Neighbours on the Green; My Faithful Johnny

She asked the question all the same with her eyes. She looked at me almost sternly, inquiring, as plainly as words, ‘Have you done it? Is my commission fulfilled?’ which I could only answer by a deprecating, humble look, begging her as it were to have patience with me. She shook her head slightly as she shook hands with me, and smiled, and then she sighed. That was the worst of all. I read a reproach in the sound of that sigh.

‘What does she mean by her husband?’ said Edith Fielding. ‘Is she married, and does she call her husband “she”? Isn’t she very queer? That sort of person always bewilders me.’

I could not help saying, ‘I dare say she does,’ with a certain irritation. As if it were within the bounds of possibility that creatures like these should understand Lady Isabella. And yet, alas! if she were entering into the lists with them, how could she ever stand against them? She, five-and-thirty, and a little stout; they, eighteen and nineteen. Is there a man in the world that would not turn to the young ones, and leave the mature woman? That was the question I asked myself. I don’t think I am cynical; I have not a bad opinion of my fellow-creatures in general; but still there are some matters which one knows beforehand. The first thing to be done however was to make acquaintance with Colonel Brentford as soon as possible. I had promised to go to the dance, to take Lottie and Lucy Stoke; but then he would be dancing; he would not want to stand in a corner and talk to an old woman like me. Lady Isabella, at five-and-thirty, had given up dancing; but this man, though he was nearly five years older, of course did not think of giving it up. Most likely he felt himself on the level of the Fieldings and Stokes and the other girls, not on that of his old love. Men and women are so different. But, at all events, I would do nothing before Monday: and in the meantime, I had promised to go and call on Major Bellinger’s invalid wife. There had been something about him that pleased me. Not that he was attractive; but he had the look of a man who was not always at his ease, who had cares and perplexities in his life, and perhaps could not always make both ends meet. I always recognize that look. I am not very rich now, and never will be; but I once was poor, quite poor, and I know the look of it, and it goes to my heart.

Accordingly, the first day I was at liberty I drove into Royalborough to see Mrs. Bellinger. They were in a little house—one of the houses which people take for the purpose of letting them to the officers. It was opposite to a tall church, a three-storied house, with two rooms on each floor all the way up. There was a little oblong strip of garden in front and another oblong strip behind; and everything about it gave evidence that it was let furnished. But the little garden was rather pretty, and there was a virginian creeper hanging in rich red wreaths upon the walls. The drawing-room was the front room on the ground-floor. When I was shown in, it seemed to me that I interrupted the prettiest domestic scene. A lady, who looked very fragile and weak, though not ill, lay on a sofa in the room. Of course, she was Mrs. Bellinger. She was about forty, perhaps,—not much older than Lady Isabella. She had a lovely invalid complexion, a soft, delicate flush which came and went with every movement; her hair was beginning to get gray, and was partially covered by a cap. She looked very weak, very worn, very sweet and smiling, and cheerful. Near her, on a low chair, sat a gentleman with a book in his hand. He had been reading aloud, and had just stopped when I came to the door; and in front of him, at a little distance, seated on a stool, just by her mother’s feet, sat a girl of seventeen or so, with her head bent over her work. This was Edith, the Major’s favourite child, the only one at home. And the gentleman who had been reading aloud was Colonel Brentford, the man about whom my mind had been busy night and day.

I took the chair that was given me, and I began to talk, but all the freedom and ease were taken out of me. I felt as if I had received a blow. Poor Lady Isabella! I had already perceived that to put herself in competition with the young girls would be a hopeless notion indeed; but it was no longer the girls in general, some of whom were empty-headed enough, but Edith Bellinger in particular. Poor Lady Isabella! If she saw him once like this, I said to myself, she would not wish to see him again!

‘My husband told me you were going to be so good,’ said the invalid. ‘He told me how kind you had been, asking for me. I am really quite well for me, and I am sure I could do a great deal more if they would but let me. Hush, Edie! I am dreadfully petted and spoiled, Mrs. Mulgrave. They make a baby of me, and Colonel Brentford is so kind as to come and read–’

‘It is very good of him, I am sure,’ I said mechanically; and then, without knowing what I was doing, I looked at Edith. She was quite unconscious of any meaning in my look. She smiled at me in return with all the sweet composure yet shyness of a child. Would he be equally unconscious? I raised my eyes and looked steadily at him. He bore my scrutiny very well indeed. I knew there was an angry flush on my face which I could not quite conceal, and an eager look of inquiry. It puzzled him, there was no doubt. A vague sort of wonder came into his eyes, and he smiled too. What could the old woman mean? I am sure he was thinking. Edith was very pretty, but then a great many girls are pretty. What was particular about her was her sweet look, which moved me even though I was so hostile to her. One saw she was ready to run anywhere, to do anything, at the least little glance from her mother. She was mending stockings—the homeliest work—and she looked such a serviceable, useful creature—so different from those Fielding girls, who thought of nothing but the dance. To be sure, the stockings and the useful look were much more likely to please me than to attract a guardsman; but I did not think of that in my sudden jealousy of her. Poor, poor Lady Isabella!

