“——Will Not Take Place”
(A story from Uncanny Tales)
“‘Lingard,’ ‘Trevannion,’” murmured Captain Murray, as he ran his eye down the column of the morning paper specially devoted to so-called fashionable intelligence, “Lingard, Arthur Lingard; yes, I’ve met him; a very good fellow. And Trevannion; don’t you know a Miss Trevannion, Bessie?”
Mrs. Murray glanced up from her teacups.
“What do you say, Walter? Trevannion; yes, I have met a girl of the name at my aunt’s. A pretty girl, and I think I heard she was going to be married. Is that what you are talking about?”
“No,” her husband replied. “It’s the other way—broken off, I wonder why.”
“What an old gossip you are,” said Mrs. Murray. “No good reason at all, I daresay. People are so capricious now-a-days.”
“Still, they don’t often announce a marriage till it’s pretty certain to come off. This sort of thing,” tapping the paper as he spoke, “isn’t exactly pleasant.”
“Very much the reverse,” agreed Mrs. Murray, and then they thought no more about it.
“I wonder why,” said a good many people that morning, when they caught sight of the announcement. For the two principals it concerned—Arthur Lingard, especially—had a large circle of friends and acquaintances, and their engagement had been the subject of much and hearty congratulation. It seemed so natural and fitting that these two should marry. Both young, amiable, good-looking, and sufficiently well off. Even the most cynical could discern no cloud in the bright sky of their future, no crook in the lot before them.
And now—
No marvel that Captain Murray’s soliloquy was repeated by many.
But who would have guessed that in one heart it was ever ringing with maddening anguish?
“I wonder why, oh, I wonder why he has done it. Oh, if he would but tell me, it could not surely seem quite so unendurable.”
And Daisy Trevannion pressed her aching head, and her poor swollen eyes on to her mother’s loving bosom in a sort of wild despair.
“Mamma, mamma,” she cried, “help me. I cannot be angry with him. I wish I could. He was so gentle, so sweet—and he is so heartbroken, I can see by his letter. Oh, mamma, what can it be?”
But to this, even the devoted mother, who would gladly have given her own life to save her child this misery, could find no answer.
This was what had happened.
They had been engaged about three months, the wedding day was approximately fixed, when one morning the blow fell.
A letter to Daisy’s father, enclosing one to herself—a letter which made Mr. Trevannion draw his brows together in instinctive indignation, and then as the first impulse cooled a little, caused him to turn to his daughter with a movement of irritation, underneath which, hope had, nevertheless, found time to reassert itself.
“Daisy,” he exclaimed sharply, “what is the meaning of all this nonsense? Have you been quarrelling with Lingard? You’re a bit of a spoilt child I know, my dear, but I don’t like playing with edged tools—a man like Arthur won’t stand being trifled with. Do you hear, Daisy—eh, what?”
For the girl had scarcely caught the sense of his words, so absorbed was she in those of the short, all too short, but terrible letter she had just read—the letter addressed to herself, which began “Daisy, my Daisy, for the last time,” and ended abruptly with the simple signature, “Arthur Lingard”.
She gazed up at her father—her white face all drawn, and as it were, withered with that minute’s agony—her eyes dulled and yet wild. Never was there such a metamorphosis from the happy, laughing girl who had hurried in with some pretty excuse for her unpunctuality.
“Daisy, my child! Daisy,” her father repeated, repenting already of his hasty remarks, “don’t take it so seriously. Margaret,” to his wife, “speak to her.”
And Mrs. Trevannion, as pale almost as her daughter, drew the sheet of note-paper from the girl’s unresisting hands, while her husband held out to her his own letter.
“Some complete mistake,” she said, “some misplaced quixotry. Daisy, my own darling, do not take it so seriously. Your father will see him—you will, will you not, Hugh?” detecting the proud hesitation in her husband’s face. “It is not as if we did not know him well, and all about him. Your father will find out, Daisy, and make it all right.”
