The Three Brides

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  For indeed it was true that he had never advanced in strength or looks since his return, but rather lost ground, and thus every change of weather, or extra exertion, told on him, till in August he was caught in a thunder-storm, and the cold that ensued ran on into a feverish attack, which barely left him in time for the Ordination, and then with a depressed system, and nerves morbidly sensitive.

  So sensible (or more than sensible) was he of his deficiencies, that he would willingly have held back, and he was hardly well enough to do himself justice; but there was no doubt that he would pass, and it was plain that three more months of the strain of preparation might leave permanent effects on his health.

  As it was, the examining chaplain did not recognize the lean, pale, anxious man, for the round-faced, rosy, overgrown boy of a year ago. His scholarship and critical knowledge were fairly above the mark, in spite of a racking headache; and his written sermon, together with all that was elicited from him, revealed, all unconsciously to himself, what treasures he had brought back from the deep waters which had so nearly closed over him.

  So superior had he shown himself, that he was appointed to read the Gospel, a choice that almost shocked him, knowing that what had made him excel had been an experience that the younger men had happily missed. But the mark of approval was compensation to his parents and sisters for the disappointment of the last year, and the only drawback was fear of the effect of the long ceremonial, so deeply felt.

  He met them afterwards, very white-faced, with head aching, and weary almost beyond speech, but with a wonderfully calm, restful look on his face, such as reminded Jenny of those first hours of his recovery.

  They took him home and put him to bed, and there he lay, hardly speaking, and generally sleeping. There he still was on the Monday, when Julius came to inquire after him, and was taken up-stairs at once by Jenny, with the greeting, "So the son and heir is come, Julius?"

  "Yes, and I never saw my mother more exulting. When Rosamond ran down to tell her, she put her arms round her neck and cried. She who never had a tear through all last year. I met your father and mother half-way, and they told me I might come on."

  "I think nothing short of such news would have made mamma leave this boy," said Jenny; "but she must have her jubilee with Mrs. Poynsett."

  "And I'm quite well," said Herbert, who had been grasping Julius's hand, with a wonderful look in his eyes; "yes, really-the doctor said so."

  "Yes, he did," said Jenny, "only he said we were to let him alone, and that he was not to get up till he felt quite rested."

  "And I shall get up to dinner," said Herbert, so sleepily, that Julius doubted it. "I hope to come back before Sunday."

  "What does your doctor say to that?"

  "He says," replied Jenny, "that this gentleman must be rational; that he has nothing the matter with him now, but that he is low, and ripe for anything. Don't laugh, you naughty boy, he said you were ripe for anything, and that he must-yes, he must-be turned out to grass somehow or other for the winter, and do nothing at all."

  "I begin to see what you are driving at, Mrs. Joan, you look so triumphant."

  "Yes," said Jenny, blushing a little, and looking quite young again; "I believe poor mamma would be greatly reconciled to it, if Herbert were to see me out to Natal."

  "Is that to be the way?"

  "It would be very absurd to make Archie come home again for me," said Jenny. "And everything else is most happily smoothed for me, you know; Edith has come quite to take my place at home; mamma learnt to depend on her much more than on me while I was with Herbert."

  "And it has made her much more of a woman," added Herbert.

  "Then you know that full statement poor Mr. Moy put forth when he left the place, on his wife's death, quite removed all lingering hesitation on papa's part," added Jenny.

  "It ought, I am sure!" said Julius.

  "So, now, if Herbert will go out with me, it seems to me to be all right," said Jenny, colouring deeply, as she made this lame and impotent conclusion.

  "My father wishes it," said Herbert. "I believe he meant to see you to-day to ask leave of absence for me. That is what he wishes; but I have made up my mind that I ought to resign the curacy-where I have never been any use to you-though, if I had been well, I meant to have worked a year with you as a priest."

  "I don't like to lose you, but I think you are right. Your beginning with me was a mistake. There is not enough work for three of us; but you know Easterby would be delighted to have you at St. Nicholas. He says his most promising people talk of what you said to them when they were ill, and he asked me if you could possibly come to him."

