CHAPTER XIV.
THE END OF A DREAM.
IF I do not enter very particularly into the family arrangements which were made after this settlement, it is because, in the circumstances, so much detail is unnecessary. Had Ben been in Frank’s position, a married man with a family, it would of course have been needful that some arrangements should have been made about Mrs. Renton’s future habitation. She herself was provided for by her marriage settlements, and had a little fortune of her own, settled on herself, which was something for the babies to look forward to; and there was a jointure-house on the estate, known by the name of the Dovecote, a pretty, small house, with a view on the river, and only a mile’s drive from Cookesley, where there can be no doubt Mrs. Renton, had there been any need for it, would have been very comfortable. But as Ben was not married, what did it matter? It was better his mother should keep house for him, as she said in her innocence, than leave him to servants. There was a consultation held in her room next morning, to the interruption of the newspaper-reading; but as this was a crisis, full of events, for once in a way she did not mind.
‘I would go to the Dovecote, my dear boy, if you thought I should be in your way,’ she said; ‘but I think I had much better stay and keep house for you, till you have a wife of your own to keep your house.’
‘I don’t think that is a very likely event,’ said Ben. ‘Of course you will keep house for me. And I think you should give the Dovecote to Frank,—that is one thing I wanted to speak to you about. I will have it fitted up, and do what I can to make it comfortable, and then you can have the children always at hand to amuse you while I am away.’
‘But you are not going away?’
Mary was quite at the other end of the room, working by the window. It was only her aunt’s worsted-work she was doing—not a very serious occupation—but it always wanted a remarkable amount of light when Ben was in the room. She was sitting there by herself, listening eagerly, with a sore feeling in her heart, as of being excluded,—she who had sacrificed so much to the comfort of the family. After all, though she was so nearly related, and had spent her life with them, she was not a Renton. Not like a daughter of the house, whose opinion would have weight and whose comfort had to be consulted. Talk of Mrs. Renton keeping the house! The meaning of that of course was that Mary was to keep house. But of Ben’s house she never would be the honorary housekeeper,—of that she was sure. When she heard her aunt’s frightened exclamation, she too looked up a little,—of course it must be only a figure of speech about his going away. Or he meant going to London perhaps, or to the moors, or something temporary. Ben came to the window, with his hands in his pockets, before he answered. Not as if he were coming to Mary. It was only the restless habit men have of wandering about a room. ‘Yes,’ he said, looking out, and addressing nobody, ‘I am going away. Of course I must go back to my work. You forget that when I came home I had not the least idea of what was to become of me. And to throw away the work I had been making my bread by for six years, would have been a great piece of folly. Indeed, the fact is,—and I hope you won’t be vexed, mother, I assure you it is quite necessary,—I am going to-morrow. I must finish what I’ve got to do.’
‘Going to-morrow!’ said Mrs. Renton, with a little shriek. Mary did not even lift up her head from her work. She kept on bending over the worsted roses as if they were the most important things in the world; but her heart suddenly had taken to flutter in the wildest way against her quiet breast.
‘Yes, Mary,’ said Ben, suddenly, ‘don’t you see that it is necessary? I must finish my work.’
Mary made him no answer, being intent on the shade of a pink, and he took a few turns about the room in his impatience; for his mother had begun to cry softly in her bed.
‘That is always the worst of talking to you women,’ he said. ‘Mother, can’t you understand? You can’t go breaking off threads in life, as you do it in your sewing. I must wind up my affairs. There are some things I must see after for myself.’
‘Oh, Ben, after I had made up my mind to something so different!’ said his mother. ‘I did not sleep a bit last night for making up how it was to be. I had quite settled in my mind what parties it would be necessary to give. We have not entertained since your poor dear father died, not once,—but now I had been thinking there ought to be a series of dinners, and perhaps a ball, to give Renton its proper place again in the county, and prove that everything is settled. And now you come and break my heart, and tell me you are going away!’
‘But, dear godmamma, he will soon come back,’ said Mary, coming to the rescue. ‘He does not mean he is to go on making railways all his life. He is going to finish his work,—that is what he said; though it is disappointing of course.’
‘Because of the ball?’ said Ben, looking at her across his mother; but Mary was not able at that moment to take her part in any encounter of wit.
‘No,’ she said, almost angrily, ‘not because of the ball. I am not young enough now to care very much for balls; but because I thought it was your turn now to take care of godmamma, and——’ Mary could trust herself no further. She went back abruptly to her work, leaving both mother and son in a state of the utmost surprise and consternation.
