Missing, Mrs. Humphry Ward [free e books to read online .TXT] 📗

he is.'

Step No. 2 was to go, on the very morning after she arrived in London, to the Enquiry Office in A---- Street. Particulars of the case in France had that morning reached the office, and Bridget was but just in time to stop a letter from Miss Eustace to Nelly. When she pointed out that she had been over to France on purpose to see for herself, that there was no doubt at all in her own mind, and that it would only torment a frail invalid to no purpose to open up the question, the letter was of course countermanded. Who could possibly dispute a sister's advice in such a case? And who could attribute the advice to anything else than sisterly affection!

Meanwhile among the mountains an unusually early winter was beginning to set in. The weather grew bitterly cold, and already a powdering of snow was on the fell-tops. For all that, Nelly could never drink deep enough of the November beauty, as it shone upon the fells through some bright frosty days. The oaks were still laden with leaf; the fern was still scarlet on the slopes; and the ghylls and waterfalls leapt foaming white down their ancestral courses. And in this austerer world, Nelly's delicate personality, as though braced by the touch of winter, seemed to move more lightly and buoyantly. She was more vividly interested in things and persons--in her drawing, her books, her endless knitting and sewing for the wounded. She was puzzled that Bridget stayed so long in town, but alack! she could do very well without Bridget. Some portion of the savour of life, of that infinity of small pleasures which each day may bring for the simple and the pure in heart, was again hers. Insensibly the great wound was healing. The dragging anguish of the first year assailed her now but rarely.

One morning she opened the windows in the little sitting-room, to let in the sunshine, and the great spectacle of the Pikes wrapped in majestic shadow, purple-black, with the higher peaks ranged in a hierarchy of light behind them.

She leant far out of the window, breathing in the tonic smell of the oak leaves on the grass beneath her, and the freshness of the mountain air. Then, as she turned back to the white-walled raftered room with its bright fire, she was seized with the pleasantness of this place which was now her home. Insensibly it had captured her heart, and her senses. And who was it--what contriving brain--had designed and built it up, out of the rough and primitive dwelling it had once been?

Of course, William Farrell had done it all! There was scarcely a piece of furniture, a picture, a book, that was not of his choosing and placing. Little by little, they had been gathered round her. His hand had touched and chosen them, every one. He took far more pleasure and interest in the details of these few rooms than in any of his own houses and costly possessions.

Suddenly--as she sat there on the window-ledge, considering the room, her back to the mountains--one of those explosions of consciousness rushed upon Nelly, which, however surprising the crash, are really long prepared and inevitable.

What did that room really _mean_--the artistic and subtle simplicity of it?--the books, the flowers, and the few priceless things, drawings or terra-cottas, brought from the cottage, and changed every few weeks by Farrell himself, who would arrive with them under his arm, or in his pockets, and take them back in like manner.

The colour flooded into Nelly's face. She dropped it in her hands with a low cry. An agony seized her. She loathed herself.

Then springing up passionately she began to pace the narrow floor, her slender arms and hands locked behind her.

Sir William was coming that very evening. So was Cicely, who was to be her own guest at the farm, while Marsworth, so she heard, was to have the spare room at the cottage.

She had not seen William Farrell for some time--for what counted, at least, as some time in their relation; not since that evening before Bridget went away--more than a fortnight. But it was borne in upon her that she had heard from him practically every day. There, in the drawer of her writing-table, lay the packet of his letters. She looked for them now morning after morning, and if they failed her, the day seemed blank. Anybody might have read them--or her replies. None the less Farrell's letters were the outpouring of a man's heart and mind to the one person with whom he felt himself entirely at ease. The endless problems and happenings of the great hospital to which he was devoting more and more energy, and more and more wealth; the incidents and persons that struck him; his loves and hates among the staff or the patients; the humour or the pity of the daily spectacle;--it was all there in his letters, told in a rich careless English that stuck to the memory. Nelly was accustomed to read and re-read them.

Yes, and she was proud to receive them!--proud that he thought so much of her opinion and cared so much for her sympathy. But _why_ did he write to her, so constantly, so intimately?--what was the real motive of it all?

At last, Nelly asked herself the question. It was fatal of course. So long as no question is asked of Lohengrin--who, what, and whence he is--the spell holds, the story moves. But examine it, as we all know, and the vision fades, the gleam is gone.

