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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 CHAPTER III.
The door of the little house was standing open when they drew up at the
gate. It was a door at the side round the corner from the veranda, but with a
porch which seemed to continue it. It was full of light from within, against
which Lucy’s figure stood dark. She was so much afraid to keep the
gentlemen waiting that she had come out there to be ready, and was
speaking her last words with her friend in the porch. Their voices sounded
soft, almost musical, through the dusk and the fresh air; though, indeed, it
was chiefly Lucy who was speaking. The men did not hear what she said,
they even smiled a little, at least Bertram did, at the habit of the women
who had always so much to say to each other about nothing; and who,
though they had perhaps met before more than once that day, had still
matter to murmur about down to the very last moment by the opening of the
door. It went on indeed for two or three minutes while they stood there,
notwithstanding that Lucy had cried, “Oh, there they are! I must go,” at the
first appearance of the tall shadows on the road. She was pleading with her
friend to come up to the hall next day, which was the reason of the delay.
“Oh, Nelly, do come—to-morrow is an off day—they are not going to
shoot. And I so want you to see Raaf; oh, I know he is not much to see—
that’s him, the tallest one. He has a huge beard. You’ll perhaps think he’s
not very intellectual or that sort of thing; but he’s our Raaf—he’s mother’s
Raaf—and you’re so fond of mother. And if I brought him to see you he
would be shy and gauche. Do come, do come, to-morrow, Nelly; mother is
so anxious you should come in good time.”
Then the gentlemen, though they did not hear this, were aware of a new
voice breaking in—a small, sweet treble, a child’s voice—crying, “Me too,
me too!”
“Yes, you too, Tiny; we always want you. Won’t you come when Tiny
wishes it, Nelly? You always give in to Tiny.”
“Me come now,” shouted Tiny, “see gemplemans; me come now.”
Then there was a little scuffle and laughing commotion at the open door;
the little voice loud, then others hushing it, and suddenly there came flying
down the bank something white, a little fluttering line of whiteness upon the
dark. The child flew with childish delight making its escape, while there
was first a startled cry from the doorway, and then Lucy followed in pursuit.
But the little thing, shouting and laughing, with the rush of infantile
velocity, short-lived but swift, got to the bottom of the bank in a rush, and
would have tripped herself up in her speed upon the fastening of the gate
had not Bertram, coming a step forward, quickly caught her in his arms.
There was not much light to see the child by—the little face like a flower;
the waving hair and shining eyes. The little thing was full of laughter and
delight in her small escapade. “Me see gemplemans, me see gemplemans,”
she said. Bertram lifted her up, holding her small waist firm in his two
hands.
And then there came a change over Tiny. She became silent all at once,
though without shrinking from the dark face up to which she was lifted. She
did not twist in his grasp as children do, or struggle to be put down. She
became quite still, drew a long breath, and fixed her eyes upon him, her
little lips apart, her face intent. It was only the effect of a shyness which
from time to time crept over Tiny, who was not usually shy; but it
impressed the man very much who held her, himself quite silent for a
moment, which seemed long to both, though it was scarcely appreciable in
time, until Lucy reached the group, and with a cry of “Oh, Tiny, you
naughty little girl!” restored man and child to the commonplace. Then the
little girl wriggled down out of the stranger’s grasp, and stole her hand into
the more familiar one of Lucy. She kept her eyes, however, fixed upon her
first captor.
“Oh, Tiny,” cried Lucy, “what will the gentleman think of you—such a
bold little girl—to run away from mamma, and get your death of cold, and
give that kind gentleman the trouble of catching you. Oh, Tiny, Tiny!”
“Me go back to mummie now,” Tiny said, turning her back upon them. It
was unusual for this little thing, whom everybody petted, to be so subdued.
“You have both beards,” cried Lucy, calling over her shoulder to her
brother and his friend, as she led the child back. “She is frightened of you;
but they are not bad gemplemans, Tiny, they are nice gemplemans. Oh,
nurse, here she is, safe and sound.”
“Me not frightened,” Tiny said, and she turned round in the grip of the
nurse, who had now seized upon her, and kissed her little hand. “Dood-
night, gemplemans,” Tiny cried. The little voice came shrill and clear
through the night air, tinkling in the smallness of the sound, yet gracious as
a princess; and the small incident was over. It was nothing at all; the
simplest little incident in the world. And then Lucy took up her little strain,
breathless with her rush, laughing and explaining.
“Tiny dearly loves a little escapade; she is the liveliest little thing! She
has no other children to play with, and she is not afraid of anybody. She is
always with her mother, you know, and hears us talk of everything.”
“Very bad training for a child,” said Ralph, “to hear all your scandal and
gossip over your tea.”
“Oh, Ralph, how common, how old fashioned you are!” cried Lucy,
indignantly. “Do you think Mrs. Nugent talks scandal over her tea? or I—? I
have been trying to make her promise to come up to lunch to-morrow, and
then you shall see—that is, if she comes; for she was not at all sure whether
she would come. She is not fond of strangers. She never will come to us
when we have people—that is, not chance people—unless she knows them
beforehand. Oh, you, of course, my brother, that’s a different thing. I am
sure I beg your pardon, Mr. Bertram, for making you wait, and for seeming
to imply—and then Tiny rushing at you in that way.”
“Tiny made a very sweet little episode in our walk,” said Bertram.
“Please don’t apologize. I am fond of children, and the little thing gave me
a look; children are strange creatures, they’re only half of this world, I
think. She looked—as if somehow she and I had met before.”
“Have you, Mr. Bertram? did you perhaps know—her mother?” cried
Lucy, in great surprise.
“It is very unlikely; I knew some Nugents once, but they were old people
without any children, at least—No, I’ve been too long in the waste places of
the earth ever to have rubbed shoulders with this baby; besides,” he said,
with a laugh, “if there was any recognition, it was she who recognized me.”
“You are talking greater nonsense than I was doing, Bertram,” said
Ralph. “We’re both out of sorts, I should think. These damp English nights
take all the starch out of one. Come, let’s get home. You shan’t bring us out
again after sunset, Lucy, I promise you that.”
“Oh, sunset is not a bad time here,” cried Lucy; “it’s a beautiful time; it
is only in your warm countries that it is bad. Besides, it’s long after sunset;
it’s almost night and no moon for an hour yet. That’s the chief thing I like
going to town for, that it is never dark like this at night. I love the lamps—
don’t you, Mr. Bertram?—there is such company in them; even the cottage
windows are nice, and that ‘Red Lion’—one wishes that a public-house was
not such a very bad thing, for it looks so ruddy and so warm. I don’t wonder
the men like it; I should myself, if—Oh, take care! there is a very wet
corner there, just before you come to our gates. Why, there is some one
coming out. Why—it’s Reginald, Raaf!”
They were met, in the act of opening the gate, by Mr. Wradisley’s slim,
unmistakable figure. He had an equally slim umbrella, beautifully rolled up,
in his hand, and walked as if the damp country road were covered with
velvet.
“Oh, you are coming back,” he said; “it’s a fine night for a walk, don’t
you think so?—well, not after Africa, perhaps; but we are used in England
to like these soft, grey skies and the feeling of—well, of dew and coolness
in the air.”
“I call it damp and mud,” said Ralph, with an explosion of a laugh which
seemed somehow to be an explosion manqué, as if the damp had got into
that too.
“Ah,” said his brother, reflectively. “Well it is rather a brutal way of
judging, but perhaps you are right. I am going to take a giro round the
common. We shall meet at dinner.” And then he took off his hat to Lucy,
and with a nod to Bertram went on. There was an involuntary pause among
the three to watch him walking along the damp road—in which they had
themselves encountered occasional puddles—as if a carpet had been spread
underneath his dainty feet.
“Is this Rege’s way?” said Ralph. “It’s an odd thing for him surely—
going out to walk now. He never would wet his feet any more than a cat.
What is he doing out at night in the dark, a damp night, bad for his throat.
Does my mother know?”
“Oh,” said Lucy, with a curious confusion; “why shouldn’t he go now, if
he likes! It isn’t cold, it’s not so very damp, and Reginald’s an Englishman,
and isn’t afraid of a bit of damp or a wet road. You are so hard to please.
