Barry Pain

“ And now, my dear Bertha, you can curb your feverish imagination. I am not going to marry Wilmay. I am going to Paris to-night, which, as you will see in your calmer moments, is not the same thing."
"Can you take nothing seriously? Of course, I did not seriously suppose that you wanted to marry Wilmay, but her future's a very grave question, and I don't see why I should be laughed at because I am so anxious to do the best I possibly can for her." ”

“ I've been through ten London seasons without seeing anything like her."
"Ten London seasons, or even more—we're getting very old, Bertha, very, very old."
"You can be old, if you like," replied Bertha. "Age is no crime in a man. But I'm not old, and I won't be. Ah," she sighed, "if I could only be Wilmay for one season! ”

“ You have your own idea of a brilliant marriage, and I do not think your idea is Wilmay's, and I'm absolutely certain that it's not mine. Remind yourself that there are such things as unhappy duchesses."
"My dear Edward, I'm not a snob. I only say that one can't give up common sense altogether."
"At any rate, I am not going to have Wilmay forced into any marriage. She must be left free. For goodness' sake don't make plots and schemes for her."
"You're really rather crude, Edward. One does not force people nowadays. ”

“ But with Wilmay it is different. She knows nothing of men or of marriage; she is as innocent as a baby, and she is devoted to you. She might let herself be persuaded—in fact, I should think your advice would be much more dangerous than if you point-blank commanded her to marry the nearest duke. However, when the time comes I shall have something to say, you will remember. And in the mean time I'm not here to quarrel with you, but to say good-bye."
"I never quarrel," said Bertha, with her most charming smile. "Good-bye, Edward. Come to London occasionally, you know. ”

“ You are twenty-two years older than Wilmay—much too old. You are also much too poor; you have about a quarter of the money that Wilmay has. With her wonderful beauty she ought to make a brilliant marriage. Youth, wealth, high rank—she ought to have all of them, and you know it, and you have none of them. Besides, what would the world say? That you had taken advantage of your position as her guardian to serve your own interests rather than hers. And the world would be right. ”

“ It was less than a week before the day fixed for the marriage that I got a note from Wilmay in the afternoon:—
"Dear Edward,—We were to have dined with Lady Harston to-night, but Lady Harston has been the angel to have one of her neuralgic attacks (poor dear!) and put every one off. We have a night's peace. Bertha and you and I dine together here, and you play to us afterwards. You will, won't you? Not even Vincent will be here. We are quite alone, and we both want to see you. Do be good to your loving Bertha and Wilmay." ”

“ I had sent word that I was coming, and I found them both in the morning-room. Bertha looked very young and quite pretty, and greeted me with much sisterly effusiveness. Wilmay took my hand, and looked away from me, and said, "Edward, I am so glad—so glad that you have come back."
As we talked I watched Wilmay. The glimpse that I had had of her in the Park had been deceptive. Driving in the fresh wind must have brought the colour to her cheeks, and I suppose even if one is sad at heart one still laughs passably well in public if one's companion says an amusing thing. ”

“ She spent most of her time that day with Wilmay, and two days afterwards gave up the rest of the London season and took Wilmay away to the sea. Wilmay was quite willing to go; she had grown very fond of Bertha.
They spent the whole of that winter abroad together, and I was with them some part of the time. Youth is recuperative; one blow may take its strength and spirit and gladness for a time, but youth will have them all back. ”

“ Bertha went on, speaking rapidly in a low voice. "Everybody's talking of her. Stenling's in a great state of excitement. He goes about saying, 'Either I paint Miss Amory or I die.' But I mustn't wait here"—and before I could reply she passed on.
Wilmay gave me two dances. I danced the first with her, and we sat out the second.
"It's good of you, Wilmay," I said, "to take pity on the aged and infirm like this."
"Do you know, Edward," she said, "that you've always been the same age ever since I've known you. You've not changed in the least. You'll never be old." ”

“ He has never seen my daughter Wilmay since she was a baby, by the way, and Wilmay neither recollects him nor knows of his existence. She had better not be told about him. Should he turn up again—but he will not. As I say, I have the equivalent of his death certificate. But do not let me imply that Charles Forland had no good points. He blackmailed me for having married his sister, and he would do no kind of work, and later in life he seems to have become excessively intemperate. But he was a handsome man, a good talker, and occasionally a wit—a man by no means without charm. ”

“ Wilmay's woman, Mrs. Blayd, does that. I don't teach—I only stop other people from teaching until the right time comes. There are no regular lesson-hours for Wilmay—she begins work when she likes and stops when she likes."
"In fact she does everything she likes—has never learned self-control, or methodical habits, or regard for the feeling of others, and has been absolutely spoiled by a father who sits up of nights inventing theories to cover his own laziness, weakness, and eccentricity." ”

“ There are many children—boys especially—who won't learn anything if they can help it. But it's our own fault because we begin by ordering them about and saying, 'Obey me and learn this,' when if we could show them that the particular knowledge was to their pleasure and advantage, Nature herself would urge them to acquire it."
"I know you've broken horses. Have you educated children? or is this merely your habit of theorising?"
"I have more or less educated Wilmay. She could ride long before she could read. ”

“ I was glad when a minute or so later Bertha came back again. She looked troubled.
"What is the matter?" I asked. "What has happened?"
"Did you not see?"
"No."
"Wilmay began to cry, and got up. I went out with her, and I've left her upstairs. She told me to come down again."
"Is she still crying?"
"Yes; she is lying on her bed and sobbing violently. She does not seem able to tell me what's the matter with her. Indeed, she says that nothing's the matter."
"There must be some explanation."
"See is in a nervous, over-wrought state, and music always has a great effect upon her. ”

