Wilfrid Cumbermede

About this time also I began to read once more the history of Jesus, asking myself as if on a first acquaintance with it, ‘Could it be—might it not be that, if there were a God, he would visit his children after some fashion? If so, is this a likely fashion? May it not even be the only right fashion?’ In the story I found at least a perfection surpassing everything to be found elsewhere; and I was at least sure that whatever this man said must be true. If one could only be as sure of the record! But if ever a dawn was to rise upon me, here certainly the sky would break; here I thought I already saw the first tinge of the returning life-blood of the swooning world. The gathering of the waters of conviction at length one morning broke out in the following verses, which seemed more than half given to me, the only effort required being to fit them rightly together:—

     Come to me, come to me, O my God;       Come to me everywhere!      Let the trees mean thee, and the grassy sod,       And the water and the air.     For thou art so far that I often doubt,       As on every side I stare,      Searching within, and looking without,       If thou art anywhere.     How did men find thee in days of old?       How did they grow so sure?      They fought in thy name, they were glad and bold,       They suffered, and kept themselves pure.     But now they say—neither above the sphere,       Nor down in the heart of man,      But only in fancy, ambition, or fear,       The thought of thee began.     If only that perfect tale were true       Which, with touch of sunny gold,      Of the ancient many makes one anew,       And simplicity manifold.     But he said that they who did his word       The truth of it should know:      I will try to do it—if he be Lord,       Perhaps the old spring will flow;     Perhaps the old spirit-wind will blow       That he promised to their prayer;      And doing thy will, I yet shall know       Thee, Father, everywhere!

These lines found their way without my concurrence into a certain religious magazine, and I was considerably astonished, and yet more pleased, one evening when Charley handed me, with the kind regards of his sister, my own lines, copied by herself. I speedily let her know they were mine, explaining that they had found their way into print without my cognizance. She testified so much pleasure at the fact, and the little scraps I could claim as my peculiar share of the contents of Charley’s envelopes grew so much more confiding that I soon ventured to write more warmly than hitherto. A period longer than usual passed before she wrote again, and when she did she took no express notice of my last letter. Foolishly or not, I regarded this as a favourable sign, and wrote several letters, in which I allowed the true state of my feelings towards her to appear. At length I wrote a long letter in which, without a word of direct love-making, I thought yet to reveal that I loved her with all my heart. It was chiefly occupied with my dream on that memorable night—of course without the slightest allusion to the waking, or anything that followed. I ended abruptly, telling her that the dream often recurred, but as often as it drew to its lovely close, the lifted veil of Athanasia revealed ever and only the countenance of Mary Osborne.

The answer to this came soon and in few words.

‘I dare not take to myself what you write. That would be presumption indeed, not to say wilful self-deception. It will be honour enough for me if in any way I serve to remind you of the lady in your dream. Wilfrid, if you love me, take care of my Charley. I must not write more.—M.O.’

It was not much, but enough to make me happy. I write it from memory—every word as it lies where any moment I could read it—shut in a golden coffin whose lid I dare not open.

CHAPTER LIII. TOO LATE

I must now go back a little. After my suspicions had been aroused as to the state of Charley’s feelings, I hesitated for a long time before I finally made up my mind to tell him the part Clara had had in the loss of my sword. But while I was thus restrained by dread of the effect the disclosure would have upon him if my suspicions were correct, those very suspicions formed the strongest reason for acquainting him with her duplicity; and, although I was always too ready to put off the evil day so long as doubt supplied excuse for procrastination, I could not have let so much time slip by and nothing said but for my absorption in Mary.

At length, however, I had now resolved, and one evening, as we sat together, I took my pipe from my mouth, and, shivering bodily, thus began:

‘Charley,’ I said, ‘I have had for a good while something on my mind, which I cannot keep from you longer.’

He looked alarmed instantly. I went on.

‘I have not been quite open with you about that affair of the sword.’

He looked yet more dismayed; but I must go on, though it tore my very heart. When I came to the point of my overhearing Clara talking to Brotherton, he started up, and, without waiting to know the subject of their conversation, came close up to me, and, his face distorted with the effort to keep himself quiet, said, in a voice hollow and still and far-off, like what one fancies of the voice of the dead:

‘Wilfrid, you said Brotherton, I think?’

