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The Sorceress. Volume 3 of 3
“Did you hear, Colonel Kingsward? She was going to see Arthur Revel’s picture this afternoon. And so was I! Will you come too? He is a great friend of mine, as I told you, and he knew dear Charlie, and, of course, he would be proud and delighted to see you. Shall we take Betty back to Portman Square to pick up her carriage and her old lady, and will you go humbly on foot with me? We shall meet them, and Mrs. Revel shall give us tea.”
“Oh, papa, do!” Betty cried.
It was not perhaps what he would have liked best, but he yielded with a very good grace. He had not, perhaps, been so proud of little Betty by his side as the Lyons had expected, but Laura by his side was a different matter. He could not help remarking how people looked at her as they went along, and his mind was full of pride in the handsome, commanding figure, almost as tall as himself, and walking like a queen. Yet it made his head turn round a little when he saw Miss Lance seated by Mrs. Lyon’s side in the studio, talking intimately to her of the whole Kingsward family, while Betty clung to her new friend as if she had known her all her life. Old Mrs. Lyon was still more startled, and her head went round too. “What a handsome woman!” she said, in Colonel Kingsward’s ear. “What a delightful woman! Who is she?”
“Miss Lance,” he said, rather stupidly, feeling how little information these words conveyed. Miss Lance? Who was Miss Lance? If he had said Laura it might have been a different matter.
CHAPTER VII
While all these things were going on, Bee was left at Kingswarden alone. That is to say, she was so far from being alone that her solitude was absolute. She had all the children and was very busy among them. She had the two boys home for the Easter holidays; the house was full of the ordinary noise, mirth and confusion natural to a large young family under no more severe discipline than that exercised by a young elder sister. The big boys, were in their boyish way, gentlemen, and deferred to Bee more or less – which set a good example to the younger ones; but she was enveloped in a torrent of talk, fun, games and jest, which raged round her from before she got up in the morning till at least the twilight, when the nursery children got tired, and the big boys having exhausted every method of amusement during the day, began to feel the burden of nothing to do, and retired into short-lived attempts at reading, or games of beggar-my-neighbour, or any other simple mode of possible recreation – descending to the level of imaginary football with an old hat through the corridor before it was time to go to bed.
In the evening Bee was thus completely alone, listening to the distant bumps in the passage, and the voices of the players. The drawing-room was large, but it was indifferently lighted, which is apt to make a country drawing-room gloomy in the evening. There was one shaded lamp on a writing-table, covered at this moment with colour boxes and rough drawings of the boys, who had been constructing a hut in the grounds, and wasting much vermillion and Prussian blue on their plans for it; and near the fireplace, in which the chill of the Spring still required a little fire, was another lamp, shining silently upon Bee’s white dress and her hands crossed in her lap. Her face and all its thoughts were in the shade, nobody to share, nobody to care what they were.
Betty was in town. Her one faithful though not always entirely sympathetic companion, the aunt – at all times not much more than a piece of still life – was unwell and had gone to bed; Charlie was lost in the great depth and silence of the world; Bee was thus alone. She had been working for the children, making pinafores or some other necessary, as became her position as sister-mother; for where there are so many children there is always a great deal to do; but she had grown tired of the pinafores. If it were not a hard thing to say she was a little tired of the children too, tired of having to look after them perpetually, of the nurse’s complaints, and the naughtiness of baby who was spoilt and unmanageable – tired of the bumping and laughing of the boys, and tired too of bidding them be quiet, not to rouse the children.
All these things had suddenly become intolerable to Bee. She had a great many times expressed her thankfulness that she had so much to do, and no time to think – and probably to-morrow morning she would again be of that opinion; but in the meantime she was very tired of it all – tired of a position which was too much for her age, and which she was not able to bear. She was only a speck in the long, empty drawing-room, her white skirts and her hands crossed in her lap being all that showed distinctly, betraying the fact that someone was there, but with her face hidden in the rosy shade, there was nobody to see that tears had stolen up into Bee’s eyes. Her hands were idle, folded in her lap. She was tired of being dutiful and a good girl, as the best of girls are sometimes. It seemed to her for the moment a dreary world in which she was placed, merely to take care of the children, not for any pleasure of her own. She felt that she could not endure for another moment the bumping in the passage, and the distant voices of the boys. Probably if they went on there would be a querulous message from Aunt Helen, or pipings from the nursery of children woke up, and a furious descent of nurse, more than insinuating that Miss Bee did not care whether baby’s sleep was broken or not. But even with this certainty before her, Bee did not feel that she had energy to get up from her chair and interfere; it was too much. She was too solitary, left alone to bear all the burden.
