Black Sheep

Chapter XVI

Belatedly following Selina’s advice, Abby retired to her bed-room to lie down. Contrary to her expectation, she fell asleep almost at once, and was still sleeping when James left the house.

When she awoke it was almost five o’clock, and the house was very quiet. She encountered Mrs Grimston on the landing, and learned from her that Miss Fanny was in the drawing-room, and seemingly none the worse for her drive; and that Miss Selina had gone up to rest as soon as Mr James had taken himself off. These words had a sinister ring, but as they were not followed by any mention of spasms or palpitations, and no distressing sounds could be heard emanating from Selina’s room, Abby hoped that they had been inspired merely by Mrs Grimston’s dislike of James. She went on down the stairs, and found Fanny with her head bent over the novel Lavinia had bestowed on her. She glanced up when Abby came into the room, and it struck Abby immediately that she was looking pale, and that her perfunctory smile was forced.

“Not tired, my darling?” she asked.

“No, thank you. No, not at all! I am reading the book Lavvy brought me: it is the most exciting story! I can’t put it down!”

But it did not seem to Abby, as she occupied herself with embroidery, and covertly observed her niece between the setting of her stitches, that the book was holding Fanny absorbed. She was using it as a shield. The suspicion that Lavinia’s indiscreet tongue had been at work crossed Abby’s mind. As she presently folded her work, she said: “Going to sit up for dinner, Fanny?”

“Oh!” Fanny gave a little start. “Oh, is it dinner-time already? Yes—I don’t know—Oh, yes! I’m not ill now!”

Abby smiled at her. “ Of course you’re not, but you have been out for the first time today, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Lavinia has chattered you into a headache! A dear girl, but such a little gabster!”

She was now sure that Lavinia had been tattling. Fanny’s chin came up, and her eyes were at once challenging and defensive. “Oh, I don’t regard her!” she said, with a pathetically un-convincing laugh. “She is always full of the marvellous, but—but very diverting, you know!”

Yes, thought Abby, Lavinia has poured the tale of Stacy’s perfidy into her ears, and although she does not quite believe it she is afraid it may be true.

Her impulse was to take Fanny in her arms, petting and comforting her as she had so often done in the past, but a new and deeper understanding made her hesitate.

“If you please, Miss Abby,” said Fardle ominously, from the doorway, “I should wish to have a word with you, if convenient!’

“Why, certainly!” Abby said, with a lightness she was far from feeling. She followed Fardle out of the room, and asked: “What is it?”

The eldest Miss Wendover’s devoted handmaid fixed her with an eye of doom, and delivered herself of a surprising statement “I feel it to be my duty to tell you, Miss Abby, that I don’t like the look of Miss Selina—not at all I don’t!”

“Oh!” said Abby weakly. “Is—is she feeling poorly? I will come up to her.”

“Yes, miss. I was never one to make a mountain out of a molehill, as the saying is,” stated Fardle inaccurately, “but it gave me quite a turn when I went to dress Miss Selina not ten minutes ago. It is not for me to say what knocked her up, Miss Abby, and I hope I know my duty better than to tell you that it’s my belief it was Mr James that burnt her to the socket. All I know is that no sooner had he left the house than she went up to her room, saying she was going to rest on her bed, which was only to be expected. But when I went up to her she wasn’t on her bed, nor hadn’t been, as you will see for yourself, miss. And hardly a word did she speak, except to say she wouldn’t be going down to dinner, and didn’t want a tray sent up to her. Which is not like her, Miss Abby, and can’t but make one fear that she’s going into a Decline.”

On this heartening suggestion, she ushered Abby into Selina’s room. Kindly but firmly shutting the door upon her, Abby looked across the room at her sister, who was seated motionless beside the fire, with a shawl huddled round her shoulders, and a look in her face which Abby had never seen there before.

“Selina! Dearest!” she said, going quickly forward, to drop on her knees, gathering Selina’s hands into her own. Selina’s eyes turned towards her in a stunned gaze which alarmed Abby far more than a flood of tears would have done. “I have been thinking,” she said. “Thinking, and thinking ... It was my fault. If I hadn’t invited her to our party she wouldn’t have written such things to Cornelia.”

“Nonsense, dearest!” Abby said, gently chafing her hands. “Now, you know you promised me you wouldn’t say another word about That Woman!”

She had hoped to have coaxed a smile out of Selina, but after staring at her uncomprehendingly Selina uttered: “It was because I was cross! That was why you said you would marry him, wasn’t it? But I didn’t mean it, Abby, I didn’t mean it!”

“Goose cap! I know you didn’t!”

