The Comedy of Cecilia; or, an Honourable Man

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\_All Rights Reserved} OR. tAN HOUrLyOU^ABLe MA^ BY CAROLINE FOTHERGILL •%• LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. CECILIA WISHES PHILIP WAS DEAD .... 7 II. CECILIA RENEWS AN OLD FRIENDSHIP . . .21 III. IN WHICH CECILIA IS REPRIMANDED . . -39 IV. CONTAINS A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS . . . • SS V. CECILIA IS SHOWN HER TRUE POSITION . . .76 VI. IN WHICH A HANDSOME OFFER IS MADE AND ACCEPTED 92 VII. CECILIA THINKS SHE HAS REASON TO REJOICE . IOS VIII. CECILIA GAINS A NEW POINT OF VIEW . . .122 IX. IN WHICH CRAVEN LAUGHS I-J5 X. CECILIA MAKES HER 'PRONOUNCEMENT* . . .157

Chapter I Cecilia Wishes Philip Was Dead

' It is very well to talk in that way, but at the end of it all I never find myself any nearer than before to your real reason for putting me off; whatever it may be.' ' Is it possible that in the many times we have bored one another by talking about this, you have not already asked me that question, which seems in its way to go to the root of the matter ? ' ' I don't know what you mean by boring one another — I have never felt bored ; and I have asked you every time.' ' Then I must have answered you ; that seems clear, does it not ? So far, all is plain sailing.' ' I don't deny you have answered me in a way; but the more I think of your reasons afterwards, the more convinced I feel you have not yet given me the real one.' 'Then why should you suppose I'll give it you now ? ' she asked in a tone which, in spite of the gravity of her face, carried in it a suggestion that she was very much amused. 'Please, Cecilia,' controlling himself by an effort, ' be serious ; marriage is not a thing to be laughed at.' 'I believe,' she said, 'that it is usual for girls to cry on their wedding day.' 'That is for happiness, of course.' It pleases you to think so.' It pleases you to be perverse.' ' You only consider me perverse because I don't think with you.' 'Well,' a little angrily, 'why won't you think with me ? ' Her only answer was a shrug of the shoulders, and then she pulled up her horse and stretched out her hand for a bunch of crimson and brown autumn leaves in the hedge.

The man riding with her stopped at the same time, and watched her gather the leaves and tuck them into her coat. She said something about their beauty, and as he made no reply, she went on, with a carelessness which was well calculated to wound his feelings — ' Is not that lane on the right a short cut to the Hall?' ' Do you want me to go ? ' he asked, frowning in great annoyance at her manner. ' Unless you can be a pleasanter com panion,' she answered, with charming frankness. ' I came out after lunch, and took advantage of George being away to leave Thompson at home. Just when I am enjoying myself thoroughly, you come and attack me in this way.' 'You know that neither your brother nor I approve of your riding all over the country in this way, without a proper attendant.' 'My dear Philip,' she said a little impatiently, ' I have been obliged to make George's approval my rule of life ever since I can remember ; for Heaven's sake, don't preach to me when for once I am enjoying the having set it at defiance !

Have you nothing better to talk about than that, or else to revive an infinitely stale old question, which, as far as I am concerned, was settled long ago ? ' ' It is not stale to me ; and I shall not consider it settled until you have given me the answer I want.' ' I have given you my answer over and over again,' she answered, as if she were bored beyond endurance. ' I cannot allow so important a matter to be disposed of in that off-hand way. It is a family question ; our parents wished and hoped for it, we are old friends, and it is the only marriage to which George will give his approval. But the reason which is worth all the others put together is, that I love you and I am determined you shall be my wife.' ' Reasons and to spare, certainly,' she answered, frowning. ' Too many, in fact.

I am perfectly satisfied, and I have never reasoned about it.' ' That is because you are a woman, and therefore without logic and incapable of reason.' 'Yes,' with a sudden frank and radiant smile, ' we score there, at anyrate. We are not logical, and we can be convinced without reasons. How you must envy us!" She burst out laughing, and set her horse at a canter, but Philip did the same, and, being better mounted, he was at her side directly, asking with a smile — ' Are you trying to run away from me?' 'If I ever do that,' she answered, laughing again, ' you will not overtake me. At present all the advantages are on your side. I shall wait until we are more evenly matched.' ' But your reasons — your reasons, Cecilia? ' he urged impatiently. ' I have only feelings, 'There is no reason in feelings,' he said, half in triumph, half in vexation ; ' they are easily got rid of.' ' Don't be too sure of that,' she returned ; ' there is a wonderful obstinacy about feel ings.

