Imogen: or, Only Eighteen

Chapter Eleven

In the Fir-Coppice

But the reassuring thrill lasted barely a moment. Suddenly, as Imogen walked on, feeling that every step was bringing the meeting nearer, a terrible, agonising rush of shyness and shame overwhelmed her. For the first time she realised that she was going, unbidden, uninvited, to seek an interview with this man whose position to herself was still so undefined, whose conduct had been so inexplicable! She, who had so proudly declared to her mother that not one finger would she move to influence him, were it the case that he had acted upon an impulse which he had afterwards regretted! It was all Trixie’s doing, she said to herself. Not that Trixie had suggested her taking Florence’s place, but she had alluded to the thing so simply, as if it were the most natural idea in the world to go to meet Rex on his way up.

“Florence would have given anything to go; she likes to get Rex to herself for a good talk. I wish he didn’t hate me so, for I’d like a good talk with him myself. I’m getting rather sick of his seeing everything through Florrie’s eyes.” And the chance had seemed so opportune that Imogen had seized it – in her eagerness to get the meeting over, to come to an explanation before her mother could complicate things by any interference – without realising the difference between her position and Florence’s.

She was well punished in these few seconds for her thoughtlessness. Unmaidenly and bold were among the mildest epithets she applied to herself, while her imagination sought in vain for some pretext or excuse in which she could find shelter. “But I can’t pretend I came by accident,” she thought; “he knows me too well, even if I could be so deceitful.”

So it was in utter indecision as to how she meant to bear herself that she at last met Major Winchester.

He was smiling; he looked well and cheerful. And he was feeling as he looked. He was relieved from anxiety about his sister, and there was a gleam of brightness in the clouds surrounding his engagement. And even though the smile was broken by a start, unperceived by Imogen, as he came near enough to recognise her, it soon appeared again.

“I thought you were Florence, do you know?” were almost his first words.

They acted as a cold shower-bath on Imogen; nothing could have so helped her to regain her self-possession. She stiffened at once.

“I am very sorry I cannot turn myself into Florence,” she said, though the tears were, all the same, not far from her eyes. “But I needn’t keep you; I am going on a little farther.”

“I hope not,” he said kindly; “as I am so lucky as to have met you, can’t you turn and walk a bit of the way back with me?” (“It will be a splendid opportunity for following Robin’s advice and telling her all about Eva,” he suddenly thought.) “You know we were going to have a good talk the day I was called away.” He walked on slowly as he spoke, and Imogen could scarcely avoid accompanying him. “By the bye,” he added, “you got my note that morning?”

Imogen’s breath came fast and chokingly.

“Ye-es,” she said, and he saw that she was growing very pale, “I – I got it. That was why – I wanted to see you first alone.” Poor child! even as she uttered the words she felt what she was doing. Where were all her hoped-for evasions? she was no diplomatist indeed.

“Then you knew I was coming?” he exclaimed, thoughtlessly. But, almost in the same breath, his perfect though simple chivalry came to his aid. “I am so glad you came,” he went on, “if I can be of any use. I have been anxious about you; I had wanted to warn you even more definitely about some of our friends at The Fells. Florence promised to do what she could, but you have not got to know her as I hoped. By the bye, did she tell you I was coming? I asked her not; but still – if she told you – ”

He was getting a little bewildered himself, now. For, of course, Florence would never have counselled or sanctioned the poor child exposing herself to such gossip as might result from her present step.

“No,” Imogen replied. “Trixie told me, not Florence. I suppose coming to meet you was a dreadful thing to do, Major Winchester, but I didn’t think of that at the time. I – ”

She seemed unable to say another word.

Rex felt relieved. He thought he had got at it all now.

