Chapter XLII: A Great Revolution

Notwithstanding the directness of this questioning, it was by no means a direct reply which Mr. Beresford got from Mrs. Meredith. It was not a refusal, but neither was it a consent. ‘Let us not do anything rashly,’ and ‘I think we are very well as we are,’ was what she said, and yet the change was certainly a step nearer accomplishment now that the possibility of it had been mentioned between them. He had grown rather earnest in pressing the expediency of this step as soon as the ice was fairly broken, and had been piqued by her reluctance into more warmth than he had expected himself to feel. Nevertheless, when he came back to his own house, uncomfortable matters of detail came into Mr. Beresford’s mind, and annoyed him more than he could have believed, more than they were worth. About the houses, for instance; if this happened, they could not go on living next door to each other. Would she come to his, or should he go to hers?--if indeed the matter came to anything. This bothered him, and suggested many other details--changes of habit which would bother him still more. Altogether it was a troublesome business. He liked her best in her own drawing-room; but then he liked himself much best in his own library, and there were moments in which he felt disposed to denounce the fool who had first thought of any change. All things considered, how much better it would have been that they should remain as they were! but that was no longer to be thought of. How was he to tell Cara? How was she to tell her boys, upon whom she was so much more dependent than he was upon Cara? If the boys disapproved strenuously, then Mr. Beresford felt it would come to nothing after all; and in that case how much better to have said nothing! for he felt that he would not like to stand in the position of a man refused. So that altogether this middle-aged romance was not without its troubles; troubles--as, for instance, that about the houses--which you may laugh at if you please, but which involved much more personal embarrassment and inconvenience, you will allow, than many of the sentimental difficulties which you are ready to weep over in the romances of the young.

Mrs. Meredith was kept in some uneasiness also by the fact that Oswald did not return that night. The servants sat up for him, and lights burned all night in the house, affronting the dawn which came so early; but he did not appear. This was not at all usual; for Oswald, though he liked his own way, and was frivolous enough, had never been dissipated in the ordinary sense of that word; and what made it more unpleasant still was the fact that next day was Sunday, and that no communication either by telegram or letter was possible. This fact drove everything else out of Mrs. Meredith’s head. When James Beresford went to her, she could talk of nothing but Oswald; where he could have gone, how he might have been detained. That he had not sent them any news of his movements was easily explained. Sunday! ‘I would not say a word against Sunday,’ said poor Mrs. Meredith, who went to church dutifully as Sunday came; ‘but, oh! when one is anxious, when there is no post and no telegraph, what a day!’ They were all telling her how easily explainable Oswald’s absence was; and when they stopped explaining it to her, she herself would take up the parable, and protest that she knew exactly how it must have happened. It was all as clear as daylight. He had been detained by his friends whoever they might happen to be, or he had lost the last train. It was Oswald’s way to lose the last train, and no one had asked where he was going when he said he was going to the country. And, of course, it had been too late to telegraph on Saturday night, and how was he to know, a boy of his late habits, that the telegraph offices were open early on Sunday morning? All these explanations were most plausible--the worst of such things, however, is that, plausible as they are, they satisfy nobody. But it annoyed Mr. Beresford immensely to find that Oswald’s unexpected absence took up all Mrs. Meredith’s thoughts. She had no leisure for him, though surely he ought to have been at least as important as Oswald. Whatever he talked to her about, she replied to him with something about her boy. As if her boy could have come to any harm! as if it was not all his own levity and selfishness! Mr. Beresford, having an object of his own to pursue, was quite indignant with and impatient of Oswald. What was he, a frivolous do-nothing unsatisfactory young man, that so much fuss should be made about _him_? He was one of ‘the boys’--what more could be said? and how unsatisfactory the best of women were when this motive came into play! Cara never thus distracted her father’s mind; he did not think of her. To be sure she was a girl, and girls never get into scrapes. He did not quite like, it is true, the task of opening this question, of which his mind was full, to Cara. He thought, perhaps, that when all was settled, _she_ (meaning Mrs. Meredith) might do it. Women know best how to deal with girls; but to make Cara, whatever might happen to her, into a hindrance of other intercourse, into an obstacle which stopped everything, that was not a weakness of which he would be capable. Mr. Beresford did not scoff at women; it was not a sentiment congenial to him; but still he had a feeling that in this respect the comparative strength and weakness of male and female character was certainly shown. But he would not say so rudely. He was obliged to submit.

