Margaret Oliphant - The Sorceress (complete)

“Oh!” cried the maid, who had the privileges of an old servant, “you have got a heart without pity. You are just like your papa!”

Bee swept past her into the room, where poor Mrs. Kingsward, who after all had eaten but a morsel, sat lying back in an easy chair awaiting the dreadful conflict which she knew was coming. Poor lady, she had lost all her brightness, that pretty grace of the young mother among her grown up children, which prompted so many compliments. She lay back in her easy chair, feeling as she said “any age” – as old as any woman on the edge of the grave, not knowing how she was to bear the onslaught that was coming, and how she was to say what had to be said. He had borne it far better than Bee – poor Aubrey, poor Aubrey! whom she must not call Aubrey any more. He had not denied anything, he had fallen as it were at her feet, like a house that had been undermined and had no sound foundations, but Bee was different. Bee was a tower that had foundations – a girl that was able to stand up even to papa, and why – why had he not come to give forth his sentence in his own way?

Bee came forward flashing into the light, in that white frock which shone, and with those eyes that blazed through all the neutral tints in the room. She did not sit down, which would have been a little relief, but seized a chair and stood with her hand upon the back, leaning upon it.

“I hope, mamma,” she said, pitiless, “that you liked your tea, and ate something – and that you are better now.”

“Oh, Bee!” cried the poor lady; “if there is one reproach more dreadful than another it is this of being able to eat when you ought to be overwhelmed with trouble.” Mrs. Kingsward could scarcely keep from crying at the imputation. And Bee, I fear, knew that it was the unkindest thing that could be said.

“Now, mamma,” she resumed, almost stonily, “it is time that you should tell me what has happened. We arrived here all quite happy – it is just an hour ago – ” here Bee’s voice shook a little, but she commanded it with an effort – “I ran up to dress for dinner, and when I came back in about ten minutes I found you and Aubrey – with your letters – looking as if you had both been dead and buried while I was away. You wouldn’t answer me, and he never said a word. You had done something to him in that little time to make him turn away from me, and yet you will not tell me what it is. Here I am alone,” said Bee, once more with a quiver in her voice. “Aubrey ought to be standing by me. I suppose he is having his dinner downstairs, too, and thinking no more of me. I just stand alone, nobody caring in all the world. What is the meaning of it, mamma?”

“Bee, you are very hard upon me. And poor Aubrey, he is having no dinner – of that I am sure.”

“You called him Mr. Leigh downstairs.”

“So I did, and so I must, and all of us; but I cannot have you speaking of him like that, poor, poor fellow; and just for this once – Oh, Bee, my darling, don’t stand and look at me so! I would rather have died than say it either to him or to you. Your papa has been hearing I don’t know what, and he has changed his mind about Mr. Leigh altogether, and says it must not be.”

“What must not be?”

“Oh, Bee! Oh, don’t take it so hard! Don’t look like that! Your – your – engagement, my darling. Have patience; oh, have patience! He has heard something. Men hear things that we would never hear. And he doesn’t deny it. Oh! he doesn’t deny it. I had a hope that he would contradict it at once, and flare up in a rage like you, and say it wasn’t true. But he doesn’t deny it – poor boy, poor boy! And after that, how can I say one word to papa?”

“My engagement?” said Bee, in a hoarse voice. She had been staring at her mother as in a dream – only partially hearing, not understanding at all the rest that was said. “My engagement? He gave his consent. It was all settled. You would not allow us till the letter came, but then it was consent.”

“Yes, yes, dear. That was at first. He consented at first because – and now it appears he has heard something – someone has called upon him – he has discovered – and he writes to me that it must be broken off. Oh, Bee, don’t think my heart doesn’t bleed for you. I think it will kill me. He says it must be broken off at once.”

“Who says so?” said Bee, in her passion. “He! One would think you were speaking of God – that can say ‘Yes’ to-day and ‘No’ to-morrow, and build things up and then snatch them down. But I will not have it! I am not a doll, to be put in one position and then in another, as anybody pleases. My engagement! It is mine; it is not his.”

“Bee, think; it is papa you are speaking of. Dear, I feel for you – I feel for you! but so does he. Oh, my darling, you don’t know what you are saying. Do you think he would do anything to make you unhappy if he could help it – your papa, Bee, who has been so good to you all your life?”

“I do not care how good he has been. He is not good now. How will it harm him? He sits at home, and he thinks he can do as he pleases. But not with me. It is my affair more than it is his. He thinks he can break his word and it doesn’t matter – but I have given my word, and it does matter. Break my engagement!” cried Bee, her young bosom swelling, the sob rising in her throat that would soon choke her voice. “It is mine and not his; and nobody in the world shall break it. You can tell him so, mamma, or I will write myself and tell him so. I am not a wax image to take any shape he pleases. Who is he? He is not God – ”

“Bee – he is your father – ”

“Oh, my father! Yes, I do whatever he tells me. If he says I am to fetch anything I run like a little dog. I have never been disobedient. But this – this is different. I am not a child any longer. And, mamma, not for him nor for anyone – not even for you will I take back my word.”

“Bee! You make me say a great deal more than I meant to say. I thought you would have been a good child and seen that papa must know best. My poor, poor little girl, there is worse behind. Mr. Leigh, whom we all thought so much of – ”

“Aubrey,” Bee managed to say, though for no other word could she command her voice.

“Darling, he has deceived us. He is not what he seems. He has done, oh, so wrong – there have been things – that you ought never to hear – ”

“Stop!” said Bee. She had to speak in monosyllables with her labouring breath. “Wait! – not behind his back.” She rushed to the bell and rung it so wildly that both waiter and chambermaid appeared in alarm, with Moulsey rushing in calling for a doctor, and saying that her lady was going to faint. Bee pushed the woman aside and turned to the waiter, who stood anxious at the door. “Mr. Leigh!” she cried, impatiently; “the gentleman – who was with us: tell him – to come here.”

“The tall young gentleman?” said the waiter.

“No – the other: tell him he is to come here – instantly – this moment.”

“I beg your pardon, miss,” said the man. “The other gentleman? He have been gone away this half-hour.”

“Gone away!” she cried. And it seemed to Bee that the blackness of darkness closed over her and the room and everything in it. She did not faint, oh no, no such happiness – but everything grew dark, and through the dark she heard her own voice speaking – speaking, and did not know what she said.

But Aubrey had not gone away. He had gone out in the dizziness of a great downfall, scarcely knowing how to keep his feet steady as he wandered along the dark street, not knowing where he went. The landscape that had charmed them all so much – was it scarcely an hour ago? – the lamps reflected in the water; the verandah, with its wreaths of green; the brilliant yet mysterious glimmer of the moon, made his heart sink to look at them now. He strayed off into the darkest of the narrow streets, into the great gloom of the cathedral shadow, where he could see nothing but a poor light twinkling here and there, making the darkness visible. Oh! how certain it is that, however sweet they may seem, your sins will find you out! Oh! how more than certain if you have let yourself be dragged down once, only once, in a spotless life, that the one fault will be made into the central fact of your whole existence. If he had been a bad, dissipated man, it would have been only fair. But this poor young fellow was like the young man whom our Lord loved though he went away. All good things he had kept from his youth up – but once, only once, half distracted by grief, and by the desire which is so natural to escape from grief, and by infernal temptation, he had fallen – oh, there was no need to tell him how he had fallen! Had it not been the canker in his soul ever since? And now this one thing, this miserable, much-repented fault, which revolted, disgusted, horrified himself, was brought up against him as if it were the pattern upon which he had shaped his life.