BUT this was not the first time that Anne had been driven out of patience by the suggestions of her little sister. When Rose had gone away, she calmed down by degrees and gradually got back her self-possession. What did Rose know about this matter or any other matter in which serious things like the heart, like love and the larger concerns of life were involved? She knew about superficial things, having often a keen power of observation, Anne knew; but the other matters were too high for her. Her unawakened mind could not comprehend them. How could she have found a way of seeing into Cosmo’s heart which was denied to Anne? It was impossible; the only thing that could have made her believe in Rose’s superior penetration was that, Anne felt, she did not herself understand Cosmo as she had thought she did, and was perplexed about his course of action, and anxious as to the motives which she could not believe to have been anything but fine and noble. Though his coming had brought her back to something of her original faith, yet she had been checked and chilled without admitting it to herself. All that we can conceive of perfection is, perhaps, what we would have done ourselves in certain circumstances, or, at least, what we would have wished to do, what we might have been capable of in the finest combination of motives and faculties; and whatsoever might be the glosses with which she explained his behaviour to herself, Anne knew very well that this was not how Cosmo had behaved. She could not think of his conduct as carrying out any ideal, and here accordingly was the point in which her mind was weak and subject to attack. But after a while she laughed, or tried to laugh, at herself; ‘as if Rose could know!’ she said, and settled down to arrange her papers again, and finally to write to Cosmo, which was her way of working off her fright and returning to herself.
‘Rose has been talking to me and advising me,’ she wrote. ‘She has been telling me what I ought to do. And the chief point of all is about you. She thinks, as we are both poor now, that I ought to release you from our engagement, and so “give us both another chance,” as she says. It is wonderful the worldly wisdom that is in my little sister. She thinks that you and I could both use this “chance” to our own advantage, and find someone else who is well off as a fitter mate for our respective poverties. Is it the spirit of the time of which we all hear so much, that suggests wisdom like this even in the nursery? It makes me open my eyes and feel myself a fool. And she does it all in such innocence, with her dear little chin turned up, and everything about her so smooth and childlike; she suggests these villanies with the air of a good little girl saying her lesson. I cannot be sure that it amused me, for you know I am always a little, as you say, au grand sérieux; but for you who have a sense of humour, I am afraid it would be very amusing. I wonder, if the people she advises for their good, took Rose at her word, whether she would be horrified? I hope and believe she would. And as for you, Cosmo, I trust you will let me know when you want to be freed from your engagement. I am afraid it would take that to convince me. I cannot think of you even, from any level but your own, and, as that is above mine, how could it be comprehensible to Rose? This calculation would want trigonometry (is not that the science?), altogether out of my power. Give me a hint from yourself, dear Cosmo, when that moment arrives. I shall know you have such a motive for it as will make it worthy of you.’
When she had written this she was relieved; though perhaps the letter might never be sent to its address. In this way her desk was full of scraps which she had written to Cosmo for the relief of her mind rather than the instruction of his. Perhaps, if her confidence in him had been as perfect as she thought, she would have sent them all to him. They were all appeals to the ideal Cosmo who was her real lover, confidences in him, references to his understanding and sympathy, which never would have failed had he been what she thought. This had been the charm and delight of her first and earliest abandonment of heart and soul to her love. But as one crisis came after another, or rather since the last crisis came which had supplied such cruel tests, Anne had grown timid of letting all these outpourings reach his eyes; though she continued to write them all the same, and they relieved her own heart. When she had done this now, her mind regained its serenity. What a wonder was little Rose! Where had the child learned all that ‘store of petty maxims,’ all those suggestions of prudence? Anne smiled to herself with the indulgence which we all have for a child. Some people of a rough kind are amused by hearing blasphemies, oaths which have no meaning as said by her, come out of a child’s lips. It was with something of the same kind of feeling that Anne received her little sister’s recommendations. They did not amuse her indeed, but yet impressed her as something ludicrous, less to be blamed than to be smiled at, not calling forth any real exercise of judgment, nor to be considered as things serious enough to be judged at all.