“ However, he did refer to it once, as we sat smoking in the library.
"Why don't you get married?" he asked me.
"That is what Bertha is always saying to me."
Bertha was my worldly sister, Mrs. Enterland, at that time thoroughly enjoying her second year of widowhood. "I can only tell you what I always tell Bertha—that, so far, I have never had the opportunity."
"You have no resolve against it?"
"Those that resolve against it incontinently marry the housemaid and drop out. No, I've no resolve. But I am thirty-two, and I have escaped so far, and I hope—humbly and with bated breath I hope." ”

“ Bertha looked at me with tears in her eyes.
"No," I said, "you need not blame yourself. I am glad you suggested it. Now we can do nothing—she is no longer a child, and she must make her own choice. But somehow I can't bring myself to think that this marriage is really going to take place."
It never did take place. On the morning before the day, I received a note from Bertha asking me to come round at once. I found Bertha looking white and ill, with a letter in her hands.
"Wilmay has gone," she said at once.
"Gone?"
"Yes; left London. Thank heaven, she has Mrs. Blayd with her! ”

“ I doubt if elementary lessons on the piano to a child of ten are ever an unmixed joy to anybody. But I had expected that they would be very much worse. Wilmay really loved music. As a reason for my existence, music seemed to do even better than chocolates, though probably those four boxes helped to solve the problem. ”

“ Amory would not permit any one to go and look for her. He told me she was free to go in and out as she liked, and that she was able to take care of herself. He said, too, that if inquiries were made about her, she would become the subject of a good deal of silly talk in the village, and neither he nor Wilmay would like that. She went in the morning, and it was after dinner when she returned. No one but Mr. Amory and myself knew of it, and neither of us said anything to her about it."
"Yes, yes, Mrs. Blayd," I said; "but the case is different now. The poor child is half mad with grief. ”

“ And women get old so quickly—it's very sad. Yes, of course I am young enough now. But"—she stretched out her hands—"I feel the nasty little slippery moments running through my fingers and laughing, and I can't hold them."
"Wilmay," I said, "this will not do at all. Your time is now. The night is yours—a night of triumph. You must be very happy." ”

“ During the next three years I saw Philip and Wilmay fairly frequently. Sometimes I went down to Ayshurst. Once or twice my married sister, Mrs. Enterland, had Philip and Wilmay to stay with her at her house in Mayfair. Bertha is a worldly little woman, with few ideals, and those mostly wrong, but before she began to be worldly she had a kind heart, and there are still traces of it left. I had talked to her about Philip and Wilmay, and she was eager to know them. I put it off as long as I could, because Bertha is the very opposite of Philip, and I thought the meeting would be a failure. ”

“ Carter and Mrs. Blayd had both been taken into my sister's service—Carter, of course, as butler, and Mrs. Blayd as maid to Wilmay, and housekeeper, occasional secretary, and several other things to my sister. She had no fixed position, and my sister said that she was a treasure.
I waited a few minutes in the drawing-room. It was the usual fashionable mixture of things ancient and modern, and just as much too full and too feminine as every other drawing-room in the district. Then Bertha entered looking mysterious and pleased, which she was, and much younger than thirty-five, which she was not. ”

“ He was not quite the suave hypocrite that I had expected; indeed, he showed one or two touches of cynicism that rather amused me. "However, I, his brother-in-law, received nothing; you, a stranger, benefited considerably."
"Did the solicitors tell you that?"
"Do solicitors ever tell you anything that you want to know? A man, however, does not make you the guardian of his child and——"
"There is no mystery about it. If you want to know, Philip left me his library and his cellar. I'm sorry it should annoy you." ”

“ You are the doctor?"
"I am Dr. Ingwold. You are just in time. He says that he cannot die until he has seen you."
"There is no hope?"
"None. There never has been. I have been here since the early morning, when it happened, but I can only make the pain rather less for him. You had better go in to him at once."
"Yes." I went towards the staircase. The doctor touched me on the shoulder.
"Not upstairs," he said. "He is in the study. It would have been cruelty to carry him any further than was necessary." ”

“ Ingwold, later in the same evening, I heard some details of the accident.
"It is the old story," said the doctor. "Your nervous, timid whip, who does not really understand horses, never comes to any harm. He takes no risks. It is the men who really can drive, who really can do a good deal with a horse, that always try to do just a little more, and have the accidents. In the early morning Philip had driven out with a horse that had already been a good deal of trouble to him. ”

“ When my man called me in the morning, he was a little surprised to be told that we should leave for Paris that night.
In the afternoon I went round to Bertha's house. Wilmay was out. Lady Harston was taking her to some picture-gallery. "Which," as Bertha remarked, "is all very well when you're very young. But, personally, I don't go to picture-galleries the afternoon after a dance."
Bertha looked at me up and down. "What's the matter with you? What have you been doing with yourself?" ”

“ Then it occurred to me that I might buy a present for Wilmay. It was characteristic that even now Philip had never mentioned whether Wilmay was a boy or a girl, but at ten years old the sexes have much in common. I passed at shop where they sold French chocolates, and bought enough to account satisfactorily for my existence to Wilmay—boy or girl. Children mostly like you to produce some such evidence that your life is not quite purposeless.
I found Philip waiting for me on the station platform at Sinden. ”

“ The struggle for life brings out as much brutality here as you'll find among the Apaches, but in different forms. But don't misunderstand me—I did not say no interference with nature at all. I said the least possible. In the case of the horse, the least possible means quite a good deal, though less than is generally supposed. In the case of the child in general, the least possible interference means but little interference. ”