Selina’s thin fingers closed round her own like claws. “James said—But I told him it was no such thing! He put you all on end, didn’t he? I guessed how it must have been. I told him. I said that there was no question of—I said you would never dream of marrying Mr Calverleigh. And you wouldn’t, would you, Abby?”

Meeting Selina’s strained, searching eyes, Abby hesitated, before saying: “My dear, why put yourself into such a taking? I thought you wished me to marry?”

“Not Mr Calverleigh! I never wished it, except for your sake, but I thought, if you married Mr Dunston—so kind—in every way so suitable—and everyone would have been pleased, and you wouldn’t have gone away from me, not quite away from me, because I might have seen you every day—”

“Selina, I shall never go quite away from you,” Abby said quietly. “This is the merest agitation of nerves! You have let James talk you into high fidgets. In spite of his top-boots, and his careless ways, you don’t dislike Mr Calverleigh. Why, it was you who first said how unjust it was to condemn him for the sins of his youth!”

“But I didn’t know that you meant to marry him,” said Selina simply.

“Well, nor did I, at that time. Come, my dear, there is no occasion for this despair!”

But by the time Selina, still clutching her hand, had enumerated the ills which would result from such a marriage there seemed to be every reason for despair. The list was a long one, and it ranged over a wide ground, which included the mortification which would be suffered by the family at the marriage of one of its members to a black sheep; the sneers of Mrs Ruscombe; the impossibility of Selina’s remaining in Bath, where she was so well known; the harm that would be done to Fanny, on the verge of her come-out; of Fanny’s unhappiness at being separated from her dearest aunt; of her own misery at being estranged from James, and Jane, and perhaps even Mary.

At this point, Abby was moved to expostulate: “But you wouldn’t be, stoopid!”

“James warned me. He left me in such anger! Because I told him that I should never give you up, whatever you did, which I never, never would! And he said that if I supported you I should cut myself off from the family—so dreadful, Abby!—so that I should do well to consider carefully before I made my choice, only there is no choice, so what a silly thing to say, and how could he suppose I would choose anyone but you, if there were? And as for not looking to see his face again, I said that if he was unkind to you he need not look to see my face, which is true, only I can’t bear to think of it, because we have always been so happy, and even if we don’t very often see the others they are our family!”

Abby was so much touched by this unexpected championship that tears started to her eyes. “Oh, my dearest! How brave of you—how loyal! Do you indeed love me so much?”

“But of course I do!” said Selina.

Abby kissed her. “Best of my sisters!” she said, mistily smiling. “But as for James—! How dared he talk to you like that? I wish very much that I had been present!”

“Oh, no Abby! It would have been much, much worse! And I couldn’t blame him. Not when he told me!”

“Told you what?” asked Abby sharply.

Selina turned her face away, shuddering. “ Celia ...!”

“So he told you that, did he? Of all the chuckleheaded dummies!” Abby exclaimed wrathfully.

“He felt himself obliged to tell me, and, or course, I quite see—because I thought it was just that Mr Calverleigh had been very wild when he was young, which is not what I could like,but still—! So he had to tell me the truth, and it has sunk me utterly, and I can’t help wishing that he hadn’t, for it would have been so much more comfortable, only very wrong, but I shouldn’t have known it was!”

“Put it out of your mind!” said Abby. “If it doesn’t concern me, it need not concern you! To be sure, it would be a little awkward if people knew of it, but they don’t, and, in any event, Celia wasn’t Rowland’s wife when it happened!”

Selina stared at her in horror. “Abby, you could not! A man who—Abby, think! No, no, promise me you won’t do it!” Tears began to roll down her cheeks. “Oh, Abby, don’t leave me! How could I live without you?”

“Hush, Selina! Nothing is decided yet. Don’t, I beg of you, fall into one of your—into a fuss! Come, let me put you into bed! You’re tired out. Fardle shall bring up your dinner to you, and—”

“Rabbit and onions!” uttered Selina, breaking into sobs of despair. “I couldn’t, I couldn’t!”

“Oh!” A wry smile twisted Abby’s lips. “No, I don’t think I could either.”

This was perhaps fortunate, for no opportunity was offered her to partake of this or any other dish. Selina’s sobs were the prelude to one of her dreaded fits of hysteria, and as this was accompanied by spasms and palpitations it was long before Abby could leave her. When Selina at last fell into an exhausted sleep, the only thing her equally exhausted sister wished for was her bed.

The morning brought confirmation of her suspicion that Lavinia had indeed been tattling. Mrs Grayshott came to Sydney Place to see Abby.

