Chapter Thirty One
Commonplace
“Really, Amethyst, I don’t see how I am to manage, if we pay many more visits. You see, all my things were got for the season, and I haven’t got an autumn gown or jacket that’s fit to be seen; and I can’t go to a hunt-breakfast in a summer hat, and just look at this one.”
The speaker was Una Haredale, one lovely autumn day in late October, as she stood by the wardrobe in her bedroom in Mrs Lorrimore’s country house, and displayed its contents ruefully to her sister.
The view from the window had all the charm of exquisite rural peace. The woods in every tint of gold and russet stretched away over wide outspreading country beyond the green slopes of the park where single trees blazed and shone in their autumn dresses; cattle and sheep dotted the grass between and beneath them. Restharrow, as the house was called, looked the very home of quiet and virtuous content. But the house-party who were staying with Mrs Lorrimore contrived to amuse themselves, and Restharrow was not regarded as a quiet house.
“Well, Una, I don’t know what is to be done. I haven’t an idea how long my lady means to leave us here, and stay at the Fitzpatricks’. I’ve got exactly seven and sixpence left, and if mother sends us more money – she must, of course, before we go away – heaven knows where she will get it from. You must wear my grey hat and jacket to-morrow, and your own red skirt.”
“And you?”
“I’ll do with the brown tweed. Who is there to see that matters?”
“How I hate this house!” said Una, dropping into a straw chair by the window, and stretching her arms above her head.
“I don’t think its as bad as the Fitzpatricks’.”
“Perhaps not, when the card-playing set is there, but it’s more rowdy. I never did see the fun of chasing men up and down stairs, and setting booby-traps in their bedrooms.”
“Nothing would ever induce me to do such a thing,” said Amethyst scornfully.
“You have only to choose what you will do. They’ll all come after you for the sake of saying afterwards they’ve been in with you. But – I shall never be a good girl, Amethyst. I can’t keep out of the fray. I want them to talk to me, and I know how to make them. Then one gets led on. No, I don’t bear-fight and romp; but oh, Amethyst, I talk – I say such horrid things – just things that make people stare and wonder if I can mean it. Oh, how I hate men!” stamping her foot. “They delight in making girls sail near the wind, and then, how they talk of us! That’s what Tony used to make me do when I was little. How he used to laugh! And the books,” went on Una, after a pause. “When do we ever see one, French or English, that you’d like Sylvester Riddell, or any nice man, to see you read? Oh, if men in general liked girls to be decent, how easy goodness would be!”
“Well,” said Amethyst, “if we are to be good, it certainly won’t be because we don’t hear of wickedness, either in books or in real life. But I wouldn’t say what I was ashamed of, to please any one. And I’m sure, darling, you hardly ever do.”
“You’re a sweet comforter,” said Una, kissing her. “My dear old mother-confessor! But really I sometimes hear things that make me think that my lady brought us up in a pattern way. Well, I believe Mr and Mrs Jackson are pattern people, so let us hope the hunt-breakfast will be highly proper too. Half an hour before lunch. I’ll do some sewing.”
“You are a pattern girl about your East End work, at any rate.”
“Oh, but, Amethyst, I like to hear from Miss Waterhouse about the girls. I do feel as if I exactly understood how hard it is for them to be good, when they want so to be bad, you see, and know just how; and how getting fond of her is such a help to them. And she tells them that I care when she gives them the things I make. If I only worked better!”
This was the fourth of a set of visits which Amethyst and Una had paid, sometimes alone, and sometimes with their mother. One of these visits had been to the Fowlers at the country house which was part of Mrs Fowlers fortune, and, little as the girls had wished to go there, they had found Mrs Fowler far the kindest friend they met in their wandering life. She was very good to the lonely girls, though they never knew in what light Major Fowler had represented their story to her; and Una was loyal and brave, and resisted even the temptation of not being tempted by notice from her host But the visit was a great strain on her, she felt the force of the temptations in her path, and did not know what upward growth was indicated by her knowing them to be temptations. She was too young and too impressionable not to be influenced by the atmosphere around her; outward helps were very few, and the struggle was hard within her. Still there were moments of peace, times which taught her what a holy life might be, times which upheld and uplifted her, the poor sinful girl who was trying to be a saint.
