A Change of Air

"I'm sure she deserves it all."

"Aye, that she does: she deserves all Dale Bannister can do for her."

Philip scented danger in this topic, and changed the subject.

"When are we to see her?" he asked.

"In a day or two, I expect. She's much better this morning. She's asked to see the papers, and I'm going to take her the Chronicle."

"How delightful to read of one's heroic actions! I have never enjoyed the sensation."

"Nor ever will, young man, if you spend all your time loafing," said Mrs. Hodge incisively.

"Well, there must be some ordinary people," protested Philip. "The rôle is unappreciated, so it's the more creditable in me to stick to it."

"A parcel of nonsense! Where's that paper?"

She took it, went upstairs, and gave it to Nellie.

"There, read that. See what they say about you, my dearie. I'm going to see little Roberts, and I shall be back in an hour. You've got the bell by you, and the nurse'll hear you."

Nellie, left alone, began to read the Chronicle. She read the whole account from beginning to end, the article in praise of her, and, in the later edition, the editor's romantic forecast. Then she put the papers aside, exclaiming: "Oh, if it could be true!" and lay back with closed eyes.

A few days later she made her first appearance in the drawing room, where she held a little court. Her mother hung over all, anticipating far more wants than the patient was likely to feel, and by constant anxious questions almost producing the fatigue she wished to guard against. Tora Smith was there, in a state of gleeful adoration; and Arthur Angell, his sorrows temporarily laid aside, ready with a mock heroic ode; and Philip Hume, new come from Mrs. Roberts' with good news and a high eulogy on Dr. Spink's most marked and assiduous attention.

"I really believe," he said, with a laugh, "that Mrs. Roberts will have another chance of being a Denborough doctor's wife, if she likes."

"That would be an ideal ending," said Tora.

"Therefore it will not happen," Arthur remarked.

"Poets are allowed to be pessimistic," rejoined Tora. "But you're wrong, Mr. Angell. Ideal things do happen."

"To Sir Harry Fulmer, for instance," put in Philip.

"Nonsense, Mr. Hume! I wasn't thinking of that. Don't you agree with me, Nellie?"

"Nellie has made an ideal thing happen," said Philip, and Nellie blushed.

"Thanks, Phil," said Dale. "It's complimentary to describe the prolongation of my poor existence in that way."

"The deed is good, however unworthy the object, Dale."

Dale took Nellie's hand and patted it gently.

"Good child," he said, and Nellie flushed again with an almost strange intensity of embarrassment. Tora rose abruptly, and, in spite of opposition, insisted on departure. Dale escorted her to her carriage.

"I have asked Nellie to come and stay with me," said she, "as soon as she is well enough to move."

"She will like that. I hope she is going?"

"She said," Tora went on, speaking with emphasis, "that she would ask you."

Dale made a little gesture of protest, partly against Nellie's reported saying, more against the reporter's inquiring gaze. He began to be astonished at the interest he was so unfortunate as to inspire in his affairs.

"I shall advise her to go," he said. "I think a change will be good for her."

"I incline to think so too," said Tora with sudden coldness; "but I thought you might not like to part with her."

"Mount Pleasant is not inaccessible," responded Dale with equal coldness. Returning to the house, he found Nellie gone, the company dispersed, and Mrs. Hodge in his smoking room, apparently expecting him.

"Well, mother," he said, – he had used to call her "mother" when he was always running in and out of her house in London, – "Nellie looks quite blooming."

"She's mending nicely."

"I hear she's to go to the Smiths'."

"Well, I thought of taking her to Brighton."

"Oh, it will be more amusing at the Smiths'; unless, of course, she needs the sea."

"She thought, or I thought rather, that you might like to come with us for a while?" said Mrs. Hodge in a tentative tone.

"I can't get away," answered Dale decisively. Nothing would have taken him away from the Grange gates.

Mrs. Hodge took her courage in both hands.

"Look here, Dale," she said. "You know I'm not one of those women that lay hold of a man if he as much as looks at a girl, and asks him what he means by it. That's not my way. Hodge used to say girls could take care of themselves mostly – p'r'aps he wasn't far out. But Nellie's not that sort, and her father's gone, good man, and – " and the excellent lady came to a full stop.

