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Christina

<h3> CHAPTER XXI. </h3> <h4> "IF YOU GO ACROSS THE SEA!" </h4> "Such money as Margaret had she has left to you, Christina, and in telling you this, I should like to make a final protest against your remaining in Lady Cicely's household, in a subordinate and dependent position." "How dear of Aunt Margaret—how very, very dear of her, to give me her money," Christina said; "and with that money I shouldn't be dependent any more, should I?" and she looked into Sir Arthur's grim face, with a smile whose inner meaning that worthy did not feel quite able to fathom. Was it merely the smile of guileless simplicity, or was she, in a mild way, presuming to chaff him? "In the stricter sense of the word, no, you would not be dependent. But that is a mere shuffling of words. You would still be in a subordinate position here, and the position is a false one." Christina, standing by the window in Cicely's great London drawing-room, devoutly wished that somebody would come in, or that something would happen, to end this interview with her uncle, who never failed to have one of two disastrous effects upon her: either he made her feel angry—really viciously angry, as she expressed it—or he made her hopelessly inclined to giggle. "And to-day I want to giggle," she said to herself, "and if I do, he will never forgive me or forget." Aloud she said, with a gravity she was far from feeling— "I don't want to be rude and contradict you, Uncle Arthur, but I cannot feel I am in a false position here. Cicely really needs me, for herself, as well as for Baba; this is a very happy home for me, and, because I still take care of Baba just as I did before, I don't feel I am doing anything beneath my dignity, or—subordinate." "I wish I could make you understand the fitness of things," Sir Arthur answered, with a grieved air, which never failed to amuse his niece. "Your Aunt Ellen and I would gladly offer you a home, but—I fear that, at the bottom of your heart, this Babylon, this Vanity Fair, makes an appeal to you." "I do like London," was the frank response, "and though it is very good of you to ask me to come to your house, I think I am really wanted here. Cicely would miss me, Baba would miss me, and—I like doing all I can for them. Cicely has been so good to me all through." "Wilful woman," Sir Arthur said, with a shrug of the shoulders; "you often remind me of your poor Aunt Margaret. You have her set obstinacy of character. She was never able to see any other point of view but her own, and you are very like her." "I—should like to be like Aunt Margaret," the girl answered; "and if she did like her own points of view, I think they were always very beautiful views. I have never met anybody like her." "She was a good woman," Sir Arthur said, smitten with sudden compunction. "I had no business to say a word against her; she was a good woman, but the thought of her wasted life hurts me." "Not wasted," Christina said; "I don't think her life was wasted. Her influence can't die away, even now. It was such a wonderful influence—like herself, so beautiful." "Yes," he repeated, "poor Margaret. She was a good woman, and it hurts me to think of all the trouble of her life. You are like her in many ways. God grant that your life may not hold the sorrows her life held." Uncle and niece were silent for a few moments after those solemnly-uttered words, and Christina stood looking out across the square, where the trees waved delicate green leaves against a background of May sky, her thoughts full of the beautiful woman who had entered so strangely into her life, through whose instrumentality so vast a change had come to her. From first to last, Margaret's personality had made a great appeal to Christina, and looking out now into the May sunshine, across the fragrant window-boxes of geranium and mignonette, a vivid recollection came to her of that December afternoon, when Margaret had stood in the lane, pleading with her to fetch a doctor. What apparent inconsequence had led her to drive past that lonely house in the lane, and how strange had been the outcome of that inconsequent drive. What big results had rested upon such a seemingly small event! Her relationship to Sir Arthur and his sister Margaret, would probably never have been discovered, but for that meeting in the lane; and no one but Margaret would ever have been able to elucidate the mystery about the emerald pendant. It was strange, so strange as to be like some story-book happening, instead of an event in real, everyday life! Sir Arthur's voice brought her back from her thoughts of the past. "I am sorry, my dear Christina, that you have made up your mind to stay here, in the very anomalous position you now occupy. But, I quite see that it is useless to argue further with you. If, however, you should, at some future date, see things differently, your Aunt Ellen and I will still be willing to offer you a home under our roof." Christina's thanks were none the less warm, because, in her heart of hearts, she decided that no power on earth would ever induce her to make a home with her uncle and aunt. "But I couldn't live with them, could I?" she said to Cicely an hour later, when the two sat together in the rose-coloured boudoir, which, at Christina's first visit to the house, had aroused her deep admiration. "Uncle Arthur is so—so very kind, but——" "But, he moves along like a horse in blinkers, and he cannot see anything on either side of him, and not much in front." "He says I am like Aunt Margaret, and that she only saw one point of view," Christina answered demurely. "Then, my dear, it is evidently a family failing," Cicely retorted; "but never mind what Cousin Arthur says. You are to stay with me, and be as happy as you can, and because you are sweet enough still to look after Baba, that does not lower you in anyone's eyes." "One argument Uncle Arthur used to try and induce me not to stay here, was, that you might marry again, and then, he said, I should be stranded." The colour flew into Cicely's face, but she answered collectedly— "Why should Cousin Arthur think absurdities of that kind? I——" "He said you were very young, and—very attractive"—Christina laughed, a