Читать книгу The Marriage of William Ashe - Mrs. Humphry Ward - Страница 12

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The effect of the few sobbing words, with which Kitty Bristol had greeted his presence beside her, upon the feeling of William Ashe was both sharp and deep, for they seemed already to imply a peculiar relation, a special link between them. Had it not, indeed, begun in that very moment at St. James's Place when he had first caught sight of her, sitting forlorn in her white dress?—when she had "willed" him to come to her, and he came? Surely—though as to this he had his qualms—she could not have spoken with this abandonment to any other of her new English acquaintances? To Darrell, for instance, who was expected at Grosville Park that evening. No! From the beginning she had turned to him, William Ashe; she had been conscious of the same mutual understanding, the same sympathy in difference that he himself felt.

It was, at any rate, with the feeling of one whose fate has most strangely, most unexpectedly overtaken him that he sat down beside her. His own pulses were running at a great rate; but there was to be no sign of it for her. He tried, indeed, to calm her by that mere cheerful strength and vitality of which he was so easily master. "Why should you be in despair?" he said, bending towards her. "Tell me. Let me try and help you. Was your sister unkind to you?"

Kitty made no reply at once. The tears that brimmed her large eyes slipped down her cheeks without disfiguring her. She was looking absently, intently, into a dark depth of wood as though she sought there for some truth that escaped her—truth of the past or of the present.

"I don't know," she said, at last, shaking her head, "I don't know whether it was unkind. Perhaps it was only what we deserve, maman and I."

"You!" cried Ashe.

"Yes," she said, passionately. "Who's going to separate between maman and me? If she's done mean, shocking things, the people she's done them to will hate me too. They shall hate me! It's right."

She turned to him violently. She was very white, and her little hands as she sat there before him, proudly erect, twisted a lace handkerchief between them that would soon be in tatters. Somehow Ashe winced before the wreck of the handkerchief; what need to ruin the pretty, fragile thing?

"I am quite sure no one will ever hate you for what you haven't done," he said, steadily. "That would be abominably unfair. But, you see, I don't understand—and I don't like—I don't wish—to ask questions."

"Do ask questions!" she cried, looking at him almost reproachfully. "That's just what I want you to do—Only," she added, hanging her head in depression, "I shouldn't know what to answer. I am played with, and treated as a baby! There is something horrible the matter—and no one trusts me—every one keeps me in the dark. No one ever thinks whether I am miserable or not."

She raised her hands to her eyes and vehemently wiped away her tears with the tattered lace handkerchief. In all these words and actions, however, she was graceful and touching, because she was natural. She was not posing or conscious, she was hiding nothing. Yet Ashe felt certain she could act a part magnificently; only it would not be for the lie's sake, but for the sake of some romantic impulse or imagination.

"Why should you torment yourself so?" he asked her, kindly. Her hand had dropped and lay beside her on the bench. To his own amazement he found himself clasping it. "Isn't it better to forget old griefs? You can't help what happened years ago—you can't undo it. You've got to live your own life—happily! And I just wish you'd set about it."

He smiled at her, and there were few faces more attractive than his when he let his natural softness have its way, without irony. She let her eyes be drawn to his, and as they met he saw a flush rise in her clear skin and spread to the pale gold of her hair. The man in him was marvellously pleased by that flush—fascinated, indeed. But she gave him small time to observe it; she drew herself impatiently away.

"Of course, you don't understand a word about it," she said, "or you couldn't talk like that. But I'll tell you." Her eyes, half miserable, half audacious, returned to him. "My sister—came here—because I sent for her. I made mademoiselle go with a letter. Of course, I knew there was a mystery—I knew the Grosvilles did not want us to meet—I knew that she and maman hated each other. But maman will tell me nothing—and I have a right to know."

"No, you have no right to know," said Ashe, gravely.

She looked at him wildly.

