Chapter XXXV: Would Hamilton Do?

"EVERYTHING somehow seems so flat and stale; I begin to feel like a hundred years old," declared Doris, with a little laugh which had not much mirth in it.

More than a month had gone by since Maurice's brief visit; and to Doris it looked like six months. The days dragged, and all she had to do was a trouble. Under pressure, she had cycled over this afternoon to call upon Katherine,—and she found the way thither extraordinarily long.

On arrival she collapsed into one of the luxurious arm-chairs,— her pretty face laid against a crimson cushion; the cheeks less tinted than their wont; the mouth-corners dropped; the deep-set eyes dark and sad. Katherine, knowing nothing of the foreign entanglement, was puzzled by her present mood. Doris could not be ungraceful; and the outlines of her slender figure, relaxed and limp, were charming still; but the attitude would have been fatal with most figures.

"I don't think you need begin to talk about age yet," Katherine remarked. "Perhaps home is a little dull after foreign travel."

"Oh, I've been back long enough to forget all that; and—besides—"

"Is Mrs. Brutt at home?"

"Yes. I don't see much of her. She has turned so queer and stiff. Perhaps she was as sick of me as I was of her!"—with a laugh. "No—I don't care for her now."

There was a sigh; and Katherine watched with perplexed eyes. This depression, which she was sorry to see for the girl's sake, tended nevertheless to raise her own spirits. For if Doris had felt for Hamilton aught approaching to what she herself felt for him, coming home must have meant delight, not dulness. She knew that the two had not even met, so far; mainly because Hamilton had been absent most of the time, but partly also because Doris had shirked encounters.

"You will stay to luncheon with me," Katherine said.

The invitation was accepted listlessly, and was regretted almost as soon as given. For Hamilton Stirling walked in; and the look that came to his face at sight of her caller put an instant extinguisher on the little flame of hope in Katherine's heart. He went straight to the side of the younger girl,—for once almost impulsive in movement, while Doris received him with indifference.

"Why did you never answer the letter that I wrote, when you were in Switzerland?" he asked.

"Didn't I? Oh, I suppose I was busy—or forgot," she replied, with a backward cast of her mind to the little châlet and the leaping grasshoppers. "Was it about—mountain strata?"—and she laughed.

Katherine resented the laugh for Hamilton; but he only drew his chair near, and tried to lead the girl into a long talk. He asked where she had been, what she had done, how this and that had affected her; and for once he seemed really to wish to hear what she had to say. She guided him to the safe shelter of his pet subject; and he poured forth information with his usual slow volubility; while she listened—or made believe to listen—in submissive silence. He thought her wonderfully improved.

The Squire being absent, those three had luncheon together; and all through, Hamilton devoted himself to Doris, with only so much reference to his cousin as politeness demanded. Afterward it was the same. They returned to the hall; and he had eyes and ears for the Rector's daughter alone.

When she cycled back, he insisted on acting as her escort. She was in no wild mood to-day, but gentle and dreamy. She did not rush down hills, or try to leave him behind, but kept to a steady pace, and allowed him to take the lead. Hamilton was charmed. This was indeed the model future wife of his imaginings.

He found her altered and developed. Something had drawn her out. She was no longer the excitable school-girl, a victim to every passing breeze,—but a woman!

And Doris could not understand herself this hour. For she was conscious of enjoying his companionship. She liked to hear of his literary efforts; and it pleased her to be again asked to help in his proof-corrections. At the beginning he had impressed her with a sense of his stiffness and heaviness, in contrast with the slight and agile young mountaineer; but this impression faded as they talked.

She was realising his good social position; the absence with him of family mysteries and undesirable relatives. The difference brought a feeling of repose. No odd second-rate mother-in-law here!—if ever things came to that point. No vulgar, unbearable sister-in-law! A trifle too much of self-assertion, no doubt; and rather too great a love of improving and instructing others. But everybody has his faults. And whatever Hamilton's faults might be, he was refined, well-connected, with finished courtesy of manner. Nothing in him would ever shock her sense of what was correct, though a good deal might try her patience.

She did not say all this to herself definitely; but half-formed comparisons floated through her mind.

