Anne Warwick

Chapter I

" 1" CANNOT understand you, Fred !" -"- Mrs. Osborne exclaimed. " You never seem to me to have common judg ment left when you talk about Anne Warwick. What in the world is anyone to pity her for ? She has played her cards as she meant to play them — and she has won her game." " She has tied herself for life to a cripple — if that is what you call winning her n game. VOL. II. B " Well, that is certainly what I call it. I don't suppose she cares much whether he is a cripple or not ; she cares about being mistress of Sutton, and that is what she has succeeded in making herself." " It is a pure accident that she is mistress of Sutton." " A pure accident ! Oh, Fred, how can you talk so like a simpleton? Do you really pretend not to see that she had her eyes open all through the business ? If he died, of course, as his widow, she was pro vided for : if he lived, she became — what she is now.

Her whole scheme is as plain as daylight. And as for blaming her — bless me, you are taking up the cudgels in her defence very unnecessarily. I think she has done an excessively clever thing. I don't mean to say that I should like to have done it myself, but really I can't help honestly admiring her. I think the way in which she went straight off to Sutton, and be sieged and conquered her knight in his own castle, was a perfect stroke of genius." And Mrs. Osborne, as she said this, delicately folded her hands together, and went into a soft ripple of laughter. But poor Frederick Hilton ground his teeth, and did not laugh. " Good heavens, how can you women say such things of one another ?" he burst out savagely. "It is you, and others like you, who put your miserable interpretations upon actions and motives that you can't understand, and try to drag everybody who stands above you down to your own level.

You have always hated her, because — she has been a nobler creature than any other woman that you know ; and now you think you are triumphing over her, and that everyone will say, as you were saying, that she has sold herself for money. But b you are wrong. There is Miss Carstairs. In many ways she was never worthy to hold a candle to Anne Warwick, but at least she comprehends her enough to be able to judge her as one woman ought to judge another." " Well, then, my dear indignant Fred, take Miss Carstairs's judgment of her, and welcome. I have not the slightest objection to you and Miss Carstairs becoming sentimental together over either Anne War wick's sins or sorrows. Not the slightest objection, but quite the reverse. There is nothing I should approve of more than that you should weep together over her, and wipe away one another's tears."

Mrs. Osborne said this still half laughing, and looking up with eyes full of amusement into his face , and he turned away with some thing muttered between his teeth that per haps was just as well not said aloud. " Of course you will come to us for Easter," his sister had written to Mr. Hilton a fortnight ago ; aDd accordingly he had come to King's Croft for Easter, which fell early this year. He had arrived yesterday, and this morning he had made some excuse to go up to the Hall, and see Lucy Car stairs — not because he cared about seeing Lucy Carstairs for her own sake, but because he knew that from her he could hear what he could hear from no one else about Anne's marriage. The news of that marriage had come upon him five weeks ago very like a thunderbolt, striking all his foolish hopes dead.

For, in spite of all reason, he had had a kind of obstinate hope that some day Anne Warwick might become his wife, — that some lucky chance might put it in his power to marry her ; and now the thing that he de sired had become impossible for him. Of course it was the sister who had first sent him tidings of what had happened. He had only stayed in King's Croft for a night after the accident, and then had gone on to London, and two or three days after wards Mrs. Osborne wrote — " We are all open-eyed and open-mouthed about the things that are going on at Sut ton. Mr. Faulkner, as you know already, is dying, and (you won't believe it, perhaps, but it is true) your disinterested Miss War wick has rushed oif to nurse him, and smooth his pillow, like one of the forlorn damsels who nursed wounded knights in the Middle Ages.

She has been with him for the last two days, and I suppose never leaves his side. Conceive the pathetic picture they must make ! We are all so deep ly moved that we talk of it holding our handkerchiefs to our eyes. But of course, in this censorious world, there are people who assign selfish motives for everything, and evil tongues are beginning to hint that Anne Warwick is a very clever and a very brazen woman. That may or may not be ; I don't pretend to judge. Only one thing is clear : either she must have gone to him because she cares for him, or because she hopes to get something out of him ; and, whichever of these suppositions may be the true one, I think, Fred (to say one word in earnest after a good many in jest), it ought to make you see that you will be mad if you go on thinking of her."