The packing up kept the house in commotion, and it was curious how little feeling there was, how little of the desolation of parting, the sense of breaking up a long-established home. The pleasure of freedom and expectations of a new life were great even with Mrs. Mountford: and Rose’s little decorous sorrow had long ago worked itself out. ‘Some natural tears she dropped, but wiped them soon.’ And it did not give these ladies any great pang to leave Mount. They were not leaving it really, they said to themselves. So long as the furniture was there, which was Mrs. Mountford’s, it was still their house, though the walls of it belonged to Heathcote—and then, if Heathcote ‘came forward,’ as Mrs. Mountford, at least, believed he would do——. Rose did not think anything at all about this. At first, no doubt, it had appeared to her as rather a triumph, to win the affections of the heir of entail, and to have it in her power to assume the position of head of the house, as her mother had done. But, as the sniff of the freshening breeze came to her from the unseen seas on which she was about to launch forth, Rose began to feel more disdain than pleasure for such easy triumphs. Cousin Heathcote was handsome, but he was elderly—thirty-five! and she was only eighteen. No doubt there were finer things in the unknown than any she had yet caught sight of; and what was Mount? a mere simple country house, not half so grand as Meadowlands—that the possible possession of it in the future should so much please a rich girl with a good fortune and everything in her favour. Leaving home did not really count for much in her mind, as she made her little individual preparations. The future seemed her own, the past was not important one way or another. And having given her sister the benefit of her advice with such decision, she felt herself still more able to advise Keziah, who cried as she put up Miss Rose’s things. On the whole, perhaps, there was more fellowship between Keziah and Rose than the little maid felt with the more serious Anne, who was so much older than herself, though the same age.
‘I would not have married Saymore if I had been you,’ said Rose. ‘You will never know anything more than Hunston all your life now, Keziah. You should have come with me into the world. At Mount, or in a little country place, how could you ever see anybody? You have had no choice at all—Jim, whom you never could have married, and now old Saymore. I suppose your aunt thinks it is a great thing for you—but I don’t think it a great thing. If you had come with us, you might have done so much better. I wish you had consulted me——’
‘So do I, Miss Rose,’ said Keziah, dropping tears into the box, which, fortunately, contained only boots and shoes, and articles which would not mark. ‘Oh! I wish I had talked to you at the very first! but I was distracted like, Miss Rose, about poor Jim, and I couldn’t think of anything else.’
‘That was nonsense,’ said Rose; ‘that was always quite out of the question; how could you have married a poor labourer after having been used to live with us, and have every comfort? It would have killed you, Keziah; you were never very strong, you know; and only think! you that have had fires in your room, and nice luncheons three or four times a day, how could you ever live upon a bit of bacon and weak tea, like the women in the cottages? You never could have married him.’
‘That is what aunt used to tell me,’ said Keziah faintly; ‘she said I should have been the first to repent; but then Miss Anne——’
‘Oh, never mind Miss Anne—she is so romantic. She never thinks about bread and butter,’ said Rose. ‘Jim is out of the question, and there is no use thinking of him; but old Saymore is just as bad,’ said the little oracle; ‘I am not sure that he isn’t the worst of the two.’
‘Do you think so, Miss Rose?’ said Keziah wistfully. It was an ease to her mind to have her allegiance to Jim spoken of so lightly. Anne had treated it as a solemn matter, as if it were criminal to ‘break it off;’ whereas Keziah’s feeling was that she had a full right to choose for herself in the matter. But old Saymore was a different question. If she could have had the ‘Black Bull’ without him, no doubt it would have been much better. And now here was a rainbow glimmer of possible glories better even than the ‘Black Bull’ passing over her path! She looked up with tears in her eyes. Something pricked her for her disloyalty to Miss Anne, but Miss Rose was ‘more comforting like.’ Perhaps this wiser counsellor would even yet see some solution to the question, so that poor old Saymore might be left out of it.
‘I think,’ said Rose with decision, ‘that suppose I had been engaged to anyone, when I left Mount, I should have given it up. I should have said, “I am going into the world. I don’t know what may be best now; things will be so very different. Of course, I don’t want to be disagreeable, but I must do the best for myself.” And anybody of sense would have seen it and consented to it,’ said Rose. ‘Of course you must always do the best you can for yourself.’
‘Yes, Miss Rose,’ said Keziah. This chimed with her own profoundest instincts. ‘But then there’s mother and the boys. Mother was to be in the kitchen, and Johnny in the stable, and little Tom bred up for a waiter. It was setting them all up in the world, aunt said.’
‘All that may be very well,’ said Rose. ‘Of course it is always right to be kind to your mother and the rest. But remember that your first duty is always to yourself. And if you like to come with me, I am to have a maid all to myself, Keziah; and you would soon find someone better than old Saymore, if you wanted to marry. You may be very sure of that.’
With this Rose marched away, very certain that she had given the best of advice to the little maid. But Keziah remained doubtful, weeping freely into the trunk which held the boots and shoes. After all there remained ‘mother and the boys’ to think of, who would not be bettered by any such means of doing the best for herself as Rose had pointed out. Keziah thought, perhaps it would be better after all to submit the question once more to Miss Anne, before her final decision was given forth.
