CHAPTER VII

Mrs. Kingsward’s opening speech was a wonder to hear. She sat and looked at them all for a moment, trying to steady herself, but there was nothing to steady her in what she saw before her – Aubrey and Bee, the pair who had been so sweet to see, such a diversion in all circumstances, so amusing in their mutual absorption, so delightful in their romance. It all flashed back to her mind; the excitement of Bee’s first proposal, the pleasure of seeing “her bairn respected like the lave,” though Mrs. Kingsward might not have understood what these words meant, the little triumph it was to see her child engaged at nineteen, when everybody said there was nobody for the girls to marry – and now to have that triumph turned into humiliation and dismay! And to think of Bee’s bright face overcast, and her happiness over, and poor Aubrey thrown out into the uttermost darkness. Had she seen Charlie it might have given her some support, for Charlie was the impersonation of immovable severity; but Betty’s wistful little face behind the other pair, coming out from Aubrey’s shadow by moments to fix an appealing look upon her mother, was not calculated to make her any stronger. She cleared her throat – she tried hard to steady her voice. She said, “Oh, my dear children,” faltering, and then the poor lady ended in a burst of sobbing and tears. It gave her a little sting and stimulant to see through her weeping that though little Betty ran towards her with kisses and soothing, Bee took no notice, but stood hard and unaffected in her opposition, holding close to Aubrey’s arm. Mrs. Kingsward indeed got no sympathy except from little Betty. Charlie put his hand imperatively upon her shoulder, recalling her to herself, and Bee never moved, standing by the side of Aubrey Leigh. The mother, thus deserted, plucked up a little spirit in the midst of her weakness.

“Bee,” she said, “I do not think it is quite nice of you to stand there as if your own people were against you. We are not against you. There has been, I fear, a great mistake made, which Colonel Kingsward” – here she turned her eyes to Aubrey – “has found out in – in time; though it is a pity, a sad pity, that it was not found out before. If Mr. Aubrey had only been frank and said at once – but I don’t see what difference that would have made. Papa says that from what he has heard and discovered things must not go any further. He is sorry, and so am I, that they have gone so far, and the engagement must be broken off at once. You hear what I say, Bee?”

“I heard you say so last night, mamma, but I say it is my engagement, and I have a right to know why. I do not mean to break it off – ”

“Oh, how can I make explanations – how can I enter into such a question? I appeal to you, Mr. Aubrey – tell her.”

“She ought not to ask any explanations. She is a minor, under age. My father has a right to do whatever he pleases – and she has none to ask why.”

This was how Charlie reasoned on the height of his one-and-twenty years. Charlie was the intolerable element in all this question. Aubrey cast a look at him, and forcibly closed his own lips to keep in something that was bursting forth. Bee defied him, as was natural, on the spot. “I will not have Charlie put in his opinion,” she cried. “He has nothing to do with me. Even if I obeyed papa, I certainly should not obey him.”

“Let Aubrey say, himself,” said Mrs. Kingsward, “whether you ought to be told everything, Bee.”

“It is cruel to ask me,” said Aubrey, speaking for the first time. “If Bee could know all – if you could know all, Mrs. Kingsward! But how could I tell you all? Part of this is true, and part is not true. I could speak to Colonel Kingsward more freely. I am going off to-night to London to see him. It will free you from embarrassment, and it will give me perhaps a chance. I did not want to put you to this trial. I am ready to put myself unreservedly in Colonel Kingsward’s hands.”

“Then,” said Bee, hastily, “it seems I am of no sort of importance at all to anyone. I am told my engagement is broken off, and then I am told I am not to know why, and then – . Go, then, Aubrey, as that is your choice, and fight it out with papa, if you please.” She loosed her arm from his, with a slight impulse, pushing him away. “But just mind this – everybody,” she cried; “you may think little of Bee – but my engagement shall not be broken by anybody but me, and it shall not be kept on by anybody but me; and I will neither give it up nor will I hold to it, neither one nor the other, until I know why.”

Then the judge and the defendant looked each other in the face. They were, as may be supposed, on opposite sides, but they were the only two to consult each other in this emergency. Aubrey responded by a movement of his head, by a slight throwing up of his hand, to the question in Mrs. Kingsward’s eyes.

“Then you shall know as much as I can tell you, Bee. Your father had a letter last week, from a lady, telling him that she had a revelation to make. The letter alarmed your father. He felt that he must know what it meant. He could not go himself, but he sent Mr. Passavant, the lawyer. The lady said that she had lived in Mr. Leigh’s house for years, in the time of his late wife. She said Mr. Leigh had – had behaved very badly to her.”

