Volume One – Chapter Eight.
Crossed in Love
“Oh, Mr Bayle, I am so sorry!”
He looked piteously in the handsome pale young face before him, his heart sinking, and a feeling of misery, such as he had never before known, chilling him so that he strove in vain to speak.
The words were not cruel, they were not marked with scorn or contempt. There was no coquetry – no hope. They were spoken in a voice full of gentle sympathy, and there was tender pity in every tone, and yet they chilled him to the heart.
“Oh, Mr Bayle, I am so sorry!”
It needed no look to endorse those words, and yet it was there, beaming upon him from those sweet, frank eyes that had filled again with tears which she did not passionately dash aside, but which brimmed and softly dropped upon the hands she clasped across her breast.
He saw plainly enough that it had all been a dream, his dream of love and joy; that he had been too young to read a woman’s heart aright, and that he had taken her little frank kindnesses as responses to his love; and he needed no explanations, for the tones in which she uttered those words crushed him, till as he stood before her in those painful moments, he realised that the deathblow to all his hopes had come.
He sank back in his chair as she stood before him, gazing up at her in so boyish and piteous a manner that she spoke again.
“Indeed, indeed, Mr Bayle, I thought our intimacy so pleasant, I was so happy with you.”
“Then I may hope,” he cried passionately. “Millicent, dear Millicent, all my life has been spent in study; I have read so little, I never thought of love till I saw you, but it has grown upon me till I can think only of you – your words, the tones of your voice, your face, all are with me always, with me now. Millicent, dear Millicent, it is a man’s first true love, and you could give me hope.”
“Oh, hush! hush!” she said gently, as she held out her hand to him, which he seized and covered with his kisses, till she withdrew it firmly, and shook her head. “I am more pained than I can say,” she said softly. “I tell you I never thought of such a thing as this.”
“But you will,” he said, “Millicent, my love!”
“Mr Bayle,” she said, with some attempt at firmness, “if I have ever by my thoughtlessness made you think I cared for you, otherwise than as a very great friend, forgive me.”
“A friend!” he cried bitterly.
“Yes, as a friend. Is friendship so slight a thing that you speak of it like that?”
“Yes,” he cried; “at a time like this, when I ask for bread and you give me a stone.”
“Oh, hush!” she said again softly; and there was a sad smile through her tears. “I should be cruel if I did not speak to you plainly and firmly. Mr Bayle, what you ask is impossible.”
“You despise me,” he cried passionately, “because I am so boyish – so young.”
“No,” she said gently, as she laid her hand upon his shoulder. “Let me speak to you as an elder sister might.”
“A sister!” he cried angrily.
“Yes, as a sister,” replied Millicent gently. “Christie Bayle, it was those very things in you that attracted me first. I never had a brother; but you, with your frank and free-hearted youthfulness, your genuine freshness of nature, seemed so brotherly, that my life for the past few months has been brighter than ever. Our reading, our painting, our music – Oh, why did you dash all these happy times away?”
“Because I am not a boy,” he cried angrily; “because I am a man – a man who loves you. Millicent, will you not give me hope?”
There was a pause, during which she stood gazing right over his head as he still sat there with outstretched hands, which he at last dropped with a gesture of despair.
“No,” she said at last; “I cannot give you hope. It is impossible.”
“Then you love some one else,” he cried with boyish anger. “Oh, it is cruel. You led me on to love you, and now, in your coquettish triumph, you throw me aside for some other plaything of the hour.”
Millicent’s brow contracted, and a half-angry look came into her eyes.
“This talk to me of brotherly feeling and of being a sister, is it to mock me? It is as I thought,” he cried passionately, “as I have heard, with you handsome women; you who delight in giving pain, in trifling with a weak, foolish fellow’s heart, so that you may bring him to your feet.”
“Christie – ”
“No,” he raged, as he started to his feet, “don’t speak to me like that. I will not be led on again. Enjoy your triumph, but let it be made bitter by the knowledge that you have wrecked my life.”
“Oh, hush! hush! hush!” she said softly. “You are not yourself, Christie Bayle, or you would not speak to me like this. You know that you are charging me with that which is not true. How can you be so cruel?”
“Cruel? It is you,” he cried passionately. “But, there, it is all over. I shall leave here at once. I wish I had never seen the town.”