I would not for the world offer you a plain, substantial reason ; I know you would shake the life out of it in half a minute. But my feelings have an illogical, unreasoning vitality ; they possess the secret of everlasting life. To you, no doubt, they are small, feeble, nothing, but to me they are a tower of strength, and I would not give them up for the world. You may argue with them until you drop down dead, and at the end of it all they are just as good as they were when you began.' 'You are talking indescribable nonsense,' he said indulgently. ' It has always been considered my strong point.' ' I look upon it as a weakness ; but I should like to hear them, and then I could reason them away.' ' You have already heard them a thousand times, and I have heard you " reason them away." It is not an amusing exercise, in my opinion.' ' My aim in life is not to be amusing.' 'Oh, Philip,' she cried, frowning again, and turning her head from side to side, as if she were trying in vain to escape from the wearisome buzzing of a persistent fly, ' how you worry me !

I wish you were dead ! ' His look of speechless amazement struck her as irresistibly comic, and her frown vanished in a burst of laughter. ' There is no use in looking so shocked,' she said, when she could speak. ' If we were married, you would have to take me as I am. I should say something of the kind every day, and I should commit suicide, or murder, or both, at the end of a week.' 'What made you say such an awful thing ? ' ' It was one of my feelings, — you asked for them just now.' 1 1 don't understand you to-day ; you don't seem yourself. Are you ill ? ' ' I am in rude health and spirits, and very much myself; perhaps rather more so than usual. Your powers of observation must be somewhat limited, if you have not by this time found out that I have a talent, which almost amounts to genius, for say ing unkind, awkward, and disagreeable things.

As my husband, you would of course be my favourite butt, my practising ground, on which I should keep my hand in for more casual victims ; and you would writhe under the scourge in secret, while in public you would pretend to enjoy it, to keep up appearances, for which I know you have a deep affection. It would be our chief bond of union, and people would think we were very devoted, and that we chose an original way of showing our affection. You know people can be made to believe anything one likes. From that point of view the experiment might be worth trying.' ' From any point of view for me ; but, my dear Cecilia, why do you talk in that way ? It's all rubbish. You persist in slandering and misrepresenting yourself ; and in spite of all your nonsense, I know your heart is with me, and you would be a charming and affectionate wife.

And that brings me to the point where we began. Why will you always play with me and put me off when I want to be serious ? ' ' Is it possible,' cried Cecilia, ' that we have only been going round in a circle all this time ? ' ' All your energy and high spirits,' he went on, 'will find their natural and complete satisfaction in marriage.' ' Perhaps you are right,' she said gravely, and his expression became more cheerful ; only to cloud over again as she went on, ' but marriage with whom ? ' ' Is it likely I should advise you to marry anyone but myself?' he asked, trying to curb his feelings. ' Why not ? ' she returned ; ' you don't know what might be the result.' And then she turned away her head and long and intently considered the distant landscape. In this way they rode for some little distance.

Philip's silence was eloquent. Cecilia knew as well what he was thinking as if words had been pouring from his lips. She knew that his eyes scarcely left the outline of her face, which was all he could see, and which, on that account, she kept turned in another direction. She knew the look which would be on his face — she had seen it a thousand times before ; she knew his every aspect by heart, and he had no attraction for her. She had long ago made up her mind that there is nothing so undesirable in life as an unperceiving lover. She was tired of it all, the monotony, the dulness, the want of interest. She wanted new things, and he offered her nothing but what she had just described as the infinitely stale old things to which she had been accustomed all her life. He asked her with deadly solemnity to embrace them for good and all, to live out her life in the midst of them.

She would rather never have been chosen at all, than be pursued by this monotonous, persistent love of a man she did not like. He would not give her up, he was infatuated ; which yet did not appear in the least to hinder his taking her brother's part against her on all the many points on which they were at variance. She knew he thought her dangerously eccentric, and strengthened himself with the belief that when she should be his wife, all her peculiarities would vanish, and she would become exactly what he would have her to be. His influence, his authority, were to be her law and guiding star, by means of which her personality was to be merged into his. He had told her all these things over and over again, and she knew that he was consoling himself with this thought, now, as well as if he had broken the silence by telling her in so many words.

