CHAPTER XXII.

FATHERLESS.

IT was a wise thought of Marie’s to send the sad tidings to Mrs. Tregoning without delay. Despite the bitter weather, and the feeble health which required that she should guard herself from exposure to it, the widow lost no time in hastening to the child of her dearest friend, now fatherless as well as motherless.

She found Ida lying on a couch in the drawing-room, looking white and fragile, like some delicate lily that a pitiless storm has swept to earth. She was quite calm. There were no tears in the eyes which were turned towards the window, through which stole a faint gleam of wintry sunshine penetrating the dull grey fog.

Marie had wished to draw down the blinds, but Ida had prevented her. “Why should we sit in gloom because my father’s darkness is past?” she had asked. And Marie could not answer her.

The child’s quiet, tearless sorrow touched Mrs. Tregoning deeply. She knew by sad experience with what a cruel wrench death sunders hearts that cling to each other, and the aching sorrow, the sense of utter loneliness, that must be borne by the one who is left behind. All her love and pity went out to Ida, and as she knelt beside the couch and folded her in a tender embrace, Ida was conscious of a faint dawning of comfort. She was not utterly forsaken. Human sympathy and human tenderness were still hers.

“How good of you to come to me!” she murmured. “If I could have thought of anything, I should have said I wished for you. For you know—you can understand.”

“I do indeed, my poor child; I know how you are feeling. Ida, you must let me be as a mother to you now, for indeed I have felt as if you belonged to me ever since the day I first saw you, my Ida’s child.”

“You are very good,” faltered Ida, still shedding no tears. “And Marie is so good to me. Every one is good and kind, but—”

“Yes, I know, my love; you cannot take comfort yet, though you are young, and you have consolations.”

“My being young only makes it the harder,” said Ida, in the saddest of tones, “but I know what you mean. I have consolation. I am trying hard to think only of that—of the light and gladness into which he has gone. I ought to be so thankful that he is no longer blind.”

“Yes, it should comfort you to think of his happiness,” said Mrs. Tregoning, though this was not what she had meant when she spoke of consolation; “and it is well that you do not stand alone in your sorrow. You are blessed in having Mr. Ormiston to lean upon, and being able to look forward to a happy future with him.”

Mrs. Tregoning, in her well-meant endeavours to console, had unknowingly opened another wound. Ida started at her words, and a low cry escaped her.

“Oh, don’t, don’t!” she said imploringly. “Not a word of my future, if you love me! I cannot bear to think of that yet.”

Mrs. Tregoning looked bewildered and disturbed. “My dear child,” she began, “I would not pain you for the world. I only meant—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” faltered Ida; “you only meant what was kind and good, but I cannot bear such talk as that. Oh,” she cried suddenly, her voice breaking as she spoke, and her face quivering with anguish. “Life is so hard. If only I were at rest too! That still, cold hand! As I held it, I wished that I too were lying still and cold, all trouble over.”

The wild words ended with a burst of violent weeping. The strange, unnatural calm was broken now. Every barrier of reserve and self-control gave way, and Ida’s grief poured itself forth like a torrent as she clung to her friend, conscious even in her anguish of the support of sympathy. Ida had no idea how much she revealed to Mrs. Tregoning when she said, as her sobs grew less—“I cannot be married so soon now; it is impossible. You will tell them so, will you not? You will help me?”

“My dear child, you may rely on me,” Mrs. Tregoning responded to the pleading tones, without pausing to inquire on whom she was to impress the impossibility of Ida’s wedding taking place at the time fixed. “It is certainly only right that the wedding should be put off, at least for a few weeks.”

“Thank you! Thank you,” cried poor Ida, almost eagerly. “I knew you would understand; I knew you would help me. Oh, how I wish you could stay with me!”

“I will stay with you, my child, if you wish it,” said Mrs. Tregoning, after a moment’s reflection. “I can easily arrange to do so, since I have now no tie to keep me elsewhere.”

With sudden intuition, Mrs. Tregoning had become aware that Ida’s heart was not in the marriage which had been planned for her. She wondered that she had not perceived it before, for she could now recall many signs, little heeded when they occurred, which seemed to confirm the idea. But she wondered still more how such an one as Ida, so simple and transparent in nature, could have been led to commit such an error as this betokened. Whatever the explanation might be, Mrs. Tregoning resolved that she would do all in her power to extricate Ida from the mistaken position in which she was.

When, a little later, Wilfred came to the house, and Ida with evident shrinking begged to be excused from seeing him, Mrs. Tregoning felt certain that she had arrived at a true conclusion.

