Part 3, Chapter VII
Life and Death
Constancy’s college career ended, as had always been anticipated, with credit, and even with a share of renown. She helped to prove the power of her sex to compete for laurels formerly reserved for the other, and she was made much of accordingly. She was very much pleased, and not greatly surprised, for the kind of power that she possessed is rarely unconscious. It was not through the sense of intellectual failure that the gospel was to come to her. She was not even tired with the hard work, only ready for a holiday, and Kitty and Violet Staunton were glad enough to share it with her.
So off they went, prepared for every sort of exercise and adventure. After about a fortnight of successful sight-seeing the three ladies found themselves in a charming little settlement in a broad mountain valley, which we will here call Zwei-brücken, where cool green rivers rushed through green fields and flowed from the heart of dark, snow-tipped mountains. There were large fawn-coloured oxen and little fawn-coloured goats, houses surprisingly like toy Swiss cottages, and a new hotel in the same style, with the usual variety of tourists. It was a centre for mountain ascents and for excursions, and Constancy and Violet sat under a wide verandah, on the afternoon of their arrival, and watched the groups of travellers.
“Don’t you remember,” said Constancy, “talking about the feeling of London? What’s the feeling of this? It’s green, it’s cool, it’s windy, it’s rushing and fresh.”
“When Guy Waynflete came in in the middle, and we settled about Moorhead,” said Violet, “I was provoked with him this year for not going abroad when he promised, for Cuthbert simply buried himself in the British Museum, and said all the sources of culture were to be found there.”
Constancy did not answer; she had fallen into a dream. She leant her chin on her hand, and looked over the wide valley, while into her open eyes there came the same look with which Florella “saw” the picture in her flowers. At such moments there was a promise for the future in Constancy’s young face of which, with all her successes, the present had shown no performance. Suddenly her intent look brightened.
“The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty,” she exclaimed. “You can’t get ‘back of that.’ Free, free, free! That’s the feeling of it! The river, the wind, the sky – every one out on a holiday, and – the curate there in his flannels, how he enjoys them. It makes one a little mad – Why, Vi! Good gracious!”
For Violet, in startling confirmation of the last words, had suddenly rushed forward and launched herself on the neck of a young man in brown tweed, who was coming up the steps of the verandah.
“Cuth, Cuth! Oh, how lovely! Oh, did you know we were here?”
“I have known long enough to mitigate my alarm at your greeting. Your letters were at the post-office. Yes – here we are. How do you do, Miss Vyner?”
“I shall believe in brain-waves in future,” said Constancy, as she gave him her hand. “I had just recalled a conversation with you and Mr Waynflete, and I see you coming. Is he with you?”
“Yes, at last. His brother thought him overworked, and very sensibly wrote to me to come and carry him off. There he is.”
Constancy had not seen Guy for more than nine months, her last remembrance of him was among the dancers at the Kirkton Hall garden-party, and she realised at once, as he came along the verandah, that the slight youth with his pathetic eyes had grown into a very remarkable person.
“Why – he looks like a mystic, or a martyr!” she thought. “No wonder people turn and look at him. It’s a startling face.”
Guy’s greeting was, however, simple enough. He was cordial, but he smiled his little reserved smile as he said —
“Yes, it was very good of Staunton to wait for me. I couldn’t get away before. When I go back, I hope Godfrey will go to Scotland and get some shooting.”
“And Rawdie? Is he thriving? And have you seen my aunt and Florella? Are they quite settled at Waynflete?”
Guy answered appropriately, and presently took his letters, and went away to study them.
He was still sitting in a quiet corner of the verandah, when Staunton, who had remained to exchange news and plans with his sisters, came in search of him.
“The girls are getting coffee,” he said, “and then they are going to stroll out and see the bridges. Will you come?”
“Better not. I walk so slowly. I’ll come and meet you.”
“Come now,” said Cuthbert. “This trip isn’t quite answering for you. What is it? You must tell me just what you like.”
“Well – new places and so many changing people worry me. He– it looks uncommonly grim and grotesque in new combinations. It spoils the look of the world. It’s a little queer, you know, and tiring. I’m much stronger, really; I can do what I’ve got to do. But I expect that’s about all. It’s months since the real trouble touched me; but I think there’s something more to come – some day.”
