Uncle Max Chapter 45

'THIS HOME IS YOURS NO LONGER'

There are long gray days in every one's life.

I think that day was the longest that I ever spent: it seemed as though the morning would never merge into afternoon, or the afternoon into evening. Of the night I could not judge, for I slept as only weary youth can sleep.

Sheer humanity, the mere instinct of womankind, had obliged me to watch by Miss Darrell through the previous night: for some hours her hysterical state had bordered on frenzy. I knew sleep was the best restorative in such cases: she would wake quieter. There would be no actual need for my services, and unless she sent for me I thought it better to leave her alone: she was only suffering the penalty of her own sin, the shame of detected guilt. There was no sign of real penitence to give me hope for the future.

I found Gladys awake when I returned from the garden: in spite of my anxiety, it gave me intense pleasure to hear her greeting words.

'Oh, Ursula, come and kiss me; it is good morning indeed. I woke so happy; everything is so lovely,—the sunshine, and the birds, and the flowers!' And, with a smile, 'I wished somebody could have seen—"my thoughts of Max."' And then, still holding me fast, 'I do not forget my poor boy, in spite of my happiness, but something tells me that Eric will soon come back.'

'He might have been here now,' I grumbled, 'if you had allowed me to tell your brother'; for those few reproachful words haunted me.

'Yes, dear; I know I was wrong,' she answered, with sweet candour. 'Giles is so kind now that I cannot think why I was so reserved with him; but of course,' flushing a little, 'I was afraid of Etta.'

'I suppose that was the reason,' I returned, busying myself about the room; for I did not care to pursue the subject. Mr. Hamilton's few words had convinced me that he thought it would be wiser to leave Gladys in ignorance of what was going on until Miss Darrell was out of the house. She had borne so much, and was still weak and unfit for any great excitement. My great fear was lest Miss Darrell should force her way into Gladys's presence and disturb her by a scene; and this fear kept me anxious and uneasy all day.

Gladys was a trifle restless; she wanted a drive again, and when I made her brother's absence a pretext for refusing this, she pleaded for a stroll in the garden. It was with great difficulty that I at last induced her to remain quietly in her room. But when she saw that I was really serious she gave up her wishes very sweetly, and consoled herself by writing to Max, in answer to a letter that he had sent under cover to me.

It was nearly noon before Chatty brought me a message that Miss Darrell was just up and dressed, and wished to speak to me; and I went at once to her.

The usually luxurious room had an untidy and forlorn aspect. The crumpled Indian dressing-gown and the breakfast-tray littered the couch; ornaments, jewellery, and brushes strewed the dressing-table. Miss Darrell was sitting in an easy-chair by the open window. She did not move or glance as I entered in the full light. She looked pinched and old and plain. Her eyelids were swollen; her complexion had a yellowish whiteness; as I stood opposite to her, I could see gray hairs in the smooth dark head; before many years were over Miss Darrell would look an old woman. I could not help wondering, as I looked at her, how any one could have called her handsome.

'Chatty says Leah has gone,' she said, in a voice fretful with misery. 'I told her that that was too good news to be true. Is it true, Miss Garston?'

'Yes; she has gone.'

'I am glad of it,' with a vixenish sharpness that surprised me. 'I hated that woman, and yet I was afraid of her too: she got me in her toils, and then I was helpless. Where has Giles gone, Miss Garston? Chatty said he went off in a dog-cart with his portmanteau.'

How I wished Chatty would hold her tongue sometimes! but most likely Miss Darrell had questioned her.

'Mr. Hamilton's business is not our affair,' I returned coldly.

'That means I am not to ask; but all the same you are in his secret,' with one of her old sneers. 'Will he be back to-night?'

'No, not to-night; to-morrow morning early.'

'That is all I want to know, Miss Garston,' hesitating a little nervously. 'I have never liked you, but all the same I have not injured you.'

'Have you not, Miss Darrell?'

'No,' very uneasily; but she did not meet my eyes. 'I defy you to prove that I have. Still, if I were your enemy, ought you not to heap coals of fire on my head?'

'Possibly.'

My coolness seemed to frighten her; she lost her sullen self-possession.

'Have you no heart?' she said passionately. 'Will you not hold up a finger to help me? You have influence with Giles; do not deny it. If you ask him to keep me here he will not refuse you, and you will make me your slave for life.'

I heard this proposition with disgust. She could cringe to me whom she hated. I shook my head, feeling unable to answer her.