So Mrs. Tregoning remained with Ida during those sad strange days whilst the silent form of the departed still lay within the house. The funeral was of the simplest order, as Nicolari would have wished, but a large concourse of old friends and acquaintances, brother artists, and others who could claim no personal knowledge of the dead, gathered about the grave in Brompton Cemetery, for the death of Antonio Nicolari caused some stir in the world of art and letters. Men were eager to appraise his worth, and the press made it widely known that a great and inspired worker had ceased from his labours.

Ida asked to be allowed to know what the newspapers were saying of her father. She read with sad pleasure some of the paragraphs written in his praise, though the words seemed to her but poor and inadequate.

“I think I am the only one who really knows how good and great he was,” she said to Mrs. Tregoning.

Nicolari had appointed as his executor and his daughter’s trustee an old friend and neighbour, Matthew Ansell by name, who lived in Oakley Street, and with whom Ida had been on familiar terms from her childhood. He was a middle-aged wan, somewhat eccentric in character, but kind-hearted and honest as the day, who had lived in loneliness as a widower half his life. By profession he was a barrister, but his legal duties were light enough, and would have yielded him a sorry living, had he been dependent on their profits. A man of literary and artistic tastes, he filled his house with books and pictures, and lived amongst them apparently satisfied with their companionship. He had few friends at Chelsea, and Nicolari’s was the only house at which he cared to visit. But to “drop in” occasionally of an evening and enjoy a chat with Antonio had been a pleasure he had prized, and when the sculptor had begged him to become the guardian of his daughter’s property he had felt unable to refuse, although he shrank from the responsibility.

Ida felt something akin to alarm when she learned from Mr. Ansell how much wealth she had inherited. The guilelessness with which she received the information, and the amazement with which she contemplated the amount of her fortune, convinced the executor that it would be necessary for him to look very closely after her interests. “She would give it all away in a week, if I let her,” he said to himself. “I’ll look well after the settlements before she marries that young Ormiston. I’ll not take the matter so easily as her father would have done, innocent man.”

To Ida’s surprise, though also to her satisfaction, Mr. Ansell expressed his approval of the proposed postponement of her wedding. Wilfred naturally felt less content with the arrangement, but he could not well oppose Ida’s wishes. Mrs. Ormiston thought it “just as well,” as she told Mrs. Tregoning when, arriving at Cheyne Walk to pay a visit of condolence, she was received by that lady, who interposed to save Ida from the cruel kindness of her mother-in-law elect.

“They are both young and can afford to wait a year,” decided Mrs. Ormiston, “and then Ida can put off her mourning and make a proper appearance as a bride. I hate those half-and-half affairs—silver-grey instead of white satin, and a bonnet instead of a wreath, whilst every one looks as sober and solemn as if it were a funeral. A wedding should be a wedding, and a funeral a funeral,” continued Mrs. Ormiston, with the air of one laying down a grave moral precept.

Mrs. Tregoning could only receive these remarks in silence. She believed that a year hence Ida would still be averse to an ostentatious wedding.

“I am sorry Ida will not see me,” said Mrs. Ormiston, as she rose to take leave. “Tell her she must rouse herself and not give way. I never do, though I am sure I have had troubles enough. Nicolari was an old man, and old people can’t live for ever.”

“And it’s just as well that they can’t,” she added as she thought of the wealth which had come to Ida through her father’s decease, and which Wilfred would share with her. “Ida must come and stay with me when she feels a little stronger, for she must know that I am her mother now as well as Wilfred’s. She will like being with us, for though I say it that shouldn’t, our house is a great improvement on this old-fashioned place. There are not many houses so well-furnished and fitted all through, but if you’ve no need to count the cost at every turn, you can make a house comfortable.”

Mrs. Ormiston was not quite at her ease as she thus delivered herself, for Mrs. Tregoning’s air of quiet surprise was a little trying.

Mrs. Tregoning had never before met with a woman of such pronounced vulgarity, and she could only wonder at her and say to herself, “Poor Ida! Sons are supposed to resemble their mothers in character; it is to be hoped that Mr. Ormiston is an exception to the rule.”

Mrs. Ormiston was dimly aware that Ida’s friend was of another order of mind to herself. The grace and dignity of Mrs. Tregoning’s bearing affected her uncomfortably, but she tried to restore the balance of her self-satisfaction by observing the widow’s somewhat shabby attire, and contrasting it with the magnificence of the black silk and bugles which adorned her own person, being worn as complimentary mourning.

“Ida,” said Mrs. Tregoning, when, the visitors having departed, she returned to the room where the girl was, “Mrs. Ormiston would like you to stay with her as soon as you feel able.”

Ida lifted her eyes with an imploring look to Mrs. Tregoning’s. “Oh, you don’t say so! Do you think I ought to go?”

