Can You Forgive Her? Part 105

"Your grandfather's will does make a difference, you know. But, as I was saying, I do like a little romance about them,--just a sniff, as I call it, of the rocks and valleys. One knows that it doesn't mean much; but it's like artificial flowers,--it gives a little colour, and takes off the dowdiness. Of course, bread-and-cheese is the real thing. The rocks and valleys are no good at all, if you haven't got that, But enough is as good as a feast. Thanks to dear Greenow,"--here the handkerchief was again used--"Thanks to dear Greenow, I shall never want. Of course I shan't let any of the money go into his hands,--the Captain's, I mean. I know a trick worth two of that, my dear. But, lord love you! I've enough for him and me.

What's the good of a woman's wanting to keep it all to herself?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: A sniff of the rocks and valleys.]

"And you think you'll really take him, aunt, and pay his washerwoman's bills for him? You remember what you told me when I first saw him?"

"Oh, yes; I remember. And if he can't pay his own washerwoman, isn't that so much more of a reason that I should do it for him? Well; yes; I think I will take him. That is, if he lets me take him just as I choose. Beggars mustn't be choosers, my dear."

In this way the aunt and niece became very confidential, and Mrs.

Greenow whispered into Kate's ears her belief that Captain Bellfield might possibly make his way across the country to Westmoreland.

"There would be no harm in offering him a bed, would there?" Mrs.

Greenow asked. "You see the inn at Shap is a long way off for morning calls." Kate could not take upon herself to say that there would be any harm, but she did not like the idea of having Captain Bellfield as a visitor. "After all, perhaps he mayn't come," said the widow. "I don't see where he is to raise the money for such a journey, now that he has quarrelled with Mr. Cheesacre."

"If Captain Bellfield must come to Vavasor Hall, at any rate let him not come till Alice's visit had been completed." That was Kate's present wish, and so much she ventured to confide to her aunt. But there seemed to be no way of stopping him. "I don't in the least know where he is, my dear, and as for writing to him, I never did such a thing in my life, and I shouldn't know how to begin." Mrs. Greenow declared that she had not positively invited the Captain; but on this point Kate hardly gave full credit to her aunt's statement.

Alice arrived, and, for a day or two, the three ladies lived very pleasantly together. Kate still wore her arm in a sling; but she was able to walk out, and would take long walks in spite of the doctor's prohibition. Of course, they went up on the mountains. Indeed, all the walks from Vavasor Hall led to the mountains, unless one chose to take the road to Shap. But they went up, across the beacon hill, as though by mutual consent. There were no questions asked between them as to the route to be taken; and though they did not reach the stone on which they had once sat looking over upon Haweswater, they did reach the spot upon which Kate had encountered her accident. "It was here I fell," she said; "and the last I saw of him was his back, as he made his way down into the valley, there. When I got upon my legs I could still see him. It was one of those evenings when the clouds are dark, but you can see all objects with a peculiar clearness through the air. I stood here ever so long, holding my arm, and watching him; but he never once turned to look back at me. Do you know, Alice, I fancy that I shall never see him again."

"Do you suppose that he means to quarrel with you altogether?"

"I can hardly tell you what I mean! He seemed to me to be going away from me, as though he went into another world. His figure against the light was quite clear, and he walked quickly, and on he went, till the slope of the hill hid him from me. Of course, I thought that he would return to the Hall. At one time I almost feared that he would come upon me through the woods, as I went back myself. But yet, I had a feeling,--what people call a presentiment, that I should never see him again."

"He has never written?"

"No; not a word. You must remember that he did not know that I had hurt myself. I am sure he will not write, and I am sure, also, that I shall not. If he wanted money I would send it to him, but I would not write to him."

"I fear he will always want money, Kate."

"I fear he will. If you could know what I suffered when he made me write that letter to you! But, of course, I was a beast. Of course, I ought not to have written it."

"I thought it a very proper letter."

"It was a mean letter. The whole thing was mean! He should have starved in the street before he had taken your money. He should have given up Parliament, and everything else! I had doubted much about him before, but it was that which first turned my heart against him. I had begun to fear that he was not such a man as I had always thought him,--as I had spoken of him to you."

"I had judged of him for myself," said Alice.

"Of course you did. But I had endeavoured to make you judge kindly.

Alice, dear! we have both suffered for him; you more than I, perhaps; but I, too, have given up everything for him. My whole life has been at his service. I have been his creature, to do his bidding, just as he might tell me. He made me do things that I knew to be wrong,--things that were foreign to my own nature; and yet I almost worshipped him. Even now, if he were to come back, I believe that I should forgive him everything."

"I should forgive him, but I could never do more."

"But he will never come back. He will never ask us to forgive him, or even wish it. He has no heart."

"He has longed for money till the Devil has hardened his heart," said Alice.