Mr. Trevannion did not contradict her, but murmured some consolatory words, and then the mother led Daisy away, and to a certain extent the girl allowed herself to be reassured.
“I will consult Keir if necessary,” said the father when out of hearing of his daughter. “He is the natural person, both as our own connection and because he introduced Lingard, and thinks so highly of him. But first I will see Arthur alone. The fewer mixed up in such a case the better.”
Mrs. Trevannion agreed. She was constitutionally sanguine, but a painful idea struck her as her husband spoke.
“Hugh,” she said hesitatingly, “you don’t think—it surely is not possible that his—that Arthur’s brain is affected?”
“His brain—tut, nonsense! What a woman’s idea!” replied Mr. Trevannion irritably. “Why, he is receiving compliments on every side, from the very highest quarters, too, on that article of his on the Capricorn Islands. Brain affected, indeed!”
And to a whisper of, “I was thinking of over-work,” which followed him apologetically, he vouchsafed no reply.
Some intensely trying days passed. Mr. Trevannion’s interview with his recalcitrant son-in-law-to-be, proved a complete failure. Nothing, absolutely nothing was to be “got out of the fellow,” he told his wife in mingled anger and wretchedness, for the poor man was a devoted father. Arthur was gentleness itself, respectful, deferential even, to the man whose peculiarly disagreeable position he felt for inexpressibly. But he was as firm, as hard in his decision that all should be, must be, over between Miss Trevannion and himself, as if his own heart had suddenly turned to iron, as if he possessed no feelings at all.
He grew white to the lips, with a terrible death-like whiteness, when he named her; he said with a quiet, deliberate emphasis, more impressive by far than any passionate declaration, that never, never while he lived, would he forgive himself for the trouble he had brought into her young life, but that he was powerless to do otherwise, he was absolutely without a choice. As to the reason for the breaking off of the engagement to be given to the world, he left it entirely in the Trevannions’ own hands; he would contradict nothing they thought it best to say; but, if possible, he grew still whiter when his visitor from under his shaggy eyebrows glanced at him with a look of contempt while he replied cuttingly that he had no love of falsehood. For his part he would tell the truth, and in the end he believed it would be best for Daisy that all the world should know the way in which she had been treated.
“Best for her and worst for you,” he repeated. And Arthur only said: —
“I hope so. It must be as you think well.”
Then Trevannion softened again a little.
“I shall say nothing to any one at present,” he went on. “I must see Keir; possibly he may understand you better than I can.”
But, “No, it will be no use,” the young man repeated coldly, though his very heart was wrung for the father, crushing down his own pride while he thought he saw still the ghost of a hope. “It will be no use. No one can do anything.”
“And you adhere to your determination not to see my—not to see Daisy again?”
Lingard bowed his head. And Mr. Trevannion left him.
Philip Keir was no blood relation of the Trevannions, but a cousin by marriage and a very intimate friend. He was some years older than Mr. Lingard, and it was through him that the acquaintance resulting in Daisy’s engagement had begun. He was a reserved man, with a frank and cordial manner. Daisy thought she knew him well, but as to this she was in some directions entirely mistaken.
He was away from home when Mr. Trevannion called on him, dr
iving straight to his chambers from the fruitless interview with Lingard. Philip did not return for a couple of days, and had left no address. Hence ensued the painful interval of suspense alluded to.
But on the third evening a hansom dashed up to the Trevannions’ door, and Mr. Keir jumped out. It was late, but there was no hesitation as to admitting him.
“I found your note,” he said, as he grasped his host’s hand, “and came straight on. I have only just got back. What is the matter? Tell me at once.”
He was a self-controlled man, but his agitation was evident. “Daisy?” he added hastily.
“Yes,” replied the father. The two were alone in his study. “Poor Daisy!”
And then he told the story.
Keir listened, though not altogether in silence, for broken exclamations, which he seemed unable to repress, broke out from him more than once.