“Not if you would rather not,” said Mrs. Tregoning. “But, Ida, dear, you cannot stay on here by yourself.”

“I thought—I hoped that you would stay with me,” said Ida, wistfully.

“So I will, dear, for a time, if you wish it, but I have thought of another plan. You know the doctor has been urging me to go abroad for the winter. He says I should soon lose this tendency to bronchitis if I went to the south of France or to Switzerland. How would it do for you and me to go away together for the rest of the winter?”

A sudden glow of colour rose in Ida’s cheek as she exclaimed earnestly: “Oh, I should like that! It is just what I have been wishing, to get away. Not that I do not love the dear old house,” she added with a burst of tears, “but oh—you cannot, think what a changed place it is to me now!”

“Yes, dear, I can think,” said Mrs. Tregoning, softly. “I do not forget how it was with me when my husband passed away, and I was left alone in our little home. Well, I am glad you like my suggestion; it will do me so much good to have your company. Now we must think about ways and means. I believe there are places on the Continent where we could live pretty cheaply.”

“Don’t let the means trouble you, please,” said Ida, quickly. “You forget that I am rich. I was quite appalled when Mr. Ansell told me the amount of my fortune. I am sure I don’t know what I shall do with so much money. Dear Mrs. Tregoning, please let me meet the expenses! Indeed you would be doing me a kindness!”

“No, no, my child, you are too generous,” said Mrs. Tregoning, hastily. “You shall pay your share of the expense, but I cannot let you burden yourself with my maintenance.”

“I thought you regarded me as a daughter,” said Ida, looking pained; “there are no such things as burdens between mother and daughter.”

Mrs. Tregoning smiled as she met her injured glance. “Well, well, we will see,” she said; “perhaps if I get into difficulties, I will come to you to pay my bills. Ida, I have been thinking that if we went to Switzerland, we might perhaps meet with Theodore, or get him to join us somewhere. That would be such a joy to me.”

“Yes; that would be very nice,” said Ida, after a few moments, and flushing a little as she spoke.

No more was said on the subject then, but it was discussed on subsequent occasions. And the idea of going abroad with Mrs. Tregoning brought Ida the first gleam of hope she had known since her father’s death.

Wilfred was inclined to oppose the plan. He would have preferred that Ida should make a long stay at his parents’ home. But when Mrs. Tregoning represented to him how desirable it was that Ida should have a thorough change, he felt constrained to acquiesce with the best grace he could in an arrangement which was so obviously for Ida’s good. The same consideration secured Marie’s approval, though at first that good woman was disposed to be somewhat jealous of Mrs. Tregoning, and thought it hard that Ida should go away with her, whilst she and Fritz were left to take care of the house and to attend to Mr. Ormiston’s wants when he was working in the studio.

After much thought, Montreux was fixed upon as a place where the two ladies might pleasantly spend the early months of the year. Ida felt like one in a dream as she prepared to start on the journey to Switzerland, such a feeling of unreality hung over her. By this time she had expected to be Wilfred’s wife, but instead everything was changed. Her father had passed from earth, and she preparing to leave for an indefinite period the dear old home.

On the evening before her departure, Ida went to take a last look round the studio. It was the first time she had entered the room since her father’s death. She had wished to be alone, and was somewhat dismayed on entering to find that Wilfred was still there. He was not working, but sauntering idly about, and, as Ida perceived with a quick, sharp sense of annoyance, he was smoking. Antonio had permitted no one to smoke in his loved studio, and Wilfred would not have dared thus openly to enjoy his cigar in his master’s lifetime. It seemed to Ida that Wilfred showed a want of due respect for her father’s memory in allowing himself this indulgence now. It was a little matter, but it touched her keenly. Wilfred had no nice feeling, she said to herself. She would have retreated had it been possible, but Wilfred had caught sight of her, and, quite unconscious of giving offence, he greeted her cheerfully:

“That’s right, Ida; I’m glad you’ve come. I have been wishing to have a chat with you. Don’t stand at the door; come in.”

“No, thank you; I will come at another time, as you are smoking,” said Ida, coldly.

“Why, whatever do you mean? I never knew you object to smoking before. Are you getting squeamish? But I’ll put out my cigar if you wish.”

Ida made no reply, and Wilfred, perhaps guessing why she objected on this occasion, slowly and reluctantly extinguished his cigar.

Ida stood gazing mournfully around the studio. Tears rose to her eyes as they rested on the familiar forms which her father’s hands had moulded with such loving care. The Apollo and the Psyche were no longer there; they, had been sent to their destination a few weeks before her father’s death. But the clay models from which they had been copied remained. Ida looked on them in silence.

