CHAPTER III.
EXCHANGED INTO THE 200TH.
FRANK was not in spirits to go to his club, or anywhere else, after the events of the afternoon. He made a rush for the train instead, thirsting for the quiet of his quarters, in which, at least, he could lock himself in, and be free from intruders. With the same desire for solitude, he ensconced himself as usual in a corner of a railway-carriage, hoping there, at least, to be able to indulge his thoughts in peace. But it was a summer’s day, not yet dark, so that he could not hide himself; and his consternation may be imagined when, in two or three minutes, he heard the voice of Mrs. Rich asking for the Royalborough carriage. ‘Bless us, there is Mr. Renton, Nelly!’ she said, a minute after, for Frank had given a start at the sound of her, and probably caught her eye by the movement, though he had sunk the next minute into the profoundest shade. But, after this, there was nothing to be done but to jump out, and make himself useful to the ladies, and give up his hoped-for solitude. Nelly, of all people in the world, to face him at such a moment! To Frank it seemed as if fate were against him. He had to go through the usual round of salutations, and express his satisfaction at meeting them, while all the time he fretted and fumed. It was not even as if they had been three, which is a safe party. Mrs. Rich had a companion, a lady of about her own age, who was going to Richmont with them, so that Nelly was left to Frank. Neither her mother nor she thought it a bad arrangement. She made her way to the farther window, and seated herself, leaving Frank no alternative but the seat beside her. And she was very lively and full of animation,—a bright, smiling creature, pleasant to look upon. It would be impossible to describe Frank’s feelings as he seated himself beside her, with a gap of two vacant seats between him and the elder ladies at the other side, and the noise of the train to favour a tête-à-tête. ‘Come and tell me what you have been about,’ said Nelly. ‘Are you always running up and down to town, you idle Guardsmen? I never go but I see heaps of you. Tell me what you have been about.’
‘You had better tell me what you have been about,’ said Frank; ‘that would be more interesting. Shopping? or picture-seeing? or,—oh, I perceive, the flower-show. I had forgotten that.’
‘You were not there,’ said Nelly, quickly,—‘for I looked. There was Lord Edgbaston, and I don’t know how many more, who are always to be seen everywhere,—but not you.’
‘I was engaged on much less pleasant business,’ said Frank, to whom it suddenly occurred that here was an opportunity to tell some portion of his news. It could not be told too soon, especially considering all that had happened since.
‘Less pleasant!’ repeated Nelly. ‘They are very slow and stupid, I think, unless one has some one to talk to one likes. As for the flowers, one can see them anywhere. I had Lord Edgbaston, your charming friend, Mr. Renton; and he was not lively. I don’t suppose his talents lie in the way of talk.’
‘He is a very good fellow,’ said Frank, with a certain tenderness, thinking how soon he should have left all these pleasant companions. His heart melted to them, and his voice took a lugubrious tone.
‘How doleful you are!’ cried Nelly, laughing; ‘one would think you were going to cry. What has been going on? Tell me; has some one been unkind? And I declare you are quite pale. I am getting very, much interested;—do let me know.’
‘I don’t know that you will be at all interested when you hear,’ said Frank, with a certain desperation. ‘I have just been settling matters about my exchange into the 200th. They are to sail for India in three months, and it is not cheerful work.’
‘To sail for India in three months!’ said Nelly. The change that came over her face was indescribable. A half-amused incredulity, then the startled pause, with which she might have said, This is too serious a matter to joke about; and then consternation, anger, mortification. She grew pale, and then brilliantly crimson, till the colour dyed as much as could be seen of her clear, dark skin. She had a right to look at him with eyes of keen inquiry;—not a right to interfere or find fault,—but yet a right to ask the question. He had gone so far that she had, at least, that claim.
‘Yes,’ he said, with an exquisite discomfort, such as would have been punishment enough for worse treachery than he had perpetrated, ‘I have been putting it off and wasting my time, beguiled by pleasanter things. But to-day matters became urgent, and I settled it. I could delay no longer,’ he said, with apology in his tone; ‘it is not a cheerful piece of work, as I say.’
