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Mrs. Lancaster’s Rival

Chapter XXVI. Despair

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Chapter XXVI. Despair.

If Mabel had thought that her persecution could not go much farther, she found herself sorely mistaken. Randal came back early in the following day, and was more affectionate than ever. It was no use for Mabel to put on a cold manner, to give him short answers, to keep out of his way. He seemed not to see all this, but to be perfectly happy and confident, talking of plans for the future as if it was a certain thing, and taking for granted that Mabel, little as she said, enjoyed this talk and entered into it.

That afternoon he followed her into the garden, and found her low down in a glade of rose-trees. She tried to hurry away by another path, but he overtook her at once, and she was obliged to stop, though she looked sulkily on the ground, and almost stamped her foot in her impatience of him.

‘I want to tell you something about my father, Mabel,’ he said. ‘I saw a doctor yesterday, who told me that he would not get better as long as he had anything on his mind. You remember when he was first taken ill, dear, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Mabel.

‘Well, just at that moment, if you remember, he had heard something which seemed to upset the plan he cared for most. I need not tell you what that is. His wishes and mine are the same, you know, Mabel. When I can tell my father that you have said “Yes” to me, he will soon be all right again. An easy mind is the great thing in an illness like this.’

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Mabel was silent.

‘I don’t quite know what makes you hesitate so long, Mabel darling. You can’t have any doubt of my feelings towards you; do bring this long torment to an end. You don’t seem to understand or believe in my love for you.’

‘I don’t understand it, and I don’t believe in it,’ said Mabel, raising her eyes for one instant to his. ‘It is not me that you care for at all.’

Randal looked at her with a curious expression. After a moment he said very quietly,

‘What in the world can have put that nonsense into your head, Mabel? You would know how wrong you are if you let yourself think. If I did not love you very truly, I should be angry at such an idea.’

‘I wish you would be angry,’ said poor Mabel.

‘No; you may make me unhappy, but not angry, whatever you choose to say or do. But now let us be serious. Are you going to save my father’s life?’

‘I don’t believe it depends on me,’ said Mabel, still looking down and wishing, O with such earnestness! that she was as active as other girls. Then she thought she would set off and run away, anywhere, to be away from him, and he would hardly dare to run after her. But Mabel could not run; she must stay there among the rose-bushes, and listen to whatever Randal chose to say to her.

‘I assure you it does,’ he said. ‘Why can’t you make up your mind? Don’t you see how much better it would be for both of us to have something settled? You must dislike this uncertainty as much as I do; you can’t be happy in your position here. It is altogether absurd. But as my wife, don’t you see, dear Mabel, you would at once be in your right place, and the dearest comfort to us all. Listen; will you let it be next week? I could easily make arrangements.’

Mabel could have cried, she felt so helpless, so page 243 miserable. Randal thought his perseverance was going to be rewarded, when she looked up with wet eyes and trembling lips, clasping and unclasping her hands mechanically, and trying to speak, as it seemed, without being able to find any words.

‘My darling,’ he said, ‘don’t look so unhappy. Only trust yourself to me.’

He came a little nearer, but Mabel moved quickly away from him.

‘No,’ she said. ‘How am I to make you understand, if you will not? I don’t like you; I won’t marry you, either next week or any time. No, indeed, I am not happy here. I must go away. Somebody will take me in.’

‘My dear girl, you take things up so violently,’ said Randal. ‘I can’t let you go away, and you could not do it, you know. You are bound to stay in my father’s house, if he chooses to have you there, till you come of age or marry. As to the other affair—you are so agitated that I will say no more to-day. But I am sure you will soon be more reasonable.’

