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Chapter XXVIII. Freedom.

Mrs. Strange took Kate Northcote with her, and drove to P[gap — reason: unclear]sand Castle that afternoon. On the way Kate, [gap — reason: unclear] her new interest in Mabel Ashley, could not help [gap — reason: unclear]ng it to her old friend.

[gap — reason: unclear]thony hinted it to me this morning,’ said Mrs. Strange. ‘I think it might be a good thing for them both; and what an excellent match for Dick, though I daresay that view of it never crossed his mind!’

‘He is such a careless creature, that I think you are most likely right,’ said Kate, smiling. ‘I only hope he will be steady and constant.’

‘Yes. Anthony admires and likes this girl so much, that [gap — reason: unclear] feel sure there is something in her, something worth a man’s constancy,’ said Mrs. Strange. ‘Well, if I have her at Carweston, he can come there as much as he pleases. But we must expect plenty of difficulties with those guardians of hers. Randal Hawke won’t like the idea of my taking her away, to begin with.’

‘Randal is so entirely good for nothing, that it is dreadful to think of her having been under his influence for so long,’ said Kate.

When they arrived at the Castle, Mrs. Strange began by inquiring for General Hawke. He was much the same, Stevens said. Miss Ashley was at home. But when they were in the drawing-room, it was Randal, not Mabel, who came almost immediately. He seemed ready to talk about everything, laughed, and was rather noisy; somehow he was altered from the cool elegant Randal page 258 they had known before. His face was rather thin, and his eyes were large and bright; he looked altogether ill and restless.

‘And how is Miss Ashley?’ said Mrs. Strange.

‘She is very well, thank you. She is good enough to make herself happy in our dull sad house. But you have no idea of the difference my father’s illness makes to us. Mabel is so good and kind, she sits in his room a great deal, and he likes to have her there; but any one else would feel it terribly.’

‘Not very good for such a young girl, to be shut up in a sick-room,’ said Mrs. Strange.

‘She seems to like it.’

‘I came to-day,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘hoping to take her back with me for a little visit. Is she in the house, do you know? I should like to ask her what she thinks of it.’

Randal was silent for a moment, looking at Mrs. Strange. She also looked quietly at him, and there was a determination in her face which told her friend Kate that she would have her way in the end. Randal saw it too, perhaps. He smiled faintly, got up, and walked across towards the bell. He did not ring, however, but turned round and stood on the hearth-rug.

‘Exceedingly kind of you,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you understand that it is a great responsibility to have a charge like this, especially when her proper guardian is incapable. I am not sure, do you know, that I shall be justified in sending her away.’

‘You have known me so long.’

‘O, of course; I only feel very grateful to you. Mabel is a charming girl; but you don’t know much of her, I think?’

‘Very little,’ said Mrs. Strange. ‘I should be glad to improve our acquaintance.’

‘Mabel is not popular with everybody,’ said Randal. page 259 ‘In fact, in plain English, you might find her more of a charge than you cared for. Those who admire her most—I am one of them—can’t deny that she has her peculiarities. Your son may have told you that.’

‘My son thinks Miss Ashley a very nice girl,’ said Mrs. Strange. ‘I am not at all afraid to undertake the charge.’

Kate listened with some amusement to all this. Randal smiled, stroked his moustache, looked out of the window, and then said rather suddenly,

‘Well, you are very right; for she would be a treasure to any house. The truth is, Mrs. Strange, you mean this proposal most kindly; but to me it is a positive cruelty. You don’t know what this house will be without her. I should have nobody to speak to. I must stay here while my father is ill; and Mabel and I are the greatest friends.’

If Randal hoped to touch Mrs. Strange’s heart, he was disappointed. As for Kate Northcote, she looked at him with scorn and wonder. Mrs. Strange said very dryly,

‘Indeed! That is quite a young man’s view of the question, when young men are selfish, which happens now and then, I’m afraid. Very nice for you, no doubt, to be entertained by Miss Ashley. But as I am an old woman, and have always known you, you must allow me to say that I think it is neither pleasant nor right for Miss Ashley to have no companion but you. Many girls would feel it. I don’t know whether she does; she has seen little of the world. But lookers-on feel it for her.’

‘In short, Mrs. Strange,’ said Randal good-humouredly, ‘you will have her, whether I like it or not. I must say, however, that I don’t think the world’s opinion matters much up here at Pensand.’

