Chapter V: Right and Wrong

"So you have never blamed me for my long absence, Hermione!"

More than an hour had passed since Harvey's first sight of his young cousin. Mr. Dalrymple, after taking a cup of tea, and declining cake, had returned to the library, rather to Hermione's surprise. This was usually his accessible hour, if callers chose to come. Three callers did choose to come, and they stayed long, but Mr. Dalrymple failed to reappear. Hermione acted hostess with ease and grace, introducing her newly-arrived relative, dispensing tea, and keeping up conversation, her sunny sweetness never for an instant eclipsed.

Harvey watched her in some wonder. He had not expected this development as a result of her "rustic" training and retired life. Perhaps the absence of self-consciousness surprised him most; she had been such a "vain little puss," he told himself, at eleven; and then he almost thought that a touch of girlish shyness at nineteen may be prettier than too complete self-possession. Yet how could he wish anything altered when the entire effect was so charming? And after all, was there really no consciousness of others' very patent admiration? Not a conceited consciousness, but a happy confidence in being able to please everybody. If it were so, was that a blemish?

He did not trouble himself to help her much in the way of talk. These people, Mr., Mrs., and Miss Dalton, from a neighbouring village, were comparative new-comers, and not interesting to him, not half so interesting as was Hermione. Harvey commonly followed his own inclinations in the matter of making himself agreeable.

So he let the chit-chat flow on, sparkling on the part of Hermione, and more or less ponderous on the part of the other three, only putting in a few words here and there when politeness rendered the exertion a necessity, and keeping his attention fixed on Hermione without appearing to do so. The Daltons, who, though not brilliant themselves, could appreciate brilliancy in another, found him "gentlemanly, but tedious— a rather dull person for one who had travelled so much, and not to be compared with that delightful old Mr. Dalrymple."

Harvey cared not a whit whether they liked him or no. He was only amused at the variety of subjects which Hermione had at command for their entertainment. She really did not need his aid. Miss Dalton was a busy Parish-worker, and seemed to own no ideas beyond Parish work, so Hermione went the round of schools, districts, and cottages with her, smilingly interested all the while. Mrs. Dalton was literary and semi-scientific in her tastes, therefore Hermione launched out into a little sea of recent publications and discoveries for the elder lady's edification. Mr. Dalton was a dabbler in political and controversial subjects, and Hermione gave her opinion upon each suggested point in turn, not conceitedly or disagreeably, but with a gentle decision, and perhaps a sense that her opinion was not altogether to be despised. Harvey could not help calling to mind Marjory's words, "We all look up to her!" Did Mr. Dalton too "look up" to this young creature of nineteen? His manner was most deferential.

At length the callers departed, and then it was that some observation of Hermione's drew from him the above remark, "So you have never blamed me for my long absence." He had not yet divulged to her his "chief item of news," having avoided the subject while Mr. Dalrymple was in the room, and having been since prevented by the presence of strangers. Now the time had come for speaking out.

"I do not quite know," she answered, looking up with her sunshiny eyes. Harvey wondered if those eyes ever could be sad or grave. "Only perhaps sometimes, when my grandfather seemed so worried, and I could not think what kept you away. But Marjory would not let me blame you."

"Marjory must be a very charitable individual."

"I don't know that she is. She does not try to excuse everybody."

Harvey laughed. The idea of Marjory making excuses for him was amusing.

"I am very much obliged to her," he said. "Seriously, however, I ought perhaps to have run home once or twice, if only for a few days, for my uncle's sake."

"Yes; I have always thought so," she said, with a curious touch of rebuke which immediately put him on the defensive. "It is not as if you had been really unable."

"That is hardly a question about which you can come to a decision," he said, somewhat nettled.

The blue eyes were grave enough now.

"I thought you asked what I had felt. Marjory has always insisted that we could not understand, that you must have reasons of your own. I have let her say so; but I am not sure. You see, I know the circumstances. I know you are well off, so it is no question of expense, and you have no actual ties keeping you abroad. Very often you have been too far-away to get home easily, but from Germany or Italy surely it was possible. I do think dear grandfather has had a right to see you, at least sometimes. I think you have been wrong."

She might have been a woman of thirty sitting in judgment on a boy of ten, so gently resolute was the manner. It was hardly to be expected that Harvey should succumb to her judgment, he being a man of thirty-two, and she a mere girl under twenty. He was alike too gentlemanly and too good-natured to show anger to a lady, but considerable meaning underlay the brief response—

"You think so!"