Truly, he was a thorn in her flesh. So they rode on, Philip's eyes upon Cecilia's profile, hers looking straight forward to the misty autumn sky, until at last he began again — ' Since you are so well acquainted with my intentions, Cecilia, and know how inflexible I am when I have once made up my mind, you must see it is of no use playing with me any longer ; you had far better do what I want at once.' ' You have an odd way of recommending yourself to me,' she said, breaking into a laugh. ' Is it to the post of my husband or my gaoler you aspire ? ' ' I wish you would not talk such nonsense,' he said a little testily, for his patience was beginning to give way. ' Who said anything about gaolers ? I don't know what you mean.' ' Then how should I ? ' she answered. ' How much longer are you going to keep me in suspense ? ' ' If certainty is what you are in search of, you may have it this minute.' She pulled up at the gate of her brother's house, and while she waited for the lodge keeper to open it, she put out her hand, and said, 'Good-bye.' 'Once more, Cecilia,' he said in exaspera tion, ' when will you marry me ? ' ' When I cannot help myself,' she answered, and rode in at the gate.'

Chapter II Cecilia Renews An Old Friendship

As Cecilia dressed for dinner, she looked in the glass and smiled often. Her features were beautiful and gracious, her general aspect one of careless good-will to all and sundry. Though her face was generally grave, and sometimes mournful, there was something in the upward curl of the corner of her lip, in the expression of her eyes, of that commonest of all colours, a clear, greenish -grey, which stamped her as being possessed of the comic spirit. Even when she did not smile, when she seemed almost to bend under the weight of some despair ing thought, she gave the impression that in the strict seclusion of her own mind she was enjoying an exquisite joke at the expense of either herself or someone else, at which she laughed consumedly, though no sound issued from her lips. The circumstances of her life chafed her daily, hourly, every minute of consciousness.

She was an only daughter, and entirely dependent upon her only brother. Her mother had done the best she could for her, by the bequest of her own little fortune ; but the money had been carelessly invested, and had never come into Cecilia's possession. Her father, who had had but a mean opinion of the intelligence of women, had left her unprovided for until her marriage, when the sum of twenty thousand pounds was to be settled upon her ; but should she marry con trary to her brother's approval, the settle ment was forfeited. In the event of her electing to remain unmarried, she might always claim a home in his house. On those terms she lived and moved and had her being. Her brother was considerably older than herself,' and did not allow his affection for her to interfere with his respect for his father's memory.

Nothing was further from his mind than the wish to profit at her expense, to the extent of twenty thousand pounds ; and his strongest feeling with regard to her was that she should claim her settlement at an early date by her marriage with Philip Featherstone, his oldest friend and firmest ally in all matters social, political, and magisterial. On this question he and his sister were at odds. Philip had never pleased her, and she would none of him. Thinking over her circumstances, as she often did, she saw three courses open to her, with the drawbacks pertaining to each. She might become Philip's wife, but that would be more than distasteful. She might marry without her brother's approval, going to her husband empty-handed, unencumbered by any settlement except her love. But she had been carefully guarded, and did not love anyone.

She might decline marriage altogether, and live out her life in her brother's house : watching the years glide by, and perhaps, as she grew older, yielding to the importunities which now beset her, to take a district or a class in the Sunday school ; but that would be to commit suicide by inches. From time to time the possi bility of a fourth course floated dimly before her. To escape, and throw herself upon the world, to sink or swim, as fate or the amount of courage she might have should decide. At school she had been the show pupil, and a brilliant future had been pro phesied for her by those who did not know. She was talented all round, and had great gifts in music ; but she had not as much money in her pocket as would take her to London. Turn which way she would, there seemed no outlet ; and she smiled and hummed a tune as she left her bedroom and went downstairs, with the little tail of her grey gown turning and twisting on the carpet behind her.

In the drawing-room she found her brother and Philip Featherstone, whom he had met after she had left him. Philip had told how she had treated him, and George had said it was ' all rot, ' and had brought him back to dinner. There was also a third man, a guest, who had arrived while she had been dressing. He was an oldish man, a friend of her father, who had once been in the habit of spending much time with them. He had married a very beautiful woman, and the two having been wrapped up in one another, he had let many of his old friends drop ; and in the meantime her father had died. Two or three years before this, Mrs. Craven had lost her reason as the result of a terrible nervous shock, and since then Craven had wandered all over the world, trying to live down his loss. He had recently returned to England after her death, and seemed inclined to take up the threads of his former life, inviting himself to the Grange soon after he had landed.

