CHAPTER XVII

CONFESSIONS

Upon the board-walk of a quiet seaside resort Miss Cavendish and Sidney were briskly pacing. In front of them were Gabriella and the elder Miss Bailey in earnest conversation. There were few American tourists to be seen in this corner of Sussex and Sidney noticed that those who passed them by turned to look a second time upon Miss Cavendish’s tall figure in the well-fitting blue serge gown, and gave even more attention to the girl ahead with the big blue gray eyes and mass of gold brown hair, the details of her faultless costume betokening her an American. Miss Mildred had elected to remain in-doors, fearing an attack of neuralgia, for the weather was cool and the sea air penetrating. Miss Bailey, with the frugal mind of an Englishwoman, had initiated her friends into the mysteries of marketing and they were elate at the prospect of enjoying a carefully selected meal which would appeal to their American tastes as well as to the appetite which the keen salt wind would sharpen.

The stiff breeze loosened Sidney’s smoothly arranged locks and fluttered the veil around her hat. She was the neatest of persons, though she never bore the trig look which was one of Gabriella’s distinguishing features. “My hair is always limp and straight,” she was wont to complain. “If it had the lovely ripple that Gabriella’s has, or even the wave which makes Gem’s manageable, I could get along.” So now she was tucking back stray locks, which wisped across her face, and bemoaning the fact that what brought color to Gabriella’s face brought only freckles to hers.

“Gabriella looks ten per cent better already,” Miss Cavendish remarked. “We have been going too hard, I am afraid, and London did not agree with her.”

“I am not sure that it was only London,” returned Sidney.

“Nor I,” responded Miss Cavendish soberly.

Just here Gabriella turned around. “Miss Bailey and I are going back for tea,” she said. “Will you come with us?”

“Pray come,” urged Miss Bailey. But Miss Cavendish and Sidney declined, saying that they preferred the sands and would rather watch the children busy with their sand castles.

“Fancy!” exclaimed Miss Bailey, who would rather go without her dinner than her afternoon tea.

“Miss Ford said it would be ready for us, and we have some lovely plum cake,” Gabriella told her companion confidentially. “Do you think that if we were to stop for Miss Mildred she would come with us?”

“Oh dear, no,” returned Miss Bailey. “She has two or three friends in the same house and will take her tea with them, I am sure.”

They continued their walk to the unpretentious cottage where Miss Bailey had found lodgings for Miss Cavendish and her girls. The sitting-room looked cheerful and homelike. It had pots of blooming flowers in the windows and the table was spread for tea. A gay cosey covered the tea-pot and the thin slices of bread and butter supplemented by a loaf of plum cake made an enticing array. “I believe I am hungry,” said Gabriella, taking her place at the table.

“That’s a surprise to you, isn’t it?” said Miss Bailey, accepting the cup which Gabriella handed her.

“Rather, for I had so little appetite in London. Perhaps it is because I have been walking in the wind, or perhaps it is because it is so cosey to be pouring out tea at what is a home table for the time being.”

Miss Bailey sipped her tea thoughtfully. “Have you heard from Owen Morgan?” she asked suddenly.

Gabriella paled and set down her cup with trembling hand. “No,” she answered after a pause.

“Didn’t you expect to?” Miss Bailey viewed her with a little smile.

A second pause before the “No” was repeated.

“But, my dear, why not? I was sure, there in Paris, that all was going smoothly, and Mildred and I have talked of it constantly. We were so happy for Owen. Poor boy, he has missed his mother sadly, though I have tried to be a mother, and Milly a sister to him, so far as we could.”

The tears rushed to Gabriella’s eyes, and though she tried to wink them away, one stole from beneath her downcast lids, and before she could dash it away it was observed.

“Why, my dear,” there was tender concern in Miss Bailey’s tones, “have you quarrelled? Has anything happened to vex you?”

“No, we haven’t quarrelled,” Gabriella’s voice faltered, “but we--we have agreed not to see each other again.”

“Oh!” Miss Bailey finished her tea. “You are not eating anything after all, Gabriella; I may call you so, may I not? It is such a pretty name.”

“Oh, please, yes; I should like to have you.” She hastily consumed a slice of bread and butter in silence.

