Chapter VI: An Appeal and Its Results

"And just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow-mortals, nought beside?"
R. BROWNING.

"I CERTAINLY am surprised! I could not have expected such a want of correct feeling!" Miss Devereux spoke in tremulous accents, moving her hands nervously with a washing gesture, one over the other.

Sybella's hands were seldom at rest. Either she was twiddling her chain, or she was drumming the table, or she was going through some other digit-exercises of her own devising. People who have unpretty hands, and do not wish to call attention to them, should refrain from needless gestures. Sybella had not pretty hands, but she was far from following this rule.

Miss Devereux's face was in a flutter, as well as her extremities, and her eyes roved anxiously about. Evelyn's composure made her increasingly nervous.

"I certainly am surprised," she reiterated. "Such an extraordinary thing to do. My dear aunt would have been quite shocked: she would indeed. I am sure, when I was your age, I should as soon have thought of flying as of such an impropriety!"

"Impropriety! To let that boy walk up the glen with us!"

"James Trevelyan is not a boy. You cannot pretend to think him so. He has been through college."

"Twenty-two, is he not? I know he said he could not be ordained for another year."

"Five years older than yourself."

"Ten years younger in mind and character."

"Really Evelyn—"

"And I shall be eighteen in a week."

"Really, Evelyn, if you persist in this sort of thing, I shall have—I shall be compelled to appeal to General Villiers."

Evelyn laughed, but it was easy to see that the threat told.

"Ask General Villiers whether I may walk in the company of a big boy and two children, for fifteen or twenty minutes!"

"Your flippant tone only makes me feel—"

"General Villiers told me yesterday all about young Mr. Trevelyan," said Evelyn. She was not rudely interrupting her aunt. Sybella's sentences were apt to die away unfinished, as ideas or language failed. "He must be a nice lad."

"Mr. Trevelyan may—That has nothing to do with your conduct! Your conscience must convince you how wrongly you are behaving! I shall certainly have to appeal to General Villiers," quavered Sybella.

"General Villiers!" announced Pearce.

With more than usual gravity, the General entered. No doubt he had heard the words last spoken, for Miss Devereux's voice always grew shrill under excitement. She greeted him with a disturbed air, while Evelyn stood in the centre of the room, carrying her head like a young princess.

"I hope nothing has happened," General Villiers said, with his air of polished politeness. He kept Evelyn's hand, scrutinising the unwonted spot of crimson on either cheek. The exceeding kindness of his look was almost too much for her self-control; and tears flushed her eyes.

"Aunt Sybella is vexed," she said. "Your friend, Mr. James Trevelyan, was so good as to walk up the glen with us, the day he arrived. I had been longing to go there, and nobody was ever free to take me. I am told I must not do it alone. He and Jean and Cyril and I were together. Was it so very objectionable?"

General Villiers could not drop the small hand, which seemed to creep into his for protection. He stood looking down upon Evelyn, with mingled sympathy and admiration. Evelyn's lip quivered, and two large tears fell despite all her efforts. She dashed them away with the free hand, as if ashamed.

"Evelyn is of course making the best possible story for herself," complained Miss Devereux. "My dear aunt always trained me to be so very particular—"

"But perhaps—" the General said, taking advantage of a hiatus.

"And Evelyn pays no regard to my wishes. None whatever! I am sorry to have to complain of her, but I feel it to be my duty. My feelings matter little, but there is Evelyn's future—and what may be said of her. I feel that I ought to appeal. It is not the one thing only. I am sure if I could have known what these two months would be—Evelyn running deliberately in the face of my wishes—disregarding my opinions—setting up her own judgment—forming friendships which she knows I must disapprove—disobeying my express commands! And then the temper and annoyance, when I venture to remonstrate. If I had guessed—"

"But about Jem?" said the General.

"When I was Evelyn's age, I am sure I should never have dreamt of such a thing as a walk with a stranger—a young man!!—absolutely without even an introduction! But then I was so carefully brought up! I could never have stooped to such an act. I would have walked twenty miles round sooner! Such a want of self-respect."

There was a dangerous flash in Evelyn's eyes. "It is you who give the false impression now," she said. "Mr. Trevelyan helped Cyril when he was frightened; and that was an introduction. I knew all about him; and the two children were there. We went up the glen together, all four of us; and as soon as Mr. Trevelyan appeared—our Mr. Trevelyan, I mean—I said good-bye to him. Was that so dreadful?"—her eyes going to General Villiers. "I did want to see the glen again."

"Why did you never ask me to take you, my child?" the General asked naturally. "However—I think Miss Devereux must have misunderstood matters. Now that it is all cleared up, shall we—?"

"I beg your pardon; it is you who do not understand," tartly interrupted Sybella. "But perhaps I had better say no more. Evelyn is bent upon taking her own way. Dear aunt would have been sadly grieved. If Evelyn did not feel herself to be in the wrong, why did she never tell me what she had done? Why did she so studiously conceal it—and no doubt induce her little brother to do the same? Such underhandedness—But I feel it is useless for me to pursue the subject. I have said all that is needful, and I have done. Perhaps, if you are alone with Evelyn, you may induce her to speak the truth. My remonstrances are thrown away."

Miss Devereux's voice was so high-pitched and shaky as to suggest an imminent breakdown. She left the room, and Evelyn's eyes were again full.

"O it is hard—hard to have to live with her," the girl murmured. "I have never had to bear coldness before: Aunt Sybella cannot endure me. Everything I do and say is wrong. Perhaps I ought to have told her of that walk, but I knew she would worry, and it did not seem worthwhile. Sometimes I almost think I must run away—everything is so wretched. She is winning even Cyril from me."

"My poor child!"