“Suppose we find some more out-of-the-way place, and stay there quietly. What you really want is rest.”
“No. I like this place, and everything is really going on well with us. Godfrey shall get out of his hole yet. Oh no, I’m not beaten. We’re not going to the dogs ourselves, nor is Waynflete. And as for other things – well – the world goes wrong with others.”
He glanced at Cuthbert for a moment, then sat upright, and said —
“It won’t do, of course, to shirk any of it. I’ll come. I want to cultivate Miss Constancy, and improve my mind.”
Cuthbert made no demur. He thought that the change, however painful, had not come a moment too soon. He had never favoured the notion of a definite task to be accomplished; a definite foe to be conquered. He could not square such a view with any habit of his mind. But Guy had certainly accomplished something. Was it given to man to do so much, and yet to have more? Cuthbert knew well how sweet the outlook was into “the level of every day,” how natural and healthful were the hopes, and even the fears, that had dawned on Guy’s spirit. But could flowers grow on such a field of battle?
Constancy and her friends intended to spend at least a week at Zwei-brücken.
Guy said that it looked bad to ride when the ladies were walking, but he was able in this way to share in mountain expeditions, and Cuthbert hoped that he enjoyed them. Constancy had always liked him, and was ready to plunge into all the new discussions for which her recent studies had prepared her. She was well aware that he now and then said things which enabled her to think as well as talk, and he argued with her, and drew her out, feeling as if she were a clever and agreeable child. When he cut out a square of tiny flowerets and still tinier growths of leaf and blade, and packed it carefully in a sandwich box to send it home, he felt as if he was laying an offering before a shrine. When he studied the names of the flowers with Constancy, he felt that he had a good comrade in a mountain ramble.
One day something happened to her. She went out alone by a little craggy path behind the hotel, which led along the top of a steep descent to the river. She pursued it thinking of nothing but of adding a new specimen or two to her store of flowers, and presently saw a dog-rose of a peculiarly bright pink, hanging over the edge, and bent to pick it; the stone on which she stepped gave way, and she slid downwards, and stopped herself by catching at the rose just on the edge of – nothing. An inch further, and she would have fallen into the roaring torrent a hundred feet below.
For one awful moment, she believed that she could not turn and save herself; the next, strong, cool, and active, she had cautiously felt for hand and foot hold, and began to climb up again, to find her hand, as she neared the top, enclosed in a firm clasp, while Guy’s voice said —
“Steady; you’re all right. Hold on. I can’t lift you, but I won’t let you go.”
As he spoke, she was safe on the path again, but shaking from head to foot. He drew her away from the edge of the precipice, and she sat down on a bit of rock, and hid her face in her hands. She was mentally, as well as physically, dizzy, and he did not speak to her till she dropped her hands on her lap, and said, with an odd ring in her voice —
“Well! I was nearly killed!”
“Your nerve saved you. You were nearly safe when I came up, but it was an awkward place. Remember, you can’t be too careful on a mountain.”
“Well!” she said again, “I thought I should be killed; I thought of everything. I thought of the bit in the college magazine about me – about my being found – and Florella – ”
“Yes,” said Guy, “one does think, in such moments, of the dearest.”
Constancy was silent. A deep crimson blush burned over her face and neck down to her very finger-tips.
Suddenly she turned, and looked up in his face.
“If I had been killed, there’d have been an end of me to all intents and purposes. I don’t care for anything that could go on. Oh, I don’t mean anything about opinions; but there couldn’t be anything afterwards that’s real to me. There couldn’t be anything that I want.”
“You have found that out,” said Guy.
“I never thought about God at all,” she said abruptly. “He never came into my head!”
“Well, He has come now,” said Guy.
She recognised his tone of conviction. Thoughts, speculations, flashed into her mind, at last, not as words, but as facts.
“Well,” she cried again, “if I didn’t believe in Him, I’d have stood to it, and not been afraid. But I do – I always have – and yet I just forgot Him – then.”
