Chapter X: A Solemn Promise

Although Paula remained rather thoughtful and pensive during the next few days, she soon recovered her serenity, and began to look forward, in secret, to the moment when she should see Hal Rushton again. One morning, about a week after her mother’s visit to London, she encountered her at the breakfast table, blushing and smiling.

‘I have received a letter from Mr Rushton,’ she said.

‘Indeed, and what is his news?’

‘He is very anxious to hear my decision, and to know if he may follow me to Grassdene and make the acquaintance of my mother.’

‘And how do you intend to answer him?’

Paula’s face fell.

‘I don’t know how I shall answer him. After what has passed between us, I ought not to keep him in suspense, for I told him I was coming home to ask your advice in the matter. Yet it seems so horribly, indecently soon to be thinking of love and marriage.’

‘Too soon after Bjornsën’s death, you mean.’

‘Of course.’

‘But that man was dead to you three years ago, Paula--dead, legally and morally. You have not seen him for that space of time. You know that I am not at all anxious to see you marry again. I distrust men and their powers of constancy too much. Still, if you have set your mind on this, and it is to be, it would be ridiculous to let any false sentiment about that dead drunkard stand in your way. I thought we had agreed to drop the mention of his name.’

‘Yes, yes! And you think I owe it to Mr Rushton, then, not to keep him waiting for an answer?’

‘If you intend to marry him, I do. Men won’t stand much opposition in their courtships, and by your own account you have given him one shock already by the confession that you were not a single woman. But pray make up your mind about it first.’

Paula coloured.

‘I _have_ made up my mind, mother. I told you what I felt and thought about it the other day. But ought I to give him permission to come to Grassdene (which will be tantamount to accepting his offer of marriage) without telling him everything--the awful circumstances that led to Paul’s affliction, and the separation that followed it?’

Mrs Sutton thought a moment, and then said,--

‘I don’t think you should _marry_ Mr Rushton without telling him the truth; but it will be better to let him hear it from _me_. It is a painful subject for you to enlarge upon, and you would try to soften it down, for the sake of the dead. But I shall have no such scruple. I can tell Mr Rushton the whole matter, and it will come better from my lips than yours. My advice to you, my dear, is to write to the young man and say that we both consider that before he finally makes up his mind it is necessary he should learn more about your family, and yourself than he knows at present, and that if he likes to come to Grassdene on that understanding, we shall be pleased to see him here.’

‘He is sure to come,’ replied Paula, smiling.

‘I daresay he will, and I will receive him on his arrival, and tell him your whole story, and then he will be unable to say afterwards that he has been deceived.’

Accordingly, Paula took her mother’s counsel, and wrote to Hal Rushton. Her letter was rather timidly expressed, and showed an amount of reserve which made her lover unhappy until he had realised that it also extended a permission for him to follow her to Devon. He answered by return of post that he should travel down without delay, and they might expect to see him in two days’ time. When the morning of his arrival dawned, Paula walked over the hills to the house of a neighbour, with the intention of remaining there till sunset. Her heart throbbed with fear when she thought of the ordeal Hal had to pass through during her absence. She had great faith in his affection for herself, but she had seen something of his pride, and she dreaded a repetition of the scene which took place when he heard that she had been married. So she spent a day full of anxiety and suspense, one moment believing that the happiest era of her life had arrived, and the next that all hope of happiness was over. Meanwhile Mrs Sutton was prepared to receive this second suitor for her daughter’s hand. She had made a terrible mistake about the first, and she was determined to sift the character and feelings of this one down to the bottom. She was almost glad she had so disagreeable a story to tell him. It would be a good test of his sincerity. She looked a perfect old gentlewoman as she sat in state in the little parlour to receive her visitor. Her best dress, which was only a black alpaca, sat on her slim figure with as much grace as if she had been a duchess clad in velvet. Her features, which were much like Paula’s, still retained traces of beauty, and her soft grey hair was modestly disposed beneath her black lace cap. She had dispatched Paulie to a field behind the cottage until he should be required, and retained the services of her little handmaiden for the afternoon. So that when Hal Rushton, dressed in a knickerbocker suit of tweed, with his handsome face flushed with expectation, and a flower in his buttonhole, arrived, he was ushered into his future mother-in-law’s presence in proper style. Mrs Sutton rose to receive him with an extended hand.

