Chapter XXXI

When he came into the room, however, he found only Mrs. Bracknel there with May. The elder lady was unoccupied, but May had her writing materials spread out upon her lap and was evidently finishing a letter. They both looked up on his entrance and smiled.

“Did you have a pleasant walk?” Mrs. Bracknel asked gently.

“Yes, it was very nice. A little damp under foot, and rather dark coming home--we went by the river--but Denis kept me from falling in.” He was not at his ease and spoke a little stiffly, sitting bolt upright, and staring into the fire.

“I don’t like the river in winter,” May interposed. “It is too cold and melancholy--especially when it is beginning to get dark. There are such queer shadows among the trees, and they seem to come down to the water like ghosts.”

“Ah, I don’t believe in ghosts,” Rusk replied.

He had an idea that something had happened in his absence. Some subtle alteration in his relation to the others had been brought about, he knew not how; but he could feel it in the general atmosphere, could hear it in the tones of their voices, from which the constraint he had before noticed had completely vanished, could see it in their manner, in their faces; and he wondered what had caused the change, wondered where exactly he stood now. He had a disagreeable sense of being in the dark, or rather of being very much in the light, while the others moved and whispered mysteriously in shadow, their eyes fixed on him as on the central figure occupying the stage in some dramatic piece of whose meaning he was not at all clear.

“We were talking about you, Mr. Rusk, when you were out,” Mrs. Bracknel began, in her low, sweet voice, “about you and Denis.”

“Oh!”

The darkness seemed at last about to be illumined, and he waited a trifle nervously for what he should find there.

“You don’t look very pleased,” May remarked. “If you’d only heard all the nice things that were said--especially by mamma; though Doctor Birch happened to drop in, and he said some too.”

“Mr. Bracknel has walked back with him,” the elder lady murmured. “They only went a few minutes before you came in. I wonder you didn’t meet them.... Do you remember, Mr. Rusk, talking to me a short time ago about Denis--about his going abroad?”

Rusk looked up quickly. “Yes, I remember.”

“That was what we were really discussing, and Mr. Bracknel was wondering if you would still be of the same mind--that is, if you would still be willing to take him?”

Rusk coloured. He glanced at May, but her head was bent down as she addressed and fastened an envelope. “I shall be extremely glad to,” he stammered. “I shall like it immensely.”

“Ah well, then,” Mrs. Bracknel softly breathed, “it can all be settled. We think that it would be better perhaps if you could start fairly soon. In two or three days, if that would be possible. Of course we don’t want to hurry you too much, but once my husband takes an idea into his head he never rests till it is carried out. It is extremely inconvenient now and then, but unfortunately in that respect nothing will ever change him. However, you must take your own time, and never mind him. We are leaving it altogether in your hands. Denis can be ready for whatever day you settle on.”

“I could go to-morrow night, I should think,” Rusk replied.

Mrs. Bracknel smiled. “Well, that would perhaps be pressing matters a little _too_ much. After all we must make some plans, we must talk over where you will go to and all that. I should think we had better settle on Wednesday, as giving us breathing-time. Denis, of course, doesn’t know anything about it yet.”

“Of course not,” Rusk said.

“There will be no difficulty about Denis,” said May, her head still bent over her writing. “He will be nearly out of his mind with delight at the thought of it.”

“It is really awfully good of you,” Rusk declared, turning to Mrs. Bracknel, but she only smiled.

“It is you who are good,” she answered, “coming to our rescue. There is no one else we would trust Denis to. It is you who make the scheme possible. Our idea is that he should be with you for about a year at any rate--after that we shall see. It was mostly May’s doing; it was she who persuaded her father.”

“Oh, I did nothing,” said May. She blushed, and then, as if to cover her blush, went on hurriedly: “Papa is quite in favour of the idea now. The only thing is that for the next day or two he’ll worry Mr. Rusk to death with questions about every imaginable detail. You’ll have to give a reason, Mr. Rusk, for everything you propose to do, and you had better try to invent the kind of reason papa can most easily understand. Bring in the word ‘advantage’ pretty often. Papa understands all about ‘advantages.’ He will be fairly happy so long as he thinks you are both getting good value.”

