Can You Forgive Her? (48 page)

The daily life at Vavasor was melancholy enough for such a one as the Squire’s son, who regarded London as the only place on the earth’s surface in which a man could live with comfort The moors offered no charms to him. Nor did he much appreciate the homely comforts of the Hall; for the house, though warm, was old-fashioned
and small, and the Squire’s cook was nearly as old as the Squire himself. John Vavasor’s visits to Vavasor were always visits of duty rather than of pleasure. But it was not so with Alice. She could be very happy there with Kate; for, like herself, Kate was a good walker and loved the mountains. Their regard for each other had grown and become strong because they had gone together o’er
river and moor, and because they had together disregarded those impediments of mud and wet which frighten so many girls away from the beauties of nature.

On this Christmas Day they all went to church, the Squire being accompanied by Alice in a vehicle which in Ireland is called an inside jaunting-car, and which is perhaps the most uncomfortable kind of vehicle yet invented; while John Vavasor
walked with his niece. But the girls had arranged that immediately after church they would start for a walk up the Beacon Hill, across the fells, towards Hawes Water. They always dined at the Hall at the vexatious
hour of five; but as their church service, with the sacrament included, would be completed soon after twelve, and as lunch was a meal which the Squire did not himself attend, they could
have full four hours for their excursion. This had all been planned before Alice received her letter; but there was nothing in that to make her change her mind about the walk.

‘Alice, my dear,’ said the old man to her when they were together in the jaunting-car, ‘you ought to get married.’ The Squire was hard of hearing, and under any circumstances an inside jaunting-car is a bad place for conversation,
as your teeth are nearly shaken out of your head by every movement which the horse makes. Alice therefore said nothing, but smiled faintly, in reply to her grandfather. On returning from church he insisted that Alice should again accompany him, telling her specially that he desired to speak to her. ‘My dear child,’ he said, ‘I have been thinking a great deal about you, and you ought to
get married.’

‘Well, sir, perhaps I shall some day.’

‘Not if you quarrel with all your suitors,’ said the old man. ‘You quarrelled with your cousin George, and now you have quarrelled with Mr Grey. You’ll never get married, my dear, if you go on in that way.’

‘Why should I be married more than Kate?’

‘Oh, Kate! I don’t know that anybody wants to marry Kate. I wish you’d think of what I say.
If you don’t get married before long, perhaps you’ll never get married at all. Gentlemen won’t stand that kind of thing for ever.’

The two girls took a slice of cake each in her hand, and started on their walk. ‘We shan’t be able to get to the lake,’ said Kate.

‘ No,’ said Alice; ‘but we can go as far as the big stone on Swin-dale Fell, where we can sit down and see it.’

‘Do you remember the
last time we sat there?’ said Kate. It is nearly three years ago, and it was then that you told me that all was to be over between you and George. Do you remember what a fool I was, and how I screamed in my sorrow? I sometimes wonder at myself and my own folly. How is it that I can never get up any interest about my own belongings? And then we got soaking wet through coming home.’

‘I remember
that very well’

‘And how dark it was! That was in September, but we had dined early. If we go as far as Swindale we shall have it very dark coming home today; – but I don’t mind that through the Beacon Wood, because I know my way so well. You won’t be afraid of half an hour’s dark?’

‘ Oh, no,’ said Alice.

‘Yes; I do remember that day. Well; it’s all for the best, I suppose. And now I must read
you my aunt‘s letter.’ Then, while they were still in the wood, Kate took out the letter from her aunt and read it, while they still walked slowly up the hill. It seemed that hitherto neither of her two suitors had brought the widow to terms. Indeed, she continued to write of Mr Cheesacre as though that gentleman were inconsolable for the loss of Kate, and gave her niece much serious advice as
to the expedience of returning to Norfolk, in order that she might secure so eligible a husband. ‘You must understand all the time, Alice,’ said Kate, pausing as she read the letter, ‘that the dear man has never given me the slightest ground for the faintest hope, and that I know to a certainty that he makes an offer to her twice a week, – that is, on every market day. You can’t enjoy half the joke
if you won’t bear that in mind.’ Alice promised that she would bear it all in mind, and then Kate went on with her reading. Poor Bellfield was working very hard at his drill, Mrs Greenow went on to say; so hard that sometimes she really thought the fatigue would be too much for his strength. He would come in sometimes of an evening and just take a cup of tea; – generally on Mondays and Thursdays.
‘These are not market days at Norwich,’ said Kate; ‘and thus unpleasant meetings are avoided.’ ‘ He comes in,’ said Mrs Greenow, ‘and takes a little tea; and sometimes I think that he will faint at my feet. ‘That he kneels there on every occasion,’ said Kate, ‘and repeats his offer also twice a week, I have not the least doubt in the world.’