Nelly did not answer a word. She was struck dumb. That other day, under the lime-trees, he had certainly said not a word about India. He had not, indeed, said all which the opportunity might have justified him in saying. He had been unsatisfactory, and had made a very poor use of the opportunity. But still he had not so much as hinted at anything which could explain this. She sat in her corner, bending towards him a little, as she had been before he made this startling intimation. What could it mean? Could he intend to ask her to go there with him? Nelly’s heart gave a sudden bound at the thought. She was so adventurous and eager for change that India itself would not have frightened her. Could that be what he meant? She did not change her position, but sat still, turning towards him in a listening attitude, with her eyes cast down, and a certain sharpness of expectation in her face. The idea was quite new and startling, but it was not unpleasant. She waited, with a tingling in her ears, a sudden sense of quickened pulsation and tightened breath, for the next words he should say.
But at that moment dumbness, too, fell upon Frank. His lips grew dry; his tongue clave to his mouth. He turned a little away, and began to play unconsciously with the little cane in his hand, flicking his boot with it. It seemed to him as if all his powers of speech were exhausted and not a word would come. If only there might be a stoppage at some station, or an accident, or anything! He would have welcomed any incident that would have interrupted this horrible pause. And not a word would come to his lips. He tried to make up some ordinary question about the flower-show, but it would not do. He sat in a frightful consciousness,—afraid to look at her, wondering what she was thinking of it, how she would receive it. And the train was one of those nice, quick express trains, which stop only at Slowley junction. The poor young fellow thought he would have gone mad with that awful pause and stoppage of talk, and the everlasting iron murmur and clank of the wheels.
It was full five minutes before any one spoke, and that at such a time, of course, seemed as a year. Then it was Nelly who resumed the conversation, in a tone clear and distinct, with a modulation of contempt in it which set Frank’s nerves on edge. ‘I do not see why it should not be cheerful work,’ she said; ‘no doubt you like it or you would not have done it; but it is sudden surely, Mr. Renton?’ And Frank, who did not look at her, who was busy still with his cane and his boot, felt that she was looking steadily at him.
And he was aggravated at the tone. It was the second time that afternoon in which he had been contemptuously spoken to;—by Mrs. Severn, first of all, who had certainly no right to do it, and who had taken pains to make him understand how little importance he was to her, what small hesitation she would have had in cutting him off from all good offices. And now Nelly, who might have an excuse, adopted the same tone. Naturally, it was the one who had some justification for her scorn who bore the brunt of both offences. He looked up at her, and met full, as she had not expected him to meet, the look of restrained resentment, indignation, and wounded feeling, with which she regarded him. Though he was in the wrong, he met her eyes with more fortitude than she could exercise in meeting his. He it was who had been the traitor, and therefore he took the upper hand. ‘I am surprised you think it sudden,’ he said, fixing his eyes upon her so resolutely that Nelly’s could not bear the gaze. ‘I have been in negotiation about it more or less since ever I knew you. The opportunity has been sudden, but not the intention.’ Thus the man, being unmoved by anything but a passing compunction which he had overcome, got the better of the woman whose heart had been touched ever so little. He looked full at her, and he looked her down.
‘But I thought you had changed your mind,’ said Nelly softly, with an effort to preserve her calm.
‘Oh no, never!’ answered Frank, in his majestic way. And then she turned her face round to the window, and gazed steadily out. It was not that she was in love with him,—not much. But she was a girl who had had every toy she ever longed for in all her life, and now for the first time she was denied. She turned to the window, and sudden tears sprang into her eyes. Her own impression was that she was struck to the heart. Her lip quivered; there was a painful feeling in her throat. She had been so bright, so lively, so full of enjoyment,—and now the revulsion came! But she was proud enough not to make any very distinct self-betrayal. She did not mind showing him that she was offended. Even had it come to a little outbreak of passion and tears, she would not, perhaps, have very much minded. But all she did now was to turn away her face. Turning round and gazing very fixedly out of a window after a short interval of very lively and friendly conversation, is a sufficiently marked sign that something is wrong. But Nelly did not utter any reproach. He had faced her, and intimated to her, almost in so many words, that it was a matter she had nothing to do with; and she accepted the intimation. But she did not think it necessary to put an amiable face upon it, as so many girls would have done. She had turned almost her back upon him before they got to Slowley, where the gorgeous carriage of the Riches,—much the most splendid in the county, with a coat-of-arms as big as a soup-plate upon the panel,—was waiting for them. And when Frank got out and gave her his hand to alight, Nelly sprang past him without taking any notice. ‘Good-bye, Mr. Renton; I suppose we shall see you before you go,’ she said, without looking at him. Mrs. Rich thought her daughter must be out of her senses when she heard the news, which it cost Nelly an effort to tell with composure. She had lost all her colour, and looked black, and pale, and gleaming, and dangerous, when the Royalborough train glided on; and Mrs. Rich after an affectionate farewell to Frank, leisurely ascended into her carriage. ‘Have you quarrelled with Frank Renton, my dear?’ she said, with a little alarm.