“Don’t take it to heart so,” he said, encouragingly. “It was a very natural thing to do. You know I asked you to trust me. It is only – people gossip so. But I’ll tell you what, we will walk up and down in this wood for a little, while you tell me all your troubles, and I – if I have time – will tell you some of mine: then I will hurry on, and you can finish your walk and come home at leisure. Not even Miss Mabella Forsyth can make mischief out of that.” He laughed a little as he spoke.

Neither he nor Imogen heard a faint rustle a few yards off, on one side where the brushwood was thick, and where there still stood the ruins of a summer-house or hut, which the Helmont boys had constructed years and years ago. But there was no response to his laughing tone, and glancing down he saw that the girl’s very lips were pale. He grew frightened again; what could be the matter? That it had anything to do with Robin’s warnings – which, after all, had not impressed him deeply – never occurred to him.

“My dear child – Imogen!” he said, impulsively, “what has happened? What is the matter? Do tell me, whatever it is,” and he tried to take her hand, but she tore it away.

“What do you mean?” she exclaimed half wildly. “If there is anything the matter, you must know it. Why have you made me think – made everybody, almost, think Oh, I don’t know what I am saying, and I don’t know what to do. You said the evening before you went away that you had something to say to me, and then you wrote. What was it, then, that you were going to say to me?”

“I wanted to warn you again, more definitely, about being on your guard in some ways, and I was sorry to see you and Beatrix Helmont so much together,” Major Winchester replied very quietly. He was growing very nervous himself; terrible misgivings that Robin’s discernment had not been at fault began to make themselves heard. He felt that everything depended on his own perfect self-possession and presence of mind, if this girl, so strangely thrown on his mercy, was to be saved, spared from what might cast a miserable shadow of mortification and loss of self-respect over the rest of her young life. So he allowed himself to show no pity; no impulse of sympathy must tempt him to go a hair’s-breadth beyond what he felt intuitively was the safe limit.

“I must try to be matter-of-fact and commonplace,” his instinct told him, “so that afterwards, when she thinks over it coolly, she will be able to believe I had imagined nothing else.”

“I am afraid you have had annoyances and difficulties I would have saved you from if I could. But don’t tell me anything you would rather not,” he went on, hesitating a little, half because he really did not know what to say, half to give her time.

But Imogen scarcely heard his words. It was growing too much for her; every sense seemed absorbed by an overmastering irritation and impatience.

“Are you purposely trying to mislead me? Are you making fun of me? Or,” as a new idea, like a flash of lurid lightning, crossed her mind, “has some one else been doing so? Yet – you spoke of a note? You sent me a note? See here – this is it – that is your writing, is it not?”

“Certainly,” Major Winchester replied, trying his best to speak lightly, though a strange vague fear was upon him. “That is the little note I left for you the morning I was called away.” And he looked down at her, smiling as if amused. “You don’t mean to say my poor little note has made any mischief?” he added.

“Read it,” said Imogen, hoarsely.

He did so, drawing the letter calmly out of the envelope, the slight smile still on his lips. But if his unconcern had hitherto added to the girl’s irritation, she had her revenge now. For the change which came over Rex’s face was almost appalling. A sort of grey pallor seemed to spread itself above and through the healthy ruddy bronze; he looked for the moment an elderly man.

“What can I have done?” he exclaimed involuntarily.

And Imogen, watching him breathlessly, gave a shivering gasp.

“What is it?” she said. “Is it some wicked trick? Oh, if only I had not told!”

The last word was almost inaudible; it was not till afterwards that Major Winchester recalled it. By a strong effort he had already mastered himself and recovered his self-possession. He looked almost as usual, as he turned to Imogen.

“I cannot understand how I could be so terribly, so inexcusably careless, Miss Wentworth,” he said. “I am not usually careless. It is only lucky for me – I should indeed be very thankful,” he went on speaking with intentional, deliberate impressiveness, “that my ridiculous mistake occurred between two people I can trust so perfectly and who will be as ready to forgive me as yourself and – and – the person this letter was intended for. I was going to ask your permission to tell you about her, if – ”

But the last sentence was lost upon Imogen. She was staring up at him with the strangest expression in her eyes. “Then this letter was not meant for me at all?” she said.

