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

two had come for a few days' change to some cousins at Grasmere.

'And the old man's a bit of a collector and wants to see the Turners. He knows Carton by heart. So I had to ask them to come up to-morrow--and there it is!--Cicely will find them in possession, with Marsworth in attendance!'

'Why does she come at all?' said Nelly, wondering. 'She knows Captain Marsworth will be here. She said so, in her telegram.'

Farrell shrugged his shoulders.

'"It taks aw soarts to mak a worrld," as they say up here. But Marsworth and Cis are queer specimens! I am privately certain he can't do for long without seeing her. And as for her, I had no sooner arranged that he should join me here to-night, than she telegraphed to you! Just like her! I had no idea she thought of coming. Well, I suppose to quarrel yourself into matrimony is one of the recognised openings!'

The talk dropped. The joint consciousness behind it was too much for it. It fell like a withered leaf.

Farrell got up to go. Nelly too rose, trembling, to her feet. He took her hand.

'Don't leave us,' he repeated, softly. 'You are our little saint--you help us by just living. Don't attempt things too hard for you. You'll kill yourself, and then----'

She looked at him mutely, held by the spell of his eyes.

'Well then,' he finished, abruptly, 'there won't be much left for one man to live for. Good-night.'

He was gone, and she was left standing in the firelight, a small, bewildered creature.

'What shall I do?' she was saying to herself, 'Oh, what ought I to do?'

She sank down on the floor, and hid her face against a chair. Helplessly, she wished that Hester would come!--someone wise and strong who would tell her what was right. The thought of supplanting George, of learning to forget him, of letting somebody else take his place in her heart, was horrible--even monstrous--to her. Yet she did not know how she would ever find the strength to make Farrell suffer. His devotion appealed--not to any answering passion in her--there was none--but to an innate lovingness, that made it a torment to her to refuse to love and be loved. Her power of dream, of visualisation, shewed him to her alone and unhappy; when, perhaps, she might still--without harm--have been a help to him--have shewn him her gratitude. She felt herself wavering and retreating; seeking, as usual, the easiest path out of her great dilemma. Must she either be disloyal to her George?--her dead, her heroic George!--or unkind to this living man, whose unselfish devotion had stood between her and despair? After all, might it not still go on? She could protect herself. She was not afraid.

But she _was_ afraid! She was in truth held by the terror of her own weakness, and Farrell's strength, as she lay crouching by the fire.

Outside the wind was rising. Great clouds were coming up from the south-west. The rain had begun. Soon it was lashing the windows, and pouring from the eaves of the old farmhouse.

Nelly went back to her work; and the wind and rain grew wilder as the hours passed. Just as she was thinking wearily of going to bed, there were sounds of wheels outside.

Bridget? so late! Nelly had long since given her up. What a night on which to face the drive from Windermere! Poor horse!--poor man!

Yes, it was certainly Bridget! As Nelly half rose, she heard the harsh, deep voice upon the stairs. A tall figure, heavily cloaked, entered.

'My dear Bridget--I'd quite given you up!'

'No need,' said Bridget coolly, as she allowed Nelly to kiss her cheek. 'The afternoon train from Euston was a little late. You can't help that with all these soldiers about.'

'Come and sit down by the fire. Have you done all you wanted to do?'

'Yes.'

Bridget sat down, after taking off her wet water-proof, and held a draggled hat to the blaze. Nelly looking at her was struck by the fact that Bridget's hair had grown very grey, and the lines in her face very deep. What an extraordinary person Bridget was! What had she been doing all this time?

But nothing could be got out of the traveller. She sat by the fire for a while, and let Nelly get her a tray of food. But she said very little, except to complain of the weather, and, once, to ask if the Farrells were at the cottage.

'Sir William is there, with Captain Marsworth,' said Nelly. 'Cicely comes here to-morrow.'

'Does she expect me to give her my room?' said Bridget sharply.

'Not at all. She likes the little spare-room.'

'Or pretends to! Has Sir William been here to-day?'

'Yes, he came round.'

A few more questions and answers led to silence broken only by the crackling of the fire. The firelight played on Nelly's cheek and throat, and on her white languid hands. Presently it caught her wedding-ring, and Bridget's eye was drawn to the sparkle of the gold. She sat looking absently at her sister. She was thinking of a tiny room in a hut hospital--of the bed--and of those eyes that had opened on her. And there sat Nelly--knowing nothing!

It was all a horrible anxiety. But it couldn't last long.


CHAPTER XIV

'So you are not at church?'

The voice was Marsworth's as he stepped inside the flagged passage of the farm, Nelly having just opened the door to him.

'It's so far!--in winter,' said Nelly a little guiltily. 'I go to Grasmere in summer.'

'Oh! don't apologise--to a heathen like me! I'm only too thankful to find you alone. Is your sister here?'

'Yes. But we've made a room for her in one of the outhouses. She works there.'