You are finding fault with everybody, Raaf.”
“Am I?” he said. “Perhaps I am. I’ve grown a brute, being so much
away.”
“Oh, Raaf, I didn’t mean that. Reginald has—his own ways. Don’t you
know, we never ask what he means, mother and I. He always means just
what’s the right thing, don’t you know. It is a very nice time to—to take a
giro; look how the sky’s beginning to break there out of the clouds. I always
like an evening walk; so did mother when she was strong enough. And then
Reginald has such a feeling for art. He always says the village is so pretty
with the lights in the windows, and the sweep of the fresh air on the
common—and—and all that.”
“Just so, Lucy,” said Ralph.
She gave him a little anxious look, but she could not see the expression
of his face in the darkness, any more than he could see what a wistful and
wondering look was in her eyes. Bertram, looking on, formed his own
conclusions, which were as little right as a stranger’s conclusions upon a
drama of family life suddenly brought before his eyes generally are. He
thought that this correct and immaculate Mr. Wradisley had tastes known to
his family, or at least to the ladies of his family, which were not so spotless
as he appeared to be; or that there was something going on at this particular
moment which contradicted the law of propriety and good order which was
his nature. Was it a village amour? Was it some secret hanging over the
house? There was a little agitation, he thought, in Lucy, and surprise in the
brother, who was a stranger to all the ways of his own family, and evidently
had a half-hostile feeling toward his elder. But the conversation became
more easy as they went along, emerging from under the shadow of the trees
and crossing the openings of the park. The great house came in sight as they
went on, a solid mass amid all its surrounding of shrubbery and flower
gardens, with the distance stretching clear on one side, and lights in many
windows. It looked a centre of life and substantial, steadfast security, as if it
might last out all the changes of fortune, and could never be affected by
those vicissitudes which pull down one and set up another. Bertram could
fancy that it had stood like a rock while many tempests swept the country.
The individual might come and go, but this habitation was that of the race.
And it was absurd to think that the little surprise of meeting its master on
his way into the village late on an October evening, could have anything to
do with the happiness of the family or its security. Bertram said to himself
that his nerves were a little shaken to-night, he could not tell how. It was
perhaps because of something visionary in this way of walking about an
unknown place in the dark, and hearing of so many people like shadows
moving in a world undiscovered. The old doctor, for example, whose image
was so clear before his companion, that he could almost think he saw him,
so clear that even to himself, a stranger, that old man had almost appeared;
but more than anything else because of the child who, caught in her most
sportive mood, had suddenly grown quiet in his arms, and given him that
look, with eyes unknown, which he too could have sworn he knew. There
were strange things in his own life that gave him cause to think. Was it not
this that made him conscious of mystery and some disturbing influence in
the family which he did not know, but which had received him as if he had
been an absent brother too?
To see Mrs. Wradisley was, however, to send any thought of mystery or
family trouble out of any one’s mind. The lamps were lit in the drawing-
room when they all went in, a little dazzled by the illumination, from the
soft dark of the night. She was sitting where they had left her, in the warmth
of the home atmosphere, so softly lighted, so quietly bright. Her white
knitting lay on her knee. She had the evening paper in her hand, which had
just come in; for it was one of the advantages of Wradisbury that, though so
completely in the country, they were near enough to town to have an
evening post. Mrs. Wradisley liked her evening paper. It was, it is true, not a
late edition, perhaps in point of fact not much later than the Times of the
morning—but she preferred it. It was her little private pleasure in the
evening, when Lucy was perhaps out, or occupied with her friends, and Mr.
Wradisley in his library. She nodded at them over her paper, with a smile, as
they came in.
“I hope it is a fine night, and that you have had a pleasant walk, Mr.
Bertram,” she said.
“And is she coming, Lucy?”
“I could not get her to promise, mother,” Lucy said.
“Oh, well, we must not press her. If she were not a little willful perhaps
we should not like her so much,” said Mrs. Wradisley, returning to her
journal. And how warm it was! but not too warm. How light it was! but not
too bright.
“Come and sit here, Raaf. I like to see you and make sure that you are
there; but you need not talk to me unless you wish to,” the mother said. She
was not exacting. There was nothing wrong in the house, no anxiety nor
alarm; nothing but family tranquility and peace.
 CHAPTER IV.
The little house called Greenbank was like a hundred other little houses
in the country, the superior houses of the village, the homes of small people
with small incomes, who still are ladies and gentlemen, the equals of those
in the hall, not those in the cottage. The drawing-room was darkened in the
winter days by the veranda, which was very desirable and pleasant in the
summer, and chilled a little by the windows which opened to the floor on a
level with the little terrace on which the house stood. It looked most
comfortable and bright in the evening when the lamps were lighted and
there was a good fire and the curtains were drawn. Mrs. Nugent was
considered to have made a great difference in the house since the doctor’s
time. His heavy, old furniture was still in the dining-room, and indeed, more
or less, throughout the rooms; but chintz or cretonne and appropriate
draperies go a long way, according to the taste of the time. The new resident
had been moderate and had not overdone it; she had not piled the stuffs and
ornaments of Liberty into the old-fashioned house, but she had brightened
the whole in a way which was less commonplace. Tiny was perhaps the
great ornament of all—Tiny and indeed herself, a young woman not more
than thirty, in the fulness of her best time, with a little dignity, which
became her isolated position and her widowhood, and showed that, as the
ladies in the neighborhood said, she was fully able to take care of herself.
He would have been a bold man indeed who would have been rude or, what
was more dangerous, overkind to Mrs. Nugent. She was one of those
women, who, as it is common to say, keep people in their place. She was
very gracious, very kind; but either she never forgot that she was alone and
needed to be especially circumspect, or else it was her nature always to hold
back a little, to be above impulse. I think this last was the case; for to be
always on one’s guard is painful, and betrays a suspicion of others or doubt
of one’s self, and neither of these was in Mrs. Nugent’s mind. She liked
society, and she did not shut herself out from the kind people who had
adopted her, though she did not bring introductions or make any appeal to
their kindness. There was no reason why she should shut them out; but she
was not one who much frequented her neighbors’ houses. She was always
to be found in her own, with her little girl at her knee. Tiny was a little
spoiled, perhaps, or so the ladies who had nurseries and many children to
regulate, thought. She was only five, yet she sat up till eight, and had her
bread-and-milk when her mother had her small dinner, at the little round
table before the dining-room fire. Some of the ladies had even said to Mrs.
Nugent that this was a self-indulgence on her part, and bad for the child;
but, if so, she did not mind, but went on with the custom, which it was
evident, for the moment did Tiny no harm.
The excitement of Tiny’s escapade had been got over, and the child was
sitting on the carpet in the firelight playing with her doll and singing to
herself. She was always singing to herself or to the waxen companion in her
arms, which was pale with much exposure to the heat of the fire. Tiny had a
little tune which was quite different from the little snatches of song which
she picked up from every one—from the butcher’s boy and the postman and
the maids in the kitchen, as well as from her mother’s performances. The
child was all ear, and sang everything, whatever she heard. But besides all
this she had her own little tune, in which she kept singing sometimes the
same words over and over again, sometimes her dialogues with her doll,
sometimes scraps of what she heard from others, odds and ends of the
conversation going on over her head. It was the prettiest domestic scene, the
child sitting in front of the fire, in the light of the cheerful blaze, undressing
her doll, hushing it in her arms, going through all the baby routine with
which she was so familiar, singing, talking, cooing to the imaginary baby in
her arms, while the pretty young mother sat at the side of the hearth, with
the little table and work-basket overflowing with the fine muslin and bits of
lace, making one of Tiny’s pretty frocks or pinafores, which was her chief
occupation. Sometimes Tiny’s monologue was broken by a word from her
mother; but sewing is a silent occupation when it is pursued by a woman
alone, and generally Mrs. Nugent said nothing more than a word from time
to time, while the child’s little voice ran on. Was there something wanting to
the little bright fireside—the man to come in from his work, the woman’s
husband, the child’s father? But it was too small, too feminine a place for a
man. One could not have said where he would sit, what he would do—there
seemed no place for him, if such a man there had been.
