Vexed; or, The Wife's Sister/Chapter 6

ALBREDA was at her window attending to a box of mignonette that filled the ledge, when a step on the gravel walk made her look up.

She was expecting Edward Foley, who had written to announce his intended arrival at that time. But she could not mistake the short spare figure and quick walk for his more substantial presence and firm, somewhat deliberate, movements.

It gave her rather a shock when she heard the visitor announce himself as Captain Foley. Half afraid that something might have happened, she hurried downstairs, and into the drawing-room.

The Heathcotes were out driving, so she introduced herself to the captain, who stood twirling his long black moustachios in a manner peculiarly objectionable to her.

​"Pardon me, Miss Darcy, if I intrude," he began, in a simpering way; "but I came as a sort of avant-coureur to my brother, who has been unfortunate enough to lose his luggage, and will hardly get here before the evening."

"Were you travelling together?" asked Albreda, a little surprised at the unexpected and uninvited guest.

"Well, the fact is, I only returned from India a day or two ago, and as nothing would turn my brother from his purpose of paying a visit here, I ran down with him, and shall be putting up at your nearest town for a week or so, that I may see a little of him before he goes off. We have not met for fifteen years, and he was quite a lad when I joined my regiment."

It was difficult for Albreda to believe that the man before her could be a brother of Edward Foley's. Except for the voices, which were pitched in the same key, and had a strong family resemblance, there could hardly have been found a greater contrast than the two brothers. The sharp aquiline nose, thin cheeks, and black fierce eyes of the captain, seemed to belong of necessity to an altogether different stock from that which had produced such a genuine, well-developed, thoroughly English type of being as Edward Foley.

Albreda did not feel comfortable in this man's ​presence, and inwardly resented the undisguised admiration which he threw into his expression when talking to her.

The Heathcotes were very late returning, and left her vexatiously long to endure the unwished-for tête-à-tête.

"What time may we expect your brother?" she ventured to ask, hoping that Edward's arrival would be the signal for the captain's departure.

"Well, I hardly know, really. I left him sending off telegrams right and left, and stole a march upon him. He wanted me to hang about the station till he was ready, but I declined with many thanks. Allow me, Miss Darcy." He stooped and picked up her ball of knitting-cotton, which had for the second time rolled from her basket.

In handing it back to her, he said impressively, "I think myself in luck's way to be spending an afternoon in such fair company."

She had put out her hand to receive the ball, but he held it a minute to make her look at him. Albreda's indignation was rapidly rising. It was a great liberty, she thought, from an utter stranger. She was more angry when she fancied that he had mistaken the accidental dropping of her ball for an excuse for a flirtation. She longed to crush him out at once; such creatures deserved no pity, and she could be unsparing on ​occasions of this kind, but it was awkward being alone and not knowing how long she would have to entertain him. She got up abruptly and changed her seat for one nearer to a table and further from the captain.

"I suppose you know my brother Edward well?" he continued, apparently not noticing her move. "I've been telling him it's a pity he didn't go into the army; he'd have had a lot of nonsense knocked out of him. Now his head seems full of notions. I never knew such a fellow for notions."

Albreda was inclined to smile, but checked herself, nevertheless she could not resist the temptation of drawing out this specimen of what the army could make after it had knocked out all nonsense and notions together.

"What do you mean by nonsense?" she asked shortly, looking up at last to enjoy the confusion that she thought would follow a direct question.

"Oh, I don't know; a man's a fool before he's knocked about a bit in the world. Why, I tell Edward he's hardly cut his eye-teeth yet."

"Indeed?"

She pretended to look quite surprised and questioning, and Captain Foley imagined that she was listening to him as to an oracle.

"You see," he went on, "there's nothing like ​the army for rubbing up a man and sharpening his wits. I dare say if Edward had been three years in the service, by this time he'd have told a good glass of wine and made his score at billiards with the best of us."

"What a pity he should lose such advantages."

