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BOOK I

CHAPTER I

THE MISTAKES OF PROVIDENCE

The family Ingestre sat in conclave. That they sat together at all at any time other than a meal-time was in itself sufficient proof that the subject of their debate was unusually serious: their faces and attitudes added conclusive evidence.

The Reverend John Ingestre occupied his chair of state at the head of the long table. He was a middle-sized man, with narrow, sloping shoulders, which were at that particular moment drawn up into an uncomfortable hunch. When he spoke he pulled at his thin beard and glanced at his wife surreptitiously over his spectacles, as though seeking her advice or support—actions which gave his whole person an air of harassed nervousness.

Mrs. Ingestre did not return her husband's signals. She lay quietly on the sofa by the window, her hand half shading her face, and seemed absorbed in her own thoughts. Only once during the Rev. John's long and detailed statement did she give any sign of having heard. Then she shifted her position so that her grave scrutiny rested on the two younger members of the family. Perhaps she hoped to learn from their expressions what they were innerly experiencing, and therein no doubt she must have been successful, for their positions alone were expressive of much.

The boy—or young man, for he was at that uncertain age when boyhood and manhood meet—had his hands plunged in his pockets; his long legs were stretched out in front of him, his chin rested on his chest. Supreme and energiless despondency seemed to be imprinted in the very creases of his Norfolk coat.

The girl had her place at the table. Though she sat perfectly still, never turning her eyes from her father's face, there was something in her rigid attitude which suggested irritation and impatience. Her hands lay in her lap; only a close observer would have seen that they were not folded, but clenched, so that the knuckles stood out white.

"So you see, my dear children," the Rev. John said at last, coming to his peroration, "I felt it my duty to lay the case before you exactly as it stands. For a long time I hoped that it would not be necessary for me to do so—that a merciful Providence would spare me the pain of inflicting upon you so sharp a wound. Well, it has been ruled otherwise, and I only pray that you share with me my one consolation—the knowledge that it is the will of a Higher Power, and therefore all for the best."

He stopped and waited. In spite of the catastrophe which he had just announced, there was a trace of meek satisfaction in his manner, of which he seemed gradually to become conscious, for he turned to his wife with a note of apology in his thin voice:

"My dear, I have explained the matter correctly, I hope?"

"Quite correctly, I should think."

Mrs. Ingestre's hand sank from her face. It was a finely shaped hand, and whiter, if possible, than the dress she wore. Everything about her was beautiful and fragile—painfully fragile. The very atmosphere around her seemed laden with the perfume of a refined and nobly borne suffering.

"It seems to me there is no possible mistake," said the young man, getting up roughly. "We are ruined—that is the long and the short of the matter."

For a moment no one made any attempt to deny his angry statement. Then the Rev. John shook his head.

"You speak too strongly, my dear Miles," he corrected. "We are not what one would call ruined. I have still my stipend. There is no idea of—eh—starving, or anything of that sort; but the superfluous luxuries must be done away with, and—eh—one or two sacrifices must be brought."

He coughed, and looked at his daughter. Mrs. Ingestre looked at her also, and the pale, pain-worn face became illumined with tenderness and pity.

"Sacrifices," the Rev. John repeated regretfully. "Such, I fear, must be the payment for our misfortunes."

Nora Ingestre relaxed from her stiff attitude of self-restraint. The expression of her face said clearly enough: "The sermon is at an end, and the plate being handed round. How much am I expected to put in?"

"It was of your career I was thinking, my dear Miles," the Rev. John answered. "I am quite aware that your whole future depends on your remaining in the Army, therefore we have decided that—that sacrifices must be brought for you."

He hesitated again, and threw another glance at his wife's pale face.

"Nora, I am sure you see the necessity of what I say?"

His daughter started, as though he had awakened her from a reverie.

"Yes, I do," she said, with an abrupt energy. "We must all help each other as much as we can. I shall just work like a nigger."