Mabel turned away from him and did not answer. He lingered a moment, and then walked slowly away towards the house. When he was out of sight she hurried to the house too, by another path, and up to her own room, where she spent the rest of the afternoon. This seemed indeed to be despair. There was to be no escape from this prison of Pensand; nobody could take her away from it; and day by day she was to be tormented by this love-making of Randal, which she now hated more than words could say. And she was in this bondage for two whole years,—bound to stay here till she came of age or married,—and of course she would be allowed to marry no one but Randal himself. Very fervently did poor Mabel wish herself back at school, with Miss Wrench and the most unpleasant set page 244 of girls. She could not even appeal to the General against his son’s unmanly ungenerous behaviour; he would hardly understand what she was talking about.

She looked out of the window, with wild thoughts of running away, of escaping to some one—if there was any one in the world—who would be strong enough to protect her from Randal. Come of age or marry! the words went on ringing in her ears. And then suddenly, she did not know why or how, there came into her mind the remembrance of that other man who had asked her to marry him—his tall, lanky, bending figure, his kind odd face, the deep tenderness in his voice as he said,

‘Will you let me put an end to all this trouble— to your loneliness, my child? Will you come to my home, and let me take care of you there—always?’

That was at any rate a certain refuge. Mabel sat thinking for a few minutes, with her face buried in her hands, remembering all that strange scene, and how Anthony had said that any change was impossible with him, and that if she ever changed her mind, and would give him the smallest sign of it— Mabel made a sudden dash across the table at her writing-case, and wrote with such a trembling hand that she could hardly read her own words:

‘Dear Mr. Strange,—You said you would never change your mind. I have changed mine, and if you have not forgotten, it shall be as you wished that day. I am too miserable to stay here any longer.

‘Yours truly,

Mabel Ashley.

It did not occur to the poor girl, in her confusion and distress, that an appeal to Anthony’s friendliness would have been speedily answered, without such a page 245 sacrifice as this. She hastily put up her letter and directed it, and spent the rest of the afternoon with her door a little way open, listening for Stevens, who always fetched the letter-bag from the study, and sent it down to meet the postman in the village. Stevens had always looked at her kindly, and she thought that even if the bag was locked, he would see that her letter went safely.

She crept down-stairs when she heard his steady old steps coming down the study passage, and met him in the hall. He stopped, quite startled at the sight of the little lady, anxious-eyed, with crimson cheeks, holding out her letter nervously.

‘Shall I take the bag back, miss, and get it put in?’ he said.

‘No; O no, don’t do that,’ said Mabel. ‘It might be late. Only if you would see that the postman has it, Stevens, please.’

‘He shall have it, miss,’ said the old butler; and he took the letter and went away, rather troubled in his mind.

Mabel went back to her room again, and stayed there till dinner-time. She sat in the window, thinking of Anthony Strange, and trying rather vainly to realise what she had done. She told herself over and over again of Anthony’s goodness, his cleverness, his true affection for herself, the lovely old house that was his home, his mother’s kind bright face. Under their care a desolate girl might surely be happy and at peace; and yet Mabel was conscious of a regret that was almost terror, and a longing wish to have her letter back again. She scolded herself very much for this foolish weakness, and tried to send it away into the background; but it would not be quite driven from its place.

At dinner Randal behaved very well, and said page 246 nothing that could trouble her. Afterwards he went away to his father’s room, and Mabel was alone in the drawing-room. She could not bear the largeness and stillness of it, with that restless pain at her heart, and after walking up and down two or three times she opened one of the windows, and went out into the starlight. There was a little chill in the air, for September had begun; but it was a very still and beautiful night, and the stars looked so large and glorious that it could not be called dark. Mabel was not the least afraid of being out at night by herself; she knew the garden well, and had wandered about in it at every reasonable hour; still there was a strange loneliness in those shadowy starlit glades, and, keeping away from them, she wandered a little way along the drive, as far as the great ivy-covered mass of the gate-tower. She was a few yards from it, standing in the fullest light there was, when a quick step startled her, and a man came suddenly out of the deep shadow of the archway, and was passing close to her when he stopped short with an astonished exclamation. At the first glimpse of the tall figure in that dim light the thought of Anthony had flashed across Mabel’s mind. Had he by any wonderful means received her letter already? But the next moment she saw that it was a young man with a beard—Dick Northcote.