Amethyst’s troubles were of a different sort. She had left Cleverley with several growing purposes and intentions, and with a strong desire, an earnest wish to win that nobleness of character of which Mr Riddell had spoken, a wish that had always been as salt within her, but which Sylvester had touched with fire. She threw all the weight of her beauty on the side of maidenly conduct and modest speech, and there was neither man nor woman in the free-and-easy, careless-tongued set among whom she moved, who would take a liberty with Amethyst Haredale. But she was bored to death. There was nothing to do, nothing to know, nothing to feel. She was like a wild, strong creature in a cage. She worked at her Latin and mathematics in the early morning, she played tennis with vigorous interest in the game, and none in her partners, she took long walks by herself, but everything was dull, stale, flat, and unprofitable. The rebellion in her soul grew more and more violent. There were hours when she came to wish that she had resisted Sylvester and married Sir Richard. Anything would have been better than the life she had to lead now.
She heard occasionally from Miss Riddell, and had so been told of the terrible accident to Lucian Leigh, and of his almost fatal illness, but the same letter contained also better news, and since then she had heard that he was slowly recovering. She had been shocked and startled, but it was difficult to realise Lucian as otherwise than well and strong, and no details had been given to her.
Her natural good spirits often got the upper hand of her burden of discontent, and when all the house-party started for the meet at Mr Jackson’s place, Beechgrove, in a bright sparkling morning under brown trees and blue sky, amid golden and tawny ferns and ruddy hedgerows, she enjoyed herself as if she had never known a care. The red coats, the dogs, and the horses, the noise and the bustle of a hunting morning were delightful to her, and she had never looked more blooming and full of life than when she went into the house at Beechgrove to breakfast, followed by Una. Mrs Jackson received the two handsome young strangers pleasantly, and called to her son to come and wait on them and take care of them.
“As you have nothing else to do, Wilfred,” she said smiling.
Young Mr Jackson was pale and very lame, and it was explained that he was only just getting over a bad accident which had invalided him for some time.
“Stopped all my fun in the Rocky Mountains, Miss Haredale,” he said, “where I had gone on the jolliest trip, and I mustn’t ride all this winter. Hard lines, isn’t it?”
“Very hard,” said Amethyst, feeling that the accident in the Rocky Mountains was not quite new to her, though she could not recall how she had heard of it.
“Have you heard of poor Leigh lately, Jackson?” said another young man across the table.
“Oh, yes,” said Wilfred Jackson, with sudden gravity. “Riddell, his friend, who has been with him, you know, wrote to me yesterday. He is better, and able to walk a little, and they have got away from Edinburgh and down to Bournemouth. I believe he is to go abroad for the winter. It has been a frightful business.”
“Were you with Mr Leigh in the Rocky Mountains? He is a neighbour of ours at Cleverley,” said Amethyst.
“Ah, you know him? Yes, and I spoiled his trip by getting my back hurt. He gave it up to look after me. Never was such a good fellow. I can’t take in the idea of his being helpless and ill himself.”
“But you are having better accounts of him. I never heard exactly how he was hurt?”
“Nor I, in detail. He fell over the cliffs in the Orkneys. There was some internal strain which has caused frightful suffering, and besides, one of the ribs, which were broken, pierced the lungs so that he cannot breathe, or speak, without pain. They brought him back to Edinburgh in his yacht, where his mother met him. He is wonderfully patient and plucky, Riddell says – that he was sure to be. They are very anxious, but I can’t help hoping and thinking – don’t you, Miss Haredale? – that any fellow so young and strong must get over it. I was very bad last summer, and I shall soon be right again now.”
