Hugh Crichton's Romance

“Who – what – how?”

“Don’t you know?” said Clarissa Venning, who was near them. “Miss Mattei’s voice has come back. I suppose she will sing again in public; but this you know is quite in a private capacity. She was asked to come with Florence.”

Hugh looked at the programme: – “Song. – Miss Violante Mattei.”

He was just about to commit himself to a vehement exclamation of astonishment that no one had thought of telling him she was going to sing – how could they overlook such a fact? – when the old, sweet notes fell again on his ear, as lovely as ever he thought, and he listened, breathless, till they ceased amid loud applause and exclamations of admiration.

Violante smiled and curtseyed her thanks, with elaborate grace, and as no young lady amateur would have thought of doing.

“She has such pretty foreign manners,” cried a lady; and one of the young men of the house, laughing, tossed her a little bunch of flowers, and she picked it up and curtseyed again, just as she had been taught to do by old Madame Cellini, long ago in Civita Bella.

She was to sing once again, and Hugh waited in breathless expectation; but though the applause was as ardent as ever, she only acknowledged it this time by a dignified little bow, and retreated.

“Oh,” said one of the Dysarts, “someone has been telling her her pretty curtsey was not selon les règles. What a shame!”

“She is a very beautiful girl,” said Mrs Crichton, who, now that there was no need to fear Jem’s foolishness, was ready to be interested in Violante.

“Yes,” said Clarissa. “She is too fine a bird for us, which is a pity, as she is a nice little thing; and never so happy as when she is playing with the little ones. Ah, here she comes!”

Violante came up to Clarissa, without immediately perceiving her companions.

“Miss Clarissa, Miss Florence says they are going to dance. May we stay a little longer?”

“No one could think of carrying you away, Miss Mattei,” said Mr Dysart. “Pray, let me thank you for your songs. And, of course, Miss Venning, you are not thinking of stirring yet? Let me find you a partner.”

“Thank you, I am acting chaperone. You may stay if Florence likes, Violante. I think you have not seen Mrs Crichton?”

“Let me thank you for your sweet music, my dear,” said Mrs Crichton, in her kind way. “I think it was my other son you knew in Italy?”

“Mother, you mistake. It was I. I knew Mademoiselle Mattei once.” And Hugh started forward and held out his hand, imploringly. Violante put hers into it; but she stood passive and still.

“You were not so gracious, Miss Mattei, when we applauded you the second time,” said young Mr Dysart.

“I saw that the young ladies did not curtsey, signor,” said Violante, simply; “but I thank you for listening to me.”

As she spoke the lights flashed up and revealed her standing, facing Hugh, with a sort of desperate self-possession, as the first notes of the dance-music sounded.

“Mr Crichton, I think you don’t dance. Miss Mattei, will you give me this waltz?” said another Dysart, approaching.

Violante was no coquette, but she was a woman, and her pride had been hurt by Hugh’s neglect. So she smiled graciously, and moved away as Florence joined them, before Hugh could get out a somewhat undignified and hurried declaration that he did dance – sometimes.

“We must only stay for three dances, Flossy,” said Clarissa.

But Violante had promised the three dances before she had left their side five minutes; and Hugh returned home, with the discovery that he was not the only man of taste in the world, and the firm conviction that Violante was wholly indifferent to him. It is also remarkable that at the same time he forgot entirely all the excellent arguments by which he had endeavoured to render himself indifferent to her.

Part 6, Chapter XLVII

Thunder-Showers

“But whither would my fancy go?How out of place she makesThe violet of a legend blowAmong the chops and steaks!”

After Mrs Dysart’s party there ensued a fortnight of intensely hot weather; so close and sultry that it wore a shade or two of pink even off Flossy’s rosy cheeks and accounted partly for Violante’s demeanour being unusually languid and distraite.

Mrs Crichton had gone to London to superintend some of James’ preparations and Frederica had been left at Oxley Manor, so nothing, of course, was heard there of the young men at the Bank House. It seemed to poor Flossy as if, with the discovery of her new feelings for Arthur their old intercourse had vanished away, for on his removal to Redhurst, she ceased to see him, and she could not feel that she counted for anything in his life. Thus separated from him, she felt with and for him every pang of memory and association more keenly than he always felt them for himself.

