CHAPTER IV.
LOVE'S REMORSE
"Teach me, ye groves, some art to ease my pain, Some soft resentments that may leave no stain On her loved name, and then I will complain."
NEXT day, after dinner, Lord Verney said to Cleve, as they two satalone, "I saw you at Lady Dorminster's last night. I saw you--aboutit. It seems to me you go to too many places, with the House to attendto; you stay too long; one can look in, you know. Sometimes one meetsa person; I had a good deal of interesting conversation last night,for instance, with the French Ambassador. No one takes a hint better;they are very good listeners, the French, and that is the way theypick up so much information and opinion, and things. I had a cup oftea, and we talked about it, for half-an-hour, until I had got myideas well before him. A very able man, a brilliant person, andseemed--he appeared to go with me--about it--and very well up upon ourhistory--and things--and--and--looking at you, it struck me--you'relooking a good deal cut up, about it--and--and as if you were doingtoo much. And I said, you know, you were to look about, and see ifthere was any young person you liked--that was suitable--and--thatkind of thing; but you know you must not fatigue yourself, and I don'twant to hurry you; only it is a step you ought to take with a view tostrengthen your position--ultimately. And--and--I hear it is too lateto consider about Ethel--that would have been very nice, it struck me;but that is now out of the question, I understand--in fact, it iscertain, although the world don't know it yet; and therefore we mustconsider some other alliance; and I don't see any very violent hurry.We must look about--and--and--you'll want some money, Cleve, when youhave made up your mind."
"You are always too good," said Cleve.
"I--I mean with your _wife_--about it;" and Lord Verney coughed alittle. "There's never any harm in a little money; the more you get,the more you can do. I always was of that opinion. Knowledge is power,and money is power, though in different ways; that was always my idea.What I want to impress on your mind, however, at this moment,particularly, is, that there is nothing very pressing as to time; wecan afford a little time. The Onslow motto, you know, _it_ conveysit, and your mother was connected with the Onslows."
It would not be easy to describe how the words of his noble unclerelieved Cleve Verney. Every sentence lifted a load from his burthen,or cut asunder some knot in the cordage of his bonds. He had not feltso much at ease since his hated conversation with Lord Verney in thelibrary.
Not very long after this, Cleve made the best speech by many degreeshe had ever spoken--a really forcible reply upon a subject he had verycarefully made up, of which, in fact, he was a master. His uncle wasvery much pleased, and gave his hearers to understand prettydistinctly from what fountain he had drawn his inspiration, andpromised them better things still, now that he had got him fairly inharness, and had him into his library, and they put their headstogether; and he thought his talking with him a little did him noharm, Cleve's voice was so good, he could make himself heard--you mustbe able to reach their ears or you can hardly hope to make animpression; and Lord Verney's physician insisted on his sparing histhroat.
So Lord Verney was pleased. Cleve was Lord Verney's throat, and thethroat emitted good speeches, and everyone knew where the head was.Not that Cleve was deficient; but Cleve had very unusual advantages.
Tom Sedley and Cleve were on rather odd terms now. Cleve kept upexternally their old intimacy when they met. But he did not seek himout in those moods which used to call for honest Tom Sedley, when theyran down the river together to Greenwich, when Cleve was lazy, andwanted to hear the news, and say what he liked, and escape fromcriticism of every kind, and enjoy himself indolently.
For Verney now there was a sense of constraint wherever Tom Sedleywas. Even in Tom's manner there was a shyness. Tom had learned asecret, which he had not confided to him. He knew he was safe in TomSedley's hands. Still he was in his power, and Sedley knew it, andthat galled his pride, and made an estrangement.
In the early May, "when winds are sweet though they unruly be," TomSedley came down again to Cardyllian. Miss Charity welcomed him withher accustomed emphasis upon the Green. How very pretty Agnes looked.But how cold her ways had grown.
He wished she was not so pretty--so _beautiful_, in fact. It painedhim, and somehow he had grown strange with her; and she was changed,grave, and silent, rather, and, as it seemed, careless quite whetherhe was there or not, although he could never charge her with positiveunkindness, much less with rudeness. He wished she would be rude. Hewould have liked to upbraid her. But her gentle, careless cruelty wasa torture that justified no complaint, and admitted no redress.
He could talk volubly and pleasantly enough for hours with Charity,not caring a farthing whether he pleased her or not, and thinking onlywhether Agnes, who sat silent at her work, liked his stories and wasamused by his fun; and went away elated for a whole night and daybecause a joke of his had made her laugh. Never had Tom felt moreproud and triumphant in all his days.
