Chapter XVI

“Are you going out, Miss Willis?” asked Nora, the following morning, seeing her with her bonnet on. “Mr. Devereux is coming to look at my songs, and I would rather you were at home.”

“Oh! certainly, I will stay,” Miss Willis replied, though she looked surprised.

She left the room, and presently returned without her bonnet. Her countenance had a perplexed, dissatisfied look, and after a short time there came, “Excuse me, dear Miss Smith, but I must say a word,” and then she gasped.

Nora knew what it was, and after a moment’s thought replied--

“I agree with you before you speak. But how is it to be done?”

“There would be deception if it was allowed to continue any longer.”

“Deception, no,” Nora said indignantly. “He has never spoken of his relations, nor asked me about mine. Why was I to force my history upon him?”

“Because--because--I think because of the peculiar circumstances, you know. Excuse me, but indeed I lay awake last night thinking what I should do if he spoke of Mr. Fanshawe again.”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Nora said, smiling. “It shall be done. But how?”

She went and stood in the window, and she murmured to herself,

“It is hard. Just when I was making one friend.”

But her feeling that it must be done was as strong as that of Miss Willis, and she stood revolving different turns the conversation might take, by which she might introduce herself as the unwelcome cousin.

When Henry arrived he came accompanied by Mrs. Elliott. Nora, though relieved for an instant, was disappointed, and felt more perplexed than ever how to proceed.

Mrs. Elliott seated herself by Miss Willis, and Henry, without alluding to the purpose of his visit, sat down by Nora, and said,

“Is it not curious? I have had a letter from that person this very day.”

Nora’s pre-occupied mind could not guess what he meant, and she looked at him in a bewildered manner which made him laugh.

“Mr. Fanshawe, I mean,” he said. “It struck me as strange that we should both be acquainted with him.”

“Oh! yes, I remember,” she said, with embarrassment.

The very opportunity seemed given, but with Mrs. Elliott sitting opposite she dared not enter on the disclosure.

“And my speaking of him was strange,” he added. “I had not given him a thought for weeks and weeks, and should not have given him a thought for weeks and weeks more, if it had not been for that sermon. Then here comes a letter from him.”

“I have often remarked that,” Nora said sagely, eagerly rushing from a personal into a general topic, “when once we have met with a name we meet it till we are tired.”

“He writes in his usual style,” Henry went on, leaving the general for the personal topic.

“And what is that?” Nora was obliged to ask, though she felt as if she was treading on hot coals.

“Of course, to persecute me.”

“Persecute!”

“Yes. Don’t you call advice persecution? I do. I think a sane person with common sense is much better able to regulate his affairs than those who know nothing whatever of the matter.”

“I rather agree,” Nora said, laughing. “At the same time,” she added, “I should be thankful for the advice, even if I did not take it. Advice is friendly.”

“Very friendly indeed!” in an ironical tone. “The purport of Mr. Fanshawe’s advice is that he thinks I am idling my time away, and to beg me to consider seriously all that lies before me.”

“That is good advice,” Nora said, hardly knowing how to speak.

“Indeed it is not. I am only just of age, and a man must have a time of amusement in his life. Besides, there is really no need for me to be in a hurry. A kind individual left me a legacy, and I don’t see why I am not to enjoy his kindness in peace and comfort.”

A sudden flush of crimson on Nora’s cheek arrested him. In vain she averted her eyes; guilty and trembling, she was unable to collect her thoughts, or conceal her embarrassment. A sensation, that was disagreeable, he knew not why, crossed Henry’s mind. It was a feeling almost of jealousy of Mr. Fanshawe. He fancied he must have spoken of him in a tone that for some reason was displeasing to Nora; and what could that reason be?

“Of course I am very much obliged to Mr. Fanshawe for his interest in me,” he observed, by way of apology; but his tone was bitter.

Nora was relieved for the moment by Mrs. Elliott’s rising from her seat.

“I only looked in, Miss Smith,” she said. “I am very sorry I cannot stay and hear some music, but I promised an invalid lady to call this morning, and must go on.”

Nora walked with her to the door, and then into a small hall into which the drawing-room opened, accompanying her to the house door, Mrs. Elliott talking as they went, and turning back as she stepped out to speak again.

When Nora re-entered the drawing-room, Henry was at the pianoforte, and wrapt in the contemplation of something. She had been for a minute or two absent, and in that time he had seized a heap of music, and had tossed it over, throwing it about as piece after piece appeared in which he felt no interest.

At the bottom of the heap were three pieces of music of an earlier date. On each one was written, “Annora Smythe, Geneva,” with the year and date. Henry’s attention had first been caught by the words, “Rule Britannia” on one of the pieces. It was a tune he liked, and his hand lingered on the name for an instant. In that instant his eye fell on a word, then on three words, and he stood contemplating them with a puzzled and troubled look. He did not suspect the identity of the two persons, but the sudden appearance of the hated name perturbed him.

There are persons whose temper is put out by an east wind; there are others who are irritated by a cough; there are some who shudder at the unseen approach of certain animals; there are others who cannot command their impatience when music or certain airs are played. All these are involuntary irritations of the nerves, and something like one of these was the effect of the name Annora Smythe on Henry’s mind. He hated her with a more voluntary kind of ill-will; but there was, besides that other hate, a reasonless antipathy to her name, which had grown with his growth, and which affected his mind with an involuntary irritation, discomfort, and perturbation. At the mere sight he was no longer quite himself.

“What is the matter?” Nora said smiling, as she joined him. She thought he had found some much-liked or much-hated song. He raised his face with a blank, put out look.

“I was looking at that,” he said. “What is it? Do you know her?”

Nora’s face was crimson first, then pale. He looked at her with astonishment.

“Do you know her?” he repeated, in an angry, authoritative tone.

