The Riddle of Lawrence Haviland. A novel

Front matter

THE RIDDLE OF LAWRENCE HAVILAND. a j-jo-ci. BY CONSTANCE SMITH, AUTHOR OF "THE REPENTANCE OF PAUL WENTWORTH." " Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner." IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, l_ublts")trs in ©rttnaro to ?B.r fHaj.stg tlj. ©item. 1890. (All rights reserved.) CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

BOOK V. JUDGMENT.

CHAPTER l'AGE I. " Mv Life upon her Faith!'' ... 3 II. Haviland is Inflexible ... 18 III. Happy ... ... ... ••• 39 IV. Resolved ... ... ... C2 V. Casting the Die ... ... ... 87 VI. Divided ... ... ... 124 VII. A Forlorn Hope ... ... ... 138 VIII. "At Long Last" ... ... 153

Chapter I

" MY LIFE UPON HER FAITH ! " "All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee : All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem : In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea : Breath and bloom, shade and shine — wonder, wealth, and — how far above them— Truth, that's brighter than gem, Trust, that's purer than pearl — Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe — all were for me In the kiss of one girl." R. Browning. Lawrence Haviland and Hilda Treherne were married before the holly berries of Christmastide had disappeared from the JUDGMENT. 4 London church where their wedding took place. From the very first Haviland set his face against what he called the useless formality of a long engagement, and Hilda submitted to him on this point, as on every other, with a childlike docility which astonished her sister-in-law.

"My dear girl!" Annie exclaimed in genuine dismay, when, one day early in December, Hilda calmly observed that, since it was Lawrence's wish their marriage should not be delayed beyond the end of January, she supposed — with delightful vagueness — that she ought to be "seeing about things." "My dearest girl! you don't mean to say you have consented to that ? " "Yes," Hilda replied, turning a little pale, " I have consented. You see " — with an effort — "he does not — it is impossible for either of us to feel or act as if our eng.aee ment really dated only from last week." " Less than two months ! How on earth do you propose to be ready ? " ejaculated Mrs. Treherne, in whose mind the length of time required for the preparation of bridal " MY LIFE UPON HER FAITH ! " 5 paraphernalia was still a fresh and vivid memory.

" I haven't thought much about that yet," Hilda admitted ; "but I felt sure you would help me there." " Of course I will go about with you and do all I can to be of use," Annie returned, in some glee at the prospect of playing, for the next few weeks, the part of experienced adviser to the sister-in-law three years her senior. "And I can give you some hints as to where to go, for I got all my things out from England. But I warn you that you are not allowing yourself nearly time enough. If you could put it off one month later, everything would be so much easier ! There are certain people — some of them the people in their own line — who simply wont be hurried with their work ; not for a princess " — emphatically. " Couldn't you make him understand how difficult it is ? " " No," Hilda answered, with a slight smile, " I am afraid I couldn't. I am quite sure I couldn't," she repeated with conviction.

" You are too little self-assertive, which is JUDGMENT. unwise, let me tell you," remarked Annie, with the air of one who knows. " How do you expect ever to be allowed your own way when you are married, if you show yourself so extremely submissive beforehand ? " Hilda coloured, and then laughed. With any one else she might have felt angry, but to be lectured by Annie was so excessively like receiving worldly-wise warnings from a small child, that she could only feel diverted. " I don't know that I am specially fond of my own way," she said lightly. " I dislike the burden of responsibility, the trouble of making choice. It is always rather a relief to me to have to do as I am told." " In a short time, if you go on as you are doing now, you will simply have no will of your own left," Mrs. Treherne rejoined solemnly.

