Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 86

"To sit by that winding stream on a summer's day listening to its murmurs, to the singing of the birds, the sweet sighing of the trees; or holding low converse with a cherished companion--yes, Anne, you would like that. It would just suit you, for you are of a silent and dreamy nature."

There might not be much actual meaning in the words if you sat down to a.n.a.lyze them: but, to the inexperienced mind of Anne, they sounded very like plain speaking. At any rate, she took them to be an earnest that she _should_ sometime sit by that stream with him--his wife. The dusky cloisters seemed to have suddenly filled themselves with refulgent light; the gravestones over which she was pa.s.sing felt soft as the mossy glades of fairyland: ay, even that mysterious stone that bears on it the one terrible word "Miserrimus." Heaven was above her, and heaven beneath: there was no longer any prosaic earth for Anne Lewis.

"Good-night to you, gentlefolks."

The salutation was from the cloister porter; who, coming into close the gates, met them as they were nearing the west door. Not another word had pa.s.sed until now: Mr. Angerstyne had fallen into silence. Anne could not have spoken to gain the world.

"Good-night to you, my man," he answered.

Lake's was in a bustle when they reached it. The luggage of the new people, who had just been shown to their chambers, was being taken in; the carriage containing Dr. and Mrs. Lewis was then just driving up.

Anne felt alarmed as she caught sight of her father; he looked so very ill. Mr. Angerstyne, in his ready, kindly way, waited to help him down and give him his arm along the pa.s.sage; he then ran up to his room, remarking that he had letters to write.

The people a.s.sembled for dinner in full fig, out of deference to the new-comers: who proved to be a Lady Knight, and a Mrs. and Miss Colter.

Anne wore her pretty grey bridesmaid's dress, and the ribbon, just bought, in her hair. At the very last moment, Mr. Angerstyne came down, his hands full of the letters he had been writing.

"Why, are _you_ here?" exclaimed Lady Knight: who seemed to be a chatty, voluble woman. "I _am_ surprised."

Mr. Angerstyne, putting his letters on the side-table, until he could take them to the post, turned round at the address. A moment's stare, half doubt, half astonishment, and he went forward to shake Lady Knight's hand.

"What brings you here?" she asked.

"I have been here some little time. Old Miss Gibson is at Malvern, so I can't go far away."

There was no opportunity for more: dinner was waiting. Mr. Angerstyne and Anne sat side by side that evening; Lady Knight was opposite. Miss Dinah presided as usual, her best yellow cap perched on the top of her curls.

During an interval of silence between the general bustle and rattle of the dinner, for the two girls who waited (after their own fashion) had both run away with the fish to bring in the meat, Lady Knight looked across the table to put a question to Mr. Angerstyne.

"How is your wife?"

The silence dropped to a dead stillness. He appeared not to hear.

"How is your wife, Henry Angerstyne? Have you seen her lately?"

He could not pretend to be deaf any longer, and answered with angry curtness:

"No, I have not. She is all right, I suppose."

By the way the whole table stared, you might have thought a bombsh.e.l.l had fallen. Miss Dinah sat with her mouth open in sheer amazement, and then spoke involuntarily.

"Are you really married, Mr. Angerstyne?"

"Of course he is married," said Lady Knight, answering Miss Dinah. "All the world knows that. His wife is my cousin. I saw her at Lowestoft a few weeks ago, Henry. She was looking prettier than ever."

"Ah, Mr. Angerstyne, how sly you were, not to tell us!" cried Mrs.

Lewis, playfully shaking her fan at him. "You---- Oh, goodness me!"

A loud crash! Jenny the maid had dropped a hot vegetable dish on the floor, scattering the pieces and spilling the peas; and followed it up with a shriek and a scream. That took off the attention; and Mr.

Angerstyne, coolly eating away at his bread, turned to make some pa.s.sing remark to Anne.

But the words he would have said were left unspoken. No ghost ever seen, in cloisters or out of them, was whiter than she. Lips and fingers were alike trembling.