‘I think you are all bent on driving me wild,’ said poor Mrs. Renton. ‘It seemed as if everything was over yesterday; but now here is Ben going away, and Mary is disagreeable. And who have I to fall back upon? Laurie is very kind, but he will be going too; and Alice is nice, but I am not used to her. If Mary is to be sharp with me like this, what am I to do?’
‘I will never be sharp with you, godmamma,’ said Mary, who for the first time in her gentle life felt herself driven further than she could bear. ‘But you must remember sometimes that I have a home and people of my own. You have wanted me very much for these seven years, and you know I have never said a word,—but now that the boys have all come home, I did hope——’
She would not break down and cry,—not for the world, while Ben kept gazing at her from his mother’s bedside. But she stopped short abruptly, in the middle of her sentence, which was the only alternative, and applied herself with a kind of fury, with trembling fingers, and eyes blind with unshed tears, to the worsted work. Calculating upon her services as if she were a piece of furniture! Making all these arrangements without any reference to her! It was more than Mary could bear.
‘Ben, speak to her,’ said Mrs. Renton, faintly. ‘Oh, my dear, the boys! Of course I am fond of the boys; but what can boys do for a poor woman like me? Oh, Ben, speak to her! You would not go and forsake me, Mary, when I want you most?’
Ben did not speak, however. He was startled, and out of his reckoning. He went to the window again, and stood opposite to his cousin, and gazed down upon her, with his hands in his pockets and a look of profound concern and uncertainty on his face.
‘I won’t forsake you, godmamma,’ said Mary, with a trembling voice; ‘but surely you might think,—plan out something,—make some arrangement.’ How hard it is for a woman to assert herself, to speak out of a heart sore with the consciousness of being made no account of, and not to cry! It would have been easier for Mary to put herself down under their feet and allow them to walk over her,—as, indeed, it seemed to her she had been doing. And they did not know it! They had endured their seven years’ bondage, and it had come to an end, and all was right again; but for her the same round was to go on for ever, and nobody even was aware for what poor hire she had sacrificed her life and her youth.
‘Davison, Miss Mary says she is going to leave us,’ said Mrs. Renton, as the maid came in. ‘No, no; take it away. I could not swallow it. I am sure if I thought there was anything in the world she wanted, I would have got it for her, Davison. And I always thought she was so happy with me. No, it would choke me, I tell you. And if she was not happy with me, there are years and years that I might have got used to it; but to go and tell me now, just when I want her most——’
‘You’ll take your arrowroot, ma’am,’ said Davison, soothingly. ‘It’s just as you like it, neither too hot nor too cold. Miss Mary agoing away! That’s a fine joke. Miss Mary couldn’t stay away, ma’am, not if you was to send her. She’s a deal too fond of you. It’s just nice now, just as you like it. It’s all her fun, that’s what it is!’
‘I don’t see any fun in it,’ said Mrs. Renton, feebly. But she was consoled by the fuss, and the re-arrangement of her pillows, and the arrowroot. ‘You’ll speak to her, Davison, won’t you?—and tell her I couldn’t bear it. I am sure it would cost me my life.’
‘To be sure, ma’am, I’ll tell her,’ said the maid.
While this little scene was going on, Ben stood by the window, always with his hands in his pockets, gazing at his cousin, who worked with fury, with hands that trembled, and eyes blind with tears. She kept them from falling with a superhuman effort, but she could not see anything but great blurs of mixed colour on the piece of embroidery before her, harmless bits of worsted all dilated and magnified through the tears.
‘Do you really mean it, Mary?’ he said, looking down upon her with a look of grief, which she did not see, and yet knew of, and was stung by to the bottom of her heart.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘Ben. I can’t tell. I don’t want to give you more trouble. I don’t know what I am saying. It has all been too much,—too much!’
‘Come out into the air,’ said Ben. ‘I see it has been too much. We are all such selfish wretches, thinking only of our own concerns. Come out into the air.’
‘I think I am more fit to go to bed,’ said Mary, and the tears fell in spite of her. ‘Never mind me. I have got such a headache,—and,—a bad temper. Never mind! I think I shall go to bed.’
‘Come out to the woods instead,’ said Ben, with a brother’s tender sympathy. ‘Never mind, mother,—she will come round. It is only that she is worn out and over-done. I am going to take her out into the air.’
And so he did, though there was nothing she less desired. He took her out, giving her his arm, and suiting his steps to hers as if she had been ill. She was moved to a weary laugh, half of exasperation, when she had been thus led forth. ‘There is nothing the matter with me, Ben. Don’t make all this fuss. You make me ashamed of myself,’ she said.