‘Miss Ashley! what—where are you going?’ stammered Dick, in his amazement.

He stood up square and strong before her, and his holding her little cold hand for a moment in his great warm one did not somehow surprise either of them. Mabel was once more insanely and ridiculously glad to see him, and the remembrance that after all it was not he who was Mrs. Lancaster’s lover took away the only drawback to her pleasure.

‘I am not going anywhere,’ she said, smiling. It page 247 was some time since poor Mabel had spoken so cheerfully. ‘I am only taking a little walk. It is nice out of doors.’

‘Yes, to be sure it is,’ said Dick. ‘I don’t wonder, only—you may be surprised to see me at this time of night, but I was on my way home from Carweston. I’ve been shooting there to-day, and I thought I would call and inquire for the General. How is he?’

‘He is just the same, thank you; he does not alter much,’ said Mabel. And this time there were depths of dismalness in her voice which filled Dick with pity.

‘Perhaps I won’t go on to the house as I have met you,’ he said. ‘We have had a good day’s sport. I’m going over there again to-morrow morning. Anthony Strange has capital shooting.’

‘Does he shoot?’ said Mabel.

‘Good heavens, no! Can you fancy Anthony with a gun? He is far too soft-hearted. He doesn’t care even to look at the bag, dear old natural philosopher.’

‘Don’t you think he is nicer than—any one you ever knew?’ said Mabel, rather dreamily.

‘Much nicer,’ answered Dick, with heartiness.

‘Yes; so I think.’

‘And he seems to have very much the same opinion of you that you have of him,’ said Dick, but to this Mabel made no response.

‘You must be moped to death up here, and still more now that the General is ill,’ said Dick, with colonial frankness.

‘Not moped exactly,’ said Mabel, with an irrepressible sigh.

‘Plagued and tormented, then,’ said Dick, in his deep distinct tones.

‘O, hush!’ she said, putting up her hand. ‘They might hear you.’

‘Let them hear me. Why don’t you go away from page 248 this place? What is the use of staying here to be miserable? You had much better leave General Hawke and Randal to take care of themselves.’

‘He is my guardian, you know, and I am not nearly of age yet,’ said Mabel softly.

‘A pretty guardian!’ said Dick. ‘However, we’ll let him rest. Miss Ashley, do you think me a very rough fellow?’

Mabel looked up, and wished it was not quite so dark, that she might see whether Dick was joking. She was in no mood for anything of that kind, so she answered him rather wearily, ‘O no; why should I?’

‘Most people do, I believe,’ said Dick. ‘And I suppose you feel that I am a stranger, that you know next to nothing of me?’

‘I don’t feel that either,’ said Mabel. ‘I never could, since you were so good to me on the journey.’

‘By the bye, do tell me,’ said Dick, ‘what it was that made you so angry with me that day when I came with my aunt. Had you heard anything against me?’

Mabel was silent for a minute or two. She was trembling a little, and wondering what Dick meant by talking in this way. But she answered him bravely, in a very sweet confident voice.

‘Nothing that I believe now.’

Something in the words, or in Mabel’s way of saying them, touched Dick strangely. There was another silence between them, as they stood there under the stars. Poor little Mabel’s heart was beginning to beat terribly fast. Here was her friend and champion, who had meant so well all through, and had been so slandered by Randal for his own purposes. O, what did it mean, this mixture of happiness and dread? Perhaps Dick’s real story would have shaken Mabel’s confidence page 249 in him a little; she would not have understood Mrs. Lancaster’s part in it, or cared so much for an affection that could be easily transferred. But Mabel was a girl, and Dick was a man, so their views on that subject were not likely to be quite the same. Dick knew that he had been sincere then, and was sure that he felt equally sincere now. He had had a fancy for the little forlorn girl ever since he travelled down with her, only her coldness that day had touched his pride and repelled him. The Flora affair had been a fit of madness, of which Flora herself had cured him very easily. So Dick, knowing all this, was quite free of self-reproach, and there was not a falter or a doubt in his voice as he spoke to his companion in the starlight, and said,

‘Look here; do you like me well enough to marry me?’