Nevertheless a place was made for Mr. Wradisley when he came in, as
he did immediately, announced by the smart little maid, carrying his hat in
his hand. A chair was got for him out of the glow of the firelight, which
affected his eyes. He made a little apology for coming so late.
 “But I have a liking for the twilight; I love the park in the dusk; and as
you have been so good as to let me in once or twice, and in the confidence
that when I am intrusive you will send me away—”
“If you had come a little sooner,” said Mrs. Nugent, in a frank, full
voice, different from her low tones, “you might have taken care of Lucy,
who ran in to see me.”
“Lucy was well accompanied,” said her brother; “besides, a walk is no
walk unless one is alone; and the great pleasure of a conversation, if you
will allow me to say so, is doubled when there are but two to talk. I know
all Lucy’s opinions, and she,” he said, pausing with a smile, as if there was
something ridiculous in the idea, “knows, or at least thinks she knows,
mine.”
“She knows more than she has generally credit for,” said Mrs. Nugent;
“but your brother was with her. It has pleased her so much to have him
back.”
“Raaf? yes. He has been so long away, it is like a stranger come to the
house. He has forgotten the old shibboleths, and it takes one a little time to
pick up his new ones. He is a man of the desert.”
“Perhaps he has no shibboleths at all.”
“Oh, don’t believe that! I have always found the more unconventional a
man is supposed to be, the furthest from our cut-and-dry systems, the more
conventional he really is. We are preserved by the understood routine, and
keep our independence underneath; but those who have to make new laws
for themselves are pervaded by them. The new, uneasy code is on their very
soul.”
He spoke with a little warmth—unusual to him—almost excitement, his
correct, calm tone quickening. Then he resumed his ordinary note.
“I hope,” he said, with a keen look at her, “that poor Raaf made a
favorable impression upon you.”
Her head was bent over her needlework, which she had gone on with,
not interrupting her occupation.
“I did not see him,” she said. “Lucy ran in by herself; they waited for
her, I believe, at the door.”
“Me see gemplemans,” sang Tiny, at his feet, making him start. She went
on with her little song, repeating the words, “Dolly, such nice gemplemans.
Give Dolly ride on’s shoulder ’nother time.”
And then Mrs. Nugent laughed, and told the story of Tiny’s escapade. It
jarred somehow on the visitor. He did not know what to make of Tiny; her
little breaks into the conversation, the chant that could not be taken for
remark or criticism, and yet was so, kept him in a continual fret; but he tried
to smile.
“My brother,” he said, “is the kind of primitive man who, I believe,
pleases children—and dogs and primitive creatures generally—I—I beg
your pardon, Mrs. Nugent.”
“No; why should you?” She dropped her work on her knee and looked
up at him with a laugh. “Tiny is quite a primitive creature. She likes what is
kind and big and takes her up with firm hands. That is how I have always
explained the pleasure infants take often in men. They are only accustomed
to us women about them; but they almost invariably turn from us poor small
things and rejoice in the hold of a man—when he’s not frightened for
them,” she added, taking up her work again.
“As most men are, however,” Mr. Wradisley said.
“Yes; that is our salvation. It would be too humiliating to think the little
things preferred the look of a man. I have always thought it was the strength
of his grasp.”
“We shall shortly have to give in to the ladies even in that, they say,” Mr.
Wradisley went on, with relief in the changed subject. “Those tall girls—
while we, it appears, are growing no taller, or perhaps dwindling—I am sure
you, who are so womanly in everything, don’t approve of that.”
“Of tall girls? oh, why not? It is not their fault to be tall. It is very nice
for them to be tall. I am delighted with my tall maid; she can reach things I
have to get up on a chair for, and it is not dignified getting up on a chair.
And she even snatches up Tiny before she has time to struggle or
remonstrate.”
“Tiny,” said Mr. Wradisley, with a little wave of his hand, “is the be-all
and end-all, I know; no one can hope to beguile your thoughts from that
point.”
Mrs. Nugent looked up at him quickly with surprise, holding her work
suspended in her hand.
 “Do you think it is quite right,” he said, “or just to the rest of the world?
A child is much, but still only a child; and here are you, a noble, perfect
woman, with many greater capabilities. I do not flatter; you must know that
you are not like other women—gossips, triflers, foolish persons—”
“Or even as this publican,” said Mrs. Nugent, who had kept her eyes on
him all the time, which had made him nervous, yet gave him a kind of
inspiration. “I give alms of all I possess—I—Mr. Wradisley, do you really
think this is the kind of argument which you would like a woman whom
you profess to respect to adopt?”
“Oh, you twist what I say. I am conscious of the same thing myself,
though I am, I hope, no Pharisee. To partly give up what was meant for
mankind—will that please you better?—to a mere child—”
“You must not say such thing over Tiny’s head, Mr. Wradisley. She
understands a great deal. If she were not so intent upon this most elaborate
part of Dolly’s toilet for the night—”
“Mrs. Nugent, could not that spectator for one moment be removed?—
could not I speak to you—if it were but for a minute—alone?”
She looked at him again, this time putting down the needle-work with a
disturbed air.
“I wish to hear nothing, from any one, Mr. Wradisley, which she cannot
hear.”
“Not if I implored for one moment?”
His eyes, which were dull by nature, had become hot and shining, his
colorless face was flushed; he was so reticent, so calm, that the swelling of
something new within him took a form that was alarming. He turned round
his hat in his hands as if it were some mystic implement of fate. She
hesitated, and cast a glance round her at all the comfort of the little room, as
if her shelter had suddenly been endangered, and the walls of her house
were going to fall about her ears. Tiny all the time was very busy with her
doll. She had arranged its nightgown, settled every button, tied every string,
and now, holding it against her little bosom, singing to it, got up to put it to
bed. “Mammy’s darling,” said Tiny, “everything as mammy has—dood
dolly, dood dolly. Dolly go to bed.”
Both the man and the woman sat watching her as she performed this
little ceremony. Dolly’s bed was on a sofa, carefully arranged with a
cushion and coverlet. Tiny laid the doll down, listened, made as if she heard
a little cry, bent over the mimic baby, soothing and quieting. Then she
turned round to the spectators, holding up a little finger. “Gone to sleep,”
said Tiny in a whisper. “Hush, hush—dolly not well, not twite well—me go
and ask nursie what she sinks.”
The child went out on tip-toe, making urgent little gesticulations that the
others might keep silence. There was a momentary hush; she had left the
door ajar, but Mr. Wradisley did not think of that. He looked with a nervous
glance at the doll on the sofa, which seemed to him like another child laid
there to watch.
“Mrs. Nugent,” he said at last, “you must know what I mean. I never
thought this great moment of my life would come thus, as if it were a boy’s
secret, to be kept from a child!—but you know; I have tried to make it very
clear. You are the only woman in the world—I want you to be my wife.”
“Mr. Wradisley—God help me—I have tried to make another thing still
more clear, that I can never more be any one’s wife.”
She clasped her hands and looked at him as if it were she who was the
supplicant.
He, having delivered himself, became more calm; he regained his
confidence in himself.
“I am very much in earnest,” he said; “don’t think it is lightly said. I
have known since the first moment I saw you, but I have not yielded to any
impulse. It has grown into my whole being; I accept Tiny and everything. I
don’t offer you any other inducements, for you are above them. You know a
little what I am, but I will change my very nature to please you. Be my
wife.”
She rose up, the tears came in a flood to her eyes.
“Be content,” she said; “it is impossible, it is impossible. Don’t ask me
any more, oh, for God’s sake don’t ask me any more, neither you nor any
man. I would thank you if I could, but it is too dreadful. For the love of
heaven, let this be final and go away.”
“I cannot go away with such an answer. I have startled you, though I
hoped not to do so. You are agitated, you have some false notions, as
women have, of loving only once. Mrs. Nugent—”
She crossed the room precipitately in front of him as he approached
toward her, and closing the door, stood holding it with her hand.
 “I could explain in a word,” she said, “but do not force me to explain—it
would be too hard; it is impossible, only understand that. Here is my child
coming back, who must not indeed hear this. I will give you my hand and
say farewell, and you will never think of me again.”
“That is the thing that is impossible,” he said.