‘I did, Charley.’

‘She never told me that!’

‘How could she when she was betraying your friend?’

‘No no!’ he cried, with a strange mixture of command and entreaty; ‘don’t say that. There is some explanation. There must be.’

‘She told me she hated him,’ I said.

‘I know she hates him. What was she saying to him?’

‘I tell you she was betraying me, your friend, who had never done her any wrong, to the man she had told me she hated, and whom I had heard her ridicule.’

‘What do you mean by betraying you?’

I recounted what I had overheard. He listened with clenched teeth and trembling white lips; then burst into a forced laugh. ‘What a fool I am! Distrust her! I will not. There is some explanation! There must be!’

The dew of agony lay thick on his forehead. I was greatly alarmed at what I had done, but I could not blame myself.

‘Do be calm, Charley,’ I entreated.

‘I am as calm as death,’ he replied, striding up and down the room with long strides.

He stopped and came up to me again.

‘Wilfrid,’ he said, ‘I am a damned fool. I am going now. Don’t be frightened—I am perfectly calm. I will come and explain it all to you to-morrow—no—the next day—or the next at latest. She had some reason for hiding it from me, but I shall have it all the moment I ask her. She is not what you think her. I don’t for a moment blame you—but—are you sure it was—Clara’s—voice you heard?’ he added with forced calmness and slow utterance.

‘A man is not likely to mistake the voice of a woman he ever fancied himself in love with.’

‘Don’t talk like that, Wilfrid. You’ll drive me mad. How should she know you had taken the sword?’

‘She was always urging me to take it. There lies the main sting of the treachery. But I never told you where I found the sword.’

‘What can that have to do with it?’

‘I found it on my bed that same morning when I woke. It could not have been there when I lay down.’

‘Well?’

‘Charley, I believe she laid it there.’

He leaped at me like a tiger. Startled, I jumped to my feet. He laid hold of me by the throat, and griped me with a quivering grasp. Recovering my self-possession, I stood perfectly still, making no effort even to remove his hand, although it was all but choking me. In a moment or two he relaxed his hold, burst into tears, took up his hat, and walked to the door.

‘Charley! Charley! you must not leave me so,’ I cried, starting forwards.

‘To-morrow, Wilfrid; to-morrow,’ he said, and was gone.

He was back before I could think what to do next. Opening the door half way, he said—as if a griping hand had been on his throat—

‘I—I—I—don’t believe it, Wilfrid. You only said you believed it. I don’t. Good night. I’m all right now. Mind, I don’t believe it.’

He, shut the door. Why did I not follow him?

But if I had followed him, what could I have said or done? In every man’s life come awful moments when he must meet his fate—dree his weird—alone. Alone, I say, if he have no God—for man or woman cannot aid him, cannot touch him, cannot come near him. Charley was now in one of those crises, and I could not help him. Death is counted an awful thing: it seems to me that life is an infinitely more awful thing.

In the morning I received the following letter:—

‘Dear Mr Cumbermede,

‘You will be surprised at receiving a note from me—still more at its contents. I am most anxious to see you—so much so that I venture to ask you to meet me where we can have a little quiet talk. I am in London, and for a day or two sufficiently my own mistress to leave the choice of time and place with you—only let it be when and where we shall not be interrupted. I presume on old friendship in making this extraordinary request, but I do not presume in my confidence that you will not misunderstand my motives. One thing only I beg—that you will not inform C.O. of the petition I make.

‘Your old friend,

‘C.C.’

What was I to do? To go, of course. She might have something to reveal which would cast light on her mysterious conduct. I cannot say I expected a disclosure capable of removing Charley’s misery, but I did vaguely hope to learn something that might alleviate it. Anyhow, I would meet her, for I dared not refuse to hear her. To her request of concealing it from Charley, I would grant nothing beyond giving it quarter until I should see whither the affair tended. I wrote at once—making an appointment for the same evening. But was it from a suggestion of Satan, from an evil impulse of human spite, or by the decree of fate, that I fixed on that part of the Regent’s Park in which I had seen him and the lady I now believed to have been Clara walking together in the dusk? I cannot now tell. The events which followed have destroyed all certainty, but I fear it was a flutter of the wings of revenge, a shove at the spokes of the wheel of time to hasten the coming of its circle.