low, mischievous laugh, as the colour deepened on the other's face—"and he would have it, too, that people would want to marry you for your money and position." "I have no intention of marrying again," Cicely said firmly, "and, if I did, I hope I should have sense enough to know whether I was wanted for my stupid position, or for myself." "There are some people," Christina said, the words coming from her lips almost involuntarily "who would be afraid to ask you to marry them, just because of your money and position." "I don't see why a man's silly pride should stand in the way of his love," Cicely retorted; but Christina shook her head sagely. "Ah! but men do let their pride spoil their love," she said, "and they let their pride spoil other people's lives too," she added, with a wisdom beyond her years. "A man might easily think it would be dishonourable to ask you to marry him—a man who was not rich, or distinguished." She spoke very slowly; in some odd way it seemed, even to herself, as though the words were put into her mouth to speak, and as she uttered them she was looking so intently out of the window, that she did not observe the varying expressions of emotions that flitted over Cicely's face. "One would not know how to beat down the sort of pride you describe," she answered, after a pause, during which Christina's eyes fixed themselves upon a flock of pigeons, wheeling about the plane-trees in the square. "A woman is so tied, so handicapped; she can only possess her soul in patience, and wait." "I don't believe I should wait," again it seemed to Christina, as though the words were being forced from her. "If I knew that only pride, silly, ridiculous pride, was holding a man back, a man who loved me and I him—well, I don't believe I would wait. I think—there's a limit to possessing one's soul in patience." "But Christina—surely!"—Cicely's blue eyes opened wide, she looked into the girl's animated face, with wondering incredulity. "Surely—yes," Christina answered with an audacious little laugh. "If the man cared for me, and I knew it, I—would not let his pride spoil his life and mine. If he was too proud to ask me—why, then, I should ask him—that is all." With the laughing words, she turned and left the room, murmuring that it was time she attended to Baba's tea; but after she had gone, Cicely sat very still, her mind haunted by the words the other had just spoken. "I would not let his pride spoil his life and mine. If he was too proud to ask me—why, then, I should ask him, that is all." "But such a big 'all,'" Cicely reflected, her eyes, like Christina's, following the wheeling flight of the wood-pigeons about the plane-trees' tops; "it is such an impossible thing even to contemplate doing, and yet——" And yet! Sitting there alone, she reviewed the past happy years, when John had been her safeguard, her protector, the shadow of a great rock in her life, shielding her from everything that could hurt or vex her. And after those years of full content had come the lean years of sorrow—the blank desolation of her widowhood, the loneliness, the overpowering loneliness, which no kindly friends nor kindred could really lessen or assuage. And now, new possibilities of happiness seemed to be opening before her, if—but again it was such a big "if." How could she put out her hand to snatch at what had not been offered to her, what might never be offered to her, but which, nevertheless, she knew with a woman's sure knowledge was hers? "I don't think it is being unfaithful to John," she thought; "it does not make me love John less, because I know—that other—could bring me a measure of joy again." For a few moments she gave free rein to her thoughts, letting them range over the past few months, allowing her memory to bring back Denis Fergusson's kindly, shrewd face, with the brown eyes that held so much both of tenderness and humour, and the mouth that could smile so cheerily, and set itself into lines of such strength and steadfastness. During those anxious days of Baba's illness at Graystone, she had of necessity seen Fergusson constantly, and perhaps it had been borne in upon her then, that he, too, was of the nature of a great rock, strong to lean upon, and very steadfast; and perhaps she had been drawn to him, in that mysterious drawing together of one particular man to one particular woman, which must always be a wonder of the universe. Whenever she and Fergusson had met, she had been conscious of her own power over him, conscious also that something was holding him back. And now, as it seemed to her, Christina had given her the clue, to what had often sorely puzzled her. Her own outlook upon life was an eminently simple one, and she had never dreamed that her rank or wealth could make a bar to the friendship, and the something deeper than friendship, of such a man as Denis Fergusson. Christina's words had given her food for thought, and they had also brought her face to face with the knowledge of herself, and of all that Denis was beginning to mean to her. He possessed that same steadfast quality which had been one of her husband's noblest characteristics, and the one perhaps that had made the chief appeal to her more yielding nature. And Fergusson's cheery strength and unfailing optimism, had gone far also towards drawing her to him. But instinctively she had been aware of a barrier between them, of something which he was rearing up against her, and though the instinctive knowledge of the barrier had wounded and puzzled her, it was only now, with Christina's words ringing in her ears, that she understood the meaning of all the puzzle. The doctor was a poor man, or at any rate comparatively poor, whilst she had more than enough and to spare of this world's goods, and a title into the bargain; and because the man was proud as well as poor, he had erected that barrier, of which she had been confusedly conscious. Well! Christina—straightforward Christina, with her almost boyish love for all that was most natural, most frank and simple—had said, "I would not let his pride spoil his life, and mine. If he was too proud to ask me, then I should ask him!" "But"—Cicely rose from her chair, and crossed the room to the window—"but, of course, any such step as that was out