'I could help you,' she persisted, fixing her miserable eyes on me. 'Oh, I know what you want: you cannot hide from me that you are unhappy. I know where the hindrance lies; one word from me would bring Giles to your feet. Am I to say that word?'

'No,' I returned indignantly. 'Do you think that I would owe anything to you? I would rather be unhappy all my life than be under such an obligation. You are powerless to harm me, Miss Darrell; your plots are nothing to me.'

'And yet a word from me would bring him to your feet.'

'I do not want him there,' I replied, irritated at this persistence. 'I do not wish you to mention his name to me; if you do so again I will leave you.'

'On your head be your own obstinacy,' she returned angrily; but I could see the despair in her eyes, and I answered that.

'Miss Darrell,' I went on, more gently, 'I cannot help you in this. How could I ask Mr. Hamilton to keep you under his roof, knowing that you have poisoned his domestic happiness? Even if I could be so mad or foolish, would he be likely to listen to me?'

'He would listen to you,' half crying: 'you know he worships the ground you walk on.'

I tried to keep back the rebellious colour that rose to my face at her words.

'Do not cheat yourself with this insane belief,' I returned quietly. 'Mr. Hamilton is inexorable when he has decided on anything.'

'Inexorable! you may well say so!' rocking herself in an uncontrollable excitement. 'Giles is hard,—cruel in his wrath: he will send me away and never see me again.' And now the tears began to flow.

'Miss Darrell,' I continued pityingly, 'for your own sake listen to me a moment. You have failed most miserably in the past: let the future years be years of repentance and atonement. Mr. Hamilton will not forgive until you have proved yourself worthy of forgiveness: remember you owe the future to him.'

She stared at me for a moment as though my words held some hope for her; then she turned her back on me and went on rocking herself. 'Too late!' I heard her mutter: 'I cannot be good without him.' And, with a strange sinking of heart, I left the room.

She could bring him to my feet with a word. Was this the truth, or only an idle boast? No matter; I would not owe even his love to this woman. 'I can live without you, Giles,—my Giles,' I whispered; but hot tears burnt my cheeks as I spoke.

In the afternoon I saw Miss Darrell pacing up and down the asphalt walk. Gladys saw her too, and turned away from the window rather nervously. 'How restless Etta seems!' she said once; but I made no answer. Towards evening I heard her footsteps perambulating the long passage, and softly turned the key in the lock without Gladys noticing the movement. Gladys noticed very little in that sweet dreamy mood that had come to her; her own thoughts occupied her; her lover's letter had more than contented her.

About ten o'clock I went in search of Chatty, and came face to face with Miss Darrell. She was in her crumpled yellow dressing-gown, and her dark hair hung over her shoulders; her eyes looked bright and strange. I moved back a step and laid my hand on the handle.

She greeted this action with a disagreeable laugh.

'I suppose you heard me trying the door just now. Yes, I wanted to see Gladys; I wished to make some one feel as wretched as I do myself; but you were too quick for me. Do you always keep your patients under lock and key?'

'Sometimes,' laconically, for I disliked her manner more than ever to-night: it was not the first time that I had fancied that she had had recourse to some form of narcotic. 'Why do you not go to bed, Miss Darrell?'

'Perhaps I shall when I have thoroughly tired myself. These passages have rather a ghastly look: they remind me of Leah, too,' with a shudder. 'Good-night, Miss Garston; pleasant dreams to you. I suppose you have not thought better of what I said about Giles?'

'No, certainly not,' retreating into my room and locking the door in a panic. I heard a husky laugh answer me. Perhaps last night's watching had tired my nerves, for it was long before I could compose myself to sleep.

The night passed quietly, and I woke, refreshed, to the sound of summer rain pattering on the shrubs. The little oak avenue looked wet and dreary; but no amount of rain or outward dreariness could damp me, with the expectation of Mr. Hamilton's return; and I helped Chatty arrange our rooms with great cheerfulness.

He came back earlier than I expected. I had hardly finished settling Gladys for the day,—she took great pains with her toilet now, and was hard to please in the matter of ruffles and ornaments,—when Chatty told me that he wished to speak to me a moment.

I made some excuse and joined him without delay. He looked much as he had the previous morning,—very worn and tired, and his eyes a little sunken; but he greeted me quietly, and even kindly; he asked me if I felt better, and how Gladys was. I was rather ashamed of my nervous manner of answering, but that odious speech of Miss Darrell would come into my mind when he looked at me.

