Wilfrid Cumbermede Part 73

I laid down the letter, and, full of mortification, went walking about the room.

'Why didn't you tell me, Wilfrid?'

'I thought it better, if you were questioned, that you should not know.

But it was a foolish thing to do--very. I see it now. Of course your father is right. It doesn't matter though. I will go down and buy her.'

'You had better not appear in it. Go to the Moat, and send Styles.'

'Yes--that will be best. Of course it will. When is the fair, do you know?'

'I will find out for you. I hope some rascal mayn't in the mean time take my father in, and persuade him to give her up. Why shouldn't I run down and tell him, and get back poor Lilith without making you pay for your own?'

'Indeed you shan't. The mare is your sister's, and I shall lay no claim to her. I have money enough to redeem her.'

Charley got me information about the fair, and the day before it, I set out for the Moat.

When I reached Minstercombe, having more time on my hands than I knew what to do with, I resolved to walk round by Spurdene. It would not be more than ten or twelve miles, and so I should get a peep of the rectory. On the way I met a few farmer-looking men on horseback, and just before entering the village saw at a little distance a white creature--very like my Lilith--with a man on its back, coming towards me.

As they drew nearer, I was certain of the mare, and, thinking it possible the rider might be Mr Osborne, withdrew into a thicket on the road-side. But what was my dismay to discover that it was indeed my Lilith, but ridden by Geoffrey Brotherton! As soon as he was past, I rushed into the village, and found that the people I had met were going from the fair. Charley had been misinformed. I was too late: Brotherton had bought my Lilith. Half distracted with rage and vexation, I walked on and on, never halting till I reached the Moat. Was this man destined to swallow up everything I cared for? Had he suspected me as the foolish donor, and bought the mare to spite me? A thousand times rather would I have had her dead. Nothing on earth would have tempted me to sell my Lilith but inability to feed her, and then I would rather have shot her. I felt poorer than even when my precious folio was taken from me, for the lowest animal life is a greater thing than a rare edition.

I did not go to bed at all that night, but sat by my fire or paced about the room till dawn, when I set out for Minstercombe, and reached it in time for the morning coach to London. The whole affair was a folly, and I said to-myself that I deserved to suffer. Before I left, I told Styles, and begged him to keep an eye on the mare, and, if ever he learned that her owner wanted to part with her, to come off at once and let me know. He was greatly concerned at my ill-luck, as he called it, and promised to watch her carefully. He knew one of the grooms, he said, a little, and would cultivate his acquaintance.

I could not help wis.h.i.+ng now that Charley would let his sister know what I had tried to do for her, but of course I would not say so. I think he did tell her, but I never could be quite certain whether or not she knew it. I wonder if she ever suspected me. I think not. I have too good reason to fear that she attributed to another the would-be gift; I believe that, from Brotherton's buying her, they thought he had sent her--a present certainly far more befitting his means than mine.

But I came to care very little about it, for my correspondence with her through Charley, went on. I wondered sometimes how she could keep from letting her father know: that he did not know I was certain, for he would have put a stop to it at once. I conjectured that she had told her mother, and that she, fearing to widen the breach between her husband and Charley, had advised her not to mention it to him; while believing it would do both Charley and me good, she did not counsel her to give up the correspondence. It must be considered, also, that it was long before I said a word implying any personal interest. Before I ventured that, I had some ground for thinking that my ideas had begun to tell upon hers, for, even in her letters to Charley, she had begun to drop the common religious phrases, while all she said seemed to indicate a widening and deepening and simplifying of her faith. I do not for a moment imply that she had consciously given up one of the dogmas of the party to which she belonged, but there was the perceptible softening of growth in her utterances, and after that was plain to me, I began to let out my heart to her a little more.

About this time also I began to read once more the history of Jesus, asking myself as if on a first acquaintance with it, 'Could it be--might it not be that, if there were a G.o.d, he would visit his children after some fas.h.i.+on? If so, is this a likely fas.h.i.+on? May it not even be the only right fas.h.i.+on?' In the story I found at least a perfection surpa.s.sing everything to be found elsewhere; and I was at least sure that whatever this man said must be true. If one could only be as sure of the record! But if ever a dawn was to rise upon me, here certainly the sky would break; here I thought I already saw the first tinge of the returning life-blood of the swooning world. The gathering of the waters of conviction at length one morning broke out in the following verses, which seemed more than half given to me, the only effort required being to fit them rightly together:--

Come to me, come to me, O my G.o.d; Come to me everywhere!