Tiny was singing at the door, beating against it. What an interruption for
a tale—and such a love tale as his! Mr. Wradisley was terribly jarred in all
his nerves. He was more vexed even than disappointed; he could not
acknowledge himself disappointed. It was the child, the surprise, the shock
of admitting for the first time such an idea; he would not believe it was
anything else, not even when she held open the door for him with what in
any other circumstances would have been an affront, sending him away.
The child got between them somehow with her little song. “Dood-night,
dood-night,” said Tiny. “Come again anodder day,” holding her mother’s
dress with one hand, and with the other waving to him her little farewell, as
was her way.
He made a step or two across the little hall, and then came back.
“Promise me that you will let this make no difference, that you will come
to-morrow, that I shall see you again,” he said.
“No, no; let it be over, let it be over!” she cried.
“You will come to-morrow? I will not speak to you if I must not; but
make no difference. Promise that, and I will go away.”
“I will come to-morrow,” she said. “Good-by.”
The maid was standing behind him to close the outer door. Did that
account for the softening of her tone? or had she begun already to see that
nothing was impossible—that her foolish, womanish prejudice about a dead
husband could never stand in the way of a love like his? Mr. Wradisley’s
heart was beating in his ears, as he went down the bank, as it had never
done before. He had come in great excitement, but it was with much greater
excitement that he was going away. When the maid came running after him
that laboring heart stood still for an instant. He thought he was recalled, and
that everything was to be as he desired; he felt even a slight regret in the joy
of being recalled so soon. It would have been even better had she taken
longer to think of it. But it was only his umbrella which he had forgotten.
Mr. Wradisley to forget his umbrella! That showed indeed the pass to which
the man had come.
 It was quite dark now, and the one or two rare passers-by that he met on
the way passed him like ghosts, yet turned their heads toward him
suspiciously, wondering who he was. They were villagers unwillingly out in
the night upon business of their own; they divined a gentleman, though it
was too dark to see him, and wondered who the soft-footed, slim figure
could be, no one imagining for a moment who it really was. And yet he had
already made two or three pilgrimages like this to visit the lady who for the
first time in his life had made the sublime Mr. Wradisley a suitor. He felt, as
he opened softly his own gate, that it was a thing that must not be repeated;
but yet that it was in its way natural and seemly that his suit should not be
precisely like that of an ordinary man. Henceforward it could be conducted
in a different way, now that she was aware of his feelings without the
cognizance of any other person. If it could be possible that her prejudices or
caprice should hold out, nobody need be the wiser. But he did not believe
that this would be the case. She had been startled, let it even be said
shocked, to have discovered that she was loved, and by such a man as
himself. There was even humility—the sweetest womanly quality—in her
conviction that it was impossible, impossible that she, with no first love to
give him, should be sought by him. But this would not stand the reflection
of a propitious night, of a new day.
 CHAPTER V.
The dinner was quite a cheerful meal at Wradisbury that night. The
master of the house was exactly as he always was. Punctilious in every
kindness and politeness, perfect in his behavior. To see him take his mother
in as he always did, as if she were the queen, and place her in her own chair,
where she had presided at the head of that table for over forty years, was in
itself a sight. He was the king regnant escorting a queen dowager—a queen
mother, not exactly there by personal right, but by conscious delegation, yet
supreme naturalness and reverence, from him. He liked to put her in her
place. Except on occasions when there were guests he had always done it
since the day of his father’s death, with a sort of ceremony as showing how
he gave her all honor though this supreme position was no longer her
absolute due. He led her in with special tenderness to-night. It perhaps
might not last long, this reign of hers. Another and a brighter figure was
already chosen for that place, but as long as the mother was in it, the honor
shown to her should be special, above even ordinary respect. I think Ralph
was a little fretted by this show of reverence. Perhaps, with that subtle
understanding of each other which people have in a family, even when they
reach the extreme of personal difference or almost alienation, he knew what
was in his brother’s mind, and resented the consciousness of conferring
honor which moved Reginald. In Ralph’s house (or so he thought) the
mother would rule without any show of derived power. It would be her
own, not a grace conferred; but though he chafed he was silent, for it was
very certain that there was not an exception to be taken, not a word to say. It
is possible that Mrs. Wradisley was aware of it too, but she liked it, liked
her son’s magnanimous giving up to her of all the privileges which had for
so long been hers. Many men would not have done that. They would have
liked their houses to themselves; but Reginald had always been a model
son. She was not in any way an exacting woman, and when she turned to
her second son, come back in peace after so many wanderings, her heart
overflowed with content. She was the only one in the party who was not
aware that the master of the house had left his library in the darkening. The
servants about the table all knew, and had formed a wonderfully close guess
as to what was “up,” as they said, and Lucy knew with a great commotion
and trouble of her thoughts, wondering, not knowing if she were sorry or
glad, looking very wistfully at her brother to see if he had been fortunate or
otherwise. Was it possible that Nelly Nugent might be her sister, and sit in
her mother’s place? Oh, it would be delightful, it would be dreadful! For
how would mamma take it to be dethroned? And then if Nelly would not,
poor Reginald! Lucy watched him covertly, and could scarcely contain
herself. Ralph and Mr. Bertram, I fear, did not think of Mrs. Nugent, but of
something less creditable to Mr. Wradisley. The mother was the only one to
whom any breach in his usual habits remained unknown.
“You really mean to have this garden party to-morrow, mother?” he said.
“Oh, yes, my dear, it is all arranged—the last, the very last of the season.
Not so much a garden party as a sort of farewell to summer before your
shooting parties arrive. We are so late this year. The harvest has been so
late,” Mrs. Wradisley said, turning toward Bertram. “St. Swithin, you know,
was in full force this year, and some of the corn was still out when the
month began. But the weather lately has been so fine. There was a little rain
this morning, but still the weather has been quite remarkable. I am glad you
came in time for our little gathering, for Raaf will see a number of old
friends, and you, I hope, some of the nicest people about.”
“I suspect I must have seen the nicest people already,” said Bertram,
with a laugh and a bow.
“Oh, that is a very kind thing to say, Mr. Bertram, and, indeed, I am very
glad that Raaf’s friend should like his people. But no, you will see some
very superior people to-morrow. Lord Dulham was once a Cabinet Minister,
and Colonel Knox has seen an immense deal of service in different parts of
the world; not to speak of Mr. Sergeant—Geoffrey Sergeant, you know,
who is so well known in the literary world—but I don’t know whether you
care for people who write,” Mrs. Wradisley said.
“He writes himself,” said Ralph, out of his beard. “Letters half a mile
long, and leaders, and all sorts of things. If we don’t look out he’ll have us
all in.”
The other members of the party looked at Bertram with alarm. Mr.
Wradisley with a certain half resentment, half disgust.
“Indeed,” he said; “I thought I had been so fortunate as to discover for
myself a most intelligent critic—but evidently I ought to have known.”
 “Don’t say that,” said Bertram, “indeed I’m not here on false pretenses.
I’m not a literary man afloat on the world, or making notes. Only a humble
newspaper correspondent, Mrs. Wradisley, and only that when it happens to
suit me, as your son knows.”
“Oh, I am sure we are very highly honored,” said the lady, disturbed,
“only Raaf, you should have told me, or I might have said something
disagreeable about literary people, and that would have been so very—I
assure you we are all quite proud of Mr. Sergeant, and still more, Mr.
Bertram, to have some one to meet him whom he will—whom he is sure to
—”
“You might have said he was a queer fish. I think he is,” said Bertram,
“but don’t suppose he knows me, or any of my sort. Raaf is only playing
you a trick. I wrote something about Africa, that’s all. When one is
knocking about the world for years without endless money to spend,
anything to put a penny in one’s purse is good. But I can’t write a bit—
except a report about Africa,” he added, hurriedly.
“Oh, about Africa,” Mrs. Wradisley said, with an expression of greater
ease, and there was a little relief in the mind of the family generally.
Bertram seized the opportunity to plunge into talk about Africa and the big
game, drawing Ralph subtly into the conversation. It was not easy to get
Ralph set a-going, but when he was so, there was found to be much in him
wanting expression, and the stranger escaped under shelter of adventures
naturally more interesting to the family than any he had to tell. He laughed
a little to himself over it as the talk flowed on, and left him with not much
pride in the literary profession, which he had in fact only played with, but
which had inspired him at moments with a little content in what he did too.
