Chapter III: His Visit to Clare

Though not yet thirty years of age, Trevor Chute was no longer a young man with a wild and unguessed idea of existence before him. Thought and experience of life had tamed him down, and made him in many respects more a man of the world than when last he stood upon the threshold of Sir Carnaby Collingwood's stately mansion in Piccadilly, and left it, as he thought, for ever behind him.

Yet even now a thrill came over him as he rang the visitors' bell.

It would have been wiser, perhaps, and, circumstanced as he was with the family, the most proper mode, to have simply written to Sir Carnaby or to Ada Beverley instead of calling; but he had promised his friend, when dying at Landour, to see her personally; and it is not improbable that in the kindness of his heart Jack Beverley, even in that awful hour, was not without a hope that the visit might eventually lead to something conducive to the future happiness of his friend, to whom the chance of such a hope had certainly never occurred.

Trevor Chute had urged Jerry Vane to accompany him, hoping, by the aid of his presence and companionship, to escape some of the awkwardness pertaining to his visit; but the latter, though on terms of passable intimacy with the family still, and more especially since the widowhood of Ida, considering the peculiar mission of Chute to her, begged to be excused on this occasion.

And now, while a clamorous longing to see Clare once again--to hear her voice, to feel the touch of her hand, though all for the last time in life--rose in his heart, and while conning over the terms in which he was to address her, and how, in their now altered relations, he was to comport himself with her from whom he had been so cruelly separated by no fault of either, he actually hoped that, if not from home, she might at least be engaged with visitors.

Full of such conflicting thoughts, he rang the bell a second time. The lofty door of the huge house was slowly unfolded by a tall powdered lackey of six feet and some odd inches, the inevitable 'Jeames,' of the plush and cauliflower head, who glanced suspiciously at a glazed sword-case and small travelling-bag which Chute had taken from his cab.

'Is Sir Carnaby at home?'

'No, sir--gone to his club,' was the reply, languidly given.

'Mrs. Beverley, then?'

'She does not see anyone--to-day, at least.'

'Miss Collingwood?'

_She_ was at home, and on receiving the card of Chute, the valet, who knew that his name was not on the visitors' list, again looked suspiciously at the bag and sword-case, and while marvelling 'what line the "Captain" was in--barometers, French jewellery, or fancy soaps,' passed the card to a 'gentleman' in plain clothes, and after some delay and formality our friend was ushered upstairs.

Again he found himself in that familiar drawing-room--but alone.

It seemed as if not a day had elapsed since he had last stood there, and that all the intervening time was a dream, and that he and Clare were as they might have been.

From the windows the view was all unchanged; he could see the trees of the Green Park, and the arch surmounted by the hideous statue of the 'Iron Duke,' and even the drowsy hum of the streets was the same as of old.

Chute had seen vast and airy halls in the City of Palaces by the Hooghly; but, of late, much of his time had been spent under canvas, or in shabby straw-roofed bungalows; and now the double drawing-room of this splendid London house, though familiar enough to him, as we have said, appealed to his sense of costliness, with its rich furniture, its lofty mirrors, lace curtains, gilded cornices, statues, and jardinières, loading the atmosphere with the perfume of heliotrope and tea-roses, and brought home to him, by its details, the gulf that wealth on one hand, and unmerited misfortune on the other, had opened between him and Clare Collingwood.

A rustle of silk was heard, and suddenly she stood before him.

She was very, very pale, and while striving to conceal her emotion under the cool exterior enforced by good breeding, it was evident that the hand in which she held his card was trembling.

But she presented the other frankly to Trevor Chute, and hastily begging him to be seated, bade him welcome to England, and skilfully threw herself into a sofa with her back to the light.

'We saw in the papers that your regiment was coming home, and then that it had landed at Portsmouth,' she remarked, after a brief pause, and Chute's heart beat all the more lightly that she seemed still to have some interest in his movements. 'Poor Ida,' she resumed, 'is confined to her room; Violet is at home,--you remember Violet? but I am so sorry that papa is out.'

