Vera Nevill Part 25

In this library Sir John and his brother fed, smoked, wrote and read, and lived, in fact, entirely in full and disorderly enjoyment of their bachelorhood and its privileges. The room, consequently, was in a condition of untidiness and confusion, which was the despair of Mrs.

Eccles and the delight of the two men themselves, who had even forbidden the entrance of any housemaid into it upon pain of instant dismissal.

Mrs. Eccles submitted herself with resignation to the inevitable, and comforted herself with the reflection that the time of unchecked masculine dominion was well-nigh over, and that the days were very near at hand when "Miss Vera" was coming to alter all this.

"Ah, well, it won't last long, poor gentleman!" the worthy lady said to herself, in allusion to Sir John's uninvaded sanctum; "let him enjoy his pigstye while he can. When his wife comes she will soon have the place swept clean out for him."

So the papers, and the books, and the pipes, and the tobacco-tins were left heaped up all over the tables and chairs, and the fox-terriers sat in high places on the sofa cushions; and the brothers smoked their pipes after their meals, emptied their ashes on to the tables, threw their empty soda-water bottles into a corner of the room, wore their slippers at all hours, and lapsed, in fact, into all those delightful methods of living at ease practised by the vicious nature inherent in man when he is unchecked by female influence; whilst Mrs. Eccles groaned in silence, but possessed her soul in patience by reason of that change which she knew to be coming over the internal economy of Kynaston Hall.

Maurice Kynaston reclines at ease in the most comfortable arm-chair in the room, his feet reposing upon a second chair; his pipe is in his mouth, and his hands in his trouser pockets; he wears a loose, gray shooting-jacket, and Sir John's favourite terrier, Vic, has curled herself into a little round white ball upon his outstretched legs.

Maurice has just been reading his morning's correspondence, and a letter from Helen, announcing that her grandfather is ill and confined to his room by bronchitis, is still in his hand. He looks gloomily and abstractedly into the red logs of the wood fire. The door opens.

"Any orders for the stable, Captain?"

"None to-day, Mrs. Eccles."

"You are not going out hunting?"

"No, I am going to take a rest. By the way, Mrs. Eccles, I shall be leaving to-morrow, so you can see about packing my things."

"Dear me! sir, I hope we shall see you again, at the wedding."

"Very unlikely; I don't like weddings, Mrs. Eccles; the only one I ever mean to dance at is yours. When you get married, you let me know."

"Law! sir, how you do go on!" said the old lady, laughing; not ill-pleased at the imputation. "Dear me," she went on, looking round the room uneasily, "did I ever see such a mess in all my born days. Now Sir John is out, sir, I suppose you couldn't let me----"

"_Certainly not_--if you mean bring in a broom and a dust-pan! Just let me catch you at it, that's all!"

The housekeeper shook her head with a resigned sigh.

"Ah, well! it can't last long; when Miss Vera comes she'll turn the whole place inside-out, and all them nasty pipes, and dogs and things will be cleared away."

"Do you think so?" suddenly sitting upright in his chair. "Wait a bit, Mrs. Eccles; don't go yet. Do you think Miss Vera will have things her own way with my brother?"

"Oh! sir, what do you ask me for?" she answered, with discreet evasiveness. "Surely you must know more about Miss Vera than I can tell you."

Mrs. Eccles went away, and Maurice got up and leant against the mantelpiece looking down gloomingly, into the fire. Vic, dislodged from his knee, sat up beside him, resting her little white paws on the edge of the fender, warming her nose.

"What a fool I am!" said Maurice, aloud to himself. "I can't even hear her name mentioned by a servant without wanting to talk about her. Yes, it's clear he loves her--but does she love him? Will she be happy? Yes, of course, she will get her own way. Will that be enough for her? Ah!"

turning suddenly round and taking half-a-dozen steps across the room. "It is high time I went. I am a coward and a traitor to linger on here; I will go. Why did I say to-morrow--why have I not settled to go this very day? If I were not so weak and so irresolute, I should be gone by this time. I ought never, knowing what I do know of myself--I ought never to have come back at all." He went back to the fire and sat down again, lifting the little dog back on to his knee. "I shall get over it, I suppose," he murmured. "Men don't die of this sort of thing; she will marry, and she will think me unkind because I shall never come near her; but even if she knew the truth, it would never make any difference to her; and by-and-by I too, I suppose, shall marry." The soliloquy died away into silence. Maurice stroked the dog and looked at the fire dreamily and somewhat drearily.

Some one tapped at the door.

"Come in! What is it, Mrs. Eccles?" he cried, rousing himself.

The door softly opened and there entered, not Mrs. Eccles, but Vera Nevill.

Captain Kynaston sprang hastily to his feet. "Oh, Vera! I beg your pardon--how do you do? I suppose you have come for John? You must have missed him; he started for the vicarage half-an-hour ago."

"No, I have seen him. I have come to see you, Maurice, if you don't mind." She spoke rather timidly, not looking at him.

"I am delighted, of course," he answered, a little constrainedly.

Vera stood up on the hearth divesting herself of her long fur cloak; she flung it over the back of a chair, and then took off her hat and gloves.