‘And will she accept him at last?’

‘Really I don’t
know what to think of it. Sometimes I fancy that she likes the fun of the thing, but that she is too wide-awake to put herself in any man’s power. I have no doubt she lends him money, because he wants it sadly and she is very generous. She
gives him money, I feel sure, but takes his receipt on stamped paper for every shilling. That’s her character all over.’

The letter then went on to say that
the writer had made up her mind to remain at Norwich certainly through the winter and spring, and that she was anxiously desirous that her dear Kate should go back to her. ‘Come and have one other look at Oileymead,’ said the letter, ‘and then, if you make up your mind that you don’t like it or him, I won’t ask you to think of them ever again. I believe him to be a very honest fellow,’ ‘Did you
ever know such a woman?’ said Kate; ‘with all her faults I believe she would go through fire and water to serve me. I think she’d lend me money without any stamped paper,’ Then Aunt Greenow’s letter was put up, and the two girls had come out upon the open fell.

It was a delicious afternoon for a winter’s walk. The air was clear and cold, but not actually frosty. The ground beneath their feet
was dry, and the sky, though not bright, had that appearance of enduring weather which gives no foreboding of rain. There is a special winter’s light, which is very clear though devoid of all brilliancy, – through which every object strikes upon the eye with well-marked lines, and under which almost all forms of nature seem graceful to the sight if not actually beautiful. But there is a certain melancholy
which ever accompanies it. It is the light of the afternoon, and gives token of the speedy coming of the early twilight It. tells of the shortness of the day, and contains even in its clearness a promise of the gloom of night. It is absolute light, but it seems to contain the darkness which is to follow it. I do not know that it is ever to be seen and felt so plainly as on the wide moorland,
where the eye stretches away over miles, and sees at the world’s end the faint low lines of distant clouds settling themselves upon the horizon. Such was the light of this Christmas afternoon, and both the girls had felt the effects of it before they reached the big stone on Swindale Fell, from which they intended to look down upon the loveliness of Hawes Water. As they went up through the wood
there had been some laughter between them over Aunt Greenow’s letter; and they had discussed almost with mirth the merits of Oileymead and Mr Cheesacre; but as they got further on to the fell, and as the half-melancholy wildness of the
place struck them, their words became less light and after a while they almost ceased to speak.

Alice had still her letter in her pocket. She had placed it there
when she came down to breakfast, and had carried it with her since. She had come to no resolution as yet as to her answer to it, nor had she resolved whether or no she would show it to Kate. Kate had ever been regarded by her as her steadfast friend. In all these affairs she had spoken openly to Kate. We know that Kate had in part betrayed her, but Alice suspected no such treason. She had often
quarrelled with Kate; but she had quarrelled with her not on account of any sin against the faith of their friendship. She believed in her cousin perfectly, though she found herself often called upon to disagree with her almost violently. Why should she not show this letter to Kate, and discuss it in all its bearings before she replied to it? This was in her mind as she walked silently along over
the fell.

The reader will surmise from this that she was already half inclined to give way, and to join her lot to that of her cousin George. Alas, yes! The reader will be right in his surmise. And yet it was not her love for the man that prompted her to run so terrible a risk. Had it been so, I think that it would be easier to forgive her. She was beginning to think that love, – the love of
which she had once thought so much, – did not matter. Of what use was it, and to what had it led? What had love done for her friend Glencora? What had love done for her? Had she not loved John Grey, and had she not felt that with all her love life with him would have been distasteful to her? It would have been impossible for her to marry a man whom personally she disliked; but she liked her cousin
George, – well enough, as she said to herself almost indifferently.