These good folk, who were intelligent enough, would have been a little
afraid of him, not merely gratified by his acquaintance, had he been really a
writer of books. They were much more at their ease to think him only a
sportsman like Ralph, and a gentleman at large. When they went into the
drawing-room afterwards, the conversation came back to the party of to-
morrow, and to the pretty widow in the cottage, of whom Mrs. Wradisley
began to talk, saying they would leave the flowers till Mrs. Nugent came,
who was so great in decoration.
“I thought,” said Ralph, “this widow of yours—was not to be here.”
 Mr. Wradisley interposed at this point from where he stood, with his
back to the fire. “Ah,” he said, “oh,” with a clearing of his throat, “I
happened to see Mrs. Nugent in the village to-day, and I certainly
understood from her that she would be here.”
“You saw her—after I did, Reginald?” said Lucy, in spite of herself.
“Now, how can you say anything so absurd, Lucy—when you saw her
just before dinner, and Reginald could only have seen her in the morning,
for he never goes out late,” Mrs. Wradisley said.
Bertram felt that he was a conspirator. He gave a furtive glance at the
others who knew different. He could see that Lucy grew scarlet, but not a
word was said.
“You are mistaken, mother,” said Mr. Wradisley, with his calm voice, “I
sometimes do take a little giro in the evening.”
“Oh, a giro;” said his mother, as if that altered the matter; “however,”
she added, “there never was any question about the party; that she fully
knew we expected her for; but I wanted her to come for lunch that she
might make Ralph’s acquaintance before the crowd came; but it doesn’t
matter, for no doubt they’ll meet often enough. Only when you men begin
to shoot you’re lost to all ordinary occupations; and so tired when you come
in that you have not a word to throw at—a lady certainly, if you still may
have at a dog.”
“I am not so bent on meeting this widow, mother, as you seem to think,”
said Ralph.
“You need not always call her a widow. That’s her misfortune; it’s not
her character,” said Lucy, unconsciously epigrammatic.
“Oh, well, whatever you please—this beautiful lady—is that better? The
other sounds designing, I allow.”
“I think,” said Mr. Wradisley, “that we have perhaps discussed Mrs.
Nugent as much as is called for. She is a lady—for whom we all have the
utmost respect.” He spoke as if that closed the question, as indeed it
generally did; and going across the room to what he knew was the most
comfortable chair, possessed himself of the evening paper, and sitting
down, began to read it. Mrs. Wradisley had by no means done with her
evening paper, and that Reginald should thus take it up under her very eyes
filled her soul with astonishment. She looked at him with a gasp, and then,
after a moment, put out her hand for her knitting. Nothing that could have
happened could have given her a more bewildering and mysterious shock.
All this, perhaps, was rather like a play to Bertram, who saw everything
with a certain unconscious exercise of that literary faculty which he had just
found so little impressive to the people among whom he found himself.
They were very kind people, and had received him confidingly, asking no
questions, not even wondering, as they might have done, what queer
companion Ralph had picked up. Indeed, he was not at all like Ralph,
though circumstances had made them close comrades. Perhaps if they could
have read his life as he thought he could read theirs, they might not have
opened their doors to him with such perfect trust. He had (had he?) the ruin
of a woman’s happiness on his heart, and the destruction of many hopes. He
had been wandering about the world for a number of years, never knowing
how to make up his mind on this question. Was it indeed his fault? Was it
her fault? Were they both to blame? Perhaps the last was the truth; but he
knew very well he would never get her, or any one, to confess or to believe
that. There are some cases in which the woman has certainly the best of it;
and when the man who has been the means of bringing a young, fair,
blameless creature into great trouble, even if he never meant it, is
hopelessly put in the wrong even when there may be something to be said
for him. He was himself bewildered now and then when he thought it all
over, wondering if indeed there might be something to be said for him. But
if he could not even satisfy himself of that, how should he ever satisfy the
world? He was a little stirred up and uncomfortable that night, he could
scarcely tell why, for the brewing troubles of the Wradisleys, if it was
trouble that was brewing, was unlikely to affect a stranger. Ralph, indeed,
had been grumbling in his beard with complaints over what was in fact the
blamelessness of his brother, but it did not trouble Bertram that his host
should be too perfect a man. He had quite settled in his own mind what it
was that was going to happen. The widow, no doubt, was some pretty
adventuress who, by means of the mother and sister, had established a hold
over the immaculate one, and meant to marry him and turn her patronesses
adrift—the commonest story, vulgar, even. And the ladies would really have
nothing to complain of, for Wradisley was certainly old enough to choose
for himself, and might have married and turned off his mother to her
jointure house years ago, and no harm done. It was not this that made
Bertram sleepless and nervous, who really had so little to do with them, and
no call to fight their battles. Perhaps it was the sensation of being in
England, and within the rules of common life again, after long disruption
from all ordinary circumstances of ordinary living. He to plunge into garden
parties, and common encounters of men and women! He might meet some
one who knew him, who would ask him questions, and attempt to piece his
life together with guesses and conjectures. He had a great mind to repack
his portmanteau and sling it over his shoulder, and tramp through the night
to the nearest station. But to what good? For wherever he might go the same
risk would meet him. How tranquil the night was as he looked out of the
window, a great moon shining over the openings of the park, making the
silence and the vacant spaces so doubly solitary! He dared not break the
sanctity of that solitude by going out into it, any more than he dared disturb
the quiet of the fully populated and deeply sleeping house. He had no right,
for any caprice or personal cowardice of his, to disturb that stillness. And
then it gave him a curious contradictory sensation, half of relief from his
own thoughts, half of sympathy, to think that there were already here the
elements of a far greater disturbance than any he could work, beginning to
move within the house itself, working, perhaps, toward a catastrophe of its
own. In the midst of all he suddenly stopped and laughed to himself, and
went to bed at last with the most curiously subdued and softened sensation.
He had remembered the look of the child whom he had lifted from the
ground at the little gate of Greenbank—how she had suddenly been stilled
in her childish mischief, and fixed him with her big, innocent, startled eyes.
Poor little thing! She was innocent enough, whatever might be the nest from
which she came. This was the thought with which he closed his eyes.
 CHAPTER VI.
Mr. Wradisley had never been known to give so much attention to any
of his mother’s entertainments before. Those which were more exclusively
his own, the periodical dinners, the parties of guests occasionally assembled
in the house either for political motives or in discharge of what he felt to be
his duty as an important personage in the county, or for shooting—which
was the least responsible of all, but still the man’s part in a house of the
highest class—he did give a certain solemn and serious attention to. But it
had never been known that he had come out of himself, or even out of his
library, which was in a manner the outer shell and husk of himself, for
anything in the shape of an occasional entertainment, the lighter
occurrences of hospitality. On this occasion, however, he was about all the
morning with a slightly anxious look about his eyes, in the first place to see
that the day promised well, to examine the horizon all round, and discuss
the clouds with the head gardener, who was a man of much learning and an
expert, as might be said, on the great question of the weather. That great
authority gave it as his opinion that it would keep fine all day. “There may
be showers in the evening, I should not wonder, but the weather will keep
up for to-day,” he said, backing his opinion with many minutiæ about the
shape of the clouds and the indications of the wind. Mr. Wradisley repeated
this at the breakfast table with much seriousness. “Stevenson says we may
trust to having a fine day, though there may be showers in the evening,” he
said; “but that will matter less, mother, as all your guests will be gone by
that time.”
“Oh, Reginald, do you think Stevenson always knows?” cried Lucy, “He
promised us fine weather the day of the bazaar, and there was a storm and
everything spoiled in the afternoon.”
“I am of the same opinion as Stevenson,” said Mr. Wradisley, very
quietly, which settled the matter; and, then, to be more wonderful still, he
asked if the house were to be open, and if it was to be expected that any of
the guests would wish to see his collection. “In that case I should direct
Simmons to be in attendance,” he said.