"I have—I have!" she repeated, passionately. "Well, I told my sister to meet me here—I had forgotten, you see, all about you! My mind was so full of Alice. And when she came I felt as if it was a dream—a horrible, tragic dream. You know—she is so like me—which means, I suppose, that we are both like papa. Only her face—it's not handsome, oh no—but it's stern—and—yes, noble! I was proud of her. I would like to have gone on my knee and kissed her dress. But she would not take my hand—she would hardly speak to me. She said she had come, because it was best, now that I was in England, that we should meet once, and understand that we couldn't meet—that we could never, never be friends. She said that she hated my mother—that for years she had kept silence, but that now she meant to punish maman—to drive her from London. And then"—the girl's lips trembled under the memory—"she came close to me, and she looked into my eyes, and she said, 'Yes, we're like each other—we're like our father—and it would be better for us both if we had never been born—'"

"Ah, cruel!" cried Ashe, involuntarily, and once more his hand found Kitty's small fingers and pressed them in his.

Kitty looked at him with a strange, exalted look.

"No. I think it's true. I often think I'm not made to be happy. I can't ever be happy—it's not in me."

"It's in you to say foolish things then!" said Ashe, lightly, and crossing his arms he tried to assume the practical elder-brotherly air, which he felt befitted the situation—if anything befitted it. For in truth it seemed to him one singularly confused and ugly. Their talk floated above tragic depths, guessed at by him, wholly unknown to her. And yet her youth shrank from it knew not what—"as an animal shrinks from shadows in the twilight." She seemed to him to sit enwrapped in a vague cloud of shame, resenting and hating it, yet not able to escape from thinking and talking of it. But she must not talk of it.

She did not answer his last remark for a little while. She sat looking before her, overwhelmed, it seemed, by an inward rush of images and sensations. Till, with a sudden movement, she turned to him and said, smiling, quite in her ordinary voice:

"Do you know why I shall never be happy? It is because I have such a bad temper."

"Have you?" said Ashe, smiling.

She gave him a curious look.

"You don't believe it? If you had been in the convent, you would have believed it. I'm mad sometimes—quite mad; with pride, I suppose, and vanity. The Soeurs said it was that."

"They had to explain it somehow," said Ashe. "But I am quite sure that if I lived in a convent I should have a furious temper."

"You!" she said, half contemptuously. "You couldn't be ill-tempered anywhere. That's the one thing I don't like about you—you're too calm—too—too satisfied. It's—Well! you said a sharp thing to me, so I don't see why I shouldn't say one to you. You shouldn't look as though you enjoyed your life so much. It's bourgeois! It is, indeed." And she frowned upon him with a little extravagant air that amused him.

By some prescience, she had put on that morning a black dress of thin material, made with extreme simplicity. No flounces, no fanfaronnade. A little girlish dress, that made the girlish figure seem even frailer and lighter than he remembered it the night before in the splendors of her Paris gown. Her large black hat emphasized the whiteness of her brow, the brilliance of her most beautiful eyes; and then all the rest was insubstantial sprite and airy nothing, to be crushed in one hand. And yet what untamed, indomitable things breathed from it—a self surely more self, more intensely, obstinately alive than any he had yet known.

Her attack had brought the involuntary blood to his cheeks, which annoyed him. But he invited her to say why cheerfulness was a vice. She replied that no one should look success—as much as he did.

"And you scorn success?"

"Scorn it!" She drew a long breath, clasped both her hands above her head, then slowly let the thin arms fall again. "Scorn it! What nonsense! But everybody who hasn't got it hates those who have."

"Don't hate me!" said Ashe, quickly.

"Yes," she said, with stubbornness, "I must. Do you know why I was such a wild-cat at school? Because some of the other girls were more important than I—much more important—and richer—and more beautiful—and people paid them more attention. And that seemed to burn the heart in me." She pressed her hands to her breast with a passionate gesture. "You know the French word panache? Well, that's what I care for—that's what I adore! To be the first—the best—the most distinguished. To be envied—and pointed at—obeyed when I lift my finger—and then to come to some great, glorious, tragic end!"

Ashe moved impatiently.

"Lady Kitty, I don't like to hear you talk like this. It's wild, and it's also—I beg your pardon—"

"In bad taste?" she said, catching him up breathlessly. "That's what you meant, isn't it? You said it to me before, when I called you handsome."

"Pshaw!" he said, in vexation. She watched him throw himself back and feel for his cigarette-case; a gesture of her hand gave him leave; she waited, smiling, till he had taken a few calming whiffs. Then she gently moved towards him.