Then the habitual thought of Charlie returned to her mind. Poor Charlie! Where was he, still more alone than she. Perhaps hidden away in the silence of the seas, or tossing in a storm, going away, away where no one who cared for him would ever see him more. The tears which had come vaguely to her eyes dropped, making a mark upon her dress, legitimatised by this thought. Bee would have been ashamed had they fallen for herself; but for Charlie – Charlie lost! – none of his family knowing where he was – she might indeed be allowed to cry. Where was he? Where was he? If he had been here he would have been sitting with her, making things more possible. Bee knew very well in her heart that if Charlie had been with her he would not have been much help to her, that he would have been grumbling over his own hard fate, and calling upon her to pity him; but the absent, if they are sometimes wronged, have, on the other hand, the privilege of being remembered in their best aspect. Then Bee’s thoughts glided on from Charlie to someone else whom she had for a long time refused to think of, or tried to refuse to think of. She was so solitary to-night, with all her doors open to recollections, that he had stolen in before she knew, and now there was quite a shower of round blots upon her white dress. Aubrey – oh, Aubrey! who had betrayed her trust so, who had done her such cruel wrong! – but yet, but yet —
She was interrupted by the entrance of a servant with the evening post. Kingswarden was near enough to town to have an evening post, which is a privilege not always desirable. But any incident was a good thing for poor Bee. She drew the pinafore, at which she had been working, hastily over her knee to hide the spots of moisture, and dashed the tears from her eyes with a rapid hand. In the shade of the lamp not even the most keen eyes could see that she had been crying. She even paused as she took the letter to say, “Will you please tell the boys not to make so much noise?” There were three letters on the tray – one for her father, one for her aunt, one Betty’s usual daily rigmarole of little news and nonsense which she never failed to send when she was away. Betty’s letter was very welcome to her sister. But as Bee read it her face began to burn. It became more and more crimson, so that the rose shade of the lamp was overpowered by a deeper and hotter colour. Betty to turn upon her, to take up the other side, to cast herself under that dreadful new banner of Fate! Bee’s breath came quickly, her heart beat with anger and trouble. She got up from her chair and began to walk quickly about the room, a sudden passion sweeping away all the forlorn sentiment of her previous thoughts. Betty! in addition to all the rest. Bee felt like the forlorn chatelaine of a besieged castle alone to defend the walls against the march of a destroying invader. The danger which had been far off was coming – it was coming! And the castle had no garrison at all – if it were not perhaps those dreadful boys making noise enough to bring down the house, who were precisely the partisans least to be depended upon, who would probably throw down their arms without striking a blow. And Bee was alone, the captain deserted of all her forces to defend the sacred hearth and the little children. The little children! Bee stamped her foot upon the floor in an appeal, not to heaven, but to all the powers of Indignation, Fury, War, War! She would defend those walls to her last gasp. She would not give way, she would fight it out step by step, to keep the invader from the children. The nursery should be her citadel. Oh, she knew what would happen, she cried to herself inconsequently! Baby, who was spoilt, would be twisted into rigid shape, the little girls would be subdued like little mice – the boys —
At this moment the old hat which served as a football came with a thump from the corridor into the hall, followed by a louder shout than ever from Arthur and Rex. Bee rushed forth upon them flinging the door open, with her blue eyes blazing.
“Do you mean to bring down the house?” she said, in a sudden outburst. “Do you mean to break the vases and the mirror and wake up the whole nursery and bring Aunt Helen down upon us? For goodness sake try to behave like reasonable creatures, and don’t drive me out of my senses!” cried Bee.
