Vera Nevill Part 39

She came in again, and sat down in a low basket-chair by the window, and thought how wise she had been to settle herself down in the old house with its velvet lawns and its wide shadowy trees, instead of in the heat and turmoil of a London home.

She looked a little anxious and worried to-day--she was not happy about her eldest son--somebody had told her last night that he was talking about going to Australia, and turning sheep farmer. Lady Kynaston was annoyed at the report; it did not strike her as seemly or right that the head of the Kynaston family should become a sheep farmer. Moreover, she knew very well that he only wanted to get himself away out of the country where no one would know of his story, or remind him of his trouble again.

The man's heart was broken. He did not want to farm sheep, or to take to any other rational or healthful employment; he only wanted, like a sick animal, to creep away and hide his hurt. Little as Lady Kynaston had in common with her eldest son, she was sorry for him. She would have done what she could to help him had she known how. She had written to him only yesterday, begging him to come to her, but he had not replied to her letter.

The Cloverdales' ball had come and gone, and Lady Kynaston had taken pains to ensure that an invitation might be sent to Mrs. Hazeldine and Miss Nevill. She had also put herself to some inconvenience in order to be present at it herself, but all to no purpose--Vera was not there.

Perhaps she had had another engagement that evening.

The old lady's promise to her youngest son was still unfulfilled. She half repented now that she had given him any such promise. What good was she to do by interceding between her son and Miss Nevill? and why was she to lay herself open to the chance of a rebuff from that young lady? It had been a senseless and quixotic idea on Maurice's part altogether.

Young women do not take back a jilted lover because the man's mother advises them to do so; nor is a broken-off marriage likely to get itself re-settled in consequence of the interference of a third person.

The old lady had taken out her fancy-work, a piece of crewel work such as is the fas.h.i.+on of the day. But she was not fond of work; the leaves of muddy-shaded greens grew but slowly under her fingers, and, truth to say, the occupation bored her. It was artistic, certainly, and it was fas.h.i.+onable; but Lady Kynaston would have been happier over a pair of cross-st.i.tch slippers for her son, or a knitted woollen petticoat for the old woman at her lodge gate. All the same, she took out her crewels and put in a few st.i.tches; but the afternoon was warm, there was a humming of insects in the summer air, a click-clicking from the gardener as he dropped one empty red flower-pot into the other along the edge of the ribbon border, a cawing of rooks from the elms over the wall, a very harmony of soft soothing sounds, just enough to lull worry to rest, not enough to scare drowsiness from one's brain.

By degrees, it all became mixed up in a delicious confusion. The rooks, and the bees, and the gardener made one continuous murmur to her, like the swis.h.i.+ng of summer waves upon a sandy sh.o.r.e, or the moaning of soft winds in the tree tops.

Then the crewel work slipped off her lap, and Lady Kynaston slept.

How long she was asleep she could not rightly have said: it might have been an hour, it might have been but twenty minutes; but suddenly she awoke with a start.

The rustle of a woman's dress was beside her, and somebody spoke her name.

"Lady Kynaston! Oh, I am so sorry I have disturbed you; I did not see you were asleep."

The old lady opened her eyes wide, and came back suddenly from dreamland.

Vera Nevill stood before her.

"Vera, is it _you_? Good gracious! how did you get in? I never even heard the door open."

"I came in by the front-door quite correctly," said Vera, smiling and reaching out her hand for a chair, "and was duly announced by the footman; but I had no idea you were asleep."

"Only dozing. Sit down, my dear, sit down; I am glad to see you." And, somehow, all the awkwardness of the meeting between the two vanished. It was as though they had parted only yesterday on the most friendly terms.

In Vera's absence, Lady Kynaston had thought hard things of her, and had spoken condemning words concerning her; but in her presence all this seemed to be altered.

There was something so unspeakably refres.h.i.+ng and soothing about Vera; there was a certain quiet dignity in her movements, a calm serenity in her manner, which made it difficult to a.s.sociate blame and displeasure with her. Faults she might have, but they could never be mean or ign.o.ble ones; there was nothing base or contemptible about her. The pure, proud profile, the broad grave brow, the eyes that, if a trifle cold, were as true withal as the soul that looked out, sometimes earnestly, sometimes wistfully, from their shadowy depths; everything about her bade one judge her, not so much by her actions, which were sometimes incomprehensible, but by a certain standard that she herself created in the minds of all who knew her.