  "I think it would be better to begin in a new place, further from home," said Herbert, quietly.

  And both knew what he meant, and how hard it would be to be the clergyman he had learnt to wish to be, if his mother were at hand to be distressed by all he did or did not do.

  "But, any way," added Herbert, "I hope to have some time longer at Compton before I go. Next Sunday, if I only can."

  His mind was evidently full of the Feast of the Sunday, and Julius answered, "Whichever Sunday you are strong enough, of course, dear fellow. You had better come with him, Jenny, and sleep at the Rectory."

  "Oh! thank you. I should like nothing so much; and I think they will spare me that one day."

  "You will come in for a grand gathering, that is, if poor Cecil accepts. Miles thinks she ought to be godmother."

  "Oh!"

  "And no one has said a word of any cloud. It is better he should know nothing."

  "And oh! Julius, is it true that her father has bought Sirenwood for her?"

  "Quite true. You know it was proposed at first, but the trustees doubted of the title; but when all that was cleared up, it turned out to be a better investment than Swanslea, and so they settled it, without much reference to her."

  "She will let it, of course?"

  "I suppose so."

  "You don't think she will come to the christening?"

  "I cannot tell; Rose has had one or two very sad letters from her. She wanted us very much to come to Dunstone, and was much disappointed that we were prevented. I fancy her heart has turned to us, and that it is very sore, poor thing."

  Julius was right. Cecil did return an answer, whose warmth quite amazed all but Miles and Anne, who thought nothing too much for their son; and she gladly came to attend the christening of the young Raymond. Gladly-yes, she was glad to leave Dunstone. She had gone home weary and sick of her lodging and convalescence, and hoping to find relief in the home that had once been all-sufficient for her, but Dunstone was not changed, and she was. She had not been able to help outgrowing its narrow opinions and formal precisions; and when she came home, crushed with her scarcely realized grief, nothing there had power to comfort her.

  There was soothing at first in her step-mother's kindness, and she really loved her father; but their petting admiration soon grew oppressive, after the more bracing air of Compton; and their idolatry of her little brother fretted and tried her all the more, because they thought he must be a comfort to her, and any slight from her might be misconstrued. Mr. Venn's obsequiousness, instead of rightful homage, seemed deprivation of support, and she saw no one, spoke to no one, without the sense of Raymond's vast superiority and her own insensibility to it, loving him a thousand times more than she had loved him in life, and mourning him with an anguish beyond what the most perfect union would have left. She had nothing to do. Self-improvement was a mere oppression, and she longed after nothing so much as the sight of Rosamond, Anne, Julius, or even Frank, and her amiable wishes prevailed to have them invited to Dunstone; but at the times specified there were hindrances. Anne had engagements at home, and Rosamond appeared to the rest of the family to be a perpetual refuge for stray De Lanceys, while Frank had to make up for his long enforced absence by a long unbroken spell of work.

  Cecil therefore had seen none of the family till she arrived at Compton. She was perfectly well
, she said, and had become a great walker, and so, indeed, she showed herself, for she went out directly after breakfast every morning, and never appeared again till luncheon time; and would take long rides in the afternoon. "It was her only chance of sleep," she said, when remonstrated with. She did not look ill, but there was a restless, worn air that was very distressing on her young features, and was the more piteous to her relations, that she was just as constrained as ever in her intercourse with them. She was eagerly attentive to Mrs. Poynsett, and evidently so anxious to wait on her that Anne left to her many little services, but if they were alone together, they were tongue- tied, and never went deeper than surface subjects. Mrs. Poynsett never discussed her, never criticized her, never attempted to fathom her, being probably convinced that there was nothing but hard coldness to be met with by probing. Yet there was something striking in Cecil's having made people call her Mrs. Raymond Poynsett, surrendering the Charnock, which she had once brandished in all their faces, and going by the name by which her husband had been best known.