“I was--I mean I am Annora Smythe,” she said, trying to still her trembling; that trembling which was utterly reasonless, for what had she done?

“You!” He drew back from the pianoforte, and gazed at her with a gaze that was almost wild, while passionate blood flew in torrents to his face. “You! And why have you dared to cheat me in this way? None but you--none but _she_ could have done it. I might have known it. I ought to have expected it; it is of a piece with her life. Most men would have had honour enough, bad as they are, to forbid such tricks; but to her all meanness is possible. She--”

“What have I done?” Nora cried, interrupting him with a fierceness like his own. She had stood at first paralysed; but at the word “meanness” her haughty temper took fire.

“What you have done! Do you ask me what you have done? Wait, and you shall hear. You have added this to the rest of your deeds, that, like a prying impostor, you have come trying to worm out the secrets of my life--prying into my ways, into my weaknesses and follies, if you will. I am not ashamed to own I have them; it is for you to be ashamed of the meanness which would thus drag them out!” He seemed half-choked.

“Mr. Devereux,” Nora said tremulously and imploringly, “hear me!”

“Do you ask me what you have done!” he continued, neither heeding nor hearing her. “Wait, and I will tell you!” And from the inner recesses of his heart came pouring forth in passionate words all the thoughts cherished for years, facts true and facts false; the true warped and magnified, the false utterly false; his words vehement in tone, violent in language; his eyes glaring and flashing beneath his passion.

Nora stood for a time paralysed; to astonishment succeeded terror, and to terror a resentment that was half the effect of anger and pride, and half the sense of wrong and injury.

“If this is what you think of me,” she said, breaking in upon, but not stopping the torrent that flowed from him, “I leave you. I could have borne much--this I will not bear.” And she turned suddenly and left the room.

Then only Henry paused. He paused because her sudden disappearance surprised him--not because his passion was at an end.

“Oh, Mr. Devereux!” Miss Willis said piteously; “what can you mean?”

“I am glad,” he said, clenching his teeth, “that for once, just for one moment in my life, I have had the power to tell her what I think. I shall be the better for it all my life long.” And he drew a breath of relief, almost of enjoyment, as if indeed he did feel relieved of a burden.

“You will not be glad,” she said gently; “when you have time to think, you will grieve over the words you have used.”

“I shall _not_ grieve, Miss Willis. In cold blood I might never have dared to do it; but her imposition upset my temper, and forced from me the history of my wrongs. I am glad I have spoken. Now we stand on equal terms. Now she knows what I think of her; and if ever we meet again, why--she knows what I think of her.”

“How have you wrongs?” Miss Willis said, eagerly, too much excited to feel her usual timidity. “Can _she_ help it if she was born?”

“Do you think I quarrel with that?” he cried fiercely. “What is that to me? But there are few who, if they had used a person as I have been used, would not have made reparation. Little care has it been to her that a family has been struggling up in poverty; no pleasures in their lives, no education as befits their position. She has had the world at her command, but we are like the scum of the earth, and she is glad of it. I myself have had the common education of a gentleman, only through the unforeseen kindness of a friend.”

“But, Mr. Devereux, she--she--” gasped Miss Willis, “_she_ was the friend;” her excitement, her agony of desire to heal the feud, indiscreetly drawing the secret from her.

“What do you say?” he said, looking as if he would eat her up.

She hoped it was eagerness to hear more, hoped it was dawning penitence; and as quietly and composedly as she was able, but, in fact, with great hurry and perturbation, told what Nora had done.

He stood to hear her, the crimson glow ebbing and flowing on his cheek. When she stopped, he was deadly pale; and though far from calm, he was stilled. For a moment or two he struggled to speak, and could not; but at last he said,

“Will you be good enough to desire Miss Smythe to come down? I must speak to her.”

She did not understand his countenance, but she hoped much from his sudden composure, and went, and in a broken voice related to Nora what she had done.

At the moment Nora felt relieved. Her passion had faded, and the intolerable sense of wrong, of being so wrongly judged, was weighing upon her. But after an instant’s consideration her feelings changed--so far changed, at least, that she desired Miss Willis to go down and say that she declined to obey his summons.

“I am not displeased,” she said kindly. “I am sure you acted for the best, and I daresay it will prove for the best; but I will not see him--I cannot.”

Disappointed and reluctant, Miss Willis returned, and said Nora refused to appear.

“It is no matter,” he said, “you can tell her what I say. Go to her, if you please, and tell her that I would rather die, rather lie down and be ground into atoms, ground beneath a granite millstone, than lie down before her to receive her hated bounty!” He ground his teeth, and even clenched his fists.

“Oh! Mr. Devereux!” poor Miss Willis began, “consider----”

“If I go to work on the treadmill, if I steal,” he cried, passionately, “I would rather do it than be her slave! Tell her so. Tell her that it is in vain she plumes herself on her bounteous gifts!--I scorn them and renounce them! She thinks she has humbled me. She will find it is not so easily done as she thinks. Tell her what I have said; and now I have done.”

Miss Willis repeated as little as she could of the scene that had passed; much was gradually, however, drawn from her, and almost with tears she begged Nora to forgive her for the indiscretion which had brought such consequences.

“Think of it no more,” Nora said; “it was a foolish plan, and it is right that it should have failed. My first dream is over.”

Deep was the disappointment which, however, the event of the morning caused. It struck on a sore place. She had hoped to conciliate, and she had failed. She, in those days, had read Henry’s character, and could see its faults and merits; but he, she found, had not read hers; he, after three days’ intercourse, could still misdoubt and hate her. After a time from Henry her mind wandered to her mother. Her love she had also failed to retain; and the tears she had been ashamed to shed over her new disappointment fell fast when she recurred to that older one.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

LONDON: PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE.