CHAPTER VI

Emboldened by this thought Bee went downstairs to breakfast, which was spread again in the verandah in the warm sunshine of the autumnal morning. The new hope, though it were a forlorn one, restored her youthful appetite as well as her courage, and her coffee and roll were a real restorative after the long fast and agitated night. But there was no appearance of Aubrey, neither at the table nor in the passages, nor anywhere about. He seemed to have disappeared as if he had never been. When Charlie came down from his mother’s room, where he had been shut up with her for some time, Bee, who had no particular respect for Charlie’s opinion or inclination to allow him any authority over herself, such as an elder brother is sometimes supposed to have, began at once to question him. “Where is Aubrey?” she said. “Why doesn’t he come to breakfast? Will you go and look for Aubrey, Charlie?”

“Indeed, I will do no such thing,” said Charlie, almost roughly. “I hope he has had the sense to go away. I should just like to see him come calmly down to breakfast as if nothing had happened. If he came, then I can answer for it, you should not be allowed to say a word to him, Bee.”

“Who should prevent me?” cried Bee, looking up with her eyes on fire and her nostrils dilating. She had not noticed before what a cloud was upon Charlie’s face and how heavy and scowling were his brows. She added, springing up, “We shall soon see about that. If you think I shall do what you tell me, or condemn any man unheard – ”

“The cad! He never denied it. You can ask mamma.”

“I will not ask anyone but Mr. Leigh,” said Bee, throwing back her head; “and I advise you to mind your own business, and not to call names that may come back upon yourself.”

“Stop where you are, Bee. I never went out into the world under false pretences. A man is a cad when he does that.”

“I shall not stop for you, nor anyone but my parents,” said Bee, in a splendid flush of anger, her countenance glowing, her eyes blazing. “Stand out of my way. Oh, if that is all, and you want to make a scene for the edification of the tourists, I can go in by the other door.”

And she did so, leaving Charlie standing flushed and angry, but quite unable, it need scarcely be said, to coerce his sister. To make an attempt of this kind, which comes to nothing, is confusing and humiliating. He looked round angrily for a moment to see if it were possible to intercept her, then, yielding to necessity, sat down where Betty, eager and full of a thousand questions, sat calling for explanations. That is the good of a family party, there is always someone ready to hear what you have to say.

Bee went at once to the English-speaking waiter, and asked for Mr. Leigh, whom the man, curious as all lookers-on are at a social drama going on under their eyes, declared to be still in his room. She sent him off instantly with a message, and stood in the hall awaiting his return, angry and brave, like the rose in George Herbert’s poem, yet soon getting shamefaced and troubled, as the people coming and going, travellers, visitors, attendants, stared at her and brushed against her as they passed. Bee never forgot all her life the gleam of the river at the foot of the steps, of which she had a glimpse through the doorway – the Rhine barges slowly crossing that little space of vision, the little boats flitting across the gleam of the rosy morning, and the strong flowing tide, the figures going up and down breaking the prospect.

The man came back to her after a time, looking half sympathetic, half malicious, with the message that the gentleman was just going out.

“Just going out!” She repeated the words half-consciously. “Was it Aubrey that sent her that message? Aubrey – who yesterday would not let her out of his sight, who followed her everywhere, saw every sign she made, heard every word almost before it was spoken!” The surprise and the pang together made her heart sick. She could not rush upstairs and knock at his door and call him out imperatively, to tell her immediately what it all meant – at least, though it occurred to her that this would be the most natural thing to do, she did not. Intimidated by the circumstances, by the half impertinence of the waiter, by the stare of the people about, she reflected for a moment breathlessly that he must come out this way, and that if she remained there she must see him. But Bee’s instinct of a young woman, now for the first time awakened, made her shrink from this. When she was only a little girl, so very short a time ago, she did not mind who looked at her, who pushed past her. But now everything was different!

She went away, still holding her head high that nobody (above all not Charlie, who was watching her through the glass of the verandah) should guess that her courage was drooping, and going into the deserted sitting-room, where last night that blow had fallen upon her, sat down and wrote to her lover a hurried little note:

“Oh, Aubrey, what is the matter? Have you deserted me without a word? Do you think I am like them, to take up any report? I don’t know what report there is – I don’t know what it is, this terrible thing that has come between us. What is it? I will take your word and nobody else’s. I don’t believe you have done anything that is wrong. Aubrey! come and tell me out of your own mouth. I told mamma last night I would hear nothing unless you were there; but you were gone away, they said. And now you send me word that you are going out and can’t see me. Going out and can’t see me! What does it all mean?

“If it is some fad of honour, of not seeing me against their will – though I do think your first duty is to me, Aubrey, before anyone else in the world – but if it should be so, mamma will be down here at twelve o’clock – and I invite you to meet her, to hear what is said, to answer for yourself and for me. If you have done anything wrong, what does that matter? Don’t we all do wrong? And why should it come between you and me? Am I without sin that I should throw stones at you? Aubrey, you can’t throw everything away without a word. You can’t desert me without a word. I can bear anything – anything, rather than this.