The boys were so startled by this onslaught that Rex, with a final kick sent the wretched old hat flying to the end of the passage which led to the servants’ hall, as if it were that harmless object that was to blame – while Arthur covered the retreat sulkily by a complaint that there was nothing to do in this beastly old hole, and that a fellow couldn’t read books all the day long. Bee was so inspired and thrilling with the passion in her, that she went further than any properly constituted female creature knowing her own position ought to do.
“You have a great deal more to do than I have,” she said, “far, far more to do and to amuse yourselves with. Why should you expect so much more than I do, because you are boys and I am a girl? Is it fair? You’re always talking of things being fair. It isn’t fair that you should disturb the whole house, the little babies, and everyone for your pleasure; and I’m not so very much older than you are, and what pleasure have I?”
The boys were very much cast down by this fiery remonstrance. There had been a squall as of several babies from the upper regions, and they had already been warned of the consequence of their horseplay. But Bee’s representation touched them in their tenderest point. Was it fair? Well, no, perhaps it was not quite fair. They went back after her, humbled, into the drawing-room, and besought her to join them in a game. After they had finally retired, having finished the evening to their own partial content, Bee took out again Betty’s letter and read it with less excitement than at first – or at least with less demonstration of excitement; this was what it said —
“Bee, such a delightful woman, a friend of her papa’s! So handsome, so nice, so clever, so well dressed, everything you can think except young, which of course she is not – nor anything silly. Papa told me to get ready to come out with him to see an old friend of his and I wasn’t at all willing, didn’t like it, I thought it must be some old image like old Mrs. Mackinnon or Nancy Eversfield, don’t you know. Mrs. Lyon had settled to take me out to see some pictures, and Gerald was coming, and we were to have a turn in the park after, and I had put on my new frock and was looking forward to it, when papa came in with this order: ‘Get on your things and come with me, I want to take you to see an old friend.’ Of course I had to go, for Mrs. Lyon will never allow me to shirk anything. But I was not in a very good humour, though they called me as fresh as a rose and all that – to please papa; as if he cared how we look! He took me to George Street, Hanover Square, a horrid little lodging, such as people come to when they come up from the country. And I had to look as serious and as steady as possible for the sake of the old lady; when there rose up from the chair, oh, such a different person, tall, but as slight as you are, with such a handsome face and such a manner. She might have been – let us say a nice, sweet aunt – but aunt is not a name that means anything delightful; and mother I must not say, for there is only one mother in the whole world; oh, but something I cannot give a name, so understanding, so kind, so nice, for that means everything. She kissed me, and then she began to talk to me as if she knew everyone of us and was very fond of us all. And then about Charlie, whom she seemed to know very well. She called him dear Charlie, and I wonder if it is she who has persuaded papa that he is with the Mackinnons, in Scotland. But I know he is not with the Mackinnons – however, I will tell you about this after.
“Dear Bee, what will you say when I tell you that this delightful woman is Miss Lance? You will say I have no heart, or no spirit, and am not sticking to you through thick and thin as I ought; but you must hear first what I have got to say. Had I known it was Miss Lance I should have shut myself close up, and whatever she had done or however nice she had been, I should have had nothing to say to her. If she had been an angel under that name I should have remembered what you had said, and I should not have seen any good in her. But I never heard what her name was till we were all in Mr. Revel’s studio, quite a long time after. Papa did as he always does, introduced me to her, but not her to me. He said: “My daughter Betty,” as if I must have known by instinct who she was. And, dear Bee, though I acknowledge you have every reason not to believe it, she is delightful, she is, she is! She may have done wrong. I can’t tell, of course; but I don’t believe she ever meant it, or to harm you, or Charlie, or anyone. Everybody is delighted with her. Mrs. Lyon, who you know is very particular, says she has the manners of a duchess – and that she is such a handsome, distinguished-looking woman. She is coming to dine here next Saturday. The only one who does not seem to be quite charmed with her is Gerald, who is prejudiced like you.