Albreda was in her most wicked mood now, and she said it with a gravity almost amounting to sadness.

"I still hope for him," went on the captain; "and I'm looking him up now on purpose to tackle him with his fool's notions."

"What notions do you mean, Captain Foley?" asked Albreda.

"Why, he's taken to calling himself religious, and he actually tried to come the parson over me; but I told him that sermons were not in my line, and that he'd better drop that sort of thing at once."

"What is your line?" The innocent thirst for knowledge on Albreda's face was delightful.

The captain looked up quickly, half expecting that she was not quite in earnest, but sincerity was written in her eyes.

"My line? Oh, well, I don't know that I've got any particular cut-and-dried line. You want rules to make lines, you see, and I hate people that live by rule. Liberty is the only line I believe in."

​"Indeed! Do you mean your own liberty, or others?"

He wished she would drop this catechizing, which was beginning to be rather unpleasant. You can always put a person into a corner by asking a succession of questions, while you are perfectly safe yourself. The captain began to feel as if Miss Darcy were throwing balls at him which he was obliged to catch, and this was rather a hard one; but she was looking at him quite steadily, waiting for a reply.

"Well, I was thinking of myself at the minute, but, of course, all have a right to their liberty."

"You mean be allowed to do whatever they like?"

"Certainly." He knew that he was in a dangerous position, and could see the very bog that he was making for, but he still trusted to her simplicity for deliverance.

Albreda waited a little before she spoke again. She was wicked enough to pause on purpose to indulge the hope in him. Then she said quietly, "That is quite incompatible with liberty."

"How so?" returned the captain, thinking to turn the tables by throwing back a few questions.

"Because if every one is to do whatever he likes, there are those who like to rob, to murder, ​and to persecute; and what then becomes of the liberty of the victims?"

"They are at liberty to defend themselves as best they can."

Albreda was not dumfounded by the answer, though the captain gave it out with an air of conclusive triumph, intending immediately to turn the conversation, but she was too quick for him.

"I think I quite understand now the liberty that you contend for," she said; "a liberty which means unbridled license to the strong to commit all manner of wickedness unchecked, and a liberty that takes all protection from the weak, and leaves them, as you say, to defend themselves as best they may."

Captain Foley was feeling hot and uncomfortable. He made no reply, but got up from his chair and walked to the open window.

Miss Darcy had been fooling him, then, all the time, and he never could stand that from a woman, particularly a woman whose attractions he was fully conscious of. He didn't want to quarrel with her, but her last remark was certainly offensive.

"Hallo! here comes my brother!" he suddenly exclaimed, only too thankful for such a substantial interruption to the talk. "I will step out and meet him." He suited the action to the word, glad to escape from Albreda.

​Left alone for the next minute, Albreda went through a strange revulsion of feeling. To be in the presence of a man she despised was to rouse in her all that was hard, as well as strong, in her character. She had often rebuked herself sharply for the keen relish with which she watched the fruitless plungings and strugglings of the captives of her ready wit and deceptive sang froid.

This afternoon she had indulged the propensity to the full, and she was perfectly aware that, notwithstanding all the airs and graces with which this gallant officer had first met her, he had fled from her presence confused and nonplussed. It was wrong of her, she felt, all the time, but his insolent attempt at familiarity was her excuse. With her head very high, and a disdainful smile of triumph on her face, she saw through the window Edward Foley coming up the path. She instinctively felt that her present attitude and feelings were quite out of place in his presence.

Like other mortals, Albreda was wont to go through a process of mental arrangement, in the anticipation of a looked-for event. She had been perfectly prepared for his arrival before the advent of this obnoxious brother, and it required a rapid, almost violent, readjustment of her ruffled plumage to allow her to meet him ​as she would wish. She was ashamed and confused to think of Edward Foley seeing her as she now was; but there was no time to consider the matter, for they were approaching by the window.

