CHAPTER XXXI

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ONCE AND FOR EVER.

Freda had not been able to come to our wedding, to my grief. She had now been six months with Mrs. Des Vœux in Devonshire, and seemed at last to have found quiet happiness. She wrote to us that the old blind lady treated her more like a daughter than a dependant, and if she did not come to our wedding it was because she could not bear to leave her in her darkness, even for a little while.

So after Lance and I had been three weeks at Killarney, which is, I am sure, the most beautiful place on earth, I acquiesced cheerfully when he suggested that we should cross to England from Cork, and wander about Cornwall and Devonshire for the remaining weeks of our honeymoon.

"Oh, yes!" I said, "and we shall see Freda, shall we not? I have wished it of all things."

For somehow I had felt sad about Freda being outside our happiness during those momentous times at Brandon.

"As you will, my sweetheart," Lance had said, as he would have said, I believe, to any proposal of mine that did not involve our separation.

I wrote to Freda to tell her of our plans, and by return of post I had a letter from her so full of delight, that I felt how her distance from us all must have hurt her during those years. She wrote:

_It is the most ideal arrangement, for Mary Vincent and Jacky are to be here in June. But as for going to an inn, no such thing. There is a little summer cottage attached to this house, and just hidden in the combe beyond the garden-hedge. Mrs. Des Vœux has invited Mary and my boy to spend the summer there, and when she heard of you, she begged me to ask if you two would make use of it--Mary will take care of you both--you know how admirable a housekeeper she is, and she is the soul of discretion. Let me know when you will come. I am longing to see you and to meet my new brother._

We arrived at Wyncombe one lovely June afternoon and found our cottage a very delicious place. It was built of wood with a verandah running around it, and the whole hidden in creepers. The little valley was wooded to the top, and in front of the cottage door ran a little brown stream which might have been one of our trout streams at home. There was a small boy of a very martial aspect standing a-straddle in the trellised porch when we arrived, with an unhappy-looking fat puppy pressed tightly to his breast.

"Hello!" he hailed us. "Where is Old Soldier? This is a soldier dog, Moustache is his name. He has to learn to shoulder arms, but he always rolls over."

"Old Soldier didn't come this time, Jacky," said I.

"You are to come to see him in Ireland. But this is his son, who is also a soldier."

"He has got no medals," said Jacky, as he shook hands gravely. "Are you greedy at your dinner, or will you not have your hands washed?"

From this speech I learned that Jacky had been insubordinate, and had perhaps lost a stripe or two since coming to Wyncombe.

Half the cottage was allotted to us, and I discovered very soon that so excellent was Mrs. Vincent's discipline that even Master Jacky respected our frontier, and was only in evidence when desired--admirable small boy! However, Lance capitulated to Jacky the minute he saw him, so I expected to have him tolerably often in evidence.

Freda came over to dinner in a pretty black gauze dinner-gown, and looked very fair and sweet and comely. She brought a message from Mrs. Des Vœux that she thought we would be happier together this one evening, but that she hoped we would come over and dine the next day, and excuse her not calling first.

My sister was delightfully changed for the better. She seemed brimming over with quiet happiness, and I could not wonder. After her hard and disillusioning experiences of the world, after the stony streets of London, it must have been indeed delicious to be in this quiet place, surrounded by everything that kindness and consideration could give.

After dinner we sat in the verandah and talked. Lance romped on the grass with Jacky and Moustache, who seemed a very jolly little puppy when he wasn't half stifled by his master's loving embraces. However, as Freda said, a dog will stand a good deal done in the way of love. Mrs. Vincent had gone over to keep Mrs. Des Vœux company, so we had a long quiet comfortable chat, lounging in our rocking-chairs, and with nothing to disturb us but the singing of the birds and the shrill laughter of Freda's boy.

I had a long story to tell her, the details of all that had been happening to us at Brandon. Then when I had done, I had to hear all about her since she came to Wyncombe.

"When you see Mrs. Des Vœux," she said, "you will know what an angel she is. She has it written in her dear face. She has had such sorrows, Hilda, but they have only made her more heavenly. It is a privilege to be with her, and though she takes occasion many times in the day to send me out, for she is obliged to sit in a darkened room,--she is not altogether blind, you know,--yet I always come back into the shadows with joy. I have nothing to do but read to and write for her; she has many friends, out in the world, as she says, who are always needing her counsel and comfort. Yes, and I have to gather her roses, as Lady A---- said. Wait till you see our roses, Hilda. You will be out of conceit with Rose Hill."

"Never!" I cried.

"Ah, well!" she laughed, "I suppose immortal roses have grown there for you."