Maurice was strangely unlike himself this morning, for he never offered to help her in these operations, he only stood leaning against the corner of the mantelpiece opposite her, looking at her.

Vera stooped down and stroked the little fox-terrier; when she had done so, she raised her head and met his eyes.

Did she see, ere he hastily averted them, all the hunger and all the longing that filled them as he watched her? He, in his turn, stooped and replenished the fire.

"John sent me to talk to you, Maurice," began Vera, hurriedly, like one repeating a lesson; "he tells me you will not be with us on the 27th; is that so?"

"I am sorry, but I am obliged to go away," he answered.

"John is dreadfully hurt, Maurice. I hope you will alter your mind."

"Is it John for whom you are speaking, or for yourself?" he asked, looking at her.

"For both of us. Of course it will be a great disappointment if you are not there. You are his only brother, and he will feel it deeply."

"And you; will you feel it?" he persisted. She coloured a little.

"Yes, I shall be very sorry," she answered, nervously. "I should not like John to be vexed on his wedding-day; he has been a kind brother to you, Maurice, and it seems hard that you cannot do this little thing to show your sense of it."

"Believe me, I show my grat.i.tude to my brother just as well in staying away as in remaining," he answered, earnestly. "Do not urge me any further, Vera; I would do anything in the world to please John, but I cannot be present at your wedding."

There was a moment's silence; the fire flickered up merrily between them; a red-hot cinder fell out noisily from the grate; the clock ticked steadily on the chimney-piece; the little terrier sniffed at the edge of Vera's dress.

Suddenly there came into her heart a wild desire _to know_, to eat for once of that forbidden fruit of the tree of Eden, whence the flaming swords in vain beckoned her back; to eat, and afterwards, perchance, to perish of the poisonous food.

A wild conflict of thought thronged into her soul. Prudence, wisdom, her very heart itself counselled her to be still and to go. But something stronger than all else was within her too; and something that was new and strange, and perilously sweet to her; a something that won the day.

She turned to him, stretching out her hands; the warm glow of the fire lit up her lovely face and her eloquent pleading eyes, and flickered over the graceful and beautiful figure, whose perfect outlines haunted his fancy for ever.

"Stay, for my sake, because I ask you!" she cried, with a sudden pa.s.sion; "or else tell me why you must go."

There came no answering flash into his eyes, only he lowered them beneath hers; he sat down suddenly, as though he was weary, on the chair whence he had risen at her entrance, so that she stood before him, looking down at him.

There was a certain repression in his face which made him look stern and cold, as one who struggles with a mortal temptation. He stooped over the little dog, and became seemingly engrossed in stroking it.

"I cannot stop," he said, in a cold, measured voice; "it is an impossibility. But, since you ask me, I will tell you why. It can make no possible difference to you to know; it may, indeed, excite your interest or your pity for a few moments whilst you listen to me; but when it is over and you go away you will forget it again. I do not ask you to remember it or me; it is, in fact, all I ask, that you should forget.

This is what it is. Your wedding-day is very near; it is bringing you happiness and love. I can rejoice in your happiness. I am not so selfish as to lament it; but you will not wish me to be there to see it when I tell you that I have been fool enough to dare to love you myself. It is the folly of a madman, is it not? since I have never had the slightest hope or entertained the faintest wish to alter the conditions of your life; nor have I even asked myself what effect such a confession as this that you have wrung from me can have upon you. Whether it excites your pity or your contempt, or even your amus.e.m.e.nt, it cannot in any case make any difference to me. My folly, at all events, cannot hurt you or my brother; it can hurt no one but myself: it cannot even signify to you.

It is only for my own sake that I am going, because one cannot bear more than a certain amount, can one? I thought I might have been strong enough, but I find that it would be too much; that is all. You will not ask me to stay any more, will you?"

Not once had he looked at her; not by a single sign or token had he betrayed the slightest emotion or agitation. His voice had been steady and unbroken; he spoke in a low and somewhat monotonous manner; it was as though he had been relating something that in no way concerned himself--some story that was of some other, and that other of no great interest either to him who told it or to her who listened to the tale.

Any one suddenly coming into the room would have guessed him to be entirely engrossed in the contemplation of the little dog between his hands; that he was relating the story of his own heart would not have been imagined for an instant.

When he had done speaking there was an absolute silence in the room. What he had spoken seemed to admit of no answer of any sort or kind from his listener. He had asked for nothing; he had pleaded neither for her sympathy nor her forgiveness, far less for any definite expression of the effect of his words upon her. He had not, seemingly, cared to know how they affected her. He had simply told his own story--that was all; it concerned no one but himself. She might pity him, she might even be amused at him, as he had said: anyhow, it made no difference to him; he had chosen to present a picture of his inner life to her as a doctor might have described some complicated disease to a chance acquaintance--it was a physiological study, if she cared to look upon it as such; if not, it did not matter. There was no possible answer that she could make to him; no form of words by which she could even acknowledge that she had heard him speak.

She stood perfectly silent for the s.p.a.ce of some two or three seconds; she scarcely breathed, her very heart seemed to have ceased to beat; it was as if she had been turned to stone. She knew not what she felt; it was neither pain, nor joy, nor regret; it was only a sort of dull apathy that oppressed her very being.