Chapter XIX: The Holy Inquisition

Miss Cherry’s sudden arrival at the Square was a sudden surprise to everybody, and, like most surprises, was not quite successful for the moment. She arrived in the afternoon, when Cara was out with Mrs. Meredith, and when her appearance with her box excited no small astonishment among the servants, who were quite unprepared for a visitor. And Miss Cherry was nervous and self-conscious, feeling her mission in every nerve, though all the rest of the world remained unaware of what she had come to do. When she had seen her things deposited in the spare room, and had been served with the unfailing cup of tea in poor Annie’s drawing-room, the sight of which, after so long, cost her some tears, she detained Nurse, who had brought this refreshment to her, to make what gentle preliminary investigations she could manage without exciting any suspicion.

‘Is Miss Cara happy, do you think? Does she like being with her papa? It must be a great change to her, Nurse. Of course, a child ought to be happy with her father; but--and then to change all at once from the country, and at this time of the year. Oh, Nurse! I hope my dear child is happy. You know how she was thought of at the Hill,’ said Miss Cherry, who was weeping-ripe, and scarcely could keep down the tears.

‘Well, ma’am, for happy I can’t say; but she keeps her ‘elth,’ said Nurse; ‘that is what I’ve got most to do with. I don’t think as there’s much to brag of in the mornings, when she’s here by herself. If I was master I’d get out of this house, Miss Cherry, and I’d pull this room to pieces, and change everything. That’s why he can’t abide to come in here. It’s almost as bad as if my poor lady was a-lying here in state still, though it’s five years and more since she was took from us. It’s all as I can do myself to keep steady when I sees all her things, as she took such pride in; and master he can’t stand it--and I don’t wonder. But it ought to be changed. When the young gentlemen comes in, then Miss Cara brightens up----’

‘The young gentlemen, Nurse?’

‘The Mr. Merediths, ma’am, from next door. Mr. Edward has but just come back; but Mr. Oswald has been here regular, almost every day, and that cheers up a young lady----’

‘But, Nurse----!’ Cherry said, with a gasp, and could say no more.

‘Yes, ma’am--I allow as it’s running a risk,’ said Nurse, very gravely; ‘but what is a person to say? If there was a lady to take the charge--but master pays no attention. I don’t think as he ever notices who comes and who goes.’

‘But, oh! why didn’t I know?’ cried Cherry. ‘Such a state of affairs ought not to have been permitted for a day.’

‘No more it didn’t ought to, Miss Cherry; but what can a person do? I’ve said a word now and again, when I’ve had an opportunity, about the deceitfulness of young men, and as how young ladies had best pay no heed to them--when I could, you know, ma’am. But whether them warnings is ever any good I’m not the one to say. A young lady like Miss Cara never thinks that it can be her as is meant. Even me, I can remember, though but a poor girl, it was always in my mind, as I was the exception, and there couldn’t be no question of deceiving with me.’

‘Oh, deceiving!’ said Cherry; ‘that is not the question; but Cara is with her papa in the evenings? That must be a comfort to him, and to her too, poor child.’

Nurse gave a little cough. ‘Master--mostly--spends the evening out,’ she said.