"Eh—yes," said her father doubtfully. "I am sure you will. Of course, we shall have to dismiss some of the servants, and your mother will need—eh—more assistance than hitherto—and I know, dear Nora——" He coughed, and left the sentence unfinished.

Whether it was his manner or her mother's face which aroused her to closer attention, Nora Ingestre herself could not have said. She became suddenly aware that all three were looking at her, and that she was expected to say something.

"I don't quite understand," she said. "It is only natural that I should help all I can, only——"

It was her turn to stop short. She too had risen to her feet, and quite unconsciously she drew herself upright like a person preparing for attack from some as yet unknown quarter. Like her father, she was not above the middle height, but she had her mother's graceful, well-proportioned build, which made her seem taller than she really was, and added to that a peculiar resolute dignity that was all her own. It was, perhaps, to this latter attribute that she owed the unacknowledged respect in which she was held both by her father and brother. For it is a set rule that we must admire most what is in direct contrast to ourselves; and it had never been in the Rev. John's power either to carry himself erect, or to give himself anything but the appearance of a meek and rather nervous man. It was owing to this inherent respect that he hesitated at the present moment. Perhaps he realised at the bottom of his heart that it was not an altogether fair proceeding to load his mistaken monetary speculations on the shoulders of a disinterested Providence, and that his family might have other, if secret, views as to the real responsibility. At any rate, he was not sufficiently convinced of his own absolute innocence to meet his daughter's grave, questioning eyes with either firmness or equanimity.

"My dear," he said, "we want you at home." And therewith he considered he had put the case both concisely and gently. But Nora continued to look at him, and he grew irritated because she did not seem able to understand.

"Surely you can see that—that there are certain things for which we have neither the time nor the money?" he said, drumming on the table with his thin fingers.

A deep wave of colour mounted Nora Ingestre's cheeks. She did not speak, however, until it had died away again, leaving her unusually pale.

"You mean—I must give up—everything?" she asked in a low voice.

"If by 'everything' you mean your musical studies—yes," her father returned impatiently. The next minute he relented, and, leaning forward, took her passive hand in his. "But surely it is not 'everything,'" he said. "Surely your home and your people are more to you than even this favourite pursuit? I know it is hard for you—it is indeed hard for us all; but if we kept our promise and sent you to London other things would have to pay for it—the dear old house, the garden, Miles's career. You see how it is? You know there is nothing for your real good that I would withhold from you if I could help it, dear child."

He waited, expecting her to throw herself into his arms in generous self-reproach at her own hesitation; but she said nothing, and there was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"And then time will not hang heavy on your hands," he went on, with forced cheerfulness. "Your mother will need you and I shall need you—good little amanuensis that you are! Is it not something to you that we all need you so much?"

"Yes," she said.

The monosyllable encouraged him, though it would have encouraged no one else.

"And, of course, in between whiles you will be able to keep up your music," he added, patting her hand.

This time there was not even a monosyllable to reassure him. Nora Ingestre stood motionless at her father's side, her eyes fixed straight ahead, her fine, resolute features set, and almost expressionless.

Miles swung impatiently on his heel.

"I can't think what you are making all this fuss about," he said. "You ought to be jolly glad that we can keep on the old place, and that you have such a decent home. I know lots of girls who would give their eyes to be in your shoes."

"Have I been making a fuss?"

She spoke perfectly quietly, without changing her position, but her question seemed to cause Miles fresh annoyance.

"I call it a fuss to stand there and say nothing," he said, with sound masculine logic. "And anyhow—what does it matter whether you can tinkle a few tunes on the old tin-kettle or not?"

"That is something you do not understand," she blazed out. It was as though he had unwittingly set fire to some hidden powder-mine in her character. She was breathing quickly and brokenly, and every line in her face betrayed a painfully repressed feeling which threatened to break out into passionate expression.

Mrs. Ingestre rose from her couch. When she stood upright she seemed to dominate them all, to command silence and respect, by the very dignity of her bearing.

