“Gentleman will wait your pleasure, sir,” the man said.
He broke open the letter, and felt the blood rise to his face as his eyes fell on the signature. The few lines were from his cousin, and ran as follows:
“Dear Sir, — I feel it my duty to inform you, as a connection of the family, that Lady Sybil Vermuyden died at five minutes past three o’clock this afternoon. Her death, which I am led to believe could in no event have been long delayed, was doubtless hastened by the miserable occurrences of the last few days.
“I have directed Isaac White to convey this intimation to your hands, and to inform you from time to time of the arrangements made for her ladyship’s funeral, which will take place at Stapylton. I have the honour to be, sir,
“Your obedient servant,
“Robert Vermuyden.”
Vaughan laid the letter down with a groan. As he did so he became aware that Isaac White was in the room. “Halloa, White,” he said. “Is that you?”
White looked at him with unconcealed respect. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Sir Robert bade me wait on you in person without delay. If I may venture,” he continued, “to compliment you on my own account, sir — a very great honour to the family, Mr. Vaughan — in all the west country, I may say — —”
Vaughan stopped him, and said something of Lady Sybil’s death; adding that he had never seen her but once.
“Twice, begging your pardon,” White answered, smiling. “Do you remember I met you at Chippenham before the election, Mr. Vaughan? Well, sir, she came up to the coach, and as good as touched your sleeve, poor lady, while I was talking to you. Of course, she knew that her daughter was on the coach.”
“I learned afterwards that Lady Sybil travelled by it that day,” Vaughan replied. Then with a frown he took up the letter. “Of course,” he continued, “I have no intention of attending the funeral.”
“But I think his honour wishes much — —”
“There is no possible reason,” Vaughan said doggedly.
“Pardon me, sir,” White answered anxiously. “You are not aware, I am sure, how highly Sir Robert appreciates your gallant conduct yesterday. No one in Bristol can view it in a stronger light. It is a happy thing he witnessed it. He thinks, indeed, that but for you her ladyship would have died in the crowd. Moreover — —”
“That’s enough, White,” Vaughan said coldly. “It is not so much what Sir Robert thinks now, too, as what he thought formerly.”
“But indeed, sir, his honour’s opinion of that matter, too — —”
“That’s enough, White,” the young gentleman repeated, rising from his seat. He was telling himself that he was not a dog to be kicked away and called to heel again. He would forgive, but he would not return. “I don’t wish to discuss the matter,” he added with an air of finality.
And White did not venture to say more.
He did wisely. For Vaughan, left to himself, had not reflected two minutes before he felt that he had played the churl. To make amends, he called at the house to inquire after the ladies at an hour next morning when they could not be stirring. Having performed that duty, and having learned that no inquiry into the riots would be opened for some days — and also that a proposal to give him a piece of gold plate was under debate at the Commercial Rooms, he fled, pride and love at odds in his breast.
It is possible that in Sir Robert’s heart, also, there was a battle going on. On the eve of the funeral he sat alone in the library at Stapylton, that room in which he had passed so many unhappy hours, and with which the later part of his life seemed bound up. Doubtless, as he sat, he gave solemn thought to the past and the future. The room was no longer dusty, the furniture was no longer shabby; there were fresh flowers on his table; and by his great leather chair, a smaller chair, filled within the last few minutes, had its place. Yet he could not forget what he had suffered there; how he had brooded there. And perhaps he thanked God, amid his more solemn thoughts, that he was not glad that she who had plagued him would plague him no more. All that her friend had urged in her behalf, all that was brightest and best in his memories of her, this generous whim, that quixotic act rose, it may be supposed, before him. And the picture of her fair young beauty, of her laughing face in the bridal veil or under the Leghorn, of her first words to him, of her first acts in her new home! And but that the tears of age flow hardly, it is possible that he would have wept.