A rush of painful thoughts made it impossible to speak, but could she have expressed what was passing in her mind, she would hardly have chosen to confide it to Wilfred. After his fashion, he had been very kind to her since her bereavement, and had tried to cheer her according to his notions of what would be cheering, but his efforts had not been very successful. The sympathy which Ida’s nature craved it was not in his power to give.

And now, as she stood sadly musing on the past, he startled her by a suggestion which made painfully apparent how far apart they were in heart and mind, and how incapable he was of entering into her deepest thoughts and feelings.

“I say, Ida,” he exclaimed, in ringing boyish tones, “have you thought what a jolly lot of money all this is worth?”

A sweep of his hand towards the sculptures and models ranged around the room made clear what he meant by “all this.”

Ida’s dark eyes looked at him in wonder. She had hardly taken in the meaning of his words.

“Have you not heard what prices your father’s work is fetching now? It is always the case when an artist of any note dies. The sculptures are worth more than double what they were. One or two of them have changed hands of late, and they have sold for rare prices. You remember the Iphigenia which Mr. Hunter had? He has sold it for two thousand pounds. Fancy two thousand pounds for a little thing like that. Father says that now is your time, if you want to make money. He says that if he were you, he would sell off every thing that is here—clay models and all. You would make a fortune if you did so. I really should advise you to think of it, Ida.”

But Wilfred quailed somewhat as he said the last words, and felt ashamed of himself, he scarcely knew why, as he met the angry, scornful fire that had kindled in Ida’s eyes.

“Wilfred,” she exclaimed, with more indignation in tone and glance than he could have believed her capable of, “how can you suggest such a thing? What do you think of me? Sell my father’s models, the beautiful forms which I have seen grow under his hands, things which are like part of my life, and which have been made inexpressibly sacred to me by his loss! If it were possible for me to consider how to turn my great loss to paltry gain, I should hate and despise myself.”

“Well, I never! What a fuss, to be sure, just because I happened to make a businesslike remark!” exclaimed Wilfred, nettled by Ida’s words, for he was by no means the most patient of mortals. “Women are such unreasonable, sentimental beings. Why shouldn’t you make money by these things when you have the chance? They are of no good to you, and the money would be.”

“No good!” repeated Ida, with flashing eyes. “Is it not good to cherish the links which bind us to a happy, holy past! I would not for any money part with these things which have for me such sacred associations. Oh, Wilfred, you cannot really think that money is the highest good in life?”

“It is all very well to pretend to despise money,” said Wilfred, sulkily, “but no one can get on without it.”

“Of course we need enough to supply our necessities,” said Ida. “If I were in deep poverty, I might feel that it was my duty to sell off everything, but since it is not so, since I have all that I want, and more than I want, there is no occasion to think of it. One may pay too dearly for money it seems to me, for what, after all, can it do for us? The best things of life—love, faith, friendship, sympathy—are without money and without price.”

“Dear me! That sounds like a sermon,” said Wilfred, satirically. “Well, I am sorry I offended you by my suggestion. It does not matter to me whether you sell the things or keep them.”

“I should think it ought to matter a good deal to you,” said Ida, reproachfully. “I should have thought it would have helped you in your work to look upon my father’s models. Surely you could not work so well in a bare studio.”

Wilfred flushed uneasily and made no reply. Ida, indeed, hardly gave him time for further development of his views. With head erect and even more than her usual dignity of bearing, she quitted the studio, and Wilfred was left to his own reflections.

The first of these was that he had had no idea Ida possessed such a temper, and that such power of expressing indignation as she had displayed was not a trait of character to be desired in a wife. The second was that Ida would probably have been still more indignant had she known what had passed between him and his father that day. She would certainly not approve of the tacit promise he had given his father, but happily there was no need to confide it to her yet.

Ida had gone away in much agitation of mind. Never had she felt more vexed with Wilfred, though his power of annoying her had increased ten-fold since their engagement. Even Mrs. Tregoning could see that something had occurred to disturb her greatly, and guessed that Wilfred was the source of the trouble. But the questions on which Mrs. Tregoning ventured elicited no information. Ida could not confide to her friend her secret revulsion from Wilfred, and the dread with which she looked forward to spending her life with him.

Wilfred was humble and gentle in his manner to Ida when they met on the following day. He begged her to forgive and forget his inconsiderate words, and Ida received his apologies most kindly, showing no trace of resentment. He accompanied her and Mrs. Tregoning to the station, and saw them off by the Dover express. No one could have suspected that there was any breach between him and Ida who saw the friendly way in which they parted, but yet Ida felt that she could not soon forget the revelation of himself which Wilfred had unconsciously made to her on the previous day. She shrank from confessing the truth to herself but it was with a sense of relief that she looked back on Wilfred as the train bore her out of the station. She was glad that he was not going abroad with them.