Windygates as elsewhere, we were always more or less satisfied
with ourselves, if we were publicly discovered consulting our
History--and more or less ashamed of ourselves, if we were
publicly discovered devouring our Fiction. An architectural
peculiarity in the original arrangement of the library favored
the development of this common and curious form of human
stupidity. While a row of luxurious arm-chairs, in the main
thoroughfare of the room, invited the reader of solid lit erature
to reveal himself in the act of cultivating a virtue, a row of
snug little curtained recesses, opening at intervals out of one
of the walls, enabled the reader of light literature to conceal
himself in the act of indulging a vice. For the rest, all the
minor accessories of this spacious and tranquil place were as
plentiful and as well chosen as the heart could desire. And solid
literature and light literature, and great writers and small,
were all bounteously illuminated alike by a fine broad flow of
the light of heaven, pouring into the room through windows that
opened to the floor.
It was the fourth day from the day of Lady Lundie's garden-party,
and it wanted an hour or more of the time at which the
luncheon-bell usually rang.
The guests at Windygates were most of them in the garden,
enjoying the morning sunshine, after a prevalent mist and rain
for some days past. Two gentlemen (exceptions to the general
rule) were alone in the library. They were the two last gentlemen
in the would who could possibly be supposed to have any
legitimate motive for meeting each other in a place of literary
seclusion. One was Arnold Brinkworth, and the other was Geoffrey
Delamayn.
They had arrived together at Windygates that morning. Geoffrey
had traveled from London with his brother by the train of the
previous night. Arnold, delayed in getting away at his own time,
from his own property, by ceremonies incidental to his position
which were not to be abridged without giving offense to many
worthy people--had caught the passing train early that morning at
the station nearest to him, and had returned to Lady Lundie's, as
he had left Lady Lundie's, in company with his friend.
After a short preliminary interview with Blanche, Arnold had
rejoined Geoffrey in the safe retirement of the library, to say
what was still left to be said between them on the subject of
Anne. Having completed his report of events at Craig Fernie, he
was now naturally waiting to hear what Geoffrey had to say on his
side. To Arnold's astonishment, Geoffrey coolly turned away to
leave the library without uttering a word.
Arnold stopped him without ceremony.
"Not quite so fast, Geoffrey," he said. "I have an interest in
Miss Silvester's welfare as well as in yours. Now you are back
again in Scotland, what are you going to do?"
If Geoffrey had told the truth, he must have stated his position
much as follows:
He had necessarily decided on deserting Anne when he had decided
on joining his brother on the journey back. But he had advanced
no farther than this. How he was to abandon the woman who had
trusted him, without seeing his own dastardly conduct dragged
into the light of day, was more than he yet knew. A vague idea of
at once pacifying and deluding Anne, by a marriage which should
be no marriage at all, had crossed his mind on the journey. He
had asked himself whether a trap of that sort might not be easily
set in a country notorious for the looseness of its marriage
laws--if a man only knew how? And he had thought it likely that
his well-informed brother, who lived in Scotland, might be
tricked into innocently telling him what he wanted to know. He
had turned the conversation to the subject of Scotch marriages in
general by way of trying the experiment. Julius had not studied
the question; Julius knew nothing about it; and there the
experiment had come to an end. As the necessary result of the
check thus encountered, he was now in Scotland with absolutely
nothing to trust to as a means of effecting his release but the
chapter of accidents, aided by his own resolution to marry Mrs.
Glenarm. Such was his position, and such should have been the
substance of his reply when he was confronted by Arnold's
question, and plainly asked what he meant to do.
"The right thing," he answered, unblushingly. "And no mistake
about it."
"I'm glad to hear you see your way so plainly," returned Arnold.
"In your place, I should have been all abroad. I was wondering,
only the other day, whether you would end, as I should have
ended, in consulting Sir Patrick."
Geoffrey eyed him sharply.
"Consult Sir Patrick?" he repeated. "Why would you have done
that?"
"_I_ shouldn't have known how to set about marrying her," replied
Arnold. "And--being in Scotland--I should have applied to Sir
Patrick (without mentioning names, of course), because he would
be sure to know all about it."
"Suppose I don't see my way quite so plainly as you think," said
Geoffrey. " Would you advise me--"
"To consult Sir Patrick? Certainly! He has passed his life in the
practice of the Scotch law. Didn't you know that?"
"No."
"Then take my advice--and consult him. You needn't mention names.
You can say it's the case of a friend."
The idea was a new one and a good one. Geoffrey looked longingly
toward the door. Eager to make Sir Patrick his innocent
accomplice on the spot, he made a second attempt to leave the
library; and made it for the second time in vain. Arnold had more
unwelcome inquiries to make, and more advice to give unasked.
"How have you arranged about meeting Miss Silvester?" he went on.
"You can't go to the hotel in the character of her husband. I
have prevented that. Where else are you to meet her? She is all
alone; she must be weary of waiting, poor thing. Can you manage
matters so as to see her to-day?"