'My visit was to him, or rather to Mrs. Beverley,' said Chute, with the slightest tinge of bitterness in his tone; 'and believe me that I should not have intruded at all on Sir Carnaby Collingwood but for the dying wish of my poor friend your brother-in-law.'

'Intruded! Oh, how can you speak thus, Captain Chute--and to _me_?' she asked in almost breathless voice, while her respiration became quicker, and a little flush crossed her pale face for a second.

Then Chute began to feel more than ever the miserable awkwardness of the situation, and of the task which had been set him; for when a man and woman have ever been more to each other than mere friends, they can never meet in the world simply as acquaintances again.

For a minute he looked earnestly at Clare, and thought that never before, even in the buried past that seemed so distant now--yet only four years ago--had she seemed more lovely than now.

The blood of a long line of fair and highly bred ancestresses had given to her features that, though perfectly regular and beautifully cut, were full of expression and vivacity, though times there were when a certain fixity or statue-like repose that pervaded them seemed to enhance their beauty.

Her eyes and hair were wonderfully dark when contrasted with the pale purity of her complexion, and the colour and form of her lips, though full and pouting, were expressive of softness, of sweetness, and even of passionate tenderness, but without giving the slightest suggestion of aught that was sensuous; for if the heart of Clare Collingwood was passionate and affectionate, its outlet was rather in her eyes than in the form of her mouth.

And now, while gazing upon her and striving hard to utter the merest commonplaces with an unfaltering tongue, Trevor Chute could but ponder how often he had kissed those lips, those thick dark tresses, and her charming hands, on which his eyes had to turn as on a picture now.

His eyes, however, were speaking eyes; they were full of tenderness and truth, and showed, though proper pride and the delicacy of their mutual position forbade the subject, how his tongue longed to take up the dear old story he had told her in the past years, ere cold worldliness parted them so roughly, and, as it seemed, for ever.

On the other hand, Clare Collingwood--perfectly high-bred, past girlhood, a woman of the world, and fully accustomed to society, if she received him now without any too apparent emotion, by the delicate flush that flitted across her beautiful face, and the almost imperceptible constraint in her graceful yet--shall we say it?--startled manner, imparted the flattering conviction to her visitor that he was far from indifferent to her still, and her eyes filled alternately with keen interest, with alarm, affection, and sorrow, as she heard, for the first time, all the details of Beverley's death in that distant hill cantonment, a place of which she had not the slightest conception.

'Will Mrs. Beverley see me?' he concluded.

'Though much of an invalid now, poor Ida undoubtedly will; but you must not tell her all that you have told to me,' said Clare, in her earnestness almost unconsciously laying her hand on his arm, which thrilled beneath her touch. 'Dearest mamma is, of course you know, no more. We lost her since--since you left England.'

'Yes, I heard of the sorrowful event when we were up country on the march to Benares, and it seemed to--to bring my heart back to its starting-place.'

'Since then I have been quite a matron to Violet, and even to Ida, though married; thus I feel myself, when in society, equal to half a dozen of chaperones.'

A little laugh followed this remark, and to Chute's ear it had, he thought, a hollow sound, and Vane's report of 'what the clubs said' concerning Desmond and the 'linked names,' and the recollection of the note placed so hastily in the Marguerite pouch which she wore at that very time, rankled in Chute's mind, and began to steel him somewhat against her, in spite of himself, but only for a time, for the charm of her presence was fast bewildering him.

Her heart, like his own, perhaps, was full to bursting--beating with love and yearning, yet stifled under the exterior that good breeding and the conventionality of 'society' inculcated.

'I hope you find the climate of England pleasant after--after India,' she remarked, when there was a pause in the conversation.

'Oh, yes--of course--Miss Collingwood--my native air.'

'Our climate is so very variable.'

_Captain_ Chute agreed with her cordially that it was so.

Though subjects not to be approached by either, each was doubtful how the heart of the other stood in the matters of love and affection.