But when Charity left the room to see old Vane Etherage in the study,a strange silence fell upon Tom. You could hear each stitch of hertambour-work. You could hear Tom's breathing. He fancied she mighthear the beating of his heart. He was ashamed of his silence. He couldhave been eloquent had he spoken from that loaded heart. But he darenot, and failing this he must be silent.
By this time Tom was always thinking of Agnes Etherage, and wonderingat the perversity of fate. He was in love. He could not cheat himselfinto any evasion of that truth--a tyrant truth that had ruled himmercilessly; and there was she pining for love of quite another, andbestowing upon him, who disdained it, all the treasure of her heart,while even a look would have been cherished with gratitude by Sedley.
What was the good of his going up every day to Hazelden, Tom Sedleythought, to look at her, and talk to Charity, and laugh, and recountentertaining gossip, and make jokes, and be agreeable, with a heavyand strangely suffering heart, and feel himself every day more andmore in love with her, when he knew that the sound of Cleve'sfootsteps, as he walked by, thinking of himself, would move her heartmore than all Tom Sedley, adoring her, could say in his lifetime?
What a fool he was! Before Cleve appeared she was fancy free; no oneelse in the field, and his opportunities unlimited. He had lapsed histime, and occasion had spread its wings and flown.
"What beautiful sunshine! What do you say to a walk on the Green?"said Tom to Charity, and listening for a word from Agnes. She raisedher pretty eyes and looked out, but said nothing.
"Yes. I think it would be very nice; and there is no wind. What do_you_ say, Agnes?"
"I don't know. I'm lazy to-day, I think, and I have this to finish,"said Agnes.
"But you ought to take a walk, Agnes; it would do you good; andThomas Sedley and I are going for a walk on the Green."
"Pray, do," pleaded Tom, timidly.
Agnes smiled and shook her head, looking out of the window, and,making no other answer, resumed her work.
"You are _very_ obstinate," remarked Charity.
"Yes, and lazy, like the donkeys on the Green, where you are going;but you don't want me particularly--I mean _you_, Charrie--and Mr.Sedley, I know, will excuse me, for I really feel that it would tireme to-day. It would tire me to death," said Agnes, winding up with anemphasis.
"Well, _I'll_ go and put on my things, and if you _like_ to come you_can_ come, and if you don't you can stay where you are. But I wishyou would not be a fool. It is a beautiful day, and nothing on earthto prevent you."
"I don't like the idea of a walk to-day. I know I should feel tiredimmediately, and have to bring you back again; and I've really growninterested in this little bit of work, and I feel as if I must finishit to-day."
"Why _need_ you finish it to-day? You _are_ such a goose, Agnes," saidCharity, marching out of the room.
Tom remained there standing, his hat in his hand, looking out of thewindow--longing to speak, his heart being full, yet not knowing how tobegin, or how to go on if he had begun.
Agne
s worked on diligently, and looked out from the window at her sideover the shorn grass and flower-beds, through the old trees in theforeground--over the tops of the sloping forest, with the back-groundof the grand Welsh mountains, and a glimpse of the estuary, here andthere, seen through the leaves, stretching far off, in dim gold andgray.
"You like that particular window," said Tom, making a wonderfuleffort; "I mean, why do you like always to sit there?" He spoke in ascareless a way as he could, looking still out of his window, whichcommanded a different view.
"This window! oh, my frame stands here always, and when one isaccustomed to a particular place, it puts one out to change."
Then Agnes dropped her pretty eyes again to her worsted, and workedand hummed very faintly a little air, and Tom's heart swelled withinhim, and he hummed as faintly the same gay air.
"I thought perhaps you liked that view?" said Tom Sedley, arrestingthe music.
She looked out again.
"Well, it's very pretty."
"The best from these windows; some people think, I believe, theprettiest view you have," said Tom, gathering force, "the water isalways so pretty."
"Yes, the water," she assented listlessly.
"Quite a romantic view," continued Sedley, a little bitterly.
"Yes, every pretty view _is_ romantic," she acquiesced, looking outfor a moment again. "If one knew exactly what _romantic_ means--it's aword we use so often, and so vaguely."
"And can't you define it, Agnes?"
"Define it? I really don't think I could."
"Well, that does surprise me."
"You are so much more clever than I, of course it does."