‘That is a most dangerous doctrine,’ said Mrs. Strange. ‘But I was talking of my own opinion not the page 260 world’s, though I have no doubt it would agree with me. Yes, you must let me have her; and she must stay with me till your father is down-stairs again.’

‘You are very hard upon me,’ said Randal. ‘Does Mr. Strange always do as you tell him? Yes? I should think he did. You will let me come and see Mabel, I hope?’

‘Certainly,’ Mrs. Strange felt obliged to say. ‘I shall be happy to see you.’

After this Randal rang the bell, and sent Stevens to look for Miss Ashley.

Both Mrs. Strange and Miss Northcote were shocked at the look in Mabel’s face, when she came into the room—it was so wild, sad, and hopeless. There was even a sort of puzzled terror in her eyes, as they wandered from one to the other. To meet them both, the representatives of two claims upon her, was almost too much for her self-command. And the kindness of Mrs. Strange’s manner made things a little worse. As for Kate, Mabel just took her hand, blushing deeply, but without looking up to meet the smile that perhaps would have told her how much Kate knew. She sat down near Mrs. Strange, wondering what would happen next, and resolving once more to give no sign that she regretted that letter to Anthony, which of course had brought his mother. She had been expecting somebody from Carweston all that day. It was very good of Mrs. Strange to come herself, and Mabel felt safe at least, as she sat near the little lady who had pressed her hand with so much kindness.

‘Mabel,’ said Randal, ‘Mrs. Strange is going to take you away.’

Mabel just lifted her eyes to Mrs. Strange’s face, her colour deepening. Mrs. Strange did not quite understand the look.

‘I want you to come and pay me a little visit,’ she page 261 said. ‘Miss Northcote is staying with me, so it will not be dull for you, and I shall be so glad to have you. Will you come back with me now?’

‘O, thank you; I should like it,’ said Mabel.

She turned her head slightly towards Randal, who was looking at her. It was difficult to believe that he would let her go so easily.

‘It will be a charming change for you,’ he said. ‘My father will miss you, but he would like you to go, I daresay. As to myself, the less said the better. Mrs. Strange has just pointed out to me that I must not be selfish.’

‘Thank you. Then I shall be very glad,’ said Mabel to Mrs. Strange.

She was vexed that she could not accept the kindness a little more heartily. Was it not exactly what she had been longing and praying for yesterday? What she had done her best to bring to pass? Ah, well, whatever happened, it could not be so bad as staying here.

Mrs. Strange herself was puzzled and disappointed by the girl’s manner. So was Kate Northcote, who had never cared for what she saw of Mabel, but who naturally thought that the near prospect of freedom from Randal Hawke and Pensand might have brought a smile and a ray of brightness to those downcast eyes.

When Mabel was gone to make her preparations, but not till just before she came down again, Randal said to Mrs. Strange,

‘I suppose the presence of another lady would make it all right for her here?’

‘Well, yes, of course,’ said Mrs. Strange.

‘If I find that my father dislikes her being away, I will find a chaperon,’ said Randal.

Mrs. Strange looked at him rather doubtfully.

‘You had much better leave her with me as long as possible, Mr. Hawke.’

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On the whole Randal behaved very well. He only said to Mabel, as they were getting into the carriage, ‘Good-bye. You won’t forget your home.’

‘I am not going so far away,’ said Mabel.

Both Mrs. Strange and Kate talked to her as they drove along, but without getting much response from the melancholy girl.

‘Well,’ thought Mrs. Strange, ‘I fetched her to please Anthony, and I hope he knows how to manage her.’

‘I suppose Dick knows the art of bringing smiles into that dismal little countenance,’ thought Kate Northcote.

How much and how often Mabel had longed to turn in at those old Carweston gates, to be a guest even for an hour in that long gray house clothed with ivy! She was there at last, but it was with a feeling little short of misery that she looked up and saw Anthony standing at the door, holding out his hand to help her from the carriage.

‘Here she is!’ said Mrs. Strange cheerfully. ‘Now, Anthony, she depends on you for a great deal of amusement. What are you going to do first?’

‘I shall give her a cup of tea,’ said Anthony. ‘Afterwards, if she is not tired, I shall show her my garden; she has often shown me hers.’