He had a tall, rather stooping figure, hair as white as sorrow could make it, and a pale, scholarly face. He had not seen Cecilia since she was a school-girl, when they had been great friends ; and though he had not said so to anyone, it was his recollection of her which had brought him into the country at the end of October. It was partly because he had been ex pected that George had brought Philip back with him. None of the rather varied incidents of Craven's wandering and purely intellectual life had been fortunate enough to meet with his approval. He thought him a fool, and felt very uncertain how the visit would pass off. Even the few minutes in the drawing-room had sufficed to show him that they had not many interests in common. At dinner the conversation dragged a little, Cecilia saying nothing until Craven made a remark on the darkness of the village as he had driven through it on his way from the four-mile distant station. ' Was it not as dark as this when you used to come here before ? ' she asked. ' As far as I remember, it was,' he answered ; ' but that is a good many years ago.' ' And I suppose you had forgotten that Featherstone has the distinction of being the village whose people are spoken of in the book of Isaiah as those who sat in darkness.' ' But I always understood that they experienced a sudden change for the better.' ' That chapter was written in a moment of hopefulness ; we don't have anything sudden here, and the change is scarcely likely to come in our day.

It is believed that lights in the village would make the way to the public - houses more easy to find, and might tempt the people to be out after sunset, when all honest people ought to go to bed. We do, generally, you know.' He looked at her for a minute with curiosity, and wondered if she had a mission, he had heard of such things ; but on closer scrutiny he came to the conclusion that it was not so. Though her voice was grave and her expression serious, her gown was all that could be desired from every point of view ; her chestnut hair was most becomingly dressed, and her hands looked as if they had never been guilty of any useful action. It was impossible she could have a mission. ' My sister is rather inclined to exaggerate sometimes,' interposed George, before he could say anything, and expressing himself with what he considered extreme moderation. ' In what have I exaggerated ? ' she asked, her eyes meeting his almost solemnly. ' In speaking as if the very reasonable objections Philip and I have to lighting the village were ridiculous.' ' Not more ridiculous than other very reasonable things,' she answered in an appeasing tone. ' I did not wish to imply that ; but there always seems something ridiculous about anything very reasonable, and people too.

You proved that this afternoon, didn't you, Philip ? ' turning to him with a charmingly sympathetic smile. From the expression which crossed Mr. Featherstone's face when she addressed him, Craven at once came to the conclusion that there was more in her words than he, as an outsider, could understand. He began to feel interested, especially when Philip answered in a tone of evident annoyance — ' I did not know it ; I had not the slightest intention of doing so.' Although nothing would have annoyed him so much as to be considered a bookish man, a certain stilted and bookish way of speaking seemed natural to him, and was in rather amusing contrast with Cecilia's extremely simple manner, which just now bordered on carelessness. Craven found himself half smiling at both Featherstone's words and the answer she made.

Of course you did not know,' she said ; ' it was just your not knowing or intending which was at one and the same time the thing itself and the proof of it.' ' I think,' he said, with polite sarcasm, — for he had not forgotten she had told him in the afternoon she wished he was dead, nor could he forgive her for looking so radiant while he felt distinct and justifiable annoyance, — 'you are getting just a little beyond even your depth ; your last sentence was decidedly involved.' ' Evolved, developed ; involved, unde veloped,' she said. ' Would you like me to develop the sentence a little further ? ' She was smiling as she spoke, and Craven was charmed with the beauty and frankness of her smile. If she lacerated people's feelings, it was clearly from no evil motive. That she was lacerating Featherstone's feelings badly was evident from the expression on his handsome features, which did not appear to have been designed by nature to express anything at all.

That she might be doing it all on purpose did not at once occur to him. ' I will not trouble you,' he replied, with consideration. And then George came to the rescue of her victim by saying that a neighbouring land-owner, who had married an American, had been heard to say he intended to pull down a very old part of his house, and rebuild it, because his wife thought it unhealthy. Philip condemned him strongly. 'There is nothing,' he said, 'I hate more than the destructive spirit which is so much abroad, just now. Old buildings, time honoured landmarks, everything which makes the country in the least interesting, must go, if one of your modern faddists takes it into his head that the drainage is not quite up to date, or if it occurs to anyone that the ground occupied by a historic ruin might be more usefully employed in growing potatoes.