“That I do not believe,” said Bee.

The words flashed out like a knife. They made a stir in the air, as if a sudden gleam had come into it. And then all was still again, a strange dead quiet coming after, in which Bee perceived Aubrey silent, covering his face with his hand. It came across her with a sudden pang that she had heard somebody say this morning or last night – “He did not deny it.”

“And that he had promised her – marriage – that he was engaged to her, as good as – as good as married to her – when he had the cruelty – oh, my dear child, my dear child! – to come to you.”

Aubrey took his hand away from his white face. “That,” he said, in a strange, dead, tuneless voice, “is not true.”

“Oh, more shame to you, Aubrey, more shame to you,” cried Mrs. Kingsward, forgetting her judicial character in her indignation as a woman, “if it is not true! – ” She paused a moment to draw her breath, then added, “But indeed you were not so wicked as you say, for it is true. And here is the evidence. Oh!” she cried, with tears in her eyes, “it makes your conduct to my child worse; but it shows that you were not then, not then, as bad as you say.”

Bee had dropped into the chair that was next to her, and there sat, for her limbs had so trembled that she could not stand, watching him, never taking her eyes from him, as if he were a book in which the interpretation of this mystery was —

“Never mind about me,” he said, hoarsely. “I say nothing for myself. Allow me to be as bad as a man can be, but that is not true. And what is the evidence? You never told me there was any evidence.”

“Sir,” said Mrs. Kingsward, fully roused, “I told you all that was in my husband’s letter last night.”

“Yes – that she,” a sort of shudder seemed to run over him, to the keen sight of the watchers – “that she – said so. You don’t know, as I do, that that is no evidence. But you speak now as if there was something more.”

She took a piece of folded paper from her lap. “There is this,” she said, “a letter you wrote to her the morning you went away.”

“I did write her a letter,” he said.

Mrs. Kingsward held it out to him, but was stopped by Charlie, who put his hand on her arm. “Keep this document, mother. Don’t put the evidence against him into a man’s power. I’ll read it if Mr. Leigh thinks proper.”

Once more Aubrey and Bee together, with a simultaneous impulse, looked at this intruder into their story.

“Mamma! send him away. I should like to kill him!” said Bee within her clenched teeth.

“Be quiet, Charlie. Mr. Leigh, I am ready to put this or any other evidence against you into your hands.”

He bowed very gravely, and then stood once more as if he were made of stone. Mrs. Kingsward faltered very much, her agitated face flushed. “It begins,” she said, in a low fluttering voice, “My dear little wife – ”

Then there came a very strange sound into the agitated silence, for Aubrey Leigh, on trial for more than his life, here laughed. “What more, what more?” he said.

“No, it is not that. It is – ‘I don’t want my dear little wife to be troubled about anything. It can all be done quite easily and quietly, without giving an occasion for people to talk; a settlement made and everything you could desire. I shall make arrangements about everything to-day.’ It is signed A. L., and it is in your handwriting. Bee, you can see it is in his handwriting; look for yourself.”

Bee would not turn her head. She thought she saw the writing written in fire upon the air – all his familiar turns in it. How well she knew the A. L.; but she did not look at it – would not look. She had enough to do looking at his face, which was the letter – the book she was studying now.

“No doubt it is my handwriting,” he said, “only it was addressed not to any other woman, but to my wife.”

“Your wife died two years ago, Mr. Leigh; and that is dated Christmas – this year.”

“That is a lie!” he cried; then restrained himself painfully. “You know I don’t mean you – but the date and the assumption is entirely a lie. Give me time, and I will tell you exactly when it was written. I remember the letter. It was when I had promised Amy to provide for her friend on condition that she should be sent away – for she made my house miserable.”

“And yet – and yet, Mr. Leigh – . Oh, don’t you see how things contradict each other? She made your house miserable, and yet – when your wife was dead, and you were free – ”

He looked at her, growing paler and paler. “And yet!” he said. “I know what you mean. That is the infernal art of it. My own folly has cut the ground from beneath my feet, and put weapons into every hand against me. I know – I know.”

Again there came into Bee’s mind the words she had heard last night – “He does not deny it.” And yet he was denying it with all his might! Denying, and not denying – what? The girl’s brain was all in a maze, and she could not tell.