  To Anne she was passively friendly, and neither gave nor sought confidences, and Anne was so much occupied with her baby, and all the little household services that had grown on her, as well as with her busy husband, that there was little leisure for them; and though the meeting with Rosamond was at first the most effusive and affectionate of all, afterwards she seemed to avoid tetes-a-tetes with her, and was shyer with her than with Anne.

  It was Miles that she got on with best. He had never so fully realized the unhappiness of his brother's married life as those who had watched it; and he simply viewed her as Raymond's loved and loving widow and sincere mourner, and treated her with all brotherly tenderness and reverence for her grief; while she responded with a cordiality and gratitude which made her, when talking to him, a pleasanter person than she had ever been seen at Compton before.

  But it was not to Miles, but to Rosamond, that she brought an earnest question, walking in one autumn morning to the Rectory, amid the falling leaves of the Virginian-creeper, and amazing Rosamond, who was writing against time for the Indian mail, by asking-

  "Rosamond, will you find out if Mrs. Poynsett would mind my coming to live at Sirenwood?"

  "You, Cecil!"

  "Yes, I'm old enough. There's no place for me at home, and though I must be miserable anywhere, it will be better where I have something to do, of some real use to somebody. I've been walking all round every day, and seeing what a state it is in-in the hands of creditors all these years."

  "But you would be quite alone!"

  "I am quite alone as it is."

  "And would your father consent?"

  "I think he would. I am a burthen to them now. They cannot feel my grief, nor comfort it, and they don't like the sight of it, though I am sure I trouble them with it as little as possible."

  "Dear Cecil!" and the ready tears welled up in Rosamond's gray eyes.

  "I don't want to talk of it," said Cecil. "If I felt worthy to grieve it would be less dreadful; but it all seems like hypocrisy. Rosamond, if you were to lose Julius to-morrow, you would not be as unhappy as I am."

  "Don't, don't!" cried Rosamond, making a gesture of horror. "But does not coming here make it worse?"

  "No, real stabs are better than dull aching; and then you-you, Rosamond, did know how it really was, and that I would-I would-"

  Cecil wept now as Rosamond had longed to see her weep when she had left Compton, and Rosamond spoke from her tender heart of comfort; but the outburst did not last long, and Cecil said, recovering herself-

  "After all, my most peaceful times of late have been in walking about in those woods at Sirenwood; I should like to live there. You know he always wished it to be the purchase, because it joins Compton, and I should like to get it all into perfect order and beauty, and leave it all to little Raymond."

  "I should have thought the place would have been full of ghosts."

  "I tried. I made the woman let me in, and I sat where poor Camilla used to talk to me, and I thought I was the better for facing it out. The question is whether Mrs. Poynsett will dislike it. She has a right to be consulted."

  Perhaps Cecil could not be gracious. Certainly, Raymond would have been thankful for even this admission.

  "You wish me to find out?"

  "If you would be so good. I would give it up at once if she has any feeling against it, and go somewhere else-and of course she has! She never can forget what I did!"

  Rosamond caressed Cecil with that sweetness which saw everything in the most consoling manner; but when the poor young widow was out of sight, there was a revulsion of feeling.

  "No, Mrs Poynsett must always feel that that wretched marriage broke her son's heart, and murdered him!-murdered him!" said Rosamond to herself, clenching that soft fist of hers. "It ought not to be broached to her!"

  But Julius-when she stated it to him rather less broadly, but still saying that she did not know whether she could bear the sight of Cecil, except when she was before her eyes, and how could his mother endure her at all-did not see it in the same light. He thought Sirenwood gave duties to Cecil, and that she ought not to be hindered from fulfilling them. And he said his mother was a large- minded woman, and not likely to have that personal bitterness towards Cecil that both the ladies seemed to expect, as her rival in her son's affections, and the means of his unhappiness and death.

  He was right; Mrs. Poynsett was touched by finding that Cecil clung to them rather than to her sublime family, and especially by the design as to little Raymond, though she said that must never be mentioned; nothing must bind so young a creature as Cecil, who really did not know what love was at all.

