What Necessity Knows Part 53

Eliza stared, then lent her face to be kissed. She was surprised at the gentleness of his sparing caress, so surprised that when she lifted her head she stood stock still and watched him till he was out of sight, for, driven by the scourge of his feeling, he went away from her with quick, upright gait, never looking back.

She watched him till he disappeared into Trenholme's house. When she walked home she did not sob or wipe her eyes or cover her face, yet when she got to the hotel her eyes were swollen and red, and she went about her work heedless that anyone who looked at her must see the disfigurement of tears.

CHAPTER XIV.

In the latter part of that day Bates suffered a fierce attack of his malady. Everyone in Trenholme's house, including the master himself on crutches, became agile in their desire to alleviate the suffering, and he received their ministrations with that civility which denoted that, had conventionality allowed, he would not have received them; for to fling all that is given him at the heads of the givers is undoubtedly the conduct that nature suggests to a man in pain. Having need, however, of some help, Bates showed now, as before, an evident preference for Alec as an attendant, a preference due probably to the fact that Alec never did anything for him that was not absolutely necessary, and did that only in the most cursory way. When Alec entered his room that night to see, as he cheerfully remarked, whether he was alive or not, Bates turned his face from the wall.

"I think it right to tell ye," he began, and his tone and manner were so stiff that the other knew something painful was coming, "I think it right to tell ye that Eliza Cameron is alive and well. I have seen her."

In his annoyance to think a meeting had occurred Alec made an exclamation that served very well for the surprise that Bates expected.

"Her father," continued Bates, "was decently buried, unknown to me, on his own land, as is the custom in those parts of the country. The girl was the person ye saw get up from the coffin--the one that ye were so frightened of."

This last word of explanation was apparently added that he might be a.s.sured Alec followed him, and the listener, standing still in the half-darkened room, did not just then feel resentment for the unnecessary insult. He made some sound to show that he heard.

"Then"--stiffly--"she took the train, and she has been living here ever since, a very respectable young woman, and much thought of. I'm glad to have seen her."

"Well?"

"I thought it right to tell ye, and I'm going home to-morrow or next day."

That was evidently all that was to be told him, and Alec refrained from all such words as he would like to have emitted. But when he was going dumbly out of the room, Bates spoke again.

"Ye're young yet; when ye feel inclined to give your heart to any young thing that you've a caring for, gie it as on the altar of G.o.d, and not for what ye'll get in return, and if ye get in answer what ye're wanting, thank G.o.d for a free gift."

Then Alec knew that Sissy had been unkind to Bates.

The night being yet early, he willingly recognised an obligation to go and tell Miss Rexford that their mutual solicitude had in some way been rendered needless. It was easy for him to find the lady he desired to see, for while the weather was still warm it was the habit in Ch.e.l.laston to spend leisure hours outside the house walls rather than in, and Alec Trenholme had already learned that at evening in the Rexford household the father and brother were often exhausted by their day's work and asleep, and the mother occupied by the cribs of her little ones. He found the house, as usual, all open to the warm dry autumn evening, doors and windows wide. The dusk was all within and without, except that, with notes of a mother's lullaby, rays of candle light fell from the nursery window. As his feet brushed the nearer gra.s.s, he dimly saw Miss Rexford rise from a hammock swung on the verandah, where she had been lounging with Winifred. She stood behind the verandah railing, and he in the gra.s.s below, and they talked together on this subject that had grown, without the intention of either, to be so strong a bond of interest between them. Here it was that Alec could give vent to the pity and indignation which he could not express to the man whose sufferings excited these emotions.

In spite of this visit Sophia sought Eliza again the next day. As she entered the hotel Mr. Hutchins begged a word with her in his little slate-painted office, saying that the young housekeeper had not been like herself for some time, and that he was uneasy, for she made a friend of no one.

"Are you afraid of losing her?" asked Miss Rexford coldly, with slight arching of her brows.

He replied candidly that he had no interest in Eliza's joys or sorrows, except as they might tend to unsettle her in her place. Having, by the use of his own wits, discovered her ability, he felt that he had now a right to it.

Sophia went upstairs, as she was directed, to Eliza's bedroom on the highest storey, and found her there, looking over piles of freshly calendered house linen. The room was large enough, and pleasant--a better bedroom than Sophia or her sisters at present possessed. Eliza was apparently in high spirits. She received her guest with almost loud gaiety.

"What do you think's happened now, Miss Sophia?" cried she. "You remember what I told you about Mrs. Gla.s.s? Well, there's two young gentlemen come to the house here yesterday morning, and she's entertained them before at her house in town, so they struck up great friends with her here, and yesterday she had her supper served in the upstairs parlour, and had them, and me, and n.o.body else. She says one of them saw me out yesterday morning, and was 'smitten'--that's what she calls it."

Eliza gave an affected laugh as she repeated the vulgar word, and coloured a little. "She says if I'll come to see her in town she's no doubt but that he'll 'propose.'".

"But I thought you were not going?"