There was a warm-hearted simplicity in the young man’s manner, as he spoke of his friend, that was very engaging; but his last words tightened Amethyst’s breath, and made her fingers cold. Not get over it! Lucian! She had never dreamed of such a possibility. Una struck into the conversation, and asked a few more questions, eliciting a good deal of information as to the accident in America, and as to Lucian’s present condition. To Wilfred Jackson he was evidently a hero.
“I hope to be quite strong by Christmas,” he said, “and no trouble to anybody. Then I shall go out and see him. Riddell is going back to Oxford, he seems anxious at leaving Mrs Leigh alone. But my father’s on the move, Miss Haredale; will you come out?”
As Amethyst stood on the steps at the front door, and looked out again on the gay scene of active, vigorous life, she recalled how Lucian had once planned taking his bride to such a meeting in his own county, and had discoursed on the perfect horse he would get for her, and directed her taste as to the kind of habit in which he thought it correct for a lady to ride. She had always pictured him in some sort of active exertion. When she thought of him lying prostrate, the contrast, and the pity of it, gave her a new sense of the sadness and the mystery of life. There was no time, however, for sad thoughts. She and Una were asked to go in a large brake with Wilfred Jackson and one of his sisters and some other girls who were not mounted. The meet was as much for show as for business, and there was time to drive about the beautiful park and to chatter pleasantly over the little incidents of the occasion.
Miss Jackson was an engaging girl, and Amethyst and Una felt that they were in another and a wholesomer world than that in which they lived at Restharrow. Presently it appeared that, as everything possible must be done to amuse Wilfred Jackson while he was lame, and deprived of his usual resources, some tableaux vivants and charades were in prospect, and it was soon hinted that if the Miss Haredales would come and help in getting them up, it would be too delightful.
Amethyst, of course, referred the matter to Mrs Lorrimore, a good-natured woman, who was only too glad that her young guests should enjoy themselves, and the result was a great deal of going backwards and forwards, and once, a visit of two or three days to Beechgrove.
The Jacksons were a large family, prosperous, merry, and affectionate. Una, at any rate, had never known people of the same kind before, nor had she ever been so gay and so like other girls in her life. The acquaintance gave her that fresh start which is often so good and wholesome. She struck up a friendship with the girl nearest her own age, and forgot her sins and her sorrows in the natural, genial companionship. She became on intimate terms with Wilfred, and in his company learned to laugh because she was gay, and not because she was scornful.
The acquaintance with the Leighs was of recent date, and Lucian’s past history was evidently unknown. He was a great hero to Wilfred’s sisters, and when a cheerful account of him arrived from Mrs Leigh to her son’s friend, they all rejoiced as if he had been their brother.
Amethyst and Una had one point in common with their mother; they were quite capable of keeping their own counsel when they thought it desirable.
Chapter Thirty Two
An Interest in Life
When the tableaux at Beechgrove were over, and the girls came back to Restharrow, Amethyst, felt as if she had had enough of the Jacksons for the present. She gave herself no airs, but, fresh and unworn as were her impulses for work or study, the beauty of the season had learned to expect more from society than very amateurish acting, and boy and girl dancing and flirting of the simplest kind. She was not vain enough to enjoy indiscriminate admiration, and indeed, took it as a matter of course. She found a letter from her mother, summoning herself and Una to join her in a few days’ time, to start immediately for the south of France. Lady Haredale was delighted to think that her dear girls had been having a good time. Mrs Lorrimore was the kindest of women. If Amethyst had not quite enough money for the journey to London, she had better ask her hostess to advance it. Lady Haredale was in a hurry to catch the post.
Amethyst tossed the letter into a drawer, and gave a vicious stamp with the white slippers which she had just put on, and then ran hastily down-stairs to dinner. The hall at Restharrow was the gathering-place of the company, and as Amethyst came down the stairs dressed all in white, she saw, among the guests gathered picturesquely round the fire, the slight alert figure and peculiar face of Oliver Carisbrooke. He came right up to the foot of the staircase to meet her, and greeted her with marked and eager interest.
“I am not disappointed; you are here still?” he said. “Oh, but it is good to see you.”