‘Mr Rushton, I presume?’ she commenced. ‘You are very punctual, sir.’

‘Am I?’ stammered Hal. ‘I am staying at an inn about a mile distant, and I did not know exactly how much time it would take me to walk over. Miss--Miss Stafford is well, I hope.’

‘My daughter is quite well, thank you. She has walked over to a neighbour’s house. She preferred I should see you first by myself. You have no objection, I trust, to my being in Paula’s confidence in this important matter?’

‘Oh, madam, no!’ exclaimed the young man drawing nearer to her. ‘How could I love and esteem a woman who did _not_ confide in her mother? I have had the great misfortune to lose my own mother, and Paula’s love for and faith in you have been amongst her greatest attractions for me.’

Mrs Sutton was gratified both by his voice and way of speaking of her daughter. She ventured to examine him fully. He was certainly a very fine young man, and with a prepossessing charm about him that was better than beauty. She no longer wondered that Paula’s heart had been taken by storm. If his qualities of mind only equalled those of his person, what a happy woman she would be.

‘Paula has always been a good daughter,’ she answered softly. ‘I married late in life, Mr Rushton, and she is my only child. You will think I ought to have guarded her like a treasure. So I tried to do, but I was very unfortunate. My husband, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, died, leaving us only a miserable pittance, in the shape of a pension, to subsist upon, and had I followed him, my child would have had neither money nor friends, so that I thought a suitable marriage would be the happiest thing for her. A man of the name of Carl Bjornsën, a Swedish trader, offered her his hand, and I was blind enough to second his wishes, and help to wreck my poor child’s life.’

Her voice faltered, and Hal Rushton sympathetically placed his hand upon hers.

‘My dear Mrs Sutton, do not unnerve yourself by relating the sad story to me. Paula--I mean Miss Stafford (you will pardon me for calling her by her assumed name)--has told me about her unfortunate marriage. Pray believe that I have reconciled myself to the idea, and it will make no further difference to me.’

‘Thank you for saying so, Mr Rushton; but I had rather you waited until you had heard the whole. There is more to tell, and my daughter desired I should tell it to you before you met her again. She too is good, too forgiving. I am certain she never told you half of what she suffered from the wickedness of that man. Can you conceive my child, who had been so tenderly brought up--all the more so, perhaps, because we were so poor that from her infancy I waited on her myself--subjected to all sorts of tyranny from a drunkard’s whim--beaten, kicked, bruised, insulted, pulled from her berth on board ship at dead of night, and dragged up on deck before the common seamen in her night clothes, and there felled to the ground, in the sight of them all, by a blow from his cowardly hand.’

Hal Rushton rose from his seat with a face on fire and a clenched fist.

‘_The brute!_’ he exclaimed. ‘I wish he were living instead of dead, that I might treat him as he treated her.’

‘Ah, don’t say that,’ cried Mrs Sutton, shuddering; ‘what would my poor girl do then? But there is an aggravation of the horror. This assault upon a most inoffensive woman was committed at a time when men, who deserve the name, are more than usually tender to their wives. My poor Paula was expecting to become a mother, and so she shortly did--of an idiot child, whose brain was destroyed and body injured by his own father’s violence.’

‘Is this the child she has spoken to me about?’ asked Hal, who was still visibly agitated.

‘Yes. She has but one--a boy of five years old. She was only twenty when she returned to me, poor darling, covered with bruises from head to foot, and with hardly enough life left in her to crawl home. We thought then that the man would have had too much shame to reclaim a wife he had treated so cruelly, but some men have no shame. A year after the child’s birth he summarily ordered Paula to return to her duty. I refused to let her go, and when he insisted, I went to law about it, and other grave charges being proved against Carl Bjornsën, a divorce was pronounced between them.’

‘A _divorce_!’ echoed Hal Rushton, starting. ‘Do you mean to say she is not a widow--that she is only divorced from him?’

‘No, no; pray don’t disquiet yourself. Paula _is_ a widow. The man has died since. But a divorce was the only means by which I could save her from further violence. He had destroyed the child. He would have killed her next. You can have no idea what a brute he was.’

‘Is the child here?’ asked Rushton shortly.

‘Yes; he lives with me, and he always will do so, I hope, for I am very fond of him, notwithstanding that he is his father’s son. And Paula wishes that you should see him, and then you will know the worst,’ said Mrs Sutton.