After staring hard at Arnold while he was speaking, Geoffrey
burst out laughing when he had done. A disinterested anxiety for
the welfare of another person was one of those refinements of
feeling which a muscular education had not fitted him to
understand.
"I say, old boy," he burst out, "you seem to take an
extraordinary interest in Miss Silvester! You haven't fallen in
love with her yourself--have you?"
"Come! come!" said Arnold, seriously. "Neither she nor I deserve
to be sneered at, in that way. I have made a sacrifice to your
interests, Geoffrey--and so has she."
Geoffrey's face became serious again. His secret was in Arnold's
hands; and his estimate of Arnold's character was founded,
unconsciously, on his experience of himself. "All right," he
said, by way of timely apology and concession. "I was only
joking."
"As much joking as you please, when you have married her,"
replied Arnold. "It seems serious enough, to my
mind, till then."
He stopped--considered--and laid his hand very earnestly on
Geoffrey's arm. "Mind!" he resumed. "You are not to breathe a
word to any living soul, of my having been near the inn!"
"I've promised to hold my tongue, once already. What do you want
more?"
"I am anxious, Geoffrey. I was at Craig Fernie, remember, when
Blanche came there! She has been telling me all that happened,
poor darling, in the firm persuasion that I was miles off at the
time. I swear I couldn't look her in the face! What would she
think of me, if she knew the truth? Pray be careful! pray be
careful!"
Geoffrey's patience began to fail him.
"We had all this out," he said, "on the way here from the
station. What's the good of going over the ground again?"
"You're quite right," said Arnold, good-humoredly. "The fact
is--I'm out of sorts, this morning. My mind misgives me--I don't
know why."
"Mind?" repeated Geoffrey, in high contempt. "It's flesh--that's
what's the matter with _you._ You're nigh on a stone over your
right weight. Mind he hanged! A man in healthy training don't
know that he has got a mind. Take a turn with the dumb-bells, and
a run up hill with a great-coat on. Sweat it off, Arnold! Sweat
it off!"
With that excellent advice, he turned to leave the room for the
third time. Fate appeared to have determined to keep him
imprisoned in the library, that morning. On this occasion, it was
a servant who got in the way--a servant, with a letter and a
message. "The man waits for answer."
Geoffrey looked at the letter. It was in his brother's
handwriting. He had left Julius at the junction about three hours
since. What could Julius possibly have to say to him now?
He opened the letter. Julius had to announce that Fortune was
favoring them already. He had heard news of Mrs. Glenarm, as soon
as he reached home. She had called on his wife, during his
absence in London--she had been inv ited to the house--and she
had promised to accept the invitation early in the week. "Early
in the week," Julius wrote, "may mean to-morrow. Make your
apologies to Lady Lundie; and take care not to offend her. Say
that family reasons, which you hope soon to have the pleasure of
confiding to her, oblige you to appeal once more to her
indulgence--and come to-morrow, and help us to receive Mrs.
Glenarm."
Even Geoffrey was startled, when he found himself met by a sudden
necessity for acting on his own decision. Anne knew where his
brother lived. Suppose Anne (not knowing where else to find him)
appeared at his brother's house, and claimed him in the presence
of Mrs. Glenarm? He gave orders to have the messenger kept
waiting, and said he would send back a written reply.
"From Craig Fernie?" asked Arnold, pointing to the letter in his
friend's hand.
Geoffrey looked up with a frown. He had just opened his lips to
answer that ill-timed reference to Anne, in no very friendly
terms, when a voice, calling to Arnold from the lawn outside,
announced the appearance of a third person in the library, and
warned the two gentlemen that their private interview was at an
end.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.
NEARER STILL.
BLANCHE stepped lightly into the room, through one of the open
French windows.
"What are you doing here?" she said to Arnold.
"Nothing. I was just going to look for you in the garden."
"The garden is insufferable, this morning." Saying those words,
she fanned herself with her handkerchief, and noticed Geoffrey's
presence in the room with a look of very thinly-concealed
annoyance at the discovery. "Wait till I am married!" she
thought. "Mr. Delamayn will be cleverer than I take him to be, if
he gets much of his friend's company _then!_"
"A trifle too hot--eh?" said Geoffrey, seeing her eyes fixed on
him, and supposing that he was expected to say something.
Having performed that duty he walked away without waiting for a
reply; and seated himself with his letter, at one of the
writing-tables in the library.
"Sir Patrick is quite right about the young men of the present
day," said Blanche, turning to Arnold. "Here is this one asks me
a question, and doesn't wait for an answer. There are three more
of them, out in the garden, who have been talking of nothing, for
the last hour, but the pedigrees of horses and the muscles of
men. When we are married, Arnold, don't present any of your male
friends to me, unless they have turned fifty. What shall we do
till luncheon-time? It's cool and quiet in here among the books.
I want a mild excitement--and I have got absolutely nothing to
do. Suppose you read me some poetry?"
"While _he_ is here?" asked Arnold, pointing to the personified
antithesis of poetry--otherwise to Geoffrey, seated with his back
to them at the farther end of the library.