‘There is something the matter with you,’ said Ben. ‘Come and sit down here, where we can have a good talk. I see now, though I was such a selfish ass as not to think of it before. You see, Mary, you have always been so much one of ourselves, that it never occurred to me to think of the sacrifice you were making in living here.’
‘It was no sacrifice!’ cried Mary. ‘Don’t make me wretched, Ben. I lost my temper, that was all. I thought you were making all your plans, as if it were to go on for ever and ever; and that I was only a piece of furniture that nobody thought of. Don’t pay any attention to me.’
‘My poor little Mary!’ said Ben, taking her hand into his. He made her sit down on the root of the beech, and bent his eyes wistfully on her, holding her hand in one of his, and with the other stroking his moustache, as is the wont of men in trouble. He saw there was something in it, more than met the eye; and he looked at her with a certain blank wistfulness. What did Mary want? If it had been anything he could fetch for her from the ends of the earth, he would have done it. If he had only known what it was!—or what would please her,—or how to soothe the nerves, which were evidently all ajar. Mary could not bear that gaze. Shame, and a sense of humiliation, and all the sensitive pride of a woman, overwhelmed her. Was there something in her heart which she would not have him discover? She put up her other hand and covered her face with it, turning away from him; and whether any sort of enlightenment might by degrees have penetrated the blank anxiety of his gaze, I cannot tell; for at that moment they were interrupted in such a way as Mary remembered to the end of her life.
All at once a rustle was audible as of some one coming,—indeed, of some one quite near; and then there was a little, light laugh. “Oh, good gracious! we have come at an unlucky moment,’ said Millicent’s voice, close at their side. Mary sprang to her feet, drawing her hand away from Ben’s, raising her flushed face in a kind of desperation. Mrs. Tracy and her daughter had just turned the corner round the beech-tree, from which Ben rose, too, with more surprise than delight. Millicent had put on a white dress, with no sign, except in the black ribbons, of her mourning. She was in the full splendour of her beauty, excited into more brilliancy than usual. ‘I am sure I am very sorry if I have interrupted anything,’ she said, with the colour rising into her cheek, and a laughing devil of malice in her eyes.
‘Yes, you interrupted a serious discussion,’ said Ben. ‘Mary is worn out, and I have been questioning her about her health. She has been shutting herself up a great deal too much, and she denies it, as all women do.’
‘How sorry I am! and you were feeling her pulse, I suppose?’ said Millicent. ‘It looked the prettiest scene imaginable, seen through the trees. You did not hear us coming, you were so pleasantly,—I mean seriously,—occupied. And have you found out what is the matter with her, Mr. Ben?’ This was said with the air half-malicious, half-friendly of the discoverer of a secret. And on the score of this pretended confidence, Millicent approached him closely, and used all her weapons against the man who had once knelt at her feet. She looked him in the face with eyes as much brighter than Mary Westbury’s as they had been in the earlier days,—with the sweet tints of her complexion increased by exercise, and by, perhaps a little excitement over this supposed discovery,—with the morning air puffing out the white frills and trimmings of her dress, and ruffling a curl which, after the fashion of the day, fell over her shoulder. The mother had immediately appropriated Mary, who, wild with shame and confusion and anger, stood at bay, and was now with difficulty restraining her inclination to burst away from the intruder, and go home and bury herself in her room, where nobody could see her hot blushes and angry tears. Ben was moved by a certain confusion, too, against his will. It was an awkward attitude, certainly, in which to be seen by any stranger eye.
‘I am not much of a physician,’ he said; ‘but we have all had a great deal of excitement lately, and Mary is worn out. I trust it is nothing more.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Millicent. ‘I know that; indeed, I had thought I might come and inquire this morning as an old friend. You forget that you told me all about it,—once. I thought I might ask, for the sake of old times, if all was right at last.’
‘You do me a great deal of honour to remember anything about my affairs,’ said Ben. ‘Are you going to the river?’ and he turned with her to go down in the direction she had been taking. ‘Have you a boat?’
‘Yes; the old gardener put us across,’ said Millicent. ‘You do not give me credit for any friendly feeling, and you always try to get rid of me, Mr. Renton. Oh, indeed, I can see it very well. I do not feel angry, for perhaps you have had provocation; though I can see it very well. But it would not do you any harm, nor me much good—except for old friendship’s sake,—if you were to answer my question. Is it all right?’
‘It is perfectly right,’ said Ben, with a little bow. ‘I don’t know that there was ever any doubt on that subject. I must thank you for taking so much interest in us and our affairs.’