“Will you cut me a slice of the cake, please?” asked Miss Bailey.

“Oh, I beg your pardon.” The girl gained her self-control. “I am a very awkward and thoughtless hostess. Have some tea, Miss Bailey. Please do, and won’t you take some jam?”

“I never take jam to my bread except at breakfast,” returned Miss Bailey, “but I should like the cake, please and a cup of tea.”

Gabriella gave her attention to the dear lady, but her own tea grew cold and she left her cake untasted.

Miss Bailey ate her slice to the last crumb with evident enjoyment. “It does make one hungry to walk in the salt air,” she remarked.

“Shall we go back then, and get up an appetite for our dinner?” said Gabriella, rising.

Miss Bailey put out a detaining hand. “Wait a minute, my dear, I want to talk to you. Please forgive me if I seem to be interfering with what may appear to be none of my concern, but I stand in place of Mr. Morgan’s mother; he is my godson, and whatever Mildred and I possess will be his when we are gone. His happiness is very dear to us. I tell you this, because I know how many charming Americans marry wealth, and, though I do not attribute mercenary motives to you, I thought perhaps a young man with nothing but his profession might seem ineligible to you who must have had many excellent offers. It is comfortable to have the assurance, sometimes, that one may expect to be outside poverty. As for character, you might search the world over, and not find a young man with better morals.”

“Oh, I know it, I know it,” murmured Gabriella, sinking down on the floor and burying her face in Miss Bailey’s purple satin lap.

“He is just such a young man,” Miss Bailey continued, “as I should like to have seen Mildred marry, but you know her story, perhaps. She was engaged to a young curate who died just as he was looking forward to an excellent living which would be vacant the coming spring, when they were to have been married.”

“Oh, no, I never heard that,” said Gabriella, lifting her face and remembering with compunctions her tart little speeches about Miss Mildred.

“As I was remarking,” Miss Bailey went on, hastily, “it is not money alone which brings happiness, though one would wish to be sure of comfort.”

“It isn’t I who am looking for money, who cares for riches; it is all on his side,” Gabriella’s words tumbled out eagerly yet confusedly. “It is all on his side,” she repeated. “I refused him because I believed he thought me an heiress and I thought he would never have been attracted to me unless he had thought I possessed a fortune. I haven’t a penny. I am as poor as a church mouse, and I would be a conceited, heartless idiot if I should make such an announcement as that I would marry only a wealthy man.”

“You’ll have to explain, you know,” said Miss Bailey. “I couldn’t understand unless you did, could I? Mr. Morgan never thought you were wealthy. He knew it was Miss Shaw who would inherit a fortune from her grandfather.”

“He knew?” Gabriella lifted an agitated face.

“Certainly.”

“Who told him?”

“I did. We met some Americans who had seen you in Florence and who recognized all of you.”

“Oh, dear!” Gabriella’s head again dropped. “Then I am more kinds of an idiot than I supposed,” she murmured. But gladness was tugging at her heart, and when Miss Bailey, with a timid and cautious gesture, laid her hand on the girl’s hair she caught it and rested her cheek against it.

“You will explain, won’t you?” repeated Miss Bailey. “Owen would never take you from your mother, you know, and would be perfectly willing to live in America if you preferred, though we have been hoping you could all be persuaded to make your home nearer us. We have talked it over many times, Mildred and I, and we thought since there were but the two of you it might not be difficult to arrange. Of late, however, we have been having such very depressed letters from our boy, and we knew something must have gone wrong. I told Mildred, that at the risk of being thought meddlesome, I meant to question you. You won’t be vexed with me, will you?”

“No, indeed, I will not, and I will try to explain as well as I can. What I have to tell is not very much to my credit, Miss Bailey, and perhaps after you have heard and realize what a silly goose I am, you will be glad that I decided not to see--not to see--your godson again.” Then she faltered forth her tale, which Miss Bailey interrupted once or twice with “Fancy!” or “Really!” but made no other comment. “So you see,” said Gabriella in conclusion, “it is quite impossible for him to believe in me again. Either he must think I deliberately tried to mislead him, in which case he must have no respect for me, or he must think me too silly to live.”

“But my dear, he thinks neither. He has laughed with us more than once at your little joke, and has said how well you carried it off. He understood the situation from the first.”