Dale loved this honest old woman for long acquaintance' sake and much kindness. He laid his hand on her shoulder and said:

"It's a sad world, mother."

"The child's fond of you, Dale. She's shown that."

"I'm a crossed lover too, mother. We can only weep together."

"What, you mean that Grange girl?" asked Mrs. Hodge, her love for her own making her tone tart.

"Yes, that Grange girl," answered Dale, with a rueful smile. "And just at present that Grange girl won't have anything to say to me."

Mrs. Hodge pressed his hand and whispered:

"Don't you tell Nellie what I say, but let her go, dearie, and take my girl. She's sick for you, Dale, though she'd kill me if she heard me say it."

"Aye, but I'm sick for the Grange girl, mother."

"You don't take it ill of me, Dale? But there! a kind word from you is more than the doctors to her. She'd say nothing of what she's done, and I say nothing, but she's a good girl, and a pretty girl."

"That she is, and she deserves a better man than I am."

"Well, there it is! Talking mends no holes," said Mrs. Hodge, with a heavy sigh. Then she added, in an outburst of impatience:

"Why did you ever come to this miserable little place?"

Dale raised inquiring hands to heaven and shrugged his shoulders.

"What they call fate, mother," said he. "Come, cheer up. She'll get over this little idea. She'll be all right."

"Please God," said Mrs. Hodge. "It's time for her beef-tea."

The phrase Please God is as a rule expressive of the speaker's desire, but not of his expectation. So it was with Mrs. Hodge, but Dale could not bring himself to take so gloomy a view. A man's own passion assumes a most imposing appearance of permanence, but he finds it easy to look with incredulity on a like assumption in the feelings of others. He had keen sympathy for Nellie in the moment or the period of pain which seemed to lie before her, but experience told him that all probabilities were in favor of her escaping from it at no distant time. Love like his for Janet – and, till this unhappy day, he would have added, Janet's for him – was exceptional; change, recovery, oblivion – these were the rule, the happy rule whose operation smoothed love's rough ways.

Nevertheless, be this wide philosophical view as just as it might, the present position came nigh to being intolerable, and it was hard to blame him if he looked forward to Nellie's departure with relief. Her presence accused him of cruelty, for it seems cruel to refuse what would give happiness, and it increased every day it continued the misunderstanding which already existed as to their future relations. Even now, in spite of Janet's protest, Dale was convinced he had detected an undercurrent of jealousy, flowing in to re-enforce the stream of that higher, but stranger and wilder, feeling which had made her drive him away. If she heard that Nellie remained at his house, and what conclusion was universally drawn from the fact, he was afraid that, when restored health carried away the morbid idea which was now most prominent, the jealousy might remain, and, if it did, Janet's proud nature was ground on which it would bear fruit bitter for him to taste.

He could not and did not for a moment blame Mrs. Hodge for her action. It was the natural outcome of her love, and she had performed her difficult task, as it seemed to him, with a perfect observance of all the essential marks of good breeding, however homely her method had been. But she could not understand even his love for Janet, much less another feeling in him, which aided to make her intercession vain. For he did not deny now that, besides the joy he had in Janet as a woman merely, there was also the satisfaction he derived from the fact that she was Miss Delane of Dirkham Grange. Fools and would-be cynics might dismiss this as snobbery; but Dale told himself that he was right and wise in clinging to the place in this new world which his sojourn at Denborough had opened to him, and which a marriage with Janet would secure for him in perpetuity. Setting aside altogether questions of sentiment, he felt it useless not to recognize that, if he married Nellie Fane, he would drift back into his old world, the gates would close again, and the fresh realms of life and experience, which had delighted his taste and stimulated his genius, would be his to wander in no more. He had grown to love this world, this old world so new to him; and he loved Janet not least because all about her, her face, her speech, her motions, her every air, were redolent to him of its assured distinction and unboastful pride. Nay, even these fantastic scruples of hers were but a distortion of a noble instinct born in her blood, and witnessed to a nature and qualities that he could look for only in the shade of some such place as Dirkham Grange. He felt as if he too belonged to her race, and had been all his life an exile from his native land, whither at last a happy chance had led back his wandering feet. What would dear old Mother Hodge understand of all that? What even would Nellie herself, for all her ready sympathies? It was a feeling that, not vulgar in itself, seemed to become vulgar in the telling; and, after all, he had no need of other justification than his love and his pledged word.