"And yet how tender he could be in his manner when he chose it;--how soft he could make his words and his looks! Do you remember how he behaved to us in Switzerland? Do you remember that balcony at Basle, and the night we sat there, when the boys were swimming down the river?"

"Yes;--I remember."

"So do I! So do I! Alice, I would give all I have in the world, if I could recall that journey to Switzerland."

"If you mean for my sake, Kate--"

"I do mean for your sake. It made no difference to me. Whether I stayed in Westmoreland or went abroad, I must have found out that my G.o.d was made of bricks and clay instead of gold. But there was no need for you to be crushed in the ruins."

"I am not crushed, Kate!"

"Of course, you are too proud to own it?"

"If you mean about Mr. Grey, that would have happened just the same, whether I had gone abroad or remained at home."

"Would it, dear?"

"Just the same."

There was nothing more than this said between them about Mr. Grey.

Even to her cousin, Alice could not bring herself to talk freely on that subject. She would never allow herself to think, for a moment, that she had been persuaded by others to treat him as she had treated him. She was sure that she had acted on her own convictions of what was right and wrong; and now, though she had begun to feel that she had been wrong, she would hardly confess as much even to herself.

They walked back, down the hill, to the Hall in silence for the greater part of the way. Once or twice Kate repeated her conviction that she should never again see her brother. "I do not know what may happen to him," she said in answer to her cousin's questions; "but when he was pa.s.sing out of my sight into the valley, I felt that I was looking at him for the last time."

"That is simply what people call a presentiment," Alice replied.

"Exactly so; and presentiments, of course, mean nothing," said Kate.

Then they walked on towards the house without further speech; but when they reached the end of the little path which led out of the wood, on to the gravelled sweep before the front door, they were both arrested by a sight that met their eyes. There was a man standing, with a cigar in his mouth, before them, swinging a little cane, and looking about him up at the wood. He had on his head a jaunty little straw-hat, and he wore a jacket with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and white trousers. It was now nearly the middle of May, but the summer does not come to Westmoreland so early as that, and the man, as he stood there looking about him, seemed to be cold and almost uncomfortable.

He had not as yet seen the two girls, who stood at the end of the walk, arrested by the sight of him. "Who is it?" asked Alice, in a whisper.

"Captain Bellfield," said Kate, speaking with something very like dismay in her voice.

"What! aunt Greenow's Captain?"

"Yes; aunt Greenow's Captain. I have been fearing this, and now, what on earth are we to do with him? Look at him. That's what aunt Greenow calls a sniff of the rocks and valleys."

The Captain began to move,--just to move, as though it were necessary to do something to keep the life in his limbs. He had finished his cigar, and looked at the end of it with manifest regret. As he threw it away among a tuft of shrubs his eye fell upon the two ladies, and he uttered a little exclamation. Then he came forward, waving his little straw-hat in his hand, and made his salutation. "Miss Vavasor, I am delighted," he said. "Miss Alice Vavasor, if I am not mistaken?

I have been commissioned by my dear friend Mrs. Greenow to go out and seek you, but, upon my word, the woods looked so black that I did not dare to venture;--and then, of course, I shouldn't have found you."

Kate put out her left hand, and then introduced her cousin to the Captain. Again he waved his little straw-hat, and strove to bear himself as though he were at home and comfortable. But he failed, and it was manifest that he failed. He was not the Bellfield who had conquered Mr. Cheesacre on the sands at Yarmouth, though he wore the same jacket and waistcoat, and must now have enjoyed the internal satisfaction of feeling that his future maintenance in life was a.s.sured to him. But he was not at his ease. His courage had sufficed to enable him to follow his quarry into Westmoreland, but it did not suffice to make him comfortable while he was there. Kate instantly perceived his condition, and wickedly resolved that she would make no effort to a.s.sist him. She went through some ceremony of introduction, and then expressed her surprise at seeing him so far north.

"Well," said he; "I am a little surprised myself;--I am, indeed! But I had nothing to do in Norwich,--literally nothing; and your aunt had so often talked to me of the beauties of this place,"--and he waved his hand round at the old house and the dark trees,--"that I thought I'd take the liberty of paying you a flying visit. I didn't mean to intrude in the way of sleeping; I didn't indeed, Miss Vavasor; only Mrs. Greenow has been so kind as to say--"

"We are so very far out of the world, Captain Bellfield, that we always give our visitors beds."

"I didn't intend it; I didn't indeed, miss!" Poor Captain Bellfield was becoming very uneasy in his agitation. "I did just put my bag, with a change of things, into the gig, which brought me over, not knowing quite where I might go on to."

"We won't send you any further to-day, at any rate," said Kate.

"Mrs. Greenow has been very kind,--very kind, indeed. She has asked me to stay till--Sat.u.r.day!"