A Young Man's Year

"Where's Arthur?" she asked. "He's disappeared!"

"I don't know where he is," answered Judith from behind her book.

But he was more than suspicious. He was very angry. His last brusque speech showed that, and still more the note in his voice, a note which she had never heard before. It was of more than indignation; it was of outrage. She could manage the others. Margaret presented no difficulty, the sulky helpless husband hardly more; from Judith there was to be feared nothing worse than satiric stabs. But if Arthur were going to be like this, the next three days would be very difficult – and horribly distasteful. He had touched her as well as alarmed her. Such an end to her affectionate intimacy with him was a worse wound than she had reckoned on its being. To see him angry with her hurt her; she had never meant to see it, and she was not prepared for the intensity of feeling which had found vent in his voice. It had been as bad as a blow, that speech of his; while showing him sore stricken, it had meant to strike her also. She had never thought that he would want to do that. Tender regrets, propitiating memories, an excusing and attenuating fondness – these were what she desired to be able to attribute to Arthur when she was sailing on the summer seas.

"I wonder what's become of him! Do you think he's gone out, Judith?"

At last Judith closed her book and raised her head. "Why do you want Arthur now?"

"I only wondered what could have become of him."

"Perhaps he's gone to pack – ready for to-morrow, you know."

"Oh, nonsense! Barber would pack for him, of course – if he's going."

Judith, book in hand, rose from her chair. "I think I shall go to bed." She came across the room to where Bernadette sat. "You'd better too. You look tired."

"No, I'm not sleepy. I'm sure I couldn't sleep."

Judith bent down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Never mind Arthur. You'd better let him alone to-night."

Bernadette longed to ask "What have you said to him?" But she would not; she shrank from bringing the matter into the open like that. It would mean a scene, she thought, and scenes she was steadfastly purposed to avoid – if possible.

"Well, he's behaving rather queerly, going on like this," she murmured peevishly.

For an instant Judith stood looking at her with a smile in which pity and derision seemed oddly mingled; then she turned on her heel and went out.

Bernadette sat on alone in the big drawing-room; it was very silent and solitary. The chill fancies of night and loneliness assailed her. Surely nobody would do anything foolish because of – well, because of what she did? She rejected the idea as absurd. But she felt uncomfortable and desolate. She might send for Sir Oliver; no doubt he was at his letters still, and it was not really late. Yet somehow she did not want him; she was not in the mood. Her mind was obstinate still, and still asked obstinately of Arthur.

At last she got up, went through the hall, and out on to the terrace. She looked up and down the length of it. The night was fine and the moon shone, but she saw no sign of him. She called his name softly; there was no reply. Either he had gone further afield, or he was in the house. She paused a moment, and then took her way along the corridor which led past the dining-room to the smoking-room – an apartment seldom used in these lax days (when every room is a smoking-room) and rather remote. Perhaps he had retreated there. She stood for a moment outside the door, hesitating at the last whether to seek him out. But some impulse in her – friendliness, remorse, fear, curiosity, all had their share in it – drove her on. Very softly she turned the handle and opened the door.

Yes, he was there. He was sitting in a chair by the table. His arms were spread on the table, the hands meeting one another, and his head rested on his hands. He did not hear the door she opened so gently. He looked as if he were asleep. Then, softly still, she closed the door, standing close by it. This time he heard the noise, slight as it was, and lifted his face from his hands. When he saw her, he slowly raised himself till he sat straight in his chair. She advanced towards him timidly, with a deprecatory smile.

In disuse the room had grown dreary, as rooms do; the furniture showed a housemaid's stiff ideas of arrangement; there was no human untidiness; even the air was rather musty.

"Oh, you don't look very cheerful in here! Have you been asleep, Arthur?" She sat herself sideways on the heavy mahogany writing-table.

He shook his head; his eyes looked very tired.

"I couldn't think what had become of you. And I wanted to say good-night. We're – we're friends, aren't we, Cousin Arthur?"

"Where's Oliver Wyse?" he asked brusquely.

"Upstairs in his room – writing letters. He went almost as soon as you did – but more politely!" Her smile made the reproof an overture to friendship.

"I hate to see the fellow with you," he broke out fiercely, but in a low voice.

