Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Sue Fleming and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) MRS. SEVERN MRS. SEVERN. A NOVEL BY MARY E. CARTER, AUTHOR OF 'JULIET' 'SIN COMES TO US FIRST AS A _TRAVELLER_; IF ADMITTED, IT WILL SOON BECOME A _GUEST_; IMPORTUNATE TO RESIDE, AND IF ALLOWED SO FAR, WILL SOON AND FINALLY BECOME _MASTER_ OF THE HOUSE' _IN THREE VOLUMES_ _VOL. I_ [Illustration] LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, PUBLISHERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN MDCCCLXXXIX _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_ CONTENTS PART I PROLOGUE PAGE AT ROCOZANNE, JERSEY 1 CHAPTER I OLD LAFER 19 CHAPTER II A MIDSUMMER EVENING 39 CHAPTER III BORLASE IS ABSENT-MINDED 55 CHAPTER IV JOY AND SORROW JOIN HANDS 70 CHAPTER V OVER THE HILLS 87 CHAPTER VI CYNTHIA MARLOWE 108 CHAPTER VII AT THE MIRES 133 CHAPTER VIII 'SIN THE TRAVELLER' 150 CHAPTER IX LETTERS 170 CHAPTER X OPINIONS AT LAFER HALL 190 CHAPTER XI NEW LIGHTS ON OLD SUBJECTS 206 CHAPTER XII COUNTER-OPINIONS AT OLD LAFER 230 CHAPTER XIII SCILLA REASONS WITH HARTAS 253 MRS. SEVERN PART I PROLOGUE AT ROCOZANNE, JERSEY 'It's very good of you to have met me, Ambrose.' 'But very unnecessary?' Mr. Severn laughed consciously, but re-covered himself by spreading his broad palm below his nostrils, and smoothing, with a slow downward movement, the close-cut moustache and beard that concealed his lips and chin. It was a new habit, but the growth also was new, and Ambrose was surprised to find that it took ten years from his age. 'Well, you know I told you not to meet me.' 'You did, and you don't say for civility's sake what you don't mean. There are some folk who believe in a system of formal introductions in Heaven itself. If you'd wished for company to St. Brelade's you would have left the point to my notions of propriety. However, I'll reassure you. I am going into town with the returning train.' 'I'll wait and see you off.' 'And do as you please about driving. If you prefer to walk, the dog-cart will wait for me.' 'Thanks, I should prefer to walk,' said Mr. Severn. They had reached the end of the platform and now turned back towards the bay. Its waves were tossing with spray-crested edges into which gulls with the sun on their wings were dipping. In the distance a vista of sun-rays streamed over St. Helier's, lying low along the shore with its fortified heights in shadow against the blackness of a storm sweeping up from the West. It was high tide, and Elizabeth Castle was surrounded by a rolling sea. A curve of yellow sand, with here and there a martello tower, marked the coast-line. The air was full of the rush of the waves and the sough of a rising wind. 'If ever I marry, I don't think I shall act on your experience of the previous forty hours,' said Ambrose Piton, as they strolled back to the train with a few more leisurely people. 'A drive of five miles from your Yorkshire moors at Old Lafer to the nearest station, Wonston, I suppose--a rush down England to Southampton, ten hours' pitching in a dirty sea, by our caterpillar of a train to St. Aubin's here, and finally a three miles' walk. By Jove, you must be feeling rather done up.' 'Oh no, I'm accustomed to such journeys. I did precisely the same with the exception of this final walk when I came out to Jersey five months ago and had the good fortune to fall in with Miss Hugo. You'll probably not be a man of fifty, overwhelmed with other people's business, when you marry, Ambrose. It's this walk to Rocozanne that amuses you,' he added, with a genial smile. 'You think it inconsistent with a lover's ardour that I should not go as fast as your good mare would take me. The truth is, I want an hour's leisure. When one marries a second time and is my age, and it is a young girl who is good enough to take one, the responsibilities are much greater than when two young people marry; one has more misgiving, you know, about one's wife being happy. Since I won Clothilde I have scarcely had time to realise my good fortune. Through this journey I've struggled with correspondence that would be arrears of work if left over next week. And now a walk will freshen me up and adjust my thoughts to a proper balance, since to-morrow, please God, I shall be married. My age must be the excuse for what yours takes for lukewarmness.' 'I don't think you lukewarm,' said Piton bluntly. 'But I'll tell you what, sir, you at fifty are more simple-minded than I at twenty-five.' 'Simple-minded? How? I don't understand.' 'You call a spade a spade and you think it is one,' said Piton lamely, yet with a desperate resolution that showed a serious undercurrent of thought. 'Of course, being straightforward. You would yourself.' 'Oh, certainly,' said Piton with trepidation. 'Here comes the engine,' he added with awkward haste as he jumped on to the train. 'One moment--how is she?' 'Clothilde? Very well.' 'And Anna? It's very good of you and Mr. Piton to let us carry little Anna off.' 'Yes it is,' said Piton. 'But they've never been separated though they're only half-sisters. And though Anna's my father's niece and Clothilde is not, and we should like to have her at Rocozanne, we know she'll be better with a woman; and as we've only servants about, it seems right that she should go with Clothilde. But my father has explained all this,' he added, smiling. 'It's a bit of a sore point, we begrudge her to you.' 'She must come often to Rocozanne.' 'Of course. Now we're off. Don't miss your road.' 