“But not now,” said Guy. “I think I ought to take you back,” he added; “you ought to rest, and recover yourself.”
“I’ll go back,” she said, standing up. “But I’m quite well.”
She walked on slowly beside him; but presently broke out again.
“You’ve been very ill, I know. Did you think then that to die, and leave off everything would be – horrid?”
“No,” he answered. “For one thing, when I’ve been in danger, I’ve been too bad to know it. But I do know what it is to face – destruction. And certainly there is something beyond it.”
She turned round to him as they came up to the hotel.
“I’m awfully obliged to you,” she said, in girlish speech, but in a deeply moved voice.
“You’ll not tell any one, will you? I want to think about it quietly.”
Guy promised, and they came back on to the verandah together.
Part 3, Chapter VIII
Mr Van Brunt
There was a little commotion in front of the verandah, caused by some new arrivals, as Guy and Constancy approached it from the side. A stout lady in a bonnet and a handsome travelling-cloak, came up the steps, looked round her, and made a sudden rush towards them.
“My dear Guy! Oh, what a delightful surprise! I never was so glad to see any one. After all these months, it is indeed a relief to see some one of the family.”
And Mrs Joshua Palmer seized Guy’s hands, and all but embraced him; a ceremony he had carefully avoided from his earliest childhood.
“Why, Cousin Susan! I didn’t know you were still abroad. I’m very glad to see you,” he said, astonished at this effusive greeting.
“And Miss Vyner? How do you do, my love? Well, Guy, and how are you? and is dear Godfrey here too? Jeanie, Jeanie, here’s your cousin.”
Jeanie, blooming, and very well turned out, came up also with outstretched hand.
“How d’ye do, Guy? I’m very glad we’ve met you.”
“You look very warm, Cousin Susan,” said Guy; “won’t you sit down and have some coffee? I suppose your courier – you have one, I see – has engaged your rooms?”
“Oh, my dear Guy, that is part of the pleasure of seeing you. For I am quite certain that courier is a cheat, and if you, with your head for figures, would only look at our bills – ” Here she tore open a travelling-bag, and thrust a bundle of papers into his hands. “I can speak to you…”
“Well, mother,” said Jeanie, “you never would allow any one else to help you to manage, however well accustomed they were to travelling.”
“No, Jeanie,” said Mrs Palmer, emphatically, “that I certainly would not.”
Constancy, unable for once to come to the front, sat down at a little distance. She heard Jeanie, with a much readier, and more assured manner than of old, saying all the things to the Stauntons that might be expected from a young lady on her travels. She said that the mountains were perfectly sweet, and so were the cows and the peasants. Mother got into fusses sometimes, but it did not matter; she was quite happy when she could sit down. They had met charming people. Constancy felt a frightful conviction that, if she spoke, she should cry.
After the manner of her day, and of her kind, however, she got over her agitation for herself. She never could have supposed that the sight and sound of Jeanie would be so aggravating. No more than she could have guessed beforehand, that the one face that would flash before her mental vision in that supreme moment, when life and death had hung in the balance, would be Godfrey’s, angry and miserable, as it had looked at her from the doorway at Moorhead, or in the dim light of the Stauntons’ drawing-room. That had come to her, and that was all.
Constancy endured this self-revelation in silence. She had not, at any rate, revealed this to Guy, in the moment of impulsive confidence that had ensued. What had induced her to say so much? She remembered that, in one of the discussions in which she delighted, she had cheerfully asked him what he thought Tennyson had meant by “the abysmal deeps of personality,” and he had answered dryly —
“I haven’t quite sounded them – yet.”
It had passed for a jest; but as she recalled the short, unexpected sentences with which he had answered her, she felt that he had meant it for a statement of fact, and of very remarkable fact too. It was characteristic of her that she speculated about Guy even at this moment of personal emotion.
She gave herself a little mental shake, and turned to get ready for the table-d’hôte.
She had never been really unhappy in her life before. She had never really been beset by a thought that prevented her from thinking of what she wished to think of, and claimed her for its own.
Guy disliked the fatigue of the long dinner, and rarely attended it. He was sitting in his favourite corner, when a movement made him aware that people were coming out again, and Mrs Palmer, in much smarter clothes than of old, but with an unmistakable air of Ingleby and home, came and sat down by him.