"Unless, of course, you had reasons," pursued Hermione, as if willing to hear what he had to say for himself.

"I had reasons, undoubtedly."

"But—" Hermione looked at him and hesitated. Was she going to demand those reasons? "But you will stay now, Harvey—now that you have come!"

"Two or three nights."

"Not more! After eight years!"

"Hardly possible, I am afraid. You know a great deal about me, evidently—" there was a touch of irony here— "still you are not quite acquainted with all the circumstances of the case. There happens to be a lady in the question. I hope you are prepared to congratulate me."

The sunshine flashed back, and in a moment Hermione was again all winning loveliness.

"Are you going to be married? I am very glad. My grandfather will be so delighted. He has often said lately that you ought to think about marrying. Who is it? What is her name?"

"Julia."

"And how old?"

"Twenty-one."

"Is she like me?"

"Not in the least."

"Pretty?"

"That may be a matter of opinion."

"And her surname?"

"Dalrymple."

"How strange. Is she a distant cousin?"

"I am not aware that we have any cousins within an appreciable distance. Her name is Dalrymple now. A month ago she was Julia Pilchard."

"A month ago! But you cannot mean—it is not possible—you are not married already!"

"Yes. So you see I have, after all, something of an 'actual tie' abroad—so long as Julia remains there."

Hermione was silent. Her face was grave once more, with a gravity amounting to severity. She sat upright, one hand lying over the other on her knee. How very young she seemed! Yet Harvey, lounging in a chair opposite with his air of gentlemanly insouciance, had an odd "naughty-boy" sense of being called to account by her for his misdoings. It was quite absurd. He positively almost dreaded her next words, and found it difficult to wind himself up to a due indifference.

"Julia is an orphan, like yourself," he said, hiding the feeling of embarrassment under a light manner. "She has only one sister, a widow, Mrs. Trevor, several years older than herself. I met them in Algeria last autumn, travelling for the sake of Mr. Trevor's health. Three months ago I came across them again in a Swiss hotel. Mr. Trevor had died before Christmas."

No answer came. Had Hermione taken unknowingly a leaf out of her grandfather's book? She seemed to be thinking deeply.

"Mrs. Trevor is a most charming person. You will be delighted with her. They were both in great trouble when I found them at Chamouni—not alone from the death of Mr. Trevor. Mrs. Trevor had just heard of a lost lawsuit, which meant ruin to herself and her child—and to Julia also. Julia was dependent on her."

Hermione spoke at last in a low voice of displeasure. "Married! And without a word to my grandfather! Does he know?"

"I told him immediately. That was my object in coming here."

"But not till a month afterwards! And all the love and kindness he has shown—Marjory will not try to defend this!"

"Marjory's opinion can be of no possible importance," said Harvey, secretly irritated.

"Was that why he seemed so unlike himself when he brought you in? Yes, of course—I see now. I did not understand. Harvey, you will excuse me, please. I must go to him."

Harvey rose as Hermione stood up. "Remember," he said, "my uncle claims no authority over me. He could not claim it rightly. Whether I should have acted with greater wisdom in speaking to him earlier, is a question about which there may be two opinions. You, not knowing all the circumstances of the case, hold one view. I hold the other."

Hermione's eyes met his reproachfully. "Authority—no," she said. "But he ought to have heard: he had a right to know. It was wrong not to tell him. Nothing can alter that."

"In your opinion!"

"I cannot imagine any circumstances that would make me think differently."

"Possibly not."

"Right is right, and wrong is wrong. Nothing can change wrong into right."

"Nevertheless the question does occasionally arise—What is right, and what is wrong?"

"It may always be answered."

"Not always with absolute certainty."

"Yes; there is never any real difficulty where one is determined on doing the right. If one is merely bent on pleasing oneself—"

Harvey made a mocking bow.

"I am not jesting," she said, and the blue eyes, attractive in their soft gravity, were again lifted to his. "It is a serious question, not at all a matter for jesting. So much depends upon the way in which we do things. You know very well that a thing right in itself may be wrongly carried out."

The sweet incisive tones paused, for Mr. Dalrymple entered. He looked pale still, yet it was with a smile that he came forward, and laid a hand on the young man's shoulder. To Hermione's surprise there were no tokens of displeasure in his bearing.

"I did not intend to stay so long," he said. "More than an hour, is it not? I must have been asleep, I think. Slade announced callers, but I told him I would rest. My head is strangely heavy this afternoon as if thunder were near. Are you both inclined for a stroll on the terrace. Not a ride to-day, Hermione—somehow I do not feel equal to it. Besides, I must see the most of this dear fellow while he is with us. Perhaps on Monday a ride all together will be pleasant. He must renew his acquaintance with the country."