If we only knew at times the supreme unconsciousness of our friends as to defects in our behaviour of which we are most painfully aware, much self-blame and miserable self-torture would be spared us.

Edward was far too much taken up at the moment with his own unusual sensations to give heed to any momentary awkwardness in her reception of him. He was not well practised in the game he had to play, and it required all the self-control of which he was master to allow him to meet calmly the woman whose image had been with him ever since they parted. The effort was so great that, by the time he was actually in her presence, his manner was constrained and almost cold.

After the first civilities and explanations were over, he turned to his brother, and Captain Foley was delighted to find himself the centre of the trio—the intermediate channel through which the two carried on their very superficial conversation. He was very sorry when the carriage drove up, and Graham and Kitty Heathcote made their appearance; but it was no slight ​relief to the two who had been listening to his pitiable vauntings, with the toleration of utter absent-mindedness only.

"Well, old fellow, I'm delighted to see you!" said Graham, coming in in his hearty way and setting them all at ease at once. "And this is your brother, Captain Foley? You will excuse Kitty if she only shakes hands with you. She is tired with the drive and must rest, if we are to see her this evening."

Edward was looking over his friend's shoulder towards the door, expecting Kitty to come almost dancing in, in her pretty, lively way. He unconsciously knit his brows incredulously when, instead, she walked towards him quite sedately, with an anxious, careworn face. He talked cheerfully to her, and Kitty did not know that he was observing her so carefully; but Albreda had seen the involuntary expression of surprise, and a cold fear came over her.

When Kitty had left them, she made her way across the room to Edward, anxious to hear what he really thought of her. She did not like his hesitating answer to her question.

"Well, I am no judge; but I should say she looks ill."

"She has been ill, poor child!" said Albreda; "but I do trust she is improving now."

Edward knit his brows again and was silent. ​It was plain enough to any one coming in fresh, and who had known her before, that Kitty was alarmingly altered.

"Has she seen a doctor?" he asked, looking up anxiously.

"Well, no—it has been more mental trouble; and I don't know that a doctor could have done much good; besides, Graham seems to dread a doctor."

At this moment Captain Foley stepped up to them. "You both look very grave," he said, facetiously. "Is the parson giving you a lecture, Miss Darcy?"

Edward resented the interruption, as also the appellation that his brother had chosen to tack on to him. "You'll be missing your train to Thorpe," he said, rather roughly, hoping that the captain would take the hint and make himself scarce.

"I say, that is hard," was the rejoinder. "You used to be such an affectionate boy, Edward, and now I do believe you want to get rid of a brother you have not seen for fifteen years. Isn't it hard, Miss Darcy? I had just come to tell you that Heathcote has offered me a bed here for a night or two on the strength of our fraternal attachment."

"Has he?" said Edward, in a tone that did not express much pleasure at the news. ​This returned brother of his was becoming rather a bugbear, and he could not feel that his society was much acquisition. Edward had done his best to shake him off when he first proposed to come with him, and he was annoyed at the way in which he seemed determined to force his company upon them. "It's like his cheek, to throw out hints for Graham to invite him," he said to himself.

Albreda was equally disgusted at the arrangement; but that must not interfere with civility to a guest, so she compelled herself to divide her conversation between them. However, this did not seem to suit Edward, for he soon got up and left them, much to the captain's felicity.

"Now, Miss Darcy," he began, having quite recovered his self-complacency, "you cut up rough with me this afternoon, and I've come to apologize, if I vexed you in any way. I'm not a coward in the field, mind you; but a pretty woman can knock me down with her eyelashes and make me sue for mercy." He had taken Edward's seat near her and lowered his voice to a confidential whisper.

"I don't understand the nature of your apology," Albreda answered, loud enough for the room to hear.

Graham, who was at the further end, turned round with an amused look. He recognized an ​aggressive ring in her voice. "The captain will catch it," he thought, "if he is playing the ass with Albreda."