She passed rapidly, and almost with terror, into a misery of remorse. What had she been doing with this kindest and best of men? Allowing him to suppose that after a little while she would be quite ready to forget George and be his wife? That threw her into a fit of helpless crying. The tears ran down her cheeks as she moved to and fro. Her George!--falling out there, in that ghastly No Man's Land, dying out there, alone, with no one to help, and quiet now in his unknown grave. And after little more than a year she was to forget him, and be rich and happy with a new lover--a new husband?

She seemed to herself the basest of women. Base towards George--and towards Farrell--both! What could she do?--what must she do? Oh, she must go away--she must break it all off! And looking despairingly round the room, which only an hour before had seemed to her so dear and familiar, she tried to imagine herself in exile from all it represented, cut off from Farrell and from Cicely, left only to her own weak self.

But she must--she _must_! That very evening she must speak to Willy--she must have it out. Of course he would urge her to stay there--he would promise to go away--and leave her alone. But that would be too mean, too ungrateful. She couldn't banish him from this spot that he loved, where he snatched his few hours--always now growing fewer--of rest and pleasure. No, she must just depart. Without telling him? Without warning? Her will failed her.

She got out her table, with its knitting, and its bundles of prepared work which had arrived that morning from the workroom, and began upon one of them mechanically. But she was more and more weighed down by a sense of catastrophe--which was also a sense of passionate shame. Why, she was George's wife, still!--his _wife_--for who could _know_, for certain, that he was dead? That was what the law meant. _Seven years_!

* * * * *

She spent the day in a wretched confusion of thoughts and plans. A telegram from Cicely arrived about midday--'Can't get to you till to-morrow. Willy and Marsworth coming to-day--Marsworth not till late.'

So any hour might bring Farrell. She sat desperately waiting for him. Meanwhile there was a post-card from Bridget saying that she too would probably arrive that evening.

That seemed the last straw. Bridget would merely think her a fool; Bridget would certainly quarrel with her. Why, it had been Bridget's constant object to promote the intimacy with the Farrells, to throw her and Sir William together. Nelly remembered her own revolts and refusals. They seemed now so long ago! In those days it was jealousy for George that filled her, the fierce resolve to let no one so much as dream that she could ever forget him, and to allow no one to give money to George's wife, for whom George himself had provided, and should still provide. And at an earlier stage--after George left her, and before he died--she could see herself, as she looked back, keeping Sir William firmly at a distance, resenting those friendly caressing ways, which others accepted--which she too now accepted, so meekly, so abominably! She thought of his weekly comings and goings, as they were now; how, in greeting and good-bye, he would hold her hands, both of them, in his; how once or twice he had raised them to his lips. And it had begun to seem quite natural to her, wretch that she was; because he pitied her, because he was so good to her--and so much older, nearly twenty years. He was her brother and dear friend, and she the little sister whom he cherished, who sympathised with all he did, and would listen as long as he pleased, while he talked of everything that filled his mind--the war news, his work, his books, his companions; or would sit by, watching breathlessly while his skilful hand put down some broad 'note' of colour or light, generally on a page of her own sketch-book.

Ah, but it must end--it must end! And she must tell him to-night.

Then she fell to thinking of how it was she had been so blind for so long; and was now in this tumult of change. One moment, and she was still the Nelly of yesterday, cheerful, patient, comforted by the love of her friends; and the next, she had become this poor, helpless thing, struggling with her conscience, her guilty conscience, and her sorrow. How had it happened? There was something uncanny, miraculous in it. But anyway, there, in a flash it stood revealed--her treason to George--her unkindness to Willy.

For she would never marry him--never! She simply felt herself an unfaithful wife--a disloyal friend.

* * * * *

The November day passed on, cloudless, to its red setting over the Coniston fells. Wetherlam stood black against the barred scarlet of the west, and all the valleys lay veiled in a blue and purple mist, traversed by rays of light, wherever a break in the mountain wall let the sunset through. The beautiful winter twilight had just begun, when Nelly heard the step she waited for outside.

She did not run to the window to greet him as she generally did. She sat still, by the fire, her knitting on her knee. Her black dress was very black, with the plainest white ruffle at her throat. She looked very small and pitiful. Perhaps she meant to look it! The weak in dealing with the strong have always that instinctive resource.

'How jolly to find you alone!' said Farrell joyously, as he entered the room. 'I thought Miss Bridget was due.' He put down