Chapter II: Shadows Before

“What makes her in the wood so late, A furlong from the castle gate?”

Christabel.

TREVOR called at Greystone the next day, and was closeted with Colonel Methvyn for some time. Cicely and her cousin were in the house when he came, but, considerably to their surprise, he went away without seeing them. Geneviève said nothing, but felt annoyed. Cicely grew uneasy and anxious, for at dinner it struck her that her mother looked grave and preoccupied; but she had no opportunity during the evening of inquiring if there was any cause for this, as Mrs. Methvyn went straight from the dining-room to her husband, leaving the two girls to their own devices.

“What shall we do, Geneviève,” said Cicely. “I fancy mother will stay in my father’s room this evening. Shall we go out a little? It is deliciously mild.”

“Is your father not well to-day?” asked Geneviève, without replying to her cousin’s proposal.

“Oh! yes. I mean, at least, he is just the same as usual,” answered Cicely. “He said this morning he felt a very little tired with yesterday, but he was in good spirits, and he seems to think the little change did him good.”

“Then what for did my aunt look so distraite—so sad at dinner?” asked Geneviève. She was standing listlessly by the window, but as she spoke she turned round with a certain sharpness which annoyed her cousin more than the question itself.

“If my mother is anxious or uneasy, I don’t think either you or I should notice it or make any remarks about it,” said Cicely coldly. She had hardly uttered the words before she wished she could recall them. “Geneviève meant no harm,” she reflected; “it is because I am uneasy too, that I am cross, but that is no excuse.”

She began to think how she could best soften the harshness of what she had said.

“Geneviève,” she was commencing, “I am sorry I said that; don’t think I meant it—” when her cousin interrupted her.

“You are not sorry. You are not kind,” she exclaimed vehemently.“You wish that I should be a stranger. Nobody cares for me here, nobody. I wish, oh! that I wish I had never come to England.” And she wound up by bursting into tears and sobbing violently.

Cicely was dismayed. She was sorry for Geneviève, she was vexed with herself for having seemed unkind, but she also thought her cousin very silly. Exaggerated display of feeling chilled and repelled her; it cost her, therefore, a little effort to try to smooth poor Geneviève’s ruffled plumage.

“Dear Geneviève,” she said gently, “I am sorry, very sorry for having hurt you. I am sure you meant no harm, and I am very unkind. It is quite true what Trevor says.”

The last few words were added in a lower voice, as if speaking to herself; but they caught Geneviève’s attention far more effectually than what had preceded them.

“What does he say?” she exclaimed, raising her flushed, tear-stained face from the sofa on which she had thrown herself in her outburst.

Cicely hesitated. “I should not have said it,” she began; “but, after all, I dare say it doesn’t matter. Trevor said I was cold and formal in my manner to you, and that he was afraid you were not happy with us, and that it was my fault Is it so, Geneviève?” she added a little wistfully.

But Geneviève did not answer directly.

“When did Mr. Fawcett say that?” she asked. “I never said to him you were not kind, Cicely.”

“Oh! no; he never said you did. He only spoke from what he had noticed himself. He has said something of the sort two or three times. It was all out of kindness and regard for you,” explained Cicely hastily, a little afraid of rousing another storm.

Her fears were ill-founded. Geneviève’s irritation seemed to have completely disappeared.

“I know,” she said; “I know. He is very kind. He is like your brother, is he not, Cicely?”

“We have been together all our lives,” answered Cicely evasively.

“Yes,” pursued Geneviève, hardly noticing the reply; “yes, he is like your brother. It has seemed so to me since ever I came. But you must tell him it is not true that I am unhappy here. You are very good and kind, dear Cicely, and I am very cross. I am sometimes so that the least word makes me cry, and then I wish I were at home again; but it soon passes. I love you and I love to be here, and you must forgive what I said. Kiss me, my cousin, and let us forget the foolish words.”

She held up her rosy lips, and Cicely kissed her; it would have been difficult to refuse to do so. Cicely felt a little bewildered by the girl’s changeableness, but was glad that peace should be restored, and could not but own to herself that, childish as she might be, Geneviève was very sweet.