Anxious to keep out of Charley’s way—for the secret would make me wretched in his presence—I went into the City, and, after an early dinner, sauntered out to the Zoological Gardens, to spend the time till the hour of meeting. But there, strange to say, whether from insight or fancy, in every animal face I saw such gleams of a troubled humanity that at last I could bear it no longer, and betook myself to Primrose Hill.

It was a bright afternoon, wonderfully clear, with a crisp frosty feel in the air. But the sun went down, and one by one, here and there, above and below, the lights came out and the stars appeared, until at length sky and earth were full of flaming spots, and it was time to seek our rendezvous.

I had hardly reached it when the graceful form of Clara glided towards me. She perceived in a moment that I did not mean to shake hands with her. It was not so dark but that I saw her bosom heave and a flush overspread her countenance.

‘You wished to see me, Miss Coningham,’ I said. ‘I am at your service.’

‘What is wrong, Mr Cumbermede? You never used to speak to me in such a tone.’

‘There is nothing wrong if you are not more able than I to tell what it is.’

‘Why did you come if you were going to treat me so?’

‘Because you requested it.’

‘Have I offended you, then, by asking you to meet me? I trusted you. I thought you would never misjudge me.’

‘I should be but too happy to find I had been unjust to you, Miss Coningham. I would gladly go on my knees to you to confess that fault, if I could only be satisfied of its existence. Assure me of it, and I will bless you.’

‘How strangely you talk! Some one has been maligning me.’

‘No one. But I have come to the knowledge of what only one besides yourself could have told me.’

‘You mean—’

‘Geoffrey Brotherton.’

‘He! He has been telling you—’

‘No—thank heaven! I have not yet sunk to the slightest communication with him.’

She turned her face aside. Veiled as it was by the gathering gloom, she yet could not keep it towards me. But after a brief pause she looked at me and said,

‘You know more than—I do not know what you mean.’

‘I do know more than you think I know. I will tell you under what circumstances I came to such knowledge.’

She stood motionless.

‘One evening,’ I went on, ‘after leaving Moldwarp Hall with Charles Osborne, I returned to the library to fetch a book. As I entered the room where it lay, I heard voices in the armoury. One was the voice of Geoffrey Brotherton—a man you told me you hated. The other was yours.’

She drew herself up, and stood stately before me.

‘Is that your accusation?’ she said. ‘Is a woman never to speak to a man because she detests him?’

She laughed—I thought drearily.

‘Apparently not—for then I presume you would not have asked me to meet you.’

‘Why should you think I hate you?’

‘Because you have been treacherous to me.’

‘In talking to Geoffrey Brotherton? I do hate him. I hate him more than ever. I spoke the truth when I told you that.’

‘Then you do not hate me?’

‘No.’

‘And yet you delivered me over to my enemy bound hand and foot, as Delilah did Samson.—I heard what you said to Brotherton.’

She seemed to waver, but stood—speechless, as if waiting for more.

‘I heard you tell him that I had taken that sword—the sword you had always been urging me to take—the sword you unsheathed and laid on my bed that I might be tempted to take it—why I cannot understand, for I never did you a wrong to my poor knowledge. I fell into your snare, and you made use of the fact you had achieved to ruin my character, and drive me from the house in which I was foolish enough to regard myself as conferring favours rather than receiving them. You have caused me to be branded as a thief for taking—at your suggestion—that which was and still is my own!’

‘Does Charley know this?’ she asked, in a strangely altered voice.

‘He does. He learned it yesterday.’

‘O my God!’ she cried, and fell kneeling on the grass at my feet. ‘Wilfrid! Wilfrid! I will tell you all. It was to tell you all about this very thing that I asked you to come. I could not bear it longer. Only your tone made me angry. I did not know you knew so much.’

The very fancy of such submission from such a creature would have thrilled me with a wild compassion once; but now I thought of Charley and felt cold to her sorrow as well as her loveliness. When she lifted her eyes to mine, however—it was not so dark but I could see their sadness—I began to hope a little for my friend. I took her hand and raised her. She was now weeping with down-bent head.