“For I could do no less than tell you, Abby, and beg your pardon! I have never been so vexed with Lavinia! And the worst of it is that she did it on purpose, and is not sorry for it! She told me what she had done the instant she came home yesterday knowing, of course, that I should be extremely displeased, but saying that she was Fanny’s friend, and that she knew she had been right to warn her.”

“Perhaps she was,” said Abby. “I don’t know. I don’t think Fanny quite believes it.”

“No, that also Lavinia told me. But Oliver thinks that even if she does not, the shock of discovering that it is true will have been lessened for the poor child. But it was not Lavinia’s business to have meddled! My dear, how tired you look!”

“I am a little tired,” owned Abby. “My sister is not quite well today, so ...”

She left the sentence unfinished, but she had said enough to send Mrs Grayshott back to Edgar Buildings in a state of such seething and impotent indignation that she informed her son, with unusual venom, that the sooner Miss Wendover’s numerous ailments carried her off the better it would be for Abby.

Hardly had she left Sydney Place than a sealed letter was delivered at the house. It was directed to Fanny, and brought to her in the drawing-room by Mitton. She took it with a shaking hand, made as if to tear it open, and then, with an inarticulate excuse, went out of the room.

She did not return. Abby, who had guessed that the missive must have been sent by Stacy Calverleigh, waited in growing disquiet for a full hour, and then went up to her room.

Fanny was seated by the window. She looked at Abby, but said nothing, and her face was so stony that Abby hesitated. Then she saw the helpless suffering in Fanny’s eyes, and went to her, not speaking, but folding her in her arms, and holding her close. Fanny did not resist, but for perhaps a minute she was as rigid as a statue Stroking the bright curls, Abby said huskily, as though to a much younger Fanny, who had tumbled down, and grazed her knees: “Never mind, my darling, never mind!”

She could have cursed herself for the inadequacy of these foolish words; but a quiver ran through Fanny, a rending sob broke from her, she turned in Abby’s arms, and clung to her, torn and shaken by the pent-up emotions of the past fortnight.

It was long before she could be calm again, but gradually the sobs dwindled into pathetic hiccups, and she lay limply in Abby’s embrace, her head on Abby’s shoulder, and her lashes wet on her cheeks. When Abby would have fetched some water for her to drink, she said brokenly: “Oh, no! This is so comfortable!” Presently she said: “You knew, didn’t you?”

“I knew, but I haven’t known how to tell you.”

“Lavinia told me. I wouldn’t believe her. But it was true. It was just my fortune, wasn’t it?”

“I am afraid so, darling.”

Another silence fell, before Fanny said: “I’ve been very stupid. Wicked, too. I meant to elope with him.”

“I don’t suppose you would have done so, however.”

Fanny sighed. “I don’t know. Sometimes I thought I couldn’t, but when I was with him—” Her voice failed, and it was a moment or two before she could speak again. “Then I was ill, and he didn’t come, or—or write to me, even when other people came to visit me. I tried to believe it was because he was afraid you might not let him see me, but I think I knew—Only I went on hoping, and when Lavinia told me about Mrs Clapham I felt at first that it couldn’t be true, and then I wasn’t quite sure, and then—and then the letter came.” A shudder ran through her. “Abby, it made me feel sick! Really sick!”

“He told you that he had changed his mind?”

“No. I—I think I could have borne that. People do fall out of love, don’t they? If he had told me that he had met someone he liked better than me—But he didn’t. I was only a silly school-girl before I was ill, but I’m grown-up now, and I shall never be taken-in again.”

Abby was not tempted to smile. She said: “I hope no one will ever try to take you in again, dearest.”

“No, for I don’t feel that I shall ever fall in love again. My uncle saw him yesterday, didn’t he? Abby, you didn’t send for him, did you?”

“I not only didn’t send for him, but I came to cuffs with him before he had been in the house above ten minutes.”

“I thought you could not have done so. Oh, Abby, I beg your pardon! I’ve been horridly cross and unkind, but I didn’t mean it! I love you more than anyone in the world!”

“Then I shall try my very hardest to forgive you!”

A watery chuckle greeted this sally. “I’m so glad I’ve got you still. For always, Abby!” She lifted Abby’s hand to her cheek, and cuddled it there. “I love Aunt Selina too, of course, but in a—dutiful way. I couldn’t bear to go on living here, if there was only my Aunt Selina.”

Abby heard this with mixed feelings. Though it warmed her heart it also caused it to sink. Miles Calverleigh’s image seemed to be drawing farther and farther away.

“I burned the letter,” Fanny said abruptly. “And the lock of hair. Do you think I might write to tell him so?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t do that! Far more dignified to pay no heed to him at all!”

“Y-yes, only—” Her breast heaved. “He says he shall keep mine to the day of his death, in memory of the only girl he ever truly loved! That was what made me feel sick!”

