THE first who arrived of the family party was the eldest son.
It was on the 15th of September that Ben came home. The day appointed for reading the will was a week later, and none of the others had arrived when Ben’s letter came announcing his return for the next morning. Fortunately, the ‘boys’’ rooms were quite ready, and the house was so wound up to the height of excitement, that the first actual arrival was a godsend. The flutter and commotion of that day was indescribable. As for poor Mary she did not know what she was about. It was cruel on her that he should come alone,—that there should be nobody to break their inevitable tête-à-tête at breakfast and during the hours when Mrs. Renton would certainly be invisible. Busy as she was, looking after everything, she found time for a hurried note to Laurie, telling him of his brother’s coming. ‘He has been so long away that I feel as if it were a stranger who was coming,’ Mary wrote, in a panic quite unlike her usual character;—‘do come at once and help me to entertain him.’ ‘Help you to entertain Ben!’ was Laurie’s reply, with ever so many notes of interrogation. Perhaps the helplessness and fright which were visible in this demand threw some light to Laurie upon the state of affairs, but he either could not or would not help her in her trouble; and with a heart which beat very loudly in her breast, but with an outward aspect of the most elaborate quietness and composure, Mary stood on the lawn in the September sunset watching for the dog-cart to come from the station. The ladies from The Willows had been calling that very morning, and of course had heard what was going to happen, and a glance had passed between the mother and daughter when Mrs. Renton had hoped she would see a great deal of them while the ‘boys’ were at home. ‘I should think Mr. Renton must have forgotten us,’ Millicent had said, with a little pathos. Mary took very little part in all this, but noted everything, the most vigilant and clear-sighted of critics. It made her heart ache to look at that beautiful face. Was it possible that those blue eyes which looked so lustrous, and the smiling lips that were so sweet, could obliterate in Ben’s mind all sense of falsehood and treachery? And, indeed, Mary only took the treachery for granted. Perhaps there had been nothing of the kind; perhaps he was coming without any grievance against her to fall into this syren’s snares. How cunning it was of her to post herself there, on the edge of the river, where ‘the boys’’ boats would be passing continually, and where they could not escape her! And how deep-rooted the plan must have been which preserved the date for seven years, and made Millicent aware exactly when her victim was coming home! Mary’s thoughts were severe and uncompromising. She could not think of any possible tie between Millicent and her cousin but that of enchantress and victim. She did not know how good the adventuress had resolved to be if at last this last scheme of all should be successful; nor what a weary life of failure, and disappointment, and self-disgust, poor Millicent had gone through. Mary could not have believed in any extenuating circumstances. There could be no trace of womanly or natural feeling in the creature who thus came, visibly without the shadow of a pretext, to lie in wait for Ben.
She thought her heart would have stopped beating when the dog-cart dashed in at the gates. But her outward aspect was one of such fixed composure that Ben, as he made a spring out of it, almost without leaving the horse time to stop, and caught his cousin precipitately in his arms, felt as if he had committed a social sin in his sudden kiss. ‘I am sure I beg your pardon, Mary,’ he cried, half laughing, half horrified. ‘I forgot I had been away so long, and you had grown out of acquaintance with me; but still you need not look so shocked.’
‘I am not shocked,’ said Mary, who had scarcely voice enough to speak; ‘it was only the surprise; and, good heavens, what a beard!’
‘Well, yes, it is an alarming article, I suppose,’ said Ben, looking down with complacency upon one of those natural ornaments which men prize so much. It was an altogether new decoration. And it seemed to Mary that he had grown even taller while he had been away, so changed was the development of the mature man,—brown, bearded, and powerful,—from that of Ben, the young man of fashion, who had been as dainty in all his ways as herself. His frame had broadened, expanded, and acquired that air of activity and force which only occupation gives. His eye had no languor in it, but was full of active observation and thought. The change was so great that it took away her breath, and after the second glance Mary was not quite sure that it was so very satisfactory. He was more like the Rentons than he had been,—his lip curled a little at the corner, as if it might sneer on occasion. His manner had grown a little peremptory. ‘Where is my mother?’ he said immediately, without giving even a spare moment to look again at the companion of his childhood;—‘in her own room?’