For the rest of the evening she was sweetness itself. They went out a little after awhile and paced slowly up and down the avenue, where the shade of the trees brought night before its time. It was a mild evening, mild but not oppressive, for little gusts of breeze came every now and then sweeping round among the leaves and causing the branches to nod fantastically in the waning light. Once or twice Miss Methvyn shivered.

“Are you cold, Cicely?” asked Geneviève.

“No, not exactly, but there is something rather chilly in the air,” she replied. “Don’t you feel it? If I did not know it was only June, I should fancy it October. There is an autumn feeling about, though it is mild too.”

“I did not feel it so,” said Geneviève. Then suddenly a thought struck her. “I wonder, Cicely, why Mr. Fawcett went away in so great a hurry this?” she exclaimed.

“Did he?” said Cicely absently. “I thought he was a long time with papa.”

“Oh! yes; he was till five o’clock in Colonel Methvyn’s room,” said Geneviève. “It was after that I mean that he must have been in a hurry. I was thinking if he had stayed to dinner, we might have walked part of the way home with him it is such a pretty way, by the mill.”

“Yes, and you have never been that way,” said Cicely. “We can go any day you like. I generally bring the key of the door into the plantations with me. But it is too late to-night to set off on a walk.”

“Oh! yes; not to-night,” said Geneviève, and they slowly turned back to the house again.

“Are you beginning to like this old place, Geneviève?” said Cicely suddenly.

They were standing still, in front of the porch, and as Miss Methvyn spoke, her gaze rested lovingly on the quaint old house, every stone of which seemed a part of her life, and then wandered away over the garden and the trees and through the network of branches to where the summer moon was slowly rising. “It will be a lovely moonlight night,” she added softly.

“I love not the moon, she makes me sad,” said Geneviève decidedly.

Cicely laughed gently. “You silly little thing,” she said. Then she stooped and kissed Geneviève and they both went in.

When Cicely reached her own room, she found her mother there, waiting for her.

“Your father has just fallen asleep,” said Mrs. Methvyn; “it was not worth while for me to go downstairs again, and I wanted to see you alone, Cicely. And I did not want Geneviève to fancy there was anything the matter.”

“Is anything the matter? I thought you looked dull at dinner,” said Cicely quickly. “You don’t think papa is worse?”

“No, I think he is very well. But he is anxious and worried,” answered Mrs. Methvyn.

Cicely’s face grew grave, but she said nothing

“Trevor was here to-day, you know, Cicely,” her mother went on; “he was a long time with your father. You can guess what they were talking about.”

Cicely sat down on the floor at her mother’s feet and laid her head upon Mrs. Methvyn’s knee.

“Mamma,” she said, “I thought it was fixed that nothing more should be said about it just yet. Mamma, I cannot leave you yet.”

“But my child, it must come, and when ever it comes it will seem as bad.”

“No, not if Amiel were home again. If she were here, I should not mind leaving you half so much,” said Cicely. “I don’t understand it, mother. Long ago—when it was first spoken of—it was always taken for granted that I should stay with you till Amiel came home. What has made any change? Is it Trevor’s doing?”

Mrs. Methvyn hesitated. “Trevor has always hoped things might hasten the marriage,” she said, “but—I don’t think he felt at liberty to say much about hastening it. It is your father who seems to wish it so much, and of course Trevor is delighted to have him on his side. And the Fawcetts wish it too.”

“But why does papa wish it so much? It is very unnatural,” said Cicely with a tinge of bitterness.

“Don’t say that, dear,” remonstrated her mother. “Your father only wishes it because he dreads the possibility of your being left without a protector. He has a very high opinion of Sir Thomas. As your father-in-law, your interests would be even more to him than now.”

Cicely remained silent for a minute or two. Then she said consideringly, “I suppose it is natural that papa should wish to see me married, but do you know, mother, there are times when I wish things had been left to take their chance. Even if I were left to “fend for myself,” as old Elspeth used to say, I should get on very well, I believe. I should not dread having to fight my way, mother. I should like to know something of the other side of life. I feel sometimes as if there was a sort of energy in me which will never need to be used.”

“But, my child, you forget your position,” said her mother. “Our anxiety to see you well—I mean happily and safely—married, arises greatly from the fact of your being your father’s heiress. I did not feel half as anxious about Amiel’s future—long ago when you were both children and I used to look forward, as all mothers do, I suppose—as about yours. The position of a girl who is known to be an heiress is a very dangerous one.”