"Very pleasant," Harvey assented, privately wondering whether he would find it possible to carry out his plan of two nights only at Westford. If not, what would Julia say?

Hermione had drawn close to her grandfather, and was gazing wistfully into his fine clear-cut face.

"You have taken good care of your cousin," he said to her.

"Yes," she answered slowly.

"Come, then. Have you a hat at hand? I shall like a little fresh air."

The terrace, a broad gravel-walk with huge flowerpots along it at intervals, bounded one side of the house, and ran then for some distance round a lawn of green velvet, enriched by flower-beds. The roses were in full luxuriance, showing every possible tint from pure white to deep red-black; and geraniums bloomed in scarlet and crimson masses.

Hermione held one of Mr. Dalrymple's arms, unwontedly silent, as he paced the terrace. He too was still a little absent and dreaming, though he pointed out his favourite plants from time to time to the young man walking on his other side.

It might have been expected that the three would have had more to say one to another after eight years' separation. Conversation languished greatly. So long as Hermione declined to assist, Harvey's efforts seemed to be useless.

He gave her a glance now and then, growing provoked as the minutes went on. Evidently hers was a silence of judicial displeasure, acted out as a duty. She was looking wonderfully pretty in her white dress and straw hat, the summer sunshine lending brilliance to her pure skin. But after all, what business had she to take him to task in this fashion?—she, a mere child, only nineteen in age, two years younger than his young wife. And what did Hermione know about the matter? He could not of course explain to her the old man's intense desire for that which never could be, and never could have been.

No, never! Harvey felt this now more than ever. Fascinating as Hermione might be, formed by nature to reign over the hearts of others, she would never have done for him, even if he had not met with Julia. "Much too angelic and infallible a being for a lazy fellow like me!" he thought, with an inward laugh, while gravely responding to an observation of Mr. Dalrymple's; "The Baroness Rothschild, yes, a particularly fine specimen—splendid bloom—if only it had a scent."

But Hermione could not know of Mr. Dalrymple's long-cherished desire, once plainly uttered to Harvey. And Harvey would not have cared to admit even to himself, much less to anybody else, the undefined sense of weakness, which had made him so dread the moral coercion of a stronger nature and will than his own, that he had absolutely stayed away all these years from the fear of it. Then, when at length he was taken captive by Julia Pilchard, a half-cowardly dislike to the worry of possible opposition had come into play, and he had deferred speech until opposition should be useless.

He was not indisposed now to allow politely that a different course of action might have been on the whole better. But to submit his deeds to the judgment of Hermione was another matter. If she had excused him, he would have blamed himself—moderately. Since she blamed him, he stood upon the defensive.

There is a right and a wrong in all things, sometimes absolute and intrinsic, sometimes proportionate and relative. Some deeds are right or wrong always, in all places, for all people. Other deeds are right or wrong according to circumstances, and may at the self-same time be right for this person, wrong for that person.

Hermione, earnest, conscientious, decisive, saw plainly the bald fact of right being right, and wrong being wrong. Harvey, not half so conscientious, not half so earnestly bent upon doing the right, knew practically far more than did Hermione of the possible perplexities which may and do arise in connection with this ever-recurring question. But he knew also, if only he would have allowed it to himself, that there had been no such perplexity connected with the subject lately discussed.

So much for Harvey's train of thought as the trio walked the terrace side by side. Hermione's ran on a parallel line, being chiefly occupied with him. She was not grieved after the fashion of Marjory Fitzalan, for Hermione's was not, like Marjory's, a hero-worshipping nature. If Hermione worshipped any human being at all, it was all unconsciously her most sweet and attractive self. But then, of course, it was unconsciously. Other people she looked upon with a calm and gentle kindness, ready to administer praise, blame, or advice, as might be called for. Why not? Hermione was accustomed to find her praise welcomed, her blame submitted to, her advice followed. Almost everybody in her little world looked up to her, as Marjory had said.

It was a somewhat unwonted position for a girl of her age, enhanced by her extreme prettiness—not altogether a safe or wholesome position.

Mr. Dalrymple's train of thought was less definite than that of either of his companions. For he was grieving still over his shattered dream, grieving yet more over his unconquered wilfulness, and struggling against an unwonted sense of inertia and weariness. He wished to be kind and chatty with his great-nephew, but it was not easy.