Chapter Fifteen

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LADY ECCLESTON's business kept her in London longer than she expected. Each day brought hurried notes from her, full of regrets and apologies, compunction for all the trouble they were giving, but joy that her dear child was in such good, kind hands, and a plentiful supply of a mother's blessings. She was a swift and copious letter-writer, economising time by the ruthless excision of articles, pronouns, and other short words. Tommy always declared that his mother could write two letters at once, one with each hand, and interview the cook at the same time.

Breakfast in bed was the last lingering trace of Cissy's mysterious ailment, by the time her parent reappeared upon the scene.

"What have you done to my little girl?" cried Lady Eccleston in a transport of gratitude; "she is a different child." And truly it would have been hard to find a more blooming specimen of girlhood. Indeed, when you come to think of it, six weeks is a liberal allowance of time for a perfectly healthy young woman to get over the effects of a momentary immersion in cold water.

"You have been so kind to my darling," Lady Eccleston said to Sainty. "She has been telling me of all your delightful talks and readings; it is just what she needed, a little intercourse with a really cultivated mind. She has always felt the dissatisfaction of the frivolous life of society; there has been the desire to improve herself, the love of reading, but no one to guide her taste, or put her in the right way. Now, if you would draw up a little table of reading for her, tell her what to read, and in what order and connection, it would be just everything for her; and perhaps even her ignorant old mother might find a little leisure now and then to profit by your help. One is never too old to learn, you know."

So Sainty drew up tables, lent books, and marked passages, like the simple little pedant that he was, but without producing any very marked impression on Cissy's fundamental  ignorance. Sometimes he wondered if the girl were not very dull at Belchamber, and how it was that people who had always seemed to have so many engagements could spare so much time to one house. It is true that Lady Eccleston was perpetually threatening departure, but she was as often persuaded to remain by the very mildest expostulation that civility demanded.

At last a date was definitely fixed, and Sainty had to acknowledge to himself that he would miss the charming companion of his walks and drives. He felt tolerably sure that he was not in the least in love with Cissy, but he had come to feel a sort of tender protecting friendship for her, an interest in her welfare, and a desire to shield her from evil and unhappiness. Thus, one day, when he had heard raised voices and rather excited talking as he passed Lady Eccleston's door, and Cissy had appeared at lunch with red eyes, he burned to know what was wrong, and if possible to help and comfort her. Sorrow seemed so inappropriate to this bright young creature; yet, during the last few days of the Eccleston's stay, the air was heavy with suppressed tears. It was like the weather when people look each evening at the clearing heavens and say, "There must have been a storm somewhere"; an actual shower would have been a relief. To a person of Sainty's temperament such a state of things was unendurable. He could not ask Cissy what was wrong; she who had been so ready to walk, or drive, or read, seemed suddenly to have become unapproachable.

One day he watched the mother and daughter returning from a walk. They were talking excitedly in low hurried voices and with a good deal of gesture; it was obvious even at a distance that they were discussing no ordinary topics, and what is more that they were having a decided difference of opinion. Lady Eccleston  seemed to be appealing urgently about something. Sainty saw her lay her hand not too gently on her daughter's arm, but the girl threw it off with an impatient gesture, broke from her, and fairly ran towards the house.

So swift and unexpected was her coming that Sainty had no time to withdraw, and they met in the hall. Cissy's face was working, her eyes dry and burning.

"Miss Eccleston---Cissy," said Belchamber, "what is wrong? Can I do anything----"

At sight of him she started away like a shying horse.

"Oh, let me alone!" she cried, and hurried upstairs, and Sainty could hear her sobbing as she went. At that moment Lady Eccleston appeared upon the scene, with heightened colour and decidedly out of breath. An indefinable change came over her expression as she saw the young man, a certain exultation seemed to leap in her eyes, to be immediately extinguished in a confusion which had every appearance of being genuine.

"Lady Eccleston," said Sainty, moving eagerly to meet her, "what is the matter with Cissy?" He did not notice that in his excitement he had twice called the girl by her Christian name.

"O Lord Belchamber, how unfortunate! I would have given worlds not to have met you just now. Give me a minute or two, I'm all upset."

Sainty opened the door of the morning-room and ushered the agitated lady in there. His heart was beating uncomfortably; he felt something decisive was going to happen. Lady Eccleston sank into a chair and struggled with emotion, giving vent to a series of little sniffs and hiccoughs, and dabbing her eyes and mouth with her pocket-handkerchief.

