A Charming Fellow Volume Iii Part 6

"Did he--did he stay long?"

"About half an hour, I think."

"Is Mr. Maxfield at home?"

"No, ma'am; master is at Duckwell, and has been since Sat.u.r.day."

"Who is it, Sally?" cried Betty Grimshaw's voice from the parlour, and upon hearing it Castalia walked hastily away.

When she reached her own home again, between fatigue and excitement she could scarcely stand. She threw herself on the sofa in her little drawing-room, unable to mount the stairs.

"Deary me, missus," cried Polly, who happened to admit her, "why you're a'most dead! Where-ever have you been?"

"I've been walking in the fields. I came round by the road. I'm very tired."

"Tired? Nay, and well you may be if you took all that round! I thought you'd happen been into Whitford. Lawk, how you're squas.h.i.+ng your bonnet!

Let me take it off for you."

"I don't care; leave it alone."

But Polly would not endure to see "good clothes ruinated," as she said, so she removed her mistress's shawl and bonnet--folding, and smoothing, and straightening them as well as she could. "Now you'd better take a drop o' wine," she said. "You're a'most green. I never saw such a colour."

Despite her rustic bluntness, Polly was kind in her way. She made her mistress swallow some wine, and put her slippers on her feet for her, and brought a pillow to place beneath her head. "You see you han't got no strength to spare. You're very weak, missus," she said. Then she muttered as she walked away, "Lord, I wouldn't care to be a lady myself!

I think they're mostly poor creeturs."

Left alone, Castalia closed her eyes and tried to review the situation, but at first her brain would do nothing but represent to her over and over again certain scenes and circ.u.mstances, with a great gap here and there, like a broken kaleidoscope.

Ancram had been to Maxfield's house, and it could not have been to see the old man, who had been absent for some days. Perhaps Ancram was in the habit of going thither! He had never said a word to her about it.

How sly he had been! How sly Rhoda had been! All his pretended unwillingness to have Rhoda invited to Ivy Lodge had been a blind. There was nothing clear or definite in her mind except a bitter, burning, jealous hatred of Rhoda.

"We shall see if Ancram confesses to having been to that house to-day,"

said Castalia to herself. Then she went upstairs wearily. She was physically tired, being weak and utterly unused to much walking, and called Lydia to dress her and brush her hair. And when her toilet was completed, she sat quite still in the drawing-room, neither playing, reading, nor working--quite still, with her hands folded before her, and awaited her husband.

She would first try to lead him to confess his visit to the Maxfields, and, if that failed, would boldly tax him with it. She even went over the very words she would say to her husband when he should descend from his dressing-room before dinner.

But she could not foresee a circ.u.mstance which disturbed the plan she had arranged in her mind. When Algernon returned to Ivy Lodge he did not go into his dressing-room as usual, but marched straight into the drawing-room, where Castalia was sitting.

"That's an agreeable sort of letter!" he said, flinging one down on the table.

He was not in a pa.s.sion--he had never been known to be in a pa.s.sion--but he was evidently much vexed. His mouth was curved into a satirical smile; he drew his breath between his teeth with a hissing sound, and nodded his head twice or thrice, after repeating ironically, "That's an uncommonly agreeable sort of letter!" Then he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, threw himself into an easy-chair, stretched his legs straight out before him, and looked at his wife.

Castalia was surprised, and curious, and a little anxious, but she made an effort to carry out her programme despite this unexpected beginning.

She remained motionless on the sofa, and said, with elaborate indifference of manner, "Do you wish me to read the letter? I wonder at your allowing me to know anything of your affairs."

"Read it? Of course! Why else did I give it to you? Don't be absurd, Castalia. Pshaw!" And he impatiently changed the position of his feet with a sharp, sudden movement.

Castalia's sympathy with his evident annoyance overcame her resentment for the moment. She could not bear to see him troubled. She opened the letter.

"Why it's from Uncle Val!" she exclaimed.

It was from her uncle, addressed to her husband, and was written in a tone of considerable severity. To Castalia it appeared barbarously cruel. Lord Seely curtly refused any money a.s.sistance; and stated that he wrote to Algernon instead of to Castalia, because he perceived that, although the application for money had been written by Castalia's hand, it had not been dictated by her head. Lord Seely further advised his niece's husband, in the strongest and plainest terms, to use every method of economy, to retrench his expenditure, to refrain from superfluous luxuries, and to live on his salary.

"The little allowance I give Castalia for her dress will be continued to her," wrote his lords.h.i.+p. "Beyond that, I am unable to give either her or you one farthing. Understand this, and act on it. And, moreover, I had better tell you at once, as an additional inducement to be prudent, that I see no prospect of procuring advancement for you in any other department of his Majesty's service than the one you are in at present.