"I think this has all lasted long enough," she said. "What is done cannot be undone. We must face matters as best we can. As your father says, it is the will of Providence, and as such we must accept it. Only"—she turned to Miles, and from the faintest possible inflection of irony her tone deepened to reproof—"there are some things you do not understand, dear boy, and which you had better leave to wiser heads. Perhaps I understand better. At any rate, I should like to speak to Nora alone."

Thus she virtually dismissed the masculine members of the family. Miles shrugged his shoulders, and went out into the garden whistling. The Rev. John rose, and gathered up the business papers which he had brought in with him.

"I am sure that your mother will show it is all for the best," he said weakly.

At the door he turned and looked back over his spectacles.

"Remember always what we have both tried to impress upon you—it is the will of Providence," he said. "We must not kick against the pricks."

He then went out, leaving the two women alone.

CHAPTER II

"WANDERLUST"

For some minutes mother and daughter did not speak. Nora had turned her back, and was gazing out on to the pleasant country garden with eyes that saw neither the flowers nor the evening shadows which lengthened out over the lawn. She was still too profoundly occupied in the effort to appear indifferent, to cover over that one slip of feeling, to notice what was going on about her. She hated herself for having shown what she felt, she hated herself for feeling as she did; but no amount of hatred or self-condemnation would retrieve the one or change the other, and when she at last turned, aroused by the prolonged silence, the signals of anger and resentment still burned in her cheeks and eyes.

"Oh, I am a wretch," she cried impetuously. "Dearest, don't look so grave and distressed. It isn't your fault that you have such a disagreeable daughter. There, I ought to be a help and comfort, and instead——"

"An old woman does not need so much help and comfort as a young one," Mrs. Ingestre interrupted gently. "Just at present I am not suffering one-tenth of what you are suffering. And, dear Nora, don't treat me like some frail old wreck that must be shielded at all costs from the rough winds. Don't stand there and swallow up everything you are feeling because you are afraid of hurting me. It will only rankle all the worse. I would rather have your full confidence, however painful it may be. Come here and sit down beside me. Tell me everything you are thinking and feeling, honest Injun!"

The "honest Injun" brought a smile to Nora's eyes. Like everything else that she said or did, Mrs. Ingestre stamped the schoolboy phrase with an exotic, indefinable charm that was all her own. Yet beneath the half-gay appeal there lay a note of command, and Nora drew nearer awkwardly and hesitatingly, bereft for the moment of her youthful assurance and thrust back to the school days which at the age of nineteen are not so far away. She took the white outstretched hand and stood with bent head, frowning at the carpet. Suddenly she knelt down and buried her face in her mother's lap.

"I feel like a trapped rabbit," she murmured indistinctly.

A very faint smile touched Mrs. Ingestre's lips.

"A trapped rabbit, Nora? And who has trapped you, pray?"

"You have, and you know it. You always do!"

"Really, dear, it would have to be a very old and shortsighted rabbit to allow me to trap it, and you are neither. You must explain."

Nora lifted her face. She was laughing, but she was also very near crying.

"I mean—that is how you make me feel," she said. "I can defy other people when they want to do any soul-exploring on my territory. I just shut my mouth and my heart, and leave them out in the cold. But you are different. You mesmerise me till I not only have to tell you what I am feeling, but I positively want to—even though it is the most disgraceful, most disreputable feeling possible."

"And just now——?"

"It was a thought."

"What sort of a thought?"

"A dreadful one."

"Couldn't you tell me?"

"Of course I can—I must—but——"

"Well?"

"Do you want to know exactly?"

"Word for word."

"I was thinking what a duffer father is—was, I mean."

A complete silence. Mrs. Ingestre stroked her daughter's hand and stared sightlessly into the deepening shadows. The smile had died from her lips.

"Go on," she said at last.

"I don't think there is anything else. I always think that when father talks about Providence and—and that sort of thing. I feel sometimes that if Providence took human shape and was in the room at the time I should wink—I am not sure I don't wink inside me, anyhow."