He looked out of the window and saw Arthur Angell walking moodily up and down. Putting on his hat, he joined him, passing his arm through his. Arthur turned to him with a petulant look.

"A lot of miserables we are, old boy," said Dale, pressing the arm he held. "I am often tempted to regret, Arthur, that the state has not charged itself with the control of marriages. It would relieve us all of a large amount of trouble, and I really don't see that it would hurt anyone except novelists. I am feeling badly in need of a benevolent despotism."

"I'm going back to town," Arthur announced abruptly.

"I'm very sorry. But I don't know that it's any use asking you to stay. Nellie goes to the Smiths' in a day or two – "

"It makes no difference to me where she goes," interrupted the unhappy young man. "I – I mean – "

"I know what you mean."

Philip came up, and glanced keenly at Arthur. Then he smiled good-humoredly and said:

"Shall I prophesy unto you?"

"No," said Arthur. "I know you're going to say it'll be all the same six months hence."

"I was. I can't deny it, Arthur. You forget that I have seen you like this many times before. We may have a tragedy or we may not, Arthur, but I shall take leave to eliminate you from the cast."

"I'm going to pack," said Arthur angrily, and he went into the house.

"When there are real troubles about," said Philip, "it is well to clear the ground. There's not much the matter with him."

"I think he feels it rather, you know."

"Oh, yes; it's worth a set of verses."

"I'm glad to hear it's no worse; for, to tell you the truth, Phil, there's enough to worry about without Arthur. I'm glad our party is breaking up."

"Why?"

"We know too much about one another to live together comfortably."

"True. Shall I go?"

"No," said Dale, with a smile; "you may stay and keep watch over the razors."

CHAPTER XXV.

The Scene of the Outrage

The excitement and bustle which attended and followed on the attempted murder, the suicide, the inquest, the illnesses, and the true and false reports concerning each and all of these incidents, had hardly subsided before the Mayor of Market Denborough, with the perseverance that distinguished him, began once more to give his attention to the royal visit. For reasons which will be apparent to all who study the manner in which one man becomes a knight while another remains unhonored, the Mayor was particularly anxious that the Institute should not lose the éclat which the Duke of Mercia had promised to bestow on its opening, and that its opening should take place during his mayoralty.

The finger of fame pointed at Mr. Maggs the horse-dealer as Mr. Hedger's successor, and the idea of the waters of the fountain of honor flowing on to the head of Maggs, instead of on to his own, spurred the Mayor to keen exertion. He had interviews with the Squire, he wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, he promoted a petition from the burgesses, and he carried a resolution in the Town Council. Mr. Delane was prevailed upon to use his influence with the Lord Lieutenant; the Lord Lieutenant could not, in view of Mr. Delane's urgent appeal, refuse to lay the question before his Royal Highness; and his Royal Highness was graciously pleased to say that he could not deny himself the pleasure of obliging Lord Cransford, knowing not that he was in fact and in truth, if it may be spoken without lèse-majesté, merely an instrument in the clever fingers of a gentleman who, when the Prince was writing his reply, was rolling pills in the parlor behind his shop in the town of Market Denborough.

Now, Colonel Smith had never concealed his opinion that, however much evil that unhappy man James Roberts had to answer for, yet he deserved a scrap of grateful memory, inasmuch as he had by his action averted the calamity that was threatening the town, and, furthermore, robbed Dale Bannister of the chance of prostituting his genius. Accordingly, when it was announced in the Standard, three or four weeks after James Roberts had shot at Dale Bannister and wounded Nellie Fane, that the Duke had given a conditional promise to pay his deferred visit in June, the Colonel laid down the paper and said to the rest of the breakfast party at Mount Pleasant – and the Colonel must bear the responsibility for the terms he thought proper to employ:

"That old fool Cransford has nobbled the whippersnapper again! We're to have him after all! Good Lord!"

Tora at once appreciated his meaning.

"Papa means the Prince is coming, Nellie!" cried she. "How splendid!"

"Bannister will have a chance of blacking his boots now," pursued the Colonel, trying to impose a malignant sneer on his obstinately kindly countenance.