" But, tell me, what does Atherley say to this ? " Hilda's colour deepened. " He has made no objection. He says he does not wish to interfere. I believe he considers that I have passed beyond his jurisdiction, and must be left to decide for myself." " MY LIFE UPON HER FAITH ! " 7 " So that is the position he has taken up," thought Annie to herself. " Signifying, I suppose, that in his heart he rather dislikes the match, but can't bring forward any good reason for objecting to it." Little Mrs. Treherne gauged the state of her brother-in-law's mind on the subject of his sister's marriage with perfect accuracy. He was not really reconciled to the idea of Hilda's marrying Haviland, although perhaps he could hardly have explained clearly why he disliked it. His dislike was the result partly of an uncomfortable consciousness that Haviland still remembered and resented that intended slight at the Orde-Lawristons* dinner-party — Meyrick hated having to be civil to people who were not on cordial terms with him — partly to a persistent determination on his own part to hold Haviland responsible for that appearance of his sister's at the recent trial which had caused him so much annoyance.

That Haviland's influence should have completely supplanted his own with Hilda, did not tend to heighten his good humour where either of the two was concerned. JUDGMENT. Wisely judging that any opposition he could offer would be worse than useless, he kept his distaste as far as possible to himself, and— barring one or two curt remarks touch ing the unpleasantness of having Ladoga for a family connection — gave no hint, in words at least, that he considered the alliance in any way undesirable. But Hilda, always sensitively alive to the slightest variation in his mood and manner, was conscious that he regarded her with suppressed disapproval, and the consciousness caused her a good deal of pain. Haviland, on his side, quickly perceived the tacit unfriendliness of Meyrick's attitude, and became the more anxious and the more determined to shorten the period Hilda had yet to pass under her brother's roof.

He saw that she had been acutely tried by all she had endured of trouble and suspense, and that she stood sorely in need of present sympathy and tenderness ; nothing else, he was convinced, would enable her to shake off entirely the lingering effects of what she had gone through during the past four months. From Meyrick she was clearly " MY LIFE UPON HER FAITH ! " 9 receiving neither of the things she needed most ; what wonder, then, if, at times, the apprehensions of the past seemed to return and weigh heavily on her spirits ? But once — thus Haviland argued with himself — once let him have her in his own keeping, surrounded by the atmosphere of his love and care, and he believed he should find no difficulty in finally banishing from her face the shadow it distressed him to see occasionally darkening it even now.

His determination achieved its object, as determination, if sufficiently earnest and obstinate, most commonly does ; and early on the morning of a very dark and wintry thirty-first of January, he made Hilda his wife, and took her away with him to Italy, until the house at Elmer — found, on closer inspection, to need a good deal of repair and renewal after standing so long tenantless — should be ready for them. In the manner as well as the time of his marriage, he had his own way absolutely, for Hilda shrank almost as much as he did from the notion of a fashionable wedding, and showed a JUDGMENT. cheerful readiness to dispense with bride's maids, bouquets, and other kindred pomps and vanities, which delighted his masculine soul. So Eliot — who had been obliging enough to discover that it was no longer a matter of importance to him whether Havi land remained his private secretary until Easter or not — was the only invited guest at a ceremony which Meyrick stigmatized as dreary, and even Annie admitted to have been, from a spectacular point of view, a trifle tame and tristc.

" However," she remarked in private to her husband afterwards, " Hilda's face made up for everything. It was a poem — better than the best one she has ever written yet. All this trouble and anxiety had told upon her looks a good deal, and I began to be afraid she would never be quite so pretty again. But to-day, for a few minutes, she was a great deal more than pretty. She was beautiful ! " "Oh, I dare say she'll come back looking quite her old self," Cecil returned. "All she wants is complete freedom from worry, and " MY LIFE UPON HER FAITH ! 11 a good spell of happiness, I fancy. And I think she is likely to get both now." Cecil's hopeful anticipations seemed in a fair way to be realized, for, as days and weeks went by, Haviland saw his wife's face slowly but surely regaining, under the renew ing touch of love and joy, all its former beauty.