An instant later, and she saw what she had done. The burning crimson rushed over her face like a scorching blast. She glanced round her desperately, as if in vain search of shelter.

But Rex’s voice recalled her to herself. In the intense strain, the fatal yet so commonplace words almost made him laugh. There was only one thought which gave him any relief. How young, how almost absurdly childish she was! So, though he had now no longer any self-deception in the matter, though he could scarcely trust that in any sense Robin’s warning had been uncalled for, he began to hope that out of the very inexperience which had caused the mischief might come in time the cure. For a moment or two he did not look at her. Then he said quietly – and from the tone of his voice no one could have suspected the almost passion of pity he was feeling —

“Of course I intended a letter for you. That is the envelope, properly addressed, you see. I – I blame myself more than I can ever express.”

His words meant far more than met the ears, but this, in her confusion of mind, Imogen did not take in.

“Then it wasn’t a trick?” she said in an odd, dull voice. “I think I would rather it had been a trick.”

“What put that into your mind?” he said, half sharply. “Supposing it had been a trick, what then?”

“I – I don’t know. I don’t think, if it had been a trick, I could have felt quite so – so degraded,” she said.

The word was almost more than he could bear. How he longed to comfort her, as a brother might have done!

“Miss Wentworth – Imogen,” he said, “do, for mercy’s sake, spare me a little. You cannot – you cannot possibly say or feel half so bitterly and severely to me as I do to myself. But if you cannot now, some day you will forgive me, won’t you? It will all seem so different, you will wonder you cared. I can promise you it will be so, and I am nearly old enough to be your father, you know; and, at worst, no one need ever know except ourselves; for she, Eva,” and he lightly touched the letter, “is like myself to me. She is absolutely sweet and trustworthy.”

“Is her name Eva?” asked Imogen, in a dazed sort of way.

“Yes. How is it you have never heard them mention her? My cousins are not generally so reticent,” and again the idea struck him, could there have been malice at work in all this?

“She has been very ill: that was what I was going to ask leave to tell you about.”

“I think I heard Florence speak about her. But I thought it was your sister. Her name is Evangeline, and some one said she was sometimes called Eva, and they said it troubled you to have it mentioned; so, even though you had told me about your sister, I scarcely liked to ask how she was.”

She put great control on herself to speak thus; but as she went on, Rex was relieved to see that she was rewarded for the effort by her calmness increasing. He had been dreading tears. Once let them begin, and he scarcely knew what could be done.

“I see,” he said; “but still, some day perhaps I may be able to tell you our melancholy little romance. We have been engaged five years, Miss Wentworth!” with a smile that was sad enough. “But who told you that Eva was my sister? Who warned you not to speak of her?” he added, with another flash of the strange, on the surface unreasonable, suspicion he had already felt more than once.

Imogen tried to collect her bewildered faculties.

“Trixie, I think,” she said; “and – and – I am not sure, but I think Miss Forsyth said something of the same to mamma.”

The lines on Major Winchester’s face hardened.

“They are both so likely to consider my feelings tenderly!” he said sarcastically.

“No,” said Imogen, bluntly, not detecting the satire. “I think they both almost hate you.”

The quiet, matter-of-fact tone in which she spoke startled him. “Hate,” uttered in cold blood, is an ugly word. But a new misgiving was now making its way to his mind, and for the moment, in his intense anxiety to save Imogen further suffering, he put aside the question of the present terrible complication being more than accident.

“Your mother?” he said, with quick inquiry.

“Do you mean – ” He hesitated. It was so difficult to express what he wanted to know. “She – she has not seen this?” and again he touched the fatal letter.

“Yes,” said Imogen, simply. “She was with me when I got it. Indeed, she gave it me,” and as the remembrance of that morning – when she had wakened so happily – came back to her, it was very, very hard work to force down her tears; “and so, naturally, I showed it her, before I noticed the postscript. And she has thought – oh!”