 “Oh, if you would, Reginald!—that would give us great éclat,” said his
mother; “but I did not venture to ask. It is so very kind of you to think of it,
of yourself. Of course it will be wished—everybody will wish it; but I
generally put them off, you know, for I know you don’t like to be worried,
and I would not worry you for the world.”
“You are too good to me, mother. There is no reason why I should be
worried. It is, of course, my affair as much as any one’s,” he said, in his
perfectly gentle yet pointed way, which made the others, even Mrs.
Wradisley herself, feel a little small, as if she had been assuming an
individual responsibility which she had not the right to assume.
“My show won’t come to much if Rege is going to exhibit, mother,” said
Ralph. “I’d better keep them for another day.”
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Wradisley, with great suavity, “get out your
savage stores. If the whole country is coming, as appears, there will be need
for everything that we can do.”
“There were just as many people last time, Reginald, but you wouldn’t
do anything,” said Lucy, half aggrieved, notwithstanding her mother’s
“hush” and deprecating look.
“Circumstances are not always the same,” her brother said; “and I
understood from my mother that this was to be the last.”
“For the season, Reginald,” said Mrs. Wradisley, with a certain alarm in
her tone.
“To be sure. I meant for the season, of course—and in the
circumstances,” he replied.
Mrs. Wradisley was not at all a nervous nor a timorous woman. She was
very free of fancies, but still she was disturbed a little. She allowed Lucy to
run on with exclamations and conjectures after the master of the house had
retired. “What is the matter with Reginald? What has happened? What does
he mean by it? He never paid any attention to our garden parties before.”
Mrs. Wradisley was a very sensible woman, as has been said. After a
very short interval she replied, calmly, “Most likely he does not mean
anything at all, my dear. He has just taken a fancy to have everything very
nice. It is delightful of him to let his collection be seen. That almost makes
us independent of the weather, as there is so much in the house to see; but I
do believe Stevenson is right, and that we are going to have a most beautiful
day.”
 But though she made this statement, a little wonder remained in her
mind. She had not, she remembered, been very well lately. Did Reginald
think she was failing, and that it might really be his mother’s last
entertainment to her neighbors? It was not a very pleasant thought, for
nothing had occurred for a long time to disturb the quiet tenor of Mrs.
Wradisley’s life, and Ralph had come back to her out of the wilds, and she
was contented. She put the thought away, going out to the housekeeper to
talk over anything that was necessary, but it gave her a little shock in spite
of herself.
Mr. Wradisley, as may well be believed, had no thought at all of his
mother’s health, which he believed to be excellent, but he had begun to
think a little of brighter possibilities, of the substitution of another feminine
head to the house, and entertainments in which, through her, he would take
a warmer interest. But it was only partly this, and partly nothing at all, as
his sensible mother said, only the suppressed excitement in him and
impulse to do something to get through the time until he should see Mrs.
Nugent again and know his fate. He did not feel very much afraid,
notwithstanding all she had said in the shock of the moment. He could
understand that to a young widow, a fanciful young woman, more or less
touched by the new fancies women had taken up, the idea of replacing her
husband by another, of loving a second time, which all the sentimentalists
are against, would be for the moment a great shock. She might feel the
shock all the more if she felt, too, that there was something in her heart that
answered to that alarming proposal, and might feel that to push off the
thought with both hands, with all her might, was the only thing possible.
But the reflections of the night and of the new morning, which had risen
with such splendor of autumnal sunshine, would, he felt almost sure, make
a great difference. Mrs. Nugent did not wear mourning; it was probably
some years since her husband’s death. She was not very well off, and did
not seem to have many relations who could help her, or she would not have
come here so unfriended, to a district in which nobody knew her. Was it
likely that she should resist all that he had to offer, the love of a good man,
the shelter of a well-known, wealthy, important name and house? It was not
possible that for a mere sentiment a woman so full of sense as she was,
could resist these. The love of a good man—if he had not had a penny in the
world, that would be worth any woman’s while; and she would feel that. He
thought, as he arranged with a zeal he had never felt before, the means of
amusing and occupying his mother’s guests, that he would have all the
more chance of getting her by herself, of finding time and opportunity to
lead her out of the crowd to get her answer. Surely, surely, the chances were
all in favor of a favorable answer. It was not as if he were a nobody, a
chance-comer, a trifling or unimportant person. He had always been aware
that he was an important person, and it seemed impossible that she should
not see it too.
Ralph Wradisley and his friend Bertram went out for a long walk. They
were both “out of it,” the son as much as the visitor, and both moved with
similar inclinations to run away. “Of course I’ll meet some fellows I know,”
Ralph said. “Shall I though? The fellows of my age are knocking about
somewhere, or married and settled, and that sort of thing. I’ll meet the
women of them, sisters, and so forth, and perhaps some wives. It’s only the
women that are fixtures in a country like this; and what are the women to
you and me?”
“Well, to me nothing but strangers—but so would the men be too.”
“Ah, it’s all very well to talk,” said Ralph. “Women have their place in
society, and so forth—wouldn’t be so comfortable without them, I suppose.
But between you and me, Bertram, there ain’t very much in women for
fellows like us. I’m not a marrying man—neither are you, I suppose? The
most of them about here are even past the pretty girl stage, don’t you know,
and I don’t know how to talk to them. Africa plays the deuce with you for
that.”
“No,” said Bertram, “I am not a marrying man. I am—I feel I ought to
tell you, Wradisley—there never was any need to go into such questions
before, and you may believe I don’t want to carry a placard round my neck
in the circumstances;—well—I am a married man, and that is the truth.”
Ralph turned upon him with a long whistle and a lifting of the eyebrows.
“By Jove!” he said.
“I hope you won’t bear me a grudge for not telling you before. In that
case I’ll be off at once and bother you no more.”
“Stuff!” cried Ralph; “what difference can it make to me? I have thought
you had something on your mind sometimes; but married or single, we’re
the same two fellows that have walked the desert together, and helped each
other through many a scrape. I’m sorry for you, old chap—that is, if there’s
anything to be sorry for. Of course, I don’t know.”
 “I’ve been afloat on the world ever since,” said Bertram. “It was all my
fault. I was a cursed fool, and trapped when I was a boy. Then I thought the
woman was dead—had all the proofs and everything, and—You say you
know nothing about that sort of thing, Wradisley. Well, I won’t say anything
about it. I fell in love with a lady every way better than I—she was—
perhaps you do know more than you say. I married her—that’s the short and
the long of it; and in a year, when the baby had come, the other woman, the
horrible creature, arrived at my very door.”
“Good Lord!” cried Ralph softly, in his beard.
“She was dying, that was one good thing; she died—in my house. And
then—We were married again, my wife and I—she allowed that; but—I
have never seen her since,” said Bertram, turning his head away.
“By Jove!” said Ralph Wradisley once more, in his beard; and they
walked on in silence for a mile, and said not another word. At last—
“Old chap,” said Ralph, touching his friend on the shoulder, “I never was
one to talk; but it’s very hard lines on you, and Mrs. Bertram ought to be
told so, if she were the queen.”
Bertram shook his head. “I don’t know why I told you,” he said; “don’t
let us talk of it any more. The thing’s done and can’t be undone. I don’t
know if I wish any change. When two paths part in this world, Wradisley,
don’t you know, the longer they go, the wider apart they get—or at least
that’s my experience. They say your whole body changes every seven years
—it doesn’t take so long as that to alter a man’s thoughts and his soul—and
a woman’s, too, I suppose. She’s far enough from me now, and I from her.
I’m not sure I—regret it. In some ways it—didn’t suit me, so to speak.
Perhaps things are best as they are.”
“Well,” said Ralph, “I’d choose a free life for myself, but not exactly in
that way, Bertram—not if I were you.”
“Fortunately we are none of us each other,” Bertram said, with a laugh
which had little mirth in it. He added, after a moment: “You’ll use your own
discretion about telling this sorry tale of mine, Wradisley. I felt I had to tell
you. I can’t go about under false pretenses while you’re responsible for me.
Now you know the whole business, and we need not speak of it any more.”
“All right, old fellow,” Ralph said; and they quickened their pace, and
put on I don’t know how many miles more before they got back—too late
for lunch, and very muddy about the legs—to eat a great deal of cold beef at
the sideboard, while the servants chafed behind them, intent upon changing
the great dining-room into a bower of chrysanthemums and temple of tea.