She waited, and then, as Mrs. Ingestre said nothing, she went on disconsolately:

"I know I am awful, darling. I wonder if other people have shocking ideas too, or whether I am the wicked exception?"

"I don't think so," Mrs. Ingestre said. "One can't help one's thoughts, you know."

"No, one can't; can one? The more one sits on them, the more uproarious they get. Are you cross?"

"No."

"Do you—ever have thoughts like that?"

"Nora, I am not feeling in the least like a trapped rabbit, if that's what you mean."

Nora laughed outright. Her youth and buoyant spirits won the upper hand for the moment, but for no longer. The actual subject of their conversation interposed itself between her humour and herself.

"Why did father try and make money in Mexico?" she demanded suddenly and sharply. "We were rich enough before, and now we are so poor that we have to give up everything that makes life worth living, in order to live."

"My dear child, do you really think that?"

"No, I don't think that. If I thought, I daresay I should see that, as the world goes, I am a very lucky girl. But I feel—awful! And the feelings always count most with me."

Mrs. Ingestre nodded to herself.

"They count most with all normal people," she said; "and those who govern their lives by their heads are not, as a rule, either the happiest or the cleverest. Still, Nora, is it such a sacrifice?"

"Yes."

"Is the music so dear to you that it is the only thing which makes life worth living?"

Nora did not answer, and with a firm, gentle hand Mrs. Ingestre tilted her daughter's head backwards, so that she could look straight into the overcast grey eyes. A very faint smile played about the corners of her own mouth.

"Nora, you know, a few months ago, when we promised to send you up to London to begin your studies, we were comparatively rich people. Rich people can afford luxuries, and our pet luxury was to imagine that our little girl was a genius who was going to show the world great things. We meant to give you every chance—we would have seen that our ship lacked nothing to make its first passage in public waters a success. Well, we are poor now, and the first luxury which we must part with is that fond hope. You and I must face the fact—you are a sweet musician, not a genius."

"Mother, you knew that all the time—as well as I did."

A pale rose sprang to Mrs. Ingestre's cheeks. Quite unconsciously she avoided her daughter's challenging eyes.

"Mother, why did you pretend to think otherwise?" Nora went on. "Did you believe me so silly as to imagine myself anything more than an amateur? Why, of course I knew. I had only to compare myself with others."

"And yet you let us think and talk about you as a genius!" Mrs. Ingestre interposed.

Nora nodded defiantly.

"I was a humbug," she declared. "I wanted to go to London. It seemed the only way."

"Wasn't that a rather disreputable way?"

"Not more disreputable than yours. I remember, when father complained about the useless expense you told him it was a sin against Providence not to encourage Genius. It was then I first made the discovery that when you are most serious you are really laughing—at father and me and every one."

"Nora! Nora!" The tone of mild reproof died away Mother and daughter looked each other in the eyes and laughed. When she had done laughing, Mrs. Ingestre bent down and kissed the girl lightly on the forehead.

"You pry too deep to be an altogether very respectful person," she said; "but since you have pryed, I must make the best of it and confess. I knew your father would not understand my ideas, so I too humbugged a little—just a very little. I wanted you to go to London, and afterwards into the world. It was the only way."

"And now this is the end of it all!"

Nora Ingestre rose and stood by her mother's side. Her voice rang with all the protest and despair of which youth is so capable—very real protest and very real despair, whole-hearted and intense, as is the way with youth.

"It wasn't the music," she went on. "I loved it, of course, but I wanted to see the world and people more than anything else. I wanted the world so badly, mother. I felt like a caged animal that sees the forests and the plains through its prison bars. I wanted to get out and be free. Oh, you can't understand—you can't!"

Mrs. Ingestre stirred suddenly, as though a wound had been touched with rough fingers.

"I do understand," she said. But Nora was too young, above all, too absorbed in her own griefs, to hear all that was hidden in her mother's words.

