Vain Fortune Part 12

Hubert wiped the dust from his hands and coat-sleeves.

'What a lot of things you have given me! Now we shall be able to get on nicely with our furnishing.'

'What furnishing?'

'The furnishing of the little house in London where Julia and I are going to live. You said you intended to add a hundred a year to the three hundred a year which Mr. Burnett should have left me; I don't see why you should do such a thing, but if you do we shall have four hundred a year to live upon.

Julia says that we shall then be able to afford to give fifty pounds a year for a house. We can get a very nice little house, she says, for that--of course, in one of the suburbs. The great expense will be the furnishing; we are going to do it on the hire system. I daresay one can get very nice things in that way, but I do want to make the place look a little like Ashwood; that is why I'm asking you for these things. I was always fond of playing in these old lumber-rooms, and these dim old pictures, which I don't think any one knows anything of except myself, will remind me of Ashwood. They will look very well, indeed, hanging round our little dining-room. You are sure you don't want them, do you?'

'No; I won't want them. I'm only too pleased to be able to give them to you.'

'You are very good, indeed you are. Look at these old haymakers; I never saw but one little corner of this picture before; it was stowed away behind a lot of lumber, and I hadn't the strength to pull it out.... I'm afraid you've got yourself rather dusty.'

'Oh no; it will brush off.'

'I shall hang this picture over the fireplace; it will look very well there. I daresay you don't see anything in it, but I'd sooner have these pictures than those down-stairs. I love the picture of the windmill on the first landing----'

'Then why not have it? I'll have it taken down at once.'

'No; I could not think of taking it. How would the landing look without it?

I should miss it dreadfully when I came here--for I daresay you will ask us to visit you occasionally, when you are lonely, won't you?'

'My dear Emily, whenever you like, I hope you will come here.'

'And you will come and stay with us in London? Your room will be always ready; I'll look after that. We shall feel very offended, indeed, if you ever think of going to an hotel. Of course, you mustn't expect much; we shall only be able to keep one servant, but we shall try to make you comfortable, and, when you come, you'll take me to the theatres, to see one of your own plays.'

'If my play's being played, certainly. But would it be right for me to pay you visits in London?'

'They would be very wicked people indeed who saw anything wrong in it; you are my cousin. But why do you say such things? You destroy all my pleasure, and I was so happy just now.'

'I'm afraid, Emily, your happiness hangs on a very slender thread.'

She looked at him inquiringly, but feeling that it would be unwise to attempt an explanation, he said in a different tone--

'But, Emily, if you love Ashwood so well, why do you go away?'

'Why do I go away? We have been here now some time.... I can't live here always.'

'Why not? Why not let things go on just as they are?'

'And live here with you, I and Julia?'

'Yes; why not?'

'We should bore you; you want to write your plays, you'd get tired of me.'

'Your being here would not prevent my writing my plays. I have been thinking all the while of asking you to remain, but was afraid you would not care to live here.'

'Not care to live here! But you'll get tired of us; we might quarrel.'

'No; we shall never quarrel. You will be doing me a great favour by remaining. Just fancy living alone in this great house, not a soul to speak to all day! I'm sure I should end by going out and hanging myself on one of those trees.'

'You wouldn't do that, would you?'

Hubert laughed. 'You and Mrs. Bentley will be doing me a great favour by remaining. If you go away I shall be robbed right and left, the gardens will go to rack and ruin, and when you come down here you won't know the place, and then, perhaps, we shall quarrel.'

'I shouldn't like Ashwood to go to rack and ruin--and my poor flowers! And I'm sure you'd forget to feed the swans. If you did that, I could not forgive you.'

'Well, let these grave considerations decide you to remain.'

'Are you really serious?'

'I never was more serious in my life.'

'Well then, may I run and tell Julia?'

'Certainly, and I'll--no, I won't. I'll look up the housemaids and tell them to restore this interesting collection of antiquities to their original dust.'

XII

He was, perhaps, a little too conscious of his happiness; and he feared to do anything that would endanger the pleasure of his present life. It seemed to him like a costly thing which might slip from his hand or be broken; and day by day he appreciated more and more the delicate comfort of this well-ordered house--its brightness, its ample rooms, the charm of s.p.a.ce within and without, the health of regular and wholesome meals, the presence of these two women, whose first desire was to minister to his least wish or caprice. These, the first spoilings he had received, combined to render him singularly happy. Bohemianism, he often thought, had been forced upon him--it was not natural to him, and though spiritual belief was dead, he experienced in church a resurrection of influences which misfortune had hypnotised, but which were stirring again into life. He was conscious again of this revival of his early life in the evenings when Mrs. Bentley went to the piano; and when playing a game of chess or draughts, remembrances of the old Shropshire rectory came back, sudden, distinct, and sweet. In these days the disease of fame and artistic achievement only sang monotonously, plaintively, like the wind in the valleys where the wind never wholly rests.

Sometimes, when moved by the novel he was reading, he would discuss its merits and demerits with the two women who sat by him in the quiet of the dim drawing-room, their work on their knees, thinking of him. In the excitement of criticism his thoughts wandered to his own work, and the women's eyes filled with reveries, and their hands folded languidly over their knees. He spoke without emphasis, his words seeming to drop from the thick obsession of his dream. At ten the ladies gathered up their work, bade him good-night; and nightly these good-nights grew tenderer, and nightly they went up-stairs more deeply penetrated with a sense of their happiness. But at heart he was a man's man. He hardly perceived life from a woman's point of view; and in the long evenings which he spent with these women he sometimes had to force himself to appear interested in their conversation. He was as far removed from one as from the other. Emily's wilfulness puzzled him, and he did not seem to have anything further to talk about to Mrs. Bentley.

He missed the bachelor evenings of former days--the whisky and water, the pipes, and the literary discussion; and as the days went by he began to think of London; his thoughts turned affectionately towards the friends he had not seen for so long, and at the end of July he announced his intention of running up to town for a few days. So one morning breakfast was hurried through; Emily was sure there was plenty of time; Hubert looked at the clock and said he must be off; Julia ran after him with parcels which he had forgotten; farewell signs were waved; the dog-cart pa.s.sed out of sight, and, after lingering a moment, the women returned to the drawing-room thoughtfully.

'I wonder if he'll catch the train,' said Emily, without taking her face from the window.

'I hope so; it will be very tiresome for him if he has to come back. There isn't another train before three o'clock.'

'If he missed this train he wouldn't go until to-morrow morning.... I wonder how long he'll stay away. Supposing something happened, and he never came back!' Emily turned round and looked at Julia in dreamy wonderment.

'Not come back at all? What nonsense you are talking, Emily! He won't be away more than a fortnight or three weeks.'

'Three weeks! that seems a very long while. How shall we get through our evenings?'

Emily had again turned towards the window. Julia did not trouble to reply.

She smiled a little, as she paused on the threshold, for she remembered that no more than a few weeks ago Emily had addressed to her pa.s.sionate speeches declaring her to be her only friend, and that they would like to live together, content in each other's companionship, always ignoring the rest of the world. Although she had not mistaken these speeches for anything more than the nervous pa.s.sion of a moment, the suddenness of the recantation surprised her a little. Three or four days after, the girl was in a different mood, and when they came into the drawing-room after dinner she threw her arms about Julia's neck, saying, 'Isn't this like old times?

Here we are, living all alone together, and I'm not boring myself a bit. I never shall have another friend like you, Julia.'

'But you'll be very glad when Hubert comes back.'

'There's no harm in that, is there? I should be very ungrateful if I wasn't. Think how good he has been to us.... I'm afraid you don't like him, Julia.'

'Oh, yes, I do, Emily.'