He looked grave and kind, but Mabel would not meet his eyes. She might, if she had known the true sympathy that filled the heart and soul of this lover of hers. Still she struggled with herself, and when they were in the drawing-room she really was able to look round her, and admire all the lovely things she saw there. Kate came to her assistance, pitying what she supposed to be the girl’s extreme shyness, and as they sat at tea there was quite a pleasant little talk about old china, kept up chiefly by Kate and Mrs. Strange. Mabel felt that page 263 Anthony was watching her, and only wished she could sink into the earth; it now seemed to her a most dreadful and unwomanly thing to have written that letter, She must have been mad yesterday, she thought. Today it seemed as if she would rather endure any horrors, even being married to Randal—but no, no ! At last, thinking of the shocking thing she had done, thinking of Anthony with misery, of Dick with something like despair, the girl lifted up her eyes and looked at Anthony, the cause of all this trouble. He caught the look, and it told him, if he needed to be told, that Dick Northcote had spoken the truth to him that morning.

‘No more tea, Mabel?’ he said. ‘Then come into the garden now. There is a bowling-green, with an arbour at the end of it all covered with yellow roses and an immense scarlet geranium. Anywhere but there the contrast would be horrid.’

‘Don’t expect to see a lovely garden like Pensand,’ said Mrs. Strange.

‘She will like it much better than Pensand,’ said Anthony.

It was very frightening, but yet it was a relief, to leave the others behind and go out alone with Anthony. She felt that what she had said to Dick last night was true, he was nicer than anybody else. He did not try to make her talk, but went on himself, discoursing in his old familiar way about the trees and the flowers, showing her the long green walks that he loved; the clipped hedges, the sundial, the borders of old-fashioned flowers growing rather wildly, but sweet and graceful in their wildness.

‘When I am in the garden,’ said Anthony, ‘I like to forget that I am in the odious nineteenth century. Almost any scene in history or romance might have been acted in a garden like this, as Shakespeare knew very page 264 well. His garden scenes are delicious. What do you think of my bowling-green?’

They stood at one end of a long level space of velvet turf, bordered by rows of great elm-trees, already beginning to show signs of autumn in their gilded leaves. Far away at one end there was a low gray wall with creepers trailing over it, a crimson Virginia creeper reigning over them all. Close by where they were standing was Anthony’s flowery arbour, which strewed the grass with rose-leaves. There was a matted seat in the arbour, and a rustic table; they went in and sat down there. Mabel felt as if she could not have walked about any longer. She leaned her elbows on the table, and shaded her eyes with one hand. Anthony leaned back and looked at her. He saw that she was trembling from head to foot.

‘Mabel,’ he said, ‘you have trusted me so far; can’t you trust me a little further?’

‘How could I?’ said Mabel, under her breath. ‘Too much already!’

‘Don’t say that,’ said Anthony. ‘I don’t think so. I had your letter this morning, my child. It was beautiful of you to write it; but I shudder to think what you must have gone through before you were driven to it.’

‘O yes, you understand that!’ exclaimed Mabel.

‘Indeed, I do. The recollection of that letter will always be a happiness to me in one way. It shows how you believe in your friend. But, Mabel, I have a confession to make—a frightfully awkward one.’

There was something so strange, so sweet, in the tone of his voice that Mabel could not help looking at him.

‘Yes; I did a horrid thing, my dear. I burned your letter.—Well,’ Anthony went on after a long pause, ‘I had some good reasons. I thought it was better for us page 265 both. I am always forgetting my age; not that I am really old, you know, but my mother has often told me that I have not the ways of a young man. So it was not fair that I should ask you that. And then, besides —may I go on a little further, Mabel?’

Mabel’s face was hidden in her hands. It seemed as if no girl had ever had to go through such a scene as this, and it was agony to remember that she had brought it on herself by her mad impatience. What was Anthony going to say next? She felt that she could not look up or answer him.

‘I have made a discovery,’ he said, ‘and I want to tell you what it is. There is somebody else who cares for you, my child. I don’t say, more than I do; but a fitter person, I suppose, and he thinks you like him. He told me all about it this morning, which was the best thing he could have done. Was he mistaken, Mabel? just tell me that.’

‘No,’ Mabel breathed out under her hands. Then she suddenly took them away, turned her flushed face to Anthony, and spoke bravely.

‘I do assure you, when I wrote the letter to you I had no idea of that. I know now it was a very wrong thing to do; but I only thought of your goodness and kindness, and how safe I should be. I never understood about him till he came last night—and we talked in the garden—and I told him I was engaged; but he couldn’t help seeing—’

‘Don’t explain any more. I understand it all,’ said Anthony.