'I know the short cuts,' said Mr. Severn, as he turned away. Piton laughed and waved his hand. Then as he leant forward and watched him walk up the platform, his face became serious. He was a good-looking young fellow. Judging from his usual expression of easy good-nature, the lines of his life had fallen in pleasant places. But now he wore a look that passed from pain to disgust and resentment. 'If ever there were a good fellow in this world, it's Severn,' he thought; 'and that's just what makes him fool enough to think himself unworthy of any woman who seems lovable. I wonder when he'll begin to see into Clothilde's genuine moral structure. Thank Heaven, he'll not be marred though he may be maimed; he's made of sterner stuff than he'll know of till the occasion comes, and he's very fond of Anna, and nothing'll spoil Anna, not even Clothilde. If I thought she would, we'd keep her at Rocozanne after all. I longed to blurt out the truth and tell him of Clothilde's engagement to that poor fellow in India. She doesn't care a straw for Severn. What heart she has is in the Punjaub; but because it's given to a poor man she plays it false. And she wrote him a letter only yesterday, in the old style! I wish Severn had heard her tell me so--such confounded coolness! A bird in the hand, et cetera. She'll keep in with Danby until the register's signed with Severn; if there were a slip at the last moment the compromising intelligence would never reach the far East, and if she didn't take up with some one else, she might wait after all. But where would be the use of telling Severn? It would only make him confoundedly miserable and scandalise my father, who thinks she's had an amicable disagreement with the Punjaub, and leave her to cajole some one else. Her beauty would do it. By Jove, she _is_ beautiful, but she'll never look for Severn what she looked for Danby! Heaven knows what might become of her if my father refused to have her here again. She won't work as a music-teacher, not she! She's dilettante, not enthusiast. Those moors Severn talks of will be a safe place for her; her wings'll be clipped and she'll be out of the way of mischief-making. I only hope he'll soon show the master-hand and guide her by sheer force of example into honesty.' When Mr. Severn left the station he struck up the ravine behind St. Aubin's where the road inland ran. As he passed the tumble-down, crooked old stone houses, whose gloomy dampness made them scarcely fit for cattle, various old crones and children came out to stare at him. There was not so tall a man on the island. They knew nothing of Anakims as personified in Yorkshire dalesmen. His height, his massive limbs and breadth of shoulder, his jet-black hair, fresh colour and gleaming teeth, were a revelation to them. A group of market-people waiting at the station for CorbiÃ¨re pressed up to the railings and made audible remarks. They were in French, however, and he did not understand. Seeing them look interested, he nodded, then raised his hat. He was less interested in them than he had been a little earlier by a water-wheel against the road which imprisoned a silvery stream that shot over the edge of a brambly bank above. A little farther on was a quarry, over whose stone he stood some moments speculating. It struck into the heart of the hill, an ochreous blotch against the dense velvetiness of the furze. A man in a blue blouse was chipping at its base. These touched at once his love of colour, and his instincts as steward for a large estate where earths and rocks were in constant consideration. There was a short cut below the quarry to St. Brelade's, but he did not take it. He and Clothilde Hugo had not taken the short cuts when together, and he remembered a point on the road which she had showed him from whence there was a glimpse of the white houses of St. Helier's gleaming against the amethystine sea in a land-locked setting. He went round by the road and loitered a little, thinking of her. How good it was of her to take him! What faith she showed in him! He fully realised the isolation of the home to which marriage with him would condemn her. He was not only much older than she but was impressed by the sense of their different social positions. He had risen from small tenant-farmer to the stewardship of Admiral Marlowe's estates, and she was of a good old family that ranked high among the aristocracy of proud Guernsey. He could give her comfort but not luxury. She was beautiful, she was clever. Would she feel herself buried at Old Lafer, or would his affection atone for the loss of social congenialities and throw a glamour over the eeriness of winter storms and the loneliness of summer sunshine? The innate poetry of his nature had enthroned her as a flower among flowers at Rocozanne. He should never forget the wealth of bloom in the garden when he entered it on his first visit, the glow of colour from plants that were tropical compared to the homely herbs and posies of Old Lafer. It had dazzled him. The white house, the blaze of geranium, the scent of heliotrope, the lap of the sea that quivered in the sun like the million facets of diamonds, the heat mists that bathed the cliffs, the mellow mushroom tints of the old church beyond the evergreen oaks whose glossy denseness of foliage threw the whole picture into high relief, had impressed him with the perception of brilliancy and ease and luxury. Clothilde, rising slowly and gracefully from a low chair in the shade of the trees and coming towards him with outstretched hands, gave the touch of human nature which at once subordinated all to itself. Her eyes shone with welcome. Little Anna, running from the gate into the churchyard betwixt whose bars she had been playing with the