MISS FARRELL did not add to her pupil’s trouble. When she heard the state of affairs, she gave up with noble magnanimity her intention of going away. “You must not ask me to meet any one—till the visitors come,” she said. “I shall remain to give you what help I can; but you know my rule. When I am treated with rudeness, I make no complaint, I take no offence, but I go away.”
“You would not have the heart to desert me,” Winifred said.
“No, that is just how it is—I have not the heart; but I will take my meals in my room, my dear. Your dear father”—habit was too strong in Miss Farrell’s mind even for resentment—“no doubt his meaning was quite innocent; but we can’t meet again—at all events for the present,” she added, with much dignity.
“So long as you do not forsake me,” cried Winnie, and Miss Farrell, touched, declared “I will never forsake you!” with fervour.
This added an element which was tragi-comic to Winifred’s distress. With all the grave and terrible things that surrounded her, the misery of her new position, the sense of falsehood in her tacit acceptance of all her father was doing, her fears for him, the chill of alarm of another kind with which Edward’s composure filled her—there was something ludicrous in having to provide for Miss Farrell’s retirement into her own rooms, and the two different spheres thus established in the house. Perhaps it gave her a little relief in the more serious miseries that were always so near. It threw a slight aspect of the fictitious into the sombre air of the house, which seemed charged with trouble.
But in the meantime the preparations went on for the expected guests. Mr. Chester meant that they should be received magnificently. Some of the rooms were entirely refurnished with a luxury and wealth of upholstering enough to fill even a millionaire with envy. Nothing so fine existed in the county as the two rooms which were being ornamented for the use of the very active-minded and energetic woman who was the young Earl’s mother. To describe the sensation with which Winifred saw all this is well-nigh impossible. She had been made to consent in consequence of the arguments used by the very man whose interests were assailed. But for Edward she would have refused to be any party to the proposed arrangement—and now she asked herself how far it was to go? Was she to be forced to consent if a further proposal were made to her? Was she to be driven to the very church door, in order to avert an evil which began, to her, every day to appear more visionary? Could it be that Edward—Edward himself, who had always been the soul of honour in her eyes—had lent himself to the conspiracy against her? Her heart cried out so against the coil of falsehood in which her feet seemed to be caught that life truly became a misery to her—false to her brothers, false to her father, false to herself. She could not say false to Edward, since it was Edward himself who exacted this extraordinary proof of devotion. Every principle in her being rose up against it as it went on from day to day. She asked herself whether it was doing a less wrong to her father thus to deceive him by pretended submission than to tell him the truth even at the risk of an illness. And he had not to her the least air of being ill. He was a strong man, stronger than almost any other man of his age, more ruddy, more active. Her head swam with the multitude of her thoughts. Winifred’s mind was too simple and straightforward to accept that idea of faith unfaithful. It became like a yoke of iron upon her shoulders. Mr. Chester grew stronger and more active, and louder and gayer every day; while she faded and shrank visibly, unable to make any head against that sea of troubles that carried her soul away.
The eve of the appointed visit had arrived, and all the preparations were complete. Mr. Chester insisted that his daughter should go with him over all the redecorated rooms to see the effect. “You think perhaps that this is all for my lady’s gratification,” he said; “that’s a mistake. It’s for the gratification of Winifred, the new Countess, when she comes home.”
“If you mean me, papa”—
“Oh no, of course not! how could I mean you?” cried her father, rubbing his hands. “I mean Miss Chester, who is going to marry the Earl. Perhaps you don’t know that young lady? She will bring her husband a pretty estate and a pretty bit of money in her apron, and please her father down to the ground.”
“But, papa— Oh, I cannot, I cannot deceive you! It is deceiving you even to seem to—even to pretend to”—
“You had better hold your tongue, Winnie,” he said sternly. “You had better not go any farther or you may be sorry for it. You should know very well by this time what I’m capable of when I’m crossed. But I don’t mean to be crossed this time, I can tell you. It would be hard if a man couldn’t do what he likes with his own daughter. Go along with you, and don’t speak back to me.”