“But I have you and papa to take care of me and advise me,” persisted Cicely.

“Yes, but for how long? There is no good trying to deceive ourselves, my darling. Your father’s life is a very uncertain one, and—I can scarcely bear to say it to you, dear—but there are times when I can hardly picture myself as living without him. My whole life has been so given to him, and you know how he has deserved all the devotion I can give him. And it would be terrible to us to leave you alone, Cicely.”

“I see, yes I see how you feel,” answered the girl after a moment’s silence. “I dare say I should feel the same in your place. But, mamma, I wish I had had a brother—then I should have been able to choose my own life; not to marry at all, very likely.”

“Cicely, you make me unhappy when you speak so,” said her mother gravely. “You have been left free to choose. Your father and I approve of your marriage to Trevor, but it was not forced upon you. You do not wish to draw back from it, surely? If you do, however it may disappoint us, it will be far better for you to say so. Cicely, my dear child, you frighten me.”

“But you are not to be frightened, you are not to be unhappy about me, mother,” exclaimed Cicely, smiling up reassuringly in Mrs. Methvyn’s face. “I don’t want to break off my engagement to Trevor. I am quite happy to be going to marry him some time only—only—I don’t want it to be just yet. I want to stay at home with you and papa.”.

“But it cannot always be only going to be,” said Mrs. Methvyn, smiling too, not withstanding her anxiety. “It is not using Trevor or his parents well to keep putting it off. And it disappoints your father.”

“If it disappoints and worries papa, that is a different matter,” replied Cicely. “I would marry Trevor to-morrow morning if it would do papa any good. As for the Fawcetts, I don’t see that it is using them ill, mother. When we were first engaged, it was understood we were not to be married for a long time, and I don’t believe that Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica are in such a desperate hurry to have me for their daughter. They like me very well, but they would have liked lots of other girls just as well. Geneviève, for instance, they were both perfectly captivated by her, and no wonder. She is a hundred times prettier than I, and she kisses Lady Frederica on both cheeks! And as for Trevor, mother, I am sure he is very contented to go on being comfortably engaged without any fuss. He dislikes fuss exceedingly.”

“You are talking nonsense, Cicely, to make me forget the serious part of it,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “But you must not. It is perfectly true that both your father and Trevor wish something to be decided. Trevor has begun to think of it very seriously of late I can see.”

“What is it that papa does want? Tell me plainly, mother. I will not joke any more,” said Cicely growing suddenly quiet.

“I think, indeed I am sure,” answered her mother, “that he would like your marriage to be this summer.”

“This summer; oh, mother! It is only three months since Charlie died,” said Cicely, her voice quivering. “Mother, I tried to be cheerful at that time, because I knew you had enough on your mind, but, oh! I have missed him so! Don’t send me away from you yet. Six months hence perhaps I shall have a different feeling, and it does seem a sudden change. A few months ago there was no thought of my being married this year. I don’t understand it.”

“But I have explained it to you, dear; it is quite easy to understand. Are you sure you understand yourself, Cicely? You speak of wishing you had difficulties and obstacles to face, but yet you shrink from any change in your life?”

“It is different,” said Cicely. “There will be no scope for my energies, mother, in my new life. Living at Lingthurst will be ever so much smoother and more luxurious than here even! I shall have no house-keeping, no responsibilities. Of course I shall try to be like a daughter to Trevor’s parents, but I shall always be wishing they were you and papa, and fancying you want me. We shall be so dreadfully rich! I wish Trevor had his way to make, and that we were going to live in a little house of our own!”

Mrs. Methvyn sighed. There had been a time in her life when she had known what it was not to be “dreadfully rich,” when poverty had destroyed much of the charm even of “a little house of her own.”

“But then in my case there were worse troubles than poverty,” she reflected. She had been so anxious for Cicely’s happiness, surely it was not all to turn out a mistake.

Cicely heard the sigh and it grieved her.

“Mother,” she exclaimed hastily, “I am wrong to speak so. I am foolish and discontented. Of course, I know it is right for Trevor to live at Lingthurst, and I dare say I shall find plenty of interests. But, mother, it must not be just yet. Not for six months. Will you tell my father what I say. He will not be vexed; it will not do him harm or trouble him, will it?”