“My dear Guy,” she said, “you’re one of the family, and I want to confide in you.”
Guy was not given to consider himself as one of the Palmers, but he accepted the compliment, and said —
“Is anything the matter, Cousin Susan?”
“Well, yes, Guy. I think there’s a great deal the matter. Indeed, perhaps it’s my duty to write to Mr Matthew; but he isn’t exactly considerate at a distance.”
Guy allowed that this might be the case.
“And – my responsibilities are great with Jeanie, so much admired and an heiress. And I’m quite sure there’s nothing to be gained by going out of one’s own circle, especially among foreigners and Americans – people of no character at all.”
Guy said that this charge was rather sweeping.
“Was there any American in particular?”
“Yes; there is a Mr Van Brunt. He has been most attentive, and followed us about. I shouldn’t be surprised if he came here. He speaks of himself as a man of fortune, and says his father has a great dry-goods store in Chicago. It doesn’t sound well – a store is a shop – very different from a mill. And, besides, if there’s one thing I like it’s constancy; and poor Godfrey at home in England – such cruel treatment for him, after that week at the Rabys.”
“But, Cousin Susan, it’s quite as easy to inquire about a man in Chicago as in London. Of course he ought to give a reference. And as for constancy,” – Guy could not help a little smile as he spoke, – “of course Godfrey knows that Jeanie is perfectly free. Our affairs made that imperative.”
“Oh, my dear Guy, I’d rather trust Palmer Brothers, in difficulties, than all the dry-goods stores in America out of them. Do reason with her, my dear Guy, and plead Godfrey’s cause. Jeanie is a very good girl; but, of course, she feels her independence. Couldn’t Godfrey come out, and look after his own interests?”
Guy was capable of hearing a good deal without committing himself. He would not promise to reason with Jeanie, nor to telegraph to Godfrey; but he agreed to interview Mr Van Brunt, and in his secret heart, he hoped that that dry-goods store in Chicago might prove to be solvent, and its owner’s character and intentions clear as the day, and that his duty as “one of the family” would not be to protect Jeanie from the snares of an adventurer.
There were sounds of arrival late that night, and when he came down the next morning, Jeanie waylaid him on the stairs, looking, in spite of her smart tailor-made frock and well-dressed hair, very like the shy Jeanie of the Mill House, Ingleby.
“Oh, Guy,” she said, “mother’s been talking to you – and please – I’ve got something to say. It’s your brother’s own fault, if I’ve changed my mind. Besides, I hadn’t seen anything of society then. I’ve quite a right, it was settled I had – to choose for myself.”
“Certainly,” said Guy, leading the way out on to the verandah. “I’ve promised your mother to talk to Mr Van Brunt, if he comes.”
“He has come,” said Jeanie, meekly. “He came after we went to bed last night. Oh,” – sitting down at one of the little tables laid for breakfast, and making a pattern on the tablecloth with the rolls – “people are silly – and – and there was ever so much nonsense at Kirkton. But there – Godfrey won’t be disappointed. I’m sure, if he had wanted to come back, he never would have stopped away because you were ill. Any one may give away roses to anybody. But when you leave them behind on your dressing-table, and they come down in the vase, to be done up for the next person – well, you don’t care very much anyhow. Oh – oh – you didn’t stay long at Munich, Mr Van Brunt – good morning. This is my cousin – Mr Waynflete.”
A slender, dark-haired young man, with bright eyes behind a pair of pince-nez, made Guy a formal bow, and Jeanie vanished, while her “cousin,” considerably embarrassed, bowed much less gracefully, and remarked that it was a fine morning.
“It is so,” remarked the American; “but, Mr Waynflete, I’m very glad to make your acquaintance, understanding that you take quite the place of a brother to Miss Palmer.”
“Well – a – not exactly,” began Guy, thinking that Jeanie must have come down very early to produce this understanding.
“She assures me that, if you are satisfied, her mother’s scruples will be set at rest. Allow me to make it clear. Here is my card – Lawrence P. Van Brunt. I refer to my bankers, – and – , London, and to the American Minister in Great Britain, also the British Consul at Chicago. I – I dare say I may seem hurried, but I came over a month ago on business, and must cross again in a fortnight.”
