CHAPTER XL
Two days after Sir John had been taken into confidence, Philipreceived a visit from Lady Bellamy that caused him a good deal ofdiscomfort. After talking to him on general subjects for awhile, sherose to go.
"By the way, Mr. Caresfoot," she said, "I really had almost forgottenthe object of my visit. You may remember a conversation we hadtogether some time ago, when I was the means of paying a debt owing toyou?"
Philip nodded.
"Then you will not have forgotten that one of the articles of ourlittle verbal convention was, that if it should be considered to theinterest of all the parties concerned, your daughter's old nurse wasnot to remain in your house?"
"I remember."
"Well, do you know, I cannot help thinking that it must be a bad thingfor Angela to have so much of the society of an ill-educated and notvery refined person like Pigott. I really advise you to get rid ofher."
"She has been with me for twenty years, and my daughter is devoted toher. I can't turn her off."
"It is always painful to dismiss an old servant--almost as bad asdiscarding an old dress; but when a dress is worn out it must bethrown away. Surely the same applies to servants."
"I don't see how I am to send her away."
"I can quite understand your feelings; but then, you see, an agreementimplies obligations on both sides, doesn't it? especially an agreement'for value received,' as the lawyers say."
Philip winced perceptibly.
"I wish I had never had anything to do with your agreements."
"Oh! if you think it over, I don't think that you will say so. Well,that is settled. I suppose she will go pretty soon. I am glad to seeyou looking so well--very different from your cousin, I assure you. Idon't think much of his state of health. Good-bye; remember me toAngela. By the way, I don't know if you have heard that George has metwith a repulse in that direction; he does not intend to press mattersany more at present; but, of course, the agreement holds all the same.Nobody knows what the morrow may bring forth."
"Where you and my amiable cousin are concerned, I shall be muchsurprised if it does not bring forth villany," thought Philip, as soonas he heard the front door close. "I suppose that it must be doneabout Pigott. Curse that woman, with her sorceress face. I wish I hadnever put myself into her power; the iron hand can be felt prettyplainly through her velvet glove."
Life is never altogether clouded over, and that morning Angela'shorizon had been brightened by two big rays of sunshine that came toshed their cheering light on the grey monotony of her surroundings.For of late, notwithstanding its occasional spasms of fierceexcitement, her life had been as monotonous as it was miserable.Always the same anxious grief, the same fears, the same longingpressing hourly round her like phantoms in the mist--no, not likephantoms, like real living things peeping at her from the dark.Sometimes, indeed, the presentiments and intangible terrors that weregradually strengthening their hold upon her would get beyond hercontrol, and arouse in her a restless desire for action--any action,it did not matter what--that would take her away out of these dullhours of unwholesome mental growth. It was this longing to be doingsomething that drove her, fevered physically with the stifling air ofthe summer night, and mentally by thoughts of her absent lover andrecollections of Lady Bellamy's ominous words, down to the borders ofthe lake on the evening of George's visit to her father, and oncethere, prompted her to try to forget her troubles for awhile in theexercise of an art of which she had from childhood been a mistress.
The same feeling it was too, that led her to spend long hours of theday and even of the night, when by rights she should have been asleep,immersed in endless mathematical studies, and in solving, orattempting to solve, almost impossible problems. She found that thestrenuous effort of the brain acted as a counter-irritant to thefretting of her troubles, and though it may seem an odd thing to say,mathematics alone, owing to the intense application they required,exercised a soothing effect upon her. But, as one cannot constantlysleep induced by chloral without paying for it in some shape or form,Angela's relief from her cares was obtained at no small cost to herhealth. When the same brain, however well developed it may be, hasboth to study hard and suffer much, there must be a waste of tissuesomewhere. In Angela's case the outward and visible result of thisstate of things was to make her grow thinner, and the alternate mentaleffect to increasingly rarefy an intellect already too ethereal forthis work-a-day world, and to plunge its owner into fits of depressionwhich were rendered dreadful by sudden forebodings of evil that wouldleap to life in the recesses of her mind, and for a moment cast alurid glare upon its gloom, such as at night the lightning gives tothe blackness which surrounds it.