Miss Cherry did not ask any more; her suspicions were all confirmed and her anxieties increased; for though there was no question of deceiving in Nurse’s sense of the word, and though that good woman’s homilies no doubt fell quite harmless upon Cara, yet the visits of a couple of young men to a girl ‘almost every morning’ conveyed an idea of danger which made Miss Cherry’s hair stand on end. What the poor child had been plunged into the moment she left that safe feminine nest at the Hill, all flowery and sweet, where some kind guardian was always at hand! Launched into the world--never words could be more true. Miss Cherry sat in the haunted room, where poor Cara felt her mother’s eyes upon her, so full of pondering that she had no leisure to be affected by that memory. The poor woman, who was dead and safe, died away out of all thoughts when the affairs of the living came uppermost--the living who were so far from being safe, whose life lay before them, liable to be coloured through and through by the events of any solitary moment. This could scarcely be said of James Beresford perhaps, whose life was three-parts over; but what penalties might not Cara have to pay for the pleasure of the moment!--the gay visitors who ‘brightened her up’ might leave darkness behind when their more active life carried them away to other scenes and occupations, and the companionship which made this opening of her existence cheerful might throw all the rest into shadow. So Miss Cherry, whose life knew nothing more than this, who had no varied experiences to show how one affection pushed out another, and on what lines of natural progress the course of life was drawn, thought to herself as she waited by the side of the fire, slowly sipping her cup of tea, for Cara’s return. She thought no more of her brother and Mrs. Meredith--people who were old enough to manage their own concerns. Cara occupied all her thoughts. She was herself, though she was old, more on Cara’s level of life than on that which was occupied by the kind neighbour for whom she had been so anxious when she came. After a while she heard voices outside, and going to the window, saw a little group at the house next door, the centre of which was Mrs. Meredith herself, smiling graciously upon someone who had arrived too early for her usual reception, and who was going disappointed away, when stopped by her arrival. Behind Mrs. Meredith was Cara, looking up to a handsome, dark-haired young man, who smiled upon her in a way which gave even to old Miss Cherry’s heart a sympathetic thrill. Surely he looked sincere, she said to herself; and what girl could resist such a look? For a moment Cherry forgot her terror and her precautions. Why should not Cara be the one happy girl whose happy love was to be blessed and sanctioned by everybody from the very beginning? Why should it not be so? Cherry asked herself. There was money enough in the family to make it possible to indulge this only child of their hearts in whatever she might please to want--a husband if she liked, or any other toy. It was not, however, with such light-minded expressions that Cherry treated so solemn a subject. If he loved her, and if she loved him, why should there be any difficulty? Cherry herself was ready to give up everything to ‘secure’ her darling’s ‘happiness.’ These were the words to use:--‘To secure Cara’s happiness!’ Then there need be no question of danger or trouble of any kind. The young couple would be married quite young, as it was for everybody’s happiness (people said) to be, and there need be no further anxiety, no further pain, on Cara’s account. They did not see her at the window, but stood talking, close together, the girl looking up, the young man looking down, until the door was opened, and they all disappeared. Cherry went back to her seat at the fireside and cried a little for pleasure at the thought of this happiness which was to come. To think of your child having precisely the blessedness, the good-fortune, which has not fallen to you, and which would have made your more happy than anything else,--could there be compensation more sweet? She cried for pleasure as she had cried before for anxiety, and sat with the firelight sparkling in that moisture which filled her eyes, and calculated how it could be done. Mrs. Meredith would allow her son something--as much at least as his school and university allowance, if not more; and though Aunt Charity was careful of her money, she could be liberal, too, on occasion. I am not sure even that it did not flash across Miss Cherry’s mind that one day the Hill and all its wealth would be her own; but she repulsed the thought with poignant compunction: unless, indeed, it might be that the Hill should go at once to Cara, and thus make her marriage, as of a queen-regnant able to endow her husband plentifully, the most wise and seemly thing in the world, even though she was so young. After all her troubles and terrors, Miss Cherry had a moment of exquisite pleasure as she sat by the fire and arranged it all. She forgot that the room was haunted, she forgot her sister-in-law’s strange death, her brother’s long misery, and now the consolation which he had found, and which all his friends disapproved of, and she herself had come here to put a stop to. What were all these things in comparison with Cara happy, Cara blessed in that best and sweetest lot which had never come to herself? What matter, if it came to her dearest child?

She had plenty of time to indulge these thoughts, for her dearest child was a long time coming, and but for her delightful dreams Miss Cherry might have felt somewhat dull and deserted in the still house. If she could but look through the partition and see into the drawing-room next door!--just a peep, to see her Cara with that charming young man beside her, bending over her. They were like a pair in a novel, Miss Cherry felt, or in a poem, which was better still--she, with those great blue eyes, which were Cara’s chief feature; he, dark and splendid, with a glow of manly colour. How nice that he should be so handsome! For indeed sometimes, girls are quite pleased and happy with those who are not handsome, so that this was something _pardessus le marché_, an exceptional advantage. Someone began to play the piano after a while, and the sound came through the wall. Was it perhaps _he_? Cara could not play so well as that. If it was he, then he must be accomplished too, as well as handsome. What a happy, happy girl! Though Miss Cherry was a little tired of waiting before Cara came in, she had not at all flagged in her enthusiasm, and when the girl flew to her, all flushed and excited with pleasure at the sight of her, it was all she could do to restrain her congratulations and blessings. ‘For I must not say a word till she gives me her confidence,’ she said to herself.

‘Nurse told me as she let me in that you were here. Oh, Aunt Cherry, how glad I am! When did you come? Why did you not send for me? Here I have been waiting nearly an hour at Mrs. Meredith’s, and you here!’