'Chatty says my cousin is in the dining-room: do you mind coming down with me for a few minutes? I do not wish to see her alone.'

Of course I signified my willingness to accompany him, and he walked beside me silently to the dining-room door.

Miss Darrell was sitting on the circular seat looking out on the oak avenue; she did not turn her head, and there was something hopeless in the line of her stooping shoulders. I saw her hands clutch the cushions nervously as her cousin walked straight to the window.

'Etta,' he began abruptly, 'I wish you to listen to me a moment. I will spare you all I can, for Aunt Margaret's sake: I do not intend to be more hard with you than my duty demands.'

'Oh, Giles!' raising her eyes at this mild commencement; but they dropped again at the sight of the dark impenetrable face, which certainly had no look of pity on it. She must have felt then, what I should certainly have felt in her place, that any prayers or tears would be wasted on him.

'It would be useless, and worse than useless,' he went on, 'to point out to you the heinousness of your sin,—perhaps I should say crime. All these years you have not faltered in your relentless course; no pity for me and mine has touched your heart; you have allowed our poor lad to wander about the world as an outcast; you have suffered Gladys to carry a heavy and bitter weight in her bosom. Pshaw! why do I reiterate these things? you know them all.'

'Giles, I have loved you in spite of it all! Be merciful to me!' But he went on as though he heard her no more than the rain dripping on the leaves.

'This home is yours no longer; you are no fit companion for my sisters, even if I could bear to shelter a traitor under my roof. If I know my present feelings, I will never willingly see your face again: whether I ever do see it depends on your future conduct.'

'Oh, for pity's sake, Giles!' She was writhing now. In spite of all her sins against him, she had loved him in her perverse way.

'I have found you a home far from here,' he continued in the same chilling manner, 'and to-morrow morning you will be taken to it. The Alnwicks are kind, worthy people—not rich in this world's goods, or what the world would call refined. I was able to help them once when they were in bitter straits: in return they have acceded to my request and have offered you a home.'

'I will not go!' she sobbed passionately. 'I would rather you should kill me, Giles, than treat me with such cruelty!'

'They are old,' he went on calmly, 'but more with trouble than years, and they have no one belonging to them, and they promise to treat you like a daughter. You will be in comfort, but not luxury: luxury has been your curse, Etta. A moderate sum will be paid to you yearly for your dress and personal expenses, but if overdrawn or misapplied it will be curtailed or stopped altogether. Your maintenance will be arranged between the Alnwicks and myself, and, unless I give you permission to write,—which is distinctly not my purpose now,—no letter from you will be read or answered, and I forbid all such communication.'

'I cannot—I cannot bear it!' she screamed, springing to her feet; but he waved her back with such a look that her arms dropped to her side.

'No scene, I beg,' in a tone of disgust. 'Let me finish quietly what I have to say.—Miss Garston,' turning to me, 'could you spare Chatty to help my cousin pack her clothes and books? for we shall start early in the morning. Mr. Alnwick has promised to meet us half-way.'

'I can set Chatty at liberty for the day,' was my answer.

'Very well. Etta, you may as well go at once. Your meals will be served in your room. I do not wish you to resume your usual habits: this is my house, not yours. Your only course now must be obedience and submission. Let your future conduct atone to me for the past, that I may remember without shame that I have a cousin Etta.'

He turned away then, but I could see his face working. He had dearly loved this miserable creature, and had cared for her as though she had been his sister, and he could not leave her without this vague word of hope. Did she understand him, I wonder,—that in the future he might bring himself to forgive her? I heard her weeping bitterly in her room afterwards, and Chatty, in her fussy, good-natured way, trying to comfort her: the girl had a kind heart.

Early in the afternoon Mr. Hamilton joined us in the turret-room. Directly he came in and sat down by his sister's couch I knew that he meant to tell her everything,—that he thought it best that she should hear it from him.

He told it very quietly, without any explanation or expression of feeling; but it was not possible for Gladys to hear that Eric's name was cleared without keen emotion. 'Oh, thank God for this other mercy!' she sobbed, bursting into tears; and presently, as he went on, she crept closer to him, and before he had finished she had clasped his arm with her two hands and her face was hidden in them.

'Oh, Giles! if you only knew what she has made me suffer!' she whispered. 'We should have understood each other better if Etta had not always come between us.'

'You are right; I feel you are right, Gladys,' stroking her fair hair as he spoke; then she looked up and smiled affectionately in his face.