"Oh, you mustn't say things like that! What nonsense have you got into your head? Sir Oliver's just a friend – as you are. Not the same quite, because you're a relation too. But still just a very good friend, as you are. Is this all because I told you you ought not to neglect your work?"

"Why are you so anxious for me to clear out?"

"If you take it like that, I can't – well, we can't talk. I must just leave you alone." She got down from the table and stood by it, ready, as it seemed, to carry out her threat of going.

"I'll go to London – if you'll tell Oliver Wyse to come with me."

"He's only just come, poor man – and only for a few days, anyhow! I think you've gone mad. Who's been putting such things in your head? Is it – Godfrey?"

"You wouldn't be surprised if it was, would you?" he asked quickly.

"Yes, I should, though Godfrey is sometimes very absurd with his fancies. I don't want to quarrel, but you really mustn't grudge my having another friend. It's not reasonable. And if Sir Oliver does admire me a little – well, is that so surprising?" She smiled coaxingly, very anxious to make friends to-night, to part friends on the morrow. "After all, aren't you a little guilty in that way yourself, Cousin Arthur?"

"Not in the same – " he began, but broke off, frowning and fretful.

"I've spoilt you, but I never promised you a monopoly. Now be good and sensible, do! Forget all this nonsense; go and do your work, and come back next week."

He made no reply to her appeal; he sat looking at her with a hostile scrutiny.

"Anyhow, you can't stay if you're going on behaving like this. It's intolerable."

"I came here on Godfrey's invitation. If Godfrey asks me to go – "

"If you appeal to Godfrey, you're not a friend of mine!" she cried hotly.

"Impossible to be a friend both of yours and of Godfrey's, is it?" he sneered.

Her face flushed; now she was very angry. "Go or stay – anyhow I've done with you!" She half-turned away, yet waited a moment still, hoping that his mood would soften.

He leant forward towards her in entreaty. "Don't do it, Bernadette, for God's sake! For your own sake, for the sake of all of us who love you!"

"Who loves me in this house?" she asked sharply and scornfully. "Am I so much to any of them? What am I to Godfrey, for instance? Does Godfrey love me?" She was glad to give utterance to her great excuse.

But his mind was not on excuses or palliation; they belonged to his old feelings about her, and it was the new feeling which governed him now. He stretched out his arm, caught one of her hands, and drew her towards him almost roughly.

"I love you, Bernadette, I love you body and soul, I worship you!"

"Arthur!" she cried in amazement, shrinking, trying to draw back.

"When I see that man with you, and know what he wants, and suspect – It drives me mad, I can't bear it. Oh, it's all damnable of me, I know! I could have gone on all right as we were, and been happy, but for this. But now, when I think of him, I – " With a shiver he let go her hands and buried his face in his own again. His shoulders shook as though with a sob, though no sound came.

She drew near to him now of her own accord, came and stood just beside him, laying her hand gently on his shoulder. "Cousin Arthur, Cousin Arthur!" she whispered. All her anger was gone; sorrow for him swallowed it up. "You're making a mistake, you know, you are really. You don't love me – not like that. You never did. You never felt – "

He raised his head. "What's the use of talking about what I did do or did feel? I know all that. It's what I do feel that's the question – what I feel now!"

"Oh, but you can't have changed in four or five hours," she pleaded gently, yet with a little smile. "That's absurd. You're mistaken about yourself. It's just that you're angry about Oliver – angry and jealous. And that makes you think you love me. But you never would! To begin with, you're too loyal, too honest, too fond of – Oh, you'd never do it!"

"I had never thought of you as – in that way. But when I saw him, he made me do it. And then – yes, all of a sudden!" He turned his eyes up to her, but imploring mercy rather than favour.

She pressed his shoulder affectionately. "Yes, I suppose it's possible – it might be like that with a man," she said. "I suppose it might. I never thought of it. But only just for a moment, Cousin Arthur! It's not real with you. You'll get over it directly; you'll forget it, and think of me in the old pleasant way you used, as being – " With another little squeeze on his shoulder she laughed low – "Oh, all the wonderful things I know you thought me!" She suddenly recollected how she stood. She drew in her breath sharply, with a sound almost like a sob. "Ah, no, you can never think like that of me again, can you?"