grave-digger's dog, slid her fingers into his palm and stared at him with an elfish gaze from beneath her breeze-blown hair. Clothilde stooped, smoothed the hair and kissed the child's forehead. The action sealed Mr. Severn's fate. The November twilight was deepening when he reached the highest point of his walk to-day. A few more steps took him to the edge of the cliffs above St. Brelade's bay. The sun had set, leaving lurid gleams piercing a fringe of cloud that seemed to have been torn from the thicker clouds above, and would soon hide the sky-line in a driving mist of rain. The wind was increasing. Sheets of foam dashed against Noirmont, the bay was a waste of tumbled water driving on to the beach. His gaze travelled across it to the church nestling at the foot of a gorge full of chestnuts and evergreen oaks. He could distinguish the bulk of its tower against the hill. The sea-wall that buttressed the grave-yard was continued along the terrace garden of Rocozanne. But he could not distinguish Rocozanne until suddenly a light flared out from a window, and after a fitful gleam or two, settled there. His heart leapt at the sight of that light. He pleased himself by imagining that Clothilde had placed it on the sill perhaps to guide him to her side. His thoughts flew to the many nights when she would watch for him at Old Lafer. No more lonely evenings there for him, no more comfortless home-comings to dull and empty rooms. Good God! to think this beloved and beautiful presence was to be his guiding star. But he must hurry now. It was certain Clothilde would be expecting him, pressing her face to the glass and watching the road. Had it been daylight she could have seen him silhouetted on the cliff edge. She might expect he was driving and be growing anxious at the delay. He walked on rapidly, the beat of his heart keeping time with his steps, his thoughts full of vows and resolutions to compass her lifelong happiness so far as was in his power. He remembered that once, on a previous visit he had found her thus looking out when Ambrose and he had walked late one night. The slight anxiety had then given her a pinched whiteness which changed to a blush the moment her eyes lit on them coming up the steps from the beach into the garden. She was at the door before they were. The tide was not yet too high to admit of his going up the steps to-day. Perhaps she would again open the door for him. He was in the village now, and soon traversing it, went down the sand-bank to the beach, of which a strip was still bare of more sea than the yeasty flakes flying on the wind. Another moment and he had mounted the steps. They were overhung by a mass of chrysanthemums in full bloom. He stepped between two clumps of pampas grass into the garden and faced the low white front of Rocozanne. All was quiet and at the moment dark. He stood motionless, listening. Then he perceived that the front door was wide open. The next moment a glimmer of light fell high upon the walls within and gradually diffused itself as a figure came slowly down the stairs. It was Clothilde Hugo. She was carrying a lamp, and as she reached the lowest step, it illumined her strongly. She was tall and slender. Her face was pale, with exquisitely cut features, and was set above a throat of matchless curves. A loose mass of dark wavy hair was parted above a low white brow. Her sombre eyes gained lustrous depths by the intensity of her unconscious gaze into the outside gloom. She wore a black dress, long, flowing, and plain as the fashion then was. It was cut low, and a ribbon of vividest scarlet velvet was round her throat. Sleeves hanging from the elbow showed beautifully modelled arms, and a scarlet band clasped her waist. She put the lamp upon the table and stood, half-turned to the door, listening. Oh! if only he could have known the vital fear gnawing at her heart-strings--he was late; had he not come, had he heard anything, _was he not coming_? Would she have to wait for Lucius Danby after all? Well, she had not dismissed Lucius yet, that letter would only go after she was another man's wife; he need never know---- 'Clothilde!' It was Mr. Severn's voice. He was close to her, so close indeed that his eager eyes, dimmed with happiness, had no time to see a swift convulsive shadow that swept over her face, seeming to recall her from some pleasant dream to a reality that was repugnant to every sense. For a moment she stood motionless as though paralysed. He seized her hands. They were icy-cold. 'Clothilde,' he said again, 'my darling, my----' She turned. Another instant and she was in his arms and had thrown her arms round his neck. No! no! she had not longed for Lucius! _This_ was what she had wanted. The haunting fear lest it should fail her was gone--a fear she would never have known had she not failed another. But he did not know this. He thought she truly loved him and him only. CHAPTER I OLD LAFER 'Now children, come in; bed-time!' 'Oh Anna!' came in a muffled reproachful chorus as four lap-cocks in the meadow into which Anna Hugo was looking over the garden wall at Old Lafer, sat up and revealed four children. Three were girls, by name Antoinette, Emmeline, and Joan. All were handsome--with creamy skins, dark eyes, and curly brown hair hanging to their waists over holland smocks. These smocks were cut low at the neck and short-sleeved, allowing rebellious shoulders to push themselves with shrugs and twists from their confinement and showing dimpled, nut-brown elbows. Anna smiled as the children pushed back their hair and turned their flushed faces to her. She wondered whose voice would be the first to protest against her hard-heartedness. 