Poor Flossy! To have given her affection not only without thought of return, but to one lying under such a heavy cloud of trouble, was enough to tame her exuberant brightness; and her lessons lost their liveliness, her own occupations their interest. Miss Venning might have seen that something was amiss; but she was greatly occupied in receiving the two little sons of the brother just older than Clarissa, who had been settled in India for some time; and, if she thought Flossy looking pale, merely suggested a holiday visit to the eldest brother, who was a Lancashire clergyman, or observed that the care of the little boys would make a nice change for her. Flossy was too young to have had much home intercourse with any of her brothers, and not just then in the humour to take up with anything new.

But Clarissa had never been so fond of anyone as of the brother Walter, whose youthful scrapes and youthful interests had all been confided to her ear, and whose departure for India had been the great grief of her girlhood.

“What a blessing they’re not girls!” was her comment on the letter announcing their arrival.

“Indeed!” said Miss Venning. “It would be easier to do for them here if they were.”

“Oh, I daresay they’ll fit in,” said Clarissa. “We want a little change.”

And she went herself to Southampton to fetch them, and took them silently under her special protection, making exquisite and ever-varying grimaces for their amusement and jealous of the character of their favourite aunt. Miss Venning was glad that the children were so well provided for, and Flossy perceived that Clarissa had at last found an interest in life.

One sultry afternoon early in July Flossy, with Violante and two or three elder girls, had been to a lecture which had been held in Oxley by some celebrated personage. Miss Venning had taken the opportunity of paying a visit and had desired them to meet her at a certain shop in the town. As they crossed the marketplace ominous sounds were heard and heavy drops began to fall.

“We’re going to have a thunderstorm,” said Flossy, looking up at the bank of heavy clouds that was rolling up.

“Oh, Miss Florence, what shall we do?” said Violante, rather timidly.

“My new hat!” exclaimed one girl.

“It’s going to pour,” said another.

“We must run across to the station,” said Flossy, “or down to Cooper’s, as my sister said.”

As they stood for a moment hesitating which way to turn, they were suddenly accosted.

“Flossy! There’s going to be a great storm. Come in with me. You will all be wet through,” and Arthur hurried up to them.

“The station – Mary,” murmured Flossy.

“The station? Nonsense! you’ll all be drenched. I’ll send after Miss Venning. Come, Flossy, don’t drown your flock from a sense of propriety. I’m sure Mademoiselle Mattei doesn’t like thunder.”

The gay voice, the familiar address, chased away half Flossy’s fears and sentiments. She laughed and yielded, and they hurried through the plashing rain-drops across the road and into the Bank House – unknown ground to them all.

“Come upstairs,” said Arthur, and he led the way into his grandmother’s drawing-room, into which for the sake of coolness he had lately penetrated.

The delighted school-girls gathered into a knot, smiling and whispering. Violante glanced round, as in sacred precincts, and Arthur, pointing to the lashing rain, laughed boyishly.

“Here you are, fairly caught in the ogre’s castle. What shall I do – shall I have up Mrs Stedman?”

“Don’t be so absurd,” said Flossy, aside. “What will the girls think of you?”

“No? Then I’ll try to be polite. Isn’t this a quaint room, Miss Mattei?”

It was a long room with three high windows, looking over the garden, against which the rain was beating violently. Everything was slender, prim, and pale-coloured. Old-fashioned prints hung on the walls, on the paper of which long-tailed birds drank out of wonderful vases. Old china was varied by wax flowers and queer little bits of fancy work. Elaborate wool-work chairs were preserved with tight-fitting muslin covers. Arthur made Violante sit down in a tall straight-backed one; he opened a cabinet of curiosities for the amusement of the girls, and was just beginning: “I don’t know when I’ve seen you, Flossy,” when the door opened and Hugh walked in, to find the stiff grandmotherly chamber full of laughing, summer-clothed girls, and in the centre, soft and smiling, Violante herself.

“Hugh looks like a man who has ridden into a fairy ring,” said Arthur, as his cousin paused in utter surprise.

Hugh made a few polite speeches, Flossy some rather hurried explanations, and then their host fell silent, till, after a minute or two, he said, gravely:

“Arthur, don’t you think we could give these young ladies some tea?”