Captain Foley, still maintaining his subdued tone, went on, "I don't quite know what you mean by the nature of my apology. I only mean I want you to make it up, Miss Darcy. I hate quarrelling with women."

"I was not aware that we were quarrelling, Captain Foley. I merely took the liberty of disagreeing with some of your views."

Her tone and look were icy enough to have reduced the temperature of any one less intentionally unobservant; but the captain was not to be beaten again.

"Well, well, as you are so forgiving, I shall consider myself quite reinstated in your favour. Just say that I am at liberty to do so, and I shall be at rest again."

How could she answer such a question truthfully? For peace and quietness' sake and to get away from him, Albreda would have at that moment said almost anything; but she saw that with such a man an admission that he had once been in her favour would be fatal; besides, it had never been the case. She had taken at first sight that sudden unalterable dislike to him, which was the result of a quick reading of character by the countenance; so now she only said shortly—​"I have told you that there is no quarrel that I am aware of, Captain Foley. It is a mistake to make so much of trifles."

Edward, who had gone into the garden, walked impatiently once or twice past the window where they were sitting. This the captain had observed, and it had given zest and animation to his remarks, and an increased empressement in his manner was intended for his brother's benefit.

Now, as Edward stopped and looked in, he said, turning to Albreda, "Then I consider we are very good friends again, Miss Darcy. It is kind of you to take me once more into your favour."

His last remark was unnoticed by Albreda, who got up hastily, hailing Edward's arrival as a deliverance. She had felt regularly besieged by this unquenchable officer, and when she stepped out of the window at Edward's invitation, she could with difficulty repress her gratitude to him.

"Do show me over the garden, Miss Darcy, if you have nothing better to do," said Edward; "it is a sin to stay indoors such weather as this."

He had quite recovered his composure, and was not afraid to find himself alone with her.

He was not afraid, though he knew well enough that this walk would be something different from any he had ever taken before.

​He had come for this visit with one purpose only in view. Little as he had seen of Miss Darcy, it was yet enough to make him feel towards her as he had never felt towards another woman. Indeed, he had fallen in love with her in the honest, old-fashioned English way, and was not ashamed of it. But because it was the old-fashioned English way, it was not a way wanting in originality. Where are the two men that love alike?

If we could catch love in its embodied shapes, as we do butterflies and arrange them in a case, pinning our little cupids in neat rows, we should find it necessary to divide them not only into classes, but to subdivide them into order, family, genus, and variety. The varieties are infinite. It would be a pretty collection. Butterfly colouring would not do, though; it is too dead. There is not enough living change in the hues. Our cupids' wings would be iridescent, sheeny, varying with every shade of light. Their greens would be emerald, blue, or purple as we moved them. What was amber is now copper, gold, or red, but always living, shining, catching the light. The breasts of hummingbirds are more like them for colour. Are there ugly ones? I am told so, but I don't think they belong to this collection. Butterflies and moths should hardly be put together.

​We are talking of love and creatures that flit about in the day. Let who will collect those earth-coloured, death's-head moths; they shall find no place in our museum. Edward's love was the old-fashioned English kind, but for all that original. That was only the name of the class to which it belonged.

It was as unlike Graham's as if they had nothing in common, but I should have pinned their cupids in the same class. Moreover, it belonged to the same family even. It was in genus that it differed, and so he loved Albreda, while Graham loved Kitty.

There was something of the poet nature in Edward—not a vestige of it in Graham. Graham saw what he loved at once. He found Kitty what he had expected, and was satisfied.

There was nothing mysterious about her. She was just a lovely, lovable little woman, with no depth of intellect or of wit, but good and gentle and sweet-tempered. Certainly her trouble had of late interrupted this a little; but Graham looked upon it as misunderstanding, not mystery. But to Edward, slowly walking through the garden with the woman he loved, wonder was the predominant feeling.

If he was silent it was that he might take in to the full the new impressions that her companionship brought to him. Talking was un​necessary, when everything about her seemed to convey some hitherto unperceived idea.