He was not Dick!—her dear Dick! A sharp pang shot through her with the name. But if Dick were impossible—utterly impossible!—must she also refuse Hamilton, who cared for her, who was good and kind, true and clever, who—taken as a whole—would be a not undesirable husband? If she could not have the best, might she not be content with the second-best?

Hamilton Stirling—to be reckoned second-best!!

She laughed quietly to herself at the idea.

But she liked his Stirling calm; his repose of bearing; his polish; his assurance. When she recalled Mrs. Morris and Jane, she positively basked in the aristocratic Stirling atmosphere.

With the coming of night, of darkness and solitude, a sharp reaction followed; and she hid her face in the pillow, with stifled sobbing gasps for—"Dick! Dick!"—and a feeling that she must almost die with longing for those grey eyes, those strong brown hands, that passionate enfolding devotion. Yet, when once asleep, she slept soundly; and with early sunlight there was a reverse swing of the pendulum, as she grasped anew the hopelessness of that, the possibilities of this.

Hamilton had made up his mind at last. He was plainly resolved for once not to let the grass grow under his feet. He came again and again to the Rectory. He brought flowers, fruit, proof-sheets, and— geological specimens!

Doris's reception of him and his offerings varied, as of old. Sometimes she was submissively sweet. Sometimes she contradicted and laughed at him. Sometimes she was dignified and indifferent. Sometimes she felt that she never, never could, never, never would, marry any man living except Dick Maurice. Sometimes she felt that in the future— not too soon!—Hamilton might really do quite nicely.

Though she did not know her own mind, she knew her mother's mind. Every power that Mrs. Winton possessed was bent to the furtherance of Hamilton's suit. For she and her husband were definitely aware of that which most people only conjectured, or had heard as a matter of report, that Lynnthorpe was strictly entailed upon the next male heir. Katherine would have her mother's money; an ample supply; but Hamilton stood in the position of "next male heir." Which meant that his wife would be the future mistress of the place.

Of Dick Maurice nothing further had been heard. Doris was told in brief outline of his interview with her father. She often wondered that no letter, no message, came,—feeling that she, in his place, would not have been so soon "choked off." Yet it was better for both that he should keep away.

She had not, of course, been near Wyldd's Farm. Her promise to Winnie troubled her; but she felt that a call there was for the present not to be thought of. Now and again she saw Jane Morris; and never without a throb of thankfulness at her own freedom from that tie. At other times recollections of Dick would rise with overwhelming power, making her crave to have him again at any cost.

But this was only occasional. In a general way she was caught, enveloped, held captive, in the old circle of interests, by the influences of her life. Appreciation of good birth, extreme particularity of taste, a passion for refinement and high breeding,—these were by nature and by training a part of her very self. In reverting to them, after a brief spell of dislocation, she reverted also to Hamilton Stirling as the embodiment of them.

"If it has to be, it must be, I suppose," she said one day to herself, as she stood in the hall, gazing out of the window. "I don't know what I really want. I wish I did. He really is a dear man—rather too fond of old bones and stones; but everybody is too fond of something. He might have worse likings. We shall get along all right, I dare say. Oh dear, what a difficult world it is! I hope Dick won't quite forget me! Shall I ever be able to forget him?"

The question came involuntarily, and it startled her. Then a step behind made her turn.

"Mother—Mrs. Stirling wants me to go to Deene to-morrow—for the day."

"Yes, I know, my dear. You will accept, of course."

This was going too far; and Doris drew back.

"I don't know. I'll think about it." She realised suddenly that a good deal might hang upon her answer.

"I can see no reason why you should hesitate."

Doris would not wait to discuss the question. She caught up a basket of flowers, just gathered, and went to put them in her father's study. He loved flowers, with the tenderness which underlay his rugged exterior. While she was there, standing by a little side-table, he came in and surprised her in the act of dropping quiet tears into a mass of blooms.

He had watched her of late with a growing sense of uneasiness; but it was not his way to interfere hastily. Silence with him was often wrongly supposed to mean non-observation.

"There!" Doris said cheerfully, when she heard his step; and she pushed the vase to its right position, then looked up with a smile. But two great drops, ready to fall, refused to be held back, and they splashed obtrusively upon a sheet of half-written paper. "Oh, what a duffer I am! I've spoilt a page of your sermon, daddy."

