The Essential George Gissing Collection. George Gissing
letter reminded her of it only too well. It might be feared that he was rather glad than otherwise of the "sheer scandal" Olga had conveyed to him.
Confident in his love of her, which would tell ill on the side of his reasonableness, his justice, she had not, during these crucial days, thought much about her father. She saw his face now, if she spoke to him of Piers. Dr. Derwent, like all men of brains, had a good deal of the aristocratic temper; he scorned the vulgarity of the vulgar; he turned in angry impatience from such sorry creatures as those two men; and often lashed with his contempt the ignoble amusements of the crowd. Olga doubtless had told him of the singer in short skirts----
She shed a few tears. The very meanness of the injury done her at this crisis of emotion heightened its cruelty.
Piers might come to the Castle this morning. Now and then she glanced from her window, if perchance she should see him approaching; but all she saw was a group of holiday-makers, the happily infrequent tourists who cared to turn from the beaten track up the dale to visit the Castle. She did not know whether Helen was at home, or had rambled away. If Piers came, and his call was announced to her, could she go forth and see him?
Not to do so, would be unjust, both to herself and to him. The relations between them demanded, of all things, honesty and courage. No little courage, it was true; for she must speak to him plainly of things from which she shrank even in communing with herself.
Yet she had done as hard a thing as this. Harder, perhaps, that interview with Arnold Jacks which set her free. Honesty and courage--clearness of sight and strength of purpose where all but every girl would have drifted dumbly the common way--had saved her life from the worst disaster: saved, too, the man whom her weakness would have wronged. Had she not learnt the lesson which life sets before all, but which only a few can grasp and profit by?
Towards midday she left her room, and went in search of Helen; not finding her within doors, she stepped out on to the sward, and strolled in the neighbourhood of the Castle. A child whom she knew approached her.
"Have you seen Mrs. Borisoff?" she asked.
"She's down at the beck, with the gentleman," answered the little girl, pointing with a smile to the deep, leaf-hidden glen half a mile away.
Irene lingered for a few minutes and went in again.
At luncheon-time Helen had not returned. The meal was delayed for her, more than a quarter of an hour. When at length she entered, Irene saw she had been hastening; but Helen's features seemed to betray some other cause of discomposure than mere unpunctuality. Having glanced at her once or twice, Irene kept an averted face. Neither spoke as they sat down to table; only when they had begun the meal did Helen ask whether her friend felt better. The reply was a brief affirmative. For the rest of the time they talked a little, absently, about trivialities; then they parted; without any arrangement for the afternoon.
Irene's mind was in that state of perilous commotion which invests with dire significance any event not at once intelligible. Alone in her chamber, she sat brooding with tragic countenance. How could Helen's behaviour be explained? If she had met Piers Otway and spent part of the morning with him, why did she keep silence about it? Why was she so late in coming home, and what had heightened her colour, given that peculiar shiftiness to her eyes?
She rose, went to Helen's door, and knocked.
"May I come in?"
"Of course--I have a letter to write by post-time."
"I won't keep you long," said Irene, standing before her friend's chair, and regarding her with grave earnestness. "Did Mr. Otway call this morning?"
"He was coming; I met him outside, and told him you weren't very well. And"--she hesitated, but went on with a harder voice and a careless smile--"we had a walk up the glen. It's very lovely, the higher part. You must go. Ask him to take you."
"I don't understand you," said Irene coldly. "Why should I ask Mr. Otway to take me?"
"I beg your pardon. You are become so critical of words and phrases. To take _us_, I'll say."
"That wouldn't be a very agreeable walk, Helen, whilst you are in this strange mood. What does it all mean? I never foresaw the possibility of misunderstandings such as this between us. Is it I who am to blame, or you? Have I offended you?"
"No, dear," was the dreamy response.
"Then why do you seem to wish to quarrel with me?"
Helen had the look of one who strugglingly overcomes a paroxysm of anger. She stood up.
"Would you leave me alone for a little, Irene? I'm not quite able to talk. I think we've both of us been doing too much--overtaxing ourselves. It has got on my nerves."
"Yes I will go," was the answer, spoken very quietly. "And to-morrow morning I will return to London."
She moved away.
"Irene!"
"Yes----?"
"I have something to tell you before you go." Helen spoke with a set face, forcing herself to meet her friend's eyes. "Mr. Otway wants an opportunity of talking with you, alone. He hoped for it this morning. As he couldn't see you, he talked about you to me--you being the only subject he could talk about. I promised to be out of the way if he came this afternoon."
"Thank you--but why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Because, as I said, things have got rather on my nerves." She took a step forward. "Will you overlook it--forget about it? Of course I should have told you before he came."
"It's strange that there should be anything to overlook or forget between _us_," said Irene, with wide pathetic eyes.
"There isn't really! It's not you and I that have got muddled--only things, circumstances. If you had been a little more chummy with me. There's a time for silence, but also a time for talking."
"Dear, there are things one _can't_ talk about, because one doesn't know what to say, even to oneself."
"I know! I know it!" replied Helen, with emphasis.
And she came still nearer, with hand held out.
"All nerves, Irene! Neuralgia of--of the common sense, my dear!"
They parted with a laugh and a quick clasp of hands.
CHAPTER XXXVII
For half an hour Irene sat idle. She was waiting, and could do nothing but wait. Then the uncertainty as to how long this suspense might hold her grew insufferable; she was afraid too, of seeing Helen again, and having to talk, when talk would be misery. A thought grew out of her unrest--a thought clear-shining amid the tumult of turbid emotions. She would go forth to meet him. He should see that she came with that purpose--that she put away all trivialities of prescription and of pride. If he were worthy, only the more would he esteem her. If she deluded herself--it lay in the course of Fate.
His way up from Redmire was by the road along which she had driven on the evening of her arrival, the road that dipped into a wooded glen, where a stream tumbled amid rocks and boulders, over smooth-worn slabs and shining pebbles, from the moor down to the river of the dale. He might not come this way. She hoped--she trusted Destiny.
She stood by the crossing of the beck. The flood of yesterday had fallen; the water was again shallow at this spot, but nearly all the stepping-stones had been swept away. For help at such times, a crazy little wooden bridge spanned the current a few yards above. Irene brushed through the long grass and the bracken, mounted on to the bridge, and, leaning over the old bough which formed a rail, let the voice of the beck soothe her impatience.
Here one might linger for hours, in perfect solitude; very rarely in the day was this happy stillness broken by a footfall, a voice,