Of silence some one has said, "Name me, and you break me"; and perhaps to try to explain the subtle influences that are at work where a poetic mind is first awakened to love, is to attempt to use a gossamer as a clothes-line. We cannot hang arguments on those pretty filmy threads that are spun by that busy spider imagination over every branch and spray and twig in the very early morning of love. Edward did not attempt to analyze his feelings, but he was walking in an enchanted garden. He wondered momentarily whether the woman beside him who had cast the spell was conscious too of its influence.

Near the house where they were walking the borders were arranged trim and neat, the lawns closely shaven, and fancy trees tastefully grouped here and there—diodaras, aurocarias, Norfolk pines, and the pride of the place, half a dozen well-grown Wellingtonias; but gossamers did not hang well on such prim objects, and it was toward the great heavy-foliaged trees, that had no pretensions about them, but stood in their hereditary steadfastness that the two turned their steps.

Though it was late in the afternoon, the sun was still powerful enough to make the dense ​shade of horse-chestnuts, elms, and beeches very grateful.

"This is a delightful copse," said Edward, digging his stick into the thick bed of crisp leaves that gave to the tread. "I like poking about in this kind of place for the land shells that are always to be found. Do you know them, Miss Darcy?"

"Indeed I do," returned Albreda. "I think I could tell you of almost every variety that is to be found in this wood."

"Here's a jolly little fellow," said Edward, stooping to pick up a flat brown shell with a strongly developed white lip.

"Oh yes, that is Helix lapicida; there are plenty of them near the roots of the trees.

"Dear me! do you know their names, Miss Darcy? Then I must shut up. I am afraid you will think me sadly superficial, but I have never studied them, only I love everything in nature, and just dabble about a little for my own enjoyment.

"You accused me of thinking you superficial once before, Mr. Foley; but you put the word into my mouth."

"So I did! It was when we first discussed the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill; but I am afraid I must plead guilty to deserving the epithet with regard to some of the subjects brought up. ​You put me to shame once or twice by your more studied answers."

Albreda had not wished to enter into the discussion with him again. It was intensely painful to her now.

Edward was surprised when she said quickly, "I think we will not talk of it any more, Mr. Foley."

"Are you losing your interest in the question?" he asked.

"No; but I cannot talk of it—it is too sad." She turned away that he might not see her face; but her voice betrayed her.

Kitty had been quite forgotten by her during the walk; but now when she was reminded of her, all the sense of quiet happiness about them and the tenderness of her own feelings made her doubly susceptible to the return of grief and anxiety. Perhaps also the presence of one whom she felt was ready to sympathize, made it more difficult to restrain her feelings.

Edward's company had a strangely different effect upon her from his brother's. She could never have cried in Captain Darcy's presence. With him all the latent, more masculine elements which went to help in the composition of a fine and not unwomanly character came to the surface and opposed themselves to him as man to man; but now in Edward's presence she was ​intensely a woman needing help and comfort and protection, and the tears came freely and would not be kept back.

She thought Edward had not seen them as he stooped to dig open the leafy mould in search of shells. The action served to screen the conflict that was in reality going on within him. He was one of those men upon whom the sight of a woman's tears acted powerfully. He had a lively recollection of the only time that he had so given way himself at the death of his mother, round whom all his boyish love had centred, and tears seemed to him expressive of a pain similar to what he then felt.

It would have touched him deeply to see any woman weep, however weak and easily affected; but when the woman was Miss Darcy, usually so self-contained and so entirely mistress of her feelings, it was almost more than he could stand. Feeling that he had no right to inquire into the cause of her trouble, he could not trust himself to speak; and yet it was impossible not to offer her some sympathy. He was silent until she had had time to recover herself, and then he said—

"I am afraid I have touched upon a painful subject; but do not think it necessary to explain to me—we will talk about something else."