My advice to you is to endeavour to merit advancement by diligence in the performance of your duties. You have abilities which are sure to serve you if honestly applied. You are so young, that even after ten or fifteen years' work you would be in the prime of all your faculties and powers. And ten or fifteen years' good work might give you an excellent position. As to Castalia, I cannot help feeling a conviction that her discontent is chiefly reflected, and that if she saw you cheerful and active in your daily business, she would not repine at her lot."

Castalia put the letter down on the table in silence. She was astonished, indignant; but yet a little gleam of satisfaction pierced through those feelings--a hope that she and her husband might be drawn closer together by this common trouble. She would show him how well able she was to endure this, and worse, if he would only love her and trust her entirely. Even her jealousy for Rhoda Maxfield was mitigated for the moment. All that fair-weather prettiness and philandering would be put out of sight at the first growl of a storm. The wife would be the nearest to him if troubles came. No pink-and-white coquetry could usurp her right to suffer with him and for him, at all events.

"That's a pleasant sort of thing, isn't it?" said Algernon, who had been watching her face as she read.

"It is too bad of Uncle Val, Ancram."

"Too bad! Yes; to put it mildly, it is too bad, I think. Too bad? By George, I never heard of anything so outrageous!"

"Do you know, I think that my lady is at the bottom of it."

"I wish she was at the bottom of the Thames!"

"Ancram, I do feel sorry for you. It is such a shame to bury your talents, and all that. But still, you know, it is true what he says about your having plenty of time before you. And as to being poor--of course it is horrid to be poor, but we can bear it, I daresay. And, really, I don't think I should mind it so much if once we were acknowledged to be quite, quite poor; because then it wouldn't matter what one wore, and n.o.body would expect one to have things like other people of one's rank."

Poor Castalia was not eloquent, but had she possessed the most fluent and persuasive tongue in the world, it would not have availed to make Algernon acquiesce in her view of the situation. She was for indignantly breaking off all connection with relatives who could behave as Uncle Val had behaved. It was not his refusing to advance more money (in her conscience Castalia did not believe he could afford much a.s.sistance of that kind), but his writing with such cruel coldness to Ancram--his declaring that Ancram's case was not a hard one--his lecturing about duties, and cheerful activity, and so on, just as if Ancram had been an ordinary plodding young man instead of a being exceptionally gifted with all sorts of s.h.i.+ning qualities--these were offences not to be forgiven.

Castalia, for her part, would have endured any privation, rather than beg more favours of Uncle Val and my lady.

But Algernon's feeling in the matter was by no means the same as Castalia's. He dismissed all her attempts to express her willingness to share his lot for good or ill as matters of no importance. She might find it easy enough. Yes; the chief burthen would not fall on her! And, besides, she did not at all realise what it would be to have to live on the salary of the postmaster of Whitford, and to practise "rigid economy," as my lord phrased it. It was really provoking to see the cool way in which she took it for granted that matters would be mended by their being "acknowledged to be quite, quite poor." "My dear Castalia,"

he said, with an air of superior tolerance, "you have about as much comprehension of the actual state of the case as a canary-bird."

She paused, silently looking at him for a moment. Then she drew nearer to him, and laid her arm round his shoulder. She wore a dinner-dress with loose hanging sleeves, which were not becoming to her wasted frame.

But the poor thin arm clung with a loving touch to her husband, as she said, "I know I am not so clever as you, Ancram, but I can see and understand that if we haven't money enough to pay for things we must do without them." (Castalia advanced this in the tone of one stating a self-evident proposition.) "And I shan't care, Ancram, if you trust me, and--and--don't put any one else before me. I never put any one before you. I was fond of Uncle Val. I think he was the only person I really loved in the world before I saw you. But if he treats you badly I shall give him up."

Algernon shook off the clinging arm from his shoulder, not roughly, but slightingly.

"What on earth are you talking about, Ca.s.sy? What do you suppose we are to do? I tell you I must have some money, and you must write to your uncle again without delay."

She drew back with a hurt sense of having been unappreciated. The tears sprang to her eyes, and she put her hand into her pocket to take her handkerchief. The hand fell on something that rustled, and was stiff. It was the letter cover she had found in her husband's office that morning.

The touch of the crisp paper recalled not only the events of the afternoon, but her own sensations during them. "Where were you this afternoon?" she asked, suddenly checking her tears, as the dry, burning, jealous feeling awoke again in her heart.

"Where was I? Where must I be? Where am I every afternoon? At the office--confound it!"

"You were not there all the afternoon. I--happened to look in there, and you were gone."

"I suppose you came just at the moment I happened to be absent, then. I had to see one or two men on business. Not pleasant business. I was not amusing myself, I a.s.sure you," he added with a short hard laugh.

"What men had you to see?"

"Oh, no one whom you know anything about. Isn't dinner ready? I shan't dress. I have to go out again this evening."

"This evening!"

"Yes; it is a frightful bore, but I have a business appointment. Do ring and tell the cook to make haste."