He laid a row of papers and letters of introduction beside the rolls on the table.
“I – I don’t care what I do to post you up in my circumstances – it’s all perfectly square, I assure you. And Miss Palmer allows me to hope.”
“I see no reason why you should not apply to Miss Palmer’s uncle and trustee,” said Guy, after a little more had passed.
“Yes; but I’m told you have great influence with her mamma!” said the young American, wistfully.
“I didn’t know it,” said Guy; but he met the stranger’s eyes, and they both laughed. “Won’t you have some breakfast? Staunton, this is a friend of Mrs Palmer’s, Mr Van Brunt. Have you ordered coffee?”
Mr Van Brunt swept up his papers, and sat cheerfully down, proceeding to make himself very agreeable. The other little tables filled. Jeanie and her mother sat at one some way off. Constancy, with her friends, watched curiously, till the stranger, as soon as he politely could, edged off towards the object of his attraction.
“Eh what?” said Staunton, as the grave Guy for once went off into a hearty fit of laughter.
“Oh, I say!” he said; “it was quite outfacing. Fancy playing heavy father to Jeanie! I’d better wire to Godfrey at once.”
The energetic American produced a Continental Bradshaw, and proposed to start that afternoon to interview Mr Matthew. First, however, he went to walk with Jeanie.
And poor Cousin Susan, wiping her eyes, and with a heart full of feelings, of which the young ones took little enough heed, exclaimed, as she finally yielded the point —
“Oh, Guy, dear aunt would have thought me so weak. Chicago!”
The party soon dispersed. Jeanie and her mother followed the ardent lover home to Rilston; Constancy and her friends pursued their intended path among the heights of the Tyrol; while the good-hearted Cuthbert managed to find sources of culture wherever he fancied that Guy was most at ease.
Godfrey was evidently ashamed to express relief on paper, and simply wrote, “I shall begin again,” but there was new purpose in every line of his letters, and most affectionate promises of keeping everything straight, if Guy would only stay away, get strong, and enjoy himself.
Guy said no more about himself; but he had little ways which showed his friend that he still had something to undergo. The steady look round in a fresh place, the shading hand over his eyes, the trick he had of finding a special corner, and of keeping to it, with his face turned one way, were significant; and he was more silent and quiet than ever; but also much more gentle. Cuthbert hardly knew how, one still bright evening, when some trifle recalled his own past, he found himself telling the story long buried even from himself.
Guy listened, looking at him with his searching eyes.
“Does it all seem over?” he said.
“Ah well,” said Cuthbert, with a long sigh, “I can’t say no. For average people like me, death is parting for the present, and as to the future – I’ll leave it in the Hands that frame it. But for me, the moss has grown over her grave, I’m not unhappy, but I think the kind of business is over for me. No, Gladys was quite human, it all belonged to this good earth of ours, and it was very good – while it lasted – and worth while.”
“Love does not belong to earth,” said Guy; “it is never over.”
“Ah, my boy,” said Cuthbert, “not for you, perhaps; but I’m a blind old earthworm, and my soul doesn’t soar. Yours is a blessed conviction.”
“Yes,” said Guy; “it is. But it isn’t quite so sweet – as – as having it now.”
He moved hurriedly away. He had gained a “blessed conviction.” But it is very hard to feel as well as to know, that the soul is worth the whole world, the whole “good earth,” as Cuthbert truly called it.
He came home early in August, with much-improved physical health, to find Godfrey like another man, full of the prospects of the business, and as he shortly expressed it, “out of his hole.” Rawdie was in raptures.
“He has got along,” said Godfrey, “by worrying cats and hiding bones. But he will sleep on your bed, and sit on your slippers. Just look at the sentimental little beggar, cuddling into your waistcoat.”
Guy sat down when his brother left him, in his old corner in the study, with Rawdie on his knee, and looked round him. The sense of constant effort slipped away from him.
“I can do here,” he said to himself, in his northern idiom, “I’m used to it. One must pay the price.”