‘Clara, you shall tell me all. God forbid I should be hard upon you! But you know I cannot understand it. I have no clue to it. How could you serve me so?’

‘It is very hard for me—but there is no help now: I must confess disgrace, in order to escape infamy. Listen to me, then—as kindly as you can, Wilfrid. I beg your pardon; I have no right to use any old familiarity with you. Had my father’s plans succeeded, I should still have had to make an apology to you, but under what different circumstances! I will be as brief as I can. My father believed you the rightful heir to Moldwarp Hall. Your own father believed it, and made my father believe it—that was in case your uncle should leave no heir behind him. But your uncle was a strange man, and would neither lay claim to the property himself, nor allow you to be told of your prospects. He did all he could to make you, like himself, indifferent to worldly things; and my father feared you would pride yourself on refusing to claim your rights, unless some counter-influence were used.’

‘But why should your father have taken any trouble in the matter?’ I asked.

‘Well, you know—one in his profession likes to see justice done; and, besides, to conduct such a case must, of course, be of professional advantage to him. You must not think him under obligation to the present family: my grandfather held the position he still occupies before they came into the property.—I am too unhappy to mind what I say now. My father was pleased when you and I—indeed I fancy he had a hand in our first meeting. But while your uncle lived he had to be cautious. Chance, however, seemed to favour his wishes. We met more than once, and you liked me, and my father thought I might wake you up to care about your rights, and—and—but—’

‘I see. And it might have been, Clara, but for—’

‘Only, you see, Mr Cumbermede,’ she interrupted with a half-smile, and a little return of her playful manner—‘I didn’t wish it.’

‘No. You preferred the man who had the property.’

It was a speech both cruel and rude. She stepped a pace back, and looked me proudly in the face.

Prefer that man to you, Wilfrid! No. I could never have fallen so low as that. But I confess I didn’t mind letting papa understand that Mr Brotherton was polite to me—just to keep him from urging me to—to—You will do me the justice that I did not try to make you—to make you—care for me, Wilfrid?’

‘I admit it heartily. I will be as honest as you, and confess that you might have done so—easily enough at one time. Indeed I am only half honest after all: I loved you once—after a boyish fashion.’

She half smiled again. ‘I am glad you are believing me now,’ she said.

‘Thoroughly,’ I answered. ‘When you speak the truth, I must believe you.’

‘I was afraid to let papa know the real state of things. I was always afraid of him, though I love him dearly, and he is very good to me. I dared not disappoint him by telling him that I loved Charley Osborne. That time—you remember—when we met in Switzerland, his strange ways interested me so much! I was only a girl—but—’

‘I understand well enough. I don’t wonder at any woman falling in love with my Charley.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, with a sigh which seemed to come from the bottom of her heart. ‘You were always generous. You will do what you can to right me with Charley—won’t you? He is very strange sometimes.’

‘I will indeed. But, Clara, why didn’t Charley let me know that you and he loved each other?’

‘Ah! there my shame comes in again! I wanted—for my father’s sake, not for my own—I need not tell you that—I wanted to keep my influence over you a little while—that is, until I could gain my father’s end. If I should succeed in rousing you to enter an action for the recovery of your rights, I thought my father might then be reconciled to my marrying Charley instead—’

‘Instead of me, Clara. Yes—I see. I begin to understand the whole thing. It’s not so bad as I thought—not by any means.’

‘Oh, Wilfrid! how good of you! I shall love you next to Charley all my life.’

She caught hold of my hand, and for a moment seemed on the point of raising it to her lips.

‘But I can’t easily get over the disgrace you have done me, Clara. Neither, I confess, can I get over your degrading yourself to a private interview with such a beast as I know—and can’t help suspecting you knew—Brotherton to be.’

She dropped my hand, and hid her face in both her own.

‘I did know what he was; but the thought of Charley made me able to go through with it.’

‘With the sacrifice of his friend to his enemy?’

‘It was bad. It was horridly wicked. I hate myself for it. But you know I thought it would do you no harm in the end.’

‘How much did Charley know of it all?’ I asked.

‘Nothing whatever. How could I trust his innocence? He’s the simplest creature in the world, Wilfrid.’