“No, I think not. Not, at least if it is really definitely fixed for six months hence. I hope the Fawcetts will not be disappointed.”

“What does Trevor expect? Did he go away this afternoon under the impression that it was all going to be settled to be at once? As if I were a doll without any feelings of my own!” said Cicely with some bitterness, again.

“Oh! no,” replied her mother,“he went away in rather low spirits. I told him I feared the idea of leaving us all so very soon would be startling to you, and I asked him to let me speak about it to you first. I am rather sorry for Trevor sometimes.”

“Do you think I don’t consider him enough, mother?” said Cicely anxiously. “I think I do—at least, till quite lately there never seemed to be a cloud between us. But, somehow, Trevor is a little changed. I am sure he is—I don’t understand it. I understand my father’s having grown morbid about it, but I don’t know why Trevor wants to hurry it on so. Mother,” she added, “I will speak to Trevor myself about it. It will be better.”

“Very well,” said her mother. “It is getting late, Cicely, say good-night to me, dear. But, by the bye, I am forgetting something I wanted to speak about to you. Cicely, I think Geneviève should now be told of your engagement. She has been here several weeks, and it may seem strange to her afterwards to have been so long kept in the dark.”

“I almost think she has guessed it—or partly, at least,” said Cicely. “But I am not quite sure. Yes, I think you had better tell her, mamma. If I am really going to be married in six months,” she went on, with a faint smile, “I suppose I shall begin to realise it. Till now it has seemed so indefinite, I could hardly feel as if there were anything to tell—I felt as if Trevor and I should always be just the same to each other as we are now.”

She gave a little sigh, but repeated, “Yes, please, tell Geneviève then, mamma.”

“Geneviève may have confidences of her own some day,” said Mrs. Methvyn; “did you notice how much Mr. Guildford and she seemed to have to say to each other yesterday?”

Cicely looked grave. “I don’t think Geneviève is the kind of girl,” she began—“I mean, I don’t fancy Mr. Guildford is thinking of marrying at all,” she went on. “His head is full of other things.”

“Then he is just the sort of man who will be startled some day by finding he has a heart as well as a head,” observed Mrs. Methvyn oracularly.

“Perhaps,” said Cicely quietly, and then her mother left her.

The idea of Mr. Guildford’s being attracted by her cousin was somehow distasteful to Miss Methvyn; it jarred against the estimate she had unconsciously formed of him. “I thought he was above things of that kind,” she said to herself dissatisfiedly, “and Geneviève is so young and childish. Still,” she went on to reflect, “perhaps, on that very account she would better suit him as a wife.”

The suggestion nevertheless did not find favour with her. She felt restless and uneasy. She dreaded the impending talk with Trevor; she was afraid of making him angry by her refusal to agree to an immediate marriage, though in this refusal she felt herself perfectly justified. A slight consciousness of not having been treated by Mr. Fawcett of late, with quite his usual delicacy and consideration added to her depression and annoyance.

“I don’t think Trevor should have talked about it to any one till we had talked it over together,” she thought. “It cannot have been altogether my father’s doing. However anxious he may be for the marriage, he would not have startled me by proposing that it should be so very soon. Next month! Trevor must have let papa think that he and I had talked about it, and that was not kind or considerate. For it was always understood we were not to be married for a long time—and lately, since Charlie died, I was glad to put the leaving home as far back in my thoughts as possible. And Trevor understands all I feel, so well or, at least, he used to do.”

It was nearly midnight—a midnight, as Cicely had foretold, nearly as bright as day, for the moon was at the full and the sky was cloudless. Cicely was restless and excited; she had dismissed her maid at the beginning of her conversation with her mother, now she felt disinclined to go to bed, and sat by the still open window looking out into the garden. The breeze had fallen, every object shone out in silvery white distinctness against the black shadows, all the shades and colours of the daylight world merged in the one sharp contrast. A silly fancy crossed Cicely’s brain.

“I wonder,” she thought, “if there are any worlds where there is no stronger light than this. How tired we should get of the everlasting blacks and whites—it would be like living in an engraving!”