Presently — perhaps he was not sorry for it — a knock came at the door and Isaac White entered. He came to take the last instructions for the morrow. A few words settled what remained to be settled, and then, after a little hesitation, “I promised to name it to you, sir,” White said. “I don’t know what you’ll say to it. Dyas wishes to walk with the others.”
Sir Robert winced. “Dyas?” he muttered.
“He says he’s anxious to show his respect for the family, in every way consistent with his opinions.”
“Opinions?” Sir Robert echoed. “Opinions? Good Lord! A butcher’s opinions! Who knows but some day he’ll have a butcher to represent him? Or a baker or a candlestick-maker! If ever they have the ballot, that’ll come with it, White.”
White waited, but as the other said no more, “You won’t forbid him, sir?” he said, a note of appeal in his voice.
“Oh, let him come,” Sir Robert answered wearily. “I suppose,” he continued, striving to speak in the same tone, “you’ve heard nothing from his — Member?”
“From — oh, from Mr. Vaughan, sir? No, sir. But Mr. Flixton is coming.”
Sir Robert muttered something under his breath, and it was not flattering to the Honourable Bob. Then he turned his chair and held his hands over the blaze. “That will do, White,” he said. “That will do.” And he did not look round until the agent had left the room.
But White was certain that even on this day of sad memories, with the ordeal of the morrow before him, Arthur Vaughan’s attitude troubled his patron. And when, twenty-four hours later, the agent’s eyes travelling round the vast assemblage which regard for the family had gathered about the grave, fell upon Arthur Vaughan, and he knew that he had repented and come, he was glad.
The young Member held himself a little apart from the small group of family mourners; a little apart also from the larger company whom respect or social ties had brought thither. Among these last, who were mostly Tories, many were surprised to see Lord Lansdowne and his son. But more, aware of the breach between Mr. Vaughan and his cousin, and of the former’s peculiar position in the borough, were surprised to see him. And these, while their thoughts should have been elsewhere, stole furtive glances at the sombre figure; and when Vaughan left, still alone and without speaking to any, followed his departure with interest. In those days of mutes and crape-coloured staves, mourning cloaks and trailing palls, it was not the custom for women to bury their dead. And Vaughan, when he had made up his mind to come, knew that he ran no risk of seeing Mary.
That he might escape with greater case, he had left his post-chaise at a side-gate of the park. The moment the ceremony was over, he made his way to it, now traversing beds of fallen chestnut and sycamore leaves, now striding across the sodden turf. The solemn words which he had heard, emphasised as they were by the scene, the grey autumn day, the lonely park, and the dark groups threading their way across it, could not hold his thoughts from Mary. She would be glad that he had come. Perhaps it was for that reason that he had come.
He had passed through the gate of the park and his foot was on the step of the chaise, when he heard White’s voice, calling after him. He turned and saw the agent hurrying desperately after him. White’s mourning suit was tight and new and ill made for haste; and he was hot and breathless. For a moment, “Mr. Vaughan! Mr. Vaughan!” was all he could say.
Vaughan turned a reluctant, almost a stern face to him. Not that he disliked the agent, but he thought that he had got clear.
“What is it?” he asked, without removing his foot from the step.
White looke
d behind him. “Sir Robert, sir,” he said, “has something to say to you. The carriage is following. If you’ll be good enough,” he continued, mopping his face, “to wait a moment!”
“Sir Robert cannot wish to see me at such a time,” Vaughan answered, between wonder and impatience. “He will write, doubtless.”
“The carriage should be in sight,” was White’s answer. As he spoke it came into view; rounding the curve of a small coppice of beech trees, it rolled rapidly down a declivity, and ascended towards them as rapidly.
A moment and it would be here. Vaughan looked uncertainly at his post-boy. He wished to catch the York House coach at Chippenham, and he had little time to spare.