She rose as she spoke, and opening the parlour door, called to her little handmaid, ‘Lizzy, go and fetch Master Paulie; he is playing in the field at the back,’ and in a few minutes the girl returned with the little boy. His grandmother raised him in her arms, and seated him on the table. He looked full into Hal’s face with his large grey expressionless eyes, and then he opened his mouth and said ‘Ow, ba, ba, wow,’ and smiled in an imbecile manner.

‘My poor darling,’ cried Mrs Sutton, kissing the child, to hide what she thought would disgust the young man. But she did not know Hal Rushton. His lip quivered as he gazed at the pitiable sight and thought that this was Paula’s child--Paula, whose brain was so bright and intelligent, who was so much better instructed and informed than himself. He touched the boy’s head softly with his fingers, and murmured,--

‘Poor little chappie! Someone has had to answer very heavily, it is to be hoped, for this.’

‘I agree with you, sir,’ said Mrs Sutton. ‘I have no pity or compassion mingled with my memories of that man, and think no punishment could be too hard for him. My poor girl’s life has had a bitter and shameful beginning. The question is if she will have the courage to court a renewal of such misery.’

‘Oh, do not speak like that, madam,’ exclaimed Hal Rushton eagerly; ‘do not harden yourself against my suit because Paula has been subjected to such brutal treatment. Believe me, it will be the object of my life to make her forget it. I love her, Mrs Sutton, deeply and devotedly, and I flatter myself that she is fond of me. Pray do not put any obstacle in the way of our marriage. It was torture to me to see her working like a slave to earn her living, to know she was under the bondage of people inferior to her by birth and education--_she_ who, I could see from the beginning of our acquaintance, was made for higher and better things. I don’t mean to say,’ went on the young man, hurriedly, ‘that I can give her half what she deserves or ought to have, but I have a comfortable home and an income large enough to place her for ever above the need of working for herself. Won’t you trust her to me? Won’t you try and believe that _all_ men are not like her first husband, that _some_ care for their wives more than for themselves, and that _I_ am amongst the number?’

‘My dear Mr Rushton, I shall have nothing to do with it. Paula is her own mistress, and if I am not mistaken she has already decided in your favour. It is _you_ whom she feared would draw back when you heard the whole of her sad history. If it does not affect you, she will be only too glad, I should imagine, to forget it.’

‘I will _make_ her forget it,’ exclaimed Hal fervently. ‘We will make the past a sealed book, into which it shall be a penalty to look. She is still young enough, thank God, to begin a new life with me.’

‘You are right Mr Rushton,’ said Mrs Sutton, ‘and it is your best chance of happiness. Make a compact with Paula never to speak together of the past. She is too tender-hearted, dear child, and too morbidly inclined. She forgets the injury she has sustained, in the dread lest any failure of duty on her own part led to the catastrophe. I have done my utmost to make her view Bjornsën’s conduct in its true light, and to regard his memory with the execration it deserves. But she is too good to hate him as I do. It is a fault on the right side, but it may be carried too far. Do make it a condition of your marriage that the past is never spoken of, or even alluded to.’

‘I am afraid I should find it a difficult task to make anything a _condition_ of our marriage,’ replied the young man gaily, ‘but I will certainly make Paula promise me to forget, as far as possible, all that has gone before it. And now, dear Mrs Sutton, when shall I see her? I have heard all you have to tell me, and it makes no difference to me. May I not tell Paula so myself?’

‘Certainly, Mr Rushton, if you choose to go in search of her. I will show you the direction in which she has gone.’

She caught up the little boy in her arms as she spoke, and carried him to the front door. The sun was setting over the hills, and dyeing them golden in his waning light. She stretched her hand to the left, which led by a picturesque country lane to some pasture lands.

‘Paula has walked down that lane, and over those fields, to the house of a neighbouring farmer. She promised to return at sunset, and if you walk that way you are sure to meet her. And when you have had your say, you can bring her back to tea, Mr Rushton.’

‘Yes, _when_,’ he said, laughing; ‘but don’t wait for us _too_ long, Mrs Sutton,’ and with that he waved his stick and walked rapidly away.

‘He’s very different from the other,’ thought Mrs Sutton, as he disappeared. ‘Ah, well! I hope my poor darling has chosen wisely this time. _Two_ such men as Bjornsën cannot possibly exist in the world.’