Let the trees mean thee, and the gra.s.sy sod, And the water and the air.

For thou art so far that I often doubt, As on every side I stare, Searching within, and looking without, If thou art anywhere.

How did men find thee in days of old?

How did they grow so sure?

They fought in thy name, they were glad and bold, They suffered, and kept themselves pure.

But now they say--neither above the sphere, Nor down in the heart of man, But only in fancy, ambition, or fear, The thought of thee began.

If only that perfect tale were true Which, with touch of sunny gold, Of the ancient many makes one anew, And simplicity manifold.

But _he_ said that they who did his word The truth of it should know: I will try to do it--if he be Lord, Perhaps the old spring will flow;

Perhaps the old spirit-wind will blow That he promised to their prayer; And doing thy will, I yet shall know Thee, Father, everywhere!

These lines found their way without my concurrence into a certain religious magazine, and I was considerably astonished, and yet more pleased, one evening when Charley handed me, with the kind regards of his sister, my own lines, copied by herself. I speedily let her know they were mine, explaining that they had found their way into print without my cognizance. She testified so much pleasure at the fact, and the little sc.r.a.ps I could claim as my peculiar share of the contents of Charley's envelopes grew so much more confiding that I soon ventured to write more warmly than hitherto. A period longer than usual pa.s.sed before she wrote again, and when she did she took no express notice of my last letter. Foolishly or not, I regarded this as a favourable sign, and wrote several letters, in which I allowed the true state of my feelings towards her to appear. At length I wrote a long letter in which, without a word of direct love-making, I thought yet to reveal that I loved her with all my heart. It was chiefly occupied with my dream on that memorable night--of course without the slightest allusion to the waking, or anything that followed. I ended abruptly, telling her that the dream often recurred, but as often as it drew to its lovely close, the lifted veil of Athanasia revealed ever and only the countenance of Mary Osborne.

The answer to this came soon and in few words.

'I dare not take to myself what you write. That would be presumption indeed, not to say wilful self-deception. It will be honour enough for me if in any way I serve to remind you of the lady in your dream.

Wilfrid, if you love me, take care of my Charley. I must not write more.--M.O.'

It was not much, but enough to make me happy. I write it from memory--every word as it lies where any moment I could read it--shut in a golden coffin whose lid I dare not open.

CHAPTER LIII.

TOO LATE.

I must now go back a little. After my suspicions had been aroused as to the state of Charley's feelings, I hesitated for a long time before I finally made up my mind to tell him the part Clara had had in the loss of my sword. But while I was thus restrained by dread of the effect the disclosure would have upon him if my suspicions were correct, those very suspicions formed the strongest reason for acquainting him with her duplicity; and, although I was always too ready to put off the evil day so long as doubt supplied excuse for procrastination, I could not have let so much time slip by and nothing said but for my absorption in Mary.

At length, however, I had now resolved, and one evening, as we sat together, I took my pipe from my mouth, and, s.h.i.+vering bodily, thus began:

'Charley,' I said, 'I have had for a good while something on my mind, which I cannot keep from you longer.'

He looked alarmed instantly. I went on.

'I have not been quite open with you about that affair of the sword.'

He looked yet more dismayed; but I must go on, though it tore my very heart. When I came to the point of my overhearing Clara talking to Brotherton, he started up, and, without waiting to know the subject of their conversation, came close up to me, and, his face distorted with the effort to keep himself quiet, said, in a voice hollow and still and far-off, like what one fancies of the voice of the dead:

'Wilfrid, you said Brotherton, I think?'

'I did, Charley.'

'She never told me that!'

'How could she when she was betraying your friend?'

'No no!' he cried, with a strange mixture of command and entreaty; 'don't say that. There is some explanation. There _must_ be.'

'She told _me_ she hated him,' I said.

'_I know_ she hates him. What was she saying to him?'

'I tell you she was betraying me, your friend, who had never done her any wrong, to the man she had told me she hated, and whom I had heard her ridicule.'

'What do you mean by betraying you?'

I recounted what I had overheard. He listened with clenched teeth and trembling white lips; then burst into a forced laugh. 'What a fool I am! Distrust _her!_ I will _not_. There is some explanation! There _must_ be!'