“Christie,” she said gently, “listen to me. Be yourself and go home, and think over all this. I cannot give you what you ask. Come, be wise and manly over this disappointment. Go away for a week, and then come back to me, and let our pleasant old friendship be resumed. You give me pain, indeed you do, by this outburst. It is so unlike you.”
“Unlike me? Yes, you have nearly driven me mad.”
“No, no. No, no,” she said tenderly. “Be calm. Indeed and indeed, I have felt as warm and affectionate to you of late as a sister could feel for a brother. I have felt so pleased to see how you were winning your way here amongst the people; and when I have heard a light or contemptuous utterance about you, it has made me angry and ready to speak in your defence.”
“Yes, I know,” he cried; “and it is this that taught me that you must care for me – must love me.”
“Cannot a woman esteem and be attached to a youth without loving him?”
“Youth! There! You treat me as if I were a boy,” he cried angrily. “Can I help seeming so young?”
“No,” she said, taking his hand, “But you are in heart and ways very, very young, Christie Bayle. Am I to tell you again that it was this brought about our intimacy, for I found you so fresh in your young manliness, so different to the gentlemen I have been accustomed to? Come: forget all this. Let us be friends.”
“Friends? No, it is impossible,” he cried bitterly. “I know I am boyish and weak, and that is why you hold me in such contempt.”
“Contempt? Oh, no!”
“But, some day,” he pleaded, “I’ll wait – any time – ”
“No, no, no,” she said flushing, “it is impossible.”
“Then,” he raged as he started up, “I am right. You love some one else. Who is it? I will know.”
“Mr Bayle!”
There was a calm queenly dignity in her look and words that checked his rage; and she saw it as he sank into the nearest chair, his face bent down upon his hands, and his shoulders heaving with the emotion that escaped now and then in a hoarse sob.
“Poor boy!” she said to herself as the indignation he had roused gave way to pity.
“Christie Bayle,” she said aloud, as she approached him once more, and laid her hand upon his shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” he cried hoarsely as he sprang up; and she started back, half frightened at his wild, haggard face. “I might have known,” he panted. “Heaven forgive you! Good-bye – good-bye for ever!” Before Millicent could speak he had reached the door, and the next minute she heard his hurried steps as he went down the street.
Volume One – Chapter Nine.
The Scales Fall from Sir Gordon’s Eyes
Millicent stood listening till the steps had died away, and then sat down at the writing-table.
“Poor boy!” she said softly, as she passed her hand over her eyes, “I am so sorry.”
She laid down the pen, and ran over her conduct – all that she had said and done since her first meeting with the curate; but ended by shaking her head, and declaring to herself that she could find nothing in her behaviour to call for blame.
“No,” she said, rising from the table, after writing a few lines which she tore up, “I must not write to him; the wound must be left to time.”
A double knock announced a visitor, and directly after Thisbe King, the maid, ushered in Sir Gordon, who, in addition to his customary dress, wore – what was very unusual for him – a flower in his button-hole, which, with a great show of ceremony, he detached, and presented to Millicent before taking his seat.
As a rule he was full of chatty conversation, but, to Millicent’s surprise, he remained perfectly silent, gazing straight before him through the window.
“Is anything the matter, Sir Gordon?” said Millicent at last. “Papa is out, but he will not be long.” These words roused him, and he smiled at her gravely.
“No, my dear Miss Luttrell,” he said, “nothing is wrong; but at my time of life, when a man has anything particular to say, he weighs it well – he brings a good deal of thought to bear. I was trying to do this now.”
“But mamma is out too,” said Millicent.
“Yes, I know,” he replied, “and therefore I came on to speak to you.”
“Sir Gordon!”
“My dear Miss Luttrell – there, I have known you so long that I may call you my dear child – I think you believe in me?”
“Believe in you, Sir Gordon?”
“Yes, that I have the instincts, I hope, of a gentleman; that I am your father’s very good friend; and that I reverence his child.”
“Oh yes, Sir Gordon,” said Millicent, placing her hand in his, as he extended it towards her.
“That is well, then,” he said; and there was another pause, during which he gazed thoughtfully at the hand he held for a few moments, and then raised it to his lips and allowed it afterwards to glide away.