“Impossible—-inconceivable!” he muttered, “Lingard, of all men, to behave like a——” he stopped short, at a loss for a comparison.
“Then you can throw no light upon it—none whatever?” said Mr. Trevannion. “We had hoped—foolishly, perhaps—I had somehow hoped that you might have helped us. You know him well, you see, you have been so much together, your acquaintance is of old date, and you must understand any peculiarities of his character.”
His tone still sounded as if he could not bring himself finally to accept the position. Keir was inexpressibly sorry for him.
“I know of none,” he said. “Frankly, I know of nothing about him that is not estimable. And, as you say, we have been much and most intimately associated. We have travelled together half over the world, we have been dependent on each other for months at a time, and the more I have seen of him the more I have admired and—yes—loved him. If I had to pick a fault in him I would say it is a curious spice of obstinacy—I have seen it very strongly now and then. Once,” and his face grew grave, “once, we nearly quarrelled because he would not give in on a certain point. It was in Siberia, not long ago,” and here Philip gave a sort of shiver, “it was very horrible—no need to go into details. He, Arthur, got it into his head that a particular course of action was called for, and there was no moving him. However it ended all right. I had almost forgotten it. But he was determined.”
Mr. Trevannion listened, but vaguely. Keir’s remarks scarcely seemed to the point.
“Obstinate!” he repeated. “Yes, but that doesn’t explain things. There was no question of giving in. They had had no quarrel. Daisy was perfectly happy. The only thing she can say on looking back over the last week or two closely, is that Arthur had seemed depressed now and then, and when she taxed him with it he evaded a reply. You don’t think, Philip, that there is anything of that kind—melancholia, you know—in his family?”
“Bless you, no, my dear sir. He comes of the healthiest stock possible. People one knows all about for generations. No, no, it’s nothing of that kind,” Keir replied. “And—what man ever had such happy prospects?”
“Then what in heaven’s name is it?” said Mr. Trevannion, bringing his hand down violently on the table beside which they were sitting. “Can you get it out of him, if you can do nothing else for us, Philip? It is our right to know; it is—it is due to my child, it is——” he stopped, his face working with emotion. “He won’t see her, you know,” he added disconnectedly.
“I will try,” said Philip. “It is indeed the least I can do. If—if I could get him to see her—Daisy; surely that would be the best chance.”
Mr. Trevannion looked at him sharply, scrutinisingly. “You—you are satisfied then—entirely satisfied that there is nothing we need dread her being mixed up in, so to say? Nothing wrong—nothing to shock a girl like her? You see,” half apologetically, “his refusing to see her makes one afraid——”
“I am as sure of him as of myself—surer,” said Philip earnestly. “There is nothing in his past to explain it—nothing.”
“An early secret marriage; a wife he thought dead turning up again,” suggested the father. “It sounds absurd, sensational—but after all—there must be some reason.”
“Not that,” said Keir, getting up as he spoke. “Well then, I will see him first thing in the morning, and communicate with you as soon as possible after I have done so. You will tell Mrs. Trevannion and—and Daisy that I will do my best?”
“My wife is still in the drawing-room. Will you not see her tonight?”
Philip shook his head.
“It is late,” he said, “and I am dusty and unpresentable. Besides, there is really nothing to say. Tomorrow it shall be as you all think best. I will see Mrs. Trevannion—and Daisy,” here he flushed a little, but his host did not observe it, “if you like and if she wishes it. Heaven send I may have better news than I expect.”
And with a warm pressure of his old friend’s hand, Mr. Keir left him.
The two younger men met the next morning. There was no difficulty about it, for Lingard, knowing by instinct that the interview must take place, had determined to face it. So of the two he was the more prepared, the more forearmed.
The conversation was long—an hour, two hours passed before poor Philip could make up his mind to accept the ultimatum contained in the few hard words with which Arthur Lingard first greeted him.
“I know what you have come about. I knew you must come. You could not help yourself. But, Philip, it will save you pain—I don’t mind for myself; nothing can matter now—if you will at once take my word for it that nothing you can say will do the least shadow of good. No, don’t shake hands with me. I would rather you didn’t.”