“To be sure. I’ll go and see what can be produced.”

“Arthur has made the house quite habitable,” said Hugh to Flossy.

“He looks much better than when I saw him last.”

“Yes, I think he is better; but he has felt the hot weather, and he always turns the brightest side up, you know.”

Hugh’s affectionate tone turned up quite a new side of himself to Flossy; but Violante recognised the familiar accents which she had missed so sorely at first. He did not speak a word to her; but her heart was beating, she felt intensely happy.

Arthur presently reappeared, followed by Mrs Stedman, with preparations for tea and such a plentiful supply of cakes of all descriptions as Flossy suspected had cost the office-boy a wetting to obtain from the neighbouring pastry-cook’s. The girls were in a state of blissful delight. Was there ever such a fortunate thunder-shower? and, perhaps, their young teachers were not far from the same opinion.

“I’m afraid it’s going to clear up,” whispered one of the younger ones.

“There’s not a chance of it,” said Arthur, gravely. “It’s going to pour for an hour yet.” But struggling sunbeams began to force their way through the clouds and to dance on the rain-drops. Arthur flung up the window and a great rainbow was arching over the sky, while trees, grass, and flowers were brilliant with reflected light.

It had cleared up, and Miss Venning made her appearance in her friend’s waterproof cloak, with —

“Well, young ladies, I need not have been anxious about your getting wet!”

“You’re just in time to have some tea, Miss Venning,” said Arthur. “They were just getting wet through when I met them.”

Miss Venning drank her tea, and carried off her flock; but, though no one had exchanged a word in private, somehow that tea-drinking had left three people much happier than it found them.

It seemed to have restored to Flossy a natural intercourse with Arthur, and to have brought his real self before her again; while to Violante it had restored the gentle, smiling Signor Hugo of last year. The effect on Hugh was less definite, but it was long since he had laughed so much as at Arthur’s account of his finding the girls hesitating and wondering in the fast-coming rain.

He was engaged the next morning for some time by a meeting at which the plans for the gas-works, which had been invested with so incongruous an interest, and the plans for the new railway were brought forward and discussed, and it was with a very grave face that he came back to Arthur with some papers in his hand.

“Look, Arthur,” he said. “I must show you what has been proposed about this railroad. You know they want to connect Fordham and Oxley, and the line proposed would cut right through the Ashenfold woods and along the bed of the canal (which would not be worth keeping up if there was a railroad), and keep by the bank of the river up to the ‘Pot of Lilies’ and then strike across the heath to Fordham. Redhurst would have a station somewhere down by the lock. This is much the most direct line; but it is possible that they might take one round at the back of the woods, and as the property nearly all belongs to my mother we might, perhaps, get it adopted. I want to know how it strikes you.”

Hugh made this long, business-like explanation without pausing, and now he drew the plan forward and pointed out the proposed route.

“It shall not be done if you mind it very much,” he said, vehemently, as there was no answer.

“Does Aunt Lily know?” said Arthur.

“Yes. She is not unwilling. I would not have it talked of till it was necessary to tell you about it.”

“I remember it was talked of once before. We thought it dreadful destruction; but you said then that a good many local interests were involved in it, that it would be a good thing for the place, and that it would be a very unpopular act to oppose it.”

“I don’t care a straw about the unpopularity,” said Hugh.

“What, when you know you’re the Member of the future? No, Hugh; what reason could you give for opposing it? Don’t vex yourself about me. Why should one cling to the mere empty shell of things? To oppose a real public advantage for – for our feelings. It would just be ridiculous, and can’t be done. You would be the first to say so.”

This was perfectly true; yet Hugh could as little bear to hear the effort in Arthur’s voice as if he had not been a sensible, clearheaded man of business, who scorned the notion of acting on sentimental motives. For his own part the removal of all these haunted places was a positive relief; but he knew that to Arthur it was like rifling a grave.

“When is this likely to be carried out?” said Arthur, presently.

“Why, very soon – if they get it through Parliament before the end of the session. To-day is the fifteenth of July – ”

Arthur started up and walked away to the window. Was the fate of the poor old “Pot of Lilies” to be sealed on the very day of the year when, with such mirth and merry-making, they had agreed to revisit it and renew their innocent little celebration; to live over once more the hours that had been so cloudless and so gay? Ah, never, never again!