Millicent flushed slightly, for, in spite of herself, the thought of her visitor’s object began to dawn upon her, though she refused to believe it at first.
“Let me see,” he said at last, “time slides away so fast. You must be three-and-twenty now.”
“I thought a lady’s age was a secret, Sir Gordon,” said Millicent smiling.
“To weak, vain women, yes, my child; but your mind is too clear and candid for such subterfuges as that. Twenty-three! Compared with that, I am quite an old man.”
Millicent’s colour began to deepen, but she made a brave effort to be calm, mastered her emotion, and sat listening to the strange wooing that had commenced.
“I am going to speak very plainly,” her visitor said, gazing wistfully in her eyes, “and to tell you, Millicent, that for the past five years I have been your humble suitor.”
“Sir Gordon!”
“Hush! hush! On the strength of our old friendship hear me out, my child. I will not say a word that shall wilfully give you pain; I only ask for a hearing.”
Millicent sank back in her chair, clasped her hands, and let them rest in her lap, for she was too agitated to speak. The events of an hour or two before had unhinged her.
“For five years I have been nursing this idea in my breast,” he continued, “one day determining to speak, and then telling myself that I was weak and foolish, that the thing was impossible; and then, as you know, I have gone away for months together in my yacht. I will tell you what I have said to myself: ‘You are getting well on in life; she is young and beautiful. The match would not be right. Some day she will form an attachment for some man suited to her. Take your pleasure in seeing the woman you love happier than you could ever make her.’”
This was a revelation to Millicent, whose lips parted, and whose troubled eyes were fixed upon the speaker.
“The years went on, my child,” continued Sir Gordon, “and I kept fancying that the man had come, and that the test of my love for you was to be tried. I was willing to suffer – for your sake – to see you happy; and though I was ready to offer you wealth, title, and the tender affection of an elderly man, I put it aside, striving to do my duty.”
“Sir Gordon, I never knew of all this.”
“Knew!” he said, with a smile, “no: I never let you know. Well, my child, not to distress you too much, I have waited; and, as you knew, I have seen your admirers flitting about you, one by one, all these years; and I confess it, with a sense of delight I dare not dwell upon, I have found that not one of these butterflies has succeeded in winning our little flower. She has always been heart-whole and – There, I dare not say all I would. At last, with a pang that I felt that I must suffer, I saw, as I believed, that the right man had come, in the person of our friend, Christie Bayle. It has been agony to me, though I have hidden it beneath a calm face, I hope, and I have fought on as I saw your intimacy increase. For, I said to myself, it is right. He is well-to-do; he is young and handsome; he is true and manly; he is all that her lover should be; and, with a sigh, I have sat down telling myself that I was content, and, to prove myself, I have made him my friend. Millicent Luttrell, he is a true-hearted, noble fellow, and he loves you.”
Millicent half rose, but sank back in her chair, and her face grew calm once more.
“I am no spy upon your actions or upon those of Christie Bayle, my child; but I know that he has been to you this morning; that he has asked you to be his wife, and that you have refused him.”
“Has Mr Bayle been so wanting in delicacy,” said Millicent, with a flush of anger, “that he has told you this?”
“No, no. Pray do not think thus of him. He is too noble – too manly a fellow to be guilty of such a weakness. There are things, though, which a man cannot conceal from a jealous lover’s eyes, and this was one.”
“Jealous – lover!” faltered Millicent.
“Yes,” he said; “old as I am, my child, I must declare myself as your lover. This last rejection has given me hopes that may be wild – hopes which prompted me to speak as I do now.”
“Sir Gordon!” cried Millicent, rising from her seat; but he followed her example and took her hand.
“You will listen to me, my child, patiently,” he said in low earnest tones; “I must speak now. I know the difference in our ages; no one better; but if the devotion of my life, the constant effort to make you happy can bring the reward I ask, you shall not repent it. I know that some women would be tempted by the title and by my wealth, but I will not even think it of you. I know, too, that some would, in their coquetry, rejoice in bringing such a one as I to their feet, and then laugh at him for his pains. I fear nothing of the kind from you, Millicent, for I know your sweet, candid nature. But tell me first, do you love Christie Bayle?”