The other servants were affected by the breaking up more in Keziah’s way than with any dismal realisation in their own persons of a conclusion to this chapter of life. They had all ‘characters’ that would procure them new places wherever they went; for Mrs. Mountford had not tolerated any black sheep. And as for old Saymore, he was greatly elated by his approaching landlordship, and the marriage which he hoped was settled. He was not aware of Rose’s interference, nor of the superior hopes which she had dangled before his bride. ‘I don’t need to say as I’m sorry to leave, sir,’ Saymore said to Mr. Loseby, who settled his last bills; ‘and sorry, very sorry, for the occasion. Master was a gentleman as seemed to have many years’ life in him, and to be cut off like that is a lesson to us all. But the living has to think of themselves, sir, when all’s done as can be done to show respect for the dead. And I don’t know as I could have had a finer opening. I will miss a deal as I’ve had here, Mr. Loseby. The young ladies I’ll ever take the deepest interest in. I’ve seen ’em grow up, and it’ll always be a ‘appiness to see them, and you too, sir, as has always been most civil, at my ‘otel. But though there’s a deal to regret, there’s something on the other side to be thankful for, and we’re told as everything works together for the best.’
This was the idea very strung in the mind of the house. As the landlord of the ‘Black Bull’ holds a higher position in the world than even the most trusted of butlers, so the position of Mrs. Cook, as henceforward housekeeper and virtual mistress of Mount, was more dignified than when she was only at the head of the kitchen: and Worth, if she did not gain in dignity, had at least the same compensation as her mistress, and looked forward to seeing the world, and having a great deal of variety in her life. They all said piously that everything worked together for the best. So that poor Mr. Mountford was the cause of a great deal of gratification to his fellow-creatures without knowing or meaning it, when his horse put his foot into that rabbit-hole. The harm he did his favourite child scarcely counted as against the advantage he did to many of his dependents. Such are the compensations in death as in life.
But it was December before they got away. After all it turned out that ‘mother and the boys’ had more weight with Keziah than Rose’s offer, and the promise of superior advantage in the future; and she was left in the cottage she came from, preparing her wedding things, and learning by daily experiment how impossible it would have been to content herself with a similar cottage, weak tea, bad butter, and fat bacon, instead of the liberal régime of the servants’ hall, which Rose had freely and graphically described as meaning ‘three or four nice luncheons a day.’ The Mountfords finally departed with very little sentiment; everything was provided for, even the weekly wreath on the grave, and there was nothing for anyone to reproach herself with. Anne, as usual, was the one who felt the separation most. She was going to Cosmo’s constant society, and to the enjoyment of many things she had pined for all her life. Yet the visionary wrench, the total rending asunder of life and all that was implied in it, affected her more than she could say, more than, in the calm of the others, there seemed any reason for. She went out the day before for a long farewell walk, while Rose was still superintending her packing. Anne made a long round through the people in the village, glad that the women should cry, and that there should be some sign here at least of more natural sentiment—and into the Rectory, where she penetrated to the Rector’s study, and was standing by him with her hand upon his arm before he was aware. ‘I have come to say good-bye,’ she said—looking at him with a smile, yet tears in her eyes.
The Rector rose to his feet hastily and took her into his arms. ‘God bless you, my dear child! but you might have been sure I would have come to see the last of you, to bid you farewell at the carriage door——’
‘Yes,’ said Anne, clinging to her old friend, ‘but that is not like good-bye here, is it? where I have always been allowed to come to you, all my life.’
‘And always shall!’ cried the Rector, ‘whenever you want me, howsoever I can be of any use to you!’
The Curate came in while they were still clinging to each other, talking, as people will do when their hearts are full, of one who was no longer there to be bidden good-bye to—the Rector’s wife, for whom he went mourning always, and who had been fond of Anne. Thus she said her farewell both to the living and the dead. Charley walked solemnly by her side up to the park gates. He did not say much; his heart was as heavy as lead in his breast. ‘I don’t know how the world is to go on without you,’ he said; ‘but I suppose it will, all the same.’
‘After a while it will not make much difference,’ said Anne.
‘I suppose nothing makes much difference after a while,’ the Curate said; and at the park gates he said good-bye. ‘I shall be at the train to-morrow—but you don’t want me to go to all the other places with you,’ he said with a sigh; ‘and it is of no use telling you, Anne, as my father did, that, night or day, I am at your service whenever you may want me—you know that.’
‘Yes, I know it,’ she said, giving him her hand; but he was glad that he left her free to visit some other sacred places alone.
Then, as he went back drearily to the parish in which lay all his duty, his work in the world, but which would be so melancholy with Mount shut up and silent, she went lightly over the frosty grass, which crackled under her feet, to the beeches, to visit them once more and think of her tryst under them. How different they were now! She remembered the soft air of summer, the full greenness of the foliage, the sounds of voices all charmed and sweet with the genial heat of August. How different now! Everything at her feet lay frost-bound; the naked branches overhead were white with rime. Nothing was stirring in the wintry world about save the blue smoke from the house curling lazily far off through the anatomy of the leafless trees. This was where she had sat with Cosmo talking, as if talk would never have an end. As she stood reflecting over this with a certain sadness, not sure, though she should see Cosmo to-morrow, that she ever would talk again as she had talked then pouring forth the whole of her heart—Anne was aware of a step not far off crackling upon a fallen branch. She turned round hastily and saw Heathcote coming towards her. It was not a pleasant surprise.