It was not the loss of time, however, that he really had in his mind. But he could guess, he fancied, what Sir Robert wished to say; and he did not deny that the old man was generous in saying it at such a moment, if that were his intention. But his own mind was made up; he could only repeat what he had said to White. It was not a question of what Sir Robert had thought, or now thought, but of what he thought. And the upshot of all his thoughts was that he would not be dependent upon any man. He had differed from Sir Robert once, and the elder had treated the younger man with injustice, and contumely; that might occur again. Indeed, taking into account the difference in their political views in an age when politics counted for much, it was sure to occur again. But his mind was made up that it should not occur to him. Unhappy as the resolution made him, he would be free. He would be his own man. He would remember nothing except that that night had changed nothing.
It was with a set face, therefore, that he watched the carriage draw near. Apparently it was a carriage which had conveyed guests to the funeral, for the blinds were drawn.
“It will save time, if it takes you a mile on your way,” White said, with some nervousness. “I will tell your chaise to follow.” And he opened the door.
Vaughan raised his hat, and stepped in. It was only when the door was closing behind him and the carriage starting anew at a word from White, that he saw that it contained, not Sir Robert Vermuyden, but a lady.
“Mary!” he cried. The name broke from him in his astonishment.
She looked at him with self-possession, and a gentle, unsmiling gravity. She indicated the front seat, and “Will you sit there?” she said. “I can talk to you better, Mr. Vaughan, if you sit there.”
He obeyed her, marvelling. The blind on the side on which she sat was raised a few inches, and in the subdued light her graceful head showed like some fair flower rising from the depth of her mourning. For she wore no covering on her head, and he might have guessed, had he had any command of his thoughts, that she had sprung as she was into the nearest carriage. Amazement, however, put him beyond thinking.
Her eyes met his seriously. “Mr. Vaughan,” she said, “my presence must seem extraordinary to you. But I am come to ask you a question. Why did you tell me six months ago that you loved me if you did not?”
He was as deeply agitated as she was quiet on the surface. “I told you nothing but the truth,” he said.
“No,” she said.
“But yes! A hundred times, yes!” he cried.
“Then you are altered? That is it?”
“Never!” he cried. “Never!”
“And yet — things are changed? My father wrote to you, did he not, three days ago? And said as much as you could look to him to say?”
“He said — —”
“He withdrew what he had uttered in an unfortunate moment. He withdrew that which, I think, he had never believed in his heart. He said as much as you could expect him to say?” she repeated, her colour mounting a little, her eyes challenging him with courageous firmness.
“He said,” Vaughan answered in a low voice, “what I think it became him to say.”
“You understood that his feelings were changed towards you?”
“To some extent.”
She drew a deep breath and sat back. “Then it is for you to speak,” she said.
But before, agitated as he was, he could speak, she leant forward again. “No,” she said, “I had forgotten. I had forgotten.” And the slight quivering of her lips, a something piteous in her eyes, reminded him once more, once again — and the likeness tugged at his heart — of the Mary Smith who had paused on the threshold of the inn at Maidenhead, alarmed and abashed by the bustle of the coffee-room. “I had forgotten! It is not my father you cannot forgive — it is I, who am unworthy of your forgiveness? You cannot make allowance,” she continued, stopping him by a gesture, as he opened his mouth to speak, “for the weakness of one who had always been dependent, who had lived all her life under the dominion of others, who had been taught by experience that, if she would eat, she must first obey. You can make no allowance, Mr. Vaughan, for such an one placed between a father, whom it was her duty to honour, and a lover to whom she had indeed given her heart, she knew not why — but whom she barely knew, with whose life she had no real acquaintance, whose honesty she must take on trust, because she loved him? You cannot forgive her because, taught all her life to bend, she could not, she did not stand upright under the first trial of her faith?”
“No!” he cried violently. “No! No! It is not that!”
“No?” she said. “You do forgive her then? You have forgiven her? The more as to-day she is not weak. The earth is not level over my mother’s grave, some may say hard things of me — but I have come to you to-day.”
“God bless you!” he cried.