‘That is all you say now,’ cried Millicent, with ready tears springing to her eyes; and tears come as readily from mortification and the passion of anger as from any other cause. ‘You would not have answered me like that once. Ah, Ben Renton, how much you are changed!’
‘I think it is very natural I should be,’ said Ben. ‘You are changed, too, Mrs. Rich; though not in anything external,—unless it may be for the better, if that were possible,’ he added, with a certain grudge in his words. The man was but a man, and they were extorted from him by the beauty which could neither be mistaken nor overlooked.
‘If I am not changed in externals, you may be sure I am changed in nothing else,’ said Millicent, turning upon him with a smile of such eager sweetness and hope, that it almost reached his heart. She, poor creature! believed she was winning him back. The thought quickened all her powers, quickened the very springs of being in her. She forgot Mary, and the attitude which for a moment had driven her to despair. So much the better if he had been Mary’s lover,—a touch of triumph the more! ‘I have had a great deal to endure since we parted,’ she went on. ‘Oh, you cannot tell all I have had to bear! And I thought time had worn me and aged me, and that you would scarcely have known me again. But nothing has ever changed me at heart.’
‘Mrs. Rich, you forget that this conveys very little information to me,’ said Ben, moved with sudden vindictiveness. ‘In those days of which you speak,—and I don’t know why you should speak of them, the recollection cannot be a pleasant one,—I remember clearly enough what a fool I made of myself. My heart was open enough,—ass as I was,—but I don’t know now, and I did not then, what were the sentiments of yours,—if indeed——’
‘I had one!’ cried Millicent. ‘Oh, that you should say this to me! And yet I feel that I deserve it. I acted as if I had none. What can I say or do to make you know how sorry I am? Sorry is too poor a word. Oh, Ben, I know I ought not to say it; but if either then or now you could have seen into my heart——’
Her eyes were shining through her tears; her cheeks glowed with soft blushes; her look besought, implored, entreated him. Poor soul! she said true. If he could have seen into her heart, then or now, this is what he would have seen there:—If Ben Renton will lift me out of all the necessities of my scheming, wretched life,—if he will give me plenty, money, luxury, comfort, what my soul sighs for,—then I will do my best to love him. I will be a good wife to him,—I will be good in my way,—I will,—I will,—I will! She had said all this to God many a time saying her prayers, and this is what her heart would have said to Ben, with a kind of desperate ingenuousness,—innocence in the midst of guile. And he looked at her, and the man’s soul was shaken within him. Something of the truth became visible to him;—not the ineffable charm of love. If it had been very love that shone in her eyes,—however his finer sense had been revolted by its over-frankness,—no doubt he would have fallen a victim. For he had loved her once, and she had never been more beautiful, perhaps never so beautiful in her life. He was touched by her loveliness, by her eagerness, by the pitiful intensity of expression in her eyes. Take me,—save me!—she seemed to be crying to him: and, good heavens! to think what one gleam of this fire, one such look, would have been to him once! Ben grew confused in himself, half with recollections, half with pity; and the softness of success and restoration was in his mind,—even of triumph,—for had not he won a victory, and silenced all opposers? His voice faltered as he answered her, if answer it could be called.
‘It is a long time ago,’ he said; ‘one’s very body and being alter you know, they say, completely in seven years.’
‘But one’s heart never changes,’ murmured Millicent. And that was the moment when Mrs. Tracy, feeling that the conflict was not progressing, chose to come in like a watchful goddess, who sees that her champion’s arms do not prevail.
‘My dear, we are taking Mr. Renton away from his cousin,’ she said, ‘and from talking over family matters; but since we have done so, could you not persuade him, Millicent, to come over to us to luncheon? You might go on the water a little; you are so fond of it; and then lunch would be ready. Mr. Renton, you must not think it strange that we are anxious to see a little of such a kind friend as you are. I always say your ready kindness saved my life.’
Millicent turned sharp round, and involuntarily clenched her hand, as if she would have struck her mother. ‘It is all over now!’ she said to herself; and never had the battle been so nearly won. As for Ben, the sound of the new voice woke him up in a moment. He gave himself a little shake, and recovered his self-command. Good heavens! to think how near a step it had been to falling helpless into the syren’s snare!
‘Thanks; but we must turn back when we have seen you to your boat,’ he said; and lingered to let Mrs. Tracy join them. ‘I have no time for any such pleasures. My mother thinks it hard enough already, and I must give her what little time remains. I am going away to-morrow.’
