The Sorceress (complete). Oliphant Margaret
is no rest for me,” murmured the poor lady. “Oh, papa, papa, why didn’t you come and tell them yourself?”
These piteous tones went to Bee’s heart. They moved her half with contempt, half with compassion – with something of that high indignant toleration of weakness which is one kind of pity. If mamma could eat and drink at such a moment, why shouldn’t she be left to do it? The girl started up and left the room in the quick flashing impulse of her passion. She walked up and down in the corridor outside, her arms folded over her high-beating, tumultuous heart. Yes, no doubt she was going to be miserable, all her happiness was cut down and withered away, but in her present passionate impulse of resistance and gathering of all her forces to resist the catastrophe, which she did not understand, it could scarcely be said that she was wretched yet. What was it – what was it? she was saying to herself. It might still be something that would pass away, which would be overcome by the determined, impassioned stand against it, which Bee felt that it was in her to make. The thing that was worst of all, that stole away her courage, was that Aubrey had failed her. He should have been there by her side whatever happened. He ought not to have abandoned her. No doubt he thought it was more delicate, more honourable, more something or other; and that it was his duty to leave her to brave it alone. It must have been one of those high-flown notions of honour that men have. Honour! to leave a girl to fight for herself and him, alone – but, no doubt, that was what had seemed right in his eyes. Bee walked up and down in the half-lighted passage, sometimes almost pushing against someone going up or down, waiters or chambermaids or surprised guests, who looked after her when she had passed; but she did not take any notice of them, and she heard as she passed her mother’s door little sounds of tea-cups and dishes, and Moulsey’s voice saying “A little more,” and her mother’s faint replies. Poor mamma! After all, what ever it was, it could not be her affair as it was Bee’s. She would be unhappy about it, but not all unhappy. She had the others, who were all right. She had papa. It would not shatter her to pieces even if one of the children was to be shipwrecked. It was the shipwrecked one only who would be broken to pieces. For the first time in her life Bee felt the poignant sensation, the jealous pride, the high, desolate satisfaction of suffering. The others could all eat and do the ordinary things. She was elevated over all that, silent as on a Peak in Darien. She felt almost a kind of dreadful pleasure in the situation, smiling to herself at the sounds of her mother’s little meal. She could dine while Bee was miserable. They could all dine – Charlie (which was natural), Betty, even Aubrey. She had no doubt that he, too, must be seated, feeling as a man does that dinner must go on whatever happens, at the table downstairs.
After a while, which seemed a long time to Bee, Moulsey came out with the tray. She was startled, and exclaimed under her breath at the appearance of the girl walking up and down in the corridor: “I did think you would have had the sense to go and join the others, Miss Bee.” Bee was too much uplifted, too distant on her high pinnacle of martyrdom, to make any reply, but when Moulsey ventured to add a word of advice, to the effect that she must be careful of her mamma and not weary her with questions and she so tired and so weak, the girl flashed forth all her heart of indignation. “She has eaten her cutlet, it appears,” cried Bee. “I should think she may answer my questions.”
“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