Beatrice (1890), page 12
“That is the cruellest thing of all the cruel things which you have said,” he answered.
“I did not mean it to be cruel, Mr. Davies, but I suppose that the truth often is. And now good-bye,” and Beatrice stretched out her hand.
He touched it, and she turned and went. But Owen did not go. He sat upon the rock, his head bowed in misery. He had staked all his hopes upon this woman. She was the one desirable thing to him, the one star in his somewhat leaden sky, and now that star was eclipsed. Her words were unequivocal, they gave but little hope. Beatrice was scarcely a woman to turn round in six months or a year. On the contrary, there was a fixity about her which frightened him. What could be the cause of it? How came it that she should be so ready to reject him, and all he had to offer her? After all, she was a girl in a small position. She could not be looking forward to a better match. Nor would the prospect move her one way or another. There must be a reason for it. Perhaps he had a rival, surely that must be the cause. Some enemy had done this thing. But who?
At this moment a woman’s shadow fell athwart him.
“Oh, have you come back?” he cried, springing to his feet.
“If you mean Beatrice,” answered a voice — it was Elizabeth’s—”she went down to the beach ten minutes ago. I happened to be on the cliff, and I saw her.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Granger,” he said faintly. “I did not see who it was.”
Elizabeth sat down upon the rock where her sister had sat, and, seeing the little holes in the breach, began indolently to clear them of the sand which Beatrice had swept over them with her foot. This was no difficult matter, for the holes were deeply dug, and it was easy to trace their position. Presently they were nearly all clear — that is, the letters were legible.
“You have had a talk with Beatrice, Mr. Davies?”
“Yes,” he answered apathetically.
Elizabeth paused. Then she took her bull by the horns.
“Are you going to marry Beatrice, Mr. Davies?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered slowly and without surprise. It seemed natural to him that his own central thought should be present in her mind. “I love her dearly, and want to marry her.”
“She refused you, then?”
“Yes.”
Elizabeth breathed more freely.
“But I can ask her again.”
Elizabeth frowned. What could this mean? It was not an absolute refusal. Beatrice was playing some game of her own.
“Why did she put you off so, Mr. Davies? Do not think me inquisitive. I only ask because I may be able to help you.”
“I know; you are very kind. Help me and I shall always be grateful to you. I do not know — I almost think that there must be somebody else, only I don’t know who it can be.”
“Ah!” said Elizabeth, who had been gazing intently at the little holes in the beach which she had now cleared of the sand. “Of course that is possible. She is a curious girl, Beatrice is. What are those letters, Mr. Davies?”
He looked at them idly. “Something your sister was writing while I talked to her. I remember seeing her do it.”
“G E O F F R E — why, it must be meant for Geoffrey. Yes, of course it is possible that there is somebody else, Mr. Davies. Geoffrey! — how curious!”
“Why is it curious, Miss Granger? Who is Geoffrey?”
Elizabeth laughed a disagreeable little laugh that somehow attracted Owen’s attention more than her words.
“How should I know? It must be some friend of Beatrice’s, and one of whom she is thinking a great deal, or she would not write his name unconsciously. The only Geoffrey that I know is Mr. Geoffrey Bingham, the barrister, who is staying at the Vicarage, and whose life Beatrice saved.” She paused to watch her companion’s face, and saw a new idea creep across its stolidity. “But of course,” she went on, “it cannot be Mr. Bingham that she was thinking of, because you see he is married.”
“Married?” he said, “yes, but he’s a man for all that, and a very handsome one.”
“Yes, I should call him handsome — a fine man,” Elizabeth answered critically; “but, as Beatrice said the other day, the great charm about him is his talk and power of mind. He is a very remarkable man, and the world will hear of him before he has done. But, however, all this is neither here nor there. Beatrice is a curious woman, and has strange ideas, but I am sure that she would never carry on with a married man.”
“But he might carry on with her, Miss Elizabeth.”