"At any rate, no one else would understand," she went on. "Father wouldn't, Miles wouldn't, and the whole village wouldn't. They would all say I was a New Woman, or unwomanly, or something—why, I don't know. I don't care whether I have a vote or not. I can cook and I can sew; I love children. All that sort of thing is womanly, isn't it? Isn't it womanly to want to live, and to know what life means? Nobody thinks it strange that Miles, though he has no talent for anything except loafing, should travel, should live away from home and get to know other people. It is all for his development! But I am not to develop, it seems. Perhaps development isn't womanly. Perhaps the only right thing for me to do is to look after the flowers and worry the cook and bore myself through my days with tea-parties and tennis-parties and occasional match-making dances, until somebody asks me to be his wife, and I marry him to save myself from turning into a vegetable!"

She stopped, breathless with her fierce torrent of sarcasm and bitterness. Her cheeks were flushed, her hands clenched; there were tears in her bright eyes. Mrs. Ingestre rose and followed her daughter to the window, whither she had wandered in her restless energy.

"How long have you been thinking all this, Nora?" she asked.

"Ever since I left school and Miles went to Sandhurst. Until then it all seemed fair enough. He had been to school and I had been to school. But after that, just when I was beginning to learn because I loved it, just when I was beginning to see things and understand them—then I was brought home—here—and there was an end to it."

Mrs. Ingestre put her arm about her daughter's shoulders.

"And then you remembered that you were musical?" she said.

"And you discovered that I was a genius!" came the retort.

Mrs. Ingestre laughed quietly.

"I see that we must not throw stones at each other, or our glass houses will suffer," she said. "And, after all, it does not matter why either of us wanted it, or how we managed. You were to go to London and see a little of the world——"

"Don't talk about it, mother!"

"Only a little, perhaps, but more than your whole future promises you now, poor child. Now you will have to stop here and vegetate."

Nora turned and clasped her mother in a tumultuous embrace.

"What a brute I must seem!" she exclaimed. "And yet I do love you, dearest. I believe I love you more than most daughters do their mothers, and I don't believe that I am really more selfish—only, I can't hide what I feel, and I feel such a lot. Are you hurt?"

Mrs. Ingestre shook her head.

"It is an old woman's privilege to pretend that she has a reason to feel bitter," she said, "but I am not in the least bitter, because, you see, I understand. I understood even before you said anything, and so I made up my mind that you should be given an alternative——"

"An alternative, mother?"

"——To staying here; and Captain Arnold."

A sudden silence fell on both. Mrs. Ingestre, under cover of the twilight, observed her daughter sharply. She saw that though Nora's face had grown grave it showed no sign of any profound feeling, and she took the quiet, undisturbed colour as an answer to a question which even she had never ventured to ask.

"And so," she went on after a moment, "I wrote to my old friend, Fräulein Müller, about you, and she answered two or three days ago, and said she knew of an excellent position as companion to a lady in Karlsburg. She thought it would suit you admirably. You would be treated as one of the family, and have plenty of time to go on with your own studies. Would you like it?"

The proposal came so suddenly, and yet in such a matter-of-fact tone, that Nora caught her breath and looked up at her mother in blank surprise.

"You mean," she began slowly, "that I should go and live in a German family?"

"Yes."

"With a lot of fat, greasy, gobbling Germans?"

"Do you know any Germans?"

"No—at least there was our German music-master at school, and he was fat and greasy, and I am sure he must have gobbled. He must have done. They all do."

"You used to say he played like an angel," Mrs. Ingestre interposed.

"So he did. But I hated him all the same. I hate all Germans."

Her tone rang with a sort of school-girl obstinacy. Her attitude, with lifted chin and straight shoulders, was eloquent with national arrogance and scorn.

Mrs. Ingestre turned away.

"I shall write to Fräulein Müller and tell her to make all arrangements," she said. "I think, if everything proves suitable, that you had better go to Karlsburg."

"Mother! You haven't even given me the choice!"