“Do try to get over your prejudice, Bee, dear – she is, she is, indeed delightful! You only want to know her. By the way, about the Mackinnons: papa has got it firmly into his head that Charlie is there; he says his mind is quite relieved about him, and that the more he thinks of it, the more he is certain it is so; now I know that it is not so. I got a letter from Helen Mackinnon the day I came here, and there is not a word about Charlie – and she would have been certain to have mentioned him had he been there. I tried to say this to papa, but his head was so full of the other idea that he did not hear me at first, and I couldn’t go on. I whispered to Miss Lance in the studio, and asked her what I should do? She was so troubled and distressed about Charlie that the tears came into her eyes, but, after thinking a moment, she said, ‘Oh, dear child, don’t say anything. Your young friend might have been in a hurry, she might not have thought it necessary to speak of your brother. Oh, don’t let us worry him now! Bad news always comes soon enough, and, of course, he will find it out if it is so.’ Do you think she was right? But, oh Bee, dear Bee, I am afraid you will not think anything she says is right; and yet she is delightful. If only you knew her! Write directly, and tell me all you think.”
Bee was not excited on this second reading. She did not spring to her feet, nor stamp on the floor, or feel inclined to call upon all the infernal gods. But her heart sank down as if it would never rise again, and a great pain took possession of her. Who was this witch, this magician, that everyone who belonged to Bee should be drawn into her toils – even Betty. What could she want with Betty, who was only a little girl, who was her sister’s natural second and support? Bee sat a long time with her head in her hands, letting the fire go out, feeling cold and solitary and miserable, and frightened to death.
CHAPTER VIII
In the afternoon of the next day, Bee was again alone. The old aunt had come down for lunch, but gone up to her room again to rest after that meal. It was a little chilly outside. The children, of course, wrapped up in their warm things, and in the virtue of the English nursery, which shrinks from no east wind, were out for their various walks. The big boys, attended by such of the little boys as could be trusted with these athletes, were taking violent exercise somewhere, and Bee sat by the fire, alone. It is not a place for a girl of twenty. The little pinafore, half made, was on the table beside her. She had a book in her hand. Perhaps had she been a young wife looking for the return of her young husband in the evening, with all the air of the bigger world about him and an abundance of news, and plans, and life, a pretty enough picture might have been made of that cosy fireside retirement.
But even this ideal has ceased to be satisfactory to the present generation. And Bee’s spirits and heart were very low. She had despatched a fiery letter to Betty, and with this all her anger had faded away. She had no courage to do anything. She seemed to have come to an end of all possibilities. She had no longer anyone to fall back upon as a supporter and sympathiser – not even Betty. Even this closest link of nature seemed to have been broken by that enemy.
To have an enemy is not a very common experience in modern life. People may do each other small harms and annoyances, but to most of us the strenuous appeals and damnations of the Psalmist are quite beyond experience. But Bee had come back to the primitive state. She had an enemy who had succeeded in taking from her everything she cared for. Aubrey her betrothed, Charlie, her father, her sister, one after the other in quick succession. It was not yet a year and a half since she first heard this woman’s name, and in that time all these losses had happened. She was not even sure that her mother’s death was not the work of the same subtle foe; indeed, she brought herself to believe that it was at least accelerated by all the trouble and contention brought into the family by her own misery and rebellion – all the work of that woman! Why, why, had Bee been singled out for this fate? A little girl in an English house, like other girls – no worse, no better. Why should she alone in all England have this bitterness of an enemy to make her desolate and break her heart?
While she was thus turning over drearily those dismal thoughts, there was a messenger approaching to point more sharply still the record of these disasters and their cause. Bee had laid down her book in her lap; her thoughts had strayed completely from it and gone back to her own troubles, when the door of the drawing-room opened quietly and a servant announced “Mrs. Leigh.” Mrs. Leigh! It is not an uncommon name. A Mrs. Lee lived in the village, a Mrs. Grantham Lea was the clergyman’s wife in the next parish. Bee drew her breath quickly and composed her looks, but thought of no visitor that could make her heavy heart beat. Not even when the lady came in, a more than middle-aged matron, of solid form and good colour, dressed with the subdued fashionableness appropriate to her age. It was not Mrs. Lee from the village, nor Mrs. Grantham Lea, nor – Yet Bee had seen her before. She rose up a little startled and made a step or two forward.