'Ursula, will you leave me alone with my brother for a little? There is something I want to tell him!' And I went away at once.

As I opened the door, Chatty came down the passage with a pile of freshly-ironed linen. Her round face looked unusually disturbed.

'She is going on so, ma'am,' she whispered, 'it is dreadful to hear her. She is making us turn out all her drawers, and there are three big trunks to fill. She says she is going away for ever.'

'Hush!' I returned, with a warning look, for Miss Darrell was at the door watching us. She was in her yellow dressing-gown, and the old pinched look was still in her face.

'Why are you stopping to gossip, Chatty?' she said querulously. 'I shall not have finished until midnight at this rate. Leah would have packed by this time.' And Chatty, with rather a frightened look, carried in her pile of clean linen.

I strolled about the garden for an hour, and then went back to the house. Mr. Hamilton was just closing the door of his sister's room. He looked happier, I thought: the dark, irritable expression had left his face. He came forward with a smile.

'Gladys has been telling me, Miss Garston. I am more glad than I can say. Cunliffe is a fine fellow; there is no one that I should like so well for a brother.'

'I knew you would say so. Uncle Max is so good.'

'Well, he has secured a prize,' with a slight sigh. 'Gladys is a noble woman; she will make her husband a happy man. There is little doubt that Etta did mischief there; but Gladys was not willing to enter on that part of the subject. I begin to think,' with a quick, searching look that somewhat disturbed me, 'that we have not yet reached the limits of her mischief-making.'

I could have told him that I knew that. I think he meant to have said something more; but a slight movement in the direction of Miss Darrell's room made us separate somewhat quickly. I saw Mr. Hamilton glance uneasily at the half-closed door as he went past it.

I found Gladys in tears, but she made me understand with some difficulty that they were only tears of relief and joy.

'But I am sorry too, because I have so often grieved him so,' she said, drying her eyes. 'Oh, how good Giles is!—how noble!—and I have misunderstood him so! he was so glad about Max, and so very very kind. And then we talked about Eric. He says we were wrong to keep it from him, that even you were to blame in that. He thinks so highly of you, Ursula; but he said even good people make mistakes sometimes, and that this was a great mistake. I was so sorry when he said that, that I asked his pardon over and over again.'

I felt that I longed to ask his pardon too; and yet the fault had been Gladys's more than mine; but I knew she had talked enough, so I kissed her, and begged her to lie down and compose herself while I got the tea ready.

We did not see Mr. Hamilton again that night. Gladys and I sat by the open window, talking by snatches or relapsing into silence. When she had retired to rest I stole out into the passage to see what had become of tired Chatty, but I repented this charitable impulse when I saw Miss Darrell standing in the open doorway opposite, as though she were watching for some one.

On seeing me she beckoned imperiously, and I crossed the passage with some reluctance.

'Come in a moment: I want to speak to you,' she said hoarsely; and I saw she was much excited. 'I sent Chatty to bed. We have finished packing,—oh, quite finished. Giles will be satisfied with my obedience; and now I want you to tell me what you and he were saying about Mr. Cunliffe.' But her white lips looked whiter as she spoke.

'Excuse me, Miss Darrell,' I returned; but she stopped me.

'You are going to say that it is no business of mine. You are always cautious, Miss Garston; but I am resolved to know this, or I will refuse to leave the house to-morrow morning. Are they engaged? is that what Giles meant when he said he was a fine fellow?'

I thought it wiser to tell her the truth. 'They are engaged.'

'And Giles knows it, and gives his consent?'

'Most gladly and willingly.'

'I wish I could kill them both!' was the sullen reply; and then, without taking any further notice of me, she sat down on one of the boxes and hid her face in her hands, and when I tried to speak to her she shook her head with a gesture of impatience and despair.

'The game is played out; I may as well go,' she muttered; and seeing her in this mood I thought it better to leave her; but I slept uneasily, and often started up in bed fancying I heard something. I remembered her words with horror: the whole scene was like a nightmare to me,—the disordered and desolate room, with the great heavily-corded trunks, the dim light, the wretched woman in her yellow dressing-gown sitting crouched on a box. 'Can this be love?' I thought, with a shudder,—'this compound of vanity and selfishness?' and I felt how different was my feeling for Giles. The barrier might never be broken down between us, I might never be to him more than I was now, but all my life I should love and honour him as the noblest man I knew on God's earth.