As she neared the parsonage garden, she saw two figures pacing with arms entwined before the porch. They were the figures of her father and Sophia; and she paused in the blooming rhododendrons, leaning on a firmly — growing branch, and watched them.
No; she was no longer essential to her father’s life. The years which carried the undoing of the life that was supreme to her thought, and held the supreme need, had seen the end of the duty whose call had been her command. Five years, and this change! The cup was not to pass from her. It must seem — it seemed — that little was done, in the place of what might have been done. But her nature remained for her help; and she was spared the wishing different what she had done hardly and sorrowing. The glimpse of the heavy figure and the youthful was pregnant with memories. Before these five years, she could not have judged otherwise than as she had judged.
And now her life was her own. As she stood leaning on the cold bough, with the damp earth under her feet, her hands clasped together, and her worn, woman’s face towards her childhood’s home, there were simple, pitiful feelings mingling with those which lay too deep for herself to name them. No; it was not only the brightening of the darkened end of the life which was the meaning of her own — not only the living for the noble fellow-creature who sought her for herself;—it was the other things of which her lot had been empty;—daily cherishing, little hourly signs of a heart’s homage, the glances of those who knew her early years, and deemed her unsought of men, and grateful that the shelter of her father’s roof was ungrudging. It was such things as these, that left the others beneath, and struggled to the surface. For there are times when the heart is hungry, and cries out for the simplest sustenance as stay for its need.
Chapter XVI
The Blackwoods had bidden their friends to an evening mildly convivial; and Mr Blackwood, twirling his moustache in survey of his drawingroom, had a sense that he was doing a pleasant thing which he could ill afford, and which was therefore generous as well as pleasant. In Mrs Blackwood, who sat with a very upright bearing and a studied air of ease, which seemed to clash with each other, the sense of pleasantness was rather painfully subordinate to that of the ill-affording; and there were further misgivings to give complication to qualms. The Huttons and Cassells were to be supplemented, not merely by Mrs Merton-Vane; whose acceptance of Blackwood good-fellowship was sufficiently rare — being limited to cases when Mr Hutton was known to be included in the company — to be held momentous; but by Soulsby; upon whom Mr Blackwood had pressed his invitation, without reference to authority more domestic than his own impulse, and with genial insistence unhampered by a sense of acquaintance resting on a single meeting, or of the guest’s probable experience of evening hospitality.
Mr Hutton had suffered some unperturbing amazement, that this chance of convivial experience had commended itself to his friend; and Mrs Merton-Vane, to whom in confidence he admitted his view, easily entered into it. Mr and Mrs Blackwood, with the true instinct of hospitality — which is known to feel astonishment an unfitting attitude to the doings of guests, — had not yielded to surprise over any case of welcome extended to the pleasure they offered.
“Well, Vicar!” said Mr Blackwood; “I am glad to see you here with all your flock. And a fine flock it is, too — as fine as my own; and I couldn’t say more to please — to please any one you please. I couldn’t indeed.”
Mr Hutton’s eyes sought the available chairs, rather than Mr Blackwood’s face; and his reply seemed lost in a heavy taking of a seat, though his expression was well disposed.
“Well, you are a fine pair of girls!” said Mr Blackwood, taking the hands of Sophia and Evelyn. “I shall be proud of having one of you for my daughter-in-law. I shall indeed. I shouldn’t mind if I was to have you both—”
“Herbert, come dear,” said Mrs Blackwood, in her half-reproving, conjugal tones; “here is Mrs Merton-Vane.”
“I am glad to see you, Mrs Merton-Vane,” said Mr Blackwood, very loudly, as though in amend for his involuntary disregard. “How are you?”
“I am pret-ty well, thank you, Mr Blackwood,” said Mrs Merton-Vane, implying that her qualified words had allusion to her widow’s weeds. “I felt I could not refuse your kindness, though I feel inclined to shut myself up, away from ev-er-y-one. But it does not do to give way to feelings like that too much, does it?”
“No, no, it doesn’t do, Mrs Merton-Vane; it doesn’t do,” said Mr Blackwood.
“How do you do, Mrs Cassell?” said Mrs Blackwood. “We were all beginning to wonder if anything had prevented your coming.”
“How do you know we were, mother? We have none of us said so,” said Elsa.
“Oh, no, thank you, Mr Blackwood. It was John; he would be so long dressing,” said Mrs Cassell, throwing an arch look at her husband, which he ignored with no failing in goodwill.
“Well, doctor!” said Mr Blackwood, advancing. “Well, doctor, how are you?”
“I am — well, thank you,” said Dr. Cassell.
“Why, Mr Soulsby!” said Mr Blackwood; “I am glad to see you here. I am glad to see you here at last; I am indeed. Come, find a seat. Do not treat us as strangers, I beg of you, after our having been neighbours at intervals for all these years.”
“Come up to the fire, Mr Soulsby,” said Mrs Blackwood.
“Why, Soulsby? Still at your old tricks of unpunctuality?” said Mr Hutton, knowing himself regarded as accosting the friend of his early days.
“I–I—you are most kind. No, no, no; this place is — is what I should choose, thank you,” said Soulsby; managing to glance round the room, rest his eyes on Dolores, and push his fingers through his hair, in the second before he took his seat.
“Why, Mr Soulsby, I hear that you and Mr Hut-ton were boys to-geth-er,” said Mrs Merton-Vane, leaning forward.
“Yes; yes, yes. At least — that is to say, we were at Oxford at the same time,” said Soulsby.
“Now, Mr Soulsby, what do you think of this double wedding we are all going foolish over?” said Mr Blackwood; indicating the four young people concerned, with confidence in their hold upon any man’s interest. “Brother and sister, to brother and sister. A pretty thing, won’t it be?”
“Brother and sister, to brother and sister?” broke in Dr Cassell. “Brother and sister, to sister and brother, I believe?”
“Ah, yes, doctor; ah, yes, that’s the coupling,” said Mr Blackwood. “Well, what do you think of it, Mr Soulsby?”
“Oh — certainly — a very — a very pleasant arrangement,” said Soulsby; throwing one swift glance at Elsa and Evelyn, as though feeling definite scrutiny a discourtesy, and clasping and unclasping his hands.
Dolores, who was watching Bertram, saw him make a gesture as though in response to a sign; and Elsa suddenly rose, and confronted her father.
“You can leave Bertram and me out of Mr Soulsby’s ‘pleasant arrangement,’ father,” she said, in a reckless voice with a quiver of laughter. “We have fulfilled our part early, to save so much complication.”
Mr Blackwood looked easily uncomprehending; but Mrs Blackwood leaned forward.
“What do you mean, Elsa? Say what you mean plainly, and at once.”
“Oh, Elsa, Elsa, you hussy, what now, what now?” said the Reverend Cleveland.
“Remember that you are speaking to Mrs Hutton, if you please, Uncle Cleveland,” said Elsa.