Chapter III

The story is renewed after the lapse of nearly two years. The last chapter closed in the month of September. This one opens in June two years later. The last chapter closed at Riddlemere, and this re-opens in the same place. But a Riddlemere no longer the scene of devastation--no longer occupied by workmen and navvies. Riddlemere is a thing complete. It stands a fine feature in the wild country; and its beautiful gardens and pleasure-grounds are the pride of the district.

The scene re-opens in this beautiful garden. The capabilities of the place had been great. _That_ Nora’s eye had seen at once, and for having seen it Mr. Powderham had been disgusted with her. A skilful eye and skilful hands had made the most of the materials, and though much remained to be done, the garden was already a pride in the country.

On a smooth lawn, tufted with shrubs, and ornamented with shrubs and flowers in pots, a party of children sat. There were five. Three very young, nearly of an age, and a girl and a boy, several years older.

The three little girls were pretty, and full of airs and graces. The older boy and girl had little charm of appearance, but seemed to be dissolved in love and admiration of their younger playfellows. With this group sat Miss Willis reading.

On a bench nearer to the house, and shaded by a large tree, lay another young girl. She was very pretty, but an invalid. She might be thirteen or fourteen years old, but the fair, fragile features were marked with lines of care. A garden chair was placed near her, and on this sat Nora, and by Nora stood a blind man.

“I know it is only four o’clock, Sophy,” Nora said, “but it is not a hot day, and for the last ten minutes I have fancied there was a chill in the air.”

“I like a chill in the air,” replied Sophy Brook, fretfully. “A cold air is what I want; I am always so hot. Stifled!”

“What, last week?” asked Stephen Fanshawe, smiling. For the week before there had been a remarkable event, frost and snow in June.

“Yes, always hot. Even when I am cold I am hot.”

And though it sounded perverse, what Sophy said was very true, and Nora did not attempt to contradict the statement. Sophy was always tossing about, and complaining of being parched.

“But you know, Sophy,” she said, soothingly, “that whatever we feel we must obey orders. Dr. Lewis, when he came, told me to take care you were in the air as much as possible, but also to be sure you were never out late, or when the wind was chill. I do not dare to disobey him. There! the wind is certainly rising, and you must go in.”

Sophy knew she must when Nora said she must, but she chose to be perverse, and refused to move. The wind was really rising, and Nora, alarmed, was considering what argument would be most prevailing, when Stephen Fanshawe, as if he had seen her perplexed face, looked at her with a smile, then took up the peevish invalid in his arms, and carried her in. Sophy, too much astonished to resist, lay quiet, while they walked, and suffered herself to be put down in Nora’s boudoir, into which they entered.

Nora then called her mother, and Sophy was led away.

Notwithstanding, however, the summary process, she had staid in the garden five minutes too long. A return of her illness was the consequence, of which more will be said afterwards.

“Thank you,” Nora said, turning to Stephen Fanshawe, as Sophy left the room. “How you guess all one’s wishes! I often wonder how you do it. Are you always studying man’s nature; and does that study always teach you what is the right thing to be done?”

“I don’t know if I study man,” he replied, and there was a shadow on his face. “Perhaps I do, for I certainly have a mania for character. But there are other means by which one guesses people’s wishes.”

“I suppose so. I spoke foolishly. Study might do something, but study would never give the gift of helping rightly. That must come by nature; it is a gift which you have, and I am utterly without. I do what I can, but I do not _see_. It is my bane that I do not see.”

“I don’t know that I have it by nature,” he began again. “I was saying there are means by which one learns the wishes of another.”

He spoke gravely; defending himself, as Nora thought, from thanks and praises, and she answered to her thought,

“You must not think I am flattering when I say that you have the gift of being a real helper. You have helped me again and again when I was most in need of help, and I should be ungrateful, indeed, if I did not feel it.”

The warmth of her words, and some thoughts connected with his help, brought a glow to her cheek, and there was a glow also on his.