There came over Arthur one of those agonies of regret that were worse to bear than any nervous horror, even than the daily loneliness to which he was trying to grow accustomed. He seemed to feel again Mysie’s little hand in his; to see her sweet round eyes looking into his own. The air was sweet again with summer fragrance; the sun shone hot and clear in as blue a sky; but that hand – those eyes – He hurried away, and Hugh dared not follow him, and, having no mental picture of the daily events of the past summer till it had broken up into storm and misery, could not tell what had affected him so strongly.

He could only try to be doubly tender and considerate, and, as soon as he thought Arthur could bear any discussion about himself, suggested that they should go together for a little trip to North Wales. He had not been away himself for more than a year, and could easily contrive to take the holiday. His mother, he knew, meant to go to the sea almost immediately; so Redhurst would be shut up, and Oxley was too hot and dusty in August to be endurable. Arthur acquiesced, rather languidly, but as if he knew it was right.

“Jem asked me if I would like to take a last bachelor trip with him; but I should have known all the time that his heart was elsewhere,” he said.

“You will not think I want to be anywhere else,” said Hugh, and, perhaps, just at that time he hardly did.

The trip prospered. Arthur was fond of travelling and clever in contriving plans for it. He was grave and quiet as Hugh had never known him, with fewer ups and downs of spirits, and seemed to be losing the boyishness that had clung to him so obstinately; and so the dreaded days drew near, with nothing whatever to mark their coming, and the first Sunday in August dawned damp and grey over heathery hills and mossy valleys. They were at a place where there was no English service. Arthur went to hear the Welsh one, and Hugh wandered about, anxious and wretched, and yet with his mind perversely filled with hopeful visions of Violante. He would have liked to make this a day of penance, but whenever he let his mind loose, as it were, it sprang back like an elastic band to the image that daily filled it more and more.

“It has not been at all a bad day, Hugh,” said Arthur, gently, as they parted for the night. “I am glad we came here. To-morrow, if you will, we’ll go for a long walk somewhere.”

And so they spent that Monday, so full of memories – though, of course, the Tuesday was the real anniversary of Mysie’s death – beneath cool, dull skies, over hill-sides half shrouded in mountain mists, heather and furze for roses and carnations, cloud for sunshine, wild lonely solitudes for homely quiet. They did not talk very much; but the day had none of the terror that Hugh had anticipated from it. Rather it had a kind of sorrowful peace.

In the afternoon the mist thickened into heavy rain; and, as they approached a small wayside public-house, Hugh suggested that they should take shelter; find out exactly where they were, and if there was any chance of a conveyance to Beddgelert, where they had ordered their luggage to meet them. They had been walking all day, and if their object had been to look at the scenery, instead of to find some monotonous occupation, would have been much disappointed.

Accordingly they turned into the little inn, and while Hugh went to enquire of an English-speaking host as to the possibility of reaching Beddgelert, Arthur, who had picked up a few words of Welsh, and generally contrived to make himself understood, was engaged in a lively pantomime with the tall, dark-eyed girl who waited on them, making her laugh and talk volubly and incomprehensibly, as he tried to indicate that he wanted something; hot to drink, and something substantial to eat. There was no guest-room but the low, spacious kitchen into which they had first entered, and he was standing before the smouldering peat fire and pointing with animated gestures first to the bottle and then to his flask when the house door was burst open, and a whole party of tourists, struggling with wind, water-proofs and umbrellas, ran hastily in. There were three ladies and two gentlemen, and they were too much occupied in shaking themselves free from their wraps to perceive Arthur, till Hugh came back, saying: “There’s nothing to be got here, Arthur,” when a young lady, letting her waterproof drop on the floor, sprang forward. “Why, it’s Mr Spencer Crichton! How d’ye do? – oh, how funny! Charlie, Charlie, here’s Mr Crichton!”

“Miss Tollemache!” exclaimed Hugh, in equal surprise, as Emily Tollemache, bright-haired, frank-faced, and smiling, stood confused, while her brother came forward with —

“Why, Crichton, who in the world would have thought of meeting you here?”