‘My darling, you were happier there----’

‘Happier than with you? I was happier than when I am alone; but if I had known you were here! And, oh! Aunt Cherry, there is only time to get ready for dinner! We can’t talk just now; how provoking it is! Tell me about Aunt Charity and home; but we must not keep dinner waiting.’

‘No, dear. How pleased I am,’ said Miss Cherry, kissing her child with tender fondness, ‘to see you so considerate and careful of your papa’s comfort?’

‘Yes,’ said Cara, doubtfully. ‘Papa, of course--but it is more for cook and John; they don’t like to have dinner kept waiting. Papa is often a little late himself, but of course no one could say anything to him.’

This explanation was made as they went upstairs arm-in-arm, the girl clinging to her aunt with pretty fondness, embracing Miss Cherry’s arm with both her hands. Cara was paler than she had been at the Hill. Her eyes looked bigger and bluer than ever, her transparent complexion more delicate and changeable. She was prettier than Miss Cherry had ever seen her, but ‘did not look strong,’ her anxious aunt thought. Was it the excitement of her position, the absorbing influence which had taken hold of her? How kind Cherry longed to take the child in her arms to beg for her confidence! ‘But I must not say a word till she tells me,’ she said to herself, with a sigh.

Mr. Beresford took his sister’s arrival very calmly. He accepted her halting explanation of her sudden visit to town with the calm of indifference. When he had said he was glad to see her, had he not said all that was necessary? Miss Cherry’s excuse was the dentist, that scourge yet blessing of middle-aged folks. And Cara, too, accepted the explanation with calmness though not with indifference. She led her back to the drawing-room after dinner with a light-hearted playfulness, unlike her usual gravity.

‘How nice it is to have someone sitting opposite,’ she said. ‘Everything looks so cheerful to-night. And now we can talk.’

‘Yes, Cara, as much as you please; and when your papa comes upstairs---- ’

‘Oh, papa never comes upstairs, Aunt Cherry. He does not like this room. Mrs. Meredith has made him come two or three times to try and get him used to it; but he never looks happy here.’

‘Then you go down to the library and sit with him there?’

‘Ought I to do that? He never said so, and I did not like to do it out of my own head. And then he goes out----’

‘How lonely for you, my darling.’

‘Yes, it is lonely. Sometimes I feel a little frightened. It is so quiet; listen!’ said the girl, drawing nearer to her companion’s side. ‘I don’t mind to-night when you are here; but there is not a sound--Cook and John shut all the doors to keep the house quiet for papa; but, oh! I should be so glad sometimes if I could hear them in the kitchen for company! I know it is very silly. Why should I be afraid? No one could come here but mamma, and she would never do harm to me, only good; and yet I feel sometimes as if I could not bear it. How is it, I wonder? This is London, and the Hill is the country; but one always heard something stirring there.’

‘My dearest!’ said kind Miss Cherry, crying over her; ‘my own child! If I had known, if I could have thought you were left so much to yourself! But, dear, you see a great deal of the people next door. That must cheer you up: tell me about them. There is Mrs. Meredith--she used to be a very nice woman; are you fond of her, Cara? And then there are her sons----’

‘Very fond,’ said Cara, with composure; ‘and the boys are kind. They come often in the morning to see me. I am not sure which of them I like best. Edward has just come home. He is the one that is going to India; and Oswald writes poetry and is very clever. I go out with Mrs. Meredith in the afternoon--you must not think I am not very fond of her, Aunt Cherry--but then she is fond of so many people. You should see her afternoons. She is at home always at five, and the number of people who come! and she looks at them all alike, and listens to them as if she thought of no one else. Yes, I am very fond of her; but I like people to belong to me, not to everybody--like you, Aunt Cherry; you are mine, mine!’ the girl cried, with the flattery of exclusive appropriation which is so sweet to all, and especially to those who are beyond the first fascinations of life.

‘Yes, my darling,’ said Miss Cherry, with tears in her soft eyes; ‘me, and everything I have and everything I am, to do whatever you please with.’ She had a right to be more lavish than any lover in her self-offering; for no love could have been so ready to give up will and wish, which are the last things any human creature likes to sacrifice, for the sake of the beloved. Miss Cherry would have allowed herself to be cut into little pieces at any moment, for the sake of the child.

But these were not the kind of confidences she expected. She made an effort to bring Cara back to the other ground, and to elicit from her some tender confession. Romantic old Cherry was disappointed not to have seen some trace of this confidence, irrepressible, eager to unbosom itself, but she was not hopeless of it still.

‘I saw you go in,’ she said. ‘I watched you from the window, Cara. Was that one of the Merediths that was with you?--Very nice-looking, rather dark. Which was that? You seemed to be great friends.’