"To-morrow we should have gone, and you need never have known," she said at last in broken accents.

"Known what? I don't understand."

"I blame myself," Lady Eccleston went on, not heeding the interruption. "It was my fault; I ought to have had more foresight and discretion; I see it all now. If Sir Thomas had only been spared it would never have happened; he had such sterling sense."

"Won't you tell me what's wrong?" Sainty asked.

"I alone am to blame," Lady Eccleston repeated tragically. "Of course, I see it now. You are both so young, so pure-minded, so unsophisticated; and dear Lady Charmington has lived so long out of the world; but I ought to have seen. Oh! I am inexcusable. But I did hope at least you would never know"; and like Agamemnon she once more veiled her grief.

"I might have known, I might have been sure," she continued after a pause. "Heaven knows I have enough reason to know how malicious people are, but my belief in my fellow-creatures is incurable. I can not bring myself to realise the love of scandal in evil-minded people."

"Good heavens!" said Sainty, now thoroughly alarmed. "What can you mean? Surely no one has presumed----"

"People have talked," Lady Eccleston mourned. "Cissy being here so long, and my leaving her here, and all. It seems people have drawn all sorts of silly conclusions. I have been asked---- I can't say it; you can guess what; and the poor child has had letters, hints, and congratulations, and all that; you can fancy it has upset her terribly; she is almost beside herself; I can do nothing with her; you saw her just now"; and Lady Eccleston took a little side-glance at Sainty behind her pocket-handkerchief. "Of course, I understand perfectly, and so does she; but I see how it would strike outsiders. Oh! why is one always wise after the event? Now you see why I am so angry with myself."

Sainty was much perturbed. "This is monstrous, monstrous!" he cried; "that she should be annoyed, distressed in this way, is horrible. I hope, Lady Eccleston, you don't think that I have behaved badly, that I have taken any advantage of the confidence with which you have honoured me."

"Oh dear no, Lord Belchamber; you have been kindness itself, and so has your dear mother. I never can forget all your goodness. I knew how absolutely I could trust you; but I ought to have thought, to have remembered. Well, I had hoped and meant that at least we alone should bear the burthen. This is an ill return to make to you for all your sweetness and hospitality. You will wish you had never heard our name."

"Believe me, I am not thinking at all about myself. The one question is, how is Miss Eccleston to be shielded from any annoyance in the matter? It is intolerable that she should have to suffer."

"How like you! always so noble and unselfish," said Lady Eccleston fervently. "I shall always remember how splendidly you have behaved. I don't blame you for a single instant, but I can never forgive myself. It is so like me; I am so impulsive. I thought only of the immense benefit it would be to her intellectually, the intercourse with such a mind as yours. I should have recollected there were dangers; that at her age the intellect plays but a very small part beside the heart----"

"Good gracious! you don't mean that she has thought me capable of pestering her with my attentions? I knew well enough that I was only allowed such liberty because---because I was different from other men."

"No, no; I don't think she thought anything of it. I should have known that it was only your kindness to a poor little invalid, your desire to instruct a little ignoramus. But Cissy is very young; she may have fancied---- Oh! I don't know what I'm saying."

Sainty had grown very pale; he had to hold on to a table for support.

"Lady Eccleston," he said in a low voice, "you can't mean to imply that Miss Eccleston could possibly care for me in that way."

"Lord Belchamber, this is unfair," cried Lady Eccleston, starting up. "You have no right to try and force the child's poor little secret from me. You found me all unstrung after a terrible talk with her, and I have let out far more than I should. I have told you I entirely exonerate you from all blame; I appreciate that your motive was pure kindness. Is not that enough for you? If people have been tiresome and tactless it is not your fault, still less hers, poor girl. I blame myself, as I say, more than I can tell you, but that has nothing to do with you. If I have been foolish I am more than punished; but I only regret that I cannot bear all the punishment; we never can. The fault or folly, call it what you will, was mine, but much of the price must be paid by my poor innocent child---that is the thought that unnerves me"; and her ladyship once more had recourse to her pocket-handkerchief. "She has no father," she wailed; "her brothers are mere children in knowledge of the world; and I, her mother, who should have shielded her from trouble, in my blind, foolish desire to procure her a little intellectual advantage, have brought on her the bitterest trial of her life."