“I’m not surprised. It is making me feel sick too.”

“And he pretends that he is giving me up for my own sake, because he realizes, since he has talked to my uncle, that he has no hope of winning his consent, and it would be very wrong for us to be married without it, and he fears I should regret it, and—Abby, it was false, every word of it! I could not have believed that he could write me such stuff! And to think I was widgeon enough to be taken-in! Because he knew from the very start that my uncle wouldn’t consent, and he knew you wouldn’t either, and that was why he wanted me to elope with him!” She sat up, her eyes and cheeks aflame with indignation, and her hands clenched. “I hate him! I can’t think how I ever came to fall in love with him!”

Abby was happy to encourage her in this frame of mind. Fanny raged for several minutes, but the mood could not last. Suddenly she flung herself back into Abby’s arms in a fresh passion of grief, wailing: “What shall I do?Oh, Abby, I’m so unhappy! What shall I do?”

“Well, I think the best thing to do is to follow Dr Rowton’s advice,” replied Abby.

“Go away? Oh, no! I don’t want to go away! I can’t! I won’t!”

“To be sure, when he first told me that you ought to go to the sea-side, to set you up again, I own that I felt doubtful, for in my opinion there is nothing more melancholy than the sea-side in November. But when he suggested Exmouth I remembered how delighted the Trevisians were with the place—and they, you know, were there in December. They stayed at the Globe, and Lady Trevisian almost persuaded your aunt to go there, when she was so sadly out of frame last winter, for she said they had been as comfortable there as in their own home. The climate is excellent, too, and there are several charming walks, besides I know not how many interesting expeditions to be made. I have been wondering whether, if we decided to try how we liked it, Mrs Grayshott would spare Lavinia to us. Do you think she might?”

The bait failed. Fanny was vehement in her entreaties not to be taken away from Bath. “Everyone would think it was because I have been jilted!!”

“Well,” said Abby dryly, “when I consider that poor Mitton is worn out with plodding to the front-door to take in flowers, and fruit, and books from your army of admirers, my love, I think it very much more likely that you will be held to have been the jilt!”

She did not press the matter; but derived a certain amount of comfort from the belief that Fanny’s pride had received almost as severe a blow as her heart.

Fanny meant to be good, not to be cross, or to allow it to be seen that she was in great affliction, but although she tried very hard, every now and then, to appear cheerful, her spirits remained low and oppressed, and, like her eldest aunt, she could not forbear discussion of her trouble with Abby. Hoping that she might soon talk herself out of her despair, Abby listened patiently, diverting her mind whenever an opportunity presented itself but never withholding her sympathy.

Selina, on the other hand, made no attempt to appear cheerful but as she kept her bed for three days after her brother’s disastrous visit, and complained when she left it of a great many aches and ails, perhaps only Fardle and Mrs Grimston ascribed her rather lachrymose condition to anything other than one of the disorders which so frequently attacked her. She spent most of her time on the sofa, wincing at the slamming of a door in the distance, or the postman’s horn in the street; infuriating her excellent cook by thinking, in the morning, that she could fancy a particular dish, and by laboriously eating three mouthfuls of it when it made its appearance on the dinner-table; and trying by every means known to her to keep Abby by her side. “Let me enjoy your company while I still may!” she said, shedding tears.

Between her sister and her niece, Abby’s lot was not enviable, and might well have driven her to distraction had it not been eased by Mr Oliver Grayshott, who came nearly every day with Lavinia to visit Fanny, to divert her with parlour-games, if the weather was inclement, or, on fine days, to accompany her on her drives, or to take her for gentle walks in the Sydney Gardens. It was noticeable that she was always more cheerful after these visits, and if Abby grew to dread the two words: Oliver says,she had the comfort of knowing that Oliver’s sayings were distinguished by their good sense. It was a little galling to discover that Fanny would accept Oliver’s advice rather than hers—particularly when his advice tallied exactly with hers—but she suppressed such ignoble feelings. She wondered what would be the outcome of this close friendship. Fanny was not in love with Oliver. She continued to regard him as a brother, and almost certainly confided in him, and sought his guidance; but Abby could not help feeling that he was too quiet a man to appeal to her. Still, one never knew: perhaps, in a year or two’s time, her trust and liking would have grown into love. One knew of many cases of a lively woman’s finding happiness with a husband who was cast in a more sober mould than her own. There was no doubt that Oliver loved Fanny, though he treated her just as he treated Lavinia. It was only when he looked at her that he unconsciously betrayed himself. One could always tell, Abby thought, and instantly tried to decide when it was that she had first seen in Miles Calverleigh’s very different eyes just that inner glow.