It was in one of the worst of these fits, her "cloudy days" as shewould call them to Pigott, that good news found her. As she wasdressing, Pigott brought her a letter, which, recognizing LadyBellamy's bold handwriting, she opened in fear and trembling. Itcontained a short note and another letter. The note ran as follows:
"Dear Angela,
"I enclose you a letter from your cousin George, which contains what I suppose you will consider good news. _For your own sake_ I beg you not to send it back unopened as you did the last.
"A. B."
For a moment Angela was tempted to mistrust this enclosure, and almostcome to the determination to throw it into the fire, feeling sure thata serpent lurked in the grass and that it was a cunningly disguisedlove-letter. But curiosity overcame her, and she opened it as gingerlyas though it were infected, unfolding the sheet with the handle of herhair-brush. Its contents were destined to give her a surprise. Theyran thus:
"Isleworth Hall, September 20.
"My dear Cousin,
"After what passed between us a few days ago you will perhaps be surprised at hearing from me, but, if you have the patience to read this short letter, its contents will not, I fear, be altogether displeasing to you. They are very simple. I write to say that I accept your verdict, and that you need fear no further advances from me. Whether I quite deserved all the bitter words you poured out upon me I leave you to judge at leisure, seeing that my only crime was that I loved you. To most women that offence would not have seemed so unpardonable. But that is as it may be. After what you said there is only one course left for a man who has any pride--and that is to withdraw. So let the past be dead between us. I shall never allude to it again. Wishing you happiness in the path of life which you have chosen,
"I remain, "Your affectionate cousin, "George Caresfoot."
It would have been difficult for any one to have received a moreperfectly satisfactory letter than this was to Angela.
"Pigott," she called out, feeling the absolute necessity of aconfidant in her joy, and forgetting that that worthy soul had nothingbut the most general knowledge of George's advances, "he has given meup; just think, he is going to let me alone. I declare that I feelquite fond of him."
"And who might you be talking of, miss?"
"Why, my cousin George, of course; he is going to let me alone, I tellyou."
"Which, seeing how as he isn't fit to touch you with a pair of tongs,is about the least as he can do, miss, and, as for letting you alone,I didn't know as he ever proposed doing anything else. But thatreminds me, miss, though I am sure I don't know why it should, how asMrs. Hawkins, as was put in to look after the vicarage while theReverend Fraser was away, told me last night how as she had got atelegraft the sight of which, she said, knocked her all faint like,till she turned just as yellow as the cover, to say nothing of four-and-six porterage, the which, however, she intends to recover from theReverend--Lord, where was I?"
"I am sure I don't know, Pigott, but I suppose you were going to tellme what was in the telegram."
"Yes, miss, that's right; but my head does seem to wool up some
how soat times that I fare to lose my way."
"Well, Pigott, what was in the telegram?"
"Lord, miss, how you do hurry one, begging your pardon; only that theReverend Fraser--not but what Mrs. Hawkins do say that it can't betrue, because the words warn't in his writing nor nothing like, as shehas good reason to know, seeing that----"
"Yes, but what about Mr. Fraser, Pigott? Isn't he well?"
"The telegraft didn't say, as I remembers, miss; bless me, I forget ifit was to-day or to-morrow."
"Oh, Pigott," groaned Angela, "do tell me what was in the telegram."
"Why, miss, surely I told you that the thing said, though I fancylikely to be in error----"
"What?" almost shouted Angela.
"Why, that the Reverend Fraser would be home by the midday train, andwould like a beefsteak for lunch, not mentioning, however, anythingabout the onions, which is very puzzling to Mrs.----"
"Oh, I am glad; why could you not tell me before? Cousin Georgedisposed of and Mr. Fraser coming back. Why, things are looking quitebright again; at least they would be if only Arthur were here," andher rejoicing ended in a sigh.