'What at? Is she still learning Spanish?' asked Marsworth, smiling, as he followed Nelly into the little white drawing-room.

'I don't know,' said Nelly, after a moment, in a tone of depression. 'Bridget doesn't tell me.'

The corners of Marsworth's strong mouth shewed amusement. He was not well acquainted with Bridget Cookson, but as far as his observation went, she seemed to him a curious specimen of the half-educated pretentious woman so plentiful in our modern life. In place of 'psychology' and 'old Spanish,' the subjects in which Miss Cookson was said to be engaged, he would have liked to prescribe for her--and all her kin--courses of an elementary kind in English history and vulgar fractions.

But, for Nelly Sarratt, Marsworth felt the tender and chivalrous respect that natures like hers exact easily from strong men. To him, as to Farrell, she was the 'little saint' and peacemaker, with her lovingness, her sympathy, her lack of all the normal vanities and alloys that beset the pretty woman. That she was not a strong character, that she was easily influenced and guided by those who touched her affections, he saw. But that kind of weakness in a woman--when that woman also possesses the mysterious something, half physical, half spiritual, which gives delight--is never unpleasing to such men as Marsworth, nor indeed to other women. It was Marsworth's odd misfortune that he should have happened to fall in love with a young woman who had practically none of the qualities that he naturally and spontaneously admired in the sex.

It was, however, about that young woman that he had come to talk. For he was well aware of Nelly's growing intimacy with Cicely, and had lately begun to look upon that as his last hope.

Yet he was no sooner alone with Nelly than he felt a dim compunction. This timid creature, with her dark haunting eyes, had problems enough of her own to face. He perceived clearly that Farrell's passion for her was mounting fast, and he had little or no idea what kind of response she was likely to make to it. But all the same his own need drove him on. And Nelly, who had scarcely slept all night, caught eagerly at some temporary escape from her own perplexities.

'Dear Mrs. Sarratt!--have you _any_ idea, whether Cicely cares one brass farthing for me, or not?'

To such broad and piteous appeal was a gallant officer reduced. Nelly was sorry for him, but could not hide the smile in her eyes, as she surveyed him.

'Have you really asked her?'

'Asked her? Many times!--in the dark ages. It is months, however, since she gave me the smallest chance of doing it again. Everything I do or say appears to annoy her, and of course, naturally, I have relieved her of my presence as much as possible.'

Nelly had taken up her knitting.

'If you never come--perhaps--Cicely thinks you are tired of her.'

Marsworth groaned.

'Is that her line now? And yet you know--you are witness!--of how she behaves when I do come.'

Nelly looked up boldly.

'You mustn't be angry, but--why can't you accept her--as she is--without always wanting her different?'

Marsworth flushed slightly. The impressive effect of his fine iron-grey head, and marked features, his scrupulously perfect dress, and general look of competence and ability, was deplorably undone by the signs in him of bewilderment and distress.

'You mean--you think I bully her?--she thinks so?'

'She--she feels--you so dreadfully disapprove of her!' said Nelly, sticking to it, but smiling.

'She regards me as a first-class prig in fact?'

'No--but she thinks you don't always understand.'

'That I don't know what a splendid creature she is, really?' said Marsworth with increasing agitation. 'But I do know it! I know it up and down. Why everybody--except those she dislikes!--at that hospital, adores her. She's wearing herself out at the work. None of us are fit to black her boots. But if one ever tries to tell her so--my hat!'

'Perhaps she doesn't like being praised either,' said Nelly softly. 'Perhaps she thinks--an old friend--should take it all for granted.'

'Good Lord!' said Marsworth holding his head in desperation--'whatever I do is wrong! Dear Mrs. Sarratt!--look here--I must speak up for myself. You know how Cicely has taken of late to being intolerably rude to anybody she thinks is my friend. She castigates me through them. That poor little girl, Daisy Stewart--why she's ready at any moment to worship Cicely! But Cicely tramples on her--_you_ know how she does it--and if I interfere, I'm made to wish I had never been born! At the present moment, Cicely won't speak to me. There was some silly shindy at a parish tea last week--by the way, she's coming to you to-day?'

'She arrives for lunch,' said Nelly, looking at the clock.

'And the Stewarts are coming to the cottage in the afternoon!' said Marsworth in despair. 'Can you keep her away?'

'I'll try--but you know it's not much good trying to manage Cicely.'

'Don't I know it! I return to my first question--does she care a hapo'rth?'

Nelly was looking dreamily into the fire.

'You mean--does she care enough to give up her ways and take to yours?'

'Yes, I suppose I do mean that,' he said, with sudden seriousness.

Nelly shook her head, smiling.

'I don't know! But--Cicely's worth a deal of trouble.'

He assented with a mixture of fervour and depression.

'We've known each other since we were boy and girl. That's what makes the difficulty, perhaps. We know each other too well. When she was a child of fourteen, I was already in the Guards, and I