Part 73

Harry Tristram had led Lady Evenswood to believe that he would inform himself of his cousin's state of mind, or even open direct communication with her. He had done nothing to redeem this implied promise, although the remembrance of it had not passed out of his mind. But he was disinclined to fulfil it. In the first place, he was much occupied with the pursuits and interests of his new life; secondly, he saw no way to approach her in which he would not seem a disagreeable reminder; he might even be taken for a beggar or at least regarded as a reproachful suppliant. The splendor, the dramatic effect of his surrender and of the scene which had led up to it, would be endangered and probably spoilt by a resumption of intercourse between them. His disappearance had been magnificent--no other conclusion could explain the satisfaction with which he looked back on the episode. There was no material yet for a reappearance equally striking. When he thought about her--which was not very often just now--it was not to say that he would never meet her again; he liked her too well, and she was too deeply bound up with the associations of his life for that; but it was to decide to postpone the meeting, and to dream perhaps of some progress or turn of events which should present him with his opportunity, and invest their renewed acquaintance with an atmosphere as unusual and as stimulating as that in which their first days together had been spent. Thus thinking of her only as she affected him, he remained at heart insensible to the aspect of the case which Lady Evenswood had commended to his notice. Cecily's possible unhappiness did not come home to him. After all, she had everything and he nothing--and even he was not insupportably unhappy. His idea, perhaps, was that Blent and a high position would console most folk for somebody else's bad luck; men in bad luck themselves will easily take such a view as that; their intimacy makes a second-hand acquaintance with sorrow seem a trifling trouble.

Yet he had known his mother well. And he had made his surrender. Well, only a very observant man can tell what his own moods may be; it is too much to ask anybody to prophesy another's; and the last thing a man appreciates is the family peculiarities--unless he happens not to share them.

Southend was working quietly; aided by Jenkinson Neeld, he had prepared an elaborate statement and fired it in at Mr Disney's door, himself retreating as hastily as the urchin who has thrown a cracker. Lady Evenswood was trying to induce her eminent cousin to come to tea. The Imp, in response to that official missive which had made such an impression on her, was compiling her reminiscences of Heidelberg and Addie Tristram. Everybody was at work, and it was vaguely understood that Mr Disney was considering the matter, at least that he had not consigned all the documents to the waste-paper basket and the writers to perdition--which was a great point gained with Mr Disney. "No hurry, give me time"--"don't push it"--"wait"--"do nothing"--"the status quo"--all these various phrases expressed Lord Southend's earnest and re-iterated advice to the conspirators. A barony had, in his judgment, begun to be a thing which might be mentioned without a smile. And the viscounty--Well, said Lady Evenswood, if Robert were once convinced, the want of precedents would not stop him; precedents must, after all, be made, and why should not Robert make them?

This then, the moment when all the wise and experienced people were agreed that nothing could, should, or ought to be done, was the chance for a Tristram. Addie would have seized it without an instant's hesitation; Cecily, her blood unavoidably diluted with a strain of Gainsborough, took two whole days to make the plunge--two days and a struggle, neither of which would have happened had she been Addie. But she did at last reach the conclusion that immediate action was necessary, that she was the person to act, that she could endure no more delay, that she must herself go to Harry and do the one terrible thing which alone suited, met, and could save the situation. It was very horrible to her. Here was its last and irresistible fascination. Mina supplied Harry's address--ostensibly for the purpose of a letter; nothing else was necessary but a hansom cab.

In his quiet room in Duke Street, Harry was working out some details of the proposed buildings at Blinkhampton. Iver was to come to town next day, and Harry thought that the more entirely ready they seemed to go on, the more eager Iver would be to stop them; so he was at it with his elevations, plans, and estimates. It was just six o'clock, and a couple of quiet hours stretched before him. Nothing was in his mind except Blinkhampton; he had forgotten himself and his past fortunes, Blent and the rest of it; he had even forgotten the peculiarities of his own family. He heard with most genuine vexation that a lady must see him on urgent business; but he had not experience enough to embolden him to send word that he was out.

Such a message would probably have availed nothing. Cecily was already at the door; she was in the room before he had done giving directions that she should be admitted. Again the likeness which had already worked on him so powerfully struck him with unlessened force; for its sake he sprang forward to greet her and met her outstretched hands with his. There was no appearance of embarrassment about her, rather a great gladness and a triumph in her own courage in coming. She seemed quite sure that she had done the right thing.

"You didn't come to me, so I came to you," she explained, as though the explanation were quite sufficient.

She brought everything back to him very strongly--and in a moment banished Blinkhampton.

"Does anybody know you've come?"

"No," she smiled. That was a part of the fun. "Mina didn't know I was going out. You see everybody's been doing something except me and----"

"Everybody doing something? Doing what?"

"Oh, never mind now. Nothing of any real use."

"There's nothing to do," said Harry with a smile and a shrug.

She was a little disappointed to find him looking so well, so cheerful, so busy. But the new impression was not strong enough to upset the preconceptions with which she had come. "I've come to tell you I can't bear it," she said. "Oh, why did you ever do it, Harry?"

"On my honor I don't know," he admitted after a moment's thought. "Won't you sit down?" He watched her seat herself, actually hoping for the famous attitude. But she was too excited for it. She sat upright, her hands clasped on her knees. Her air was one of gravity, of tremulous importance. She realized what she was going to do; if she had failed to understand its very unusual character she would probably never have done it at all.

"I can't bear this state of things," she began. "I can't endure it any longer."

"Oh, I can, I'm all right. I hope you haven't been worrying?"

"Worrying! I've robbed you, robbed you of everything. Oh, I know you did it yourself! That makes it worse. How did I come to make you do it?"

"I don't know," he said again. "Well, you seemed so in your place at Blent. Somehow you made me feel an interloper. And----" He paused a moment. "Yes, I'm glad," he ended.

"No, no, you mustn't be glad," she cried quickly. "Because it's unendurable, unendurable!"

"To you? It's not to me. I thought it might be. It isn't."

"Yes, to me, to me! Oh, end it for me, Harry, end it for me!"

She was imploring, she was the suppliant. The reversal of parts, strange in itself, hardly seemed strange to Harry Tristram. And it made him quite his old self again. He felt that he had something to give. But her next words shattered that delusion.

"You must take it back. Let me give it back to you," she prayed.

He was silent a full minute before he answered slowly and coldly:

"From anybody else I should treat that as an insult; with you I'm willing to think it merely ignorance. In either case the absurdity's the same." He turned away from her with a look of distaste, almost of disgust. "How in the world could you do it?" he added by way of climax.

"I could do it. In one way I could." She rose as he turned back to her. "I want you to have Blent. You're the proper master of Blent. Do you think I want to have it by accident?"

"You have it by law, not by accident," he answered curtly. He was growing angry. "Why do you come here and unsettle me?" he demanded. "I wasn't thinking of it. And then you come here!"