Meanwhile Hal was passing through the little lane, fringed with wild roses and nut bushes, with a heart bounding with excitement, whilst he looked eagerly around for some signs of Paula. He met her in the third field he traversed. She was walking very slowly, also looking from side to side, as though she dreaded yet hoped to see him. Hal Rushton did not keep her long in suspense. As soon as he caught sight of her, he commenced to run, and came up to her with a beaming face and outstretched hands.

‘Paula,’ he exclaimed, ‘your mother has told me everything. There is nothing more for me to learn. Are you mine now, or are you not?’

‘Are you quite sure that you wish me to be yours?’ she answered shyly.

‘Sure as I am that I hope for Heaven. Come, my dearest, you have no further excuse. The terrible secret, that you were compelled in self-defence to divorce the man who was not worthy to be your husband, is out. I have seen your poor little child, too, and I have shuddered at the account of the terrible indignities you have undergone. They make no difference to me, dear, except to excite the deepest compassion and sympathy for you, and to raise an ardent longing that I may help you to forget them. Will you give me leave to try, Paula? Will you be my darling wife, and forget you ever bore that name to any other man?’

‘Oh, Hal, I will--gladly and gratefully--if you consent to forget it, too. I know I am not good enough for you--that--’

‘Hush!’ he said, gently interrupting her. ‘I will not listen to anything of that sort. You are the one woman I would choose out of all the world, Paula, and I cannot be sufficiently thankful that I have gained you.’

He wound his strong arms about her as he spoke, and kissed her reverently on the lips, and Paula, feeling the protecting clasp and the tender salute, closed her eyes with rapture, and believed that all her troubles were at an end.

‘And now, love,’ said Hal, when they were both a little calmer, ‘I want you to seal our betrothal with a promise. Ours must not be a long engagement, Paula. I want you home at Highbridge Farm as soon as ever you can come. But let us begin our married life under a solemn compact to let all that has gone before it sink into oblivion. You have been very unhappy, my poor darling, and very shamefully treated, but that is all over now. The man is dead and gone. Let him and his sins be forgotten. Will you promise me faithfully, Paula, never to mention Carl Bjornsën’s name or the subject of your former marriage to me. Let me think I am your first husband? I shall soon believe it if I am not reminded to the contrary. So I want that to be a settled thing between us. Will you promise?’

‘Gladly, dear Hal.’

‘Then say so, sweetheart.’

‘I promise solemnly that from this time henceforward I will never speak of my past life, or, if possible, think of it. Will that do, Hal?’

‘Beautifully, dear. And I am sure it will be best. Speaking of an injury only aggravates the sense of it, and keeps the wound raw. And I hope to make you so happy, my Paula. I mean to be so tender with my treasure, so anxious to make up to her for such a sorry beginning. When may I commence, darling? When are you coming home to Deepdale as my wife?’

‘Oh, Hal, we must ask mother. I must tell you that she was very much against our marriage when I first told her about you. She is so much afraid for me, poor mother. But I hope you may have converted her. How did you get on together?’

‘Very well; and I like her exceedingly. She must come and live with us at Deepdale. She will like the pretty old valley. It is almost as romantic in appearance as Devon. And I would not separate her from you for all the world. Do you think she will consent to it?’

Paula’s face lengthened.

‘Oh, Hal dear, how could she? You forget poor Paulie.’

His face also grew grave. The mention of the child brought back everything.

‘Ah, to be sure! But have you never thought of placing the poor little creature in an asylum, Paula? He would be happier there than at home.’

‘Do you think so? I am afraid mother would not consent to it. She is very fond of him, and I, too--I--wouldn’t like to think of him amongst strangers. He is so very meek and quiet. He would suffer without a complaint.’

‘Oh, he mustn’t suffer; of course not,’ rejoined the lover quickly. ‘I thought he would be better off with other children. However, that is a matter for future consideration. The present concerns only our two happy selves. This is August. You will come home by the first of September, won’t you? You wouldn’t be so cruel as to deprive me of my partridge shooting?’

Paula smiled.

‘What will Mrs Gribble and Mrs Axworthy say?’

‘Not to mention Mrs Snaley! Well, they must say what they like. And the Snaleys must turn out, and pretty sharp, too, or I shall have no time to have the old place brushed up before my bride comes home.’

‘Are the Snaleys to leave Highbridge Farm?’ asked Paula, starting.