‘Oh, dear no!’ said Nelly. ‘I told him to come and see us before he went away.’
‘Before he went away!’ said Mrs. Rich, surprised.
‘Yes. He has exchanged into the 200th, and they are going to India,’ said Nelly, following the train, as it swept along the curves, with an eye which was far from friendly. And Mrs. Rich’s conclusion was that the young man must be mad.
Nor must it be supposed that Frank Renton’s thoughts were particularly comfortable as he pursued his way. He was not vain enough to be gratified by Nelly’s mortification, and he could not conceal from himself the fact that he had not behaved quite as he ought to have done. He had not gone any great length, but still he had said and done enough to justify these kind people in thinking badly of him. He had made them an ungracious return for their hospitality and kindness. And when they should come to know that he was going to be married before he left, and that it was Alice Severn who was to be his bride, what would they think? Would it not look as if lie had gone to Richmont and pretended to pay court to Nelly for the sake of their visitor? Would it not be supposed that both he and his innocent Alice had been traitors;—his innocent Alice, to whom the very thought of evil was unknown? And then there was Alice’s mother,—though she did not like him,—who might be injured by this misconception. Mr. Rich was her patron, he had heard. All this maze of humiliating contingencies made Frank half frantic. He was angry with Mrs. Severn for being a painter,—angry with the Riches for buying her pictures,—angry that there should be any connexion, and that, above all, a connexion as of patron and dependant between the family of the girl he might have married and that of the girl he loved. Thinking it over, his very soul grew sick of the imbroglio. If he could but rush up to town and take his Alice to church, and be off to India the very same day,—seeing nobody, making explanations to nobody,—that was the only way of managing matters which could be in the least degree satisfactory; and that was impossible. Mothers of far higher pretensions than Mrs. Severn would, he knew, have received his suit much less cavalierly. He would have her susceptibilities to ménager as well as those of everybody else. There was not a point in the whole business, except Alice herself, upon which he could look with the least satisfaction; and indeed it said a great deal for Frank’s love that Alice herself retained his allegiance unbroken through it all.
Next morning Frank hurried over to Renton at an hour so early as to startle himself and everybody concerned. He met his cousin Mary as she made her habitual round of the flower-beds before breakfast. It had always been hard work to get him to be ready for breakfast at all, not to speak of sauntering in the garden. And yet he had come all the way from Royalborough. Mary held out her hand to him with a little cry of surprise.
‘Is it you, Frank, or your double?’ she asked in her amaze. ‘It does not seem possible it can be you.’
‘I wish I had a double who would be so obliging as to do half my work for me,’ said Frank, dolefully. ‘It is me, worse luck! and if you don’t stand my friend, Mary, I don’t know what I shall do.’
‘Of course I will stand your friend. But, Frank, what is it?’ cried Mary, gliding her arm within his with sisterly confidence. And he took breath for a few minutes without saying a word, leading her from the front of the house out of sight under the shadow of the trees.
‘I may as well tell you at once,’ he said, after this pause. ‘I could not stand it any longer. I have settled all about my exchange, and I am going to India in three months.’
‘To India!’ said Mary. But she had a brother in India, and perhaps it was not quite so appalling to her as Frank expected it to be. She made a little pause, however, and then she said, ‘Poor godmamma!’ with as much feeling as he could desire.
‘Well,’ said Frank; ‘could I help it? It is my father you must blame. How was it to be expected that I could get on in the most expensive regiment in the service after what has happened? It was my duty to do something, and this was the only thing I could do.’
‘I am not blaming you, Frank; I only said, “Poor godmamma!” she will feel it so,’ said Mary; ‘especially after what you gave us to understand last time, that—that there might be another way——’
‘That was folly,’ said Frank hotly; and then he added with humility, ‘But I have not told you half all. You must do more for me yet. Mary, I am going to get married before I go.’
