# Littell's Living Age/Volume 129/Issue 1662/The Dilemma - Part XXIV

From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE DILEMMA.
CHAPTER LI. (continued.)
"These villas must be very pretty in the summer," observed Yorke, still disposed for the present to cover the ​position with commonplaces; "but I should not fancy them at this season. They look cold and damp."
"No one stays in them during the winter," said Lucy; "they all belong to London people, who merely come down for the summer months."
"That one seems to be inhabited," observed Yorke; "look at the smoke coming from the chimney." He pointed to the house nearest to them, standing in a little garden in the angle where the road left the river — a small, rather dilapidated cottage of wood. In the summer, and when covered with leafy creepers to hide the state of disrepair, it might have been attractive from its picturesque situation, but now it looked shabby and forlorn.
"That little cottage has been taken only lately," replied Lucy, "by an invalid lady."
"It does not seem a very good situation for an invalid; do you know her?"
"Papa and Mrs. Peevor have called on her, — we always call on everybody, you know, as soon as they come to his neighbourhood," she said, with a little jerk of the chin and pout of the lip, which Yorke thought very piquant, "although everybody does not always return our calls. But they did not see her. I daresay it would be too far for her to walk to "The Beeches" in return; but I am sure papa would send a carriage for her in a minute if he knew how to offer it without giving offence."
"Is the lady a widow?"
"No; I believe her husband is abroad somewhere, but we really know very little about her. She is a Mrs. Wood. These must be her children, I think;" and as Lucy spoke, a maid with two children, coming along the Coldbrook road past the inn while they had been looking up the river, was almost close to them. She was a common-looking girl, who might be a maid of all work. The children, although evidently of gentle-folk, were poorly and not very warmly clad. One, a little girl who might be between four and five years old, the maid led by the hand, the younger she carried in her arms.
As the little party passed by where Yorke and Lucy were standing, the child on foot turned to look at Minnie and Lottie, the servant meanwhile dragging her along.
Yorke stepped up to them, and the girl stopped and made a rough curtsy.
"You seem cold, my little maid," said Yorke to the child, taking her face kindly between his hands, "you must get indoors by the fire, and then you will soon be warm again."
The child looked up at him inquiringly, without replying, and then turned towards Minnie and Lottie, who had come up and were standing by. She had an oval face, and large, dark, melancholy, eyes, and only wanted colour to be very pretty.
She looked as if admiringly at the rich fur-trimmed jackets and gay worsted gaiters which Minnie and Lottie wore, in marked contrast to her own shabby clothes. There seemed no envy in her gaze, although perchance some vague perception may have aroused the child's mind that these fine clothes symbolized the difference in the lot of the happy wearers from that which had been cast for herself.
Minnie and Lottie, their hoops, in one hand, and holding the skirts of their elder sister's dress with the other, stood looking at the little stranger with the sort of mistrust that children are wont to evince towards other children at first sight.
Yorke, too, looked silently at the little pale sad face, which seemed to him to call up memories of some bygone scene, when and how he could not tell; perchance some dim-remembered dream.
Then the younger child in the nurse's arms began to whimper, and turning its face away as if frightened, hid it in the girl's shoulder; and the latter, with another awkward curtsy, stepped out towards the cottage, dragging the elder child after her.
"Poor little things!" said Lucy, as they passed on, "they must feel the cold terribly. Don't you wish you had brought some sugarplums, Lottie, to give to that poor little girl?"
"Me told too," said Lottie, "and me so tired — won't you tarry me, 'Oocie? "And, indeed, these little hot-house plants were already feeling the reaction from their unwonted exercise; and Lucy observing that her papa would scold them for having come so far, the party set out homewards, Yorke carrying Lottie on his shoulder, while Lucy led the other little one by the hand.
This arrangement was not favourable for pursuing the conversation into the interesting course it had taken before; and it was still hovering about the commonplace when the rumble of carriage-wheels was heard, and the landau drove up. Mrs. Peevor was inside, having come downstairs in time to take her usual drive, and the whole party were taken up and the horses turned towards home. And wrapped ​up in rugs, and sitting on Yorke's knee, with genial warmth diffused through the carriage by an ample hot-water cistern (a special arrangement designed by Johnson the engineer), little Lottie soon forgot her troubles.
"You must have been cold, indeed, my darlings," said their mamma, as they drew near home; "it is really not weather for children to be walking about in."
"Lucy was very cold too," said Minnie "Lucy was crying with cold."
"'Oocie was trying with told," interrupted Lottie, " and so Turnel 'Orke tissed her ——"
"Look at the pretty white frost on the trees, Lottie, dear," said Yorke, bumping his little charge up and down on his knee so that speech failed the child for further revelations. Her mamma, however, did not appear to notice the remark, nor Lucy's confusion; and the house being now reached, the latter at once ran up-stairs to her room.