The lost light came back to Hilda's eyes, the lost bloom to her cheeks ; her manner, too, lost the nervous restlessness that had affected it of late, and, growing first serene, finally regained its old animated brightness. Haviland had good reason to feel satisfied with the result of his experi ment. Hilda was indeed, at this time, intensely happy. The passing spasms of doubt and fear, the uprisings of remorseful scruples which, before her marriage, still continued to torment her intermittently, now ceased to trouble her any longer. Somewhere, in a remote and unvisited corner of her heart, there still existed, no doubt, a sense of un worthiness, a consciousness that, in strict justice, she had no right to this great happi- JUDGMENT. ness of hers ; but it lived on there, a silent and unacknowledged presence.

She thought so little about the past, except for the pur pose of contrasting it with the present, that any unwelcome memories connected with it virtually faded from her mind. She had entered into a tacit understanding with her self concerning them, to be fulfilled at some future date ; for the present, she allowed them to rest in obscurity. Meanwhile, every day that passed seemed to be giving her more complete hold over her husband's heart, and teaching her more and more plainly all that she was to him. So long had Haviland inured himself to self suppression, and so habitually was he accus tomed to say always less than he really felt, that not till after she became his wife, and then by little and little only, did Hilda realize to the full the passionate intensity of his love for her. Neither had she previously alto gether understood his nature; at least, on its softer side.

From the time when, as a mere boy, he had lost his mother, Haviland's capacity for tenderness had lain, so to speak, " MY LIFE UPON HER FAITH ! " 13 locked up in him, lost to life and use ; for, unselfishly affectionate as he had shown him self for years towards his sister, Kathleen, by her persistent levity and deliberate exclu sion of him from her confidence, had made actual tenderness on his side almost a matter of impossibility. But the capacity, if long inert, had never died ; and it revived now, in renewed strength, to expend itself upon one who, feeling its presence always about her, warm and radiant and vivifying as the Neapolitan sunshine in which the first few weeks of her new life were passed, was fain to lift up her heart a dozen times a day, and call herself blessed indeed. Perhaps this exquisite tenderness, this quickness of gentle sympathy where she was concerned, made all the deeper impression upon the young wife because of the contrast it offered to the mental attitude her husband seemed inclined to assume towards the world in general.

For Hilda very soon ascertained beyond a doubt that which, even in the first hour of their reunion she had suspected, namely, that the iron of all that Haviland JUDGMENT. had suffered during those terrible four months — the galling humiliations, the maddening sense of injustice, the cruel loss of faith in men who, calling themselves his friends, had turned their backs upon him without com punction as soon as the world began to look at him askance — had entered too deeply into his soul to leave room for hope that the wound it had created would be quickly healed. She, with her slighter, more im pulsive nature, and less tenacious memory, would have perhaps been ready, in the first flush of her happiness, to extend a hand of charitable forgiveness, even to those who had wronged Lawrence — so long as they seemed sincerely penitent for their past error, and professed a present desire to do him justice.

But not so Haviland. He could not forget ; and, while he remembered, he could not heartily forgive. It was im possible for him to regard either the world or human nature with eyes unchanged by the scathing ordeal to which he had been subjected by his fellows. This change in his manner of viewing men " MY LIFE UPON HER FAITH ! " 15 and things did not, as may easily be imagined, tend to soften Haviland's character. Even Hilda, whose love for him verged on idolatry, and who did everything, short of actually stultifying perceptions naturally very acute, to persuade herself that he was without a serious fault, could not fail to perceive, quite early in the days of their betrothal, that he had become in a measure embittered by his sufferings, and often showed a fatal tendency to say, with David in his haste, " All men are liars."