He was silent for a moment, not looking up at her now, but straight in front of him.

"Then – it's true?" he asked.

With a forlorn shake of her head she answered, "Yes, it's true. Since you're like this, I can't keep it up any longer. It's all true. Oliver loves me, and I love him, and all you suspected is – well, is going to be true about us."

"If you'll only drop that, I swear I'll never breathe a word about – about myself! I will forget! I'll go away till I have forgotten. I'll – "

"Oh, poor boy, I know you would. I should absolutely trust you. But how am I to – drop that?" She smiled ruefully. "It's become just my life." She suddenly lifted her hands above her head and cried in a low but passionate voice, "Oh, I can't bear this! It's terrible. Don't be so miserable, dear Arthur! I can't bear to see you!" She bent down and kissed him on the forehead. "You who've been such a dear dear friend and comrade to me – you who could have made me go on enduring it all here if anybody could! But Oliver came – and look what he's done to both of us!"

"You love him?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes! Or how could all this be happening? You must believe that. I didn't want you to know it – Yes, you were right, I was trying to get you out of the way, I wasn't honest. But since things have turned out like this, you must believe now, indeed you must."

For a full minute he sat silent and motionless. Then he reached up, took her hand, and kissed it three – four – times. "God help me! Well, I'll go to London to-morrow. I can't face him – or Godfrey. I should let it all out in a minute. I can't think how you manage!"

To her too it looked very difficult to manage now. The revelation made to Arthur seemed somehow to extend to the whole household. She felt that everyone would be watching and pointing, even though Arthur himself went away. She had grown fearful of being found out – how quickly Arthur had found her out! – and dreaded her husband's surly questions. More scenes might come – more scenes not to be endured! A sudden resolve formed itself in her mind, born of her fear of more detection, of more scenes, of more falling into disgrace.

"I expect Barber will have gone to bed – it's past eleven," she said. "But you can give him your orders in the morning. And – and I shan't see you. Be happy, dear Cousin Arthur, and, oh, splendidly successful! I'm sure you will! And now go to bed and sleep, poor tired boy!"

"Oh, I can't sleep – not yet. This is good-bye?" His voice choked on the word a little. He turned his chair round, and she gave her hands into his.

"Yes, this must be good-bye – for the present at all events. Perhaps some day, when all this is an old story, if you wish it – "

"Are you going away with him, or – ?"

"Oh, going away! I must do that. You do see that, don't you? And Oliver wouldn't have anything else. Try to think kindly and – and pleasantly of me. Remember our good times, dear Arthur, not this – this awful evening!"

"I've been such a fool – and now such a blackguard! Because now if I could, I'd – "

"Hush, hush! Don't say things like that. They're not really true, and they make you feel worse. We're just dear old friends parting for a while, because we must."

"Perhaps I shall never see you again, Bernadette – and you've been pretty nearly everything in my life since we've known one another."

"Dear Arthur, you must let me go now. I can't bear any more of it. Oh, I am so desperately sorry, Arthur!" A tear rolled down her cheek.

"Never mind, Bernadette. It'll be all right about me. And – well, I can't talk about you, but you needn't be afraid of my thinking anything – anything unkind. Good-bye."

She drew her hands away, and he relinquished his hold on them without resistance. There was no more to be said – no more to be done. She stood where she was for a moment; he turned his chair round to the table again, spread out his arms, and laid his face on his hands. Just the same attitude in which she had found him! But she knew that his distress was deeper. Despair and forlornness succeeded to anger and fear; and, on the top of them, the poor boy accused himself of disloyalty to his house, to his cousin, to herself. He saw himself a blackguard as well as a fool.

She could not help speaking to him once again. "God bless you, Cousin Arthur," she said very softly. But he did not move; he gave no sign of hearing her. She turned and went very quietly out of the room, leaving her poor pet in sad plight, her poor toy broken, behind her.

It was more than she had bargained for, more than she could bear! Silently and cautiously, but with swift and resolute steps, she passed along the corridor to the hall, and mounted the stairs. She was bent on shutting out the vision of Arthur from her sight.