She drew a deep breath and sat back. “Then,” she said, with a sigh as of relief, “it is for you to speak.”
There was a gravity in her tone, and so complete an absence of all self-consciousness, all littleness, that he owned that he had never known her as she was, had never measured her true worth, had never loved her as she deserved to be loved. Yet — perhaps because it was all that was left to him — he clung desperately to the resolution he had formed, to the position which pride and prudence alike had bidden him to take up.
“What am I to say?” he asked hoarsely.
“Why, if you love me, if you forgive me,” she answered softly, “do you leave me?”
“Can you not understand?”
“In part, I can. But not altogether. Will you explain? I — I think,” she continued with a movement of her flower-like head, that for gentle dignity he had never seen excelled, “I have a right to an explanation.”
“You know of what Sir Robert accused me?”
“Yes.”
“Am I to justify him? You know what was the difference which came between us, which first divided us? And what I thought right then, I still think right. Am I to abandon it? You know what I bore. Am I to live on the bounty of one who once thought so ill of me, and may think as ill again? Of one who, differing from me, punished me so cruelly? Am I to sink into dependence, to sacrifice my judgment, to surrender my political liberty into the hands of one who — —”
“Of my father!” she said gravely.
He could not, so reminded, say what he had been going to say, but he assented by a movement of the head. And after an interval of silence, “I cannot,” he cried passionately, “I cannot, even to secure my happiness, run that risk!”
She looked from the window of the carriage, and in a voice which shook a little, “No,” she said, “I suppose not.”
He was silent and he suffered. He dared not meet her eyes. Why had she sought this interview? Why had she chosen to torment him? Ah, if she knew, if she only knew what pain she was inflicting upon him!
But apparently she did not know. For by and by she spoke again. “No,” she said. “I suppose not. Yet have you thought” — and now there was a more decided tremor in her voice— “that that which you surrender is not all there is at stake? Your independence is precious to you, and you have a right, Mr. Vaughan, to purchase it even at the cost of your happiness. But have you a right to purchase it at the cost of another’s? At the cost of mine? Have you thought of my happin
ess?” she continued, “or only of yours — and of yourself? To save your independence — shall I say, to save your pride? — you are willing to set your love aside. But have you asked me whether I am willing to pay my half of the price? My heavier half? Whether I am willing to set my happiness aside? Have you thought of — me at all?”
If he had not, then, when he saw how she looked at him, with what eyes, with what love, as she laid her hand on his arm, he had been more than man if he had resisted her long! But he still fought with himself, and with her; staring with hard, flushed face straight before him, telling himself that by all that was left to him he must hold.
“I think, I think,” she said gently, yet with dignity, “you have not thought of me.”
“But your father — Sir Robert — —”
“He is an ogre, of course,” she cried in a tone suddenly changed. “But you should have thought of that before, sir,” she continued, tears and laughter in her voice. “Before you travelled with me on the coach! Before you saved my life! Before you — looked at me! For you can never take it back. You can never give me myself again. I think that you must take me!”
And then he did not resist her any longer. And the carriage was stayed; and orders were given. And, empty and hugely overpaid, the yellow post-chaise ambled on to Chippenham; and bearing two inside, and a valise on the roof, the mourning coach drove slowly and solemnly back to Stapylton. As it wound its way over the green undulations of the park, the rabbits that ran, and then stopped, cocking their scuts, to look at it, saw nothing strange in it. Nor the fallow-deer of the true Savernake breed, who, before they fled through the dying bracken, eyed it with poised heads. Nay, the heron which watched its approach from the edge of the Garden Pool, and did not even deign to drop a second leg, saw nothing strange in it. Yet it bore for all that the strangest of all earthly passengers, and the strongest, and the bravest, and the fairest — and withal, thank God, the most familiar. For it carried Love. And love the same yet different, love gaunt and grey-haired, yet kind and warm of heart, met it at the door and gave it welcome.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 546