Trevor Chute had, all things considered, though their engagement had been brought to a calamitous end, good reason, he thought, to be jealous of Harvey Desmond; while Clare had equal reason to doubt whether, in the years that were gone, and in his wanderings in that land of the sun from whence he had just returned so bronzed and scorched, he might have loved, and become, even now, engaged to another.

She was only certain of one fact: that he was yet unmarried.

These very ideas and mutual suspicions made their conversation disjointed; hollow, and unprofitable; but now, luckily, an awkward pause was interrupted by the entrance of a fair and handsome, dashing yet delicate-looking girl, attired for a ride in the Row, with her whip and gloves in one hand, her gathered skirt in the other.

Though neither bashful nor shy, her bright blue eyes glanced inquiringly at their military-looking visitor, to whom she merely bowed, and was, perhaps, about to withdraw, when Clare said:

'Don't you remember who this is, Captain Chute?'

Turning more fully towards the young girl, whose beauty and charming grace in her riding-habit were undeniable, he said:

'I think I do; you are----'

'Violet; you can't have forgotten Violet, Trevor? Oh, how well I remember you, though you are as brown as a berry now!' exclaimed Violet Collingwood, as she threw aside her gloves and whip, and took each of his hands in hers. 'I was thirteen when you saw me last; I am seventeen, quite a woman, now.'

Kindly he pressed the fairy fingers of Violet, whose merry blue eyes gazed with loving kindness into his, for the girl had suddenly struck a chord of great tenderness in his heart by so frankly calling him 'Trevor,' while another, who was wont to do so once, was now styling him ceremoniously 'Captain Chute.'

Clare seemed sensible of the situation in which her somewhat girlish sister placed them; for a moment her face looked haughty and aristocratic, but the next its normal sweet expression of character, all that is womanly, beautiful, and tender, stole into it, and she fairly laughed when Violet twitched off her hat and veil, and, seating herself beside Trevor Chute, declared that the Row should not be honoured with her presence that day.

Though naturally playful, frank, and almost hoydenish--if such an expression could be applied to a girl of Violet's appearance, and one so highly bred, too--she gazed with something of wonder, curiosity, and undeniable interest on the handsome face, the tender eyes, and well-knit figure of this once lover of her elder sister, whose story, with all the romance of a young girl's nature, she so genuinely pitied, whom she remembered so well as being her particular friend when she was permitted to come home for the holidays, who had petted and toyed with her so often, as with a little sister, and of whom she had only heard a little from time to time as being absent with Beverley in a distant, and to her unknown, land; and now, girl-like, she began to blunder, to the confusion and annoyance of her more stately sister.

'Trevor Chute here _after all_!' she exclaimed, with a merry burst of laughter. 'Why! it seems all like a story in one of Mudie's novels!'

'What does?' asked Clare, with a little asperity of tone.

'Can you ask?' persisted Violet.

'His visit is a very melancholy one; and if Captain Chute will excuse me, I shall go and prepare poor Ida for it,' said Clare, rising.

'What does it all mean?' asked Violet, again capturing the willing hands of their visitor, as Clare hastily, and not without some confusion, swept away through the outer drawing-room. 'Why doesn't she call you Trevor, as I do? _Captain_ Chute sounds so formal! I am sure I have often heard her talk to Ida of you as "Trevor" when they thought I was asleep, yet was very much awake indeed. So you are Clare's first love, are you?'

'I am glad to find that I am not quite forgotten,' replied Chute, smiling in earnest now; 'you were quite a child when I--I----'

'Left this for India.'

'Yes.'

'_Why_ did you go?'

'To join my regiment.'

'Leaving Clare behind you? I must have a long, long talk with you about this, and you shall be my escort in the Park the next time I ride with Evelyn Desmond, for her brother is perpetually dangling after Clare, eyeing her with his stupid china-blue eyes, and doing his dreary best to be pleasing, like a great booby as he is.'