She leant her arms on the broad, low window-sill and gazed before her. Away down to the right ran the path across the park leading to the plantations, beyond which again lay the entrance to the long extent of the Lingthurst woods. This was Trevor’s short cut to the Abbey. How often Cicely had watched him coming over the park; how many a time she had run to unlock the little door in the wall, to save him the additional half-mile of road round by the lodge! Many an old remembrance stole across her mind as she sat looking out on the familiar scene in its moonlight dress. Suddenly a small object moving in the distance caught her attention; a figure was hastening over the park in the direction of the Abbey—a small dark figure running, as Cicely could perceive as it drew nearer, at full speed. Who could it be? Twelve o’clock had struck since the girl had taken up her station at the window—a strange hour for a child (for such the figure seemed to be) to be out alone in the great bare expanse of the park, which no one had occasion to cross except visitors to the Abbey. Only one conjecture occurred to Cicely as a possible explanation of what she saw—some cottager’s child must be ill, and in distress and alarm the parents must be sending for assistance to some of the outdoor servants belonging to the house. So Cicely remained at the window watching the gradually approaching figure with some curiosity. It drew nearer and nearer, somewhat diminishing its pace as it came on, till at last the run sobered down into a swift walk. By this time Cicely could distinguish that the strange visitor was not a child, as she had imagined, but a small woman in a long, dark cloak. She kept her eyes fixed upon it with increasing curiosity, not unmixed with a slight flavour of eeriness—was it a real flesh-and-blood woman she was observing, or the restless spirit of some black-veiled sister revisiting at this unearthly hour the haunts which had known her in the flesh? Cicely shivered involuntarily as the idea occurred to her; then she smiled at her own folly, and watched to see the small black figure disappear among the premises at the back of the house. For a minute or two she lost sight of it. “If she is going to the coach man’s house, she will set the dogs barking,” thought the watcher, with some anxiety as to the possible disturbance of her father’s rest. But no dogs began to bark, and in another moment the little figure reappeared again, out of the deep shadow of a projecting wall which had hidden it from view; and then, to Cicely’s amazement, it came on along the front of the house and turned round a corner, evidently making for the terrace-garden, on to which opened the low window-doors of the library. Half mechanically, hardly knowing what she was doing, holding her breath, nevertheless, in instinctive anxiety, Cicely rose from her seat by the window and went to the door, still standing slightly ajar. She stood there, intently listening for any sound from below, for the library was almost immediately underneath her room. She was not frightened, she was only vaguely excited and uneasy what she expected or dreaded she could hardly have put into words.

It came at last—the familiar sound, that till she heard it she hardly knew her ears had been expecting—the slight click of the latch of the library glass door opened by some one from the outside. Then the cautious closing inside, the drawing to of the shutters, the adjusting of the bar—then a pause, as if the intruder were stopping to rest for an instant; and then again faint sounds distinguishable in the intense silence of the house, which told of some one’s moving across the library and entering the corridor leading to the stairs. Cicely no longer hesitated; she flew along the passage and reached the head of the staircase just as the small dark figure began wearily to ascend. Miss Methvyn stood still in the shadow, but as the person she was waiting for arrived at the top, she came forward in the moonlight.

“It is I, Geneviève,” she said at once, speaking clearly, though softly. “Don’t scream, or you will waken the house. Come here—come with me into my room and tell me what in the world is the matter. Where have you been?”

She spoke with a certain authority; she drew her cousin along the passage to the room she had just left, Geneviève apparently too startled to dream of resistance, not attempting to say a word. When they were safely in the room, Cicely closed the door without speaking. Then turning to her cousin, “Now, Geneviève,” she said, “tell me what you have been doing. You have startled me very much.”

Still Geneviève made no reply.

“Geneviève,” repeated Cicely, with a growing impatience in her tone, “speak to me. What is the matter?”

She was becoming nervous and alarmed. Was her cousin going out of her mind? Was she walking in her sleep? The last suggestion really impressed her for a moment. She passed her arm round Geneviève’s shoulder and turned her face gently towards her.

“Let me see you, Geneviève,” she said softly. The moonlight fell full on the girl’s face; it looked strangely pale, the lips were quivering, the eyes were cast down, great tears stood on the long dark eyelashes. A sudden impulse came over Cicely. She threw her arms round the poor little trembling figure and kissed her tenderly.