Sainty was twisting his stick in his fingers in great agitation. "It is too bad, too bad," he said, "that she should be pestered like this and made unhappy. I would do anything in my power to repair the harm of which I have been the unwitting cause. But if the trouble is, as I suppose, only what stupid people have been saying or writing to her, I don't see what I can do. Poor child! I can well understand how her pride and delicacy must have been hurt."

"No, no; there is nothing to be done, nothing," said Lady Eccleston. "I never meant that you should know; and, Lord Belchamber, promise me one thing: never refer to this to Cissy; she would die of shame, if she thought I had told you. We are going to-morrow; try and forget what I have said, especially---especially----" and she broke off abruptly, and made a stumbling grope at the door-handle, as though she would leave the room.

"Stop a minute, please," Sainty cried, interposing. "Don't go. I don't want to be indiscreet, but you said something just now which seemed to hint---- Oh! I know it's incredible; but don't you see, it would make all the difference whether her distress came only from the mortification of people having coupled our names, or if it was possible that she could look on me as---as----"

"Say no more, say no more. I understand you perfectly," interrupted Lady Eccleston. "You are the soul of punctilious honour. You are capable of any sacrifice, if you thought that even, as you said just now, unwittingly you had made a poor girl care for you; but I have not said it and I will not say it. I have pride for her, as I should have it for myself. I would never admit it. You are perfectly justified in believing that her distress arises solely from what people have said," and this time the lady, with a magnificent gesture of renunciation, really did get to the door, and left Sainty in a whirl of conflicting emotions. Was it possible that he had touched the heart of this beautiful young creature? It was inconceivable that she should be in love with him, and he turned with a pathetic smile to the long glass between the two tall windows. Yet her mother had seemed to hint it. If it were so, then there was nothing simpler than saving her from trouble. A word would do it. But it could not be; the thing was unthinkable. And he fell to wondering if he wished to think it, or not. What was his feeling towards her? Was this protecting, pitying tenderness, this longing to interpose between her and sorrow, was this love? It was very unlike what he had dreamed it to be. But was not everything in life strangely unlike our young idea of it? And ought he to consider his own feelings in the matter at all? If, however innocently, he had led her to think he cared for her, if in her youth and inexperience she had mistaken his friendship, his interest in her studies, for a warmer feeling; above all, if the inscrutable workings of the female heart had led her for some mysterious reason to return it, was he not in honour bound to think only of her happiness in the matter? If a young and beautiful woman had done him this honour, was it for him, him of all people, to feel anything but humblest gratitude? The thought was not without a certain sweetness that a woman had recognised the qualities of his head and heart, to the extent of forgetting his lack of all that women most prized in man, strength, courage, virility. He acknowledged that a man could not have done so, that had the positions been reversed, had he been handsome, vigorous, physically attractive, she ugly, misshapen, unhealthy, no beauties of the soul would have stirred in him the wish to make her his wife. He bowed his head in awe before the greater spirituality of woman; even a thoughtless London girl brought up among worldly surroundings and low ideals was capable of higher flights than the most refined and least carnal of men. And he had presumed to patronise, almost to look down on her, because she had not dulled the edge of her originality with much reading. After all, why did he hesitate? Had he not dreamed of some such possibility as this, yet hardly dared to hope for it? Was it likely that two women would be found willing to overlook his many deficiencies? was not this precisely the one chance of his life? His mother had said she wished him to marry. His mother! Strange that he had not thought of her sooner! He would go and consult his mother; she would know better than any one how to advise him.

Lady Charmington listened indulgently to his recital. She did not seem surprised.

"I thought all that poetry reading would come to something of the sort," she said.

"I can't make out now," said Sainty, "whether what is troubling her is anything more than resentment of idle gossip, the natural repulsion of a delicate-minded girl from having her name coupled with a man's."

"Oh, I suspect it is more," said his mother. "But you? Are you fond of the girl on your side?"

"I don't know that I am in love with her, even now, and I certainly never dreamed of the possibility of her being in love with me."

"Well, her mother certainly gave you to understand that she was; it is unfortunate if you have made the poor girl care for you, and don't feel you can return it."

"Good heavens, mother! If it were possible that such a creature had really stooped to love me, I ought to thank her on my knees."