‘This afternoon! Were you at the window? How stupid I was not to see you! I will never come near the house again without looking up at the windows. It was Oswald, Aunt Cherry; he is always the one who has time to go out with us. Do you think a man ought to have so much time? Yes, he is nice-looking, I think; he _is_ like a poet; and he is the one who chiefly stands by me, and comes to see me in the morning. He never seems to have anything particular to do,’ Cara added, with a slight air of vexation, which raised Miss Cherry’s hopes.

‘But if he writes?’ she said, with a little awe.

‘Ah, he does that at night; he sits up writing, and all day long he seems just to do what he likes. They laugh at him for it, but he never minds. Mrs. Meredith sometimes says---- Ah!’ cried Cara, stopping short, and drawing a long sighing breath. A sort of muffled hollow sound went through the house--the shutting of the great hall-door, which seemed to vibrate upwards from floor to floor.

‘What is it, Cara?’ said Miss Cherry, whose nerves were weak, and who jumped at any noise, even when she knew really what it was.

‘It is papa going out,’ said Cara, with a little sigh; and then ensued a momentary silence, which showed that this mighty event was of importance to her and inspired her imagination. ‘But I do not mind to-night,’ she added, with soft sudden laughter, putting her hands together with an infantile movement of pleasure, ‘when I have you!’

They sat and talked the whole evening through, with that fertility of communication which exists between people who have very little to tell, and yet are in perfect confidence with each other. What did they say? not much of any consequence. Miss Cherry told Cara all the news of the Hill, and Cara confided to Miss Cherry without meaning, or being aware of it, a hundred small details of her life, chiefly repetitions of what she had already said, yet throwing fresh light upon those simple monotonous dull days, which were so interesting to the elder lady. But not all Miss Cherry’s delicate leadings up to the point could win any confidential statement from the girl of the character her aunt had expected to hear. She was all confidence, and told everything without keeping back a thought; but there was nothing of this description to tell; and Miss Cherry was at last obliged to acknowledge it to herself with great disappointment. ‘There has been no explanation yet,’ she said to herself. She was not the first who has been disappointed by finding that a supposed romance had no existence. They sat quite late, till Miss Cherry, used to early hours, began to droop and get weary; but even after this feeling had crept over her eyes, and betrayed her into a yawn or two, she sat still, heroically waiting for her brother’s return.

‘When does your papa come in? Is he not late to-night?’ she said at last, when her endurance had nearly reached its limits. She would have suffered any hardship for her darling, but the habits of her early innocent country life were strong upon her, and to stay up till midnight seemed almost immoral to Miss Cherry; still more immoral it seemed to her, however, to go to bed, without bidding your host good-night.

‘I think he is always late; but no one waits up for him,’ said Cara. ‘I never see him after dinner. Have I tired you out talking? I go to bed early,’ said the little girl, with a forlorn look, ‘because it is so dull; but I am so happy to-night. Oh, I wish you would never go away any more.’

‘My darling, I thought you had a great deal better company than me.’

‘Ah, but you were mistaken, you see. Sometimes I have very nice company though, when we dine with the Merediths. She asks us every week, and sometimes I go out to parties with her, which are pleasant. But it is very dull the other nights,’ said Cara, with unconscious pathos; ‘and the only thing I can do to amuse myself is to go to bed.’

She laughed, but it was not a cheerful laugh. And was it possible that on the other side of the partition her father was sitting, whose poor little daughter had nothing better to do to amuse herself than to go to bed? What could James mean by such conduct? It was very hard for Cherry to be just in such strange circumstances, and not to blame, as most people would have done, the woman who was concerned. Visions of ill-names, such as ‘elderly siren,’ which innocent Miss Cherry had read in the papers, drifted into her simple brain in spite of herself. Why did she let him do it? Why did she encourage him to go to her? What were they talking about? Miss Cherry, though she was so sleepy, could not really rest, even after she went to bed, till she heard once more that dull sound through the house of the great door shutting. The houses in the Square were well built for London houses, and the corresponding sounds in the house next door, when the visitor departed, did not reach the watcher’s ears. But it was with some anxiety in her thoughts that Miss Cherry wondered how the sons liked it, and what they thought of their mother’s constant visitor: and she a married woman: and James still making believe to feel his wife’s loss so deeply that he could not enter his drawing-room without pain! Miss Cherry blushed in the darkness, throwing a warm reflection upon the pillow, if there had been any light to show it, over this thought.