“As a sister might love a younger brother, who seemed to need her guiding hand,” said Millicent calmly. “Ah!”
It was a long sigh full of relief; and then taking her hand once more, Sir Gordon said softly:
“Millicent, my child, will you be my wife?”
The look of pain and sorrow in her eyes gave him his answer before her lips parted to speak, and he dropped the hand and stood there with the carefully-got-up look of youthfulness or early manhood seeming to fade from him. In a few minutes he appeared to have aged twenty years; his brow grew full of lines, his eyes seemed sunken, and there was a hollowness of cheek that had been absent before.
He stretched out his hand to the table, and slowly sat down, bending forward till his arms rested upon his knees and his hands hung down nerveless between.
“You need not speak, child,” he said sadly. “It has all been one of my mistakes. I see! I see!”
“Sir Gordon, indeed, indeed I do feel honoured!”
“No, no! hush, hush!” he said gently. “It is only natural. It was very weak and foolish of me to ask you; but when this love blinds a man, he says and does foolish things that he repents when his eyes are open. Mine are open now – yes,” he said, with a sad smile, “wide open; I can see it all. But,” he added quickly as he rose, “you are not angry with me, my dear?”
“Angry? Sir Gordon!”
“No: you are not,” he said, taking her hand and patting it softly. “Is it not strange that I could see you so clearly and well, and yet be so blind to myself? Ah, well, it is over now. I suppose no man is perfect, but in my conceit I did not think I could have been so weak. If I had not seen Bayle this morning and realised what had taken place, I should not have let my vanity get the better of me as I did.”
“All this is very, very painful to me, Sir Gordon.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said quickly. “Come, then, this is our little secret, my child. You will keep it – the secret of my mistake? I do love you very much, but you have taught me what it is. I am getting old and not so keen of wits as I was once upon a time. I thought it was man’s love for woman; but you are right, my dear, it is the love that a tender father might bear his child.”
He took her unresistingly in his arms, and kissed her forehead reverently before turning away, to walk to the window and stand gazing out blindly, till a firm step with loudly creaking boots was heard approaching, when Sir Gordon slowly drew away back into the room.
Then the gate clanged, the bell rang, and a change came over Sir Gordon as Millicent ran to the drawing-room door.
“Not at home, Thisbe, to any one,” she said hastily. “I am particularly engaged.”
She closed the door quietly, and came back into the room to stand there, now flushed, now pale.
Sir Gordon took her hand softly, and raised it to his lips.
“Thank you, my child,” he said tenderly. “It was very kind and thoughtful of you. I could not bear for any one else to see me in my weakness.”
He was smiling sadly in her face, when he noticed her agitation, and at that moment the deep rich tones of Hallam’s voice were heard speaking to Thisbe.
The words were inaudible, but there was no mistaking the tones, and at that moment it was as if the last scale of Sir Gordon’s love blindness had fallen away, and he let fall Millicent’s hand with a half-frightened look.
“Millicent, my child!” he cried in a sharp whisper. “No, no! Tell me it isn’t that!”
She raised her eyes to his, looking pale, and shrinking from him as if guilty of some sin, and he flushed with anger as he caught her by the wrist.
“I give up – I have given up – every hope,” he said, hoarsely, “but I cannot kill my love, even if it be an old man’s, and your happiness would be mine. Tell me, then – I have a right to know – tell me, Millicent, my child, it is not that?”
Millicent’s shrinking aspect passed away, and a warm flush flooded her cheeks as she drew herself up proudly and looked him bravely in the eyes.
“It is true, then?” he said huskily.
Millicent did not answer with her lips; but there was a proud assent in her clear eyes as she met her questioner’s unflinchingly, while the deep-toned murmur ceased, the firm step was heard upon the gravel, and the door closed.
“Then it is so?” he said in a voice that was almost inaudible. “Hallam! Hallam! How true that they say love is blind! Oh, my child, my child!”
His last words were spoken beneath his breath, and he stood there, old and crushed by the fair woman in the full pride of her youth and beauty, both listening to the retiring step as Hallam went down the road.
No words could have told so plainly as her eyes the secret of Millicent Luttrell’s heart.
Volume One – Chapter Ten.
Thisbe Gives Her Experience
Thisbe King was huffy; and when Thisbe King was huffy, she was hard.