"I don't quite see that; but I should be sorry to have any one able to say you had trifled with her. You see, her mother left her in my charge; and I suppose I ought not to have let you be so much alone together."

"But surely," cried Sainty, "you don't think I am capable of taking advantage of the confidence reposed in me, to---to---- Oh! the idea is ludicrous; you must see its absurdity."

"I must say you have given the girl every reason to think you liked her," said his mother judicially. "I have never seen you show the same desire for anybody's society before; it is not surprising if she mistook the nature of your attentions. Pretty girls are not in the habit of having young men so devoted to the improvement of their minds."

"I would not 'behave badly,' as people call it, for worlds," said Sainty. "I only can't get over the extreme grotesqueness of its being possible for me to do so. In spite of both you and Lady Eccleston, it still seems to me quite incredible that I should rouse any such feeling in her."

"There is a very simple way of finding out," said Lady Charmington.

"But how if in her kindness and inexperience she is mistaking pity, gratitude, affection---call it what you will---for Love? It is possible even (God forgive me for thinking of such a thing!) that the surroundings, the place, the name, the whole business may have acted on her almost unconsciously, and helped her to mistake her own heart."

"Judge not," said Lady Charmington, with all the air of one who had never done such a thing in her life; "I should be sorry to think so badly of the poor child as that."

"Oh, I didn't mean to blame her. I am sure she would not consciously have let such considerations weigh with her; but it seems so abnormal that any woman should feel anything like love for me, that I am still trying to find some explanation to fit the facts."

Lady Charmington laid her hand on his shoulder. "My dear boy," she said, "you are not called upon to understand her feelings; what you have got to do is to try and understand your own. It has been the dearest wish of my heart to see you happily married; especially since your brother's behaviour has brought such bitter sorrow and disgrace upon us all. Here is a nice, good girl, well brought up, and I think she loves you. The question is whether you like her well enough to make her your wife."

Sainty shook his head. "The question is whether I could make her happy," he said; "what have I to give her in exchange for the priceless treasure of a good woman's love?"

Dinner that evening was a cheerless meal. Lady Charmington, never a great talker, was more than ordinarily silent. Belchamber made several attempts to start a conversation on indifferent subjects, and Lady Eccleston chattered feverishly, with one eye on him and one on her daughter, who sat sullen and defiant and ate nothing. Sainty's heart smote him as he looked on her. Whether their two mothers were right or not, he would speak to her after dinner. If she took him, he would consecrate his life to her happiness. If, as he still thought far more likely, their wishes had misled them, and she did not care for him, she had only to refuse him, and her pride was healed. Then, when her friends said, "We thought you were going to marry Lord Belchamber," she would only have to say, "He wanted me to, poor man, but I couldn't do it." That he was thinking entirely of her happiness showed how little he was really in love with her, but that neither affected his decision nor seemed to him to matter in the least.

Lady Charmington was a skilled and experienced knitter, and Lady Eccleston, who kept a bit of property crochet to hook at when she was with other women who worked, became surprisingly interested in the intricacies of the garment on which her friend was engaged. Her voluble inquiries and apologies for her own stupidity kept up a running accompaniment to the click-clack of the needles and Lady Charmington's occasional terse explanations. Cissy had withdrawn to the extreme other end of the long room in which they sat, and pretended to immerse herself in a book. Sainty drew a chair up to hers, so as to interpose the view of his own back between her and the two older women.

"Miss Eccleston," he said, "I have got something I want to say to you."

Cissy looked up from her book. "Yes?" was all she said. Her attitude expressed only weariness; she did not appear to be at all fluttered.

"You are worried, unhappy," Sainty went on. "I am afraid you have been annoyed by people gossiping about your stay here, about the relations between you and me." He spoke in a low voice, for her ear alone; he was looking into her eyes, trying to surprise some indication of what effect his words had on her. Cissy did not look down or betray any embarrassment.

"I suppose mamma told you that?" she said.

"I can't bear to see you like this, and to know that, however unintentionally, I am the cause."

"Oh! that's all right; I am sure you meant nothing but what was kind."

"Miss Eccleston---Cissy, I want to tell you I am quite well aware of the extreme unlikelihood of your being able to care for me. I understand that you should be angry and sore at vulgar people's mistaking the nature of our friendship. I am not silly or vain enough to suppose that you would be willing to marry me; but remember if any one ever says anything more to you about this, your position is quite simple; you have only to say you have refused me----"

Cissy never shifted her calm, level gaze. "Lord Belchamber," she said quietly, "am I to understand that you are proposing to me?"