It is pure vandalism. I used to rejoice in the thought that we had so much in our county worth preserving ; now, it seems, we must change our point of view, and ask if things are worth destroying. Only in case they are not, are we to be allowed to keep them.' 'I have often thought,' said Cecilia, 'that you ought to have something of the kind done to the Hall. It is far too old for health. It has stood hundreds and hundreds of years ; it is the oldest house in the county. Whenever I go inside, a deadly chill seems to strike me as soon as I cross the threshold! Some of those old rooms are hideously damp and musty. I never go into them without secreting a little disinfecting powder about me. The air seems full of the breath of people who have been dead for generations and centuries ; it is like going into a crypt, and I hold my breath until I am out in the fresh air again.' ' I would not have one stone of it touched,' he said indignantly, and was going on to enumerate the deeds which had been done, and the kings who in old times had slept under its roof, when Cecilia interrupted him to say — 'The moral of all this, Philip, is, don't marry an American.' Before he had time to say any of the withering things which began, after a de cent space of time had passed, to occur to him, she went on — ' It is one of the clearest signs of mental and moral deterioration when people begin to cling to old things.

The Japanese, who make their houses of paper, are certainly the wisest. The trouble and worry and expense they are spared must add very much to the sweetness of their lives and their tempers. I have heard of paper clothing too ; that must be delightful ! — no washing bills, no pious frauds in the shape of trying to pass off a done-up garment as if it were new ; in fact, no done-up garments at all. How much less deceitful Japanese women must be than any others ! Always new things : no old clothes, no old houses, perhaps no old people either ; we should all die young. Perhaps the people are made of paper too. Above all, no old friends. Imagine it, Philip,' bending forward, and fixing her eyes upon his, — 'no old friends; nothing but heaps of waste paper ! ' Her lips said 'no old friends,' but her eyes said more ; and Craven found himself laughing for the first time for years.

What was at the bottom of all her nonsense ? he wondered; why did she always turn to Philip ? and why did he make no attempt to enter into the joke, if joke it were ? He sat perfectly upright, without the shadow of a smile on his face ; and first his colour rose with annoyance, and then he went white with still greater vexation. ' I don't know what you mean,' he said at last. ' I think you are mad.' ' Still mad ? ' she echoed in a tone of disappointment. ' You have thought me mad for so long, I hoped you were going to change.' ' I never change,' he said, with emphasis. ' That is unfortunate,' she answered, ' for yourself.' And soon afterwards she went into the drawing-room. Craven joined her as soon as he was released. He had found the time spent with the other men long. He was as com pletely outside their range of interests as if he came from another world.

The local matters they discussed were like questions on the constitution of a foreign state to him ; while the things which occupied his mind conveyed little, if any, meaning to theirs. He enjoyed Cecilia's society, and was glad when he could get back to her. He found her reading, and she closed her book and put it away when he came in. ' Have you fathomed the meaning of the name ? ' he asked, taking up One of Our Conquerors from where she had just laid it down. ' It is the book itself,' she answered. ' It conquered me at first ; but now I have got the better of it.' 'Ah,' he said, 'you are "one of our con querors." He is a great master,' he went on ; ' and he has written about women as no man has ever done before.' 'Yes,' she answered a little meditatively; ' nearly all his women are mistresses.' Tt was kind of you to give up reading when I came in,' he went on. ' I should very much enjoy talking to you ; we used to be friends, you know.' ' I have not forgotten.

George does not like me to read in any room where he is ; he thinks it looks unsociable.' ' Possibly he does not read much,' he remarked politely, and showing no feeling. 'No,' she answered, her face equally neutral ; ' he is one of those people who are "very fond of 'literature,' but can't stand books." ' He bit his lip to hide a smile, but only said — ■ ' Then he will not share your fondness for Meredith?' Just then, George asked her to play, and she at once went to the piano, whither Craven followed her. She played " Songs without Words," and some simple things by Heller, and one or two others. He listened to her for a little while, and then he asked — ' Which are your own favourite com posers ? ' Though she made no sign, she was very much pleased. His use of the word 'own,' though he had not emphasised it in the least, showed her that he had already grasped the case, and in return she paid him the com pliment of answering without any attempt to dissemble.