CHAPTER XXII

PRESSING BUSINESS

Oliver Wyse had finished his letters and was smoking a last cigar before turning in. Barber had brought him whiskey and soda water, and wished him good-night, adding that, in case Sir Oliver should want anything in the night, he had put Wigram, his chauffeur, who acted as valet also when his master was on a visit, in the small room next the bathroom which Sir Oliver was to use. "He said he liked to be within hail of you, Sir Oliver."

"Wigram's been with me in a lot of queer places, Barber. He's got into the habit of expecting midnight alarms. In fact he was a sort of bodyguard to begin with; then a valet; now he's mainly a chauffeur – a very handy fellow! Well, thank you, Barber – Good-night."

The cigar was pleasant; so was the whiskey-and-soda; he felt drowsily content. The situation caused no disturbance either in his nerves or in his conscience. He was accustomed to critical positions and rather liked them; to break or to observe rules and conventions was entirely a question of expediency, to be settled as each case arose – and this case was now abundantly settled. The only real danger had lain in Bernadette herself; and she shewed no sign of wavering. He had enjoyed the comedy of her wise counsel to Arthur, though for his own part he cared little whether the boy went or stayed; if need be, it could not be difficult to put him in his place.

A low light knock came on his door. A little surprised, but fancying it must be the devoted Wigram come to have a last look at him, he called, "Come in!" Bernadette darted in and shut the door noiselessly. She held up a finger, enjoining silence, and walked quickly across the room.

He threw his cigar into the grate, and advanced to meet her, smiling. "I say – is this your 'tremendous caution'?" But then he perceived the excitement under which she laboured. "What's the matter? Anything gone wrong?"

"Yes, Arthur! He's found out! And I – somehow I couldn't deny it to him."

He smiled at her kindly and tolerantly, yet with a gentle reproof. Her courage was failing her again, it seemed. It was a good thing that he had come back to Hilsey – to keep her up to the scratch.

"Well? Did he turn nasty? Never mind, I'll quiet him. Where is he?"

"No, no, please don't go near him. He's not nasty; he's all broken up. Oliver, he says he's in love with me himself."

He smiled at that. "Coming on, the young cousin, isn't he? But I'm not much surprised, Bernadette."

"He – he's upset me dreadfully. I didn't mean it to happen like this. It's too much for me. My nerves – "

She spoke all the time in quick agitated whispers. Oliver walked to the door, turned the key, and came back to her. He took one of her hands in his. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "He has been such a friend really. He trusted me so."

"Well, I suppose he'll take your advice now – your wise advice – and pack himself off to-morrow morning. Breakfast in bed, and you needn't see him."

"Judith will guess – I know she will. Oliver, I – I can't keep it up, with you here – not even though Arthur goes. I'm afraid of Judith now – even of Godfrey!"

"I'm certainly not going to leave you here, up against it, all by yourself." She was not to be trusted alone now. She had been shewn too vividly the side of the shield which it was his task to hide from her eyes – a task to which he alone was equal. Left to herself, she might go back on the whole thing, very likely!

"Take me away from it all now, won't you?" she asked.

"What now – to-night?" His eyes lit up humorously. "Sharp work, isn't it? Rather difficult to get out of the house to-night without risking – well, encounters! And you wouldn't like that."

"Can't you think of anything? I can't stand these next few days."

He considered a moment, marshalling plans in his quick-moving mind. "Look here, can you be sure of waking up early in the morning?"

"I wish I could be half as sure of going to sleep at all!"

"Well, get up at half-past five – Your servants won't be about then? – pack what you want in a bag, leave it just inside your room, put on your things, and meet me outside the hall-door just before six. We'll go for a walk!"

"But the station? It's nearly three miles off! And there are no trains – "

"Wait, wait! My man will fetch your bag – just a little risk there, not much at that hour – hang my motor-coat over it, so that nobody can see it isn't mine, and take it round to the garage with my traps. I suppose the car'll be locked up, and he'll have to get the key from somebody. He'll say that I'm suddenly called away, that I've walked on ahead, and he's to pick me up at the east lodge. If you're seen, you're just putting me on my way, don't you see? He'll give your fellow at the garage a sovereign, and he won't be too curious!"

"Yes, yes, I see!" she whispered eagerly.

"Starting then, we can be in town in lots of time to catch the afternoon train to Boulogne. I'll wire the yacht to meet us somewhere else, instead of Southampton. Ostend, perhaps – that'd do all right. Now how does that suit you?"

