Louis got up the next morning with an idea in his head. He had dressed
for a journey, and breakfasted hastily.
Before he had started Viviette came downstairs. Louis, who was now
greatly disturbed about her, went up to his sister and took her hand.
'Aux grands maux les grands remedes,' he said, gravely. 'I have a plan.' 'I have a dozen!' said she.
'You have?' 'Yes. But what are they worth? And yet there must--there _must_ be a
way!' 'Viviette,' said Louis, 'promise that you will wait till I come home to-
night, before you do anything.' Her distracted eyes showed slight comprehension of his request as she said 'Yes.' An hour after that time Louis entered the train at Warborne, and was
speedily crossing a country of ragged woodland, which, though intruded on
by the plough at places, remained largely intact from prehistoric times,
and still abounded with yews of gigantic growth and oaks tufted with
mistletoe. It was the route to Melchester.
On setting foot in that city he took the cathedral spire as his guide,
the place being strange to him; and went on till he reached the archway
dividing Melchester sacred from Melchester secular. Thence he threaded
his course into the precincts of the damp and venerable Close, level as a
bowling-green, and beloved of rooks, who from their elm perches on high
threatened any unwary gazer with the mishap of Tobit. At the corner of
this reposeful spot stood the episcopal palace.
Louis entered the gates, rang the bell, and looked around. Here the
trees and rooks seemed older, if possible, than those in the Close behind
him. Everything was dignified, and he felt himself like Punchinello in
the king's chambers. Verily in the present case Glanville was not a man
to stick at trifles any more than his illustrious prototype; and on the
servant bringing a message that his lordship would see him at once, Louis
marched boldly in.
Through an old dark corridor, roofed with old dark beams, the servant led
the way to the heavily-moulded door of the Bishop's room. Dr.
Helmsdale was there, and welcomed Louis with considerable stateliness. But his
condescension was tempered with a curious anxiety, and even with
nervousness.
He asked in pointed tones after the health of Lady Constantine; if Louis
had brought an answer to the letter he had addressed to her a day or two
earlier; and if the contents of the letter, or of the previous one, were
known to him.
'I have brought no answer from her,' said Louis. 'But the contents of
your letter have been made known to me.' Since entering the building Louis had more than once felt some hesitation, and it might now, with a favouring manner from his
entertainer, have operated to deter him from going further with his
intention. But the Bishop had personal weaknesses that were fatal to
sympathy for more than a moment.
'Then I may speak in confidence to you as her nearest relative,' said the
prelate, 'and explain that I am now in a position with regard to Lady
Constantine which, in view of the important office I hold, I should not
have cared to place myself in unless I had felt quite sure of not being
refused by her. And hence it is a great grief, and some mortification to
me, that I was refused--owing, of course, to the fact that I unwittingly
risked making my proposal at the very moment when she was under the
influence of those strange tidings, and therefore not herself, and
scarcely able to judge what was best for her.' The Bishop's words disclosed a mind whose sensitive fear of danger to its own dignity hindered it from criticism elsewhere. Things might have been worse for Louis's Puck-like idea of mis-mating his Hermia with this
Demetrius.
Throwing a strong colour of earnestness into his mien he replied:
'Bishop, Viviette is my only sister; I am her only brother and friend.