This consideration it was, more even than the promptings of fear, which had strengthened her in her resolution to keep silence for the present on the subject of her own offence — which seemed to argue that it was almost a duty not to add another crush ing disappointment to those he had already undergone. Just a week before their marriage — on a day when she had been once more seriously weighing the reasons for and against con fession — something occurred to confirm her in this unlucky opinion. She had been telling Haviland of a conversation Cecil reported JUDGMENT. to have taken place between himself and Major Orde-Lawriston, in which the latter had spoken in the strongest terms of the " immense sympathy abroad for Haviland," adding, "If he only knew it. I believe he's about the most popular man going for the moment ; " and, her tale having been received only with a slight smile, and a faintly con temptuous reference to the Melitans, she had ventured to plead that she felt sure Major Orde-Lawriston was himself sincere in what he said.

" I say nothing about his wife. But he, I am certain, has always been true to you." Then Haviland had responded, " Oh yes I Orde-Lawriston has always behaved very civilly to me. I dare say he suspected me in his heart all the time ; but, of course, I have no business to inquire too closely into the nature of his inner sentiments. In fact, I have arrived at the conclusion that, in all cases and under all circumstances, it is a mistake — if one wishes to preserve one's respect and liking for one's neighbour — to inquire into him closely at all. The really " MY LIFE UPON HER FAITH ! " 17 wise plan is to accept him for what he pro fesses himself to be, hoping earnestly that some untoward event may not unmask him in such a fashion that you can't pretend — even to him — to believe in him any longer."

" One must draw some distinction, I think; people are not all alike," she had ventured next. " Lawrence, you would not say — don't say you have ceased to believe in every one ! Whereon, with sudden passion, he had caught her hand in his. " No, I believe in you, with all my soul ! I keep that faith at least whole and undefiled, thank God ! and so I trust to keep it always. It has stood between me and utter hopelessness, utter hardness of heart, many a time already." Those words, while they smote her with terrible shame, yet sealed Hilda's lips as nothing else could have done. vol. III.

Chapter II Haviland Is Inflexible

" Jsab. Yet show some pity. Ang. I show it most of all when I show justice." Measure for Measure. It was the last day of August, and all about Elmer the shorn meadows and the ripening corn-fields lay basking in a glow of magnifi cent summer sunshine. The roads were white with dust, and the farm-horses crawled along them languidly ; the carters who led them seeminothemselves too warm and languid to do more than utter an occasional grunt of half-hearted encouragement, by way of spur to the tired brutes. On the top of the hill, up either side of which the straggling but not altogether unpicturesque village of Elmer St. Mary clambers painfully, appearing to hang on, so to speak, by its teeth and eyelids, at imminent risk of tumbling down into the valley below, the woods girdling the Hall and stretching away in a westerly direc tion towards the market-town of Kingsland lay perfectly motionless, not a leaf stirring in the drowsy afternoon heat ; the gravel walks of the Hall garden sent out a scorching radiation, and the very roses on the lawns were warm and limp to the touch.

The sunlight, on the western side of the house, was almost overpoweringly strong, and here Hilda Haviland, stepping from the dusky coolness of her low-ceiled, carefully shaded drawing-room into the blazing outside world, stood for a moment positively blinded by its glaring brilliance. Recovering her dazzled sight after a minute, she glanced round her and . half smiled, as if well pleased with the demesne she surveyed. It was, indeed, sufficiently pleasant to look upon. The grey stone house, with its generous mantle of ivy, Vir ginia creeper, and wistaria, its parapeted roof, and line of mullioned windows broken near the centre by a genuine oriel ; the wide, JUDCMENT. 20 trim lawn dotted over with flower-beds ; and, beyond this, a stretch of well-wooded park land, with a turf-carpeted avenue of huge beeches, at the far end of which the square tower of the little parish church stood framed in greenery, crossing it in a direct line — these things together made up a very bright and homelike picture.