In reply to this letter — or, at least, to that portion of it which dealt with Miss Warwick, — Mr. Hilton had written only a few impatient words ; and then ten days afterwards there had come this second communication : "My dear Fred, " Do you read the first column in the Times ? I suppose you do — everybody does ; so, as you must learn the news sooner or later, let me break it to you. Do you guess what it is? Do you think it is that Mr. Faulkner is dead ? No — he is not dead; but something else has happened. Shall I tell it to you? He is not dead — but Anne Warwick is married to him. " Fred, I am really very sorry for you. Of course, as you know, I have always thought your liking for her very absurd ; but still that does not alter the fact that you have liked her, and so I am afraid this piece of news will trouble you for a time, even though in reality it ought not to trouble you ; for you ought rather to be thankful that you have escaped entangling yourself with a woman who was capable of acting in the indecent and unscrupulous and really shameless way that she has done ; be cause, plainly and frankly, Fred, that is the real truth of the case ; she has been entirely without shame ; she has carried her point in such a way that all the parish is ringing with the story.

You know, when I wrote to you last, I told you that she had gone to Sutton ; well, we all thought that taking that step was going pretty far, and of course everybody opened his eyes at it ; but just imagine the sensation that was created last night when, in the Maxwells' drawing-room after dinner (I was there myself and heard it), before a dozen people, Dr. Russell calmly announced that on Tuesday she had got Mr. Faulkner to marry her! We thought he was joking. I declare at first I no more believed him than I should have believed him if he had said she had married the Prince of Wales. He had to repeat it — solemnly, on his honour — before we could credit our ears. Actually, Fred, she had got a special licence, and arranged it all with Mr. Burton ; and on Tuesday morning, when he was hardly conscious, she had the ser vice performed.

And then (I don't think I ever heard anything so brazen) Mr. Morris was brought in, and he made his will. Can you believe it ? Can you believe that any woman could have had audacity enough to do such a thing ? Of course, you under stand, she thought on Tuesday that he was dying — everybody did, it seems ; and it was that that made her so desperate. And, after all, she was out in her reckoning. Just imagine it ! The very next day he began to get better ; he is really now, they say, likely to live. And so Miss Anne has made this exposure of herself for nothing ; for, don't you see, if she had only had the patience to wait, after having come round him by her devotion, and all the rest of it, of course she was sure to have been able to get him to marry her as soon as he was in a fit state of health to do it, and then people would have held their tongues ; but now — why, tell the story as you like, there is not a word to say for her.

I do honestly think it is the ugliest tale of the sort I have ever heard." And then Mrs. Osborne added a few more virtuous and indignant sentences, which, as Mr. Hilton never read them, perhaps neither need I copy here. Poor Frederick Hilton ! The blow hit him harder than you might have thought it would. There were hollows in his cheeks and a few crows' feet about his eyes when he came to King's Croft at Easter. Those five weeks since he had heard of Anne's marriage had been very bitter weeks to him. He had hardly known how he had passed them. He had felt as if the spring had gone out of his life — as if the sun had gone out of heaven for him. When his sister's invitation reached him to spend Easter at her house, he said at first that he would not accept it ; that to go back to the place where she was still living, and to hear her new name upon people's lips, would be more than he could bear; but presently his craving to hear something more about her pressed upon him with a force that he could not resist.

For, to do him justice, he had had too much generosity and loyalty in him to believe that the woman he had loved could have done what Mrs. Osborne had accused her of doing, and he longed to hear the story of her marriage from some other and kinder lips. " I will go to Lucy Carstairs, and she will tell it to me," he thought to himself. " She may not understand it all, perhaps, but at any rate she will talk of it without any poison on her tongue." So at length, when Easter drew near, it found Mr. Hilton eager to go to King's Croft ; and on the very first morning after his arrival there he made, or found, some plausible excuse for riding to the Hall. I am afraid Frederick Hilton knew well enough that Lucy Carstairs liked him. Perhaps he had seen too often how his presence or his words could bring the happy colour to her face for it to be possible for him to doubt that.