"I don't care for her," said Eliza, as if ingrat.i.tude were a virtue, "but I rather like the young gentleman. That makes a difference. Look here! She says he's getting on in business, and would give me a carriage. How do you think I should look driving in a carriage, like Mrs. Brown? Should I look as grand as she does?"

"Much grander, I daresay, and much handsomer."

"They all give dinner parties at Montreal." Eliza said this reflectively, speaking the name of that city just as an English country girl would speak of "London." "Don't you think I could go to dinner parties as grand as any one? And, look here, they showed me all sorts of photographs the Montreal ladies get taken of themselves, and one was taken with her hair down and her side face turned. And Mrs. Gla.s.s has been up here this afternoon, saying that her gentlemen friends say I must be taken in the same way. She was fixing me for it. Look, I'll show you how it is."

Her great ma.s.ses of hair, left loose apparently from this last visit, were thrown down her back in a moment, and Eliza, looking-gla.s.s in hand, sat herself sideways on a chair, and disposed her hair so that it hung with s.h.i.+ning copper glow like a curtain behind her pale profile. "What do I look like, Miss Sophia?"

"Like what you are, Eliza--a handsome girl."

"Then why shouldn't I marry a rich man? It would be easier than drudging here, and yet I thought it was grand to be here last year. It's easy enough to get up in the world."

"Yes, when anyone has the right qualities for it."

"I have the right qualities."

"Unscrupulousness?" interrogated Sophia; and then she charged the girl with the falsehood of her name.

Eliza put down her looking-gla.s.s and rolled up her hair. There was something almost leonine in her att.i.tude, in her silence, as she fastened the red ma.s.ses. Sophia felt the influence of strong feeling upon her; she almost felt fear. Then Eliza came and stood in front of her.

"Is he _very_ ill, do you think, Miss Sophia?"

"Not dangerously." Sophia had no doubt as to who was meant. "If he would only take reasonable care he'd be pretty well."

"But he won't," she cried. "On the clearin', when he used to take cold, he'd do all the wrong things. He'll just go and kill himself doing like that now, when he goes back there alone--and winter coming on."

"Do you think you could persuade him not to go?"

"He's just that sort of a man he'd never be happy anywhere else. He hones for the place. No, he'll go back and kill himself. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. I'm _not_ sorry I came away from him; I'm not sorry I changed my name, and did all the things I s'pose he's told you I did, and that I s'pose you think are so wicked. I'd do it again if I was as frightened and as angry. Was he to make me his slave-wife? _That's_ what he wanted of me! I know the man!"--scornfully--"he said it was for my good, but it was his own way he wanted." All the forced quiescence of her manner had changed to fire. "And if you think that I'm unnatural, and wicked to pretend I had a different name, and to do what I did to get quit of him, then I'll go among people who will think it was clever and a fine joke, and will think more about my fine appearance than about being good all day long."

Sophia was terribly roused by the torrent of feeling that was now pouring forth, not more in words than in silent force, from the young woman who stood over her.

"Go!" she cried, "go to such people. Marry the man who cares for your hair and your good looks. Urge him on to make money, and buy yourself clothes and carriages and houses. I have no doubt you can do it! I tell you, Eliza Cameron, such things are not much worth picking up at a gift, let alone selling the nicer part of yourself for them!"

The two had suddenly clashed, with word and feeling, the one against the other.

The window of Eliza's room was open, and the prospect from it had that far-off peace that the prospect from high windows is apt to have. The perfect weather breathed calm over the distant land, over the nearer village; but inside, the full light fell upon the two women aglow with their quarrel.

Sophia, feeling some instinctive link to the vain, ambitious girl before her, struck with words as one strikes in the dark, aiming at a depth and tenderness that she dimly felt to be there.

She believed in, and yet doubted, the strength in the better part of Eliza's heart; believed, but spoke hurriedly, because she felt that a chilly doubt was coming over her as to whether, after all, there was any comprehension, any answering thrill, for the words she said.

Her own stately beauty was at its height, at its loveliest hour, when she spoke. She had been, in girlhood, what is called a beauty; she had dazzled men's eyes and turned their heads; and when the first bloom was past, she had gone out of the glare, having neither satisfied the world nor been satisfied with it, because of the higher craving that is worldly disability. She had turned into the common paths of life and looked upon her beauty and her triumph as past. And yet, ten years after the triumphs of her girlhood, this day, this hour, found her more beautiful than she had ever been before. The stimulus of a new and more perfect climate, the daily labour for which others pitied her, had done their part. The angels who watch over prayer and effort and failure; and failure and effort and prayer, had laid their hands upon her brow, bestowing graces. As she sat now, speaking out of a full heart, there came a colour and light that gave an ethereal charm to her handsome face. There was no one there to see it; Eliza Cameron was not susceptible to beauty. G.o.d, who created beauty in flowers and women, and knew to the full the uses thereof, did not set flowers in gardeners'

shows nor women in ball-rooms.

Sophia had spoken strongly, vividly, of the vanity of what men call success, and the emptiness of what they call wealth, but Eliza, self-centred, did not enter into this wide theme.

"You despise me," she repeated sullenly, "because of what I have done."

"What makes you think I despise you?"