“Your Bee – .”

Bee, poor child, shrank from intrusting this to the impertinent waiter, who had a leer in his eye as if he were defending his own side from the importunities of the other. She went out furtively into the hall and studied the numbers of the rooms and the names of the tenants upon the board, necessity quickening her perceptions, and then she stole upstairs and gave her poor little appeal into the hands of the stout chambermaid who watched over that part of the hotel. It was for the Herr in No. 10, and the answer was to be brought immediately to the little salon No. 20 downstairs. “Eine Antwort,” she said over and over again in her imperfect speech. “Schnell, schnell!” This, with the aid of a thaler – for it was before the days of the mark – produced perfect understanding in the mind of the maid, who with becks and wreathed smiles accepted the commission, and in a short time brought her back the answer for which she waited with feverish anxiety. It was very much shorter than her own.

“I am not worthy to stand before you. I cannot and I must not take advantage of your innocence; better I should disappear altogether than wound your ears with what they say. But I will not since you will it so. At twelve o’clock then, Bee, my darling, I will stand up before your mother, and say what I can for myself. Bee, my own dearest, my only hope!”

This last was scrawled across the paper as if he had put it in after the despair of the former part. It was this that the poor little girl fixed upon – the sweet words to which she had been accustomed, which her heart was fainting for. It was not, one would have said, a very cheerful note for a love-letter. But Bee was ridiculously cheered by it. So long as she was his own dearest, his hope, his darling – so long as there was no change in his love for her – why then, in the long run, whatever was said, everything must come right.

I need not follow Bee to her mother’s bedside, when Mrs. Kingsward woke and for the first moment did not remember what had happened.

“Is that you, Bee?” she said, smiling, not thinking.

“Are you better, mamma?”

“Oh, yes, just in my usual – ,” said Mrs. Kingsward. And then she caught a fuller sight of her daughter’s face. Bee had none of her usual pretty colour, the light in her eyes was like fire. The mother gave a little feeble cry, and in a moment was no longer in her usual, but lost in the feverish mists of a trouble far too great for her to bear. “Oh, Bee! Oh, Bee!”

“We had better not say anything about it, mamma, to agitate you. I have told him you will be ready at twelve o’clock, that I may know what the story is, and what he has to say.”

Mrs. Kingsward struggled up to a sitting position. “At twelve o’clock? No! I cannot, I cannot!” Then she dropped back upon her pillows sobbing, “Oh, Bee, spare me; I am not equal to it. There is Charlie can read your papa’s letter. Bee! Bee!”

“Charlie!” cried Bee, with a flash of fury. “Who is Charlie, that he should sit in judgment on Aubrey and me? If he has anything to do with it, I tell you, mamma, I will go away. I will go with Aubrey. I will not hear a word.”

“Oh, Bee,” cried Mrs. Kingsward, holding out her hot, feverish hands, “I am not fit for it! I am not fit for it! If I am to travel to-morrow – ask Moulsey – I ought to stop in bed and be quiet all day.”

“I don’t see that it matters,” said Bee, sternly, “whether we travel to-morrow or in a week. To go home will be no pleasure to me.”

“If we were there, then papa could manage it all himself; he is the proper person. On a journey is not the time to settle things so important. I will write and tell him I have put it all off, and have not said anything, till he could do it himself.”

“But that will not be true,” cried the young Rhadamanthus, inexorable, with her blazing eyes.

“O Bee! you are dreadfully, dreadfully hard upon me!” the poor young mother said. This is the drawback of being so young a mother, just as young as your grown-up children. It is very delightful, when all is sunny and bright, but in a great emergency like this it is trying for all parties when a girl’s mother is only, so to speak, a girl like herself. Bee lifted up her absolute young head, and gave forth her ultimatum unmoved.

“Well, mamma, it must be as you choose. If you think my happiness is of less consequence than the chance of a headache to yourself, I have naturally nothing more to say.”

A headache! That was all she knew.

Mrs. Kingsward was ready by twelve o’clock, much against Moulsey’s will, who dressed her mistress under protest. “I ain’t one to interfere with what’s going on in a family,” said Moulsey, as she combed out the long locks, tangled with the restlessness of a troubled night, which were as silky and as smooth as Bee’s. “I’m only a servant, and I knows my place; but you’re not fit to struggle among them young ones. The nursery children, it’s all very well; if they’re naughty you whip them, or you put them in a corner, and there’s a good cry and all right again. But when it comes to a business with a young lady and a gentlemen, the Colonel ought to have come himself, or he ought to have put it off till we all got home.”

“Oh, I wish, I wish he had!” Mrs. Kingsward said, sighing. “I am not in the least what I used to be, Moulsey; don’t you think I am very different from what I used to be? I have not half the strength.”