"You are not to say such things," said Nellie emphatically. "You know you don't mean them."

"Not mean them?" exclaimed the Colonel.

"No. You're not horrid, and it's no use trying to make yourself horrid. Is it, Tora?"

Tora's thoughts were far away.

"In June," she said meditatively. "I hope it won't be the first week, or we shall have to come back early."

The Colonel's face expressed concentrated scorn.

"You would cut short your honeymoon in order to come back?"

"Of course, dear. I wouldn't miss it. Oh, and, Nellie, I shall go in next after Lady Cransford!"

This was too much for the Colonel; he said nothing himself, but his joy was great when Sir Harry pointed out that Mrs. Hedger would have official precedence over the new Lady Fulmer. The Colonel chuckled, and Tora pretended that she had remembered about Mrs. Hedger all the time.

"Johnstone will probably take you in, Tora," said Sir Harry, who had lately found himself able to treat Tora with less fearful respect.

"I don't care. I shall talk to the Prince. Now, Nellie, you must come down for it."

Nellie would not give any promise, and Tora forbore to press her, for she confessed to herself and to Sir Harry that she did not quite understand the position of affairs. Janet Delane remained in strict seclusion; doctor's orders were alleged, but Tora was inclined to be skeptical, for she had seen Janet out driving, and reported that she looked strong and well. Dale was at Littlehill, and he was there alone, Philip having gone back to London with Arthur Angell. He often came over to Mount Pleasant, to see Nellie, no doubt; and when he came, he was most attentive and kind to her. Yet he resolutely refused to stay in the house, always returning in an hour or two to his solitary life at Littlehill. He seemed never to see Janet, and to know not much more about her than the rest of the world did. He never referred to her unquestioned, and when he spoke of Nellie's share in the scene in the garden, he appeared pointedly to avoid discussing Janet's. Tora concluded that there was some break in his relations with Janet, and, led on by her sympathies, had small difficulty in persuading herself that he was by degrees being induced by affection and gratitude to feel toward Nellie as everybody expected and wished him to feel. Only, if so, it was hard to see why Nellie's pleasure in his visits seemed mingled with a nervousness which the increased brightness of her prospects did not allay. Evidently she also was puzzled by Janet's conduct; and it was equally clear that she did not yet feel confident that Dale had renounced his fancy for Janet and given his heart to her.

In after-days Dale was wont to declare that the fortnight he passed alone at Littlehill was the most miserable in his life, and people given to improving the occasion would then tell him that he had no experience of what real misery was. Yet he was very miserable. He was sore to the heart at Janet's treatment of him; she would neither see him, nor, till he absolutely insisted, write to him, and then she sent three words: "It's no use." In face of this incredible delusion of hers he felt himself helpless; and the Squire, with all the good will in the world to him, could only shrug his shoulders and say that Jan was a strange girl; while Mrs. Delane, knowing nothing of the cause of her daughter's refusal to see Dale, had once again begun to revive her old hopes, and allowed herself to hint at them to her favorite Gerard Ripley. Of course this latter fact was not known to Dale, but he was aware that Captain Ripley had called two or three times at the Grange, and had seen Janet once. The "doctor's orders" applied, it seemed, to him alone; and his bitterness of heart increased, mingling with growing impatience and resentment. Nellie could never have acted like this: she was too kind and gentle; love was real in her, a mastering power, and not itself the plaything of fantastic scruples – unless a worse thing were true, unless the scruples themselves were the screen of some unlooked-for and sudden infidelity of heart. The thought was treason, but he could not stifle it. Yet, even while it possessed him, while he told himself that he had now full right to transfer his allegiance, that no one could blame him, that every motive urged him, all the while in his inmost mind he never lost the knowledge that it was Janet he wanted; and when he came to see Nellie, he was unable, even if he had been willing – and he told himself he was – to say anything but words of friendship and thanks, unable to frame a sentence distantly approaching the phrases of love he knew she longed to hear.

Matters were in this very unsatisfactory condition when Philip Hume returned to Littlehill, and straightway became the unwilling recipient of Dale's troubled confidences. A fortnight's solitude had been too much for Dale, and he poured out his perplexities, saying, with an apologetic laugh:

"I'm bound to tell someone. I believe, if you hadn't come, I should have made a clean breast of it to the Mayor."