Then she told me how Mrs. Des Vœux's only son had died in India.

"Her grief," she went on, "has made her profoundly tender and sympathetic to all mothers. She wanted me to have Jacky under the same roof with me, but I was afraid his high spirits might oppress her sometimes. Still, she loves to have him with her now and again, and he behaves sweetly to her; and would you believe it, Hilda, she has offered me the cottage for him and Mary to make their home there? She put it so delicately, that they would keep up the place and save it from going to pieces with damp during the winter. I shall be the happiest woman on earth. Think of this place for Jacky after Parson's Green!"

"You accepted, of course?"

"I cried with joy. She only suggested it this evening before I came over, and I was already so full of joy at the prospect of seeing you. 'Ask your friend Mrs. Vincent, my dear,' she said in her humble way, 'if she will do me this great favour.' And I just took up her dear old hands and kissed them, and said, 'You shall ask her yourself when she comes this evening, and see what she will say.'"

"She will like it, Freda?"

"Like it!" cried Freda. "It is what we have dreamt of for our old age! We used to plan that when Jacky was grown up and a successful man, he would make just such provision for us two old ladies. But that it should come while Jacky was still a little boy and dependent on us, with years of his childhood still to come,--we never dreamt of such happiness as that."

"You poor dear!" said I, "the Hazeldines ought to have done that for you. It would not have cost them much."

"Oh, that reminds me!" said Freda. "Since I came here Lady Hazeldine heard from a friend of Mrs. Des Vœux of me and what I was doing. She wrote me, for her, a really humble letter, saying how shocked she and Sir John had been to learn that their son's widow had had to earn her bread and her child's. She implored me to forgive anything that had occurred between us, and to come to them to live with them, or to make arrangements to live independently as I would. Poor woman, when I read the letter all resentment faded out of my heart.

"I explained that I couldn't leave Mrs. Des Vœux just at present, but it was love which kept me, not servitude. I said I was happier in my working life, and did not feel now that I should care to give it up, but said I would come whenever Mrs. Des Vœux could spare me. I am going to them in the autumn for a while with Jacky, while Mary takes my place with Mrs. Des Vœux. I am very glad to be at peace with Jim's people. The difference between us has hurt me all those years."

"They will be delighted with Jacky," I said.

"Lady Hazeldine has seen him. She drove down to Parson's Green as soon as she heard where he was, making, I've no doubt, a fine sensation for Grove Avenue with her carriage and pair. She cried over Jacky, poor woman, and he, ungrateful monkey, just wriggled out of her embrace. 'You aren't my grandmother,' he said flatly. 'I've a mother and a Gran, (that's what he calls Mary when he doesn't call her by her Christian name) and lots of aunties, but I've no grandmother.' Poor Mary was horrified, and tried to persuade him of the relationship, but he stuck to his own opinion. 'If you were my grandmother," he said, 'you'd have taken me for a ride in that carriage long ago.' The poor woman felt it acutely. She wrote and told me about it. _Your boy was right, Freda_, she wrote, _that is the sting of it. But for Jim's sake you will teach him to love and forgive me._"

"Oh, poor woman," said I, "I am sorry for her!"

"So am I," said Freda, "but Jacky is terribly uncompromising. And how strange it is that the Hazeldines' good-will comes to me now that I am independent of it! Last year, or the year before, it would have meant deliverance."

The next evening we went over to the Court to dine. It was a delightful house in the midst of rose gardens, and when we had gone into the shaded drawing-room, we found roses everywhere, in bowls and vases and baskets, so that the room was as sweet as the sunny garden. In the midst of all the sweetness sat the dear white-haired old lady, with her thin hands in the lap of her black silk gown, and her figure wearing the ineffable look of patience that comes to the blind. Freda introduced us, and then the dear old lady made me sit beside her, and held my hand and patted it.

"I can't make out your face, my dear," she said, "but I always think I can imagine what people are like from touching them. Even your hands tell me you are fair and soft and sweet like your dear sister, who has done so much to brighten my life since she came."

Then she held Lance's hand a minute and congratulated us so sweetly on our happiness, and read us a little homily on the married life, to which we both listened as reverently as if we were in church.

Jacky, who had been specially invited, arrived just then looking very spruce. He came in with the most sedate little air imaginable, and getting round to Mrs. Des Vœux's side, bent down and kissed her hand.

"You dear boy," she said, putting her hand on his curls, "where did you learn your pretty, pretty ways?"

"It is Jacky's way of expressing affection," said Freda proudly, "and no one taught him. It just came to him untaught."