"I don't for a moment expect you to accept me; I just want you to know, and other people to know, that if you don't it is entirely because you don't wish to."

"I see; you mean you will make me a sham proposal, on the distinct understanding that I say 'no,' so that I may have the satisfaction of telling my friends that I might have been a marchioness if I'd liked; but you'd be awfully sold if I said 'yes.'"

"You know I don't mean anything of the sort," said Sainty. "But I know how hopeless it is that a girl like you should care for a man like me, and I wouldn't insult you by supposing that anything I have to offer could make any difference. I don't want to add to your troubles the pain of thinking I had hoped you might accept me and that you have got to disappoint me."

"Then it is a bonâ fide offer that you are making me?" said Cissy sardonically; her tone expressed anything but exultation, and though she still looked at him her eyes seemed to be looking at some one else a long way off. "It's the queerest proposal, I should think, any one ever made," and she gave a little dry laugh. "Take care I don't accept it. Whatever you may think, a little pauper like me might well be tempted by what you have to offer, as you call it."

"I don't like to hear you talk like that," Sainty said. "I know it is only a joke, but there are things I don't like joked about. That's the way you used to talk, but you've been so different lately."

"Lord Belchamber," said Cissy, "let's understand one another. If you are making me an offer out of chivalry, that I may have an answer to people's malicious chatter, I can only say I am very much obliged to you; but if you really want me to marry you, I'm quite ready to do so. I can't say fairer than that, can I? After all," she added in a softer tone, "quite apart from worldly considerations, I think I might do much worse for myself; you've been very good to me, and you're a much better sort than---than most of the men I've met," and for the first time she looked away, and gave a little sigh.

Sainty was much moved. "Cissy," he said, "do you really mean that in spite of everything you think you could love me a little?" and he tried to take her hand; but at the touch of him the girl flung herself back into the furthest corner of the big chair in which she sat, and her glance once more crossed his, steel-bright like a rapier. "Do I understand," she asked, "that I have your authority to announce our engagement to our respective parents?"

Sainty stared blankly; he could only nod. Cissy wheeled her chair sharply back, and called out, "Mamma! Lord Belchamber has proposed to me, and I have accepted him."

Lady Eccleston was across the room in two bounds. "My darling, what a way to tell me such a thing! You really are the strangest child. What can Lord Belchamber and Lady Charmington think of you? Dear Lady Charmington, you must forgive my Cissy; she's so excitable, I think happiness has turned her head a little; and mine too, for that matter, for it would be useless to pretend I'm not delighted, only it is all so sudden, so unexpected," and she clasped her daughter to her heart, and kissed and wept over her in the most approved fashion. Cecilia did not return her mother's kisses; she looked at her with a very queer eye indeed, before which Lady Eccleston's effusiveness drooped a little. She turned to her future son-in-law and held out both her hands "Dear Sainty (I may call you Sainty?), I must kiss you too," she cried.

As Sainty submitted to the threatened salute, it struck him as grimly humorous that it should not be his intended who kissed him, but her mother.

Cissy crossed the room, and picked up the ball of wool which Lady Eccleston had shed in her rapid transit, and by which she was still fastened like a spider to the place where she had been sitting. "Lady Charmington," she said, "mamma has adopted your son with great readiness; have you nothing to say to me? Are you not pleased?"

Lady Charmington had risen and laid aside her work. "Of course I am pleased," she said; "I have wished, of all things, to see Sainty married; but, my dear," she added, something in the girl's manner seeming to strike her as peculiar, "I hope you are not taking this solemn step lightly; have you examined your heart, and asked God's blessing on what you are doing? Are you sure you love my son enough to be happy with him, and to make him happy?"

But Lady Eccleston was a whirlwind of tears, protestations, laughter, and congratulation; she caught them all up, and swept them away in the current of her rejoicing. No one else was allowed to say anything.

Sainty also had drawn near, and now stood before his mother. She took a hand of each of the young people in hers, and said solemnly "God bless you, my children."

At the moment Sainty had a vision of the intensity with which she had cursed her other son, on a like occasion, and thought irresistibly of the fountain that "sent forth sweet water and bitter." The context rang in his head like a knell: "My brethren, these things ought not to be."