"Don't be angry with me!" she said, in a sweet, low voice. "Don't you understand how hard it is—to have that nature—and then to come here out of the convent—where one had lived on dreams—and find one's self—"

She turned her head away. Ashe put down his new-lit cigarette.

"Find yourself?" he repeated.

"Everybody scorns me!" she said, her brow drooping.

Ashe exclaimed.

"You know it's true. My mother is not received. Can you deny that?"

"She has many friends," said Ashe.

"She is not received. When I speak of her no one answers me. Lady Grosville asked me here—me—out of charity. It would be thought a disgrace to marry me—"

"Look here, Lady Kitty!—"

"And I"—she wrung her small hands, as though she clasped the necks of her enemies—"I would never look at a man who did not think it the glory of his life to win me. So you see, I shall never marry. But then the dreadful thing is—"

She let him see a white, stormy face.

"That I have no loyalty to maman—I—I don't think I even love her."

Ashe surveyed her gravely.

"You don't mean that," he said.

"I think I do," she persisted. "I had a horrid childhood. I won't tell tales; but, you see, I don't know maman. I know the Soeurs much better. And then for some one you don't know—to have to—to have to bear—this horrible thing—"

She buried her face in her hands. Ashe looked at her in perplexity.

"You sha'n't bear anything horrible," he said, with energy. "There are plenty of people who will take care of that. Do you mind telling me—have there been special difficulties just lately?"

"Oh yes," she said, calmly, looking up, "awful! Maman's debts are—well—ridiculous. For that alone I don't think she'll be able to stay in London—apart from—Alice."

The name recalled all she had just passed through, and her face quivered. "What will she do?" she said, under her breath. "How will she punish us?—and why?—for what?"

Her dread, her ignorance, her fierce, bruised vanity, her struggling pride, her helplessness, appealed amazingly to the man beside her. He began to talk to her very gently and wisely, begging her to let the past alone, to think only what could be done to help the present. In the first place, would she not let his mother be of use to her?

He could answer for Lady Tranmore. Why shouldn't Lady Kitty spend the summer with her in Scotland? No doubt Madame d'Estrées would be abroad.

"Then I must go with her," said Kitty.

Ashe hesitated.

"Of course, if she wishes it."

"But I don't know that she will wish it. She is not very fond of me," said Kitty, doubtfully. "Yes, I would like to stay with Lady Tranmore. But will your cousin be there?"

"Miss Lyster?"

Kitty nodded.

"How can I tell? Of course, she is often there."

"It is quite curious," said Kitty, after reflection, "how we dislike each other. And it is so odd. You know most people like me!"

She looked up at him without a trace of coquetry, rather with a certain timidity that feared possible rebuff. "That's always been my difficulty," she went on, "till now. Everybody spoils me. I always get my own way. In the convent I was indulged and flattered, and then they wondered that I made all sorts of follies. I want a guide—that's quite certain—somebody to tell me what to do."

"I would offer myself for the post," said Ashe, "but that I feel perfectly sure that you would never follow anybody's advice in anything."

"Yes, I would," she said, wistfully. "I would—"

Ashe's face changed.

"Ah, if you would—"

She sprang up. "Do you see "—she pointed to some figures on a distant path—"they are coming back from church. You understand?—nobody must know about my sister. It will come round to Aunt Lina, of course; but I hope it'll be when I'm gone. If she knew now, I should go back to London to-day."

Ashe made it clear to her that he would be discretion itself. They left the bench, but, as they began to ascend the steps, Kitty turned back.

"I wish I hadn't seen her," she said, in a miserable tone, the tears flooding once more into her eyes.

Ashe looked at her with great kindness, but without speaking. The moment of sharp pain passed, and she moved on languidly beside him. But there was an infection in his strong, handsome presence, and her smiles soon came back. By the time they neared the house, indeed, she seemed to be in wild spirits again.

Did he know, she asked him, that three more guests were coming that afternoon—Mr. Darrell, Mr. Louis Harman, and—Mr. Geoffrey Cliffe? She laid an emphasis on the last name, which made Ashe say, carelessly:

"You want to meet him so much?"

"Of course. Doesn't all the world?"

Ashe replied that he could only answer for himself, and as far as he was concerned he could do very well without Cliffe's company at all times.

Whereupon Kitty protested with fire that other men were jealous of such a famous person because women liked him—because—

"Because the man's a coxcomb and the women spoil him?"