“But, papa”—
“Go, I tell you, before you put me in a passion,” her father cried. And Winifred was terrified by the glare in his eyes, and the quick recurring fear that she might harm him took all power from her. She hurried away, leaving him to admire his upholstery by himself. And that afternoon and evening her distress reached its climax. She would not consult Miss Farrell. She would not see Edward. Things had gone too far indeed to be talked of, or submitted to any other decision than that of her own heart. Once or twice, nay a hundred times, the desire of the coward, to run away, occurred to her. But how could she, to think of nothing more, leave her father in the lurch, and expose him to all the comments of the recent unfriendly acquaintances whom he thought friends? Winifred was one of those to whom the abandonment of a post was impossible; but such was the confusion of her misery, that flight, now or at another moment,—flight alone, hopeless, without leaving any trace behind her,—seemed to be the only way of escape. At dinner her father seemed to have forgotten her attempt at rebellion. He talked incessantly of the guests, rolling their titles with an enjoyment which was half ludicrous, half pitiful. “You must try and persuade old Farrell to show,” he said. “She’s very well thought of by all these grandees, and she can talk to them of people they know—besides, there’s her music, Winnie, that’s first rate. I’ll come and apologise if she pleases, but we must take care my lady’s not dull of an evening, and she must show.” He was in such good spirits that after dinner, with much clearing of his throat, and something like a blush, he made her sit down to the piano and accompany him in one of the old songs for which he had been famous before he began to fear the memory of the singing man at Chester Cathedral. He had the remains of a beautiful voice, and still sang well in the old-fashioned style which he had learned when a boy. To hear him carolling forth a love-song of that period when Moore was monarch, was to Winnie a wonder and portent which took away her very breath. She trembled so in her part of the performance that the piano became inaudible in competition with the fine roll of Mr. Chester’s grace-notes. “Why, I thought you could play at least,” he said roughly. “I’ll have old Farrell—she knows what she’s about—to-morrow night.”
“Well, my dear,” Miss Farrell said, when this conversation was reported to her, “you know what my feelings are; but I am not dull to the credit of the family. It being fully understood what my motive is, I shall certainly appear to-morrow evening, and do my very best to make things go off well. I will play your dear father’s accompaniment with the greatest pleasure. He has the remains of a very fine voice, and he has science, too, though it is old-fashioned. So has your brother George a beautiful voice; I always wished him to cultivate it. We must do everything, Winnie, both you and I, to make things go off well. You are not in good spirits, it is true,—neither am I,—but we must forget all that for the credit of the house. And how do you think he is himself?” she added after a pause.
“He looks very well,” said Winnie. “I see no signs of illness. Edward”—she paused a little with a faint smile,—“I think I should say Dr. Langton, for I never see him”—
“Oh, my dear, don’t judge him unjustly!—he thinks that is necessary.”
“You all think it is necessary,” cried Winnie, with a little outburst of feeling, “to make me as unhappy as possible. I mean to say that I think—I hope he is mistaken. Even doctors,” she said, with a smile, “have been mistaken before now.”
“That is very true,” said Miss Farrell gravely, and then she rose and kissed the pale face opposite to her. “Anyhow, my dear, you and I will do our best for him as long as there are strangers in the house.”
Winifred was worn out by the strain of these troubled days, and by the self-controversy that had been going on within her. She fell asleep early in profound exhaustion, the dead sleep of forces overstrained and heart stupefied with trouble. She woke suddenly in the early dawn of the morning, while as yet everything was indistinct. What had woke her, or if it was any external incident at all that had done so, she could not tell at first; there seemed a tingle and vibration in the pale air. Was it the early twittering which had begun faintly among the thick foliage outside? She listened, rising up in her bed, with an intensity for which there seemed no reason, for no definite alarm occurred to her mind. Everything was still, not a sound audible but those first faint chirpings, interrogative, tentative, from the trees. She was about to compose herself to rest again, when suddenly there sounded tingling through the silence the sound of a bell, a little angry, impatient jingle repeated, tearing the stillness. Winifred was too much startled and confused to realise what it was, but she got up hastily, and, throwing her dressing-gown round her, opened her door to hear better. The thought that came first to her mind was, that the summons was at the door, and that it meant one of the boys coming home. Her heart leaped to her throat with excitement. The boys had come home at all sorts of hours in the time which was past, but now, what could this summons be? It came again while she stood trembling, wondering; and then, with a cry, Winifred flew along the corridor. Mr. Chester’s room was in the wing, at some distance from the other sleeping-rooms of the house. Everything was silent, an atmosphere of profound sleep, calm tranquillity in the dim air, through which the night-lamp in the hall below burned with a weird glimmer. The blueness of the dawn in its faint pervasion seemed more ghostly than the night.