“We must certainly try to do so,” said Rusk, in a tone that contrasted amazingly with his tone of a few minutes ago.

“It would be extremely foolish not to,” Mrs. Bracknel took up. “There is very little use in going away if one isn’t going to make anything of one’s opportunities.”

“We have always made the most of ours,” May answered, with a rather strange smile. “You ought to have been with us in Paris, Mr. Rusk; it would have done you all the good in the world. Enjoyment was the last thing we thought of. If we sat down for a moment to breathe, papa used to tell us that if we only wanted to sit in chairs we could have done it more comfortably and less expensively at home. I was never so thankful for anything in my life as for the sight of the train that was to take us back.”

Mrs. Bracknel looked annoyed. “I don’t know why you should exaggerate so,” she said. “And it is natural that your father should want to see as much as possible when he takes a holiday so rarely.”

“He certainly didn’t take one then. The only things that might have amused him he left alone. He insisted on seeing everything mentioned in the guide-book; that was his one idea. He used to get furious, too, because the people didn’t speak English.”

“I should like very much to go to Italy,” Mrs. Bracknel broke in to change the subject. “Ever since I was quite a young girl I have wanted to go. One hears so much of the scenery and the beautiful climate. But I have never been able to manage it.”

“You ought to come with us,” Rusk said.

“We have never been out of our own country except for our solitary visit to Paris,” May persisted, with a peculiar obstinacy. “Mr. Rusk is filled with astonishment, knowing our ‘advantages!’”

“Not at all--not at all,” answered Rusk, hastily. “I know any amount of people who prefer staying in England to going abroad.”

“Oh, but some of us don’t prefer it,” said May. “We haven’t any choice, which is even simpler.” Fortunately she allowed the matter to drop here, and a few minutes later Rusk left the room in search of Denis.

May and her mother sat on by the fire in silence, till Mrs. Bracknel began again to talk of the proposed journey, making desultory and wandering conjectures concerning it, with occasional digressions on the subject of the new assistant minister, on the fact that Doctor Birch was very bald for so young a man, on the advisability of giving the housemaid notice. She alluded once or twice to Amy, but they had already talked a great deal about Amy, and May, for some reason, had not proved responsive. With the departure of Rusk a kind of dullness seemed to have crept into the room, like a chill and depressing mist. To the girl it was symbolical of all those hours that were yet to be passed there, and which she seemed to see now stretching on and on into interminable years--monotonous, trivial, wasted.

She roused herself to listen to her mother. Mrs. Bracknel was again talking of Italy, and how she had so much wanted to visit that country in the past. There was something in her uncomplaining, unquestioning acquiescence in the idea that her desire should have been considered of no importance that had the effect of alienating May’s sympathy.

“It is really too ridiculous, when you come to think of it!” she burst out bitterly. “What on earth is the use of having money if you are to be cooped up in one little spot all your life, and never allowed to see or do anything? And money is all that we _have_ got. When you think of what some people would have made of even a hundredth part of our chance! But we are shut up here, not even properly educated in the most ordinary sense of the word. Look at the difference between me or Amy and Miss Anna Birch: look at the difference between Alfred and Mr. Rusk! Denis is the only one of us who has anything, and he has it, simply because he is ten times cleverer than an ordinary boy. _We_ have nothing--not even proper manners. We do the wrong things and say the wrong things. We never meet anybody who is worth knowing. And so we go on, day after day, and year after year, and will continue to do so until it is too late, if it is not too late already.”

Mrs. Bracknel regarded her in dismay. Was her elder daughter, too, who had never hitherto given her a moment’s trouble, going to fail her? “May, dear, what is the matter with you?” she sounded helplessly. “I never saw you like this before.”

The girl laughed. She sat there, still a little flushed, but the momentary bitterness had gone out of her face. Then, as her eyes rested on her mother, her expression grew softer still. “Dearest mamma, it is not your fault, I know. You have all the things that we ought to have. I am awfully sorry. It was stupid of me to talk like that. I suppose I must be jealous of Denis and Mr. Rusk.”

She came over and knelt beside her mother, throwing her aims about her and kissing her. Then suddenly she burst into tears.