Lady Kynaston had called her a jilt and a heartless coquette; she had made no secret of saying, right and left, how badly she had behaved: what shameful and discreditable deductions might be drawn from her conduct towards Sir John. Yet, the very instant she set eyes upon her, she felt sorry for the hard things she had said of her, and ashamed of herself that she should have spoken them.

Vera drew forward a chair, and sat down near her. The dress she wore was white, of some clear and delicate material, softened with creamy lace; it had been one of kind-hearted Cissy Hazeldine's many presents to her.

Looking at her, Lady Kynaston thought what a lovely vision of youth and beauty she made in the sombre quiet of the little room.

"They tell me half the men in London have gone mad over you," were her first words following the train of her own thoughts, and she liked her visitor none the less, that world-loving little old woman, because she could not but acknowledge the reasonableness of the madness of which she accused her of being the object.

"I care very little for the men in London, Lady Kynaston," answered Vera, quietly.

"My dear, what _do_ you care for?" asked her ladys.h.i.+p, with earnestness, and Vera understood that she was expected to state her business.

"Lady Kynaston, I have come to ask you about your son," she answered, simply.

"About John?"

"Of course, it is Sir John I mean," she said, quickly, a hot flush rising for one instant to her face, and dying away rapidly again, to leave her a trifle paler than before. "I know," she continued, with a little hesitation--"I know that I have no right to inquire--but I cannot forget all that is past--all his goodness and generosity to me. I shall never forget it; and oh, I hear such dreadful things of him, that he is ill--that he is talking of going to Australia. Oh, Lady Kynaston, is it all true?"

She had clasped her hands together, and bent a little forward towards the old lady in her earnestness; she looked at her piteously, almost entreatingly.

"Does she love him after all?" thought Lady Kynaston, as she watched her; and the meaning of the whole story of her son's love seemed more unfathomable than ever.

"John is neither well nor happy," she said, aloud. "I think, Vera, you must know the reason of it better than any of us."

"It is my fault--my doing," cried the girl, with a ring of deep regret in her voice. "Yes," she added, looking away sadly out of the open window; "that is why I have come. Do you know that I saw him once? I don't think he saw me--it was in the Park one morning. He looked so aged, so saddened, I realized then what I had done--his face haunts me."

"Vera, you could alter all that if you chose," said the old lady, earnestly.

A sudden flush sprang to her face; she looked startled.

"You don't suppose I came here to say _that_, Lady Kynaston?"

"No, my dear; but I have decided to say it to you. Vera, I entreat you to tell me the truth. What is it that stands between you and John?"

She was silent, looking down upon her hands that lay crossed one over the other upon her knee.

"I cannot tell you, Lady Kynaston," she answered, at length, in a low voice.

Lady Kynaston sighed; she was a little disappointed.

"And you cannot, marry him?"

Vera shook her head.

"No, it would not be right."

The old lady bent forward and laid her hand upon her visitor's arm.

"Forgive me for asking you. Do you love some one else? is it that?"

She bent her head silently.

"Have you any hopes of marrying the man you love?"

"Oh no, none--not the slightest," she said, hurriedly; "I shall never marry."

"Then, Vera, will you listen to an old woman's advice?"

"Yes, dear Lady Kynaston."

"My dear, if you cannot marry the man you love, put him out of your mind."

"I must do that in any case," she said, wearily.

"Listen to me, my dear. Don't sacrifice your own life and the life of a man who is good and loves you dearly to a caprice of your heart. Hus.h.!.+

don't interrupt me; I dare say you don't think it a caprice; you think it is to last for ever. But there is no 'for ever' in these matters; the thing comes to us like an ordinary disease; some of us take it strongly, and it half kills us; some of us are only a very little ill; but we all get over it. There is a pain that goes right through one's heart: it is worse to bear than any physical suffering: but, thank G.o.d, that pain always wears itself out. My dear, I, who speak to you, have felt it, and I tell you that no man is worth it. You can cure yourself of it if you will; and the remedy is work and change of the conditions of your life.