“You see?” said Mrs. Kingsward, gently. “Oh, I am sorry for you in my heart. Perhaps you were led into – a connection that you feel not to be – desirable. That I can understand. But that you should think you could save yourself by means of an innocent girl, almost a child, and impose yourself on a family that had no suspicions! – oh, Mr. Leigh, Mr. Leigh! you ought to have died sooner than have done that!”

He looked at her piteously for a moment, and then a dreadful sort of smile came upon his face. “I allow,” he said, “that that would have been the best.”

And there fell a silence upon the room. The sun was shining outside, and the sound of the water gurgling against the sides of boats, and of all the commotion of the landing place, and of the hundreds of voices in the air, and of the chiming of the clocks, came in and filled the place. And just then there burst out a carillon from one of the steeples setting the whole to music, harmonising all the discords, and sweeping into this silence with a sudden rush of sound as if some bodily presence had come in. It was the touch too much for all these excited and troubled people. Mrs. Kingsward lay back in her chair and began to weep silently. Aubrey Leigh turned away from where he was standing and leant his head against the wall. As for Bee, she sat quite still, dazed, not able to understand, but crushed out of all her youthful self-assertion and determination to clear it all up. She to clear it up! – who did not even understand it, who could not fathom what was meant. That there was something more than met the eye, something that was not put into words, seemed to show vaguely through the words that were said. But what it was Bee could not tell. She could not understand it all. And yet that there was a fatal obstacle rising up between her and her lover, something which no one could disperse or clear away, not a mistake, not a falsehood, not a thing that could be passed over triumphantly and forgotten – not as youth is so quick to believe a mere severity, tyranny, arbitrary conclusion of papa – she felt in every fibre of her frame. She could not deny it or struggle against it; her very being seemed paralysed. The meaning went out of her face, the absolute, certain, imperious youthfulness died out of her. She who loved to have her own way, who had just protested that she would neither give up nor hold fast except by her own will and understanding, now sat dumb, vaguely staring, seeing shadows pass before her and hearing of things which were undeniable, mighty things, far more powerful than her little hot resolutions and determinations. Bee had never yet come face to face with any trouble which could not be smoothed away. There was her own naughtiness, there were Charlie’s escapades at school and college – some of which she had known were serious. But in a little while they had been passed over and forgotten, and everything had been as before. One time she remembered papa had threatened not to let Charlie go back to Harrow, which was a dreadful thing, exposing him and his naughtiness to all the world. But after a while papa had changed his mind, and everything had gone smoothly as before. Could papa change his mind now? Would time make it, even if he did, as it was before? Bee had not mental power enough to think these things, or ask these questions of her own will. But they went through her mind as people come in and go out by an open door.

It was Aubrey who was the first to speak. The carillon stopped, or else they got used to the sound and took no further notice of it, and he collected himself and came forward again to the middle of the room. He said, “I know it will be a relief that I should go away. There is an afternoon train which I shall take. It is slow, but it does not matter. I shall be as well there as anywhere – or as ill. I shall go direct to Colonel Kingsward and lay my whole case before him. He will perhaps confront me with my accuser – I hope so – if not, he will at least hear what I have to say for myself.”

“Oh, Mr. Leigh! Oh, Aubrey! I can’t wish you anything but well, whatever – whatever may be done!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Kingsward, I looked for nothing less from your kind heart. Will you give me that letter?”

She put it into his hands without the least hesitation, and he examined it – with a sort of strained smile upon his face. “I should like to take this back to Colonel Kingsward,” he said. Then added quickly with a short laugh, “No, I forgot; there might be suspicions. Send it back to him, please, by the first post, that he may have it when I get there.” He gave the letter back, and then he looked round wistfully. “May I say good-bye to Bee?”

She got up at the words, feeling herself vaguely called upon – yet quite dull, dumb, with all sorts of thoughts going and coming through those wide-open doors of her mind – thoughts like strays which she seemed to see as they passed. Even Aubrey himself appeared a ghost. She got up and stood awaiting him when he approached her, not putting out a finger. Nobody interfered, not even Charlie, who was fuming internally yet somehow did not move. Aubrey went up to her and put his hands upon her shoulders. Her unresponsiveness sent a chill to his heart.

“Have you given me up, Bee?” he cried, “Already, already!” with anguish in his voice.

She could not say a word. She shook her head like a mute, looking at him with her dazed eyes.

“She does not understand it – not a word!” he said.

Bee shook her head again. It was all she could do. No, she did not understand, except that it was a kind of dying, something against which nobody could struggle. And then he kissed her on her forehead as gravely as though he had been her father; and the next moment was gone – was it only out of the room, or out of the world, out of life?