It was most dreadfully sudden, though Mabel had half known that it was coming. But Dick was not at all prepared for the way in which his offer was received. She started away from him with a low cry of ‘O, don’t!’ and then stopping and covering her face with her hands, began to cry and sob so bitterly that the whole of her little figure was shaken, and Dick, in much consternation, found himself obliged to support her gently with his arm. Perhaps she hardly knew what it was, but the way in which she leaned against it was some slight satisfaction to him.

‘What is it? Have I done very wrong?’ inquired Dick, with the greatest tenderness, as soon as the sobs were a little less violent. ‘Don’t tell me to go away, because I could not leave you here in this state. There, do you want your handkerchief? here it is. Never mind! I would never have said it if I had thought it would vex you so, indeed. Do forgive me, and stop crying! I shall never forgive myself.’

‘O, it’s not that,’ sighed Mabel, beginning to recover and feel ashamed of herself.

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‘What is it, then? Tell me all about it,’ pleaded Dick. ‘Did you really mind me saying that so much? I do love you, and I wish you could love me, though I am a great deal too rough for a little piece of china like you. But anyhow tell me what made you cry.’

This speech nearly upset Mabel again. But she made a great effort to conquer herself, stood very upright, dried her eyes, and began to speak, though every word seemed to go through her own heart with a sharp little pain.

‘I’m dreadfully sorry,’ she began; ‘I ought to have made you understand that you must not say that; it was very wrong of me. I ought not to be unhappy now, for I don’t think I shall be here much longer.’

‘Good heavens, are you ill?’ exclaimed Dick, the extreme mournfulness of these words only bringing one idea to his mind.

Mabel laughed, she could not help it; but she almost cried again.

‘O dear, what an ungrateful wretch I am! No, I am not going to die. I believe—I almost think—I am going to be married.’

‘To Randal Hawke?’ said Dick, with a strange feeling that this was Nemesis—Flora Lancaster over again.

‘No, O no! Never, never!’

‘That’s right, at all events.’ Dick stopped short, and meditated. This certainly was the oddest affair altogether. He did not like to ask who it was, and he wondered still more what had made the girl cry. A conviction suddenly took possession of him, and he put it into words at once, bluntly, without much consideration for Mabel.

‘Whoever he is, you don’t care for him.’

‘You have no right to say that,’ said Mabel, in a low sad voice, turning her head away.

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‘I beg your pardon with all my heart.’

Dick was really ashamed of himself, and felt very foolish, but he had his own opinion all the same. Just then he had nothing more to say, for he could not ask Mabel questions, and she naturally was not inclined to tell him anything. On the whole, he thought she was a wise girl when she said to him, in the same sad gentle manner:

‘Don’t you think you had better go away now?’

‘I suppose I had,’ said Dick. ‘But I am not easy in my mind about you, and I shall not be satisfied till I know all about this. You won’t be angry with me for saying so?’

‘O no. But don’t think about it; it is no use.’

She held out her hand to Dick, but he did not take it at once. He stood silent for a moment, looking at her.

‘I must risk, making you really angry with me,’ he said. ‘Would there have been any chance for me, do you think, if this other thing had not existed? Don’t answer in words. If it is “No,” take your hand away. If it is “Yes,” give it to me. Only to say good-night, you know.’

Mabel only hesitated an instant, and then silently gave him her hand. Dick justified her confidence in him by behaving like a hero. He squeezed it, certainly, but very gently, as if he was afraid of hurting the little fingers. Then he said,

‘I can’t thank you. But if the gulf between us is not quite impassable, I shall win you yet. Good-night.’

He let her hand go, and walked off at once with long quick steps. Mabel stood as if she was in a dream, and listened till the last sound had died away. Then she drew a long breath, which yet was not quite a sigh, and stole softly back through the shadows to the house.