Beyond the shaded drawing-room we saw the dining-table through an arch with looped-up curtains. Candles with green shades were lit among the profusion of roses, though it was still broad sunlight.

"You won't mind, my dears," said the old lady, "my not dining with you. I can't stand the light nor condemn others to darkness, so I have a little wheeled table brought in here with my dinner."

Just then a tall dark gentleman stepped in by the French window, as if he were very much at home.

"Hello, Trefusis!" cried Jacky, from where he was squatted on the ground by Mrs. Des Vœux.

"Is that you, John, my dear?" said Mrs. Des Vœux, as he came up to her chair.

Then she introduced him to us as "Our squire and neighbour, Mr. Trefusis."

I was rather surprised, for Freda hadn't said a word of this neighbour, who was evidently very much at home in the house.

Mr. Trefusis dined with us, and we found him extremely pleasant. He was a grave, thoughtful-looking man, with melancholy eyes. Freda told us afterwards that he had lost his wife in the first year of their marriage, and had since spent a life absorbed in study and reading.

"He is much younger than he looks," she added.

I could quite believe that, if it were only because of the terms of camaraderie on which he was with Jacky. Jacky, indeed, treated him precisely as if they were of an age, and it was delightful to see them playing cricket together--Jacky about the height of his bat, and the two as grave as possible.

I said one day to Mrs. Des Vœux how much we liked Mr. Trefusis.

"John Trefusis is a good man, my dear," she said, "a good man, and one can't go beyond that. He has suffered a great deal, but I pray there may be happiness in store for him yet."

That first opened my eyes to the fact that Mr. Trefusis was in love with my sister. Indeed it was patent enough once we had the clue. But Freda--that was quite another matter. That she knew I could not doubt, from the little half-vexed consciousness she betrayed once or twice under his regard, but of love I could find no slightest sign.

One day Freda and I were together, and Freda's son was delivering his mind on many matters, as was his way when his commanding-officer was not present.

"Aunty Hilda," said he to me suddenly, "have you long, beautiful hair like mother's? And would you mind very much if I were playing with you and pulled it all down?"

"Of course she would mind," said Freda. "No lady likes to have a rowdy little boy like you pulling her all to pieces."

"'Cept you," said Jacky; "but then, of course, you're not a lady, you're only mother. You remember that day I had pulled down all your hair when Trefusis came in."

"Jacky!" said Freda, with a little blush of annoyance, "you are talking too much, and you know you must say _Mr._ Trefusis. I am always telling you so."

"I shan't," said Jacky flatly. "He calls me 'Shaver', and I call him Trefusis. We understand each other."

Freda's eyes twinkled. She was used to Jacky's insubordination with her, and I'm afraid rather condoned it.

"Well," said Jacky, embarking on his tale, "mother and I was playing at bears in the hall one wet morning. 'Cause it was so wet we didn't think anyone would come. Mother was going round on the floor growling, with all her hair down. I'd pulled it down in the bear's hug, and she wanted to put it up, but I said to her,--'I say, you leave it down 'cause I think it pretty', and so she left it."

"Oh, Jacky, Jacky, you silly boy!" cried Freda laughing.

"Well, all of a sudden I looked up," said Jacky, "and there was Trefusis in the doorway. 'Hello, Trefusis!' said I. But instead of saying 'Hello, Shaver!' he never said a word, but stood staring at mother. I s'pose he couldn't see her because her hair was all over her, or else he was 'mazed at her for playing bears. Then mother got up and just twisted her hair round anyway, and went out of the room, and didn't come back for a long time. And Trefusis stood staring at the door, till at last he 'membered me, and looked at me and said, 'Hello, Shaver!' though it was quite hours since I'd said to him 'Hello, Trefusis!'"

"Jacky, Jacky!" cried Freda, "here comes Gran, and not a minute too soon. Do you think your Aunty Hilda wants to be bored by an egotistical little boy like you?"

Jacky was carried off incontinently to have a fresh toilet made--his toilet seemed always in need of readjustment--and after he had gone I turned and looked at Freda.

She looked back at me steadily, and again the wounded and angry flush, which I had seen once before, rose in her cheeks. Her foot tapped the ground impatiently.

"It would be a good thing for Jacky," I said wistfully, for I liked Mr. Trefusis.

"Never, Hilda, never!" said Freda. "How can you think of it, loving your husband as you do? The Hazeldines will take care of Jacky, but if they did not, I could still refuse him such a sacrifice as that. I will meet Jim with my marriage vow to him unbroken."

The tears flashed in her eyes as I bent to kiss her.

Poor Mr. Trefusis!

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