And he did not go away, as he would have done had this been a chance visit. He kept his place, and joined in the conversation as if he belonged to the house. When I asked Mrs. Bellinger to come and see me, he seconded me quite eagerly. He was sure she was able, he said; while Edith put her pretty head on one side, and looked very wise and very doubtful.

‘Oh, Colonel Brentford, please don’t be so rash—please don’t!’ said Edith. ‘It is very, very kind of Mrs. Mulgrave, but we must think it over first—we must indeed.’

‘I will send my pony,’ said I; ‘he is the steadiest little fellow, and it is such a pretty drive. The weather is so mild that I am sure it would do you good.’

‘Now, Edith, please let me go,’ said the invalid. ‘Do not be such a little hard-hearted inexorable—Colonel Brentford is the kindest of you all. He is ready to let me have a little indulgence, and so is the Major, Mrs. Mulgrave; but Edith is the most odious little tyrant–’

‘Mamma dear, it is for your good,’ said Edith with the deepest gravity; and the mother and the friend looked at each other and laughed. How pretty it was to see her shaking her young head, looking so serious, so judicious, so full of care! ‘No wonder if he is fond of her,’ I said to myself. I felt my own heart melting; but, all the same, I steeled it against her, feeling that I was on the other side.

‘And I am sure,’ I said with an effort—for it seemed almost like encouraging him—‘I shall be very glad to see Colonel Brentford too; if you will take the trouble to come so far for a cup of tea?’

He said it would give him the greatest pleasure, with a cordiality that made me cross, and got up and took his leave, shaking hands with me in his friendliness. Why was he so friendly, I wonder? When he was gone, Mrs. Bellinger launched into his praises.

‘You must not think it is only me he is good to,’ she said; ‘he is kind to everybody. People laugh at the guardsmen, and make fun of them; but if they only knew George Brentford! Because they see him everywhere in society, they think he is just as frivolous as the rest. But if they knew what kind of places he goes to when nobody sees him—as we do, Edith?’

‘Yes, mamma,’ said Edith, as calm as any cabbage. The mother was quite moved by her gratitude and enthusiasm, but the daughter took it all very quietly. ‘He means to be very kind, but he is rash,’ said the little wise woman; ‘he gives the boys knives and things, though he knows they always cut themselves. He thinks so much more of pleasing people than of what is right. If Mrs. Mulgrave would leave it open, mamma dear, and then we could see how you are.’

This was how it was finally decided; indeed, before I left, even after that first visit, I could see that things were generally decided as Edith thought best. They were to come on Saturday—the Saturday before the ball—if Mrs. Bellinger was well enough; and Colonel Brentford was to come too. I asked myself all the way back what Lady Isabella would think of the arrangement. That was not how she expected to meet him. She had wanted to see her old love—a man whom (I could not but feel) she had never quite put out of her heart—perhaps only to prove herself, perhaps to try if any lingerings of the old tenderness remained in him. And now that it was arranged, and she was really to see him, it was in company of a young bright creature who, there could be little doubt, was all to him that Lady Isabella had ever been. What a shock and bitter dispelling of all dreams for her! but yet, perhaps, to do that at once and at a blow was kindest after all.

CHAPTER III

As I drove home, strangely enough, I met the ladies on their afternoon walk. Mrs. Spencer was in advance as usual, talking rapidly and with animation, while Lady Isabella lagged a step behind, pausing to look at the ripe brambles and the beautiful ruddy autumn leaves.

‘Just look what a bit of colour,’ she was saying when I came up; but Mrs. Spencer’s mind, it was evident, was full of other things.

‘I wonder how you can care for such nonsense,’ she said; ‘I never saw any one so unexcitable. After me fussing myself into a fever, to preserve you from this annoyance! and I knew it would be too much for you–’

‘Hush!’ said Lady Isabella, emphatically, and then Mrs. Spencer perceived the pony carriage for the first time, and restrained herself. She changed her tone in a moment, and came up to me with her alert step when I drew the pony up.

‘What a nice afternoon for a drive,’ she said; ‘have you been at Royalborough?—is there anything going on? I have dragged Isabella out for a walk, as usual much against her will.’

‘I have been to make a call,’ I said, ‘on a poor invalid, the wife of Major Bellinger.’