On Monday morning a telegram did come from Oswald. He had been detained; would write to explain, but did not expect to get home till Thursday or Friday; please send portmanteau to Cloak-room, Clapham Junction. ‘Do any of his friends live in that quarter?’ Mrs. Meredith asked Edward, with astonishment. ‘He has friends everywhere,’ said Edward, with a half sigh. This pleased the mother, though he had not said it with such an intention. Yes, he had friends everywhere. He was a harum-scarum boy, too careless perhaps, but everywhere, wherever he went, he had friends; and the portmanteau was sent, and the letter of explanation waited for--but it did not come. In short, the week had nearly run round again without any news of him, and everything else was arrested, waited for Oswald’s reappearance. Mrs. Meredith evaded all recurrence to the more important subject by constantly falling back upon Oswald--perhaps she was rather glad of the chance of escape it gave her--and Mr. Beresford was no nearer a settlement than ever. This fretted him, and put him in a sort of secondary position which he did not like, but which it was useless to struggle against; and so the days and the hours went on.

It was the Friday when two visitors almost at the same moment approached the two adjoining houses in the Square, both of them with faces full of seriousness, and even anxiety. One of them was Mr. Maxwell in his brougham, who sprang out with a kind of nervous alacrity unusual to him, and knocked at Mrs. Meredith’s door. The other was a solid and portly clergyman, who got out of a four-wheeled cab, paying his fare with a careful calculation of the distance which produced bad language from his driver, and knocked at Mr. Beresford’s. They were admitted about the same moment, and received in the two corresponding rooms with nothing but a wall between them; and both of them had very serious business in hand. Cara’s visitor was Mr. Burchell, from the Rectory, who asked, with a countenance full of strange things, and with many apologies, whether Miss Beresford had lately seen ‘our Agnes.’ Agnes! the name made Cara start.

‘I have not seen anyone but Roger since I left the Hill. I hope he--I mean all, are well. Is Agnes in town, Mr. Burchell?’ Agnes was four or five years older than Cara, and therefore out of her sphere.

‘I thought your aunt would certainly have mentioned it to you; indeed, Mrs. Burchell was much surprised that she did not see her when she was in town. Agnes has been in--an educational establishment for some time. We are a little anxious about her,’ said the Rector, with a quaver in his voice.

‘Is she ill?’ Cara did not love the clergyman under whom she had sat for ten years, but her heart was touched by that unmistakable trembling in his commonplace voice.

‘I don’t suppose she is ill; we--don’t know. The fact is she left--the House last Saturday--and has never come back. We don’t know what has become of her,’ he said, with real trouble. ‘You won’t mention it to anyone. Oh, I suppose it is nothing, or something quite easily explainable; but her mother is anxious--and I thought you might have seen her. It is nothing, nothing of any real consequence,’ he added, trying to smile, but with a quiver in his lips. He was stout and commonplace and indeed disagreeable, but emotion had its effect upon him as well as another, and he was anxious about his child. He looked Cara wistfully in the face, as if trying to read in the lines of it something more than she would allow.

‘Agnes! the House--O Mr. Burchell!’ said Cara, waking up suddenly to a full sense of all that was in the communication. ‘Do you mean to say that it was Agnes--_Agnes!_ that was the Agnes in the House?’

Mr. Maxwell was more uncertain how to open the object of his visit. He sat for some time talking of _la pluie et le beau temps_. He did not know how to begin. Then he contrived little traps for Mrs. Meredith, hoping to bring her to betray herself, and open a way for him. He asked about Cara, then about Mr. Beresford, and how he heard he had given up all ideas of going away. But, with all this, he did not produce the desired result, and it was necessary at last, unless he meant to lose his time altogether, to introduce his subject broadly without preface. He did so with much clearing of his throat.

‘I have taken rather a bold thing upon me,’ he said. ‘I have thought it my duty--I hope you will forgive me, Mrs. Meredith. I have come to speak to you on this subject.’

‘On what subject?’ she said simply, with a smile.

This made it more difficult than ever. ‘About you and Mr. Beresford,’ he said, abruptly blurting it out. ‘Don’t be offended, for heaven’s sake! You ought to have known from the first; but I can’t let you walk blindly into--other relations--without letting you know.’

‘Doctor, I hope you are not going to say anything that will make a breach between us,’ said Mrs. Meredith. ‘You have no right to suppose that I am about to form other relations--I only a few months a widow! I hope I have done nothing to forfeit my friends’ respect.’