of the question for her—impossible and out of the question. She could never overcome her pride, to such an extent as that—never!" "Dr. Fergusson has called, my lady, and desired me to say that if you were disengaged, he would be very glad if he could see you for a few minutes." James, the footman, stood in the doorway, and even upon James's slow intelligence, it dawned that his mistress looked unusually lovely, and unusually young. But his dense mind did not especially connect the youth or loveliness with anything or anybody; he only dimly saw and wondered, whilst for the fraction of a second Cicely hesitated. Should she order James to bring the doctor up to the boudoir—to this dainty room in which she made a point of only receiving those who were her most intimate friends? Or should she go down to the drawing-room, and receive him as she received acquaintances? The two questions revolved in her mind, and they were quickly answered. "I will come down to the drawing-room," she said, scarcely knowing herself why she came to this decision; coming to it more by instinct, than by any power of reasoning. She paused yet another moment to collect her forces, then went slowly down the great staircase, and opened the drawing-room door, without lingering on the threshold, as she was more than half inclined to do. Fergusson came forward quickly to greet her, and she saw that, though he smiled, and spoke in his customary, cheery manner, his eyes held a troubled look, and there was a worn expression on his face, which she had never seen there before. His manner, too, had a nervousness very foreign to it, and he talked rapidly, as though he were afraid of silence, and must continue speaking at all costs. "I must apologise for troubling you," he said, and Cicely noted the formality of his speech, "but I felt I should like to come and ask about my little friend Baba, before I go away." "Go away?" Cicely could frame no other words than those two bare ones, because for a second her heart seemed to stop beating, then raced on again at headlong speed. "Yes"—Fergusson still spoke fast and nervously,—"I have come to rather a sudden decision, but I feel it is a wise one. I have made up my mind to go abroad, to begin life in a new country. The old one is over-crowded—we are all finding that fact out more and more, and I am proposing to go to the Far West. It has always appealed to me—that free life in a big, new country." "But your poor people—your people in South London," Cicely interrupted, a sick pain gnawing at her heart; "surely they want you?" He shrugged his shoulders a little, and smiled. "I am not indispensable to them, or to anyone"—the last words he spoke under his breath—"and I believe there is plenty of work waiting for me, on the other side of the world. I have not made up my mind to this hurriedly, but it seems the best and wisest thing to do." "I wonder why?" Cicely began slowly, her blue eyes looking full into those troubled brown ones. "It seems"—she broke off, leaving her sentence unfinished, her eyes dropping suddenly, because of what she read in those other eyes. "Does it seem to you a mad idea?—an act of impulse?" he asked, his glance travelling hungrily over her down-bent face. "I have not come to the decision impulsively. It is the best—the only thing to do." The last part of the speech dropped hurriedly from his lips, he drew in his breath sharply, almost as if he were being tried to the limits of his strength. "I—could not—go away without coming to say good-bye to you—and Miss Moore—and Baba," he added jerkily. "We should have been very angry with you if you had done such a horrid thing," Cicely answered lightly, so lightly, that a hurt look crept into the brown eyes watching her. He had not dared to hope she could by any remote possibility care for him, so he said to himself. He had never dreamt such wildly improbable dreams, but he had thought she would be a little sorry to lose a friend for ever; and when he left England, he intended to leave it for ever, to cut adrift from all old friendships, all old ties. And yet she looked up at him with laughter in her eyes, and talked brightly of being angry with him, if he had gone without a farewell! He felt oddly hurt and ruffled, and Cicely, as keenly aware of the hurt, as she had been a moment before of the significant look in his eyes, only knew that her own heart was beating with an excess of joy that frightened her—only realised that the game lay in her own small hands, if only—she could play the game as it should be played. "You—have not given up your house and practice—yet?" she questioned, and her tone was still brisk, almost business-like, and there was a hurt note in his voice as he answered— "My house is in an agent's hands for letting, and I am only going on with the work, until I can find someone to take it over; as soon as everything is settled here, I shall be off. To tell you the honest truth, I shall be glad to go." Cicely's heart leapt in an insane way, because of the sudden ring of bitterness in his accents, she moved a step nearer to him (they had both remained standing since her entrance), she had even uttered the words, "I wish"—when the door was flung wide open, and James announced, "Mrs. Deane." Cicely was not quite sure whether she most wished to laugh or cry, when this very ordinary little acquaintance, a walking mass of platitudes, propriety, and dullness, walked into the room. Too well she knew that Mrs. Deane, once established in her drawing-room, would not be quickly dislodged, and, with an inward sigh, she resigned herself to her fate, whilst Fergusson held out his hand in farewell. "I must be getting on my way," he said; "perhaps I might just go up to the nursery, to say good-bye to Miss Moore and Miss Baba?" "Of course," Cicely answered with her pretty smile. "Baba would bitterly resent it, if her dear doctor went across the sea, without saying good-bye to her." "If—you go across the sea," she mentally ejaculated, as the door closed behind his tall form, and she settled herself down to listen to Mrs. Deane's totally uninteresting conversation. "If—you—go—across—the sea!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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