When Thisbe was huffy, and in consequence hard, it was because, as she expressed it, “Things is awkward;” and when things were like that, Thisbe went and made the beds.
Of course the beds did not always want making; but more than once after an encounter with Mrs Luttrell upon some domestic question, where it was all mild reproof on one side, acerbity on the other, Thisbe had been known to go up to the best bedroom, drag a couple of chairs forward, and relieve her mind by pulling the bed to pieces, snatching quilt and blankets and sheets off over the chairs, and engaging in a furious fight with pillows, bolster, and feather bed, hitting, punching, and turning, till she was hot; and then, having thoroughly conquered the soft, inanimate objects and her own temper at the same time, the bed was smoothly re-made, and Thisbe sighed.
“I shall have to part with Thisbe,” Mrs Luttrell often used to say to husband and daughter; but matters went no farther: perhaps she knew in her heart that Thisbe would not go.
The beds had all been made, and there had been no encounter with Mrs Luttrell about any domestic matter relating to spreading a cloth in the drawing-room before the grate was blackleaded, or using up one loaf in the kitchen before a second was cut. In fact, Thisbe had been all smiles that morning, and had uttered a few croaks in the kitchen, which she did occasionally under the impression that she was singing; but all at once she had rushed upstairs like the wind in winter when the front door was opened, and to carry out the simile, she had dashed back a bedroom door, and closed it with a bang.
This done, she had made a bed furiously – so furiously that the feathers flew from a weak corner, and had to be picked up and tucked in again. After this, red-faced and somewhat refreshed, Thisbe pulled a housewife out of a tremendous pocket like a saddle-bag, threaded a needle, and sewed up the failing spot.
“It’s dreadful, that’s what it is!” she muttered at last, “and I’m going to speak my mind.”
She did not speak her mind then, but went down to her work, and worked with her ears twitching like those of some animal on the qui vive for danger; and when Thisbe twitched her ears there was a corresponding action in the muscles about the corners of her mouth, which added to the animal look, for it suggested that she might be disposed to bite.
Some little time afterwards she walked into the drawing-room, looking at its occupant in a soured way.
“Letter for you, Miss Milly,” she said.
“A note for me, Thisbe?” And Millicent took the missive which Thisbe held with her apron to keep it clean.
“Mr Bayle give it me hissen.”
Millicent’s face grew troubled, and Thisbe frowned, and left the room shaking her head.
The note was brief, and the tears stood in Millicent’s eyes as she read it twice.
“Pity me. Forgive me. I was mad.”
“Poor boy!” she said softly as she refolded it and placed it in her desk, to stand there, thoughtful and with her brow wrinkled.
She was in the bay-window, and after standing there a few minutes, her face changed; the troubled look passed away as a steady, regular step was heard on the gravel path beyond the hedge. There was the faint creaking noise, too, at every step of the hard tight boots, and as their wearer passed, Millicent looked up and returned the salute: for a glossy hat was raised, and he who bowed passed on, leaving her with her colour slightly heightened and an eager look in her eyes.
“Any answer, miss?”
Millicent turned quickly, to see that Thisbe had returned.
“Answer?”
“Yes, miss. The note.”
“Is Mr Bayle waiting?”
“No, miss; but I thought you might want to send him one, and I’m going out and could leave it on the way.”
“No, Thisbe, there is no answer.”
“Are you sure, miss?”
“Sure, Thisbe? Of course.”
Thisbe stood pulling the hem of her apron and making it snap.
“Oh! I would send him a line, miss. I like Mr Bayle. For such a young man, the way he can preach is wonderful. But, Miss Milly,” she cried with a sudden, passionate outburst, “please, don’t – don’t do that!”
“What do you mean, Thisbe?”
“I can’t abear it, miss. It frightens and worries me.”
“Thisbe!”
“I can’t help it, miss. I’m a woman too, and seven years older than you are. Don’t, please don’t, take any notice of me. There, don’t look cross at me, miss. I must speak when I see things going wrong.”
“What do you mean?” cried Millicent, crimsoning. “I mean I used to lead you about when you was a little thing and keep you out o’ the puddles when the road was clatty, and though you never take hold o’ my hand now, I must speak when you’re going wrong.”
“Thisbe, this is a liberty!”
