glee which renders the sufferer immune from any other sensation. As I rode home beside the carriage I revelled in it. Very well, cried I to myself, very well! It does not signify! I don’t care! I shall show that I don’t care! ‘I will do such things – what they are yet I know not’ – it is she who will suffer, not I! She will be very sorry for it. Nobody else will marry her. Thank God I discovered her true character in time. I had thought her worthy of me; I was willing to take her without a penny, though she is no beauty and a year older than I. I gave her credit for soul and sensibility. She has none. Worldly success – that she can understand, and nothing else. All women are alike.
We reached the house. I handed my ladies from their carriage and saw the door close behind them.
Here the story should have ended, for we never met again. Would – I was going to write: Would to God that it had! But I will not say that. The events of the following day have caused me months of anguish, but I will not regret them, since they taught me to honour her as she deserves.
This painful sequel I owe to Mrs. Egerton, who sent me a note, early next morning, begging me to come and see her, as there was something very particular which she wished to say to me. She should be all alone; Caroline was so much fatigued by yesterday’s excursion that she was remaining in bed for the day.
I could not very well refuse this request, although I knew what it meant. Mrs. Egerton was going to try her hand at reconciliation. I was determined not to relent, but it suited my wounded consequence that somebody should apologise for the treatment I had received, – that somebody should placate and flatter me. She would certainly feel that her sister had refused an unexpectedly good offer, and she would give my version of the story to Frank Morrill. I set off for Devonshire Crescent, determined to play the injured man.
She received me with looks of sympathetic concern and with that suppressed enjoyment which all women display upon such occasions. I am sure that she was sorry, but the opportunity of intervention did not displease her. She liked to be playing a role. Most women prefer an unhappy love affair; one that runs too smooth does not interest them. In this they differ very much from us, I think. They can positively enjoy a painful situation, and will discuss it endlessly. Feeling, in their eyes, exists to be dissected rather than obeyed. If a man confides to his friend that his love does not prosper, the friend is very sorry for it and gives what comfort and counsel he can, but he does not enjoy the conversation and wishes it over. To a woman t
he conversation itself furnishes a pleasing interest.
Mrs. Egerton had something to tell me which she could no longer keep to herself, though she had no business to tell it. I am not at all sure if she even thought that it would do much good, but she insisted that it might, in order to justify such unreserve. If her object was to make me profoundly miserable, she certainly succeeded.
She told me at once that she knew all. She had taxed Caroline with having refused me, and Caroline had admitted it.
‘But,’ said she, ‘I have sent for you, because I am convinced that she does not know her own heart.’
Mine beat a little quicker at that. I was not softened, but I wished that Caroline might feel some regret.
‘She has loved you, I know that she has loved you, for a very long time.’
‘Her rejection of me yesterday could not have been more decided.’
‘Oh, I daresay. But listen! I know that she fell very much in love with you when you first came to my brother’s house – many, many years ago now. I really forget how many.’
At this my blood froze, and a pang of absolute terror assailed me, as though I had suddenly found myself stepping over a precipice. I knew immediately that it was true. Conviction seized me and would not let me go.
‘Nobody perceived it except myself,’ continued Mrs. Egerton. ‘Nor have I spoken of it to anyone. But I was a sharp-eyed girl, and I flatter myself that I did not miss much of what went on about me. She could not conceal everything from me. Besides, at first, I really thought that you might be falling in love with her. You talked to her so much, and praised her playing, and took more notice of her than most of the men did.’
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