The New Warden Part 18

Gwen had read and had burned the slip of paper, and had even poked the ashes well into the red of the fire.

When that was done, she had walked about the room excitedly.

How was it possible to dress quietly when the world had suddenly become so dreadfully thrilling? So, after all her doubt and despair, after all her worry, she was engaged. It was all right! All she had to do was to give her mother's letter to the Warden and the matter was concluded. She was going to be Mrs. Middleton, and mistress of the Lodgings. How thrilling! How splendid it was of her mother to make it so plain and easy! And yet, how was she to put the letter into the Warden's hands?

What was she to say when she handed the letter to him?

When Louise appeared to attend to Gwen's dress, she found that young lady fastening up her black tresses with hands that showed suppressed excitement, and her eyes and cheeks were glowing.

She turned and glanced at Louise. "I'm late, as usual, I suppose," she said and laughed.

"Mademoiselle has the appearance of being _tres gaie ce soir_," said Louise.

"Oh, not particularly," said Gwen; "only my hair won't go right; it's a beast, and refuses," and she laughed again.

When she was Mrs. Middleton she would have a maid of her own, not a French maid. They were a nuisance, and looked shabby. Yes, she dared think of being engaged and of being married. It wasn't a dream: it was all real. She would buy a dog, a small little thing, and she would tie its front hair with a big orange bow and carry it about in her arms everywhere. It would be lovely to be dressed in a filmy tea-gown with the dog in her arms, and she would rise to meet callers and say, "I'm so sorry--the Warden isn't at home; but you know how busy he is," etc., etc., and the men who called would pull the dog's ears and say "Lucky beggar!" and she would scold them for hurting her darling, darling pet, and she would sit in the best place in the Chapel, wearing the most cunning hats, and she would appear not to see that she was being admired.

In this land of fairy dreams the Warden hovered near as a vague shadowy presence: he was there, but only as a name is over a shop window, something that marks its ident.i.ty but has little to do with the delights to be bought within.

And why shouldn't she imagine all this? There was the letter to be given to the Warden--that must be done first. She must think that over.

Louise's presence suggested a plan. Suppose the Warden came home so late that she didn't see him? She would write a tiny note and put her mother's letter within it, and send it down to the library by Louise.

That would be far easier than speaking to him. So much easier did it seem to Gwen, that she determined to go to bed very early, so that she should escape meeting the Warden.

And what should she write in her little note?

How exciting the world was; how funny it was going down into the drawing-room and meeting Lady Dashwood and Mrs. Dashwood, both looking so innocent, knowing nothing of the great secret! How funny it was going down to the great solemn dining-room, entered by its double doors--her dining-room--and sitting at table, thinking all the time that the whole house really belonged to her, and that she would in future sit in Lady Dashwood's chair! How deliciously exciting, indeed! All the plate and gla.s.s on the table was really hers. Old Robinson and young Robinson were really her servants. What a shock for Lady Dashwood when she found out!

Gwen's eyes were luminous as she looked round the table. How envious some people would be of her! Mrs. Dashwood would not be pleased! For all her clever talk, Mrs. Dashwood had not done much. What a bustle there would be when the secret was discovered, when the Warden announced: "I am engaged to Miss Scott, Miss Gwendolen Scott!" How young, how awfully young to be a Warden's wife! What an excitement!

During dinner, Lady Dashwood told Robinson to keep up a good fire in the library, as the Warden would probably arrive at about a quarter to eleven.

That decided Gwen. She would go to bed at ten, and that would give her time to write her little note and get it taken to the library before the Warden arrived home. He would find it there, awaiting him.

Dinner pa.s.sed swiftly, though the two ladies were rather dull and silent. Gwen had so much to think of that she ate almost without knowing that she was eating. When they went upstairs to the drawing-room, the time went much more slowly, for there was nothing to do. Lady Dashwood and Mrs. Dashwood both took up books, and seemed to sink back into the very depths of their chairs, and disappear. It was very dismal. Perhaps Lady Dashwood hadn't read _that_ letter all through. Anyhow she had not been able to interfere. That was clear!

Gwen went and fetched the book on Oxford, and read half a page of it, and when she had mastered that, she discovered that she had read it before. So she was no farther on for all her industry. How slowly the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece moved; how interminable the time was! Everybody was so silent that the clock could be heard ticking. That Lady Dashwood hadn't been able to interfere and make mischief with the Warden, showed how little power she had after all.

At last the clock struck ten, and Gwen got up from her chair.

"Ten," said Mrs. Dashwood, and she raised her face from her book.

"Ten," said Lady Dashwood.

"Yes, ten," said Gwendolen. "I think I'll go to bed, Lady Dashwood, if you don't mind."

"Do, my dear," said Lady Dashwood.

The girl stood up before her, slim and straight as an arrow. Both women sat and looked at her, and she glanced at both of them in silence. Her very beauty stung Lady Dashwood and made her eyes harden as she looked at the girl. What were May Dashwood's thoughts as she, too, leaning back in her large chair, looked at the dark hair and the flushed cheeks, the white brow and neck, the radiant pearly prettiness of eighteen!

Gwen was conscious that they were examining her; that they knew she was pretty--they could not deny her prettiness. She felt a glow of pride in her youth and in her power--her power over a man who commanded other men. And this drawing-room was hers. She glanced at the portrait over the fireplace.

"Mr. Thing-um-bob," she said dimpling, "is looking very sly this evening."