“You do not know me, Miss Kingsward? I cannot wonder at it, since we met but once, and that in circumstances – Don’t start nor fly, though I see you have recognised me.”
“Indeed I did not think of flying. Will you – will you – sit down.”
“You need not be afraid of me, my poor child,” said Mrs. Leigh.
Aubrey’s mother seated herself and looked with a kind yet troubled look at the girl, who still stood up in the attitude in which she had risen from her chair. “I scarcely saw you the other time,” she said. “It was in the garden. You did not give me a good reception. I should like much, sometime or other, if you would tell me why. I have never made out why. But don’t be afraid; it is not on that subject I have come to you now.”
Bee seated herself. She kept her blue eyes, which seemed expanded and larger than usual, but had none of the former indignant blaze in them, fixed on the old lady’s face.
“Your father is not here, the servant tells me – ”
“No – he is in town,” she answered, faltering, almost too much absorbed by anticipation to reply.
“And you are alone – nobody with you to stand by you?”
“Mrs. Leigh,” said Bee, catching her breath, “I don’t know why you should ask me such questions, or – or be sorry for me. I don’t need anybody to be sorry for me.”
“Poor little girl! We needn’t go into that question. I am sorry for any girl who is motherless, who has to take her mother’s place. I would much rather have spoken to your father had he been here.”
“After all,” said Bee, “my father could say nothing. It is I who must decide for myself.”
She said this with an involuntary betrayal of her consciousness that there could be but one subject between them, and it was not in the power of Aubrey Leigh’s mother, however strongly aware she was of another theme on which she had come to speak, not to note how different was Bee’s reception of her from the other time, when the girl had fled from her presence and would not even hear what she had to say. Bee’s eyes were large and humid and full of an anxiety which was almost wistful. She had the air of refusing to hear with her lips, but eagerly expecting with her whole heart what was about to be said. And she looked so young, so solitary, in her mother’s chair, with a mother’s work lying about, the head of this silent house – that the heart of the elder woman was deeply touched. If little Betty had been like a rose, Bee was almost as white as the cluster of fragrant white narcissus that stood on the table. Poor little girl, so subdued and changed from the little passionate creature who would not hear a word, and whose indignation was stronger than even the zeal of the mother who had come to plead her son’s cause!
Mrs. Leigh drew a little nearer and took Bee’s hand. The girl did not resist, but kept her eyes upon her steadily, watching, her mind in a great turmoil, not knowing what to expect.
“My dear,” said the old lady, “don’t be alarmed. I have not come to speak about Aubrey. I cannot help hoping that one day you will do him justice; but, in the meantime, it is something else that has brought me here. Miss Kingsward – your brother – ”
Bee’s hand, in this lady’s clasp, betrayed her in spite of herself. It became limp and uninterested when she was assured that Aubrey was not in question; and then, at her brother’s name, was snatched suddenly away.
“My brother?” she cried, “Charlie!” Then, subduing herself, “What do you know about him? Oh,” clasping her hands as new light seemed to break upon her, “you have come to tell me some bad news?”
“I hope not. My son found him some time ago, disheartened and unhappy about leaving Oxford. He persuaded him to come and share his rooms. He has been with him more or less all the time, which I hope may be a comfort to you. And then he fell ill. My dear Aubrey has tried to see your father, but in vain, and poor Charlie is not anxious, I fear, to see his father. Yes, he has been ill, but not so seriously that we need fear anything serious. He has shaken off the complaint, but he wants rousing – he wants someone whom he loves. Aubrey sent for me a fortnight ago. He has been well taken care of, there is nothing really wrong. But we cannot persuade him to rouse himself. It is illness that is at the bottom of it all. He would not have left you without news of him, he would not shrink from his father if he were not ill. Bee, I will confess to you that it is Aubrey who has sent me; but don’t be afraid, it is for Charlie’s sake – only for Charlie’s sake. He thinks if you would but come to him – if you would have the courage to come – to your brother, Bee.”
“He – he thinks? Not Charlie – you don’t mean Charlie?” Bee cried.