As soon as she thought that he would have finished his beefsteak, withor without the onions, Angela walked down to the vicarage and broke inupon Mr. Fraser with something of her old gladsome warmth. Running upto him without waiting to be announced, she seized him by both hands.
"And so you are back at last? what a long time you have been away. Oh,I am so glad to see you."
Mr. Fraser, who, it struck her, looked older since his absence, turnedfirst a little red and then a little pale, and said,
"Yes, Angela, here I am back again in the old shop; it is very good ofyou to come so soon to see me. Now, sit down and tell me all aboutyourself whilst I go on with my unpacking. But, bless me, my dear,what is the matter with you, you look thin, and as though you were nothappy, and--where has your smile gone to, Angela?"
"Never mind me, you must tell me all about yourself first. Where haveyou been and what have you been doing all these long months?"
"Oh, I have been enjoying myself over half the civilized globe," heanswered, with a somewhat forced laugh. "Switzerland, Italy, and Spainhave all been benefited by my presence, but I got tired of it, so hereI am back in my proper sphere, and delighted to again behold thesedear familiar faces," and he pointed to his ample collection ofclassics. "But let me hear about yourself, Angela. I am tired ofNo. 1, I can assure you."
"Oh, mine is a long story, you will scarcely find patience to listento it."
"Ah, I thought that there was a story from your face; then I thinkthat I can guess what it is about. Young ladies' stories generallyturn upon the same pivot," and he laughed a little softly, and satdown in a corner well out of the light. "Now, my dear, I am ready togive you my best attention."
Angela blushed very deeply, and, looking studiously out of the window,began, with many hesitations, to tell her story.
"Well, Mr. Fraser, you must understand first of all--I mean, you know,that I must tell you that--" desperately, "that I am engaged."
"Ah!"
There was a something so sharp and sudden about this exclamation thatAngela turned round quickly.
"What's the matter, have you hurt yourself?"
"Yes; but go on, Angela."
It was an awkward story to tell, especially the George complicationpart of it, and to any one else she felt that she would have found italmost impossible to tell it, but in Mr. Fraser she was, she knew,sure of a sympathetic listener. Had she known, too, that the meremention of her lover's name was a stab to her listener's heart, andthat every expression of her own deep and enduring love and each toneof endearment were new and ingenious tortures, she might well havebeen confused.
For so it was. Although he was fifty years of age, Mr. Fraser had noteducated Angela with impunity. He had paid the penalty that must haveresulted to any heart-whole man not absolutely a fossil, who had beenbrought into close contact with such a woman as Angela. Her lovelinessappealed to his sense of beauty, her goodness to his heart, and herlearning to his intellectual sympathies. What wonder that he learnt byimperceptible degrees to love her; the wonder would have been if hehad not.
The reader need not fear, however; he shall not be troubled with anylong account of Mr. Fraser's misfortune, for it never came to light orobtruded itself upon the world or even upon its object. His was one ofthose earnest, secret, and self-sacrificing passions of which, if weonly knew it, there exist a good many round about us, passions whichto all appearance tend to nothing and are entirely without object,unless it to be make the individuals on whom they are inflicted alittle less happy, or a little more miserable, as the case may be,than he or she would otherwise have been. It was to strive to conquerthis passion, which in his heart he called dishonourable, that Mr.Fraser had gone abroad, right away from Angela, where he had wrestledwith it, and prayed against it, and at last, as he thought, subduedit. But now, on his first sight of her, it rose again in all itsformer strength, and rushed through his being like a storm, and herealized that such love is of those things that cannot die. Andperhaps it is a question if he really wished to lose it. It was a poorthing indeed, a very poor thing, but his own. There is something sodivine about all true love that there lurks a conviction at the bottomof the hearts of most of us that it is better to love, however much wesuffer, than not to love at all. Perhaps, after all, those really tobe pitied are the people who are not capable of any such sensation.