‘I know that well enough.’

‘I could not confess one atom of it to him. He would have blown up the whole scheme at once. It was all I could do to keep him from telling you of our engagement; and that made him miserable.’

‘Did you tell him I was in love with you? You knew I was, well enough.’

‘I dared not do that,’ she said, with a sad smile. ‘He would have vanished—would have killed himself to make way for you.’

‘I see you understand him, Clara.’

‘That will give me some feeble merit in your eyes—won’t it, Wilfrid?’

‘Still I don’t see quite why you betrayed me to Brotherton. I dare say I should if I had time to think it over.’

‘I wanted to put you in such a position with regard to the Brothertons that you could have no scruples in respect of them such as my father feared from what he called the over-refinement of your ideas of honour. The treatment you must receive would, I thought, rouse every feeling against them. But it was not all for my father’s sake, Wilfrid. It was, however mistaken, yet a good deal for the sake of Charley’s friend that I thus disgraced myself. Can you believe me?’

‘I do. But nothing can wipe out the disgrace to me.’

‘The sword was your own. Of course I never for a moment doubted that.’

‘But they believed I was lying.’

‘I can’t persuade myself it signifies greatly what such people think about you. I except Sir Giles. The rest are—’

‘Yet you consented to visit them.’

‘I was in reality Sir Giles’s guest. Not one of the others would have asked me.’

‘Not Geoffrey?’

‘I owe him nothing but undying revenge for Charley.’ Her eyes flashed through the darkness; and she looked as if she could have killed him.

‘But you were plotting against Sir Giles all the time you were his guest?’

‘Not unjustly, though. The property was not his, but yours—that is, as we then believed. As far as I knew, the result would have been a real service to him, in delivering him from unjust possession—a thing he would himself have scorned. It was all very wrong—very low, if you like—but somehow it then seemed simple enough—a lawful stratagem for the right.’

‘Your heart was so full of Charley!’

‘Then you do forgive me, Wilfrid?’

‘With all my soul. I hardly feel now as if I had anything to forgive.’

I drew her towards me and kissed her on the forehead. She threw her arms round me, and clung to me, sobbing like a child.

‘You will explain it all to Charley—won’t you?’ she said, as soon as she could speak, withdrawing herself from the arm which had involuntarily crept around her, seeking to comfort her.

‘I will,’ I said.

We were startled by a sound in the clump of trees behind us. Then over their tops passed a wailful gust of wind, through which we thought came the fall of receding footsteps.

‘I hope we haven’t been overheard,’ I said. ‘I shall go at once and tell Charley all about it. I will just see you home first.’

‘There’s no occasion for that, Wilfrid; and I’m sure I don’t deserve it.’

‘You deserve a thousand thanks. You have lifted a mountain off me. I see it all now. When your father found it was no use—’

‘Then I saw I had wronged you, and I couldn’t bear myself till I had confessed all.’

‘Your father is satisfied, then, that the register would not stand in evidence?’

‘Yes. He told me all about it.’

‘He has never said a word to me on the matter; but just dropped me in the dirt, and let me lie there.’

‘You must forgive him too, Wilfrid. It was a dreadful blow to him, and it was weeks before he told me. We couldn’t think what was the matter with him. You see he had been cherishing the scheme ever since your father’s death, and it was a great humiliation to find he had been sitting so many years on an addled egg,’ she said, with a laugh in which her natural merriment once more peeped out.

I walked home with her, and we parted like old friends. On my way to the Temple I was anxiously occupied as to how Charley would receive the explanation I had to give him. That Clara’s confession would be a relief I could not doubt; but it must cause him great pain notwithstanding. His sense of honour was so keen, and his ideal of womankind so lofty, that I could not but dread the consequences of the revelation. At the same time I saw how it might benefit him. I had begun to see that it is more divine to love the erring than to love the good, and to understand how there is more joy over the one than over the ninety and nine. If Charley, understanding that he is no divine lover, who loves only so long as he is able to flatter himself that the object of his love is immaculate, should find that he must love Clara in spite of her faults and wrong-doings, he might thus grow to be less despairful over his own failures; he might, through his love for Clara, learn to hope for himself, notwithstanding the awful distance at which perfection lay removed.