"You should be more careful!" he called to the maid in a tone of authority. "Ladies don't care to be startled in this way." Just as though Anne had turned white from the noise of the broken dish!

Well, it had been a dreadful revelation for her. All the sunshine of this world seemed to have gone out for ever; to have left nothing behind it but a misty darkness. Rallying her pride and her courage, she went on with her dinner, as the others did. Her head was throbbing, her brain on fire; her mind had turned to chaos. She heard them making arrangements for a picnic-party to the woods at Croome on the morrow; not in the least understanding what was said or planned.

"You did surprise us!" observed Mrs. Lewis to Lady Knight, when they were in the drawing-room after dinner, and Mr. Angerstyne had gone out to post his letters. "What could have been his motive for allowing us to think him a bachelor?"

"A dislike to mention her name," replied Lady Knight, candidly. "That was it, I expect. He married her for her pretty face, and then found out what a goose she was. So they did not get on together. She goes her way, and he goes his; now and then they meet for a week or two, but it is not often."

"What a very unsatisfactory state of things!" cried Miss Dinah, handing round the cups of coffee herself for fear of another upset. "Is it her fault or his?"

"Faults lie on both sides," said Lady Knight, who had an abrupt way of speaking, and was as poor as a church mouse. "She has a fearfully affronting temper of her own; those women with dolls' faces sometimes have; and he was not as forbearing as he might have been. Any way, that is the state of affairs between Mr. and Mrs. Angerstyne: and, apart from it, there's no scandal or reproach attaching to either of them."

Anne, sitting in a quiet corner, listened to all this mechanically. What mattered the details to her? the broad fact had been enough. The hum of conversation was going on all around; her father, looking somewhat the better for his dinner, was playing at backgammon with Tom Lake. She saw nothing, knew nothing, until Mr. Angerstyne dropped into the seat beside her.

"Shall you join this expedition to Croome to-morrow, Anne?"

Julia and f.a.n.n.y were thumping over a duet, pedal down, and Anne barely caught the low-spoken words.

"I do not know," she answered, after a brief pause. "My head aches."

"I don't much care about it myself; rather the opposite. I shall certainly not go if you don't."

Why! he was speaking to her just as though nothing had occurred! If anything could have added to her sense of shame and misery it was this.

It sounded like an insult, arousing all the spirit she possessed; her whole nature rose in rebellion against his line of conduct.

"Why have you been talking to me these many weeks as you have been talking, Mr. Angerstyne?" she asked in her straightforward simplicity, turning her face to his.

"There has been no harm in it," he answered.

"_Harm!_" she repeated, from her wrung heart. "Perhaps not to you. There has been at least no good in it."

"If you only knew what an interval of pleasantness it has been for me, Anne! Almost deluding me into forgetting my odious chains and fetters?"

"Would a _gentleman_ have so amused himself, Mr. Angerstyne?"

But she gave him no opportunity of reply. Rising from her seat, and drawing her slight form to its full height, she looked into his face steadily, knowing not perhaps how much of scorn and reproach her gaze betrayed, then crossed the room and sat down by her father. Once after that she caught his eye: caught the expression of sorrow, of repentance, of deep commiseration that shone in every line of his face--for she could not altogether hide the pain seated in her own. And later, amidst the bustle of the general good-nights, she found her hand pressed within his, and heard his whispered, contrite prayer--

"Forgive me, Anne: forgive me!"

She lay awake all night, resolving to be brave, to make no sign; praying Heaven to help her to bear the anguish of her sorely-stricken heart, not to let the blow quite kill her. It seemed to her that she must feel it henceforth during all her life.

And before the house was well up in the morning, a messenger arrived post-haste from Malvern to summon Mr. Angerstyne to his aunt's dying bed. He told Miss Dinah, when he shook hands with her at parting, that she might as well send his traps after him, if she would be so kind, as he thought he might not be able to return to Worcester again.

And that was the ending of Anne Lewis's love. Not a very uncommon ending, people say. But she had been hardly dealt by.

+Part the Third.+