As he rode up to the house on this sunny March morning, and she, seeing him from the garden, came a little down the path to meet him, looking almost pretty in her shy and glad surprise — well, if the thought crossed him that he might easily win a new love to fill the place of the love that he had lost, he was not much to be blamed, I suppose. He had taken off his hat as he saw her, but she was the first to speak. " How kind of you to come this morning ! It was only last night — was it not — that you arrived ?" she said. She had put out her hand so eagerly that he had had to take it before he got off his horse ; the next moment he had dismounted, and they walked side by side up to the house. "Yes, I only came last night; but I wanted to see you. I thought you would forgive me for calling so soon," he said.

" Forgive you ! " she repeated, with a little unsteady laugh. Poor Lucy Carstairs ! She was not a self-possessed woman, you see ; she never had had the nerve, nor the self-confidence, nor the happy consciousness of power that had been the weapons (or some of them, at any rate) with which Anne had always won her bright, successful way. " Forgive you !" she said, with that humble, happy, tremulous laugh that Anne, I think, would almost have been tempted to box her ears for, if she had heard it; and then the colour went up into her face again. She said to him, after they had gone into the house, lifting her eyes to his with sud den anxiety — " I don't think you are looking well. You have not — you have not been ill, have your And then he did — the wisest thing that he could do, perhaps : he sat down and told her all about his love for Anne.

There are a good many women who, if a man they love should tell them of the love he has for some one else, would resent that confidence as if it were an insult, and find almost any misery easier to bear than the misery of hearing a rival's praises ; but not all women feel in that way. Some are grateful for trust where they can win nothing warmer ; and poor Lucy Carstairs, with her plain face and her dull life and her humble heart, felt grateful, with almost a passionate gratitude, when suddenly this morning Mr. Hilton sat down at her side and told her story to her. Of course she had known, or had sus pected, most of it already. She had loved her cousin, but she had known for many a day that her cousin was her rival ; it gave her no great pang to hear what she heard now for the first time from his lips, and it gave her an intense feeling of grateful hap piness to find that he could come to her for sympathy in his trouble, and that, having lost Anne, he could choose her as the friend to give him comfort for his loss.

I do not think that, if their places had been reversed, it would at all have suited Miss Warwick to play this part of sympathizing friend, and become the recipient of her lover's sighs after another love; but happily the voca tion os one woman differs largely from the vocation of another, and this thing that would have been impossible to Anne was sweet, with a curious sweetness, to Lucy. She had no feeling of resentment, because Mr. Hilton had preferred Anne to herself. To prefer Anne to her was only, she thought, like preferring the splendour of a Summer day to some dull day in "chill October." Who could form a comparison between them, or ever willingly choose her when Anne was near? But now if, when Anne was gone, some one who had lost Anne came to her, and, having no better friend, appealed for sympathy to her, and poured his troubles into her ear, might she not be glad and thank God ?

She sat and listened to his story with her heart upon her lips and in her eyes. " I knew you loved her. How could anyone VOL. II. c help loving her ?" she said. " It has always been so with everybody. Mr. Faulkner asked her to marry him before his accident, but she would not do it." "Is that true? Do you mean that she refused him ?" upon this he asked eagerly. " Oh yes, she refused him. She never would have consented to be his wife if she had not thought that he was dying. Do you know how it was ?" " I know, of course, that the marriage was hurried on because he was supposed to be dying." " Oh, but that is not the truth. That is only what people say." And then she told the story to him. " She never would have married him if she had known he would get better. When she found it out — when they had to tell it to her, I mean,— oh !