"A coxcomb!"

Kitty was up in arms.

"Pray, is he not a great traveller?—a very great traveller?" she asked, with indignation.

"Certainly, by his own account."

"And a most brilliant writer?"

"Macaulayese," said Ashe, perversely, "and not very good at that."

Kitty was at first struck dumb, and then began a voluble protest against unfairness so monstrous. Did not all intelligent people read and admire? It was mere jealousy, she repeated, to deny the gentleman's claims.

Ashe let her talk and quote and excite herself, applying every now and then a little sly touch of the goad, to make her still run on, and so forget the tragic hour which had overshadowed her. And meanwhile all he cared for was to watch the flashing of her face and eyes, and the play of the wind in her hair, and the springing grace with which she moved. Poor child!—it all came back to that—poor child!—what was to be done with her?

At luncheon—the Sunday luncheon—which still, at Grosville Park, as in the early Victorian days of Lord Grosville's mother, consisted of a huge baronial sirloin to which all else upon the varied table appeared as appurtenance and appendage, Ashe allowed himself the inward reflection that the Grosville Park Sundays were degenerating. Both Lord and Lady Grosville had been good hosts in their day; and the downrightness of the wife had been as much to the taste of many as the agreeable gossip of the husband. But on this occasion both were silent and absent-minded. Lady Grosville showed no generalship in placing her guests; the wrong people sat next to each other, and the whole party dragged—without a leader.

And certainly Kitty Bristol did nothing to enliven it. She sat very silent, her black dress changing her a good deal, to Ashe's thinking, bringing back, as he chose to fancy, the pale convent girl. Was it so that she went through her pious exercises?—by-the-way, she was, of course, a Catholic?—said her lessons, and went to her confessor? Had the French cousin with whom she rode stag-hunting ever seen her like this? No; Ashe felt certain that "Henri" had never seen her, except as a fashion-plate, or en amazone. He could have made nothing of this ghost in black—this distinguished, piteous, little ghost.

After luncheon it became tolerably clear to Ashe that Lady Grosville's preoccupation had a cause. And presently catching him alone in the library, whither he had retired with some official papers, she closed the door with deliberate care, and stood before him.

"I see you are interested in Kitty, and I feel as if I must tell you, and ask your opinion. William, do you know what that child has been doing?"

He looked up from his writing.

"Ah!—what have you been discovering?"

"Grosville told you the story last night."

Ashe nodded.

"Well—Kitty wrote to Alice this morning—and they met. Alice has kept her room since—prostrate—so the Sowerbys tell me. I have just had a note from Mrs. Sowerby. Wasn't it an extraordinary, an indelicate thing to do?"

Ashe studied the frowning lady a moment—so large and daunting in her black silk and white lace. She seemed to suggest all those aspects of the English Sunday for which he had most secret dislike—its Pharisaism and dulness and heavy meals. He felt himself through and through Lady Kitty's champion.

"I should have thought it very natural," was his reply.

Lady Grosville threw up her hands.

"Natural!—when she knows—"

"How can she know?" cried Ashe, hotly. "How can such a child know or guess anything? She only knows that there is some black charge against her mother, on which no one will enlighten her. How can they? But meanwhile her mother is ostracized, and she feels herself dragged into the disgrace, not understanding why or wherefore. Could anything be more pathetic—more touching?"

In his heat of feeling he got up, and began to pace up and down. Lady Grosville's countenance expressed first astonishment—then wavering.

"Oh—of course, it's very sad," she said—"extremely sad. But I should have thought Kitty was clever enough to understand at least that Alice must have some grave reason for breaking with her mother—"

"Don't you all forget what a child she is," said Ashe, indignantly—"not yet nineteen!"

"Yes, that's true," said Lady Grosville, grudgingly. "I must confess I find it difficult to judge her fairly. She's so different from my own girls."

Ashe hastily agreed. Then it struck him as odd that he should have fallen so quickly into this position of Kitty's defender with her father's family; and he drew in his horns. He resumed his work, and Lady Grosville sat for a while, her hands in her lap, quietly observing him.

At last she said:

"So you think, William, I had better leave Kitty alone?"