He shut the door, and went to his chair. Something in his look kept her when she would fain have fled. Instead of so doing, she drew nearer.

"Don't mind about me. I shall get all right in time."

She knelt on a stool in front of him, trying to smile.

"I wonder—will life always be so difficult!"

"As what?"

"It all seems one big tangle! One wants what one can't have,—and one doesn't take what one might have."

He waited for more; and she slowly pulled a late rose to pieces, making a little pile of the debris.

"Isn't that cruel? I've spoilt the rose's life. It might have lasted three days longer. What a number of spoilt lives there are in the world! I wonder if somebody is always to blame. Poor little rose. Dick and I one day counted the petals of a fine huge one, daddy, and we found—taking them all, big and little—hundreds. Would you have expected it?"

"No." He was thinking of her involuntary mention of Maurice; not of the rose-petals.

"It surprised us both. But about difficulties—I meant—in more ways than one. I used to fight so for liberty; just to have my own way. And I think Dick helped me to see that that isn't always the best thing." She was back in thought on the Glückhorn, listening to him.

The Rector made a slight sound of assent.

"I don't talk about him to other people, you know. I may sometimes to you—mayn't I?" Then she lifted her head higher. "Mrs. Stirling wants me to spend to-morrow at Deene."

Mr. Winton found speech.

"Are you sure of yourself, Doris?"

Her hand shook, and her cheek paled.

"No—" she said very low. "I'm not sure. I don't know what I want— or what I don't want."

The pause following seemed long. He said at length with emphasis,—"Whatever you do,—don't drift!"

"I think I am drifting."

"Then stop! Take time. Be cautious. Don't get yourself entangled, before you know your own mind."

She put both hands over her face, and bent forward, resting the backs of them upon his knee. His broad hand came on her head, with a strong and loving pressure.

"For your own sake—wait!—pray for guidance. Not for your own sake alone. Think of others too. You once asked me to consider Maurice's side of the question; and rightly. What now about Stirling's side of it?"

"You mean—should I be wronging him?"

"Not if you love him."

She lifted a flushed face.

"But—I don't. Not love, daddy. I love Dick. The two things are so different. I don't think—really—he would want that sort of love!"

"If you give yourself to him, he will want the whole of you—he will have a right to the whole. No man, worth calling a man, would be content with less. Loving one man, you cannot rightly marry another."

"People do sometimes, don't they?—and things get straight in the end."

"People do many foolish things. The question is not—what others do, but what you yourself ought to do. Could you truly and faithfully promise to 'love, honour, and obey' Hamilton Stirling? To LOVE him, child! You know what love means."

"Yes—" she whispered, her eyes brimming over again. "I love—Dick!"

"Then, to marry Stirling could only mean unhappiness for you both. For him as much as for you."

"I've often wondered what he would say—if he knew about Dick."

"He would have to know all."

Doris remained motionless, thinking.

"I'd better—not go to-morrow," she said at length.

"It seems more wise—under the circumstances."

"Then I'll write and say so. Mother won't like it."

"You must decide the question on its own merits."

"I'll write at once. But of course I shall see him on Friday."

"Why on Friday?"

"Mr. Stirling's birthday."

"Ah—true. That is nothing. You need not see more of him than you wish, in such a crowd. Besides—your note of to-day should make him understand. To accept for to-morrow might involve you in more than you intend."

"Yes—I see. It won't do."

A letter for herself was brought in, badly written, untidily folded. She opened it, and said in surprise: "From Mrs. Morris."

The Rector waited in some suspense, till she spoke again.

"It is to ask if I will go to Wyldd's farm, to-day or to-morrow. Winnie has been worse, and she is to be sent to a hospital for treatment,—and it may cure her, or she may not get through. She wants to see me before she leaves. Daddy, I can't refuse."

He took the offered sheet, and read it, noting the ill-spelt words, the badly expressed sentences.

"No. I am sorry, but I do not see that you can well get out of it. You had better have the pony-carriage directly after luncheon. I wish I were free to go with you." He stood up, and added: "Be wise, child. Don't get drawn into a talk about—the son."