They had to change their dress afterwards, which took up all their time until
the roll of carriages began. Bertram, for his part, being a stranger and not at
all on duty, took a long time to put himself into more presentable clothes.
He did not want to have any more of the garden party than was necessary.
And his mind had been considerably stirred up by his confession, brief as it
was. It had been necessary to do it, and his mind was relieved; but he did
not feel that it was possible to remain long at Wradisbury now that he had
disclosed his mystery, such as it was. What did they care about his mystery?
Nothing—not enough to make a day’s conversation out of it. He knew very
well in what way Ralph would tell his story. He would not announce it as a
discovery—it would drop from his beard like the most casual statement of
fact: “Unlucky beggar, Bertram—got a wife and all that sort of thing—
place down Devonshire way—but he and she don’t hit it off, somehow.” In
such terms the story would be told, without any mystery at all. But Bertram,
who was a proud man, did not feel that he could live among a set of people
who looked at him curiously across the table and wondered how it was that
he did not “hit it off” with his wife. He knew that he would read that
question in Mrs. Wradisley’s face when she bade him good-morning; and in
Lucy’s eyes—Lucy’s eyes, he thought, with a half smile, would be the most
inquisitive—they would ask him a hundred questions. They would say, with
almost a look of anxiety in them, “Oh! Mr. Bertram—why?” It amused him
to think that Lucy would be the most curious of them all, though why, I
could not venture to say. He got himself ready very slowly, looking out
from the corner of his window at all the smart people of the county
gathering upon the lawn. There was tennis going on somewhere, he could
hear, and the less loud but equally characteristic stroke of the croquet balls.
And the band, which was a famous band from London, had begun to play. If
he was to appear at all, it was time that he should go downstairs; but, as a
matter of fact, he was not really moved to do this, until he saw a little flight
across the green of a small child in white, so swift that some one had to
stoop and pick her up as he picked up Tiny at the gate of Greenbank. The
man on the lawn who caught this little thing lifted her up as Bertram had
done. Would the child be hushed by his grasp, and look into his face as Tiny
had looked at him? Perhaps this was not Tiny—at all events, it gave no
look, but wriggled and struggled out of its captor’s hands. This sight
decided Bertram to present himself in the midst of Mrs. Wradisley’s guests.
He wanted to see Tiny once again.
 CHAPTER VII.
Bertram soon lost himself among the crowd on the lawn, among all the
county people and the village people, making his way out and in, in a
solitude which never feels so great as among a crowd. It seemed wonderful
to him, as it is specially to those who have been more or less in what is
called “Society,” that he saw nobody whom he knew. That is a thing almost
impossible to happen for those that are born within that charmed circle.
Whether at the end of the world or in the midst of it, it is incredible that you
should see an assemblage of human creatures without discovering one who
is familiar at least, if not friendly—unless, indeed, you wander into regions
unknown to society; and Mrs. Wradisley and her guests would all have been
indignant indeed had that been for a moment imagined of them. But yet this
is a thing that does happen now and then, and Bertram traversed the lawns
and flower gardens and conservatories without meeting a single face which
he recognized or being greeted by one voice he had ever heard before. To
be sure, this was partly owing to the fact that the person of whom he was
specially in search was a very small person, to be distinguished at a very
low pitch of stature near to the ground, not at tall on a level with the other
forms. There were a few children among the groups on the lawn, and he
pursued a white frock in various directions, which, when found, proved to
contain some one who was not Tiny; but at last he came to that little person
clinging to Lucy’s skirts as she moved about among her mother’s guests.
Lucy turned round upon Bertram with a little surprise to find him so near
her, and then a little rising glow of color and a look in her mild eyes of
mingled curiosity and compassion, which penetrated him with sudden
consciousness, annoyance, yet amusement. Already it was evident Ralph
had found a moment a tell his tale. “Oh, Mr. Bertram!” Lucy said. She
would have said precisely the same in whatever circumstances; the whole
difference was in the tone.
Then a small voice was uplifted at her feet. “It is the gemplemans,” Tiny
said.
“So you remember me, little one? though we only saw each other in the
dark. Will you come for a walk with me, Tiny?” Bertram said.
 The child looked at him with serious eyes. Now that he saw her in
daylight she was not the common model of the angelic child, but dark, with
a little olive tint in her cheeks and dark brown hair waving upon her
shoulders. He scarcely recognized, except by the serious look, the little
runaway of the previous night, yet recognized something in her for which
he was not at all prepared, which he could not explain to himself. Why did
the child look at him so? And he looked at her, not with the half fantastic,
amused liking which had made him seek her out, but seriously too, infected
by her survey of him, which was so penetrating and so grave. After Tiny
had given him this investigating look, she put her little velvety hand into
his, with the absolute confidence of her age, “ ’Ess, me go for a walk,” she
said.
“Now, Tiny, talk properly to this gentleman; let him see what a lady you
can be when you please,” said Lucy. “She’s too old to talk like that, isn’t
she, Mr. Bertram? She is nearly five! and she really can talk just as well as I
can, when she likes. Tiny! now remember!” Lucy was very earnest in her
desire that Tiny should do herself justice; but once more lifted the swift,
interrogative look which seemed to say, as he knew she would, “Oh, Mr.
Bertram—why?”
“Where shall we go for our walk, Tiny?” Bertram said.
“Take Tiny down to the pond; nobody never take me down to the wasser.
Mamma says Tiny tumble in, but gemplemans twite safe. Come, come,
afore mummie sees and says no.”
“But, Tiny, if you’re sure your mother would say no—”
“Qwick, qwick!” cried Tiny. “If mummie says nuffin, no matter; but if
she says no!”—this was uttered with a little stamp of the foot and raised
voice as if in imitation of a familiar prohibition—“then Tiny tan’t go. Come
along, quick, quick.”
It was clear that Tiny’s obedience was to the letter, not the spirit.
“But I don’t know the way,” said Bertram, holding a little back.
“Come, come!” cried the child, dragging him on. “Tiny show you the
way.”
“And what if we both fall in, Tiny?”
“You’s too old, too big gemplemans to fall into the wasser—too big to
have any mummie.”
 “Alas! that’s true,” he said.
“Then never mind,” said the little girl. “No mummie, no nursie, nobody
to scold you. You can go in the boat if you like. Come! Oh, Tiny do, do
want to go in the boat; and there’s flowers on the udder side, fordet-me-
nots!—wants to get fordet-me-nots. Come, gemplemans, come!”
“Would you like to ride on my shoulder? and then we shall go quicker,”
he said.
She stood still at once, and held out her arms to be lifted up. Now
Bertram was not the kind of man who makes himself into the horse, the
bear, the lion, as occasion demands, for the amusement of children. He was
more surprised to find himself with this little creature seated on his
shoulder, than she was on her elevated seat, where indeed she was entirely
at her ease, guiding him with imperative tugs at the collar of his coat and
beating her small foot against his breast, as if she had the most perfect right
to his attention and devotion. “This way, this way,” sang Tiny; “that way
nasty way, down among the thorns—this way nice way; get fordet-me-nots
for mummie; mummie never say nuffin—Tiny tan go!”
He found himself thus hurrying over the park, with the child’s voice
singing its little monologue over his head, flushed with rebellion against the
unconscious mother, much amused at himself. And yet it was not
amusement; it was a curious sensation which Bertram could not understand.
It is not quite an unexampled thing to fall in love with a child at first sight;
but he was not aware that he had ever done it before, and to be turned so
completely by the child into the instrument of her little rebellions and
pleasures was more wonderful still. He laughed within himself, but his
laugh went out of him like the flame of a candle in the wind. He felt more
like to cry, if he had been a subject for crying. But why he could not tell.
Never was man in a more disturbed and perplexed state of mind. Guided by
Tiny’s pullings and beatings, he got to the pond at last, a pond upon the
other side of which there was, strange to say, visible among the russet
foliage, one little clump of belated forget-me-nots quite out of season. The
child’s quick eye had noted them as she had gone by with her nurse on
some recent walk. Bertram knew a great many things, but it is very doubtful
whether he was aware that it was wonderful to find forget-me-nots so late.