Amethyst hardly knew how to answer. He claimed her and appropriated her, standing by her side until he was told to take her in to dinner, and then setting himself at once to talk to her in tones meant for her ear only.
“So you are here,” he said; “and is it well? Have you regrets?”
“Not for London,” said Amethyst, surprised at his manner.
“No,” he said, “you were not born to live in a gilded cage. You couldn’t have endured it long. Oh, do you know how I watched you? I did not mean to let you marry Grattan. I would have stopped you – before it was too late.”
“I don’t see how you could have anything to do with it, Mr Carisbrooke.”
“You are angry? I am making you angry on purpose. Every word I say to you is for an end of my own. Then there was your boy lover. I was afraid of him till I saw him with you. Then I had no fears at all. But I couldn’t stand the thought that you might be still bound in heart to a fellow who had had scruples about you, who cared one iota to know what you had done– when he knew you. Then there was the young poet. Of course he was in love with you, but there wasn’t stuff enough in dream-love for you. I weighed them all in the balance. For you see, I know you.”
“Hardly well enough to say so much,” said Amethyst; but he struck in —
“Ah, wait, you will not be angry with me soon. But it’s time all that was over. Now we have met again, mayn’t we have one of our old discussions about the value of life, and the good things of life? What is the next thing for you now? Are you going to learn Greek, or hospital nursing, or what?”
“I shall learn Greek,” said Amethyst. “I mean to use my brains.”
“And when the Greek is learnt?”
“Then I’ll teach it.”
He smiled, and suddenly changing the conversation entirely, began to talk about a new play.
Amethyst felt a little angry with him, but she was no longer dull, and she wondered much what he would do next.
Restharrow was a house where every one did as they liked, and, in the evening, the large party scattered about among the different rooms. Mr Carisbrooke came up to Amethyst, and said, “Come with me;” and, quite careless as to whether they were noticed or not, he led the way into a little morning-room and shut the door.
Amethyst felt bewildered. The room was full of firelight and red-shaded lamp-light, and Oliver Carisbrooke stood in the warm glow with his deep-set, peculiar eyes fixed full upon her.
“Amethyst,” he said, “commonplace and conventional doings are not for you. I am playing a bold game, and I think – I think – I shall win it. I’m not going to pretend that I am what you call a good man, there are plenty to tell you the contrary; but I am going to tell you that, after all I have known and done, I love you passionately. Even you cannot give me a first love. What do I care? You shall love me now. I defy any one to say that I have let trifles stop me when my heart is set on a purpose. Are you thinking of your half-sister? She was too weak a creature to venture anything for my sake. But after I saw you, I said, Here is my fate. So I managed for my niece to join you, and I set to work on a plan. I caught your attention with talk that surprised you. No other man ever dreamed of such love for you. I soon saw that there was no chance, but by one bold stroke to tell you so. You can understand me. You know that we can give each other life.”
“I – I don’t think I am in love with you,” stammered Amethyst in a broken, childish voice, and with eyes fixed, as if fascinated, on his face.
“No, darling, but you shall be. Besides, you have not yet heard what I ask of you. I don’t imagine that your father would let you marry me now. I tell you plainly, I cannot marry – in a short time I shall have the means to do so. You know I have been abroad settling my affairs, and when I got back I was resolved that I would not wait a moment before letting you know that all there is of me is yours. Others may shrink from your father and brother’s reputation. I care for it so little that I am not afraid to allude to it in your presence. Tell me that I don’t love you in vain, tell me – Ah, you think I am mad, that I am too bold. Is that possible?”
“I cannot – answer – in a minute,” said Amethyst. “I never thought you were more than a friend.”
“But I was a friend?” he said, taking her hand and coming closer. “And I want to teach you what a friend can be. You need not promise, there is nothing to tell the world about at present. But we will be friends; we understand each other, we can talk and write – as friends. You can throw me over if you like, by and by. But I have laid my heart open to you, and I think – I think you have felt that the world is a dull place with no love in it.”
