by Ellen Wood
“So I should think,” returned Mr. Carr. “The ass between two bundles of hay was nothing to it.”
“He was not an ass at all, compared with what I am,” assented Val, gloomily.
“Well, if a man behaves like an ass—”
“Don’t moralize,” interrupted Hartledon; “but rather advise me how to get out of my dilemma. The morning’s drawing on, and I have promised to ride with Maude.”
“You had better ride alone. All the advice I can give you is to draw back by degrees, and so let the flirtation subside. If there is no actual entanglement—”
“Stop a bit, Carr; I had not come to it,” interrupted Lord Hartledon, who in point of fact had been holding back what he called the climax, in his usual vacillating manner. “One ill-starred day, when it was pouring cats and dogs, and I could not get out, I challenged Maude to a game at billiards. Maude lost. I said she should pay me, and put my arm round her waist and snatched a kiss. Just at that moment in came the dowager, who I believe must have been listening—”
“Not improbably,” interrupted Mr. Carr, significantly.
“‘Oh, you two dear turtle-doves,’ cried she, ‘Hartledon, you have made me so happy! I have seen for some weeks what you were thinking of. There’s nobody living I’d confide that dear child to but yourself: you shall have her, and my blessing shall be upon you both.’
“Carr,” continued poor Val, “I was struck dumb. All the absurdity of the thing rose up before me. In my confusion I could not utter a word. A man with more moral courage might have spoken out; acknowledged the shame and folly of his conduct and apologized. I could not.”
“Elster’s folly! Elster’s folly!” thought the barrister. “You never had the slightest spark of moral courage,” he observed aloud, in pained tones. “What did you say?”
“Nothing. There’s the worst of it. I neither denied the dowager’s assumption, nor confirmed it. Of course I cannot now.”
“When was this?”
“In December.”
“And how have things gone on since? How do you stand with them?”
“Things have gone on as they went on before; and I stand engaged to Maude, in her mother’s opinion; perhaps in hers: never having said myself one word to support the engagement.”
“Only continued to ‘make love,’ and ‘snatch a kiss,’” sarcastically rejoined Mr. Carr.
“Once in a way. What is a man to do, exposed to the witchery of a pretty girl?”
“Oh, Percival! You are worse than I thought for. Where is Miss Ashton?”
“Coming home next Friday,” groaned Val. “And the dowager asked me yesterday whether Maude and I had arranged the time for our marriage. What on earth I shall do, I don’t know. I might sail for some remote land and convert myself into a savage, where I should never be found or recognized; there’s no other escape for me.”
“How much does Miss Ashton know of this?”
“Nothing. I had a letter from her this morning, more kindly than her letters have been of late.”
“Lord Hartledon!” exclaimed Mr. Carr, in startled tones. “Is it possible that you are carrying on a correspondence with Miss Ashton, and your love-making with Lady Maude?”
Val nodded assent, looking really ashamed of himself.
“And you call yourself a man of honour! Why, you are the greatest humbug—”
“That’s enough; no need to sum it up. I see all I’ve been.”
“I understood you to imply that your correspondence with Miss Ashton had ceased.”
“It was renewed. Dr. Ashton came up to preach one Sunday, just before Christmas, and he and I got friendly again; you know I never can be unfriendly with any one long. The next day I wrote to Anne, and we have corresponded since; more coolly though than we used to do. Circumstances have been really against me. Had they continued at Ventnor, I should have gone down and spent my Christmas with them, and nothing of this would have happened; but they must needs go to Dr. Ashton’s sister’s in Yorkshire for Christmas; and there they are still. It was in that miserable Christmas week that the mischief occurred. And now you have the whole, Carr. I know I’ve been a fool; but what is to be done?”
“Lord Hartledon,” was the grave rejoinder, “I am unable to give you advice in this. Your conduct is indefensible.”
“Don’t ‘Lord Hartledon’ me: I won’t stand it. Carr?”
“Well?”