'We're playing at graves,' said Emmeline timidly, winks and nods having failed to make Antoinette take the lead. 'For the very last time this year,' said Antoinette. 'Because this is the very last hay left out at Old Lafer; Elias says so,' said Jack. 'Well, of course it is,' said Antoinette; 'haven't we played graves in all the other fields in turn, silly boy?' 'Elias won't be long now, Anna,' said Emmeline. 'He's clearing the last sledge-load by the beck, and the game is he should guess which lap-cock is which of us.' 'And when he guesses right we give him a kiss,' said Joan. 'I don't,' said Jack. 'Because you're only a boy,' said Antoinette, whose vocation it seemed to snub Jack and thus temper any yielding to him as the only boy, to which others might be tempted. 'You may wait,' said Anna hastily, and as they re-covered themselves with hay with much subdued tittering and exhortations to caution, and calling out to Anna to be sure and say if a nose or foot were left visible, she climbed to the top of the wall and sat down. The sun was low--a few moments more and it would sink below the moor behind the house. The shadows lay long on the grass. The garden was to the right of the front door, whose flight of uneven steps led down upon flags bright with golden bosses of stone-crop. Old Lafer had a long frontage and a steep thatched roof with deep eaves where swallows loved to build. The two rows of windows were latticed with leaded panes; monthly roses reached to the sills of the lower ones. A thick growth of ivy round the door was climbing to the eaves at the end of the house farthest from the garden, heightening the rough effect of the lichened stone. Below it a little stream, clear and cold as crystal, issued from beneath the dairy and slipped down the flags in a runnel, murmuring softly as though eager to hide in the fern-fringed trough on the other side of the wall. The walls were all full of rue, and polypody, and crane's-bill--a growth of years--which no one was allowed to touch. There was nothing Mr. Severn valued more about the place than its bits of untutored nature. He had a horror of the pruning-knife, which Elias would have applied ruthlessly to lilacs and thorns, clipping them back to look tidy. These, edging the fir clump that sheltered Old Lafer from the north, were allowed to overhang the garden, their wild sprays of bloom following in fragrance close upon the wall-flowers that grew in a thick border under the windows of the best parlour. The garden had been made for the best parlour years ago when Old Lafer was the Hall and the Marlowes lived there. It was full of old-fashioned flowers and herbs, a garden for bees to go mad in. Mr. Severn had a row of hives under the sunniest wall, and before the ling was in blow the bees boomed to and fro all day on wings that should have been tipsy if they were not. When the ling was ablow the garden knew them no more. It was the end of July, and there was a flush on the moors which rolled abruptly to the sky-line behind the house. In front the meadows dipped into the valley of the Woss, then rose again to the village of East Lafer. After this, foliage and cultivation increased. The plain stretching away to the wolds was varied with fallow and stubble and pasture. Its tints were opalescent. Anna loved better the deep blue shadows that lurked in every hollow of the hills, showing their mouldings and intensifying their sunshine. When Elias Constantine came up the slope from the beck, he was ahead of the sledge. His rake was over his shoulder and he leant on a holly stick. He did not wait for the pony, straining every muscle to land its load, but casually remarking, 'Hi, come up, Jane my bonny one!' made for the lap-cocks. He looked up to the business, and winked at Anna as much as to say so. He lumbered round, prodding one after the other and contriving to gather some hint for his guesses. He was never random and hated to be wrong. His keen old eyes did not deceive him now. When Jane reached them they were all ready to go up the field together, the girls shaking hay-seeds out of their hair, Jack pushing fodder under Jane's nose each time Elias 'breathed' her. 'I'm so sorry all our hay's in,' said Antoinette, looking across the beck to fields still in swathe and pike. 'You wouldn't be if you'd the getting of it,' said Elias. 'It's a rarely exercising time for watching the weather and the wankly ways o' Providence wi' shower and shine.' 'Lias, why won't Jane eat this hay?' asked Jack, whose wisps were snuffed at and disdained. 'Because she's full.' 'Oh! you ought to say she's had plenty; Anna says so,' said Joan. 'Danged if I ought to say otherwise than I do, missie.' 'Oh! what a jolly word, banged!' said Jack. 'I reckon I was wrong there,' said Elias sheepishly. 'It wasn't banged, there's nothing to bang,' said Antoinette. 'I know there are no doors out here, Netta----' 'Now you mean Dinah when she's cross. For shame, Jack.' 