Towards the north, a walk descended gradually to a short terrace shaded by a doubie row of great limes, from which one looked out over the plains of Loamshire (and of two or three other coun ties besides, for Elmer stood high) ; on the south, only a belt of shrubbery divided the entrance-drive from the Kingsland road. This proximity* of the house to the road was made an occasion of fault-finding with Elmer on the part of certain persons critically in clined by disposition, among whom was Mr. Meyrick. The mistress of that little king dom, however — who could never be brought to see any fault in it at all — was in the habit of averring that she found this alleged draw back a positive advantage. It was so very convenient when she wanted to go to the school, or elsewhere in the village; and it secured her a dry walk in winter — an im portant point, as she expected (and hoped) to spend all seasons of the year in her coun try home for some time to come.

It was plain that, at present, the very best and hap piest thing for Lawrence was to remain apart from the scenes and the persons that vividly recalled to him the events of the past year. At Elmer he had begun a new life ; and that he should gradually become absorbed in the new interests of that life, to the effacing of all recollection of those wrongs which (albeit he never spoke of them now) his wife knew to have left so enduring a mark upon his mind, was her most cherished desire. On the present occasion, Mrs. Haviland did not pause long in her contemplation of the view from the lawn ; it was much too hot to linger in the full sun. She unfurled her garden-umbrella, and sauntered down to the lime-walk — the airiest as well as the shadiest place at this hour of the day — and established herself comfortably on a bench in the coolest spot she could find there.

JUDGMENT. She had brought out a book with her, but to judge from the frequency with which she looked up from its pages, she must have found it dull reading. Neither did she be stow more than an occasional cursory glance on the landscape outspread at her feet — a plain of meadows, fields, and villages, with the modest beginnings of a great river flow ing through the midst of it, and the Blithe wold Hills flanking it on the north-east ; she appeared to be in a restless, expectant mood, unable to fix either her mind or eyes steadily on any object. Every unusual noise, how ever (especially if the sound seemed to pro ceed from the neighbourhood of the stable yard) had her immediate careful attention. As time passed, she began to fidget per ceptibly, and to look at her watch every now and then ; when an hour had gone by, she took to strolling up and down, holding her hat in her hand, and fanning herself with it.

It really was hotter than ever ! Failing, how ever, to calm her increasing impatience by this process, she returned with a sigh to her seat, pushing back her hair with the quick gesture that was always a sign of mental perturbation with her. She had but just sat down again, however, when the sound of a step below the terrace on her right suddenly sent the colour flying into her face, and a moment later Haviland appeared, swinging himself easily up the bank. " Why, how is this ? " she cried, rising to meet him. " This way — and walking ! I have been listening for the dog-cart for ever so long. Has anything happened to Eclipse ? " " She lost a shoe, exactly a mile out of Kingsland," Haviland responded, possessing himself of his wife's hand. " I sent her back with Price to the smith's, thinking I should probably get home quicker by walking than by waiting for her.

Of course, the accident detained me a few minutes, so that, even though I took the short cut, I felt sure you would be wondering at my non-appearance. However " — leaning towards her, with some thing of appeal in his eyes — " you see how it was, don't you ? " She smiled reassuringly, lifting her face to JUDGMENT. his. " Quite. But I am sorry you should have walked," she added after a moment, when they had both seated themselves on the bench where she had previously kept her solitary watch. " This broiling day, too ! " " Is it broiling ? I found it pleasantly warm, no more." Haviland did, in fact, look perfectly cool and comfortable in the light summer clothes which were so emi nently becoming to his dark face — not at all like a man who had just taken a four-mile walk over an open country, with the ther mometer at eighty-five in the shade.

" I know you never mind sun," Hilda returned. " Still, you will acknowledge that it is hardly an invigorating afternoon ! Don't you feel tired ? " " Not a bit in the world. It is you who are tired, I fancy. I suppose you have been working very hard ? " " On the contrary, I have written ten lines exactly — very poor ones, too — and no more ! ' Genius doesn't burn,' as Cis used to say when he came home from Eton, and couldn't do his holiday task ; I can't throw myself into my fictitious sorrows as I did once. Why is that, I wonder ? I am afraid I must be becoming terribly self-centred." " I don't see many signs of it. As far as personal experience goes, I should say you were only too inclined to merge your own rights, and claims, and wishes in those of an unworthy man who shall be nameless " " That," Hilda interrupted, colouring prettily, "proves nothing.