"Pooh!" said Blanche. "There's only an animal in the room. We
needn't mind _him!_"
"I say!" exclaimed Arnold. "You're as bitter, this morning, as
Sir Patrick himself. What will you say to Me when we are married
if you talk in that way of my friend?"
Blanche stole her hand into Arnold's hand and gave it a little
significant squeeze. "I shall always be nice to _you,_" she
whispered--with a look that contained a host of pretty promises
in itself. Arnold returned the look (Geoffrey was unquestionably
in the way!). Their eyes met tenderly (why couldn't the great
awkward brute write his letters somewhere else?). With a faint
little sigh, Blanche dropped resignedly into one of the
comfortable arm-chairs--and asked once more for "some poetry," in
a voice that faltered softly, and with a color that was brighter
than usual.
"Whose poetry am I to read?" inquired Arnold.
"Any body's," said Blanche. "This is another of my impulses. I am
dying for some poetry. I don't know whose poetry. And I don't
know why."
Arnold went straight to the nearest book-shelf, and took down the
first volume that his hand lighted on--a solid quarto, bound in
sober brown.
"Well?" asked Blanche. "What have you found?"
Arnold opened the volume, and conscientiously read the title
exactly as it stood:
"Paradise Lost. A Poem. By John Milton."
"I have never read Milton," said Blanche. "Have you?"
"No."
"Another instance of sympathy between us. No educated person
ought to be ignorant of Milton. Let us be educated persons.
Please begin."
"At the beginning?"
"Of course! Stop! You musn't sit all that way off--you must sit
where I can look at you. My attention wanders if I don't look at
people while they read."
Arnold took a stool at Blanche's feet, and opened the "First
Book" of Paradise Lost. His "system" as a reader of blank verse
was simplicity itself. In poetry we are some of us (as many
living poets can testify) all
for sound; and some of us (as few
living poets can testify) all for sense. Arnold was for sound. He
ended every line inexorably with a full stop; and he got on to
his full stop as fast as the inevitable impediment of the words
would let him. He began:
"Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit.
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste.
Brought death into the world and all our woe.
With loss of Eden till one greater Man.
Restore us and regain the blissful seat.
Sing heavenly Muse--"
"Beautiful!" said Blanche. "What a shame it seems to have had
Milton all this time in the library and never to have read him
yet! We will have Mornings with Milton, Arnold. He seems long;
but we are both young, and we _may_ live to get to the end of
him. Do you know dear, now I look at you again, you don't seem to
have come back to Windygates in good spirits."
"Don't I? I can't account for it."
"I can. It's sympathy with Me. I am out of spirits too."
"You!"
"Yes. After what I saw at Craig Fernie, I grow more and more
uneasy about Anne. You will understand that, I am sure, after
what I told you this morning?"
Arnold looked back, in a violent hurry, from Blanche to Milton.
That renewed reference to events at Craig Fernie was a renewed
reproach to him for his conduct at the inn. He attempted to
silence her by pointing to Geoffrey.
"Don't forget," he whispered, "that there is somebody in the room
besides ourselves."
Blanche shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.
"What does _he_ matter?" she asked. "What does _he_ know or care
about Anne?"
There was only one other chance of diverting her from the
delicate subject. Arnold went on reading headlong, two lines in
advance of the place at which he had left off, with more sound
and less sense than ever:
"In the beginning how the heavens and earth.
Rose out of Chaos or if Sion hill--"
At "Sion hill," Blanche interrupted him again.
"Do wait a little, Arnold. I can't have Milton crammed down my
throat in that way. Besides I had something to say. Did I tell
you that I consulted my uncle about Anne? I don't think I did. I
caught him alone in this very room. I told him all I have told
you. I showed him Anne's letter. And I said, 'What do you think?'
He took a little time (and a great deal of snuff) before he would
say what he thought. When he did speak, he told me I might quite
possibly be right in suspecting Anne's husband to be a very
abominable person. His keeping himself out of my way was (just as
I thought) a suspicious circumstance, to begin with. And then
there was the sudden extinguishing of the candles, when I first
went in. I thought (and Mrs. Inchbare thought) it was done by the
wind. Sir Patrick suspects it was done by the horrid man himself,
to prevent me from seeing him when I entered the room. I am
firmly persuaded Sir Patrick is right. What do _you_ think?"
"I think we had better go on," said Arnold, with his head down
over his book. "We seem to be forgetting Milton."
"How you do worry about Milton! That last bit wasn't as
interesting as the other. Is there any love in Paradise Lost?"
"Perhaps we may find some if we go on."
"Very well, then. Go on. And be quick about it."
Arnold was _so_ quick about it that he lost his place. Instead of
going on he went back. He read once more:
"In the beginning how the heavens and earth.
Rose out of Chaos or if Sion hill--"
"You read
that before," said Blanche.
"I think not."
"I'm sure you did. When you said 'Sion hill' I recollect I
thought of the Methodists directly. I couldn't have thought of
the Methodists, if you hadn't said 'Sion hill.' It stands to