‘Yes, she is waiting for you,’ said Mary. And he went off from her without another word. Of course it was very right he should do so, after an absence of six years and a half, and very nice of him to be so anxious to see his mother. But yet—— Mary went in after him, in two or three minutes, feeling somehow as if she had fallen from an unspeakable height of expectation; though she had not expected anything in reality,—and Ben had been very kind, very frank, and cordial, and cousinly. What a fool she was! And while she could hear the unusual roll of the man’s voice in Mrs. Renton’s room, running on in perpetual volleys of sound, Mary, in the silence of her own, sat down and cried,—folly for which she could have killed herself. Of course his first hour belonged to his mother. And what did she, Mary, want of him but his kindly regard, and,—esteem,—and,—respect! Respect was what a man would naturally give,—if she did not betray herself, and show how little she was deserving of it,—to a woman of her years. Seven-and-twenty! To be sure Ben was nearly five years older; but that does not count in a man. Moved by these thoughts, Mary went to the extreme of voluntary humility, and dressed herself in one of her soberest dresses for dinner. ‘I laid out the pink, ma’am, as Mr. Ben has come home,’ said her maid. ‘No, the grey,’ said Mary, obstinately. He should see at least that there was no affectation of juvenility about her,—that she fully acknowledged and understood her position as,—almost,—middle-aged. Poor Mary was considered a very sensible girl by all her friends, and she thought to herself, while committing this piece of folly, that she would justify their opinion. Sense as her grand quality,—and esteem and respect as the mild emotions which she might hope to inspire,—such were the reflections that passed through Mary Westbury’s mind as she put on her grey gown.
‘It don’t look so bad, Miss Mary, after all,’ said her maid encouragingly, as she gave the last twitch to the skirt. And certainly it did not look bad. The sensible young woman who wished her cousin Ben to respect her, had a little rose-flush going and coming on her cheeks, and a lucid gleam of emotion in her eyes, which might have justified a more marked sentiment. Her hand was a little tremulous, her voice apt,—if the expression is permissible,—to go into chords, the keys of half-a-dozen different feelings being struck at the same moment, and producing, if a little incoherence, at the same time a curious multiplicity of tone. The dining-room had more lights than usual, but still was not bright; and when Ben came in with his mother on his arm, he protested instantly against the great desert of a table, which, in deference to old custom, was always spread in the long-deserted place.
‘I can’t have you half-a-mile off,’ he said. ‘You must sit by me here, mamma, and you here, Mary. That is better. We are not supposed to be on our best behaviour, I hope, the very day I come home.’
‘Why, this is very nice,’ said Mrs. Renton, as she sipped her soup at her son’s right hand, and stopped from time to time to look at him. ‘And one does not feel as if one had any responsibility. I think I shall keep this seat, my dear; it will be like dining out without any of the trouble. And then, Ben, I shall not feel the change when you bring home a wife.’
Mary, who had been looking on, suddenly turned her eyes away; but all the same, she perceived that Ben’s obstinate Renton upper lip settled down a little, and that he grew stern to behold.
‘I don’t think that is a very likely event,’ he said.
‘But it must be,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘it must be some time. I don’t say directly, because this is very pleasant. And after being left seven years all alone, I think I might have my boy to myself to cheer me up a little. But it must be some time,—in a year or two,—when you have had time to look about you and make up your mind.’
‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ said Ben, with a short laugh; ‘if I am to judge of my effect upon English ladies by the impression I made on Mary,—it is not encouraging, I can tell you. I was afraid she would faint.’
‘Oh, Ben!’ Mary exclaimed, looking up at him with her lucid, emotional eyes; and the rose-flush went over all her face. It was a very pleasant face to look at. And, perhaps, even beauty herself is not more attractive than a countenance which changes when you look at it, and a voice full of chords. Yes; no doubt he had some respect for her, and even esteem, if you went so far as that.
‘Mary and I have been living so much out of the world,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘We have been quite alone, you know, my dear. My poor health was never equal to the exertion. It is always best for such an invalid as I am to give up everything, I believe. And except just our drives,—your poor dear papa always made such a point of my drives.’
‘But Mary was not an invalid,’ said Ben, and he looked full at her for a moment, lighting up once more the glow in her face. ‘I don’t know what you have been doing to yourself,’ he said. ‘Is it the way she has her hair, mother? It cannot be her dress, because I remember that gown. I suppose she has been asleep all these seven years, like the beauty in the wood.’
‘I think I have,’ said Mary; but her voice was scarcely audible. After all, the pink gown had not been necessary, and virtue had its reward.
‘Asleep for seven years? Indeed, you are unkind to Mary,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘You can’t think what a comfort she has been to me, Ben. She has always read to me, and driven with me, and talked when I could bear it, and got my worsted work straight, and given the housekeeper her orders. If she had been my own child she could not have been nicer. And never cared for going out or anything. I am sure it is not necessary for me to say it; but if anything should happen to me, I hope you will all be very kind to Mary. You can’t think what a good child she has been.’