I am alarmed for her health and state of mind. Hence I have come to
consult you on this very matter that you have broached. I come
absolutely without her knowledge, and I hope unconventionality may be
excused in me on the score of my anxiety for her.' 'Certainly. I trust that the prospect opened up by my proposal, combined with this other news, has not proved too much for her?' 'My sister is distracted and distressed, Bishop Helmsdale. She wants
comfort.' 'Not distressed by my letter?' said the Bishop, turning red. 'Has it
lowered me in her estimation?' 'On the contrary; while your disinterested offer was uppermost in her
mind she was a different woman. It is this other matter that oppresses
her. The result upon her of the recent discovery with regard to the late
Sir Blount Constantine is peculiar. To say that he ill-used her in his
lifetime is to understate a truth. He has been dead now a considerable
period; but this revival of his memory operates as a sort of terror upon
her. Images of the manner of Sir Blount's death are with her night and
day, intensified by a hideous picture of the supposed scene, which was
cruelly sent her. She dreads being alone. Nothing will restore my poor
Viviette to her former cheerfulness but a distraction--a hope--a new
prospect.' 'That is precisely what acceptance of my offer would afford.' 'Precisely,' said Louis, with great respect. 'But how to get her to avail herself of it, after once refusing you, is the difficulty, and my
earnest problem.' 'Then we are quite at one.' 'We are. And it is to promote our wishes that I am come; since she will do nothing of herself.' 'Then you can give me no hope of a reply to my second communication?' 'None whatever--by letter,' said Louis. 'Her impression plainly is that
she cannot encourage your lordship. Yet, in the face of all this
reticence, the secret is that she loves you warmly.' 'Can you indeed assure me of that? Indeed, indeed!' said the good Bishop musingly. 'Then I must try to see her. I begin to feel--to feel
strongly--that a course which would seem premature and unbecoming in
other cases would be true and proper conduct in this. Her unhappy
dilemmas--her unwonted position--yes, yes--I see it all! I can afford to
have some little misconstruction put upon my motives. I will go and see
her immediately. Her past has been a cruel one; she wants sympathy; and
with Heaven's help I'll give it.' 'I think the remedy lies that way,' said Louis gently. 'Some words came
from her one night which seemed to show it. I was standing on the
terrace: I heard somebody sigh in the dark, and found that it was she.
I asked her what was the matter, and gently pressed her on this subject of
boldly and promptly contracting a new marriage as a means of dispersing
the horrors of the old. Her answer implied that she would have no
objection to do it, and to do it at once, provided she could remain
externally passive in the matter, that she would tacitly yield, in fact,
to pressure, but would not meet solicitation half-way. Now, Bishop
Helmsdale, you see what has prompted me. On the one hand is a dignitary
of high position and integrity, to say no more, who is anxious to save
her from the gloom of her situation; on the other is this sister, who
will not make known to you her willingness to be saved--partly from
apathy, partly from a fear that she may be thought forward in responding
favourably at so early a moment, partly also, perhaps, from a modest
sense that there would be some sacrifice on your part in allying yourself
with a woman of her secluded and sad experience.' 'O, there is no sacrifice! Quite otherwise. I care greatly for this alliance, Mr. Glanville. Your sister is very dear to me. Moreover, the
advantages her mind would derive from the enlarged field of activity that
the position of a bishop's wife would afford, are palpable. I am induced
to think that an early settlement of the question--an immediate coming to
the point--which might be called too early in the majority of cases,
would be a right and considerate tenderness here. My only dread is that
she should think an immediate following up of the subject premature.
And the risk of a rebuff a second time is one which, as you must perceive, it
would be highly unbecoming in me to run.' 'I think the risk would be small, if your lordship would approach her frankly. Write she will not, I am assured; and knowing that, and having
her interest at heart, I was induced to come to you and make this candid
statement in reply to your communication. Her late husband having been
virtually dead these four or five years, believed dead two years, and
actually dead nearly one, no reproach could attach to her if she were to
contract another union to-morrow.' 'I agree with you, Mr. Glanville,' said the Bishop warmly. 'I will think this over. Her motive in not replying I can quite understand: your
motive in coming I can also understand and appreciate in a brother. If I
feel convinced that it would be a seemly and expedient thing I will come
to Welland to-morrow.' The point to which Louis had brought the Bishop being so satisfactory, he
feared to endanger it by another word. He went away almost hurriedly,
and at once left the precincts of the cathedral, lest another encounter
with Dr. Helmsdale should lead the latter to take a new and slower view
of his duties as Viviette's suitor.
He reached Welland by dinner-time, and came upon Viviette in the same
pensive mood in which he had left her. It seemed she had hardly moved
since.
'Have you discovered Swithin St. Cleeve's address?' she said, without
looking up at him.
'No,' said Louis.
Then she broke out with indescribable anguish: 'But you asked me to wait
till this evening; and I have waited through the long day, in the belief
that your words meant something, and that you would bring good tidings!
And now I find your words meant nothing, and you have _not_ brought good
tidings!' Louis could not decide for a moment what to say to this. Should he
venture to give her thoughts a new course by a revelation of his design?
No: it would be better to prolong her despair yet another night, and
spring relief upon her suddenly, that she might jump at it and commit
herself without an interval for reflection on certain aspects of the
proceeding.