‘You are saying good-bye,’ he said, ‘and I am an intruder. Pardon me; I strayed this way by accident——’
‘Never mind,’ said Anne; ‘yes, I am saying good-bye.’
‘Which is the last word you should say, with my will.’
‘Thanks, Cousin Heathcote, you are very good. I know how kind you have been. If I seem to be ungrateful,’ said Anne, ‘it is not that I don’t feel it, but only that my heart is full.’
‘I know that,’ he said, ‘very well. I was not asking any gratitude. The only thing that I feel I have a right to do is to grumble, because everything was settled, everything! before I had a chance.’
‘That is your joke,’ said Anne, with a smile; and then, after a time, she added, ‘Will you take me to the spot as far as you remember it, the very spot——’
‘I know,’ he said; and they went away solemnly side by side, away from that spot consecrated to love and all its hopeful memories, crossing together the crisp ice-bound grass. The old house rose up in front of them against the background of earth and sky, amid the clustering darkness of the leafless branches. It was all silent, nothing visible of the life within, except the blue smoke rising faintly through the air, which was so still. They said little as they went along by the great terrace and the lime avenue, avoiding the flower-garden, now so bare and brown. The winter’s chill had paralysed everything. ‘The old house will be still a little more sad to-morrow,’ Heathcote said.
‘I don’t think it ought to be. You have not the affection for it which you might have had, had you known it better: but some time or other it will blossom for you and begin another life.’
He shook his head. ‘May I bring Edward to see you in Park Lane? Edward is my other life,’ he said, ‘and you will see how little strength there is in that.’
‘But, Cousin Heathcote, you must not speak so. Why should you? You are young; life is all before a man at your age.’
‘Who told you that?’ he said with a smile. ‘That is one of your feminine delusions. An old fellow of thirty-five, when he is an old fellow, is as old as Methuselah, Anne. He has seen everything and exhausted everything. This is the true age at which all is vanity. If he catches at a new interest and begins to hope for a renewal of his heart, something is sure to come in and stop him. He is frustrated and all his opportunities baulked as in my own case—or something else happens. I know you think a great deal more of our privileges than they deserve.’
‘We are taught to do so,’ said Anne. ‘We are taught that all our best time is when we are young, but that it is different with a man. A man, so to speak, never grows old.’
‘One knows what that means. He is supposed to be able to marry at any age. And so he is—somebody. But, if you will reflect, few men want to marry in the abstract. They want to marry one individual person, who, so far as my experience goes, is very often, most generally I should say, not for them. Do you think it is a consolation for the man who wants to marry Ethelinda, that probably Walburgha might have him if he asked her? I don’t see it. You see how severely historical I am in my names.’
‘They are both Mountford names,’ said Anne, ‘but very severe—archæological, rather than historical.’ And then they came out on the other side and were silent, coming to the broad stretch of the park on which Mr. Mountford’s accident took place. They walked along very silently with a sort of mournful fellowship between them. So far as this went there was nobody in the world with whom Anne could feel so much in common. His mind was full of melancholy recollections as he walked along the crisp and crackling grass. He seemed to see the quiet evening shadows, the lights in the windows, and to hear the tranquil voice of the father of the family pointing out the welcome which the old house seemed to give: and then the stumble, the fall, the cry; and the long long watch in the dark, so near help—the struggles of the horse—the stillness of the huddled heap which could scarcely be identified from the horse, in the fatal gloom. When they came to the spot they stood still, as over a grave. There were still some marks of the horse’s frantic hoofs in the heavy grass.
‘Was it long?’ he said. ‘The time seemed years to me—but I suppose it was not an hour.’
‘They thought only about half-an-hour,’ said Anne, in a low reverential voice.
‘A few minutes were enough,’ Heathcote said, and again there was a silence. He took her hand, scarcely knowing what he did.
‘We are almost strangers,’ he said; ‘but this one recollection will bind us together, will it not, for all our lives?’
Anne gave a soft pressure to his hand, partly in reply, partly in gratitude. Her eyes were full of tears, her voice choked. ‘I hope he had no time to think,’ she said.
‘A moment, but no more. I feel sure that after that first cry, and one groan, there was no more.’
She put down her veil and wept silently as they went back to the house. Mrs. Mountford all the time was sitting with Rose in her bedroom watching Worth as she packed all the favourite knicknacks, which make a lady’s chamber pretty and homelike. She liked to carry these trifles about, and she was interested and anxious about their careful packing. Thus it was only the daughter whom he had wronged who thought of the dead father on the last day which the family spent at Mount.