  "She is afraid the sight of her is distressing to you," said Rosamond.

  "Poor child, why should she?" said Mrs. Poynsett. "She was the victim of an unsuccessful experiment of my dear boy's, and the unsuspecting instrument of poor Camilla's vengeance. That is all I see in her."

  "Mrs. Poynsett, how can you!" cried Rosamond, impetuously. "With all I know of her sorrow, I rage at her whenever I am out of sight of her."

  "I can't do that," said Mrs. Poynsett, half smiling, "any more than I could at a doll. The poor thing was in a false position, and nobody was more sorry for her than Raymond himself; but you see he had fancied that marriage must bring the one thing it would not in that short time."

  "It would, if she had not been a little foolish donkey."

  "Or if Camilla Tyrrell had let her alone! It is of no use to rake up these things, my dear Rosamond. Let her come to Sirenwood, and do such good as she can there, if it can comfort her. It was for my sake that the unconscious girl was brought here to have her life spoilt, and I would not stand in the way of what seems to be any relief."

  "But is it no pain?" persisted Rosamond.

  "No, my dear. I almost wish it was. I shall never get on with her; but I am glad she should come and be near you all; and Miles likes her."

  Mr. Charnock demurred at first, and wanted to saddle Cecil with her old governess as a companion, but when he found that Mrs. Poynsett and Miles made no objection, and remembered that she would be under their wing, and would be an inestimable adviser and example to Anne, he consented; and Cecil's arrangements were made with startling rapidity, so that she was in possession before Christmas, which she insisted on spending there. Dunstone had stereotyped hospitalities, which she could not bear, and would not prevent, and now that her first year of widowhood was over, the sorrow was not respected, while it seemed to her more oppressive than ever.

  So there she was in vehement activity; restless rather than religious in her beneficence still, though the lesson she had had showed itself in her constantly seeking the advice of Miles, who thought her the most sensible woman in the world, except his Nan. Whether this constant occupation, furnishing, repairing, planning, beautifying her model cottages, her school chapel, and all the rest, were lessening the heartache, no one knew, but the sharp black eyes looked as dry and hard, the lines round
the mouth as weary as ever; and Rosamond sometimes thought if Sirenwood were not full of ghosts to her, she was much like a ghost herself who came

  "Hovering around her ancient home,

  To find no refuge there."

  There was another who could not help seeing her somewhat in that light, and this was Eleonora Vivian, who had come to Compton to be with Frank, when he was at last able to enjoy a well-earned holiday, and with ears restored to their natural powers, though he always declared that his eight months of deafness had done him more good than anything that had ever befallen him in his life. It had thrown him in on his real self, and broken all the unfortunate associations of his first year in London. His first few months, while he was still in need of care, had been spent with Miles and Anne, and that tender ministry to him which his sister-in-law had begun in his illness had been with him when he was tired, dispirited, or beset by the trials of a tardy convalescence. As his interpreter, too, and caterer for the pleasures his infirmity allowed, Anne had been educating herself to a degree that 'self' improvement never would have induced.

  And when left alone in London, he was able to take care of himself in all ways, and had followed the real leadings of his disposition, which his misdirected courtship had interrupted for the time, returning to the intellectual pursuits which were likely to be beneficial, not only as pleasures, but in an economical point of view; and he was half shy, half proud of the profits, such as they were, of a few poems and essays which he certainly had not had it in him to write before the ordeal he had undergone.

  Eleonora's elder sister, Mrs. Fanshaw, had come home from India with her husband, newly made a Major-General. Frank had gone to Rockpier early in January, to be introduced to them, and after spending a day or two there, to escort Lena to Compton. Mrs. Poynsett needed but one glance to assure her that the two were happier than their wooing had ever made them before, save in that one brief moment at Cecil's party. Eleonora looked more beautiful, and the look of wistful pain had left her brow, but it had made permanent lines there, as well had seemed likely, and though her laugh would never have the abandon of Rosamond's, still it was not so very rare, and though she was still like a beautiful night, it was a bright moonlight one.