‘Oh, yes! I know, I know,’ said Mrs. Spencer; ‘he is to be the barrack-master. He rose from the ranks, I think, or something—very poor, and a large family. I know quite what sort of person she would be. The kind of woman that has been pretty, and has quite broken down with children and trouble—I know. It was very good of you; quite like yourself.’

‘If it was very good of me, I have met with a speedy reward,’ said I, ‘for I have quite fallen in love with her—and her daughter. They are coming to me on Saturday—if Mrs. Bellinger is able—for afternoon tea.’

‘I know exactly the kind of person,’ said Mrs. Spencer, nodding her head. ‘Ah, my dear Mrs. Mulgrave, you are always so good, and so–’

‘Easily taken in,’ she was going to say, but I suppose I looked very grave, for she stopped.

‘Is the daughter pretty, too?’ said Lady Isabella: a flush had come upon her face, and she looked at me intently, waiting, I could see, for a sign. She understood that this had something to do with the commission she had given me. And I was so foolish as to think she had divined my thoughts, and had fixed upon Edith, by instinct, as an obstacle in her way.

‘Never mind the daughter,’ I said hastily, ‘but do come on Saturday afternoon, and see if I am not justified in liking the mother. I dare say they are not very rich, but they are not unpleasantly poor, or, if they are, they don’t make a show of it; and a little society, I am sure, would do her all the good in the world.’

This time Lady Isabella looked so intently at me, that I ventured to give the smallest little nod just to show her that I meant her to come. She took it up in a moment. Her face brightened all over. She made me a little gesture of thanks and satisfaction. And she put on instantly her old laughing, lively, satirical air.

‘Of course we shall come,’ she said, ‘even if this lady were not sick and poor. These qualities are great temptations to us, you are aware; but even if she were just like other people we should come.’

‘Well, Isabella!’ said Mrs. Spencer, ‘you who are so unwilling to go anywhere!’ but of course she could not help adding a civil acceptance of my invitation; and so that matter was settled more easily than I could have hoped.

I saw them the next day—once more by accident. We were both calling at the same house, and Lady Isabella seized the opportunity to speak to me. She drew me apart into a corner, on pretence of showing me something. ‘Look here,’ she said, with a flush on her face, ‘tell me, do you think me a fool—or worse? That is about my own opinion of myself.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘indeed I don’t. I think you are doing what is quite right. This is not a matter which concerns other people, that you should be guided by them, but yourself.’

‘Oh, it does not concern any one very much,’ she said, with a forced laugh. ‘I am not so foolish as to think that. It is a mere piece of curiosity—folly. The fact is, one does not grow wise as one grows old, though of course one ought. And—he is—really to be there on Saturday? Despise me, laugh at me, make fun of me!—I deserve it, I know.’

‘He is really to come—I hope.’ I said it faltering, with a sense of fright at my own temerity: and Lady Isabella gave me a doubtful, half-suspicious look as she left me. Now that it had come so near I grew alarmed, and doubted much whether I should have meddled. It is very troublesome having to do with other people’s affairs. It spoiled my rest that night, and my comfort all day. I almost prayed that Saturday might be wet, that Mrs. Bellinger might not be able to come. But, alas! Saturday morning was the brightest, loveliest autumn morning, all wrapped in a lovely golden haze, warm and soft as summer, yet subdued and chastened and sweet as summer in its heyday never is: and the first post brought me a note from Edith, saying that her mamma felt so well, and was so anxious to come. Accordingly, I had to make up my mind to it. I sent the pony carriage off by twelve o’clock, that the pony might have a rest before he came back, and I got out my best china, and had my little lawn carefully swept clean of faded leaves, and my flower-beds trimmed a little. They were rather untidy with the mignonette, which had begun to grow bushy, but then it was very sweet; and the asters and red geraniums looked quite gay and bright. My monthly rose, too, was covered with flowers. I am very fond of monthly roses; they are so sweet and so pathetic in autumn, remonstrating always, and wondering why summer should be past; or at least that is the impression they convey to me. I know some women who are just like them, women who have a great deal to bear, and cannot help feeling surprised that so much should be laid upon them; yet who keep on flowering and blossoming in spite of all, brightening the world and keeping the air sweet, not for any reason, but because they can’t help it. My visitor who was coming was, I think, something of that kind.

The first of the party to arrive were Major Bellinger and Colonel Brentford; they had walked over, and the Major was very eloquent about my kindness to his wife. ‘Nothing could possibly do her so much good,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how to thank you, Mrs. Mulgrave. Brentford says he made up his mind she must go the very first minute, whether she could or not—he said he was so sure you would do her good.’

‘I am very glad Colonel Brentford had such a favourable opinion of me,’ I said.