“There often is,” said Moulsey, “a time when a lady isn’t so strong, after all these children and everything. It takes a deal out of you, it do. And I don’t hold much with them foreign cures. I’m one that stands for home. And there’s where you ought to be, ma’am, whatever anyone may say.”

“I am sure it is where I wish to be,” said the poor lady, “but we must not be unjust, Moulsey. My cure did me a great deal of good, and I liked being out and seeing everything just as much as the girls.”

“That is just it, ma’am,” said Moulsey; “you’re a deal too much the same as the young ladies, and can’t make up your mind as you haven’t the strength for it. I’m not one to ask any questions, but I can’t help seeing there’s something wrong. Don’t you give in to Miss Bee in everything. I wouldn’t go down to make up the quarrel if I was you. Leave ’em to themselves, and it’ll all come right. Bless us, lovers’ quarrels is nothing – it wouldn’t be half the fun if it wasn’t for that.”

Moulsey knew very well this was no lovers’ quarrel; but it seemed to her a good way of satisfying herself what it was.

“Oh, if that were all!” sighed the poor lady. “Moulsey, you are an old friend, and take an interest in the family. You have known Miss Bee since ever she was born. I don’t know why I shouldn’t tell you. It is no quarrel; it’s something the Colonel has heard about Mr. Leigh.”

“All lies, ma’am, I don’t make no manner of doubt.”

“Do you think so, Moulsey; oh, do you think so? Have you heard anything? You often know more, hearing the servants speak, than we do. If you have any light to throw on the subject, oh, do so, do! I shall be grateful to you all my life.”

“I don’t know as I have any light to throw. I knew as there was some trouble at the time the poor young lady died – some friend of hers, as Mr. Leigh, being a kind-hearted gentleman, couldn’t turn out of the house – and it made a talk. But if there was anything wrong, you take my word, ma’am, it was none of his fault.”

“Ah, it’s so easy to say that, Moulsey; but the man must bear the blame.”

“I’ve always heard, ma’am, as it was the woman that got the blame; and right enough, for they often deserve it the most,” Moulsey said.

“Oh, I wish – I wish, whoever was to blame, that it was not I that had to clear it up,” poor Mrs. Kingsward said.

 
“Oh, cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right.”
 

She would not have said this, poor lady. She would have thought it swearing and unbecoming for a woman’s lips; still, Hamlet’s sentiment was hers, with much stronger reason. She looked like anything but a strong representative of justice as she went downstairs. Charlie had come to give her his arm, and though he was very tender to her, Charlie had no idea of sparing her any more than Bee. He, too, thought that it was only the risk of a headache, and that a headache was no such great matter. Charlie’s idea was, however, that what the governor said was, of all things on earth, the most important to be carried out – especially when it did not concern himself.

Bee was sitting at the window looking out upon the river, seeing the reflections flash and the boats pass. The steamer had just started with its lively freight – the steamboat which had brought them down the stream yesterday, with all its changing groups, and the pairs of German lovers with their arms about each other in the beatitude of the betrothal. All just the same, but how different, how different! She did not rise, but only turned her head when her mother came in. She was on the other side. She did not see, with so many other things in her head, how fragile Mrs. Kingsward looked. Betty was the only one who perceived at all that mamma was less strong than usual, and even Betty took no notice, for she, too, was on the other side. As for Charlie, he stood behind her, a sort of representative of executive force at the back of Justice, backing her authority up. It was he who arranged her chair, her footstool, the shawl Moulsey had insisted she should wear, and which Charlie, who knew nothing about shawls, huddled up about her neck, not unlike the judge’s ermine. He did it all, not with sympathetic touches as the girls would have done had they not been on the other side, but rather with an eye to her dignity as a representative of the law.

And then, just as the hour of noon sounded from all the church clocks, Aubrey came in. He was very pale, but dressed with care, no symptoms of neglect about him, with an air of preparation which became a man who was going to stand his trial. Bee jumped up from her seat and went up to him, putting her hand through his arm, and Betty, half-frightened, with a glance at her mother, offered him a timid hand. She sat down behind them, on a chair that was ranged against the wall. The defendant’s side was her side. She wanted to show that, and yet not to go against mamma. Charlie took no notice at all of the new comer, but stood scowling, looking at nobody, behind his mother’s chair.

Mrs. Kingsward, frightened at her own dignity and breathless with agitation, cried, “Oh, Mr. Leigh!” which was a kind of salutation. She had some papers in her lap, over which her hands fluttered restlessly, her husband’s letter, and something else beside, and she looked at the group before her with a little dubious smile, asking pardon of the culprit whom she had come here – oh, so much against her will – to try for his life.

“Now, mamma,” said Bee, in a cheerful voice, “we are quite ready, Aubrey and I – ”