She laughed. “Do you really think that a man like Mr. Bingham would try to flirt with girls without encouragement? Men like that are as proud as women, and prouder; the lady must always be a step ahead. But what is the good of talking about such a thing? It is all nonsense. Beatrice must have been thinking of some other Geoffrey — or it was an accident of something. Why, Mr. Davies, if you for one moment really believed that dear Beatrice could be guilty of such a shameless thing as to carry on a flirtation with a married man, would you have asked her to marry you? Would you still think of asking such a woman as she must be to become your wife?”
“I don’t know; I suppose not,” he said doubtfully.
“You suppose not. I know you better than you know yourself. You would rather never marry at all than take such a woman as she would be proved to be. But it is no good talking such stuff. If you have a rival you may be sure it is some unmarried man.”
Owen reflected in his heart that on the whole he would rather it was a married one, since a married man, at any rate, could not legally take possession of Beatrice. But Elizabeth’s rigid morality alarmed him, and he did not say so.
“Do you know I feel a little upset, Miss Elizabeth,” he answered. “I think I will be going. By the way, I promised to say nothing of this to your father. I hope that you will not do so, either.”
“Most certainly not,” said Elizabeth, and indeed it would be the last thing she would wish to do. “Well, good-bye, Mr. Davies. Do not be downhearted; it will all come right in the end. You will always have me to help you, remember.”
“Thank you, thank you,” he said earnestly, and went.
Elizabeth watched him round the wall of rock with a cold and ugly smile set upon her face.
“You fool,” she thought, “you fool! To tell me that you ‘love her dearly and want to marry her;’ you want to get that sweet face of hers, do you? You never shall; I’d spoil it first! Dear Beatrice, she is not capable of carrying on a love affair with a married man — oh, certainly not! Why, she’s in love with him already, and he is more than half in love with her. If she hadn’t been, would she have put Owen off? Not she. Give them time, and we shall see. They will ruin each other — they must ruin each other; it won’t be child’s play when two people like that fall in love. They will not stop at sighs, there is too much human nature about them. It was a good idea to get him into the house. And to see her go on with that child Effie, just as though she was its mother — it makes me laugh. Ah, Beatrice, with all your wits you are a silly woman! And one day, my dear girl, I shall have the pleasure of exposing you to Owen; the idol will be unveiled, and there will be an end of your chances with him, for he can’t marry you after that. Then my turn will come. It is a question of time — only a question of time!”
So brooded Elizabeth in her heart, madded with malicious envy and passionate jealousy. She loved this man, Owen Davies, as much as she could love anybody; at the least, she dearly loved the wealth and station of which he was the visible centre, and she hated the sister whom he desired. If she could only discredit that sister and show her to be guilty of woman’s worst crime, misplaced, unlegalised affection, surely, she thought, Owen would reject her.
She was wrong. She did not know how entirely he desired to make Beatrice his wife, or realise how forgiving a man can be who has such an end to gain. It is of the women who already weary them and of their infidelity that men are so ready to make examples, not of those who do not belong to them, and whom they long for night and day. To these they can be very merciful.
CHAPTER XIII
GEOFFREY LECTURES
MEANWHILE BEATRICE WAS walking homewards with an uneasy mind. The trouble was upon her. She had, it is true, succeeded in postponing it a little, but she knew very well that it was only a postponement. Owen Davies was not a man to be easily shaken off. She almost wished now that she had crushed the idea once and for all. But then he would have gone to her father, and there must have been a scene, and she was weak enough to shrink from that, especially while Mr. Bingham was in the house. She could well imagine the dismay, not to say the fury, of her money-loving old father if he were to hear that she had refused — actually refused — Owen Davies of Bryngelly Castle, and all his wealth.