‘Kind to Mary!’ said Ben, holding out his hand to her. Well, perhaps there might be something more than even respect and esteem,—affection,—that was the word:—family affection and brotherly-kindness. And what could a woman of seven-and-twenty desire or dream of more?
And when they retired to the drawing-room Mrs. Renton was very eloquent about the change of affairs. ‘Not to say that it is Ben, my dear,—whom of course it is a great happiness to see again,—there is always a pleasure in knowing that there is a man in the house,’ she said. ‘It rouses one up. I am sure there were many days that it was a great bore to go down to dinner. I should have liked a cup of tea in my own room so much better; but a man must always have his dinner. And then they have been about all day, and they have something to tell you, if it is only what is in the evening paper;—and there is always most news in the evening paper, Mary. I have remarked that all my life. And even now, you know, one feels that he will come in by-and-bye,—and that is something to look forward to. It is a great advantage, my dear, to have a man in the house.’
‘It is very pleasant, at least, to have Ben in the house,’ said Mary; but she quaked a little while she spoke; for what was she to do with him for the rest of the evening after Mrs. Renton went to bed? And if the world was coming to an end, it would not prevent Davison’s appearance at half-past nine to take her mistress up-stairs. And there was not much chance that Ben would be inclined for bed at that early hour. Mary tried hard to brace herself up for the evening’s work, as she made the tea, pondering whether she might retire in her turn about half-past ten or so, that being a proper young ladies’ hour,—though with Laurie she would not have minded how long she sat talking, or letting him talk; and yet Ben had been seeing more, doing more, and had more to tell than Laurie. Thus it sometimes happens that the greater the love the less is the kindness,—though such a word as love had not been breathed in the inmost recesses of Mary Westbury’s mind.
But when Ben joined them he was very talkative, and full of his own concerns, and was so interesting that his mother put Davison off, and it was ten o’clock before she actually left the drawing-room. After a little conflict with herself Mary prepared to follow. She would have liked to stay, but felt herself awkward, and uncomfortable, and full of a thousand hesitations.
‘Are you going too?’ Ben said, as he saw her gathering up her work; and there was a tone of disappointment in his voice that went to her heart.
‘I thought you might be tired,’ she said, faltering.
‘Tired! the first night at home! I suppose the poor dear mother has stayed as long as is good for her; but you are not an invalid, Mary,’ said Ben; ‘you don’t mean to say ten o’clock is the end of the evening for you? And I have a hundred things to tell you, and to ask you. Put on your shawl, and come out for a breath of fresh air. The moon always shines at Renton. I’ll ring for somebody to bring you a shawl.’
‘I’ll run and get one,’ said Mary; and she stayed up-stairs for a few moments to take breath and compose herself. It was very silly of her, of course, to be excited; but she reflected that it was not simply the innocent stroll with her cousin in the moonlight for which she was afraid, but the possibility of a return to the subject of Millicent, of which he had spoken to her last time he was at Renton. He was standing outside the window waiting for her when she came down, and they wandered away together, instinctively taking that path towards the river. So many moonlight walks on that same path glanced over Mary’s memory as they walked,—childish ones, when the cousins played hide-and-seek behind the great, smooth, shining boles of the beeches,—merry comings-home from water-parties when they were all boys and girls together. And then that walk, which was the last she had taken with Ben.
He did not say much for some minutes. Perhaps he, too, was thinking of all those old recollections. ‘When I went away the moon was shining,’ he said at last abruptly, ‘and I suppose it has been shining and the river running and the branches rustling all this time. How strange it seems! I wonder if I have been dreaming all these seven years?’
‘I daresay you have for a great part of the time,’ Mary said, with an effort to be playful. ‘I am sure I have at least——’
‘I hope so, considering my mother’s account of what you have been doing,’ said Ben. And then he made a pause, and said, as if he did it on purpose to stir up every possibility of discomfort in her, ‘Do you remember our last talk here?’