“If you bring up against me a string of reproaches lasting until night will that mend matters? I am conscious of possessing but one true friend in the world, and that’s yourself. You must stand by me.”
“I was your friend; never a truer. But I believed you to be a man of honour.”
Hartledon lifted his hat from his brow; as though the brow alone were heavy enough just then. At least the thought struck Mr. Carr.
“I have been drawn unwittingly into this, as I have into other things. I never meant to do wrong. As to dishonour, Heaven knows my nature shrinks from it.”
“If your nature does, you don’t,” came the severe answer. “I should feel ashamed to put forth the same plea always of ‘falling unwittingly’ into disgrace. You have done it ever since you were a schoolboy. Talk of the Elster folly! this has gone beyond it. This is dishonour. Engaged to one girl, and corresponding with her; making hourly love for weeks to another! May I inquire which of the two you really care for?”
“Anne — I suppose.”
“You suppose!”
“You make me wild, talking like this. Of course it’s Anne. Maude has managed to creep into my regard, though, in no common degree. She is very lovely, very fascinating and amiable.”
“May I ask which of the two you intend to marry!” continued the barrister, neither suppressing nor attempting to soften his indignant tones. “As this country’s laws are against a plurality of wives, you will be unable, I imagine, to espouse them both.”
Hartledon looked at him, beseechingly, and a sudden compassion came over Mr. Carr. He asked himself whether it was quite the way to treat a perplexed man who was very dear to him.
“If I am severe, it is for your sake. I assure you I scarcely know what advice to give. It is Miss Ashton, of course, whom you intend to make Lady Hartledon?”
“Of course it is. The difficulty in the matter is getting clear of Maude.”
“And the formidable countess-dowager. You must tell Maude the truth.”
“Impossible, Carr. I might have done it once; but the thing has gone on so long. The dowager would devour me.”
“Let her try to. I should speak to Maude alone, and put her upon her generosity to release you. Tell her you presumed upon your cousinship; and confess that you have long been engaged to marry Miss Ashton.”
“She knows that: they have both known it all along. My brother was the first to tell them, before he died.”
“They knew it?” inquired Mr. Carr, believing he had not heard correctly.
“Certainly. There has been no secret made of my engagement to Anne. All the world knows of that.”
“Then — though I do not in the least defend or excuse you — your breaking with Lady Maude may be more pardonable. They are poor, are they not, this Dowager Kirton and Lady Maude?”
“Poor as Job. Hard up, I think.”
“Then they are angling for the broad lands of Hartledon. I see it all. You have been a victim to fortune-hunting.”
“There you are wrong, Carr. I can’t answer for the dowager one way or the other; but Maude is the most disinterested—”
“Of course: girls on the look-out for establishments always are. Have it as you like.”
He spoke in tones of ridicule; and Hartledon jumped off the stile and led the way home.
That Lord Hartledon had got himself into a very serious predicament, Mr. Carr plainly saw. His good nature, his sensitive regard for the feelings of others, rendering it so impossible for him to say no, and above all his vacillating disposition, were his paramount characteristics still: in a degr
ee they ever would be. Easily led as ever, he was as a very reed in the hands of the crafty old woman of the world, located with him. She had determined that he should become the husband of her daughter; and was as certain of accomplishing her end as if she had foreseen the future. Lord Hartledon himself afterwards, in his bitter repentance, said, over and over again, that circumstances were against him; and they certainly were so, as you will find.
Lord Hartledon thought he was making headway against it now, in sending for his old friend, and resolving to be guided by his advice.
“I will take an opportunity of speaking to Maude, Carr,” he resumed. “I would rather not do it, of course; but I see there’s no help for it.”
“Make the opportunity,” said Mr. Carr, with emphasis. “Don’t delay a day; I shall expect you to write me a letter to-morrow saying you’ve done it.”
“But you won’t leave to-day,” said Hartledon, entreatingly, feeling an instant prevision that with the departure of Thomas Carr all his courage would ignominiously desert him.