“Oh, it is!” burst from Amethyst’s lips. “My life is very dreary.”
“Your life dreary. Never any more, my darling; we will make each other’s happiness now.”
“Amethyst!”
The door was pushed open, and Una came quickly into the room. She went right up to her sister, and stood by her side.
“I had lost you,” she said anxiously.
Amethyst caught hold of her hand, while Mr Carisbrooke turned upon her with a sort of fury.
“Your sister is with me,” he said.
“Mr Carisbrooke,” said Amethyst, “I cannot say a word now. You cannot take me prisoner all in a minute;” and, still holding Una’s hand, she darted back to the protection of the rest of the company.
“He is a bad man, Amethyst,” said Una passionately, when they were up-stairs alone. “He led Blanche, heaven knows where; and he sacrificed Carrie to Charles to get near to you. And you know the tales we heard of him were true.”
“Yes, he says so,” said Amethyst.
“You don’t love him? You don’t want to marry him? You have never thought of him all this time?”
But Amethyst tossed about all night in restless excitement. Love, in a complex nature, is a complex thing, and though she was not quite in love with Oliver Carisbrooke, he had truly said that he could teach her to be so. She was fascinated by him, and, when she remembered how nearly she had sacrificed her life to worldly ambition, it is impossible to exaggerate the attraction which this heat of daring passion, this indifference to consequences, had for her.
Once again a strong appeal had been made to her to change her course of life. Sylvester had appealed to her sense of right, in utter self-forgetfulness, and had won the day. He had given her conscience strength. She heard his voice now – “I would rather see you die than do it.”
This man appealed to sensation, emotion, passion, to every force within her that makes life or mars it, to that intensifying of the feelings which she had hoped Lucian might bring back to her, and which the sight of him had left cold and dead. But did she respond to the appeal? What was the feeling that drew her to him, that made her long to grant at least “the friendship” he asked for?
Suddenly back into her mind there came a day at Cleverley, and a speech of her mother’s, the full meaning of which she did not then understand. Lady Haredale was reading a letter from Tony.
“You know, darling,” she had said in her sweet voice, “he is devoted to me, poor fellow; and it does give an interest in life to feel one’s self so necessary. It’s quite a woman’s vocation.”
“It’s the same thing,” cried Amethyst to herself, starting up in bed. “I want an interest in life! I am like her!” and she shuddered from head to foot. Poor child, who feared to be like her mother!
Her clear brain came to her aid once more. It was no true love with which Oliver Carisbrooke inspired her. She wanted an interest in life, and it was in her nature to find it as her mother – and her sister – had done before her. She was clever enough to know it, noble enough to despise herself for it; but she was Lady Haredale’s daughter, and she felt it. Would she have strength to resist it?
“Well,” she thought, “I had better die than do it.”
When Una came in the next morning, full of misgivings, Amethyst was up and dressed, and held a note in her hand. The window was flung open, and the fresh cold air was blowing in. She was pale, as if she had cried all night. She showed Una the note.
“No —never.
“Amethyst Haredale.”
“Now, give that to the servant for him,” she said, “and never, never speak to me about it again. I fight awfully hard. Some day I shall be beaten.”
Amethyst had no rejoicing sense of freedom in escaping from this second snare. The straight path was cold and dull, and there were pitfalls on either side. To avoid being like Lady Haredale was not quite what Mr Riddell had meant by a “great inspiration.” She did not feel in the least the better for the victory she had won.
She sat down and put up her hands over her tired eyes, on which Oliver Carisbrooke’s passionate face had seemed to print itself. She was too tired to think; but his words echoed in her ears —
“The young poet’s was only a dream-love, not substantial enough for you.”
Amethyst dropped her hands and started up.
“Oh, I am sick of lovers,” she said angrily. “None of them are any good.”
The sun broke out through the mist of the autumn morning, the bells from the church in the village rang a merry chime through the open window. Amethyst turned her back on the smiling prospect. The morning bells had no message of hope for her.