Then there was Elizabeth to be reckoned with. Elizabeth would assuredly make her life a burden to her. Beatrice little guessed that nothing would suit her sister’s book better. Oh, if only she could shake the dust of Bryngelly off her feet! But that, too, was impossible. She was quite without money. She might, it was true, succeed in getting another place as mistress to a school in some distant part of England, were it not for an insurmountable obstacle. Here she received a salary of seventy-five pounds a year; of this she kept fifteen pounds, out of which slender sum she contrived to dress herself; the rest she gave to her father. Now, as she well knew, he could not keep his head above water without this assistance, which, small as it was, made all the difference to their household between poverty and actual want. If she went away, supposing even that she found an equally well-paid post, she would require every farthing of the money to support herself, there would be nothing left to send home. It was a pitiable position; here was she, who had just refused a man worth thousands a year, quite unable to get out of the way of his importunity for the want of seventy-five pounds, paid quarterly. Well, the only thing to do was to face it out and take her chance. On one point she was, however, quite clear; she would not marry Owen Davies. She might be a fool for her pains, but she would not do it. She respected herself too much to marry a man she did not love; a man whom she positively disliked. “No, never!” she exclaimed aloud, stamping her foot upon the shingle.
“Never what?” said a voice, within two yards of her.
She started violently, and looked round. There, his back resting against a rock, a pipe in his mouth, an open letter on his knee, and his hat drawn down almost over his eyes, sat Geoffrey. He had left Effie to go home with Mr. Granger, and climbing down a sloping place in the cliff, had strolled along the beach. The letter on his knee was one from his wife. It was short, and there was nothing particular in it. Effie’s name was not even mentioned. It was to see if he had not overlooked it that he was reading the note through again. No, it merely related to Lady Honoria’s safe arrival, gave a list of the people staying at the Hall — a fast lot, Geoffrey noticed, a certain Mr. Dunstan, whom he particularly disliked, among them — and the number of brace of partridges which had been killed on the previous day. Then came an assurance that Honoria was enjoying herself immensely, and that the new French cook was “simply perfect;” the letter ending “with love.”
“Never what, Miss Granger?” he said again, as he lazily folded up the sheet.
“Never mind, of course,” she answered, recovering herself. “How you startled me, Mr. Bingham! I had no idea there was anybody on the beach.”
“It is quite free, is it not?” he answered, getting up. “I thought you were going to trample me into the pebbles. It’s almost alarming when one is thinking about a Sunday nap to see a young lady striding along, then suddenly stop, stamp her foot, and say, ‘No, never!’ Luckily I knew that you were about or I should really have been frightened.”
“How did you know that I was about?” Beatrice asked a little defiantly. It was no business of his to observe her movements.
“In two ways. Look!” he said, pointing to a patch of white sand. “That, I think, is your footprint.”
“Well, what of it?” said Beatrice, with a little laugh.
“Nothing in particular, except that it is your footprint,” he answered. “Then I happened to meet old Edward, who was loafing along, and he informed me that you and Mr. Davies had gone up the beach; there is his footprint — Mr. Davies’s, I mean — but you don’t seem to have been very sociable, because here is yours right in the middle of it. Therefore you must have been walking in Indian file, and a little way back in parallel lines, with quite thirty yards between you.”
“Why do you take the trouble to observe things so closely?” she asked in a half amused and half angry tone.
“I don’t know — a habit of the legal mind, I suppose. One might make quite a romance out of those footprints on the sand, and the little subsequent events. But you have not heard all my thrilling tale. Old Edward also informed me that he saw your sister, Miss Elizabeth, going along the cliff almost level with you, from which he concluded that you had argued as to the shortest way to the Red Rocks and were putting the matter to the proof.”
“Elizabeth,” said Beatrice, turning a shade paler; “what can she have been doing, I wonder.”
“Taking exercise, probably, like yourself. Well, I seat myself with my pipe in the shadow of that rock, when suddenly I see Mr. Davies coming along towards Bryngelly as though he were walking for a wager, his hat fixed upon the back of his head. Literally he walked over my legs and never saw me. Then you follow and ejaculate, ‘No, never!’ — and that is the end of my story. Have I your permission to walk with you, or shall I interfere with the development of the plot?”