“And I have been going about saying the English had no sense of humor,” murmured Gabriella.

“I may be obtuse,” Miss Bailey went on to say, “and I may be pushing my interference further than I have a right, but if I do you must not be vexed because of my plain speaking, it is all because I cannot bear that the ocean should divide you two if you love each other.”

“Neither can I,” came in muffled tones from the enveloping folds of the purple satin. There was a sound of voices at the outer door. Gabriella sprang to her feet. “There comes Gem,” she exclaimed. “Dear Miss Bailey, oh, dear Miss Bailey, how I love you.” She leaned over and bestowed a rapturous kiss upon the good lady’s cheek, to the evident embarrassment of the recipient, who was unused to such spontaneity, though she found voice to say: “It is coming out as it should, my dear. Have patience,” before Miss Cavendish and Sidney entered the room.

“We changed our minds,” announced the latter. “It grew so cold that we had the shivers and the more we thought of a cup of hot tea the more alluring it seemed.”

“I am afraid it is cold, now,” said Gabriella, lifting off the cosey and examining the tea.

“Send out and have a fresh supply made,” suggested Miss Cavendish, and Gabriella obeyed.

“What have you been doing to my girl?” whispered Miss Cavendish to Miss Bailey, “she looks as if she had seen a vision.”

Miss Bailey smiled and over a third cup of tea she let Miss Cavendish into the secret of Gabriella’s altered looks.

From that hour both Miss Bailey and Miss Mildred seemed more than ordinary friends. Miss Mildred, more effusive than her sister, fluttered up to Gabriella that evening and clasped the girl’s hands in her bony, beringed ones, with such real cordiality that Gabriella, with a remembrance of former speeches, felt ashamed and responded by throwing her arms around Miss Mildred and kissing her warmly. There was another long and confidential talk with Miss Bailey while the Pierrots were singing their jocular songs on their stand by the board-walk. To Gabriella, whose thoughts were far away, “For I’se a little burgu-urgu-lar,” came but dully, but many times in after years there would arise before her the memory of a long stretch of sand, a beating sea, a row of Chinese lanterns swinging gaily, and the dancing Pierrots. She had put her trust in Miss Bailey and was content to wait results.

That evening she lingered in the sitting-room after Sidney had gone upstairs. Miss Cavendish sat by the table, the light of the lamp falling upon her expressive face and touching one or two glistening threads in her dark hair. There was an air of dignified repose, of controlled emotion about her that soothed Gabriella’s storm-tossed soul. She stood behind her and softly stroked the smooth cheek whose youthful outline had not disappeared. “Gem dear, you are very good to look upon,” she said.

Miss Cavendish drew down the slim little hand and kissed it. “Come around here, sweetness,” she said. “It is good to look upon a girl who has found her roses here by the sea. So the world is not a desert waste any longer, Gabriella?”

Gabriella seated herself upon the arm of the big chair. “No, there is a faint indication of a silver lining to my cloud, though I am not so dead certain but that it will break in thunders on my head yet. I don’t dare to be too happy, Gem.”

“Take all the happiness you can get, dear. The day may come when you will be glad you did.”

“But don’t you think I am very poor-spirited, that I am a weak, wishy-washy flabby animal to let Miss Bailey know I cared? Shouldn’t I have had more pride?”

“No, no,” Miss Cavendish spoke with emotion. “Pride has caused the downfall of many a hope; it has blotted out the plan of many a home; it has turned to ashes many a fire on the hearth. If it had not been for a matter of pride I might have been priestess of the fires in my own home to-day, Gabriella.”

“Tell me, dearest Isabella.”

“It was about ten years ago that I sent a letter which was never received. It gave my address in a city to which I was going and which was the home of the man I loved. At first I was angry, hurt, mortified because my letter was not answered, and, when, months after, I discovered that it had not reached its destination, instead of writing to explain, I told myself that if my friend had cared very much he would have found me anyhow. On his side it was argued that I did not care to see him again, that I had been only trifling with the man who had offered me his love. I learned these facts years after, when he had left that part of the country and when it was too late.”

“And that is why--”

“Why I am Isabella Cavendish? Yes. I am very content, however; I have many interests. But he was a good man, and I might have been first in some one’s life instead of always finding only second place at best.”

