There was soothing at first in her step-mother's kindness, and she really loved her father; but their petting admiration soon grew oppressive, after the more bracing air of Compton; and their idolatry of her little brother fretted and tried her all the more, because they thought he must be a comfort to her, and any slight from her might be misconstrued. Mr. Venn's obsequiousness, instead of rightful homage, seemed deprivation of support, and she saw no one, spoke to no one, without the sense of Raymond's vast superiority and her own insensibility to it, loving him a thousand times more than she had loved him in life, and mourning him with an anguish beyond what the most perfect union would have left. She had nothing to do. Self-improvement was a mere oppression, and she longed after nothing so much as the sight of Rosamond, Anne, Julius, or even Frank, and her amiable wishes prevailed to have them invited to Dunstone; but at the times specified there were hindrances. Anne had engagements at home, and Rosamond appeared to the rest of the family to be a perpetual refuge for stray De Lanceys, while Frank had to make up for his long enforced absence by a long unbroken spell of work.
Cecil therefore had seen none of the family till she arrived at Compton. She was perfectly well, she said, and had become a great walker, and so, indeed, she showed herself, for she went out directly after breakfast every morning, and never appeared again till luncheon time; and would take long rides in the afternoon. "It was her only chance of sleep," she said, when remonstrated with. She did not look ill, but there was a restless, worn air that was very distressing on her young features, and was the more piteous to her relations, that she was just as constrained as ever in her intercourse with them. She was eagerly attentive to Mrs. Poynsett, and evidently so anxious to wait on her that Anne left to her many little services, but if they were alone together, they were tongue- tied, and never went deeper than surface subjects. Mrs. Poynsett never discussed her, never criticized her, never attempted to fathom her, being probably convinced that there was nothing but hard coldness to be met with by probing. Yet there was something striking in Cecil's having made people call her Mrs. Raymond Poynsett, surrendering the Charnock, which she had once brandished in all their faces, and going by the name by which her husband had been best known.
To Anne she was passively friendly, and neither gave nor sought confidences, and Anne was so much occupied with her baby, and all the little household services that had grown on her, as well as with her busy husband, that there was little leisure for them; and though the meeting with Rosamond was at first the most effusive and affectionate of all, afterwards she seemed to avoid tetes-a-tetes with her, and was shyer with her than with Anne.
It was Miles that she got on with best. He had never so fully realized the unhappiness of his brother's married life as those who had watched it; and he simply viewed her as Raymond's loved and loving widow and sincere mourner, and treated her with all brotherly tenderness and reverence for her grief; while she responded with a cordiality and gratitude which made her, when talking to him, a pleasanter person than she had ever been seen at Compton before.
But it was not to Miles, but to Rosamond, that she brought an earnest question, walking in one autumn morning to the Rectory, amid the falling leaves of the Virginian-creeper, and amazing Rosamond, who was writing against time for the Indian mail, by asking-
"Rosamond, will you find out if Mrs. Poynsett would mind my coming to live at Sirenwood?"
"You, Cecil!"
"Yes, I'm old enough. There's no place for me at home, and though I must be miserable anywhere, it will be better where I have something to do, of some real use to somebody. I've been walking all round every day, and seeing what a state it is in-in the hands of creditors all these years."
"But you would be quite alone!"
"I am quite alone as it is."
"And would your father consent?"
"I think he would. I am a burthen to them now. They cannot feel my grief, nor comfort it, and they don't like the sight of it, though I am sure I trouble them with it as little as possible."
"Dear Cecil!" and the ready tears welled up in Rosamond's gray eyes.
"I don't want to talk of it," said Cecil. "If I felt worthy to grieve it would be less dreadful; but it all seems like hypocrisy. Rosamond, if you were to lose Julius to-morrow, you would not be as unhappy as I am."
"Don't, don't!" cried Rosamond, making a gesture of horror. "But does not coming here make it worse?"
"No, real stabs are better than dull aching; and then you-you, Rosamond, did know how it really was, and that I would-I would-"
Cecil wept now as Rosamond had longed to see her weep when she had left Compton, and Rosamond spoke from her tender heart of comfort; but the outburst did not last long, and Cecil said, recovering herself-
"After all, my most peaceful times of late have been in walking about in those woods at Sirenwood; I should like to live there. You know he always wished it to be the purchase, because it joins Compton, and I should like to get it all into perfect order and beauty, and leave it all to little Raymond."
"I should have thought the place would have been full of ghosts."
"I tried. I made the woman let me in, and I sat where poor Camilla used to talk to me, and I thought I was the better for facing it out. The question is whether Mrs. Poynsett will dislike it. She has a right to be consulted."
Perhaps Cecil could not be gracious. Certainly, Raymond would have been thankful for even this admission.
"You wish me to find out?"
"If you would be so good. I would give it up at once if she has any feeling against it, and go somewhere else-and of course she has! She never can forget what I did!"
Rosamond caressed Cecil with that sweetness which saw everything in the most consoling manner; but when the poor young widow was out of sight, there was a revulsion of feeling.
"No, Mrs Poynsett must always feel that that wretched marriage broke her son's heart, and murdered him!-murdered him!" said Rosamond to herself, clenching that soft fist of hers. "It ought not to be broached to her!"
But Julius-when she stated it to him rather less broadly, but still saying that she did not know whether she could bear the sight of Cecil, except when she was before her eyes, and how could his mother endure her at all-did not see it in the same light. He thought Sirenwood gave duties to Cecil, and that she ought not to be hindered from fulfilling them. And he said his mother was a large- minded woman, and not likely to have that personal bitterness towards Cecil that both the ladies seemed to expect, as her rival in her son's affections, and the means of his unhappiness and death.
He was right; Mrs. Poynsett was touched by finding that Cecil clung to them rather than to her sublime family, and especially by the design as to little Raymond, though she said that must never be mentioned; nothing must bind so young a creature as Cecil, who really did not know what love was at all.
"She is afraid the sight of her is distressing to you," said Rosamond.
"Poor child, why should she?" said Mrs. Poynsett. "She was the victim of an unsuccessful experiment of my dear boy's, and the unsuspecting instrument of poor Camilla's vengeance. That is all I see in her."
"Mrs. Poynsett, how can you!" cried Rosamond, impetuously. "With all I know of her sorrow, I rage at her whenever I am out of sight of her."
"I can't do that," said Mrs. Poynsett, half smiling, "any more than I could at a doll. The poor thing was in a false position, and nobody was more sorry for her than Raymond himself; but you see he had fancied that marriage must bring the one thing it would not in that short time."
"It would, if she had not been a little foolish donkey."
"Or if Camilla Tyrrell had let her alone! It is of no use to rake up these things, my dear Rosamond. Let her come to Sirenwood, and do such good as she can there, if it can comfort her. It was for my sake that the unconscious girl was brought here to have her life spoilt, and I would not stand in the way of what seems to be any relief."