“I can’t help it, Miss Milly; I see him coming by in his creaking boots, and taking off his hat, and walking by here, when he has no business, and people talking about it all over the town.”
“And in this house. Thisbe, you are forgetting your place.”
“Oh, no, I’m not, miss. I’m thinking about you and Mr Hallam, miss. I know.”
“Thisbe, mamma and I have treated you more as a friend than a servant; but – ”
“That’s it, miss; and I shouldn’t be a friend if I was to stand by and see you walk raight into trouble without a word.”
“Thisbe!”
“I don’t care, Miss Milly, I will speak. Don’t have nowt to do wi’ him; he’s too handsome; never you have nowt to do wi’ a handsome man.”
Millicent’s ordinarily placid face assumed a look foreign to it – a look of anger and firmness combined; but she compressed her lips, as if to keep back words she would rather not utter, and then smiled once more.
“Ah, you may laugh, Miss Milly; but it’s nothing to laugh at. And there’s Mr Bayle, too. You’re having letters from he.”
Millicent’s face changed again; but she mastered her annoyance, and, laying her hand upon Thisbe’s shoulder, said with a smile:
“I don’t want to be angry with you, Thisbe, but you have grown into a terribly prejudiced woman.”
“Enough to make me, seeing what I do, Miss Milly.”
“Come, come, you must not talk like this.”
“Ah, now you’re beginning to coax again, as you always did when you wanted your own way; but it’s of no use, my dear, I don’t like him, and I never shall. I’d rather you’d marry old Sir Gordon; he is nice, though he do dye his hair. I don’t like him and there’s an end of it.”
“Nonsense, Thisbe!”
“No, it isn’t nonsense. I don’t like him, and I never shall.”
“But why? Have you any good reason?”
“Yes,” said Thisbe with a snort.
“What is it?”
“I told you before. He’s so horrid handsome.”
“Why, you dear, prejudiced, silly old thing!” cried Millicent, whose eyes were sparkling, and cheeks flushed.
“I don’t care if I am. I don’t like handsome men: they’re good for nowt.”
“Why, Thisbe!”
“I don’t care, they arn’t; my soldier fellow was that handsome it made you feel wicked, you were so puffed out with pride.”
“And so you were in love once, Thisbe?”
“Why, of course I was. Think I’m made o’ stone, miss? Enough to make any poor girl be in love when a handsome fellow like that, with moustache-i-ohs, and shiny eyes, and larnseer uniform making him look like a blue robin redbreast, came and talked as he did to a silly young goose such as I was then. I couldn’t help it. Why, the way his clothes fitted him was enough to win any girl’s heart – him with such a beautiful figure too! He looked as if he couldn’t be got out of ’em wi’out unpicking.”
“Think of our Thisbe falling in love with a soldier!” cried Millicent, laughing, for there was a wild feeling of joy in her heart that was intoxicating, and made her eyes flash with excitement.
“Ah, it’s very funny, isn’t it?” said Thisbe, with a vicious shake of her apron. “But it’s true. Handsome as handsome he was, and talked so good that he set me thinking always about how nice I must be. Stuffed me out wi’ pride, and what did he do then?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Thisbe.”
“Borrered three pun seven and sixpence of my savings, and took my watch, as I bought at Horncastle fair, to be reggilated, and next time I see my gentleman he was walking out wi’ Dixon’s cook. Handsome is as handsome does, Miss Milly, so you take warning by me.”
“There, I will not be cross with you, Thisbe,” said Millicent, smiling. “I know you mean well.”
“And you’ll send an answer to Mr Bayle, miss?”
“There is no answer required, Thisbe,” said Millicent gravely.
“And Mr Hallam, miss?”
“Thisbe,” said Millicent gravely, “I want you always to be our old faithful friend as well as servant, but – ”
She held up a warning finger, and was silent. Thisbe’s lips parted to say a few angry words; but she flounced round, and made the door speak for her in a sharp bang, after which she rushed upstairs with the intent of having a furious encounter with a bed; but she changed her mind, and on reaching her own room, sat down, put her apron to her eyes, and had what she called “a good cry.”
“Poor Miss Milly!” she sobbed at last; “she’s just about as blind as I was, and she’ll only find it out when it’s too late.”