It is itself a sort of selfishness, which I happen to like better than; the other sort ; that is all. As to my writing, I believe I generally wrote best when I was most unhappy, so perhaps it is all this prosperity which is making me stupid." " I have a Philistine love of prosperity, I'm afraid," observed Haviland. "And, proud as I am of your creative powers, dear, I should prefer their decay to seeing them quickened by further trouble." Hilda laughed a little. " Neither am I sufficiently of an artist to wish to suffer for art's sake. I wish, though, you would be JUDGMENT. persuaded to look at what I have written, and see if it is worth anything or not." "No; I mean to hold doggedly to our agreement on that point. It is much better that you should work on uninfluenced by my opinion. For you to have me always at your elbow, interposing marginal comments and suggestions, would be the ruin of your originality of thought.

And if I once began to read, I should certainly begin to criticise — I shouldn't be able to help myself in the matter. I have been at the trade so long, you see, that habit, in this respect, has become second nature. I stipulate for an 'advance copy' of the poem when it comes out ; but till then I mean to possess my soul in determined patience regarding it." She put aside the subject submissively — ■ a trifle disappointed, perhaps, but not angry — and inquired what he had accomplished at Kingsland. " We are getting on very well. Smith, and Maynard, and Hurst have all come heartily into the scheme now, and at Michaelmas — when we can get rid of the present tenants — I hope we shall be able to begin demolishing the old houses in good earnest. Crazy dens that they are ! Not one of the men who own them would put his hounds to pass a night in such shelter, much less his horses."

" Well, it is a triumph for you," said Hilda, flushing and sparkling, "considering that only two tenements out of the whole number belong to you, and that you are a new-comer in the neighbourhood, with no special influence in Kingsland itself! Law rence, I didn't know you were such a diplo mat ! How did you achieve these wonders ? " " Chiefly by dint of worrying all the other owners of house property in Kingsland Parva nearly to death," returned Haviland, looking fondly into his wife's proud, tender eyes. " Hurst hates the very sight of me, I believe. I have been a nuisance to the poor old fellow, I admit. However, he voted for my election as vice-chairman of the building committee this afternoon, which I thought very generous on his part. Maynard is to be chairman." JUDGMENT. "Vice-chairman!

That is better still. It will give you a great deal to do, this com mittee work, will it not ? " " Not at present ; not till we begin fight ing over the plans for the new buildings. Then no doubt I shall have plenty to do. Let me see, what else have I to tell you ? I met no one in particular — except Mrs. Hildyard, who sent her love, and wished (reproachfully) to know when you were coming to see her again — and all I found at the post-office was a letter from Kathleen. Not a very cheering epistle — there's a note for you enclosed in it." " Is she coming ?" Hilda asked, while her husband searched his pockets for the note in question. " No ; she says in her letter to me that she has ' written to my wife to decline her kind invitation.' She is evidently in a very bitter mood. Here's the note."

It was a very short one. Hilda looked slightly blank when she had read it through. " Do you wish to see this ?" she inquired, pausing before she re-folded it. " I wish to be assured that she has been civil to you. If you can conscientiously assert that much I shall be satisfied." " She is quite civil — quite. Only — well, a little cold. It is no wonder," Hilda has tened to add quickly. " As you say, she feels embittered with all the world ; and why should she make any exception in my favour? I don't think she particularly liked me in the old days ; and we have not met for so many years now, that she probably regards me as a total stranger." " You would have met months ago, but for her fault," Haviland rejoined, looking decidedly gloomy. " That is quite true. I don't pretend that it has not been a disappointment to me, her refusing to come here, and showing so plainly that she didn't wish me to visit her.