'I lay that's when some one's crossed her,' said Elias, who as Dinah's husband not only knew how doors could bang but was loyal in his excuses. They had reached the stile now and Elias sent them over it. In his opinion Miss Anna had waited quite long enough for the 'baÃ¤rns.' Not a bit of quiet had she had that day and she must be longing for it. She was as the apple of his eye. Mrs. Severn might be a handsome lady but she did not 'act handsome.' He begrudged calling 'Missis' one who was only such as 'Master's' wife, and in spite of Dinah's exhortations to conventional respect he very rarely did call her 'Missis'; she was generally 'Clo' in his vocabulary. What was there of the mistress in a woman whose time was spent in a hammock under the trees in summer, and on the sofa in winter, twiddling on a guitar or fiddle or playing with her children, while her husband ordered the dinners, made up the tradesmen's books, and at nights had his rest broken by acting as head-nurse? There had been no comfort about the place until Miss Anna had left school. Yet Mr. Severn adored his wife! It 'maddled' him how a man of sense could be so daft! His opinion of him would have sunk several degrees had he not adored Miss Anna too and thus redeemed his character from the charge of being taken by good looks. Even Elias knew she was not handsome by the side of Mrs. Severn and her children, but she had a smile and a sparkle in her eyes such as Mrs. Severn never had. Anna jumped from the wall, and crossing the garden met the children on the flags. They all trailed through the hall and up the shallow oak stairs, talking in whispers lest mother or baby were asleep. At the top various strips of old-fashioned corded drugget led to the several bedroom doors. Mrs. Severn's door was ajar and Jack and Anna peeped in together, he peering round her skirts and shaking his curly head for the benefit of the others. There was no sound or movement. The room was low, heavily-furnished with mahogany and looked dark. A settee covered with red dimity was drawn across one window. Its cushions were piled high at one end, and on them rested a dark head and the ivory-like profile of a face on which fell the last soft gleams of sunshine. 'Clothilde,' said Anna gently. There was no answer but she advanced, and leaning over the back of the settee she found that Mrs. Severn's eyes were wide open. 'Come in, children, mother's awake,' she said. The door was flung wide and they all trooped in and up to the cot where the baby lay. 'Ah! Clothilde,' said Anna, 'there's none so deaf as those who won't hear, is there now? I was certain you were awake but you feel lazy, and the longer you lie here the lazier you will feel! The heat, added to that constitutional tendency, is stupefying, isn't it?' She spoke satirically and smiled, but at the same moment tried to arrange the cushions more comfortably. Mrs. Severn, however, pushed her away and sat up. 'You always think me lazy when I'm tired; you are a tiresome contradictious creature,' she said. 'No, I don't, not always. But you would never be so tired if you were not so lazy, which thing is a paradox! And you look so strong and well to-night----' 'Strong! I never look strong, Anna; you might as well say robust at once. And you know I never look vulgar.' 'Dearest, who said a word about vulgarity? I only meant as much as I said. If to look strong means to be vulgar, then I am so and thank God for it. But you do look well to-night, and if Mr. Borlase saw you I'm certain he would say you were well. When are you going to delight our eyes by being in the parlour again, you beautiful woman? What an ugly duckling I am among you all, only Elias to comfort me with his "divine plain face of a woman." Perhaps mine may develop into that phase.' She had taken up a brush from the dressing-table and loosened Mrs. Severn's hair. Brushed back from her forehead it swept the cushions in a dark cloudy mass. Her face was as pale as marble, for now there was no sunshine to tinge it. Its expression was one of statuesque repose. The perfect features admitted of no play of thought or feeling; they were not only blank as an empty page but suggested the inner blank of utter self-absorption. She looked dreamy and apathetic. Her eyes seemed larger but were no longer bright; their lustre was quenched as though an impalpable mist were drawn over them. One felt that whether in joy or sorrow her face would remain the same. But its beauty and refinement of chiselled repose was heightened into absolute fascination by that preoccupied indifference. It roused speculation. What had it been as a child's face? Had no emotion in girlhood overwhelmed the abstraction, or had some overwhelming emotion fixed it there? Would she grow old and still wear it? Death could not enhance its calm. Borlase, her doctor, giving her skilled attention in her hours of agony, felt with a strange shiver that even in her agony she was, in some strange way, impersonal--her epitaph, what could be more appropriate than this, 'She died as she had lived, coldly?' And now Anna's deft fingers had gathered up the rich hair and were plaiting it into plaits to coil high on her head with a tiara-like effect. Mrs. Severn had raised herself to admit of this manipulation and watched it in a glass which Anna had put into her hands. When it was complete Anna stood back and surveyed her, her own face lit up with proud and enthusiastic delight. But this delight did not affect Mrs. Severn, who had been pondering over her last words. 'I don't believe in the divine getting inextricably mixed with the human,' she said. 'That's sheer perversity. You not only rob me of my crumb of comfort but make yourself out to be heterodox. I don't believe, moreover, that you ever have thought about it.' 'That is true.' 'Yes, you might say with Hodge, "I mostly thinks o' nowt." Hodge, digging, is excusable, for there's no inspiration in the mould where the only variety is in the size of the stones and the worms that he turns up. But you are so different. I'm sure you would be happier if you were busier--"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."' Mrs. Severn listlessly submitted to the vehement kiss with which Anna finished her lecture. 