“Charlie does not seem to wish for anything. We cannot rouse him. We think that the sight of someone he loves – ”
Bee was full of agitation. Her lips quivered; her hands trembled. “Oh, me!” she said; “I am no one. It is not for his sister a boy cares. I do not think I should do him any good. Oh, Charlie, Charlie! all this time that we have been blaming him so, thinking him so cruel, he has been lying ill! If I could do him any good!” she cried, wringing her hands.
“The sight of you would do him good. It is not that he wants a nurse – I have seen to that; but no nurse could rouse him as the sight of some of his own people would. Do not question, my dear, but come – oh, come! He thinks he is cut off from everybody, that his father will never see him, that you must all have turned against him. Words will not convince him, but to see you, that would do so. He would feel that he was not forsaken.”
“Oh, forsaken! How could he think it? He must know that we have been breaking our hearts. It was he who forsook us all.”
Bee had risen again, and stood leaning upon the mantelpiece, too much shaken and agitated to keep still. Though she had thought herself so independent, she had in reality never broken the strained band of domestic subjugation. She had never so much as gone, though it was little more than an hour’s journey, to London on her own authority. The thought of taking such a step startled her. And that she should do this on the word and in the company of Aubrey’s mother – Aubrey, for whom she had once been ready to abandon everything, from whom she had been violently separated, whom she had cast off, flung away from her without hearing a word he had to say! How could she put herself in his way again – go with his mother, accept his services? Bee had acted quickly on the impulse of passion in all that had happened to her before. But she had not known the conflict, the rending asunder of opposite emotions. In the whirl of her thoughts her lover, whom she had cast off, came between her and the brother whom he had succoured. It was to Aubrey’s house, to his very dwelling where he was, that she must go if she went to Charlie. And Charlie wanted her, or at least needed her, lying weak and despairing, waiting for a sign from home. It was difficult to realise her brother so, or to believe, indeed, that he could want her very much, that there was any yearning in his heart towards his own flesh and blood. But Mrs. Leigh thought so, and how could she refuse? How could she refuse? The problem was too much for her. She looked into Mrs. Leigh’s face with an appeal for help.
“My dear,” her companion said, leaving a calm and cool hand upon Bee’s arm, which trembled with nervous excitement, “If you are afraid of meeting Aubrey, compose yourself. Aubrey would rather go to the end of the world than give you any pain, or put himself in your way. We are laying no trap for you – I should not have come if the case had not been urgent. Never would I have come had it been a question of my son; I would not beguile you even for his sake. It is for your brother, Bee; not for Aubrey, not for Aubrey!”
Not for Aubrey! Was that any comfort, was there any strength in that assurance? At all events, these were the words that rang through Bee’s head, as she made her hurried preparations. She had almost repeated them aloud in the hasty explanations she made to Moss upstairs, who was now at the head of the nursery, and to the housekeeper below. To neither of these functionaries did it seem of any solemn importance that Bee should go away for a day or two. There was no objection on their part to being left at the head of affairs. And then Bee felt herself carried along by the whirl of strange excitement and feeling which rather than the less etherial methods of an express train seemed to sweep her through the air of the darkening spring night by Mrs. Leigh’s side. A few hours before she had felt herself the most helpless of dependent creatures, abandoned by all, incapable of doing anything. And now, what was she doing? Rushing into the heart of the conflict, assuming an individual part in it, acting on her own responsibility. She could scarcely believe it was herself who sat there by Mrs. Leigh’s side.
But not for Aubrey, not for Aubrey! This kept ringing in her ears, like the tolling of a bell, through all the other sounds. She sat in one corner of the carriage, and listened to Mrs. Leigh’s explanations, and to the clang of the engine and rush of the train, all mingled together in bewildering confusion. But the other voice filled all space, echoing through everything. Bee felt herself trembling on the edge of a crisis, such as her life had never known. All the world seemed to be set against her, her enemy, perhaps her father, and all the habitual authorities of her young and subject life, now suddenly rising into rebellion. She would have to do and say things which she would not have ventured so much as to think of a little time ago; but whatever she might have to encounter there was to be no renewal to Bee of her own story and meaning. It was not for Aubrey that she was called or wanted – for the succour of others, for sisterly help, for charity and kindness; but not for her own love or life.