Albreda did not answer him at once. If it ​had not been brought up she would never have mentioned the sad misunderstanding under which Kitty had laboured; but now she felt that an explanation must be given, otherwise suspicion might fall upon Graham.

Edward listened without speaking while she told him what had happened. This, then, explained the terrible alteration in Kitty Heathcote.

"What a strange and sad thing for you all," he said, with almost a groan, as she finished; "but surely your sister must be of an exceptionally jealous disposition? I don't think many women would have felt it as she has; otherwise, of course, that alone would be argument enough against the Bill."

"I do not consider Kitty particularly jealous by nature," answered Albreda. "I think she is a fair type of a sensitive girl."

"Well, it is a difficult thing to understand," returned Edward, not liking to contradict her but inwardly inclined to consider Kitty's conduct weak and blameworthy. It was difficult, too, to blame where there were such evident signs of intense mental suffering; so he ended by pitying her and putting it down to a diseased state of mind.

But his thoughts could not dwell long on Graham's wife; he was thinking more of the suffering that it was entailing upon Albreda. ​Her tears had roused in him a consuming desire to offer himself at once as her protector and companion for life. He wondered whether he ought to check himself, whether it would be too premature to speak now. Such arrangements were generally made after long delay and hesitation; but he could see no reason for delay. His mind was quite made up, and the sooner he ascertained her feeling for him the better.

"I think we ought to be turning," Albreda had just said, looking at her watch, which warned her that the dinner-hour was approaching.

"Must we turn?" said Edward, regretfully. "I should like to prolong this walk indefinitely."

He looked at her as they turned. She felt the look, and knew that her hour was come. If, as is said, a woman's instinct supplies a lack of reasoning power (which fact is to be doubted), certainly at such times the faculty is to the fore.

Albreda in the short space of the next minute realized her present position with all its background of independent life and action; and before her was the unknown future into which she felt herself being drawn. Yet she looked into the clear depth fearlessly and without any dismay.

"Could not we make some round instead of retracing our steps?" said Edward.

​"Yes; we could go by the farm, if you like; but it is rather a longer way."

"So much the better; I have a great deal to say to you, and it will give me a little more time." There was something in his voice that conveyed more to Albreda than his words had done. "I think I told you in my letter that I am leaving England soon," he went on. "I had been longing for the appointment; but now that it has come, I have changed my mind about it."

"Do you mean that you will give it up?" asked Albreda, more quickly than she had intended to speak.

"No, I cannot do that, unfortunately; but the thought of going is becoming intolerable."

Albreda could not trust herself to speak, so she only looked inquiringly.

He continued, "If I say what I am longing to say, shall I be forgiven, I wonder?"

Without noticing what he was doing, Edward led her to a large fallen tree, and she sat down. He placed himself beside her. He paused a minute, and then went on rather desperately.

"I must speak, Miss Darcy; it is impossible to keep it in." The sight of a tear still remaining had quite overmastered all reserve. "It is my feeling for you that makes it so difficult to go away just now. I have thought ​of you ever since we parted, and my only purpose in coming down is to tell you this, and to know from your own lips whether you can give me any hope. Perhaps I oughtn't to have spoken so soon; but you are in trouble, and I want to have a right to comfort you. Will you give me the right?"

He did not look at her, wishing not to make the answer more difficult.

With all her calm preparation for this moment—which, however, had come rather abruptly at the last—Albreda was quite taken aback, when she suddenly found herself face to face with the fact that upon her next words hung the great decision as to her future life. Words are very unmanageable at such a time. Hard and angular they seem to come out, as if the vowels had declined to act, and left us to the mercy of a string of consonants out of which to frame our most tender and delicate articulations. She tried to speak once or twice, but failed, and then was wise enough to use another language that never fails. She slipped her hand into the great palm that was resting on the tree beside her, and turned her eyes upon him with that quiet, deep satisfying look that said all he could want. She had accepted his love and his protection thankfully.