Chapter XVI: About the Past

_November 7th, Saturday._

MR. FARRARS is still the rector of Wayatford, and Millicent is still at home, still unmarried. He looks about the same as when I saw him last, only a good deal more grey and a little more inclined to stoop. But she looks—oh, so much older! Some girls at twenty-seven are quite young and girlish, but Millicent was hardly girlish even at twenty; and now she is so calm and grave and middle-aged, she might be taken for almost any age.

There is a look in her face as if she had gone through a great deal, in one way or another. I wonder if she has. I wonder if she has gone through one half or one quarter so much as I have. I wonder if there is a look of that sort in "my" face, and if not, I wonder why not.

Mr. Derwentwater's name has not once been mentioned by a single person since I came here; and somehow I have not cared to ask about him. I am always such a hand at blushing just when I ought not, and a stupid little self-conscious feeling might make me blush, if I asked; and then people might imagine that I had not quite forgotten the old stupid fancy. I would not have anybody think that for anything.

Perhaps he is married by this time. It is very likely. If he found that he really had no hope of getting Millicent, it is not in the least likely that he would wait. I remember thinking that he might so easily put off for a few years, and wait till she should be free, till Amy should be old enough to manage the household. But men are not so fond of waiting; and now I begin to see what an amount of patience would be needed for such waiting,—now that these six long years have gone by. I seem to have lived through half a lifetime; and Millicent is losing all her girlishness, and is getting to look thin and plain and middle-aged; yet still Amy is only fourteen years old, a mere child, in short frocks, frisky and heedless.

So I dare say I was a little hard upon him, thinking he might so very easily wait without minding it. Of course it would depend on the kind of love that he had for Millicent. I mean there is a kind of love which can wait, and which would choose to wait, any number of years, rather than lose her. But very few men love like that. Somehow I do not think Mr. Derwentwater is one of the few.

Did he ever speak to Millicent, I wonder? Did he ask her to have him, and did she refuse? Or did he know that it was hopeless from her manner, and never say a word?

Well, I suppose some day something about him will slip out, only not from Millicent. Nothing ever slips from Millicent; and she seems to me quite as reserved now as in her girlish days. Not that I have seen much of her yet. We are both a little shy, the one with the other, not exactly knowing whether to behave like friends or not. I do not think we have even said each other's names yet,—I mean in speaking one to the other.

Aunt Marian is precisely the same that she was, not changed in the least, not worse in health, and not looking a day older. She is so delighted to have us all here, especially my mother. It is like a new life to her, she says; and I am sure it is doing Mother no end of good.

We have the twins at home again now; and they go to a day-school. At seven years old, they were very much alike. But now at thirteen, they are becoming complete opposites. Addie is the dark one, her hair has changed so quickly, while Emmie's is still quite fair.

Addie is thin and sprightly, and full of fun and mischief; while Emmie is shy and gentle, and rather plump, and much the prettiest. They and Amy Farrars have struck up a friendship at once.

But Millicent and I are only on the footing of pleasant acquaintances. We meet sometimes, and we are polite and agreeable, not in the least confidential.

Why, indeed, should we be?

Wayatford does not feel dull to me now, or particularly slumbrous. Nothing, I suppose, could be especially dull after the life we have lived in Bath, where we really made no friends, because of my father's state. If we had had old friends, we should not have given them up, but to make new ones was a different matter.

Several very nice people have called this week already, and to have uncle Basil and aunt Marian almost opposite our front gate is a perpetual interest.

_November 28th, Thursday._

Millicent and I are drawing slowly together, finding it pleasant to exchange ideas. I think we begin to like one another more genuinely than ever in old days.

I am often now struck with her quiet force of character, and her calm sensible way of looking upon things, and still more with her powers of mind. It is extraordinary how much she has managed to read in her busy life. But, after all, reading or not reading is very much a matter of will.

Millicent says that from the age of fifteen she has always resolved not to let herself glide into the vacant state of many girls, who never from one year's end to another, look into any book except a novel. Reading has been her rest and delight; and even in her most crowded times, she has very very seldom allowed a whole day to pass without at least one quarter of an hour of it. All this of course mounts up in the course of years.

Now and then, when she is talking of a favourite book, and her face brightens, and a little colour comes, the worn look of middle-age vanishes. And then I catch myself wondering whether, if Mr. Derwentwater were to see her at such a moment, he would not be just as much in love as ever.

Has he forgotten her by this time? And where is he now? Since I came to Wayatford, not a human being has mentioned his name.

His uncle, Mr. Collins, of the Park, died two years ago, and the property passed to a distant relative—not a person whom people here can like. So, in any case, I suppose Mr. Derwentwater's visits to the Park would cease.

Still, if he really wished to come to Wayatford, he might of course manage it. There would surely be nothing to hinder him.

_December 4th, Wednesday._

I have heard something at last, and from Millicent herself!

Yesterday afternoon we were together. I had gone in to have tea with her, and she was alone. We sat over the fire, without a lamp, enjoying blind man's holiday. At such times, one can talk more freely than in full light. The fire was low, and one's face could not be seen; and something made me speak about my visit to Wayatford more than six years ago. I told Millicent that I often thought now what a horridly disagreeable girl she must have found me.