"About what?" Ashe raised his curly head with a laugh. "Don't put too much responsibility on me. I know nothing about young ladies."

"I don't know that I do—much," said Lady Grosville, candidly. "My own daughters are so exceptional."

Ashe held his peace. Distant cousins as they were, he hardly knew the Grosville girls apart, and had never yet grasped any reason why he should.

"At any rate, I see clearly," said Lady Grosville, after another pause, "that you're very sorry for Kitty. Of course, it's very nice of you, and I find it's what most people feel."

"Hang it! dear Lady Grosville, why shouldn't they?" said Ashe, turning round on his chair. "If ever there was a forlorn little person on earth, I thought Lady Kitty was that person at lunch to-day."

"And after that absurd exhibition last night!" said Lady Grosville, with a shrug. "You never know where to have her. You think she looked ill?"

"I am sure she has got a splitting headache," said Ashe, boldly. "And why you and Grosville shouldn't be as sorry for her as for Lady Alice I can't imagine. She's done nothing."

"No, that's true," said Lady Grosville, as she rose. Then she added: "I'll go and see if she has a headache. You must consult with us, William; you know the mother so well."

"Oh, I'm no good!" said Ashe, with energy. "But I'm sure that kindness would pay with Lady Kitty."

He smiled at her, wishing to Heaven she would go.

Lady Grosville stared.

"I hope we are always kind to her," she said, with a touch of haughtiness. And then the library door closed behind her.

"Kindness" was indeed, that afternoon, the order of the day, as from the Grosvilles to Lady Kitty. Ashe wondered how she liked it. The girls followed her about with shawls. Lady Grosville installed her on a sofa in the back drawing-room. A bottle of sal-volatile appeared, and Caroline Grosville, instead of going twice to Sunday-school, devoted herself to fanning Kitty, though the weather—which was sunny, with a sharp east wind—suggested, to Ashe's thinking, fires rather than fans.

He was himself carried off for the customary Sunday walk, Mr. Kershaw being now determined to claim the sacred rights of the press. The walkers left the house by a garden door, to reach which they had to pass through the farther drawing-room. Kitty, a picturesque figure on the sofa, nodded farewell to Ashe, and then, unseen by Caroline Grosville, who sat behind her, shot him a last look which drove him to a precipitate exit lest the inward laugh should out.

The walk through the flat Cambridgeshire country was long and strenuous. Though for at least half of it the active journalist who was Ashe's companion conceived the poorest opinion of the new minister. Ashe knew nothing; had no opinions; cared for nothing, except now and then for the stalking of an unfamiliar bird, or the antics of the dogs, or tales of horse-racing, of which he talked with a fervor entirely denied to those high political topics of which Kershaw's ardent soul was full.

Again and again did the journalist put them under his nose in their most attractive guise. In vain; Ashe would have none of them. Till suddenly a chance word started an Indian frontier question, vastly important, and totally unknown to the English public. Ashe casually began to talk; the trickle became a stream, and presently he was holding forth with an impetuosity, a knowledge, a matured and careful judgment that fairly amazed the man beside him.

The long road, bordered by the flat fen meadows, the wide silver sky, the gently lengthening day, all passed unnoticed. The journalist found himself in the grip of a mind—strong, active, rich. He gave himself up with docility, yet with a growing astonishment, and when they stood once more on the steps of the house he said to his companion:

"You must have followed these matters for years. Why have you never spoken in the House, or written anything?"

Ashe's aspect changed at once.

"What would have been the good?" he said, with his easy smile. "The fellows who didn't know wouldn't have believed me; and the fellows who knew didn't want telling."

A shade of impatience showed in Kershaw's aspect.

"I thought," he said, "ours was government by discussion."

Ashe laughed, and, turning on the steps, he pointed to the splendid gardens and finely wooded park.

"Or government by country-houses—which? If you support us in this—as I gather you will—this walk will have been worth a debate—now won't it?"

The flattered journalist smiled, and they entered the house. From the inner hall Lord Grosville perceived them.

"Geoffrey Cliffe's arrived," he said to Ashe, as they reached him.

"Has he?" said Ashe, and turned to go up-stairs.

But Kershaw showed a lively interest. "You mean the traveller?" he asked of his host.

"I do. As mad as usual," said the old man. "He and my niece Kitty make a pair."