Mr. Hilton, you would have been sorry for her." " Is it possible that she did not know ?" he said. He started up from his seat ; he felt (perhaps in reality it all made no dif ference to him, but yet for the moment he felt) as if this were too hard a thing for him to bear. " Good God ! was she only got to marry him through a blunder ? And now she is bound to him for all her life !" " Yes ; is it not hard ? Is it not a terrible thing for her ? And people think she wanted it all the time ; and he is her husband now, and one can't say a word. How could one tell anybody that she is break ing her heart because she is married to him ? So proud as she is, think what she would feel if she knew we were saying that ! One has to sit still and be quiet, and — oh, I don't know what will be the end of it !"

" Do you mean, then, that she is not reconciled to it yet ?" There had been a little silence, and then c2 he abruptly asked this. " Reconciled to it ! I don't think she will ever be reconciled to it." " I daresay she will get to be very fond of him." This was said bitterly. " I wish I could think she would. Of course she never speaks to me of him now ; but you only need to see her." " I am not likely to see her." " Oh yes, you may. She comes here. You may meet her driving. Mr. Faulkner makes her go out every day." "He thinks she is worth taking so much trouble over as that, does he ?" " You should not speak so bitterly. He is very good to her." " Good to her !" " Indeed he is. Nobody could be kinder. It is not his fault, you know." " Not his fault that he forced her to marry him !" "Oh yes — of course that was his fault.

But all the doctors said he was dying ; no body had a doubt about it ; and he was so anxious to secure some provision for her. Do you not understand ? That was his rea son. He was not thinking about himself. He ought to have told her, I suppose. But then he knew she would never have married him if she had known the reason why he wanted her to do it. He was not acting selfishly, you see. I don't say he was right. I think it was too great a risk to run ; but at least he did it all out of love for her." " He had no right to take such a matter into his own hands, and make her act in the dark." " No, I suppose he had not." "And yet you excuse him — everybody will excuse him. And people will say — do you know the things they say of her f They say that she knew all along what she was doin?— that she has been meaning to marry him ever since her father died — that she went to Sutton, when he was ill, for the sole purpose of getting him to marry her on his death-bed."

" Oh, poor Anne !" "Poor Anne! Yes, you may well call her poor. And who is it who has made her so? Who is it — with his one obstinate crotchet — who has ruined her life for her ? What did she want with his money ? Did he think that he was the only man who cared for her ?" Mr. Hilton rose from his chair, and began in an agitated way to walk up and down the room. It was several minutes before he came again to where Lucy was still sitting, looking at him with pitying, anxious eyes. " I am very selfish to come and talk to you like this ; but — will you forgive me ?" he said abruptly, taking his seat again. "Do you think you need ask that?'' she answered softly. And then, after a moment's silence, " I love her better than any body else ; is it not natural for you to talk of her to me? And if you care for sympathy — if you will take sympathy from anyone " she said timidly. .

When we offer sympathy to people who are very dear to us, is there not often, at the bottom of all the pity with which we pity them, a lurking feeling of thanks ulness that they are suffering something which makes them need to come to us for comfort ? It is a selfish feeling ; but it is an almost inevit able feeling too. To-day, as Lucy Carstairs sat with Mr. Hilton and talked of Anne, in spite of all her love for Anne and all her sorrow for her — in spite of all her pity and all her pain for herself — do you think in her heart she was not thanking God ? — not that he was in trouble, but that in his trouble he had come to her. She was a humble hearted woman: she was the sort of woman who would be content to kneel at a man's feet if she loved him, and kiss the dust off his shoes. Frederick Hilton was a poor enough hero to win this kind of devotion from her or anyone ; but service and wor ship generally, I suppose, take little account of desert.

He said to her when they were parting, "I shall see you soon again." And then he wrung her hand, and looked at her, and — after he had mounted his horse — turned back and looked at her once more with grateful eyes. " I am glad I have talked to her. She is a good girl. She understands it all," he said to himself, as he rode away. Her sympathy had been soothing to him ; the pity and admiration and love in her eyes had all been soothing. " There is more tenderness in her than one would think. She is a good kind of woman to make a friend of," he thought.