Her eyes sparkled again. "Why, it's splendid!" How difficulties seemed to vanish under his sure decisive touch! It was by this gift, more than any other, that he had won and held her.

"I've managed trickier businesses than this. It's all perfectly easy, and with luck you won't be exposed to meeting any of them again."

"Thank heaven!" she murmured.

"But you'd better not stay here now. One can never be sure somebody won't come nosing about." He kissed her lightly. "Go, be quick, to your room. I'll go and wake up Wigram now, and tell him what I want; you needn't bother about him – he's absolutely reliable. Come along." He drew her across the room with him, unlocked the door and opened it. "Don't make a noise! Just before six, in the porch, remember!"

She nodded in silence and glided quickly along the passage, which was dimly lighted by a single oil lamp; Godfrey would not hear of installing modern illuminants at Hilsey. He gave her time to get to her room, and then himself went in the other direction along the corridor, and knocked on the door of the little room where the faithful and reliable Wigram slept.

He was soon back – it did not take long to make Wigram understand what was wanted of him – and sat down again at his writing-table. Some of the letters had to be re-written, for he had dated them from Hilsey, and that would not do now. He was smiling in a half-impatient amusement over women and their whims. They were so prone to expect to get all they wanted without paying the necessary price, without the little drawbacks which could not be avoided. After all, a woman couldn't reasonably expect to run away without causing a bit of a rumpus, and some little distress to somebody! It was very seldom in this world that either man or woman could get all they wanted without putting somebody else's nose out of joint; if only that were honestly acknowledged, there would be a great deal less cant talked.

He raised his head from his work and paused, with his cigar half-way to his mouth, to listen a moment to a slow heavy tread which came along the passage from the top of the stairs and stopped at a door on the opposite side, nearer to the stairs. Arthur Lisle coming to bed – he had indicated his own room in passing, when he was playing deputy-host and showing Oliver his quarters. A good thing he hadn't come up a little sooner! He might have met Bernadette coming out of a room which it was by no means the proper thing for her to have been in. Another painful encounter that would have been! Again his tolerant smile came; he was really a good-natured man; he liked Arthur and was sorry for him, even while he was amused. To-night the world was probably seeming quite at an end to that young fellow – that young fool of a fellow. Whereas, in fact, he was just at the beginning of all this sort of business!

"I suppose he wants my blood," he reflected. "That'd make him feel a lot better. But he can't have it. I'm afraid he can't, really!"

Well, Arthur's was one of the sound and primitive reasons for wanting a man's blood; nothing to quarrel with there! Only the thing would not last, of course. Quite soon it would all be a memory, a bit of experience. At least that would be so if the boy were – or managed to grow into, to let life shape him into – a sensible fellow. Many men went on being fools about women to the end. "Well, I suppose some people would say that I'm being a fool now," he added candidly. "Perhaps I am. Well, she's worth it." With a smile he finished off his work, got himself to bed briskly, and was soon asleep.

Sick at last of the dreary and musty room, Arthur had slouched miserably to bed – though he was sure that he could not sleep. He could not think either, at least hardly coherently. The ruin which had swooped down on him was too overwhelming. And so quick! All in a few hours! It seemed too great to understand, almost too great to feel. It was, as it were, a devastation, a clean sweep of all the best things in his life – his adoration for Bernadette, his loyalty to Godfrey, the affection which had gathered in his heart for these his kinsfolk, for this the home of his forefathers. A dull numb pain of the soul afflicted him, such as a man might feel in the body as he comes to consciousness after a stunning blow. The future seemed impossible to face; he did not know how to set about the task of reconstructing it. He was past anger, past resentment; he did not want Oliver Wyse's blood now. Was he not now even as Oliver, save that Oliver was successful? And Oliver owed no loyalty to the man he robbed. In the extravagance of his despair he called himself the meanest of men as well as the most miserable. "My God! my God!" he kept muttering to himself, in his hopeless miserable desolation.

But he was young and very weary, exhausted with his suffering. He had sworn to himself that sleep was impossible, but nature soon had her way with him. Yet he struggled against sleep, for on it must follow a bitter awakening.