“There is no plot, and as you said just now the beach is free,” Beatrice answered petulantly.
They walked on a few yards and then he spoke in another tone — the meaning of the assignation he had overheard in the churchyard grew clear to him now.
“I believe that I have to congratulate you, Miss Granger,” he said, “and I do so very heartily. It is not everybody who is so fortunate as to — —”
Beatrice stopped, and half turning faced him.
“What do you mean, Mr. Bingham?” she said. “I do not understand your dark sayings.”
“Mean! oh, nothing particular, except that I wished to congratulate you on your engagement.”
“My engagement! what engagement?”
“It seems that there is some mistake,” he said, and struggle as he might to suppress it his tone was one of relief. “I understood that you had become engaged to be married to Mr. Owen Davies. If I am wrong I am sure I apologise.”
“You are quite wrong, Mr. Bingham; I don’t know who put such a notion into your head, but there is no truth in it.”
“Then allow me to congratulate you on there being no truth in it. You see that is the beauty of nine affairs matrimonial out of ten — there are two or more sides of them. If they come off the amiable and disinterested observer can look at the bright side — as in this case, lots of money, romantic castle by the sea, gentleman of unexceptional antecedents, &c., &c, &c. If, on the other hand, they don’t, cause can still be found for thankfulness — lady might do better after all, castle by the sea rather draughty and cold in spring, gentlemen most estimable but perhaps a little dull, and so on, you see.”
There was a note of mockery about his talk which irritated Beatrice exceedingly. It was not like Mr. Bingham to speak so. It was not even the way that a gentleman out of his teens should speak to a lady on such a subject. He knew this as well as she did and was secretly ashamed of himself. But the truth must out: though Geoffrey did not admit it even to himself he was bitterly and profoundly jealous, and jealous people have no manners. Beatrice could not, however, be expected to know this, and naturally grew angry.
“I do not quite understand what you are talking about, Mr. Bingham,” she said, putting on her most dignified air, and Beatrice could look rather alarming. “You have picked up a piece of unfounded gossip and now you take advantage of it to laugh at me, and to say rude things of Mr. Davies. It is not kind.”
“Oh, no; it was the footsteps, Miss Granger, and the gossip, and the appointment you made in the churchyard, that I unwillingly overheard, not the gossip alone which led me into my mistake. Of course I have now to apologise.”
Again Beatrice stamped her foot. She saw that he was still mocking her, and felt that he did not believe her.
“There,” he went on, stung into unkindness by his biting but unacknowledged jealousy, for she was right — on reflection he did not quite believe what she said as to her not being engaged. “How unfortunate I am — I have said something to make you angry again. Why did you not walk with Mr. Davies? I should then have remained guiltless of offence, and you would have had a more agreeable companion. You want to quarrel with me; what shall we quarrel about? There are many things on which we are diametrically opposed; let us start one.”
It was too much, for though his words were nothing the tone in which he spoke gave them a sting. Beatrice, already disturbed in mind by the scene through which she had passed, her breast already throbbing with a vague trouble of which she did not know the meaning, for once in her life lost control of herself and grew hysterical. Her grey eyes filled with tears, the corners of her sweet mouth dropped, and she looked very much as though she were going to burst out weeping.
“It is most unkind of you,” she said, with a half sob. “If you knew how much I have to put up with, you would not speak to me like that. I know that you do not believe me; very well, I will tell you the truth. Yes, though I have no business to do it, and you have no right — none at all — to make me do it, I will tell you the truth, because I cannot bear that you should not believe me. Mr. Davies did want me to marry him and I refused him. I put him off for a while; I did this because I knew that if I did not he would go to my father. It was cowardly, but my father would make my life wretched — —” and again she gave a half-choked sob.