Chapter II

"T\ON'T stay indoors through all the -*-' best part of the day, Anne," Mr. Faulkner said. "The sun won't be shining so brightly as it is now an hour after this." "Perhaps not; but it does not signify," she answered. " Why do you say it does not signify?" " I can go out though the sun does not shine. I don't care about soins; now. — Shall I read something?" — after a moment's silence. " You might read Gladstone's speech to me, if you would." She took the paper, and sat down, and began to read. She read for half an hour : then she paused, and looked up. " Are you tired ?" " No." " Can you bear the rest of it? There is another column." " Yes ; let me have the rest of it." And then she read on to the end. " There does not seem to have been any thing after that. The division took place almost immediately.

It must have been a very fine speech." "Yes — a great speech. One would like to have heard it." Then there was a pause, and after a minute she looked at her watch. " It is twelve o'clock. Do you think you could take some beef tea now ?" " If you like. Perhaps you would alter these pillows a little first." She went to his side and arranged his pillows. He was not in bed, but was lying on an invalid couch, which could be made at will to raise him into a sitting posture. There was also an invalid chair on wheels standing in one corner of the room, and a pair of crutches lay beside it. The room in which they were was one close to his bed-room, which had been fitted up as a sitting-room since his illness. She shook up his pillows, and smoothed the coverlet over his feet. Then she rang for his beef tea, and sat down by his side while he took it.

She was scrupulously attentive to him, watching him with a watch fulness almost as careful as if she loved him ; but yet, while she sat beside him and while she watched him, the calm, pale face never warmed into one look or brightness or regard. "That will do, dear," he said, after a few minutes. He handed the half emptied cup back to her. With a weary look he turned his head on the pillow, and gave a sigh. She carried away the tray, and put it down, and then, after a moment or two's hesitation,. came back to him. "I am afraid you are a little tired?" "Yes ; I am rather tired." " You let me read too long to you." "No, no, I liked your reading." " I think you ought to try and get a little sleep now." " I will lie still, dear, and leave you free." "I did not mean that." She said this quickly and half angrily.

" No, I know you did not mean it, but / meant it. Put the bell in reach of me, and go and do something that you like." She put the bell beside him ; she touched his pillows again ; she went to the fire and stirred it, and drew a curtain a little across one window where the sun was coming in too brightly ; but when she had done all this she did not leave the room ; she only moved to a chair that stood where he could not see it, and sat down, and let her hands drop idly on her lap. He had dismissed her, and for a few minutes she let the strain loosen ; she leant her head back and shut her eyes ; with a look of utter weary dejection she sat in her black gown, with her face turned to the sun. She was not thinking much as she sat there ; she was tired of thinking ; she only cared to rest, — to dream for a little while, — if she could, to forget.

There was a window open near her, and the soft Spring air came in, and played upon her, and kissed her hair; and the feeling of it soothed her, and gave her a faint sense of pleasure. " How sweet it must be at home — in the dear old garden," she thought once. She never either said or thought that it was sweet here too — that the sun was shining as brightly at Sutton as at the old, familiar Rectory — that the budding limes and elms in Sutton Park were lovelier than the trees at King's Croft. Her heart was there, and not in this place ; the beauty here seemed to have no power to touch her ; she turned her thoughts away from it ; she closed her eyes because she did not care to see it. She sat dreaming about old days when she had been a child — about a boat upon the river — about Spring days in the woods.

It seemed all to belong to another life — to a world all passed away. Could it be that only an hour's drive from where she was the primroses were blossoming in those woods now, and other children playing at the same river where she had played ? It was so, and yet it seemed all like a dream. After a good while there came a movement in the silent room. Her husband stirred and spoke to her. ■ "Anne, why do you not go?" he said. "I — was only sitting here." She had roused herself hurriedly. "Why do you disturb yourself? You were asleep," she said. "No, I was not asleep. You won't let me sleep." " Why do you say that ?" " You sit here as if this room were your prison. Why do you make it a prison? Why don't you go away ?" " I have nowhere that I want to go to." " You might go out. You might go to your cousin.