“I must go. You know I told you last night that my stay could only be four-and-twenty hours. You can accomplish it whilst I am here, if you like, and get it over; the longer a nauseous medicine is held to the lips the more difficult it is to swallow it. You say you are going to ride with Lady Maude presently; let that be your opportunity.”
And get it over! Words that sounded as emancipation in Val’s ear. But somehow he did not accomplish it in that ride. Excuses were on his lips five hundred times, but his hesitating lips never formed them. He really was on the point of speaking; at least he said so to himself; when Mr. Hillary overtook them on horseback, and rode with them some distance. After that, Maude put her horse to a canter, and so they reached home.
“Well?” said Mr. Carr.
“Not yet,” answered Hartledon; “there was no opportunity.”
“My suggestion was to make your opportunity.”
“And so I will. I’ll speak to her either to-night or to-morrow. She chose to ride fast to-day; and Hillary joined us part of the way. Don’t look as if you doubted me, Carr: I shall be sure to speak.”
“Will he?” thought Thomas Carr, as he took his departure by the evening train, having promised to run down the following Saturday for a few hours. “It is an even bet, I think. Poor Val!”
Poor Val indeed! Vacillating, attractive, handsome Val! shrinking, sensitive Val! The nauseous medicine was never taken. And when the Ashtons returned to the Rectory on the Friday night he had not spoken.
And the very day of their return a rumour reached his ear that Mrs. Ashton’s health was seriously if not fatally shattered, and she was departing immediately for the South of France.
CHAPTER XVI.
BETWEEN THE TWO.
Not in the Rectory drawing-room, but in a pretty little sitting-room attached to her bed-chamber, where the temperature was regulated, and no draughts could penetrate, reclined Mrs. Ashton. Her invalid gown sat loosely upon her shrunken form, her delicate, lace cap shaded a fading face. Anne sat by her side in all her loveliness, ostensibly working; but her fingers trembled, and her face looked flushed and pained.
It was the morning after their return, and Mrs. Graves had called in to see Mrs. Ashton — gossiping Mrs. Graves, who knew all that took place in the parish, and a great deal of what never did take place. She had just been telling it all unreservedly in her hard way; things that might be said, and things that might as well have been left unsaid. She went out leaving a whirr and a buzz behind her and an awful sickness of desolation upon one heart.
“Give me my little writing-case, Anne,” said Mrs. Ashton, waking up from a reverie and sitting forward on her sofa.
Anne took the pretty toy from the side-table, opened it, and laid it on the table before her mother.
“Is it nothing I can write for you, mamma?”
“No, child.”
Anne bent her hot face over her work again. It had not occurred to her that it could concern herself; and Mrs. Ashton wrote a few rapid lines:
“My Dear Percival,
“Can you spare me a five-minutes’ visit? I wish to speak with you. We go away again on Monday.
“Ever sincerely yours,
“Catherine Ashton.”
She folded it, enclosed it in an envelope, and addressed it to the Earl of Hartledon. Pushing away the writing-table, she held out the note to her daughter.
“Seal it for me, Anne. I am tired. Let it go at once.”
“Mamma!” exclaimed Anne, as her eye caught the address. “Surely you are not writing to him! You are not asking him to come here?”
“You see that I am writing to him, Anne. And it is to ask him to come here. My dear, you may safely leave me to act according to my own judgment. But as to what Mrs. Graves has said, I don’t believe a word of it.”
“I scarcely think I do,” murmured Anne; a smile hovering on her troubled countenance, like sunshine after rain.
Anne had the taper alight, and the wax held to it, the note ready in her hand, when the room-door was thrown open by Mrs. Ashton’s maid.
“Lord Hartledon.”
He came in in a hurried manner, talking fast, making too much fuss; it was unlike his usual quiet movements, and Mrs. Ashton noticed it. As he shook hands with her, she held the note before him.
“See, Percival! I was writing to ask you to call upon me.”