“Did he ever know?”

“I have no reason to believe he did. The friend who explained the mystery to me is long since dead, and the man to whom I gave a half promise one summer night has drifted out of my life.”

“But you may meet again. Perhaps it is not too late even now.”

“The world is wide, dear, and our ways are divided. I do not even know where he is, for he went to the far west before I lost all knowledge of him. I tell you this, to reassure you, to let you see how slight a thing may stand in the way of one’s truest joy. Let us not speak of this again. I have lived it down.”

Gabriella kissed her good-night and went thoughtfully to her room, feeling glad that she had let Miss Bailey have a glimpse of the heart whose troubles she had striven to hide.

For the rest of the week there were quietly happy times; afternoon tea over against the sand dunes when the glory of the western sky shot the little river with red and gold; long walks to rustic villages where gray Norman towered churches nestled in the midst of thatched cottages whose gardens were gay with blooms. Sometimes a tea garden would be discovered in one of these, and surrounded by a riot of flowers, the party of five or six would regale themselves upon tea and cakes. Again it would be a trip to see one of England’s finest castles, the seat of the Duke of Norfolk at Arundel, where the swift Arun rushes by on its way to the sea, the castle overtopping the hill that sets a climb for those who, having reached the bridge, gaze admiringly at the old feudal stronghold perched above them.

“The town travels uphill all the way,” said Sidney, who, breathless, was first to gain the summit and look back upon the sparkling green-bordered river, the scattered farm-houses, the nearer bridge, and the distant towns.

“The castle itself is not open, you know,” said Miss Bailey, the next to arrive at the top, her English habit of walking adding to the sturdiness of her appearance as well as to the ease with which she was able to mount the hill. “But the park is quite free to visitors,” she added, “and it is most delightful.” And delightful indeed they found it. The great grey castle, the central pile of magnificence around which were the softer beauties of green sward and forest, lake and stream, serving as offsets to the massive walls which ended in “turrets old in story.”

“It is surely very impressive,” Miss Cavendish gave her verdict, “and its setting is beyond compare.”

“All those battlements and turrets and towers and fortifications make one hark back to the old knightly days,” said Sidney. “It must have had a great history.”

“It has shared in most of England’s important events,” Miss Bailey told her. “The Earls of Arundel were Norman barons, and naturally they were to the front in matters of difference with the king. It was besieged and surrendered to Henry I, endured a second siege from King Stephen, while the Cavaliers and Roundheads each struggled for its possession, and the Parliamentary troops left it in ruins.”

“I am glad when they restored it that they took care to leave some of the ruins so as to make it more interesting, a sort of hall-mark of antiquity, as it were,” said Gabriella. “We have an Anne Arundel County in our state of Maryland,” remarked she. “It was named for the wife of Caecilus Calvert.”

“Really?” Miss Bailey was interested.

“Maryland was a Roman Catholic settlement, though the freest of them all,” Gabriella went on, “and I believe the Dukes of Norfolk have always been Romanists.”

“Always, and the present duke is very zealous. He is at the head of the Roman Catholic party in England. It was he who gave the cathedral you can see through the trees. If we have time we can stop there on our way back.”

But they did not have time, for the delights of Swanbourne Lake, where the lone cry of a moor hen alone broke the silence, the deep solitude of the upper park, where hundreds of deer were feeding, the wonderful beauty of landscape on every side, so enchanted them that they lingered too long for anything further than a visit to the old parochial church shut out from the influence of a Roman Catholic domain by a high wall. It was found to be rich in stained glass and invited an interest only second to that of the castle itself. On their way through the town the party had glimpses of gable-roofed, Elizabethan houses, and caught sight through open doorways of interiors whose quaint old pieces of furniture were displayed against backgrounds of brilliant color where gardens smiled beyond the portals. They longed to linger, but the swift-flowing Arun called them to follow its course to the sea, and they returned with fine appetites for a supper of fried mullets caught fresh from the river.

This was their last excursion in Sussex, for the whole party returned the next day to London, where they parted company, the Baileys going on to visit friends in Derbyshire before they should go to their own home, and Miss Cavendish with her girls ready to start on their trip to Scotland and the English lakes.