Nothing, accordingly, did he say; and conjecturing that she would be
hardly likely to take any desperate step that night, he left her to
herself.
His anxiety at this crisis continued to be great. Everything depended on
the result of the Bishop's self-communion. Would he or would he not come
the next day? Perhaps instead of his important presence there would
appear a letter postponing the visit indefinitely. If so, all would be
lost.
Louis's suspense kept him awake, and he was not alone in his
sleeplessness. Through the night he heard his sister walking up and
down, in a state which betokened that for every pang of grief she had
disclosed, twice as many had remained unspoken. He almost feared that
she might seek to end her existence by violence, so unreasonably sudden
were her moods; and he lay and longed for the day.
It was morning. She came down the same as usual, and asked if there had
arrived any telegram or letter; but there was neither. Louis avoided
her, knowing that nothing he could say just then would do her any good.
No communication had reached him from the Bishop, and that looked well.
By one ruse and another, as the day went on, he led her away from
contemplating the remote possibility of hearing from Swithin, and induced
her to look at the worst contingency as her probable fate. It seemed as
if she really made up her mind to this, for by the afternoon she was
apathetic, like a woman who neither hoped nor feared.
And then a fly drove up to the door.
Louis, who had been standing in the hall the greater part of that day,
glanced out through a private window, and went to Viviette. 'The Bishop
has called,' he said. 'Be ready to see him.' 'The Bishop of Melchester?' said Viviette, bewildered.
'Yes. I asked him to come. He comes for an answer to his letters.' 'An answer--to--his--letters?' she murmured.
'An immediate reply of yes or no.' Her face showed the workings of her mind. How entirely an answer of assent, at once acted on for better or for worse, would clear the spectre
from her path, there needed no tongue to tell. It would, moreover,
accomplish that end without involving the impoverishment of Swithin--the
inevitable result if she had adopted the legitimate road out of her
trouble. Hitherto there had seemed to her dismayed mind, unenlightened
as to any course save one of honesty, no possible achievement of _both_
her desires--the saving of Swithin and the saving of herself. But
behold, here was a way! A tempter had shown it to her. It involved a
great wrong, which to her had quite obscured its feasibility. But she
perceived now that it was indeed a way. Nature was forcing her hand at
this game; and to what will not nature compel her weaker victims, in
extremes?
Louis left her to think it out. When he reached the drawing-room Dr.
Helmsdale was standing there with the air of a man too good for his
destiny--which, to be just to him, was not far from the truth this time.
'Have you broken my message to her?' asked the Bishop sonorously.
'Not your message; your visit,' said Louis. 'I leave the rest in your
Lordship's hands. I have done all I can for her.' She was in her own small room to-day; and, feeling that it must be a bold stroke or none, he led the Bishop across the hall till he reached her
apartment and opened the door; but instead of following he shut it behind
his visitor.
Then Glanville passed an anxious time. He walked from the foot of the
staircase to the star of old swords and pikes on the wall; from these to
the stags' horns; thence down the corridor as far as the door, where he
could hear murmuring inside, but not its import. The longer they
remained closeted the more excited did he become. That she had not
peremptorily negatived the proposal at the outset was a strong sign of
its success. It showed that she had admitted argument; and the worthy
Bishop had a pleader on his side whom he knew little of. The very
weather seemed to favour Dr. Helmsdale in his suit. A blusterous wind
had blown up from the west, howling in the smokeless chimneys, and
suggesting to the feminine mind storms at sea, a tossing ocean, and the
hopeless inaccessibility of all astronomers and men on the other side of
the same.
The Bishop had entered Viviette's room at ten minutes past three. The
long hand of the hall clock lay level at forty-five minutes past when the
knob of the door moved, and he came out. Louis met him where the passage
joined the hall.
Dr. Helmsdale was decidedly in an emotional state, his face being
slightly flushed. Louis looked his anxious inquiry without speaking it.
'She accepts me,' said the Bishop in a low voice. 'And the wedding is to
be soon. Her long solitude and sufferings justify haste. What you said
was true. Sheer weariness and distraction have driven her to me. She
was quite passive at last, and agreed to anything I proposed--such is the
persuasive force of trained logical reasoning! A good and wise woman,
she perceived what a true shelter from sadness was offered in me, and was
not the one to despise Heaven's gift.'