"You feel for me, I know," she said, raising her eye frankly, as to a father. "That is my one comfort. If it were not for your kindness—knowing that you understand—I think I should go wild. I cannot tell you what the pressure is, all day long. One is never left in peace, never allowed to have one's own opinion. Everything must be discussed, and aunt Sybella must always prove herself to be in the right. The weariness of that incessant tittle-tattle—what this person says, and what that person thinks. The only being never in the wrong is aunt Sybella! You are not even allowed to differ in silence. You must listen, you must answer, and you must be convinced."

"I don't wonder that you find things trying."

"Oh, if you knew—how trying. I may speak out this once, may I not? You are my father's friend, and she has appealed to you. I have never ventured before. I did not even ask you to take me up the glen, because she is so jealous of any kind word spoken to me. Don't you see how hard it is?—How alone I am? If only I might go back to school! They did love me there."

A sob broke into the words. General Villiers was deeply moved. Evelyn's face did not lose its attractiveness, even under agitation. Her very weeping was controlled, and her features were not distorted by the muscular expression of distress; but the violet eyes grew pathetic, and large drops fell slowly.

"Two months? They seem like two years to me! How shall I ever bear whole years of it, with no hope of escape? She will never learn to love me."

"She must—in time."

"She will not. I have no power over aunt Sybella. We repel one another at every point. Isn't there a sort of mutual repulsion between certain people?" Evelyn tried to laugh. "I think I shall grow a bad temper here. I never knew that I had one before; but she makes me naughty. Do things lie dormant in us sometimes, till we get into a new atmosphere? Aunt Sybella will be my temper-growing atmosphere, I am afraid. If people love me, and I love them, I can be vexed at nothing. Real love doesn't get vexed, you know. But she—oh, she makes it so hard to be good; so hard to do right."

General Villiers might have whispered patience to the tried young spirit. He might have told her that the very "atmosphere" which threatened to develop a temper ought rather to be the means of developing a spirit of endurance. He might have suggested that one can never learn to bear bravely and Christianly, without having something to bear. He might have reminded her that life and its surroundings are modelled for each individual by ONE who knows that individual's need. But his overwhelming sense of sympathy prevented a dispassionate view of matters.

While feeling for Evelyn, he ought also to have felt for Sybella. The very weakness of character and narrowness of intellect, which made her so trying a companion for Evelyn, added to her perplexities in dealing with Evelyn. She was much to be pitied for those perplexities, and for the enervating education which had fostered her natural feebleness.

General Villiers could not see Sybella's side. He had eyes only for Evelyn's trouble.

The past two months of constant intercourse with this young girl, fresh from school, had worked a revolution in his being. After long years of widowhood, wherein no thought of marrying again had come to the fore, he found himself passionately in love with a pretty creature, not yet eighteen, a complete child in comparison with himself!

The thing was wild, of course; inconceivable. The idea of marriage could not be cherished for a moment. General Villiers had not cherished it thus far. He had scarcely even admitted to himself that he loved, other than in a fatherly way. Or if at times he allowed the fact, he was resolved to keep his secret, to be only her true and father-like friend, to watch over her life, to guard her so far as he might from sorrow, to find his joy in seeing her happy.

So matters might have gone on indefinitely, but for this scene. General Villiers was a man of peculiarly simple nature, single-eyed and straightforward, but by no means incapable of taking a false step. The very directness of his aims, and the childlike eagerness of his impulses, combined with a certain innate incapacity to look upon both sides of a question, made him the more liable to such a step. Evelyn's distress, her free speech, her instinctive turning to him, broke through his purposes of self-restraint. The love, which had smouldered hitherto, leaped up in a fierce flame, and bore down all barriers. He thought how he might bring her speedy relief; and he did not think how the manner of that bringing might possibly mean a fresh thraldom. At the moment it seemed to him that for her sake he might speak.

"Evelyn, my little girl," he said, and his manly voice faltered, "if I were but younger! If I were but more fitted! I would give my life for you! I would give all I have to smooth your way! And even as things are—if I could be sure that I ought—"

She seemed perplexed, and said, "I don't understand."

"You are too young—only seventeen! Far too young for an old fellow like me. Yes, I am old compared with you, my child! The discrepancy is far too great. It would be wrong! You are such a child. You cannot know your own mind yet. Still I could give love as strong—stronger, I think, than any mere boy. I do give—but how can I ask your acceptance? It would be a cruelty to your future."

She gazed wistfully into his agitated face.

"I don't quite understand," she repeated. "At least I am not sure. But you are the best and kindest friend I have ever had. Nobody can be to me what you are. And I am not a child. I am just eighteen. I have not been a child for years. They said at school that I grew into a woman long before the right time. I don't care for young people or boys. There is always a want in them. Why should you talk as if there were such a very great difference between you and me? I think age has more to do with mind than body."

The words dropped slowly from her soft rosy lips, each with an intonation of serious thought. General Villiers was swept away by them. He took her hands into his own, kissing again and again the slender fingers.

"My little girl! Can it be true? Will you be mine? Could you make up your mind to marry me, my Evelyn—to let my home be yours?"

"Marry you! Live at Dutton Park!" And her eyes opened wider. Despite her would-be middle-aged manner, she looked inordinately young at that moment, her ivory skin and delicate bloom contrasting with his grizzled locks and developing crow's feet. The innocent surprise was so like a child's pleasure. "Live at Dutton Park!" she said. She did not add—"Get away from aunt Sybella!"—but unquestionably that idea was prominent.

"Would you? Could you? Do you feel that it would be possible?" faltered the General. He could hardly speak, he was so stirred and shaken by the rush of his great love; while she was entirely calm, only surprised and pleased. "My Evelyn! My darling can such joy be?"

"Yes, I will indeed," she answered.