One or two letters had passed between Hugh and Mr Tollemache since their parting; but with no reference to the past, the restraint of which had caused each to be less inclined to seek out the other, and Arthur, as Hugh made a sort of introduction of his friends, could not fail to be struck by his look of embarrassment. Emily, however, was equal to the occasion.

“So, you see, Mr Crichton, we have come to England, and I do like it so much, quite as much as I expected. Mamma is in London, and we are travelling with my cousins, only it has rained every day since we came here.”

“Our climate certainly is variable,” said Hugh.

“I am afraid you must regret Italian sunshine, Miss Tollemache,” put in Arthur, as he tried to kick the peats into a blaze.

“Oh, no! not yet. But it seems quite natural to see Mr Crichton. And you know we went away and I have never seen Rosa or my dear Violante. I wonder what has become of them!”

“I can tell you that,” said Hugh, and Arthur saw Mr Tollemache turn and look at him with an involuntary start; while Hugh grew crimson, as he continued: “They came to England, and she went, by chance, to school at Oxley.”

“How strange! Do you ever see her? Oh, what a lovely, dear creature she was when we all went to the classes together! Did you ever see her?” to Arthur – “Couldn’t I find her out?”

Arthur answered with a few words of explanation as to Violante’s present circumstances, but he felt as if he were finding the explanation of all sorts of trifles which he had thought strange, but had been too much preoccupied to reason about.

“Mamma wants me to go to school,” said Emily, “and, though I consider myself much too old, I should like to go to school with Violante.”

Here Mr Tollemache changed the conversation decidedly, and Hugh said aside to Arthur:

“This is very unlucky! That we should have encountered all these people! Cannot we get away?”

Arthur glanced expressively at the window, against which the mountain-rain was beating almost in sheets of water.

“It cannot be helped,” he said, “and I do not mind it.”

He had only meant to reassure Hugh’s anxiety for him; but he was surprised at the colour and hurry with which Hugh disclaimed minding it on his own account. So they were obliged to stay and eat fried ham and eggs together; and Arthur, by cultivating Miss Tollemache’s acquaintance discovered a good deal that was new about Hugh’s visit to Civita Bella, and by the time their meal was over the clouds had lifted, and the Tollemaches’ carriage, which they had left some two or three miles behind them for the sake of the mountain walk, came in search of them. Hugh and Arthur found that they were only five or six miles from Beddgelert; and after Hugh had extorted from himself an invitation to the Tollemaches to come to Redhurst, which he was sure that his mother would follow up, and had parted cordially with his friends, they set forth on their walk once more alone together.

Part 6, Chapter XLVIII

The Meeting of the Waters

“And the brooklet has found the billow,Though they flowed so far apart,And has filled with its passionate sweetnessThat turbulent, bitter heart.”

The heavy walls of mist slowly lifted themselves, and the purple mountain-sides showed dark and close at hand. The passionate rush of the mountain torrents sounded full and free after the violent rain, and their foam showed white against the grass and heather, ready to dance in the first rays of returning sunshine. Arthur and Hugh walked on for some distance in silence – a silence that confirmed Arthur’s suspicions. It was so strange a revelation, so much in contrast with his life-long surface knowledge of Hugh’s character, that he hesitated to believe it. Yet all Violante’s looks and sayings, which he had understood as referring to Vasari, were now, he perceived, capable of another interpretation. He now recollected his impression that there had been something amiss with Hugh on his first return from Italy, the passing thought that had flashed across him when he had seen them together at the primrose-picking; Violante’s wish to go to England, and her content when she found herself there; and, more than all, Hugh’s flushed, agitated look as he walked on now beside him.

“Hugh,” said Arthur, with sudden courage, “I think I have found the clue to a great deal that has puzzled me. I thought it was the manager-lover for whom Violante was fretting at Caletto. I think now – ”

“What do you mean? Fretting? You told me it was Vasari – you confirmed all my suspicions. Tell me the real truth, what was it?” cried Hugh, stopping suddenly, and facing round upon him.

“I made mischief, I am afraid,” said Arthur, “but I had a preconceived idea. I see now that her hints and her little sorrowful ways were on your account only. How could I guess you had anything to do with her?”

“Don’t laugh at me!” cried Hugh, fiercely.

“I don’t want to laugh. I want you to tell me the whole story.”