And Tiny was a sight to see when he put her down in the stern of the boat
and pulled across the pond with a few long strokes. Her eyes, which had a
golden light in their darkness, shone with triumph and delight; the brown of
her little sunburnt face glowed transparent as if there was a light within; her
dark curls waved; the piquancy of the complexion so unusual in a child, the
chant of her little voice shouting, “Fordet-me-nots, fordet-me-nots!” her
little rapture of eagerness and pleasure carried him altogether out of
himself. He had loved that complexion in his day; perhaps it was some
recollection, some resemblance, which was at the bottom of this strange
absorption in the little creature of whose very existence he had not been
aware till last night. Now, if he had been called on to give his very life for
Tiny he would have been capable of it, without knowing why; and, indeed,
there would have been a very likely occasion of giving his life for Tiny, or
of sacrificing hers, as her mother foresaw, if he had not caught her as she
stretched herself out of the boat to reach the flowers. His grip of her was
almost violent—and there was a moment during which Tiny’s little glow
disappeared in a sudden thunder-cloud, changing the character of her little
face, and a small incipient stamp of passion on the planks betrayed rebellion
ready to rise. But Tiny looked at Bertram, who held her very firmly, fixed
him with much the same look as she had given him at their first meeting,
and suddenly changed countenance again. What did that look mean? He had
said laughingly on the previous night that it was a look of recognition. She
suddenly put her two little hands round his neck, and said, “Tiny will be
dood.” And the effect of the little rebel’s embrace was that tears—actual
wet tears, which for a moment blinded eyes which had looked every kind of
wonder and terror in the face—surprised him before he knew. What did it
mean? What did it mean? It was too wonderful for words.
The flowers were gathered after this in perfect safety and harmony; Tiny
puddling with her hands in the mud to get the nearest ones “nice and long,”
as she said, while Bertram secured those that were further off. And then
there arose a great difficulty as to how to carry these wet and rather muddy
spoils. Tiny’s pretty frock, which she held out in both hands to receive them
like a ballet dancer, could not be thought of.
“For what would your mother say if your frock was wet and dirty?” said
Bertram, seriously troubled.
“Mummie say, ‘Oh, Tiny, Tiny, naughty schild,’ ” said the little girl, with
a very grave face; “never come no more to garden party.”
 Finally an expedient was devised in the shape of Bertram’s handkerchief
tied together at the corners, and swung upon a switch of willow which was
light enough for Tiny to carry; in which guise the pair set out again toward
the house and the smart people, Tiny once more on Bertram’s shoulder, with
the bundle of flowers bobbing in front of his nose, and, it need not be said,
some trace of the gathering of the flowers and of the muddy edges of the
pool, and the moss-grown planks of the boat showing on both performers—
on Tiny’s frock, which was a little wet, and on Bertram’s coat, marked by
the beating of the little feet, which had gathered a little mud and greenness
too. Tiny began to question him on the returning way.
“Gemplemans too big to have got a mummie,” said Tiny; “have you got
a little girl?”
Not getting any immediate answer to this question, she sang it over him
in her way, repeating it again and again—“Have zoo dot a little girl?”—her
dialect varying according to her caprice, until the small refrain got into his
head.
The man was utterly confused and troubled; he could not give Tiny any
answer, nor could he answer the wonderful maze of questions and thoughts
which this innocent demand of hers awakened in his breast. When they
came within sight of the lawn and its gay crowd, Bertram bethought him
that it would be better to put his little rider down, and to present her to
perhaps an anxious or angry mother on a level, which would make her
impaired toilet less conspicuous. After all, there was nothing so wonderful
in the fact that a little girl had dirtied her frock. He had no occasion to feel
so guilty and disturbed about it. And this is how it happened that the
adventurers appeared quite humbly, Tiny not half pleased to descend from
her eminence and carrying now over her shoulder, as Bertram suggested,
the stick which supported her packet of flowers, while he walked rather
shamefaced by her, holding her hand, and looking out with a little
trepidation for the mother, who, after all, could not bring down very
condign punishment upon him for running away with her child.
 CHAPTER VIII.
Mrs. Nugent had been very unwilling to fulfill her promise and appear
at Mrs. Wradisley’s party. She had put off her arrival till the last moment,
and as she walked up from the village with her little girl she had flattered
herself that, arriving late under shelter of various other parties who made
much more commotion, she might have escaped observation. But if
Bertram, of whom she knew nothing, had been intent on finding Tiny, Mr.
Wradisley was much more intent on finding Tiny’s mother. He had been on
the watch and had not missed her from the first moment of her appearance,
carefully as she thought she had sheltered it from observation. And even her
appearance, though she had condemned it herself as excited and sullen,
when she gave herself a last look in the glass before coming away, did not
discourage him. Excitement brightens a woman’s eye and gives additional
color to her face, or at least it did so to Nelly. The gentle carelessness of the
ordinary was not in her aspect at all. She was more erect, carrying her
animated head high. Nobody could call her ordinary at any time. She was so
full of life and action. But on that day every line of her soft, light dress
seemed to have expression. The little curls on her forehead were more crisp,
the shining of her eyes more brilliant. There was a little nervous movement
about her mouth which testified to the agitation in her. “Is there anything
wrong, dear?” asked Mrs. Wradisley, pausing, holding her by the hand,
looking into her face, startled by this unusual look, even in the midst of her
guests.
“Oh, no—yes. I have had some disturbing news, but nothing to take any
notice of. I will tell you afterwards,” Mrs. Nugent said. Lucy too hung upon
her, eager to know what was the matter. “Only some blunders—about my
affairs,” she had replied, “which I can set right.”
“Oh, if that is all!” Lucy had cried, running off to salute some other new-
comers and carrying Tiny in her train. “Affairs” meant business to Lucy,
and business, so far as she was aware, touched only the outside, and could
have nothing to do with any one’s happiness. Besides, her mind was in a
turmoil for the moment with that strange story of Mrs. Bertram which her
mother had just told her by way of precaution, filtered from Ralph. “Mr.
Bertram is married, it appears; but he and his wife don’t get on,” was what
Mr. Wradisley had said. Lucy’s imagination had, as we are aware, been
busy about Bertram, and she was startled by this strange and sudden
conclusion to her self-inquiry whether by any chance he might be the Ideal
man.
It was thus that Mrs. Nugent had been suddenly left without even the
protection of her child, and though she had managed for some time to hide
herself, as she supposed (though his watchful gaze in reality followed her
everywhere), from her host amid the crowd of other people assembled,
there came the inevitable moment when she could keep herself from him no
longer. He came up to her while the people who surrounded dispersed to
examine his collection or to go in for tea.
“But I have seen your collection, Mr. Wradisley,” she said; “you were so
kind as to show me everything.”
“It is not my collection,” he said; “it is—a flower I want to show you.
The new orchid—the new—Let me take you into the conservatory. I must,”
he said, in a lower tone. “You must be merciful and let me speak to you.”
“Mr. Wradisley,” she cried, almost under her breath, “do not, for pity’s
sake, say any more.”
“I must,” he said, impetuously. “I must know.” And then he added in his
usual tone, “Stevenson is very proud of it. It is a very rare kind, you know,
and the finest specimen, he says.”
“Oh, what is that, Mr. Wradisley?—an orchid? May I come too?” said
another guest, without discrimination.
“Certainly,” he said; “but all in its order. Simmons comes first,
Stevenson afterwards. You have not seen my Etruscan collection.” Mrs.
Nugent was aware that he had caught a floating ribbon of the light cloak she
carried on her arm, and held it fast while he directed with his usual grave
propriety the other lady by her side. “Now,” he said, looking up to her. If it
was the only thing that could be done, then perhaps it was better that it
should be done at once. He led her through the lines of gleaming glass, the
fruit, and the flowers, for Wradisbury was famous for its vineries and its
conservatories—meeting a few wanderers by the way, whom it was difficult
to prevent from following—till at last they got to the inner sanctuary of all,
where a great fantastic blossom, a flower, but counterfeiting something that
was not a flower, blazed aloft in the ruddy afternoon light, which of itself
could never have produced that unnatural tropical blossom. Neither the man
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