May Dashwood took up her book again and turned over a few pages, as if she had lost her place. Lady Dashwood did not smile or speak. Gwen made a movement nearer to Lady Dashwood.

"Good night," she said. She seemed to have a sudden intention of bending down, perhaps to kiss Lady Dashwood. Vague thoughts possessed the girl that this rather incomprehensible and imposing elderly woman, who wore such nice rings, was going to be a relation of hers. Would she be her sister-in-law? How funny to have anybody so old for a sister-in-law! It was a good thing she had, after all, so little influence over Dr.

Middleton.

"Good night, Gwen," said Lady Dashwood, without appearing to notice the girl's movement towards her. "Sleep well, child," she added and she turned her head towards May Dashwood.

Gwen hesitated a brief moment, and then walked away. "I always sleep well," she said, with a laugh. "I once thought it would be so nice to wake up in the night, because one would know how comfy one was. But I did wake once--for about a quarter of an hour--and I soon got tired and hated it!"

At the door she turned and said, "Good night, Mrs. Dashwood. I quite forgot--how rude of me!"

"Good night," said May.

The door closed.

Lady Dashwood stared deeply at her book, and then raised her eyes suddenly to her niece.

May had risen from her chair. "Do you mind, dear Aunt Lena, if I go off too?" She came close to Lady Dashwood and laid a caressing hand on her shoulder.

Lady Dashwood looked up into her face, and May was startled at the expression of suffering in the eyes.

"Go, dear, if you want to! I shall stay up--till he comes in. Yes, go, May!"

"You won't feel lonely?" said May, and she sighed without knowing that she did so.

"No," said Lady Dashwood.

May bent down and kissed her aunt's brow. It was burning hot. She caressed her cheek with her hand, then kissed her again and went out. As May met the cooler air of the staircase, she murmured to herself, "I'm a coward to leave her alone--alone when she is so wretched. Oh, what a coward I am!"

She s.h.i.+vered as she went up the stairs, and as soon as she was in her own room she put up the lights, and then she locked the door, and having done this she took off her dress and put on her dressing-gown. She sat down by the fire. How was she to stay on here till Monday: how was she to endure it? It would be intolerable! May groaned aloud. What right had she to call it intolerable? What had happened to her? What was demoralising her, turning her strength into weakness? What was it that had entered into her soul and was poisoning its health and destroying its purpose?

A few days ago and she had been steadily pursuing her work. She had been stifling her sorrow, and filling the vacancy of her life with voluntary labour. Having no child of her own, she had been filling her empty arms with the children of other women. She had fed and nursed and loved babies that would never call her "Mother." She had had no time to think of herself--no time for regrets--for self-pity. And now, suddenly, her heart that had been quieted and comforted, her heart that had seemed quieted and comforted, her heart dismissed all this tender and sacred work and cried for something else--cried and would not be appeased. She felt as if all that she had believed fixed and certain in herself and in her life, was shaken and might topple over, and in the disaster her soul might be destroyed. She was appalled at herself.

No, no; she must wrestle with this sin, with this devil of self; she must fight it!

She got up from her chair and went to the dressing-table. There she took up with a trembling hand a little ivory case, and going back to her seat she opened it reverently and looked at the face of her boy husband.

There he was in all the bloom of his twenty and six years. It was a young pleasant face. And he had been such a comrade of her childhood and girlhood. But strangely enough he had never seen the gulf widening between them as she grew into a woman older than her years and he into a man, young for his years; boyish in his view of life, mentally immature.

He was quite unconscious that he never met the deeper wants of her nature; those depths meant nothing to him. There had been a tacit understanding between them from their childhood that they should marry; an understanding encouraged by their parents. When at last May found out her mistake; that this bondage was irksome and her heart unsatisfied, he had suddenly thrown the responsibility of his happiness, of his very life, upon her shoulders, not by threats of vengeance on himself, but by falling from his usual buoyant cheerfulness into a state of uncomplaining despondency.

May had had more than her share of men's admiration. Her piquancy and ready sympathy more even than her good looks attracted them. But she had gone on her way heart whole, and meanwhile she could not endure to see her old comrade unhappy.

They became formally engaged and he returned to his old careless cheerfulness. He was no longer a pathetic object, and she was a little disappointed and yet ashamed of her disappointment. Why should she have vague "wants" in her nature--these luxuries of the pampered soul? The face she now gazed upon, figured in the little ivory frame, was of a man, not over-wise, a man who was occupied with the enjoyment of life, yet without sinister motives. During those brief six months of married life, he had leant upon her, delighted and yet amused at her sterner virtues; and yet this man, not strong, not wise, when the call of duty came, when that ancient call to manhood, the call to rise up and meet the enemy, when that call came, he went out not shrinking, but with all honourable eagerness and fearlessness to offer his life. And his life was taken.

So that he whom in life she had never looked to for moral help, had become to her--in death--something sacred and unapproachable. In her first fresh grief she had asked herself bitterly what she--in her young womanhood--had ever offered to humanity? Nothing at all comparable to his sacrifice! Had she ever offered anything at all? Had she not, from girlhood, taken all the joys that life put in her way, and taken them for granted?

She had been aware of an underworld of misery, suffering and vice, had seen glimpses of it, heard its sounds breaking in upon her serenity. She had, like the travelling Levite, observed, noted, and had gone about her own business. So with pa.s.sionate self-reproach she had thrown herself into work among the neglected children of the poor, and had tried to still the clamour of her conscience and fill the emptiness of her heart.

And until now, that life had absorbed her and satisfied her--until now!