'When you quote Satan I am at home, but I know nothing of Hodge,' she said in her slow mellifluous voice. Anna laughed. It was like demonstrating logic to a jelly-fish to argue with Clothilde. 'I really believe that's a fact,' she said, 'though Hodge lives at your doors, and we'll hope Satan has no foothold in the neighbourhood. But how profane we are! How shocked Canon Tremenheere would be if he heard us! By the bye, do you know his sister Julia's husband is dead--died after a few weeks' illness?' 'What could she expect when she married again?' 'He was a strong man and she has been so ailing. What sorrows she has had!' 'Sorrows? And if she has, she has had great joys too.' 'Oh Clothilde! Well, let us hope that will console her now. Do you think it would console you?' 'Me? How can I say, Anna? I know neither, I have had neither. The superlative does not enter into my experience of life.' 'It's your own fault then, dearest,' said Anna wistfully. 'Life is what we make it. Joy won't come unbidden; we must help to prepare the ground or there'll only be a weedy plant that will wither in the sun. The joys of one are the cares of another. I suppose Dad and the children are cares to you.' Mrs. Severn was silent. Anna turned, and leaning against the window looked down into the garden. Its midsummer brilliancy had faded with the sunshine, and the tangle of flowers, missing the caresses of breeze and sun and bees, looked subdued and shame-faced. At least so she fancied. A dewy sweetness hung above, floating up to her in incense-like whiffs. The landscape was becoming neutral. Above the valley there spread, as she looked, a haze of blue smoke from a cottage by the beck at the corner where it tumbled into the Woss. 'Mr. Borlase rode past about six,' said Mrs. Severn suddenly. She scrutinised Anna as she spoke. 'He would be going into Wherndale. Perhaps he'll come in for supper on his way home. Dad will be back soon.' 'You might let him see baby, she's been restless. But John is not coming home to-night. I've had a note from the office; he's gone to Scotland on business, something important occurred, and nothing would satisfy the Admiral but that he should start at once. And there's a letter from Rocozanne, from Ambrose, somewhere,' she added vaguely, searching in the folds of her dressing-gown. As that was useless she got up, and, while shaking her draperies, discovered it on the floor. Anna picked it up. It was addressed to her. She turned it over, half expecting to find the seal broken. Mrs. Severn had had a habit of opening all the Rocozanne letters until lately, when Anna had firmly expostulated. This, however, was intact. 'Why didn't you send it down?' said Anna. 'How long have you had it? You could have thrown it out when you heard me in the garden. You must have heard me there.' 'It was enclosed and I forgot it. John's news upset me. Really, the Admiral might have a little consideration for me. Now read the letter, Anna. Is there any news from Rocozanne? I suppose the Kerrs' yacht won't have got to Jersey yet; they can't have seen Miss Marlowe?' 'Oh dear no! They were only leaving Zante on the 15th. But I haven't time to read it now,' said Anna. Reproach had kindled an unexpected brilliancy over her whole face, and she looked at Mrs. Severn with eyes that suddenly glowed with finely controlled anger. 'Every one is busy because of the hay, and I'm going to see the children to bed. Come, children, kiss mother. What, Joan, pick-a-pack?' She knelt for Joan to clasp her neck, then tucking her little fat legs under her arms, rose and careered on to the landing. Joan was not too tired to gurgle with laughter at the jogging. The others ran after them, having dabbed random kisses on Mrs. Severn's face and throat. They left the door wide open in spite of her charge to them to shut it. 'Netta, Jack, Jack,' she called. But they were heedless. She watched them dart across the landing, and listened to the dying away down a passage of steps and voices. Then a door banged, raising reverberating echoes in the rambling old house, and when they died away, all was still. She got up and closed the door herself. As she re-crossed the room she did not pause at her baby's cot, but went up to the mirror and stood before it for some moments, thinking how admirably these loose white draperies set off her dark hair and sombre eyes. She had a strong impression that she ought to have been a prophetess, or a tragic singer. Nature had overlooked her own opportunities. There is a difference between being created and being a creation. CHAPTER II A MIDSUMMER EVENING An hour later Anna crossed the flags, reading Ambrose Piton's letter. It was long and she stood some time engrossed in it, but at last she folded it and slipped it into her pocket with a sigh of decided relief. Then, mounting the stile, she jumped down into the meadow. At that moment she caught the sound of a horse cantering along the road. It stopped and a gate clicked, then fell to with a clash that roused the dogs. She knew it must be Mr. Borlase. Standing on tiptoe she looked through the hedge, expecting he would turn off to the stable. But he did not. He scanned the garden and the fields, and seeing the glimmer of her white dress between the bars of the stile, rode up and stood in his stirrups, looking over. Her eyes met his with a laughing glance of defiance. 'Don't speak. Let me anticipate your remark. I know it,' she said. 'You may anticipate anything agreeable.' '"The grass is dewy, your feet will be wet, Miss Hugo."' He laughed, glancing down at his horse's head and flicking a fly from its ear, then back at her with a swift sidelong look of admiration. It was lost upon her for she was standing on the stile surveying her shoes. 