"No, quite the contrary; you are clever--I'm serious, I assureyou--and I'm a dull fellow, and I know it quite well--_I_ can't defineit; but _that_ doesn't surprise me."
"Then we are both in the same case; but I won't allow it'sstupidity--the idea is quite undefinable, and that is the realdifficulty. You can't describe the perfume of a violet, but you knowit quite well, and I really think flowers a more interesting subjectthan romance."
"Oh, really! not, surely, than the romance of _that_ view. It _is_ soromantic!"
"You seem quite in love with it," said she, with a little laugh, andbegan again with a grave face to stitch in the glory of her saint incelestial yellow worsted.
"The water--yes--and the old trees of Ware, and just that tower, atthe angle of the house."
Agnes just glanced through her window, but said nothing.
"I think," said Sedley, "if _I_ were peopling this scene, you know, Ishould put my hero in that Castle of Ware--that is, if I could inventa romance, which, of course, I couldn't." He spoke with a meaning, Ithink.
"Why should there be heroes in romances?" asked Miss Agnes, lookingnevertheless toward Ware, with her hand and the needle resting idlyupon the frame. "Don't you think a romance ought to resemble reality alittle; and do you ever find such a monster as a hero in the world?_I_ don't expect to see one, I know," and she laughed again, but Tomthought, a little bitterly, and applied once more diligently to herwork, and hummed a few bars of her little air again.
And Tom, standing now in the middle of the room, leaning on the backof a chair, by way of looking still upon the landscape which they hadbeen discussing, was really looking, unobserved, on her, and thinkingthat there was not in all the world so pretty a creature.
Charity opened the door, equipped for the walk, and bearing an alpacaumbrella, such as few gentlemen would like to walk with in May Fair.
"Well, you won't come, I see. I think you are very obstinate. Come,Thomas Sedley. Good-bye, Agnes;" and with these words the worthy girlled forth my friend Tom, and as they passed the corner of the house,he saw Agnes standing in the window, looking out sadly, with herfingertips against the pane.
"She's lonely, poor little thing!" thought he, with a pang. "Whywouldn't she come? Listlessness--apathy, I suppose. How selfish andodious any trifling with a girl's affections is;" and then aloud toCharity, walking by her side, he continued, "You have not seen Clevesince the great day of Lord Verney's visit, I suppose?"
"No, nothing of him, and don't desire to see him. He has been thecause of a great deal of suffering, as you see, and I think he hasbehaved _odiously_. She's very odd; she doesn't choose to confide inme. I don't think it's nice or kind of her, but, of course, it's herown affair; only this is plain to me, that she'll never think of anyone else now but Cleve Verney."
"It's an awful pity," said Tom Sedley, quite sincerely.
They were walking down that steep and solitary road, by which VaneEtherage had made his memorable descent a few months since, now indeep shadow under the airy canopy of transparent leaves, and in totalsilence, except for the sounds, far below, of the little mill-streamstruggling among the rocks.
"Don't you know Mr. Cleve Verney pretty well?"
"Intimately--that is, I _did_. I have not lately seen so much of him."
"And do you think, Thomas Sedley, that he will ever come forward?"said blunt Miss Charity.
"Well, I happen to know that Cleve Verney has no idea of anything ofthe kind. In fact, I should be deceiving you, if I did not saydistinctly that I know he won't."
Tom was going to say he _can't_, but checked himself. However, I thinkhe was not sorry to have an opportunity of testifying to this fact,and putting Cleve Verney quite out of the field of conjecture as apossible candidate.
"Then I must say," said Miss Charity, flushing brightly, "that Mr.Verney is a villain."
From this strong position Tom could not dislodge her, and finding thatexpostulation involved him in a risk of a similar classification, heabandoned Cleve to his fate.
Up and down the Green they walked until Miss Flood espied and arrestedCharity Etherage, and carried her off upon a visit of philanthropy inher pony-carriage, and Tom Sedley transferred his charge to fussy,imperious Miss Flood; and he felt strangely incensed with her, andwalked the Green, disappointed and bereft. Was not Charity Agnes'ssister? While he walked with her, he could talk of Agnes. He was stillin the halo of Hazelden, and near Agnes. But now he was adrift, in thedark. He sat down, looking toward the upland woods that indicateHazelden, and sighed with a much more real pain than he had eversighed toward Malory; and he thought evil of meddling Miss Flood, whohad carried away his companion. After a time he walked away towardMalory, intending a visit to his old friend Rebecca Mervyn, andthinking all the way of Agnes Etherage.