As Winifred hurried along, another door opened with a hasty sound, and old Hopkins stumbled forth. “What is it, Miss Winifred?”
She had no breath to reply. She put him before her, trembling as they reached Mr. Chester’s door. She was terrified by the thoughts of what she might see. But there was nothing that was terrible to see. A voice came out of the curtains, querulous, with an outburst of abuse at old Hopkins, who never could be made to hear.
“Send for Langton,” Mr. Chester said.
“It’s the middle of the night, please sir,” old Hopkins replied.
“Send for Langton,” repeated the voice. It had a curious stammer in it; a sibilant sound. “S—s—send for Langton,” with another torrent of exclamations.
The old butler hurried out of the room, muttering to himself, “It will be half an hour before I can wake one of those grooms, and he’ll take the skin off me before that. Miss Winifred, oh, it’s only the doctor he wants; it’s nothing out of the common!”
“I will go,” she said.
“You? But it’s the middle of the night, and not a soul awake.”
“Is he very ill? Tell me the truth. I will go quicker than any one else.”
“Miss Winifred, you’ve no call to be frightened. He’s been the same fifty times. He don’t want the doctor no more than I do. Oh, goodness, there he is at it again!”
Then the bell sent a wild, irritated peal into the air, which evidently ended abruptly in the breaking of the bell-rope.
“I will go!” Winifred said, and the old man, relieved, hurried back to his master. She put on quickly a long ulster, which covered her from head to foot, and hurried out into the strange coolness and freshness of the unawakened world. There was no need, she said to herself, but it was a relief and almost pleasure to do something. The great stillness, the feeling of the dawn, the faint blue-tinted atmosphere, a something which came before the light, all breathed peace about her. It was like a disembodied world, another state of existence in which nothing real or tangible was. She flew along, the only creature moving save those too early, questioning birds, and felt in herself a curious elevation above mortal boundaries, as if she too was disembodied and could move like a spirit. The strange abstractedness of the atmosphere, the keen yet soft coolness, the unimaginable solitude possessed her like a vision. She felt no sensation of anxiety or fear, but seemed carried along upon her errand like a creature of the air, unfamiliar with the emotions of the world. As it happened, Langton’s groom was already preparing his master’s horse for some early visit. He stared at Winifred as if she had dropped from the skies, but made no remark, except that his master would be ready instantly; and she turned back through the sleeping village, still wrapped in the same abstraction, walking along as in a dream. One labourer, setting out to work at distant fields, passed, and stared dumb and awe-stricken at her, as if she had been a ghost. His was the only figure save her own that was visible. When she was half-way home, Edward galloped past, waving his hand to her as he hastened on. For her part, Winifred felt that there was no longer any need to hurry. She wandered on under the trees, where now all the birds were awake, chatting to each other—forming their little plans for the endless August day, the age of sunshine and sweet air before them, now that night once more was over—before they began to sing. She was unspeakably eased, consoled, rested by that universal tranquillity. The dew fell upon her very heart. She lingered to look at a hundred things which she had seen every day all her life, which she had never noticed before. It was not sunrise as yet; the world was still a land of dreams, waiting the revelation of the reality to come. Thus it was some time before she reached the house, and yet she was surprised when she reached it, having got so far away from that centre of human life with all its throbbings, into the great quiet of the morning world.
Something, an indefinable disturbance, a change of a kind which made itself felt, was in the place. The door stood wide open, a scared groom was walking Langton’s horse up and down, the windows were still closed, except one, at which two or three indistinct figures seemed looking out. There arose a flutter, she could not tell why, in Winifred’s breast. She almost smiled at herself for the involuntary sensation which marked her return from a world of visions to that of real life. Then Edward Langton appeared coming out, as if to meet her in the open door.