‘Then I am not too late,’ he said, with an air of relief. ‘There is still time! I am very glad of that. Respect--forfeit your friends’ respect? who could suppose such a thing? You have only too much of your friends’ respect. We would all go through fire and water for you.’

‘Thanks, thanks,’ she said; ‘but you must not let me be gossiped about,’ she added, after a moment, which made the doctor, though he was not of a delicate countenance, blush.

‘That is all very well,’ he said, ‘but those who have so many friends, and friends so warmly interested, must expect a little talk. It has been spoken of, that there was something, that there might be--in short, that Mr. Beresford and you--forgive me! I don’t mean to say that it would not be most suitable. Everybody knows how fond he is of you--and not much wonder.’

‘Indeed, indeed you must not talk to me so,’ cried Mrs. Meredith, distressed; ‘my affairs are not public business, Mr. Maxwell.’

‘I came to tell you,’ he said, doggedly, ‘something you ought to know. I have no dislike to James Beresford. On the contrary, we are old friends; we were boys together. I did my best to shelter him from any reproach at the time. Everything I could do I did, and I think I succeeded. Perhaps now when one comes to reflect, it would have been better if I had not succeeded so well. But I could not stand by and see him ruined, see his peace of mind destroyed.’

‘Are you talking of Mr. Beresford? Have you lost your senses, doctor? what do you mean?’

‘You remember all that happened when Mrs. Beresford died?’

‘I remember--oh yes--poor Annie! how she suffered, poor soul, and how truly he mourned for her--how heart-broken he was.’

‘He had occasion,’ said the doctor, grimly.

‘Had occasion! I cannot imagine what you mean--there was never a better husband,’ said Mrs. Meredith, with some fervour; ‘never one who loved a woman better, or was more tender with her.’

‘Too tender. I am not saying that I condemn him absolutely. There are cases in which in one’s heart one might approve. Perhaps his was one of these cases; but anyhow, Mrs. Meredith, you ought to know.’

She got impatient, for she, too, had the feeling that to see her friend’s faults herself was one thing, but to have him found fault with quite another. ‘I should have thought that I knew Mr. Beresford quite as well as you did, doctor,’ she said, trying to give a lighter tone to the conversation. ‘I have certainly seen a great deal more of him for all these years.’

‘You could not know this,’ said Mr. Maxwell, ‘nor would I have told you but for the extremity of the case. Listen! She might have lingered I cannot tell how long--weeks, months--it was even possible years.’

‘Yes!’ the assent was no assent, but an exclamation of excitement and wonder.

‘I believe he meant it for the best. She was mad about having something given to her to put her out of her misery, as soon as we knew that she was past hope. Mrs. Meredith, I feel bound to tell you--when you know you can judge for yourself. He must have given her something that day after the consultation. It is no use mincing words--he must have given her--her death.’

‘Doctor! do you know what you are saying?’ She rose up from her chair--then sank back in it looking as if she were about to faint.

‘I know too well what I am saying. I huddled it up that there might be no inquiry. I don’t doubt she insisted upon it, and I don’t blame him. No, I should not have had the courage to do it, but I don’t blame him--altogether. It is a very difficult question. But you ought not to marry him--to be allowed to marry him in ignorance.’

She made no answer. The shock came upon her with all the more force that her mind was already weakened by anxiety. Given her her death! what did that mean? Did it mean that he had killed poor Annie, this man who was her dearest friend? A shiver shook all her frame. ‘I think you must be wrong. I hope you are wrong,’ she said. It was all she could do to keep her teeth from chattering. The sudden horror chilled and froze her. ‘Oh, Mr. Maxwell, he never could have done it! No, no, I will never believe it,’ she said.

‘But I know it,’ said the doctor; ‘there could be no doubt of it; I could not have been deceived, and it was no crime in my eyes. He did it in love and kindness--he did it to serve her. But still no woman should marry him, without knowing at least----’

‘There was never any question of that,’ she said, hurriedly, in the commotion of her mind. Then it seemed cowardly of her to forsake him. She paused. ‘He is worthy of any woman’s confidence. I will not hear a word against him. He did not do it. I am sure he did not do it! or, if he did, he was not to blame.’