“Never mind what she has thought,” he said hastily. “If only – you don’t think she has told any one else?”

“I don’t know; not exactly. She promised she wouldn’t; but Miss Forsyth is so cunning, and mamsey is so – so simple,” said the girl. Major Winchester pulled himself together. “Miss Wentworth,” he said, “I must stop farther mischief, at once: they must not and shall not torture you. But will you trust me still? I shall hurry on, and take measures to put your mother on her guard.”

“You – you won’t tell any one – not Florence, about me – about this morning?” said Imogen, piteously.

“No, no, of course not. Come on quietly to the house in half an hour or so, and I think I shall be able to manage it. Now, my poor dear child – don’t be angry with me for calling you so this once – good-bye in the meantime.”

“Good-bye,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I wish you would count it good-bye for always.”

He glanced at her; she did not mean it, but in these few words was the bitterest reproach she could have expressed. Again the dull pallor crept over his face for an instant.

“Perhaps you are right. God bless you!” and he hurried away.

Imogen retraced her steps again to the outer margin of the wood. Then she turned, and walking slowly, found herself in twenty minutes or so at the gates of the inner drive. She looked at her watch mechanically: no, she must not go in yet, it was too soon. It was a winter day, but she did not feel cold, only very, very tired. She looked about for a seat. There were several, she knew, in among the shrubberies, which were here very thick. She turned down a little path, bordering, though she did not know it, a side entrance to the stables; there was a rustic seat there, almost an arbour, for it was shaded by the trunks and branches of a group of old elms. There she sat down, and for the first time the pent-up misery burst out. She could keep it in no longer, but broke into a passion of convulsive sobs.

She did not cry loudly. She was too worn out and spent to do so, even though for the first few moments her abandonment was so great that she gave not a thought to the possibility of attracting attention. But it was a very still day; sounds carried clearly. Beatrix, on the lookout for a scene of some kind as she came hurrying down the drive, caught the faint gasping sobs not many yards off, and stood, still to listen.

She had been forced to make one of the luncheon party in the coverts, sorely against her will; for Mabella, on pretext of a headache, had skilfully backed out of it, and Trixie more than suspected her motive. Florence was not to be back from Catborough till too late, and Alicia flatly refused to undertake the management of the party without one or other of her sisters. But Trixie succeeded in escaping in time to get back to the house not very much later than the hour at which Rex was expected. She wasted some minutes, however, in looking for Mabella, and hearing from a servant that Miss Forsyth had gone out some time before by herself, her suspicions redoubled, and she set off, racing along in her usual reckless harum-scarum fashion. Major Winchester, so far as she could discover, had not arrived (nor had the dogcart sent for his luggage); the truth being that Rex, by good-fortune having met Florence at the side entrance, was at that moment in close confabulation with her in the library.

But the strange sounds which reached her made Trixie slacken her pace. What could it be? At first she was by no means sure that they were not those of some animal in distress, in which case, to do her justice, the wild girl would not have been without some feeling of pity.

“Can it be one of the dogs?” she thought, as she pushed aside the thick-growing shrubs and made her way “cross country,” as she would have described it, in the direction of the gasping sounds. But she was quickly undeceived. On the rough bench lay or crouched Imogen, her face hidden, her whole figure shaken by sobs, now and then broken by low moans, equally piteous to hear. The Helmonts were not given to vehement grief or vehement feeling of any kind, except when Beatrix, the only really hot-tempered one, got into a passion, and the display of it was almost like an unknown language to them. In Trixie it seldom roused anything but a sort of contempt. But if this was her first sensation on seeing Imogen’s prostration of suffering, it was soon mingled with other emotions. Pity of a kind, and quickly succeeding to it remorse – of a kind also – and speedily overmastering both, extreme and unreasoning fear.