But what Mr. Fraser suffered listening that autumn afternoon toAngela's tale of another's love and of her own deep return of thatlove, no man but himself ever knew. Yet still he heard and was notshaken in his loyal-heartedness, and comforted and consoled her,giving her the best advice in his power, like the noble Christiangentleman that he was; showing her too that there was little need ofanxiety and every ground for hope that things would come to a happyand successful issue. The martyr's abnegation of self is not yet deadin the world.
At last Angela came to the letter that she had that very morningreceived from George. Mr. Fraser read it carefully.
"At any rate," he said, "he is behaving like a gentleman now. On thewhole, that is a nice letter. You will be troubled with him no more."
"Yes," answered Angela, and then flushing up at the memory of George'sarguments in the lane, "but it is certainly time that he did, for hehad no business, oh, he had no business to speak to me as he spoke,and he a man old enough to be my father."
Mr. Fraser's pale cheeks coloured a little.
"Don't be hard upon him because he is old, Angela--which by the way heis not, he is nearly ten years my junior--for I fear that old men arejust as liable to be made fools of by a pretty face as young ones."
From that moment, not knowing the man's real character, Mr. Frasersecretly entertained a certain sympathy for George's sufferings,arising no doubt from a fellow-feeling. It seemed to him that he couldunderstand a man going very far indeed when his object was to winAngela: not that he would have done it himself, but he knew thetemptation and what it cost to struggle against it.
It was nearly dark when at length Angela, rising to go, warmly pressedhis hand, and thanked him in her own sweet way for his goodness andkind counsel. And then, declining his offer of escort, and saying thatshe would come and see him again on the morrow, she departed on herhomeward path.
The first thing that met her gaze on the hall-table at the Abbey Housewas a note addressed to herself in a handwriting that she had seen inmany washing bills, but never before on an envelope. She opened it invague alarm. It ran as follows:
"Miss,--Yore father has just dismissed me, saying that he is too pore to keep me any longer, which is a matter as I holds my own opinion on, and that I am too uneddicated to be in yore company, which is a perfect truth. But, miss, not feeling any how ekal to bid you good-bye in person after bringing you up by hand and doing for you these many years, I takes the liberty to write to you, miss, to say good-bye and God bless you, my beau
tiful angel, and I shall be to be found down at the old housen at the end of the drift as my pore husband left me, which is fortinately just empty, and p'raps you will come and see me at times, miss.
"Yore obedient servant, "Pigott.
"I opens this again to say how as I have tied up your things a bit afore I left leaving mine till to-morrow, when, if living, I shall send for them. If you please, miss, you will find yore clean night-shift in the left hand drawyer, and sorry am I that I can't be there to lay it out for you. I shall take the liberty to send up for your washing, as it can't be trusted to any one."
Angela read the letter through, and then sank back upon a chair andburst into a storm of tears. Partially recovering herself, however,she rose and entered her father's study.
"Is this true?" she asked, still sobbing.
"Is what true?" asked Philip, indifferently, and affecting not to seeher distress.
"That you have sent Pigott away?"
"Yes, yes, you see, Angela----"
"Do you mean that she is really to stop away?"
"Of course I do, I really must be allowed, Angela----"
"Forgive me, father, but I do not want to listen to your reasons andexcuses." Her eyes were quite dry now. "That woman nursed my dyingmother, and played a mother's part to me. She is, as you know, my onlywoman friend, and yet you throw her away like a worn-out shoe. Nodoubt you have your reasons, and I hope that they are satisfactory toyou, but I tell you, reasons or no reasons, you have acted in a waythat is cowardly and cruel;" and casting one indignant glance at himshe left the room.
Philip quailed before his daughter's anger.
"Thank goodness she's gone, and that job is done with. I am downrightafraid of her, and the worst of it is she speaks the truth," saidPhilip to himself, as the door closed.
Ten days after this incident, Angela heard casually from Mr. Fraserthat Sir John and Lady Bellamy were going on a short trip abroad forthe benefit of the former's health. If she thought about the matter atall, it was to feel rather glad. Angela did not like Lady Bellamy,indeed she feared her. Of George she neither heard nor saw anything.He had also gone away.