The words had not left her lips when the door was opened, and the subject of this strange conversation, Mr. Beresford himself, came into the room. They were both too agitated for concealment. She looked at the doctor with sudden terror. She was afraid of a quarrel, as women so often are. But Maxwell himself was too much moved to make any pretences. He rose up suddenly, with an involuntary start; but he was shaken out of ordinary caution by the excitement of what he had done. He went up to the new comer, who regarded him with quiet surprise, without any salutation or form of politeness. ‘Beresford,’ he said, ‘I will not deceive you. I have been telling her what it is right she should know. I don’t judge you; I don’t condemn you; but whatever happens, she has a right to know.’

It is one of the penalties or privileges of excitement that it ignores ignorance so to speak, and expects all the world to understand its position at a glance. James Beresford gazed with calm though quiet astonishment upon the man who advanced to meet him with tragedy in his tone. ‘What is the matter?’ he said, with the simplicity of surprise. Then seeing how pale Mrs. Meredith was, he went on with some anxiety, ‘Not anything wrong with Oswald? I trust not that?’

Mrs. Meredith stirred in her chair and held out her hand to him. She could not rise. She looked at him with an agitated smile. ‘I put perfect faith in you, perfect faith!’ she said, ‘notwithstanding what anyone may say.’

‘In me!’ he said, looking from one to another. He could not imagine what they meant.

‘Beresford,’ said Maxwell again, ‘I will not hide it from you. It has been in my mind all this time. I have never been able to look upon you as I did before; at a crisis like this I could hold my tongue no longer. I have been telling all that happened at the death of your first poor wife.’

‘My _first_--!’ the exclamation was under his breath, and Maxwell thought he was overcome with horror by the recollection; but that was not what he was thinking of: his first wife!--there was something sickening in the words. Was this his Annie that was meant? It seemed profanation, sacrilege. He heard nothing but that word. Maxwell did not understand him, but there was another who did. The doctor went on,

‘I have never said a word about it till this day, and never would but for what was coming. You know that I took the responsibility, and kept you free from question at the time.’

‘What does he mean?’ This question, after a wondering gaze at the other, Beresford addressed to Mrs. Meredith behind him. ‘All this is a puzzle to me, and not a pleasant one; what does he mean?’

‘This is too much,’ said the doctor. ‘Be a man, and stand to it now at least. I have not blamed you, though I would not have done it myself. I have told her that you consented--to what I have no doubt was poor Mrs. Beresford’s prayer--and gave her--her death----’

‘I--gave her her death--you are mad, Maxwell! I, who would have died a dozen times over to save her!’

‘There is no inconsistency in that. You could not save her, and you gave her--what? I never inquired. Anyhow it killed her, poor girl! It was what she wanted. Am I blaming you? But, James Beresford, whatever may have been in the past, it is your duty to be open now, and she ought to know.’

‘My God, will you not listen to me?’ cried Beresford, driven to despair. He had tried to stop him, to interrupt him, but in vain. Maxwell had only spoken out louder and stronger. He had determined to do it. He was absolutely without doubts on the matter, and he was resolute not to be silenced. ‘She ought to know,’ he went on saying under his breath to himself.

‘But it is not true. It is an invention, it is a mistake! _I_ do anything against her dear life!--even in suffering, even in misery, was she not everything to me?’

‘That is all very well to say. You did it in love, not in hatred, I acknowledge that. Beresford, no one here will betray you. Why not be bold and own to what you did? I could not be deceived; it was from your hand and no other your wife got her death. How could I, her doctor, be deceived?’

‘Dr. Maxwell,’ said a low voice from the door; and they all started with a violent shock, as if it had been Annie Beresford herself come back from the grave. Mrs. Meredith rose hastily and went towards this strange apparition. It was Cara, with cheeks perfectly colourless, with blue eyes dilated, standing as she had entered, transfixed by those terrible words. But the girl took no notice of her friend’s rush towards her. She put out her hand to put Mrs. Meredith away, and kept her eyes fixed on the doctor, as if there was no one else in the room.

‘Dr. Maxwell,’ said Cara, her young bosom heaving, ‘I have come just in time. You are making a great, great mistake, for that is not true.’

‘Cara, child, go away, go away; I never meant this for you.’

‘No one knows but me,’ she said; ‘I was in the room all the time. I have never forgotten one thing, nor a word she said. She wanted him to do it, but he would not. He rushed away. I did not understand then what it meant.’

