keeper, I should have taken her to call at Rose Cottage next day. But I was not Lady Denzil’s keeper. It was great kindness of her to visit me: how could I force her against her will to visit other people? A woman of Mrs. Wood’s age, who surely could not have got so far through the world without a little understanding of how things are managed, ought to have known that it could do her very little good to quarrel with me.
And then the girls would come to me when there was anything going on at the Lodge. ‘We met the Miss Llewellyns the other day,’ Adelaide said on one occasion. ‘We thought them very nice. They are staying with Lady Denzil, you know. I wish you would make Lady Denzil call on mamma, Mrs. Mulgrave. It is so hard to come and settle in a place and be shut out from all the best parties. Until you have been at the Lodge you are considered nobody on the Green.’
‘The Lodge can’t make us different from what we are,’ said Nora, the other sister, who was of a different temper. ‘I should be ashamed to think it mattered whether Lady Denzil called or not.’
‘But it does matter a great deal when they are going to give a ball,’ said Adelaide very solemnly. ‘The best balls going, some of the officers told me; and everybody will be there—except Nora and me,’ said the poor girl. ‘Oh, Mrs. Mulgrave, I wish you would make Lady Denzil call!’
‘But, my dear, I can’t make Lady Denzil do anything,’ I said; ‘I have no power over her. She comes to see me sometimes, but we are not intimate, and I have no influence. She comes because my people knew the Denzils long ago. She has her own ways. I could not make her do one thing or another. It is wrong to speak so to me.’
‘But you could if you would try,’ said Adelaide; as she spoke, we could hear the sound of the croquet balls from the Lodge, and voices and laughter. We were all three walking along the road, under shelter of the trees. She gave such a wistful look when she heard them, that it went to my heart. It was not a very serious trouble, it is true. But still to feel one’s self shut out from anything, is hard when one is twenty. I had to hurry past the gate, to restrain the inclination I had to brave everything, and take them in with me, as my friends, to join the croquet party. I know very well what would have happened had I done so. Lady Denzil would have been perfectly sweet and gracious, and sent them away delighted with her; but she would never have crossed my threshold again. And what good would that have done them? The fact was, they had nothing particular to recommend them; no special qualities of their own to make up for their want of birth and connection; and this being the case what could any one say?
It gave one a very different impression of Lady Denzil, to see how she behaved when poor Mrs. Stoke was in such trouble about her youngest boy. I had been with her calling, and Mrs. Stoke had told us a whole long story about him; how good-hearted he was, and how generous, spending his money upon everybody. It was a very hard matter for me to keep my countenance, for of course I knew Everard Stoke, and what kind of boy he was. But Lady Denzil took it all with the greatest attention and sympathy. I could not but speak of it when we came out. ‘Poor Mrs. Stoke!’ said I, ‘it is strange how she can deceive herself so—and she must have known we knew better. You who have seen poor Everard grow up, Lady Denzil–’
‘Yes, my dear,’ she said, ‘you are right; and yet, do you know, I think you are wrong too? She is not deceived. She knows a great deal better than we do. But then she is on the other side of the scene, and she sees into the boy’s heart a little. I hope she sees into his heart.’
‘I fear it is a very bad heart; I should not think it was any pleasure to look into it,’ said I in my haste. Lady Denzil gave me a soft, half-reproachful look. ‘Well,’ she said, and gave a sigh, ‘it has always been one of my great fancies, that God was more merciful than man, because He saw fully what was in all our hearts—what we meant, poor creatures that we are, not what we did. We so seldom have any confidence in Him for that. We think He will forgive and save, but we don’t think He understands, and sees everything, and knows that nothing is so bad as it seems. Perhaps it is dangerous doctrine; at least the vicar would think so, I fear.’
‘In the case of Everard Stoke,’ said I stupidly, coming back to the starting point.
‘My dear,’ said Lady Denzil with a little impatience, ‘the older one grows, the less one feels inclined to judge any one. Indeed when one grows quite old,’ she went on after a pause, smiling a little, as if it were at the thought that she, whom no doubt she could remember so thoughtless and young, was quite old, ‘one comes to judge not at all. Poor Everard, he never was a good boy—but I dare say his mother knows him best, and he is better than is thought.’
‘At least it was a comfort to her to see you look as if you believed her,’ said I, not quite entering into the argument. Lady Denzil took no notice of this speech. It was a beautiful bright day, and it was but a step from Mrs. Stoke’s cottage to the Lodge gates, which we were just about entering. But at that moment there was a little party of soldiers marching along the high-road, at right angles from where we stood. It is not far from the Green to the barracks, and their red coats were not uncommon features in the landscape. These men however were marching in a business-like way, not lingering on the road: and among them was a man in a shooting-coat, handcuffed, poor fellow! It was a deserter they were taking back to the punishment that awaited him. I made some meaningless exclamation or other, and stood still, looking after them for a moment. Then I suppose my interest failed as they went on, at their rapid, steady pace, turning their backs upon us. I came back to Lady Denzil, my passing distraction over; but when I looked at her, there was something in her face that struck me with the deepest wonder. She had not come back to me. She was standing absorbed, watching them; the colour all gone out of her soft old cheeks, and the saddest, wistful, longing gaze in her eyes. It was not pity—it was something mightier, more intense. She did not breathe or move, but stood gazing, gazing after them. When they had disappeared, she came to herself; her hands, which had been clasped tightly, fell loose at her sides; she gave a long deep sigh, and then she became conscious of my eyes upon her, and the colour came back with a rush to her face.
‘I am always interested about soldiers,’ she said faintly, turning as she spoke to open the gate. That was all the notice she took of it. But the incident struck me more than my account of it may seem to justify. If such a thing had been possible as that the deserter might have been her husband or her brother, one could have understood it. Had I seen such a look on Mrs. Stoke’s face, I should have known it was Everard. But here was Lady Denzil, a contented childless woman, without anybody to disturb her peace. Sympathy must indeed have become perfect, before such a wistfulness could come into any woman’s eyes.
Often since I have recalled that scene to my mind, and wondered over it; the quick march of the soldiers on the road; the man in the midst with death environing him all round, and most likely despair in his heart; and that one face looking on, wistful as love, sad as death—and yet with no cause either for her sadness or her love. It did not last long, it is true; but it was one of the strangest scenes I ever witnessed in my life.
It even appeared to me next day as if Lady Denzil had been a little shaken, either by her visit to Mrs. Stoke, or by this strange little episode which nobody knew of. She had taken to me, which I confess I felt as a great compliment; and Sir Thomas came in to ask me to go to her next afternoon. ‘My lady has a headache,’ he said in a quaint way he had of speaking of her: I think he would have liked to call her my queen or my princess. When he said ‘my lady’ there was something chivalric, something romantic in his very tone. When I went into the drawing-room at the Lodge the great green blind was drawn over the window on the west side, and the trees gave the same green effect to the daylight, at the other end. The east windows looked out upon the lime-walk, and the light came in softly, green and shadowy, through the silken leaves. She was lying on the sofa, which was not usual with her. As soon as I entered the room she called me to come and sit by her—and of course she did not say a word about yesterday. We went on talking for an hour and more, about the trees, and the sunset; about what news there was; girls going to be married, and babies coming, and other such