Nora saw it, and it puzzled her; but there came a sudden uncomfortable sensation at being alone with him. She stepped out of her boudoir and plucked a sprig of syringa from a tree which stood in a wooden tub outside, saying, as she did so, “I am very fond of syringa; are you? Some people say it has too strong a scent, but I like it to be blown in at my windows.”

“I like it too,” he said, and held out his fingers for the sprig. She gave it carelessly, and then again felt uncomfortable, and remarked,

“I am glad Sophy is gone in. The wind is cool, if not cold, and I think it will rain. Must you go to-night?”

“I fear so,” he said sadly. “Should you mind walking with me to that thornbush? I have one question I want to ask you?”

“Oh! certainly,” she replied, trying to speak indifferently, though she began to wonder what was coming; to wonder, as those do who will not face a thought that comes to trouble them.

“Will you not get a bonnet or a hat, or whatever is preferred?” he asked, so much in his usual manner that Nora put her wondering away, and answered lightly,

“No. Miss Willis has to take care of winds, but my death must come in quite a different manner. As poor Sophy says, even when I am cold I am hot.”

And they walked off together. When he had escaped from the immediate neighbourhood of the house, he said,

“You said just now that the bane of your life was that you could not see. May I show you something which for nearly two years has been making my life so great a burden to me, that unless I do show it, I do not know what the consequence will be?”

Hating herself for the dread that had taken hold of her; thinking it scarcely possible, after the friendly way in which she had always treated him, yet not the less pursued by it, Nora knew not what to say. If her dread was a true one, she would prevent its expression if she could.

“Surely, you must know me too well,” she said at last, with earnestness, “to be afraid to speak to me of whatever concerns you. Even were the claim one of gratitude only, you have the right to claim my assistance; but I would also hope that we are friends, and the best of friends.”

On the last few words a very slight emphasis was put;--sufficient to warn him, if he needed warning, and no more. He did need it; and he felt it, and a flush of pain passed over his face.

“I knew it was in vain,” he said sadly. “Wisdom has cried to me a thousand times that my hope was so impossible, I had better close it from the light of day. But when I am absent from you, impossible as it is, it pursues and torments me; I came last night with the determination that I would try to see more clearly. Thank you, let us say no more on the subject.”

“Oh! Mr. Fanshawe!” she said, in a broken voice, and a tear fell from her eye.

It was not only the pain of giving pain to that blind man; there was a swelling of the heart within, to think that love had come to her--she who had so pined for love, and that it was worse than useless. It lost her a friend.

“Do not let me grieve you,” he said, not only hearing the tears in her voice, but knowing that he had caused one to fall from her eyes. “I shall get over it now. It was the strife that killed me. If there was a chance, the very faintest, I know you would give it to me; but there is none, and therefore I _must_ submit to overcome.”

“I would,” she said, in a low voice, “but there is none.”

“Thank you. I know it. Now go in; I do not mean to lose you as my half ward and my friend. Go in out of this cold wind.”

He shook her hand with a smile, and she obeyed him thankfully.

He walked to the place where Miss Willis sat, and stood beside her.

“I have tried, Miss Willis, and I have failed.”

“Oh! impossible!” she said, turning pale.

“Quite true. I do not thank you the less for all your kind wishes and kind encouragement. Now, good-bye. I am off; but mean to come again.”

He shook her hand also, and went.

And poor Miss Willis sat and wept bitterly. She had for two years been feeding him with hopes. Never definitely, but seeing his hope, and administering to it in gentle ways, and with words dropped in season.

In season, at least, as she thought, but very much out of season, as it appeared. It was one of those cases where a well-meaning person, arguing from a theory, can do a world of mischief. She had a theory that two persons possessed of an enthusiasm of benevolence, as were Nora and Stephen Fanshawe, must be, as old nurses would say, “married in heaven.” She felt that they only needed help to be brought together, and made happy for time and eternity. And her theory was very good; only that human nature is perverse, and will not like in those fitting ways. There may be good reason why it will not, but it is often vexatious enough to see its stubbornness.