“Geneviève, my dear child!” she exclaimed, “you are in trouble, you are unhappy about something. Won’t you trust me? Tell me, whatever it is.”

A vague remembrance of what her mother had observed about Mr. Guildford, a more distinct recollection of Geneviève’s evident agitation on the day of the picnic flashed across Cicely’s mind. Could it really be the case that her cousin had won the heart of the cynical student, and yielded her own in return? But even if it were so, Cicely was at a loss to understand why Geneviève should take to running across the park at midnight instead of going comfortably to sleep. Still the idea suggested some possible explanation of her tears and dejection. Perhaps she was of the order of romantic young ladies who consider outlandish and uncomfortable behaviour a part of the róle.

But Geneviève’s reply, when at last it came, disappointed Cicely greatly.

“Please do not be angry, Cicely,” she said. “I did not mean to startle you. I knew not it was so late. I had only gone a little way.”

“What do you mean, Geneviève?” exclaimed Cicely. “You must have intended to go out without any one knowing. It is nonsense to speak as if you had accidentally stayed out later—as if it were the day-time instead of the middle of the night. I want to know where you have been, and what you went out for at such an extraordinary hour.”

She had drawn back a little from Geneviève, for her want of frankness chilled her. Geneviève began to cry again.

“I have been nowhere,” she said, between her sobs. “At least only a little way over the park.”

“The way by the mill, that we were speaking of to-night?” said Cicely.

“No, not so far. I went but across the park. The moon shone so bright. I saw it from my window, and I thought I would go.”

Cicely looked at her in perplexity.

“I wish I could understand you, Geneviève,” she said wistfully. “Do you mean that it was just a fancy for going out in the moonlight that made you behave so strangely? I could have sympathised with the wish, if you had mentioned it to me? I am a girl like yourself, why do you seem so afraid of me? We might have gone out a little together. Mamma would not have minded for once in a way. But I thought you disliked moonlight.”

“I never saw it so bright and beautiful as to-night,” said Geneviève, evidently beginning to recover her spirits.

“Nor I,” said Cicely. “It is an unusually lovely night. Well then, Geneviève, the next time you have a fancy for a moonlight ramble tell me and we will go together.”

She spoke lightly, for though still a little perplexed her mind was on the whole relieved.

“Yes, dear Cicely, I will,” said Geneviève. “But I thought you would think me so silly. And when I turned to come home I felt frightened, and I ran so fast! I was quite tired when I got back, and then I thought you would scold me.”

She was chattering away quite as usual by now. Cicely smiled. “You must go off to bed now, you silly child,” she said, kissing her cousin as she spoke.

Geneviève turned to go, but as she moved, an end of her cloak caught in the chair near which she had been standing. She stooped to disengage it; as she did so something fell from her hand with a sharp sound on the floor. Before she could pick it up Cicely had caught sight of it. It was a large key.

“The key of the plantation door!” exclaimed Cicely in amazement. “Oh! Geneviève, you told me you had only been across the park! What did you take the key for? Why cannot you be frank and straightforward?”

She spoke in a tone of wounded and disappointed feeling which stung Geneviève to the quick.

“I did speak what was true, Cicely,” she exclaimed vehemently. “I did but go across the park. I took not the key; I went for to seek it.”

“To seek for the key,” replied Cicely coldly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Geneviève began to cry again. She had admitted more than she intended. Now there was no help for it.

“Yes,” she said, “I went to seek—to fetch the key. I had taken it this morning when I was out, and I had forgotten it and left it in the door. And to-night when we talked about that way I remembered, and I feared to-morrow you might want it perhaps and would not find it and would be angry; or it might be stolen out of the door. I could not rest till, I had sought it.”

“And that was why you ran out so late, and you let me fancy it was only for the pleasure of a little walk in the moonlight. Oh! Geneviève,” exclaimed Cicely reproachfully.

“But I did not mean to tell you what was not true, Cicely,” repeated Geneviève, “and I tell you all true now, I do—I do. I feared you would be angry that I had taken the key. That was all. Do you not believe me, my cousin?” she sobbed.

“Yes,” said Cicely, “I believe you; but I do not understand you, Geneviève.”

But she kissed her again nevertheless, and Geneviève thanked her and promised to trust her kindness for the future, and went off to bed.