"You might do worse. The Mayor is a man of sagacity. This young woman seems very unreasonable."

"What young woman?"

"Why, Miss Delane."

"Well, Phil, you must allow for the delicacy of her – "

"You called it infernal nonsense yourself just now."

"I wish, Phil, you'd call at the Grange and see her, and tell me what you think about her."

"I can't do any good, but I'll go, if you like."

Accordingly he went, and did, as he expected, no good at all. Janet had resumed her ordinary manner, with an additional touch or two of vivacity and loquaciousness, which betrayed the uneasiness they were meant to hide. The only subjects she discussed were the last new novel and Tora Smith's wedding, and Philip took his leave, entirely unenlightened. The Squire offered to walk part of the way with him and they set out together.

The Squire stopped at the scene of the disaster. Pointing with his toe to a spot by the side of the drive:

"That's where that mad wretch stood, holding my poor girl," he said.

Philip nodded.

"And where was Dale?" he asked, for it was his first visit to the spot.

The Squire was delighted to be cicerone.

"He was standing with his back to that tree yonder, about fifteen yards off, looking due north, toward the house, thinking of a poem or some nonsense, I suppose."

"I shouldn't wonder."

"Well, then," pursued the Squire, "you see he was almost in a straight line with Roberts – Roberts' barrel must have pointed straight toward Denborough church spire. After the first shot Bannister sprang forward – the gravel was soft, and we saw every footprint – to where Miss Fane fell, and – "

"Where did she fall?"

The Squire's toe indicated a spot about three yards from the tree.

"She was running up from behind Bannister, you know, and had just got across the line of fire when the bullet caught her. She fell forward on her face, – she was bound to, Spink said, from the way she was hit, – and Bannister just got his arm under her, to break her fall."

"She was running toward him, I suppose, to warn him?"

"To get between him and Roberts, like the noble girl she is, no doubt; but she seemed to have turned round on hearing the shot, because, to judge from the way she was lying, she was, at the moment she fell, heading almost south."

"What, toward the house?"

"Yes, in a slanting line, from the tree toward the house."

"That's away from Bannister?"

"Yes, and from Roberts too. You see, she must have turned. It was a fine thing. Well, I must get back; I'm busy with all the preparations for this affair. Good-day, Mr. Hume. Very kind of you to come and see us."

"I'm so glad to find Miss Delane better."

"Yes, she's better, thanks, but not herself yet, by any means. Good-day."

Philip went home, lit a pipe, and drew a neat little plan of the scene which had just been so carefully described to him. By the time the drawing was made the pipe was finished, and he was obliged to light another, which he consumed while he sat gazing at his handiwork. He was still pondering over it when Dale came in, and flung himself into an armchair with a restless sigh.

"What's up now?" asked Philip.

"Only that I'm the most miserable dog alive. I tell you what, Phil, I'm going to settle this affair one way or the other. I won't be played with any more. I shall go up to the Grange to-morrow."

"You can't – it's Fulmer's wedding."

"Hang his wedding! Well, then, next day – and get a definite answer from Janet. It's too bad of her. Did you have any talk with her to-day?"

"Only general conversation. She gave me no chance."

"I don't understand her, but I'll have it settled. I've been at Mount Pleasant, and – by God, Phil, I can't stand the sort of anxious, beseeching way Nellie looks. I know it sounds absurd to hear a man talk like that, but it's a fact."

"Then why do you go?"

"Well, considering what she's done, I don't see how I can very well stay away."

"Oh! No, I suppose not," said Philip, touching up his plan; "but if I were you, Dale, I should wait a bit before I bothered Miss Delane again. Give her time, man."

"No, I won't. She's not treating me fairly."

"What's that got to do with it? You want to marry her, don't you?"

"Of course I do."

"Then give her time. Give her a week at all events. You can sound her at the wedding to-morrow, but don't present your ultimatum."

And Dale agreed, on much persuasion, to give her a week.

"That's more sensible. And, Dale, may I ask Arthur Angell down for a day or two?"

"Of course, but I don't know whether he'll come."

"Oh, he'll come, fast enough."