"I do not think it wise to do so," Mrs. Ingestre answered gravely. "You are right, Nora; you must see the world. You must go away from here, not just for the sake of the music, the change, and excitement, but in order that your heart may grow wider, in order to learn to love the good that lies outside your own little sphere. There are great things, great people outside Delford, Nora—yes, and outside England. You must learn to know them."

The girl's face flushed crimson.

"At the bottom we all despise foreigners and foreign ways," she said in self-defence. "Father does, Miles does, the Squire does. And they have all travelled; they have seen for themselves."

"They have travelled with their eyes open and their hearts closed," Mrs. Ingestre answered.

"How do you know, mother? You have never been out of England."

Mrs. Ingestre shook her head. A rather melancholy smile passed over her wan features.

"No," she said; "I have never been out of England, but I have been often, very often, ill, and during the long hours I have travelled great distances, and I have begun to think that God cannot surely have reserved all the virtues for us English. I fancy even the poor benighted Germans must have their share of heaven."

Nora laughed outright.

"I expect they have, now I come to think of it," she admitted gaily. "Mother, you are a much better Christian than father, though you won't call every one 'dearly beloved,' and you are yards better than I am. I can't help it—I despise all foreigners, especially——"

She stopped abruptly, and Mrs. Ingestre smiled.

"Still, you will try Karlsburg. It will be an experience for you, and you will hear good music. The family is a very old one, and perhaps the members, being of noble birth, may gobble less than the others."

"All Germans are of noble birth," Nora observed scornfully.

"So much the better for them," Mrs. Ingestre returned. "Are you willing to try? You know the alternative."

"May I think it over, mother?"

"Yes, you may think over it, if you like. It is, after all, only a question of your willingness."

"That means you have made up your mind?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Ingestre saw the strong young face set into lines of defiance. She went back to the sofa and lay down with a sigh.

"Little Nora," she said, almost under her breath, "you know it is not my custom to preach. You won't think, therefore, that I am just 'talking' when I tell you: years ago I would have given anything—anything—to have had this chance."

For the first time in their long interview the girl stopped listening to the self-pitying confusion of her thoughts. The elder woman's voice had penetrated her youthful egoism, and she turned with that curious tugging at the heart which we experience when we have unexpectedly heard a smothered cry of pain break from lips usually composed in lines of peace and apparent content.

"Mother!" Nora exclaimed. The room was now in almost complete shadow. She came closer and bent over the quiet face. The atmosphere was heavy with the scent of roses, and it flashed through Nora's mind as she stood there that her mother was like a rose—pale and faded, but still beautiful, still breathing a wonderful perfume of purity and sweetness.

"Mother!" she repeated, strangely awe-struck.

Mrs. Ingestre opened her eyes and smiled.

"I am very tired," she said. "I think I could sleep a little. Go and think it over. I want you to be willing."

Nora bent and kissed her.

"If you wish it, I am willing," she said with impulsive, whole-hearted surrender. She crept out on tiptoe, and for a few minutes all was quiet in the great shadowy room. Then the door opened again, and the Rev. John entered and peered round short-sightedly. He saw that his wife's eyes were closed, and, since it is not kind to waken a weary invalid, he merely knocked some books off the table and coughed. Truth to tell, it annoyed him that his wife should have chosen that identical moment to rest. He wanted to talk to her, but since in spite of all his indirect efforts she remained quiet, he went out again, a disconsolate victim of his own gentle consideration.

But Mrs. Ingestre had not been asleep. Her eyes were shut, but the eyes of her mental vision were open. They were watching sunlit panoramas of long rivers with mountain banks and frowning ruins, glorious, heaven-inspiring cathedral spires and great cities. The ears of her imagination had not heard the Rev. John's clumsy movements. They were listening to the song of the ocean, the confusion of a strange tongue, the rich crescendo of a wonderful music.

Mrs. Ingestre had left the room and the vicarage and the village far behind, and was travelling swiftly through a world which she had never seen and—since for her life was near its close—would never see. And as she travelled, the same thought repeated itself to her with stern persistency:

"Whatever it costs you, she must go. You must not, dare not keep her."