Anne had put out the light, and her hand was in Lord Hartledon’s before she well knew anything, save that her heart was beating tumultuously. Mrs. Ashton made a place for him on the sofa, and Anne quietly left the room.
“I should have been here earlier,” he began, “but I had the steward with me on business; it is little enough I have attended to since my brother’s death. Dear Mrs. Ashton! I grieve to hear this poor account of you. You are indeed looking ill.”
“I am so ill, Percival, that I doubt whether I shall ever be better in this world. It is my last chance, this going away to a warmer place until winter has passed.”
He was bending towards her in earnest sympathy, all himself again; his dark blue eyes very tender, his pleasant features full of concern as he gazed on her face. And somehow, looking at that attractive countenance, Mrs. Ashton’s doubts went from her.
“But what I have said is to you alone,” she resumed. “My husband and children do not see the worst, and I refrain from telling them. A little word of confidence between us, Val.”
“I hope and trust you may come back cured!” he said, very fervently. “Is it the fever that has so shattered you?”
“It is the result of it. I have never since been able to recover strength, but have become weaker and more weak. And you know I was in ill health before. We leave on Monday morning for Cannes.”
“For Cannes?” he exclaimed.
“Yes. A place not so warm as some I might have gone to; but the doctors say that will be all the better. It is not heat I need; only shelter from our cold northern winds until I can get a little strength into me. There’s nothing the matter with my lungs; indeed, I don’t know that anything is the matter with me except this terrible weakness.”
“I suppose Anne goes with you?”
“Oh yes. I could not go without Anne. The doctor will see us settled there, and then he returns.”
A thought crossed Lord Hartledon: how pleasant if he and Anne could have been married, and have made this their wedding tour. He did not speak it: Mrs. Ashton would have laughed at his haste.
“How long shall you remain away?” he asked.
“Ah, I cannot tell you. I may not live to return. If all goes well — that is, if there should be a speedy change for the better, as the medical men who have been attending me think there may be — I shall be back perhaps in April or May. Val — I cannot forget the old familiar name, you see—”
“I hope you never will forget it,” he warmly interposed.
“I wanted very particularly to see you. A strange report was brought here this morning and I det
ermined to mention it to you. You know what an old-fashioned, direct way I have of doing things; never choosing a roundabout road if I can take a straight one. This note was a line asking you to call upon me,” she added, taking it from her lap, where it had been lying, and tossing it on to the table, whilst her hearer, his conscience rising up, began to feel a very little uncomfortable. “We heard you had proposed marriage to Lady Maude Kirton.”
Lord Hartledon’s face became crimson. “Who on earth could have invented that?” cried he, having no better answer at hand.
“Mrs. Graves mentioned it to me. She was dining at Hartledon last week, and the countess-dowager spoke about it openly.”
Mrs. Ashton looked at him; and he, confused and taken aback, looked down on the carpet, devoutly wishing himself in the remote regions he had spoken of to Mr. Carr. Anywhere, so that he should never be seen or recognized again.
“What am I to do?” thought he. “I wish Mother Graves was hanged!”
“You do not speak, Percival!”
“Well, I — I was wondering what could have given rise to this,” he stammered. “I believe the old dowager would like to see her daughter mistress of Hartledon: and suppose she gave utterance to her thoughts.”
“Very strange that she should!” observed Mrs. Ashton.
“I think she’s a little cracked sometimes,” coughed Val; and, in truth, he now and then did think so. “I hope you have not told Anne?”
“I have told no one. And had I not felt sure it had no foundation, I should have told the doctor, not you. But Anne was in the room when Mrs. Graves mentioned it.”
“What a blessing it would be if Mrs. Graves were out of the parish!” exclaimed Val, hotly. “I wonder Dr. Ashton keeps Graves on, with such a mother! No one ever had such a mischief-making tongue as hers.”
“Percival, may I say something to you?” asked Mrs. Ashton, who was devouring him with her eyes. “Your manner would almost lead me to believe that there is something in it. Tell me the truth; I can never be anything but your friend.”