‘Yes,’ said Mary, and then they went on, stumbling in the dark places, and now and then coming out like ghosts,—two weird figures,—into the silver light. Though he had brought her out on the pretence of having so much to say, in reality he scarcely talked at all. And she kept by his side, with her heart giving irregular thumps against her breast. She had not breath enough to bid him not to go any farther, and the sound of her own foot-steps and his in the utter stillness seemed to wake all kinds of curious echoes in the dark wood. Mary was half frightened, and yet rapt into a curious mysterious exaltation of feeling. What was he thinking of? Were they two the same creatures who had come down that same path together,—was it six years or six hours ago? The darkness among the trees around was not more profound than was the darkness in which Ben’s life had been enveloped during his absence. He had written home, it is true, and they had known where he went, and what, as people say, he was doing all the time; but of his real existence Mary knew as little,—just as little and as much, as he of hers. Thus they went on, until they came to the opening, and the green bank upon the river-side, which lay in a flood of moonlight all shut and bounded round by the blackness of the woods.
‘What a pity there is no boat!’ said Ben. ‘I might have taken you up the reach as far as the moonlight goes. We must have a boat. I did not think it was so sweet. And there is Cookesley Church across the fields. I remember so well looking at it the last time through the branches of the big beech. How high the river is! Whose boat is that, I wonder, on the other side?’
‘Oh, it is from The Willows, I suppose,’ said Mary, with a kind of desperation.
‘The Willows? that is something new. Is it old Peters and his sister? But you told me he was dead. What sort of people are at The Willows now?’
‘Two ladies,’ said Mary, succinctly. Was not this like the very hand of fate? Why The Willows should thus thrust itself quite arbitrarily into the conversation without any word or warning she could not tell. It was like the work of a malicious spirit.
‘Two ladies!’ said Ben. ‘You are very terse,—terser than I ever knew you. And who may the two ladies be who venture on the river in the moonlight?’
‘Oh, I do not think they are in the boat.’
‘But whether they are in the boat or not, who are they?’ said Ben, and there was a sound as of laughter in his voice.
Then there followed a dead pause. The boat lay in the fullest moonlight, and already they could hear the soft plash of the oars and distant sound of voices. It was not coming down the stream, but floating softly on the silvered water, just kept in its place against the current by the oars. Some one was out enjoying the beauty of the night in that magical fashion; and opposite was visible the little margin of lawn which belonged to The Willows, the trees dripping into the water, and the lights in the open windows. A subtle suggestion of happiness, and love, and rest, was in the scene. Was it a pair of lovers, or a young husband with his wife, or——
‘Tell me,—this becomes mysterious,—who are they?’ said Ben.
‘Oh, only some people,’ Mary said, with some breathlessness, ‘whom I think you once knew. Do you remember speaking to me, the last time we came down here together, about,—some one,—a school-fellow of mine?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is a very strange coincidence,’ Mary said, with a miserable attempt at a laugh. ‘It is Millicent, who has gone there with her mother for the summer. We are neighbours now.’
And then silence came again,—silence deeper than before. He started a little, that it was easy to see; but his face was quite in the shade. And after a while he said, with a steady and decided voice, ‘You mean Mrs. Henry Rich?’
‘Yes,’ said Mary; and then they both stood on the rustling grass and watched the boat, which lay caught, as it were, and suspended in the blaze of white radiance. No doubt she was there, enjoying that beautiful moment, not thinking what silent spectators were looking on so near. As for Mary, she stood spell-bound, and gazed full of a thousand thoughts. Since her cousins had been gone, Mary had had no one to row her about the shining river, every turn of which she knew so well; but Millicent had her boatman at once. And who was he? And what could Ben be thinking of that he stood thus on the brink of the full stream, filled more than full by the overflowing of the moonlight? All at once he turned on his heel, as if rousing himself, and drew Mary’s hand within his arm.
‘Let me help you up the bank,’ said Ben. ‘After all, the night grows cold. Have you ever walked as far before, so late as this?’
‘Never, I think,’ said Mary, going with him up the hill at a pace very unusual to her. Though he carried on some pretence at conversation, she was too breathless with the rapid ascent to answer otherwise than by an occasional monosyllable. But when they reached the great beech he permitted her to breathe. Perhaps he paused there only from habit, or perhaps he was curious to look back upon that picture on the river, and gain another glimpse in this strange, unlooked-for, unsuspected way into the life of the woman he had once loved. The boat had disappeared while they were mounting the bank, and on the lawn, before The Willows, stood a white figure, dwarfed by distance into the size of a fairy, but blazing white in the intense moonlight. No doubt Ben saw her, for his face was turned that way; but he went on again without a word. It was only when they had reached the lawn, and were approaching the lights and the open window by which they had come forth, that he alluded to what he had seen. Then he asked sharply, all at once, in the very middle of some other subject which had nothing to do with it, ‘How long have these people been here?’