'They are wet,' she said. 'Of course they are. You must take them off instantly.' 'If you had not come, I should have had a walk by the beck.' 'Well, you are not going to walk now and must take them off.' 'Yes, I will, directly;' then patting his horse she added, 'My sister wants you to see baby, at least she did an hour ago. She saw you ride past, into the Dale, I suppose.' 'Now, Miss Hugo, there should not be all this difference between _instantly_ and _directly_,' said Borlase. He swung off his horse, drew her hand from its neck, and interposed himself between them. 'Must I put up while you speak to Mrs. Severn?' 'And change my shoes? Then you need not dream of a new and unruly patient at Old Lafer. I shall be very glad if you'll stay for supper, but Dad is away.' They had reached the door. Without waiting for an answer she ran up the steps and vanished. Borlase stood staring into the hall, where whitewash and black oak alternated. Through an open door at the end he heard Elias reading aloud to Dinah, who meanwhile bustled about between the kitchen and the dairy, or slipped into her clogs and clattered into the fold-yard or buildings. He read aloud every night and she never ceased from work to listen. Borlase had often laughed in thinking of the extraordinary jumble of curtailed facts with which her mind must be stored. But to-night he was in no humour for laughter. On the contrary their simplicity struck him as pathetic. Our own moods colour the actions of others and he was suddenly feeling depressed and disappointed. Not only was he baulked in his intention of spending the evening at Old Lafer but Anna had been far from shy when she asked him to do so. It was useless to have exerted that delightful bit of authority over her in the matter of the shoes. She neither resented nor encouraged whatever he might do. His pulses had been stirred by the touch of her hand, a touch he had longed to make significant. She had taken it as a matter of course. Would she never perceive what he wanted of her? And now she reappeared. 'You are not to see baby,' she said from half-way down the stairs. 'But do come in, won't you?' 'Not to-night,' he said, going round his horse to tighten the saddle-girths. He glanced up involuntarily at the windows of Mrs. Severn's room. But no one was visible. Yet he had an impression that they were watched. 'I have got a new song that suits my voice exactly. Clothilde is going to accompany it,' said Anna. 'I will wait until then to hear it.' 'I thought you did not care for her accompaniments.' 'I don't, as a rule. But it does not signify much, either way.' 'I've heard you declare that everything, the most trivial, ought to have a decided significance in one direction,' said Anna, after a little pause of astonishment. 'So I have, I believe.' 'And I know you have a great contempt for inconsistency.' 'Yes.' 'You once said it was the brand of our human nature.' 'I must have been in a grandiloquent or dogmatic mood. Perhaps I often am. However, it is true. It is also its bane, and I confess I am guilty of it.' 'Oh no, I don't think so. I know you really prefer the piano with singing to either violin or guitar, but you are harassed over something, a bad case perhaps, and you don't care for music of any kind to-night. Forgive me for teasing a little.' There was a music in her tones for which he cared! She was standing on the steps with her hands behind her, and having busied himself with the saddle to a degree which he knew was ridiculous, he turned and glanced at her. She was critically examining his work; being able to ride bare-backed at a hand-gallop herself, she understood the points both of horse and accoutrements. He got his look at her, unperceived. It sent the blood from his face. 'How marvellously dear she is to me!' he thought, and was thankful to be able to think it coherently. He still had power over himself when he could frame his knowledge into words. He reasoned over it too. She was plain, she was little--not the ideal woman of his dreams. But his ideal woman had vanished long ago, and in her place--he knew well when--had come Anna Hugo with her heavy-browed, square-jawed face, her unruly mass of coarse dark hair, her deep-set scrutinising eyes, and that play of expression which tantalised him into wanting to know her every thought, because it showed him so many. Preparing to mount he glanced at her again. This time their eyes met. Hers were eloquent with unembarrassed kindness. His had a distressed look to which self-control gave a hardness unaccountable to her except on the one presumption. He was certainly in trouble. They were friends, she might be able to give a lighter turn to his thoughts. 'Let me walk to the gate with you,' she said. 'I want to hear about your ride.' He read her like a book and smiled at the artlessness of her arts. Yet how cruel she could be because she thought more for others than of herself! Use had strengthened her original nature by binding its second nature upon her. She arranged, comforted, disciplined, befriended, the whole household at Old Lafer; and he, who knew of what contradictious elements it consisted, knew too that she had lost sight of self in determined efforts to control them to unity and concord. This had made her old for her years, and she unconsciously treated as younger many who were older than herself, a grievance with which he had once charged her. But she had not understood. The knitting of her brows as she puzzled over it made him laugh at last. He told her emotion would have to teach her his meaning, and the question, who would rouse that emotion, had since disquieted himself. Borlase had been to the Mires to see old Hartas Kendrew. It was a name which clouded Anna's face for a moment, and made him avoid glancing at her as he uttered it. But the next moment she turned to him with the brightest of smiles. 