And he put his right arm behind his back and stood there, leaning against the mantelpiece, facing his friend.
Philip looked up at him grimly.
“No,” he said, “I’ve given my word to—to these poor dear people, and I’ll stick to it. You’ve got to make up your mind to a cross-examination, Lingard.”
But through or below the grimness was a terrible pity. Philip’s heart was very tender for the man whose inexplicable conduct was yet filling him with indignation past words. Arthur was so changed—the last week or two had done the work of years—all the youthfulness, the almost boyish brightness, which had been one of his charms, was gone, dead. He was pale with a strange indescribable pallor, that told of days, and worse still, of nights of agony; the lines of his face were hardened; the lips spoke of unalterable determination. Only once had Philip seen him look thus, and then it was but in expression—the likeness and the contrast struck him curiously. The other time it had been resolution temporarily hardening a youthful face; now—what did it remind him of? A monk who had gone through a life-time of spiritual struggle alone, unaided by human sympathy? A martyr—no, there was no enthusiasm. It was all dull, dead anguish of unalterable resolve.
There was silence for a moment. Keir was choking down an uncomfortable something in his throat, and bracing himself to the inquisitorial torture before him to perform.
“Well,” said Arthur, at last.
And Philip looked up at him again.
How queer his eyes were—they used to be so deeply blue. Daisy had often laughed at his changeable eyes, as she called them—blue in the daytime, almost black at night, but always lustrous and liquid. Now, they were glassy, almost filmy. What was it? A sudden thought struck Philip.
“Arthur!” he exclaimed, “Arthur, old fellow, are you going blind? Is that the mystery? If it is that, good Lord, how little you know her, if you think that——”
Arthur’s pale lips grew visibly paler. He had been unprepared for attack in this direction, and for the moment he quailed before it.
“No,” he whispered hoarsely, “it is not that. Would to God it were!”
But almost instantly he had mastered himself, and from that moment throughout the interview not even the mention of Daisy’s name had power to stir him.
And Philip, annoyed with his own impulsiveness, stiffened again.
“You are determined not
to reveal your secret,” he began, “but I want to come to an understanding with you on one point. If I guess it, if I put my finger on it, will you give me the satisfaction of owning that I have done so.”
Lingard hesitated.
“Yes,” he said, “I will do so on one condition—your word of honour, your oath, never to tell it to any human being.”
“Not to—her—Daisy?”
“Least of all.”
Philip groaned. This did not look very promising for the meeting with Daisy, which at the bottom of his heart he believed in as his last—his trump card.
Still, he had gained something.
“Then, my first question seems, in the face of that, almost a mockery. I was going to ask you,” and he half gasped—“it is nothing—nothing about her that is at the root of all this misery? No fancy,” again the gasp, “that—that she doesn’t care for you, or love you enough? No nonsense about your not being suited to each other, or that you couldn’t make a girl of her sensitive, high-strung nature happy?”
“No,” said Arthur, and the word seemed to ring through the room. “No, I know she loves me as I love her. Oh, no, not quite like that, I trust,” and his voice was firm through all the tragedy of the last sentence. “And I believe I could have made her very happy. Leave her name out of it now, Phil, once for all. It has nothing to do personally with the woman who is, and always will be, to me my perfect ideal of sweetness and excellence and truth and beauty.”
“Then it has to do with yourself,” murmured Keir. “Come, the radius is narrowing. I flew out at poor Trevannion when he suggested it, but all the same, it’s nothing in your past you’re ashamed of that’s come to light, is it? The best fellows in the world make fools of themselves sometimes, you know. Don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t mind,” said Arthur wearily, “but it’s no use. No, it’s nothing like that. I have done nothing I am ashamed of. I am not secretly married, nor have I committed forgery,” with a very ghastly attempt at a smile.
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Mrs Molesworth Page 26