‘To get married!’ Mary repeated with a start; and then she clasped his arm tight with both her hands, and looked up joyfully in his face. ‘Then you must have been fond of her after all,’ she cried. ‘It was not her money you were thinking of. Oh, Frank! don’t be angry. It made me so unhappy to think you were going to marry her for her money.’
‘Good heavens! this girl will drive me mad!’ cried Frank. ‘What nonsense are you thinking of now? Money! She has not a penny, and you never heard of her in your life.’
‘It is not Nelly Rich then?’ said Mary, faltering and withdrawing the clasping hands from his arm.
‘Nelly Rich! that was all your own invention, and my mother’s,’ said Frank,—‘not mine. I said she would have suited Laurie. If you chose to make up a story, that was not my fault.’
There was a pause after this, for Mary remembered but too distinctly the conversation about Nelly, and could not acknowledge that the story was of her invention. But she could hold her tongue, and did so steadily, making no remark, which Frank felt was as great an injury to him as if she had enlarged on the subject. He went along under the trees, quickening his pace in his agitation, without much thought of Mary, who had to change her steps two or three times to keep up with him.
‘I suppose you have no further curiosity?’ he said at length; ‘you don’t want to know who it really is.’
‘Yes, Frank,—when you will tell me,’ said Mary, holding her ground.
‘You are very provoking,’ said her cousin;—‘if it were not that I had such need of you! You should not aggravate a poor fellow that throws himself as it were on your assistance;—I will tell you who it is whether you care to hear or no. It is Alice Severn,—Mrs. Severn’s daughter, who was Laurie’s great friend.’
‘Laurie again!’ said Mary, amazed,—‘Mrs. Severn! Are we never to have an end of Laurie’s friends? You told me she had no daughters. You said something about a little girl. Ah, Frank! I am afraid it is some widow coquette that first made a victim of Laurie and now has done the same to you. I knew there was something mysterious about his going away.’
‘I wish you would talk of things you understand,’ said Frank, indignantly. ‘Alice is only sixteen. She is, I believe, the purest, simplest creature that ever lived. As for Laurie, she was a child to him;—he treated her like a child.’
‘Sixteen! Of course she is only a child,’ said Mary; ‘and the daughter of Mrs. Severn the painter! Frank, you must be mad.’
‘I think I shall be, unless you help me,’ said the young soldier. ‘Her mother is furious against me, Mary; and so will my own mother be, I suppose. But what does it matter when we are going to India? We shall be able to live on what we have. She has no expensive tastes, nor have I.’
‘You,—no expensive tastes?’ cried Mary. ‘Oh, Frank! do pause and think. I did not care for Nelly Rich, but this is far worse. Nelly Rich was of no family, but she had money; whereas this girl is——’
‘The creature I love best in the world,’ said Frank, interrupting her hastily, with a sudden glow upon his face. ‘It is of no use speaking. If I have to give up mother, and home, and friends, and all I have in the world, I shall still have Alice,—and Alice means everything. It is because you don’t know her. But I tell you there never was any one like her. And, Mary, if you don’t stand by us, I will throw up everything else I care for in the world.’
‘But not her?’ asked his cousin, raising her eyes to his face.
‘Never her!’ cried the young man. ‘Give up my Alice! Not for twenty mothers! I don’t mind what people choose to say. We are going to India, and it will not matter to us,—nor your objections, nor mamma’s objections, nor anything in the world. She shall go with me if I run away with her. You understand me now?’
‘Is she the kind of girl to run away with you?’ said Mary, still looking earnestly in his face.
‘No,’ said Frank, with a little outburst of impatience, ‘I wish she were. You may think how unpleasant it is to me to put myself at that woman’s feet, and plead as if I were a beggar. And she hates me; but Alice stands fast, bless her! And her mother can refuse her nothing,’ he added, with a sudden breath of satisfaction. He was flushed and excited with his story. Mary had never seen him look so manful, so bright, and full of energy. He had made up his mind;—that was something gained, at least.