'Did you ever hear of the burying he and his wife once went to?' she said. 'It was when buryings were buryings and finished off with rum. It had poured with rain all day and the waters were out. Jinny and Hartas had to cross a beck. They rode pillion and they were both drowsy, and it was comfortable to know the horse would find its own way home. They forgot the beck would be out, and could not hear its roar for the wind. Suddenly Jinny woke, feeling very cold, and saying "Not a drap more, thank you kindly, not a drap more." They were in the water, and it was the flood at their lips, not another glass of rum.' 'Good Heavens, what a shave! Did they get out?' said Borlase. 'Oh no! both were washed away and drowned.' 'But Hartas----?' 'Yes. He lived to tell the tale.' 'Then his wife was drowned? Well, he did cleverly to scramble out.' 'No.' Borlase suddenly awoke to find himself puzzled. He looked suspiciously at Anna, walking unconcernedly beside him with her head averted. 'Then why did you say they were?' he asked. 'Why did you ask, when you had seen one of them in the flesh an hour ago?' said Anna, laughing. Borlase was silent. The indictment was too obvious; another point for the dissection of his inner consciousness. 'One's imagination always flies to a catastrophe rather than good fortune,' said Anna. 'Not always,' said Borlase sharply. 'I never imagined on the moor to-night that Mr. Severn would be away after market at Wonston and I could not spend the evening with you.' 'But why not?' said Anna. 'I asked you and I told you of my new song. I thought as you declined you were in a hurry home.' 'If I had been in a hurry home I should have been there now.' It was Anna's turn to be silent. Her resources suddenly seemed exhausted, the argument attenuated. They had reached the gate. Borlase fumbled with the hasp, trying to secure a few moments for thought. He had known Anna many years and for the greater part of that time he had loved her. But he had resolved not to ask her to be his wife until he was his own master. At present he was still in partnership with the leading medical man in Wonston but in another year the partnership would expire and he would be independent and able to offer her such a home as he could think worthy of her. When he came to Old Lafer to-night he had not meant to precipitate matters but now he felt urged not to miss this opportunity, wholly unexpected and tempting as it was. He glanced at her with the resentment of desperation. She was looking across the road into the ferny depths of an oak planting where twilight gave the vistas a dreamy quietude. How could she be so calm when he was so overwrought? Would she never perceive his feeling? What a help a touch of shyness in her manner would be! He dreaded lest speech should forfeit her friendliness and gain nothing in its place, but still more lest his own inaction now should paralyse his resolution and unman him. 'She shall refuse me; perhaps a second time she would accept me,' he thought. 'Rather than that I should wrong her and myself any longer by not facing the truth, I'll be manly and ask her outright; at any rate it'll make her think of me.' He opened the gate and she advanced with a smile to shake hands. He turned abruptly. There was a look on his face which she had never seen before. She stood transfixed, involuntarily gazing at him, scarcely conscious that his searching look was wholly concentrated on her and expressed an earnestness that the next moment struck her as overwhelmingly pathetic in a man. In that moment the tension of her figure relaxed, vivid colour rushed over her face, her eyes fell, veiling undreamt-of tears. It was her first self-consciousness and it stirred her unutterably, thrilled to the depths of her heart. She felt rather than heard that he was coming near to her. She had clutched the gate with one hand, for so sudden was the rush of this new tide of feeling that it dizzied her, the world swam before her. His voice, with a new tone in it whose vibration seemed to strike music into life--the music of love, of marriage, of lifelong companionship, reached her as in a dream. He was speaking, still with that look of ardent devotion fixed upon her. This was no dream. She heard, she saw. But that was all to-night. Mrs. Severn's voice broke into the midst of his eager speech. Both heard it and turned, startled. 'Anna, Anna!' she called. She was standing at her open window, beckoning. Anna was alarmed, but Borlase was suspicious. 'Don't go,' he said, seizing her hand. 'I must. She wants me.' 'Oh Anna, so do I. But 'twill be a new habit for you to want me. Well, I'll wait.' 'Until I go and come?' 'Just so,' he said and laughed joyously. But she was already blushing at her own words, and his laugh, setting free as it seemed to do his own wild emotion and her surrender, made her shrink into herself. 'Oh! not to-night. How could I come back to-night? It's getting late, it's----' she said incoherently, and wrung her hand out of his. Not before he had bent close to her. 'But I _shall_ wait. I have and I will in every way,' he said in a whisper. She gave him one glance, hurried, misty; a smile set in
{'title': 'Mrs. Severn: A Novel, Vol. 1 (of 3) by Mary Elizabeth Carter', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}