Upon the whole it was a grievous task to her in these days, – this having to do something with her life. Was it not all vain and futile? As for that girl’s dream of the joys of love which she had once dreamed, – that had gone from her slumbers, never to return. How might she best make herself useful, – useful in some sort that
might gratify her ambition; – that was now the question which seemed to her to be of most importance.

Her cousin’s letter to her had been very crafty. He had studied the whole of her character accurately as he wrote it When he had sat down to write it he had been indifferent to the result; but he had written it with that care to attain success which a man uses when he is anxious not to fail
in an attempt Whether or no he cared to marry his cousin was a point so little interesting to him that chance might decide it for him; but when chance had decided that he did wish it, it was necessary for his honour that he should have that for which he condescended to ask.

His letter to her had been clever and very crafty. ‘At any rate he does me justice,’ she said to herself, when she read
those words about her money, and the use which he proposed to make of it ‘He is welcome to it all if it will help him in his career, whether he has it as my friend or as my husband,’ Then she thought of Kate’s promise of her little mite, and declared to herself that she would not be less noble than her cousin Kate. And would it not be well that she should be the means of reconciling George to his
grandfather? George was the representative of the family, – of a family so old that no one now knew which had first taken the ancient titular name of some old Saxon landowner, – the parish, or the man. There had been in old days some worthy Vavaseurs, as Chaucer calls them
¹
, whose rank and bearing had been adopted on the moorland side. Of these things Alice thought much, and felt that it should
be her duty so to act, that future Vavasors might at any rate not be less in the world than they who had passed away. In a few years at furthest, George Vavasor must be Vavasor of Vavasor. Would it not be right that she should help him to make that position honourable?

They walked on, exchanging now and again a word or two, till the distant Cumberland mountains began to form themselves in groups
of beauty before their eyes. There’s Helvellyn at last,’ said Kate. ‘I’m always happy when I see that’ ‘And isn’t that Kidsty Pike?’ asked Alice. ‘ No; you don’t see Kidsty yet But you will when you get up to the bank there. That’s Scaw Fell
²
on the left; – the round distant top. I can distinguish it, though I doubt whether you can.’ Then they went on again, and were soon at the bank from whence
the sharp top of the mountain which Alice had
named was visible. ‘And now we are on Swindale, and in five minutes we shall get to the stone.’

In less than five minutes they were there; and then, but not till then, the beauty of the little lake, lying down below them in the quiet bosom of the hills, disclosed itself. A lake should, I think, be small, and should be seen from above, to be seen in
all its glory. The distance should be such that the shadows of the mountains on its surface may just be traced, and that some faint idea of the ripple on the waters may be present to the eye. And the form of the lake
³
should be irregular, curving round from its base among the lower hills, deeper and still deeper into some close nook up among the mountains from which its head waters spring. It
is thus that a lake should be seen, and it was thus that Hawes Water was seen by them from the flat stone on the side of Swindale Fell. The basin of the lake has formed itself into the shape of the figure of 3, and the top section of the figure lies embosomed among the very wildest of the Westmoreland mountains. Altogether it is not above three miles long, and every point of it was to be seen from
the spot on which the girls sat themselves down. The water beneath was still as death, and as dark, – and looked almost as cold. But the slow clouds were passing over it, and the shades of darkness on its surface changed themselves with gradual changes. And though no movement was visible, there was ever and again in places a slight sheen upon the lake, which indicated the ripple made by the breeze.

‘I’m so glad I’ve come here,’ said Alice, seating herself. ‘I cannot bear the idea of coming to Vavasor without seeing one of the lakes at least.’

‘We’ll get over to Windermere one day,’ said Kate.

‘I don’t think we shall. I don’t think it possible that I should stay long. Kate, I’ve got a letter to show you,’ And there was that in the tone of her voice which instantly put Kate upon her mettle.