‘Rather. You don’t suppose I am going to subject you to sit down in the same room as that woman and her son! I value you a little too much for that, Paula. To tell the truth, dear, I have been culpably negligent in the matter. They ought to have gone long ago, when my father died. But I was young at the time, and had not been used to manage for myself, and Mrs Snaley understood all about the servants and the farm. So that it was a convenience to me at first, but since then it has degenerated into a nuisance, and I have often been on the point of making a change, only I was too lazy. But now I am going to reform all round, and my first duty will be to clear Highbridge Farm, in readiness for my darling. Yes, Mrs Snaley and Ted must go. There is no doubt of that. She has a little income of her own, you know, quite sufficient for her need (her first husband was only a herdsman), and I shall give her a cottage on the estate rent free. And then I must try and beautify the farm for you.’

‘You cannot do all that in a month, Hal,’ replied Paula, as they walked homewards, with his arm tightly clasped round her waist and her head resting on his shoulder.

‘Oh, yes, I can. You don’t know how expeditious I shall manage to be when it is for _you_. And so it is to be the end of August,’ he said fondly.

‘I didn’t say so, Hal.’

‘But you mean it, though. We have both been lonely too long, and now that the cup of happiness is raised to our lips, why should we delay to drink it. Say it shall be as I wish?’

‘It shall be as you wish, Hal.’

‘Oh, my White Rose, I cannot tell you how I have dreamed of seeing you walk into the old homestead as its mistress. I always think of you as a white rose, Paula. You are so like those soft creamy blossoms that grow about my parlour windows. How shall I feel when you are established there for ever? But you mustn’t make me too soft, darling. You must let me go out hunting and shooting and fishing still, or the neighbours will say Hal Rushton has turned into a milksop.’

‘Ah, those neighbours,’ responded Paula, with a slight quiver, ‘shall you tell them anything about me, Hal, or leave them to think what they choose?’

‘I shall tell them nothing. It is not their business,’ replied the young man firmly. ‘They believe you to have been Miss Stafford. Let them continue to think so. I will set none of their tongues wagging about my wife.’

‘Paulie?’ faltered his companion.

‘Can’t we say--if needful--that Paulie is your cousin, or nephew, or an adopted child of Mrs Sutton’s? I see no harm in the subterfuge, and it will save you unpleasantness. It is not, you see, my darling,’ said Hal tenderly, ‘as if the poor little chap were all right, when it would grieve you to disown him. But _he_ will be none the worse, and you will be all the better for not acknowledging his parentage.’

‘You are right,’ replied Paula, ‘and I am sure mother will say so, too. She is as anxious that I should ignore the past as you can be.’

‘I am afraid she must be more anxious about her tea than anything else at this moment,’ said Hal, laughing. ‘She made me promise to take you back to it as soon as we had had our “say.” Well, I think we have had it, sweetheart. I think that, however long we may live, we shall never improve upon those words, “I love you, and I will marry you.”’

‘No, _never_,’ acquiesced Paula fervently.

‘Then let us go home and tell the mother so, and let her participate in her children’s joy. Oh, Paula, Paula, to think that you are mine for ever.’

‘To think that I shall never spend my evenings in that lonely schoolhouse again, nor have to repeat the same thing fifty times over to those abominable children. Hal, I am _too_ happy. Is it not too good to last?’

‘It will last our lifetimes, dearest. I shall return home after my long day’s hunting or shooting to encounter not the distasteful form of Mrs Snaley, or her ugly little Ted, but my beautiful White Rose, waiting for me to come and stretch my weary limbs at her dear feet.’

‘And the day will seem so short to me when I know for certain that you and the evening will arrive together. How I used to long, Hal, that you would come to see me. I have sat at my window for hours sometimes, in hopes you might pass by.’

‘Whilst _I_ was afraid to go near the schoolhouse lest you should think me impertinent or presuming. Thank goodness, those days are past, my darling, and we may indulge our mutual love to its utmost extent.’

These words brought them back to the cottage, where Mrs Sutton, having dispatched Paulie to his bed, was waiting for them to join her at tea. Of course she read at the first glance that matters were settled between them, and before they parted that evening it was arranged that Hal Rushton was only to remain one more day in Grassdene before he returned to Deepdale to make his intentions formally known to his friends, and prepare Highbridge Farm to receive his wife the first week in September.