Millicent paused, and answered slowly: "No, not horridly disagreeable. That is too strong. Sometimes, in certain moods, you could be taking. Only, you were so very sure of yourself—"

"So conceited!"

"I suppose it was a form of girlish conceit."

"And—so desperately wrapped up in myself."

"Yes, rather. It was a case of self dominant—the whole world for self, and self for nobody else."

"But I didn't know it, Millicent."

"No, of course not. Girls do not know it; or if they do, they don't see the unloveliness of it."

Then, without any particular intention, I found myself saying quite naturally, "I always have thought it was such a 'thing' to do, that day of the excursion, to choose the best seat in the dog-cart, and to leave the other for you."

"Why should it have been the best seat?" she asked. "And why should you not take it?"

"Why, of course it was the best! Any one would have said so. And you had every right to it, and I had none. I was a mere interloper."

"But suppose I did not wish to go in the dog-cart?"

I looked at her dubiously.

"The choice had been offered, and I would not take it. You were perfectly free to act as you pleased."

"Perfectly free to be as selfish as I liked."

Millicent sat gazing into the fire, and presently she stirred it, so that a bright flame sprang up. I could not understand her face.

"I wonder—may I ask one thing? Don't answer if you would rather not. It has always been such a puzzle to me, thinking about that day. Did you really mind, or did you not?"

"Did I really mind—what?"

"Not driving in the dog-cart with Mr. Derwentwater, and all the rest?"

There was another and a longer break.

"I don't know why I should not tell you," Millicent said at length. "It is not as if you were a child now. And perhaps—yes, I did mind. I minded that, and all of it, very much indeed. It was part of the whole struggle, part of the pain. One has to live through such times, but they are not easy. And I was so young, and I had no one to help me."

"I was no help."

"No," and she looked at me sadly. "Just at first, I think I had a fancy that you might be, but that was soon at an end. If you had been then like what you are now, Rhoda—!"

"Instead of being just utterly wrapped up in myself, as I was!"

"Well, that is all over," she responded.

"But, Millicent, you had aunt Marian."

"I could not speak out to her. She knew him too well."

"And there was no way—why could he not wait?"

"I would never have consented."

"And I made things worse for you!"

"For the moment, perhaps." Tears were on Millicent's eyelashes. "If it had been earlier or later! But the fight just then was so hard, harder than any one knew. I was waking up when you came to what he really meant, and to what I really wished, and to what I had to do. I knew I could not be spared from home for years and years. And though I told myself that the thing was impossible, still it was hard to see him taken by you; and I thought you were trying to win him from me. Even though I knew I had to give him up, I did not quite know how to stand that. And yet for his sake, I ought to have been glad, if he could have cared for anybody else."

I was startled at the flutter which those quiet words of Millicent sent through me. Then it had not been all fancy on my part! She too had thought that he was really "taken." And I—I have felt so sure that I had utterly left off caring; and yet those words made me thrill all over. How absurd! As if it mattered now!

"But he never did care a straw for any one but you."

She laughed faintly.

"I think that was for years the ruling affection, but Ernest is of a susceptible nature. He is always easily caught by a pretty face. Perhaps I ought to say 'was.'"

"Where is he now?"

"Abroad. When he found that things were hopeless, he said he could stand England no longer. They were very good to him at the Bank,—old friends of his family; and they found him a post on the Continent for three years. I suppose the three years may be extended indefinitely."

"When did he go?"

"Nearly four years ago. I have heard nothing of him for a long while."

"Then he did speak out to you! Am I wrong to ask?"

"No; I don't mind telling you now. He spoke out, and even offered to wait indefinitely. Of course I would not consent. I left him perfectly free; and in a year, he was engaged."

"Millicent!" I could have shrieked the word.

"Why not? He had no hope of me. And, as I say, he was susceptible."

"And he was married!"

"No. She died of fever, three weeks before the wedding day. Poor fellow!"

"He hasn't managed to find somebody else since?"

"I don't know. I have heard nothing of him lately."

"And, Millicent, you don't care!" I said wonderingly. "You don't really care!"

She turned her face towards me, and spoke slowly. "There are different ways of caring. My line of life has always been so clear. But there are some losses which can never cease to be losses, and some troubles which can never be as if they had not existed. Don't you understand? I think it has killed my girlhood early. Still, I have work and happiness left. And if the other thing were not God's will for me, it is not my will for myself. I am perfectly content. Now I don't think we need say any more about it."

"Suppose he came again!"

"Suppose the stars fell!" she answered, smiling. "He is a young man still; and I am middle-aged, more like thirty-seven than twenty-seven!"

"Oh, no!" slipped from me involuntarily; yet I have said the same thing to myself.

Millicent would let me go no farther. She began to talk of other things, and his name was dropped. I know I shall not be allowed to bring it up again at present, and I must do what she wishes. But I do wonder—has he quite forgotten Millicent?