The girl stood trembling, without any support, so slight, so young, so fragile, with her pale face. Her father had scarcely thought of Cara before since she was the plaything of his younger life. All at once his eyes seemed to be opened, and his heart. He went to her by an irresistible impulse, and put his arm round her. Love seemed to come to life in him with very terror of what he was about to hear.

‘It was not you!’ he said, with a low cry of anguish; ‘it was not you!’

‘She would not let me,’ said Cara. ‘I asked to do it, but she would not let me. She looked up--to God,’ cried the girl, the tears rushing to her eyes, ‘and took it. Did not He know everything? _You_ would not be angry, papa? you would not have cast me away if I had taken something to get free of pain? Would He? He was her father too.’

‘O, Cara, no one blames her--no one blames her!’ said Mrs. Meredith, with unrestrained tears.

‘She looked up to God,’ said the girl, with her voice full of awe. ‘She said I was to tell you; but I did not understand what it meant then, and afterwards I could not speak. It has always seemed to stand between us, papa, that I had this to tell you and could not speak.’

‘My child,’ said the father, his lips trembling, ‘it has been my fault; but nothing shall stand between us any more.’

The two others looked on for a moment with conflicting feelings. Mrs. Meredith looked at them with generous tears and satisfaction, yet with a faint pang. _That_ was over now. She had always intended it should end thus; but yet for the moment, such is the strange constitution of the heart, it gave her a passing pang. As for the doctor, he gathered his gloves and his hat together with great confusion. He had made a fool of himself. Whatever the others might do, how could he contemplate this solemn disclosure he had come to make, which had been turned into the officious interference of a busybody? He took no leave of anyone; but when they were all engaged with each other, made a bolt for the door of the back drawing-room, and got out, very red, very uncomfortable, and full of self-disgust. He was touched too by the scene which had been so unexpectedly brought before him, and felt tears, very unusual to him, tingling in the corners of his eyes. He met Edward on the stairs; but Edward was too much preoccupied to observe how Maxwell was looking.

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘if Miss Beresford is in the drawing-room? There is a gentleman waiting for her downstairs.’

‘If you mean Cara,’ said the doctor, ‘she is there, and the mistress of the situation, I can tell you. Oh, never mind; I can let myself out. You’ll find them all there.’

Edward stared a little, but went on to deliver his message. ‘I hope I am not disturbing anyone,’ he said, in the formal manner which he had put on; ‘but there is someone, very impatient, waiting for Miss Beresford--I mean Cara,’ he added, half ashamed of himself, ‘downstairs.’

Cara roused herself from her father’s arm. It revived her more than anything else to see that Edward was turning away again to leave the room. She shook the tears from her eyes, and roused herself into sudden energy. ‘That was why I came,’ she said. ‘O, Mrs. Meredith, where is Oswald? We must find him, or they will all break their hearts.’

‘Who--you, Cara, my darling? no one shall break your heart.’

‘No, no,’ she cried, with a little start of impatience. ‘It is time this was over. He never would tell you the truth. Oh, we must find him, wherever he is, for Agnes has gone too.’

They all gathered about with looks of wonder, Edward making but one step from the door where he stood. His countenance gleamed over with a sudden light; he put out his hands to her unawares.

‘Agnes--who is Agnes!’ said Mrs. Meredith. ‘O, Cara, what does it all mean? I know nothing about him--where he is. He was to come back to-day.’

‘Agnes is Agnes Burchell,’ said Cara. ‘He has been telling me of her all this time. He has been spending his whole time going after her. And she is gone too, and it is her father who is downstairs. Oh, think how we can find them! Her father is very anxious. Oswald should not have done it,’ said Cara, with the solemnity of her age. ‘I always begged him, and he always promised, to ask you to go.’

‘This is extraordinary news,’ said Mrs. Meredith, dropping into the nearest chair. She was trembling with this renewed agitation. ‘And you knew it, Cara; you have been his confidante? Oh, what a strange mistake we have all made!’

‘It was not my fault,’ said Cara, softly. She gave a furtive glance at Edward as she spoke, and his mother looked at him too. Edward’s countenance was transformed, his eyes were lit up, smiles trembling like an illumination over his face. Mrs. Meredith’s heart gave a leap in her motherly bosom. She might have been wounded that it was none of her doing; but she was too generous for so poor a thought. He will not go to India now, she said to herself in her heart. The pang which Cara had given her unwittingly was nothing to the compensation thus received from her equally unconscious hands.