‘Three weeks,’ said Mary. Not another word was said; but a certain constraint and embarrassment,—at least so she thought,—had come over him. When she lit her candle this time he made no attempt to detain her. She thought even that he gave a sigh of relief as he opened the door for her, and said good-night; and it was hard for Mary to think with any charity of the woman who had thus waylaid him,—waylaid his very imagination,—on the night even of his return. Possibly she was quite wrong in her estimate of Ben’s feelings. When she was gone he threw himself heavily into a chair, and sat for an hour or more, doing nothing, chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. But no doubt he had enough to think about without that. It would have been strange had the coming home,—the approach of certainty after his long suspense,—the familiar life that seemed to have taken him up again after casting him out of its bosom,—produced no excitement in his mind. And then there was that curious sense of unreality which comes upon a man when, after an active life of his own, he returns to his father’s house, and finds everything, down to the minutest particular, just as it used to be. Is not this life such stuff as dreams are made of? To Ben, who was not a man of thought, this sentiment was bewildering; and the quiet of the house weighed upon him with an irritating heaviness. Talk of noise! There is no such babel as that of silence when it surges round you, when no living thing stirs, and the mysterious air rustles its wings in your ears, and the earth vibrates under your feet. The flutter of moths and invisible insects attracted by the light, the rustle of the leaves outside, the curtains waving in the night air, the mysterious thrills which ran through the furniture, the wavering of the flame of the lamp,—all affected Ben when he was left alone. His life had been so busy and full of action,—and now he had left that existence which was his own, and come back into the midst of those shadows to await the last sentence of a dead man’s voice, and have his whole destiny, perhaps, thrown once more into mistiness and darkness. Had there been any need for that boat softly rocking on the curve of the silvered water,—for that white solitary figure in the moonlight,—to complicate matters further? But whether that last incident did count for anything in the multiplicity of his thoughts, or whether it affected him as Mary supposed,—and as Millicent meant it to affect him,—who can tell? He sat a long time thinking, but he uttered none of his thoughts in the shape of soliloquy, which is unfortunate for this narrative; and I am obliged to wait, as most people are compelled to do, for the slow elucidation of events, to show the turn taken by Ben Renton’s thoughts.
Mary’s mind went more rapidly to a conclusion, as may be supposed. She could no more tell than I can what Ben was really turning over in his thoughts; but one thing was clear to her, that he had not heard of the neighbourhood of Millicent with indifference. It might be indignation, it might be disgust, it might be concealed and suppressed delight; but, at all events, the information had moved him. And at the same time, he had been very nice to herself,—very friendly, almost more than friendly—affectionate; not forgetting to help her even when she had just thrown that bombshell into the quiet. To be sure, he had hurried her up the hill, unconscious of the rapidity of his pace; but that was little in comparison with his kindness in remembering her at all when he had just heard such news. So Mary said to herself, thinking, like a romantic young woman, that Ben must have straightway forgotten everything but Millicent. Well! She was like a sister to him: he was ready to trust her, ready to rely upon her, ready even to admire and praise her in that frank, affectionate way as a brother might. Why should there be any heaviness or sense of disappointment in her heart? Mary said to herself that it was only because of its being Millicent, who was not worthy of him. If it had been almost anybody else,—if it had been half-a-dozen girls she could name to herself, who were good girls, and would have made him happy—but Millicent was no mate for Ben! That was the only reason of the blank, sense of pain and vacancy in her heart. For herself, she was more than content.
And thus the old house closed its protecting doors upon the first instalment of the restored family; and with that received agitation, disquiet, unrest, into the bosom of the stillness. Renton had been lying high and dry, like a stranded vessel, for all those years, and peace had dwelt in it; but now that the tide was creeping up, and life stealing back, the natural accompaniment returned. Sighs of impatience, disappointment, pain,—eager desires for the future, which came so slowly, counting the minutes,—a sense, overmastering everything, of the hardness and strangeness of life. Nobody had thought of life as hard, as troublous, or full of fatal mistakes, during all those years when Mrs. Renton had driven about the lanes, and taken care of her health. The blessed bonds of routine had kept things going, and nobody was either glad or miserable. But as soon as the bigger life came back with chances of happiness in it, then the balancing chances of pain also returned. As soon as it becomes possible that you may be blessed, it also becomes possible that you may fall into the lowest depths of anguish. This was the strange paradox which Mary Westbury contemplated as she heard Ben Renton’s unaccustomed step going to his room after midnight, through the profound stillness of the sleeping house.