And then there was another pause. Mary did not know how to reply. Frank was in love, and that was a great, the greatest recommendation in his favour. But this Alice, this creature of sixteen, a girl altogether out of his sphere! It was impossible for his cousin, brought up in the prejudices of her class, not to feel that there must have been some ‘artfulness,’ some design upon the innocent young Guardsman, some triumphant scheme, to lead away so guileless a member of society; and what if it were the same scheme which had wounded Laurie too, and sent him away with, perhaps, a broken heart! Such were Mary’s thoughts as she listened. And what could she do? Make herself a party to this artful plan? Countenance the girl, and help Frank to ruin himself? How could she do it? And there were all the speculations about Nelly Rich which had thus fallen to the ground,—and all her godmother’s hopes of the money Frank was to marry! Her mind was full of perplexity. ‘I do not see what I can do,’ she said, faltering. ‘I don’t understand it at all. There was first Miss Rich, and we had made up our minds to that; and now, all at once, it turns out not to be Miss Rich, but a girl no one ever heard of. I don’t know what to make of it, Frank. How can I stand your friend? You are scarcely one-and-twenty. You don’t want a wife at all, that I can see; and going to India too! And a girl of sixteen! I think you are quite unreasonable. As for poor godmamma, I don’t know how she is to bear it. I see nothing but folly in it myself, and what can I say?’
Frank made no answer. He turned with her towards the house, from which, some time before, they had heard the sound of the breakfast-bell. The old butler stood at the window with his napkin in his hand, looking anxiously about the flower-garden for Miss Mary, and much puzzled to divine whose was the figure which he saw in the distance by her side. Mary had dropped her cousin’s arm, and the two walked onward, side by side, like people who have quarrelled, or between whom, at least, some difficulty has arisen. ‘My mother does not get up to breakfast?’ Frank had said, and Mary had answered ‘No,’ and they had gone on again without further communication. But yet Frank was not so cast down as he might have been supposed to be. He was sure of Mary, though Mary was so doubtful of him. When they sat down together to breakfast in the sunshiny quiet of the great brown dining-room, they went over and over the subject again, and yet again. Frank was not aware that he had any skill in description, but, all unawares, he placed before his cousin such a picture of Alice and her curls as touched Mary Westbury’s heart. ‘If my mother once heard her play, she would never ask another question,’ Frank said, in his simplicity; and he confided to Mary more of his troubles in respect to Nelly Rich than he had ever thought to tell. ‘It is a sneaking sort of thing for a man to say,’ Frank admitted, with a flush on his face, ‘but it wasn’t all my doing. I declare I thought old Rich meant to offer her to me the first hour I was in the house. I should never have thought of it myself. And I met her to-day, Mary, and told her plainly I was going to India. She is sharp enough. You may be sure a fellow would never need to make long explanations to her.’
‘And did she understand this too?’ said Mary, from her judicial seat.
‘No, by Jove, I could not tell her that,’ said Frank. ‘That is the worst of it. They will think it was all made up then, and that Alice and I were laughing at them. They are sure to think that, but it is not true. Such an idea had never come into her innocent head; and as for me, I tried never to look at her, never to speak to her, to think of Nelly only,—like a cur,—for her money,’ said Frank, with a novel fervour of self-disgust. ‘And she’s not a bad sort of girl, I can tell you, Mary. I’d like her to know there was no treachery meant.’
‘I am glad you have so much feeling, at least,’ said Mary, the Mentor, looking at him with more charitable eyes.
‘Oh, feeling!’ cried Frank, ‘I wish you would not speak of feeling. And then there is her mother. She will consent for Alice’s sake; but she hates me. And mamma will go out of her senses, I suppose,’ said the young man, disconsolately. He looked so discouraged, so anxious, so boyish, amid all the serious complications he had gathered round him, that it was all Mary Westbury could do to restrain a momentary laugh. And yet there were few cases less laughable when you come to think of it. To be sure, there always remained the question,—a question which every sensible person might ask,—Why was it needful that a young man of one-and-twenty and a girl of sixteen should marry at all? Seven years later would be quite time enough. They had set their hearts upon it; but why should they more than other people have the desire of their hearts? Mary, for her own part, had set her heart repeatedly on things that had not come, and were very unlikely to come to her. And why Frank and his Alice should have their will at once out of hand she could not see. But, after all, it might be the best way of cutting the knot. It was better in her opinion that he should marry any how for love, than in the most favourable way for wealth. And before Frank quitted Renton, Mary had undertaken this all but impossible task.