‘To-morrow!’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a half-sneer and a look at her daughter, to which Millicent, flushed, and pouting, and angry, made no reply. ‘Then is it a mistake, after all? I thought I heard you say all was right. I beg your pardon, I am sure——’
‘About the property it is all right,’ said Ben; ‘but I am not the idle fellow you once knew me. Those were the only six months I ever absolutely threw away in my life. And I can’t give up my work in a moment because I have got back my rights.’
‘It was a pity you threw away those six months you speak of,’ said Millicent. ‘Come, mamma; why should we trouble Mr. Renton to go with us to the boat? Of course he must have a great deal to talk of,—to his mother,—and to Mary,—his own people. We are strangers, and have no claim upon him.’
‘There are some things which one gives all the more freely because there is no claim,’ said Ben, with good-nature. ‘The path is rather rough here. Mrs. Tracy, give me your hand.’
‘Thank you, I want no help!’ Millicent cried, when he turned to her, and she sprang over the gnarled mass of roots, and ran down the path to the green river-bank. She stood there, framed in by the thick foliage, her white figure standing out against the light of the river,—a picture not to be easily forgotten. Emerald green below,—green, just touched with points of autumnal colour, here and there a yellow leaf above;—gleams of blue sky looking through;—one long line of light reflecting all the darker objects, the river, with one boat lying close to the grassy margin; and in the midst the beautiful, flushed, brilliant creature, full of passion, and mortification, and an angry despair. She did not think it worth while now to hide the strong emotions in her mind, but stood with her face turned to them as they followed, humiliated, yet defiant,—the crown of all the scene, and the only discord in it. Poor Millicent! her eyebrows lowered, her eyes shone; her colour was high with the shame of her defeat; and yet, beyond the angry glance in her eye, there was a tear, and the corners of her mouth drooped; and, scarcely concealed by the hard, little laugh of artificial gaiety, a sob was sounding in her throat.
‘Good-bye,’ she said, almost roughly, ‘Ben,—I will never call you so again! I wish you luck of your good fortune. It makes a great difference to most people in this world.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Ben, taking her hand almost against her will. ‘It makes little difference to me. What has been done has been done by nature and years. If you should ever want help or counsel that I can give—— Well, let us say nothing about that. Good-bye——’
‘For a time,’ Mrs. Tracy added, with her bland smile, taking his hand in both hers,—‘till our meeting again.’
And Mary, whose feelings all this time had been more overwhelming than can be described, and who had followed mechanically, with an instinct of being there to the last to see what direful harm might happen, stood passive by his side, not knowing if she were in a trance or a dream; and saw the boat push off into the shining river. Mrs. Tracy turned and waved her hand to them, bland to the last. But Millicent never turned her head. Once only, just as the boat shot past the long drooping branches of the willow which closed in the view, she looked round sharply and saw them; and the rowlocks sounded hollow and loud, and with another stroke the boat was gone. Neither of them have ever seen that beautiful face again.
Ben stood for some time after they had disappeared on the same spot, forgetting everything, gazing out upon the vacant stream and vacant sunshine, in a curious vacant way. If it had been put to him, he would never have confessed how much moved he had been. Perhaps he was himself unconscious of it. But nature made a pause in him, manifesting the convulsion, in her own way, when this woman, who had influenced it so strangely, passed for ever out of his life.
‘Are you fond of Coleridge, Mary?’ he said to her without any preface, quite suddenly, as they went up the steep bank.
‘Of Coleridge, Ben? What an odd question! Why do you ask?’
‘Do you remember what he says? And what a curious sense he had of the things that are inexpressible,—
‘How there looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright,
And how he knew—‘
‘No, I don’t mean that,—not so bad as that!’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Mary, with a little shiver; and she took hold of his arm with an instinctive desire to show him her sympathy. Very well did she know what he meant; or at least thought, hoped she did; but denied it with characteristic readiness. He pressed the soft, sisterly hand to him when he felt it on his arm. Certainly, there was a great sympathy between them, though nothing more. And he did not say another word to her of the subject of the conversation which this last meeting had blotted out as if it had never been. They did not talk of anything, indeed, but went home together, with a silent understanding of each other in which there was certainly some balm.
Understanding each other! which meant that the woman,—partly,—understood the man, and had it in her heart to be a little sorry for him in respect to the conflict through which he had come; and a little, a very little,—which was more remarkable,—sorry for the other woman thus finally foiled and done with; but that the man had no comprehension at all of the woman, and gave no particular thought to her, except so far as was conveyed in a tender, kindly sympathy for poor little Mary. Her life must not be made a burden to her any longer by his mother’s drives and her worsted work. That was all the progress Ben had made in the comprehension of his cousin’s heart.