Then I stopped short, feeling very much embarrassed. If Lady Isabella had only come in then, before the ladies arrived—but, of course, she did not. She came only after Mrs. Bellinger was established on the sofa, and Edith had taken off her hat. They looked quite a family party, I could not but feel. Colonel Brentford, probably, was very nearly as old as the Major himself, and quite as old as the Major’s wife; but then he had the unmarried look which of itself seems a kind of guarantee of youth, and his face was quite free of that cloud of care which was more or less upon both their faces. He was standing outside the open window with Edith when Mrs. Spencer and Lady Isabella came in. He did not see them. He was getting some of the monthly roses for her, which were high up upon the verandah. It was so high that it was very seldom we were able to get the flowers; but he was a tall man, and he managed it. Lady Isabella perceived him at once, and I saw a little shiver run over her. She gave Mrs. Bellinger, poor soul, but a very stiff salutation, and sat down on a chair near the window. She did not notice the girl. She had not thought of Edith, and no sort of suspicion as yet had been roused in her. She sat down quietly, and waited until he should come in.

How strange it was!—all bright full sunshine, no shadow or mystery to favour the romance; the Bellingers and Mrs. Spencer talking in the most ordinary way; the Colonel outside, pulling down the branch of pale roses; and Edith smiling, shaking off some dewdrops that had fallen from them upon her pretty hair. All so ordinary, so calm, so peaceable—but Lady Isabella seated there, silent, waiting—and I looking on with a chill at my very heart. He was a long time before he came in—talking to Edith was pleasant out in that verandah, with all the brilliant sunshine about, and the russet trees so sweet in the afternoon haze.

‘You shall have some,’ he said; ‘but we must give some to your mother first.’

And then he came in with the branch in his hand. I don’t know whether some sense of suppressed excitement in the air struck him as he paused in the window, but he did stand still there, and looked round him with an inquiring look. He had not left so many people in the room as were in it now, and he was surprised. He looked at me, and then I suppose my agitated glance directed him, in spite of myself, to Lady Isabella. He gave a perceptible start when he saw her, and smothered an exclamation. He recognized her instantly. His face flushed, and the branch of roses in his hand trembled. All this took place quite unobserved by anybody but me, and, perhaps, Edith, outside the window, who was coming in after him, and now stood on tiptoe, trying to see what was going on and wondering. Lady Isabella looked up at him with a face so uncertain in its expression that my terror was great. Was she angry? Was she going to betray herself, and show the nervous irritability which possessed her? She was very pale—white to her lips; and he so flushed and startled. She looked up at him, and then her lips parted and she smiled.

‘I think I should like one of the roses,’ she said.

Colonel Brentford did not say a word. He made her a bow, and with a trembling hand (how it did tremble!—it made me shake with sympathy to see it) he detached a spray from the great branch, which was all pink with roses, and gave it to her; and then he went away into the furthest corner, throwing down his roses on a table as he passed, and stared out of the window. To him the meeting was quite unexpected, I suppose—something utterly startling and sudden. The talk went on all the same. Edith, surprised, came in, and stood with her back to the open window, looking after him in a state of bewilderment. He had gone in smiling, to give her mother the flowers; and now he was standing with his back to us, the flowers cast down anywhere. As for Lady Isabella, she had buried her face in her roses, and sat quite silent, taking no notice of any one. Such was this meeting, which I had brought about. And all the time I had to talk to Major Bellinger, and look as if I were attending to what he said.

‘Does Edith sing?’ I asked in desperation. ‘I am so glad! Do sing us something, my dear—oh, anything—and the simpler the better. How nice it is of you not to want your music! My piano is not in very good order, I play so seldom now; but it will not matter much to your young fresh voice.’

I said this, not knowing what I was saying, and hurried her to the piano, thinking, if she sang ever so badly, it still would be a blessed relief amid all this agitation and excitement.

‘I only sing to mamma,’ said Edith. ‘I will try if you wish it; but papa does not care for my singing—and Colonel Brentford hates it,’ she added, raising her voice.

There was a little spite, a little pique, in what Edith said. She was confounded by his sudden withdrawal, and anxious to call him back and punish him. This however was not the effect her words produced. Colonel Brentford took no notice, and kept his back towards us; but on another member of our little company the effect was startling enough.

‘Colonel Brentford!’ said Mrs. Spencer with a little shriek; and her nice comfortable commonplace talk with Mrs. Bellinger came to an end at once. She got up and came to me, and drew me into another corner. ‘For Heaven’s sake,’ she said, ‘tell me, what did the girl mean? Colonel Brentford! He is the one man in all the world whom we must not meet. That is not him surely at the window? Oh, good heavens! what is to be done? I wanted to tell you, but I never had an opportunity. Mrs. Mulgrave, he was once engaged to Isabella. They had a quarrel, and it nearly cost her her life. I think I would almost have given mine to preserve her from this trial. Has she seen him?—Oh, my poor dear! my poor dear!’