Yorke inquired of the servant who opened the door where Mr. Peevor could be found. The die was cast; and Lucy's last glance as she hurried away half frightened, yet radiant with joy, rilled him with elation.
Mr. Peevor had not yet returned from his walk. But the man had in his hand a telegram just arrived for Yorke.
It was from his London agents. A Mrs. Polwheedle had just called to inquire his address, and wished most particularly to see him on very urgent business. She was staying at the —— Hotel.
Very urgent business! Here was an interruption indeed. Yorke looked at his watch. There was just time, by taking the carriage still at the door, to catch a train at the Hamwell station. If he waited for Mr. Peevor's return, and missed that, he must wait three hours for another, and would not be able to get back till quite late; so his resolution was taken at once, and declining Mrs. Peevor's proposal for luncheon first, and promising to be back for dinner if possible, he jumped into the carriage and drove off. Go he must under the circumstances, and the sooner he got away the sooner he should get back. Mrs. Polwheedle! He had almost forgotten her existence, but he remembered now having heard that she had left India. But what could she want with him? Perhaps she might want to see him for mere curiosity, or because she found herself bewildered on first coming home. Even if she were in trouble it would hardly be necessary to stay over the day in town. And his thoughts going back to the event of the morning, the recollection of the scene on the hill soon drove out from them Mrs. Polwheedle and her message, as he realized the fact that the irrevocable step was taken which must lead to a new path in life. For more had passed on that occasion than has here been told; the exchange of looks and glances, and all the sweet telegraphy of love which cannot be set down in words. And he divined, and truly, that not only had Lucy given him her heart, but that the gift had now been given for the first time. His part must now be to acquire the lover's enthusiasm in return, and indeed he found himself making rapid progress in that direction. If he could not get back by dinner-time, he would at any rate return soon afterwards, in time to speak to Mr. Peevor that very night, and seeing Lucy once again, to reassure himself of her feelings towards him.
In pleasant musings of this kind the short journey was soon accomplished, when, as he got out of the carriage at the terminus, he saw his old friend Maxwell stepping from another compartment higher up the platform.
Pressing forward through the crowd, he overtook him just as he was hailing a cab. Again there was the same mixture of reserve and confusion with cordiality which had marked Maxwell's manner at the last meeting. He had been down near Castleroyal, he said, to visit an old friend who was a great invalid. He must hurry away now, having an urgent appointment; would not Yorke come and dine with him at the Asiatic Club that evening? — no, not that evening, he was engaged, but the following — and have a talk over old times; and Yorke accepting the invitation, the other, again pleading hurry, drove off.
Then, as Yorke stood watching the receding cab, while mingled feelings of annoyance and surprise at this strange reception came uppermost, the truth suddenly flashed upon him. Maxwell's visits, the confusion at meeting him, — it was all plain now. The child whose face had moved him so strongly at the time was Olivia's child, and Olivia herself was the sick lady. The very name, too, assumed by the lady whose husband was abroad, ought to have furnished the clue. How dull of him not to have understood this sooner! It was Olivia who lived in the poor cottage by the river; Olivia deserted by her husband, living there alone with her children, ill and in want. And he had been all this time in England, and had ​even passed her door, and had brought her no succour! And as her old lover stood on the spot where he had parted from Maxwell, musing, amid the bustle of the busy station, over what had just happened, while each moment the feeling of certainty that he had guessed right grew stronger, all thought of present aims and hopes, and even of the cause for his journey, passed away, while his memory wandered back to old times, treading again once more the familiar scenes which it had so often trod before.
A train was on the point of starting for Castleroyal, and there was just time to get a ticket for Shoalbrook and take his place in it. He had no definite idea of what he would do, but at least he would go down and look again at the poor cottage by the river, and perhaps gain access to Olivia, with offers of service; at any rate the journey was necessary, if only to get rid of the restless eagerness that now possessed him.
He left the train at Shoalbrook, and by way at once of warming himself and calming down the excitement under which he laboured — not lessened by the reflection which overtook him on the journey that he had deserted Mrs. Polwheedle in her call for succour — he set out to walk the three miles or more up the river-bank which would bring him to the point he had visited in the morning. The weather by this time had changed with the true fickleness of an English climate; a dull afternoon had succeeded to the bright morning: the thaw which had set in had restored the surface of the ground to its ordinary winter state; the rising wind drove the mist in his face as he trudged along the miry path; and the short winter's day was coming to an end as he reached the spot where he had met Olivia's children. Changed was the scene now, and dull and drear the view which would look so bright and cheerful at the same hour on a summer's day. At his feet ran the river, swollen and rapid, the banks silent and deserted, and the only signs of life the light in the windows of the wayside inn which he had just passed. The cottage, from where he stood, was dark and silent, and seemed as if deserted. Irresolute he walked a little way past it, up the river-bank, asking himself what he should do next Suppose that Olivia, if still there, was too ill to see him? In any case, might not the shock of meeting him in this way do her harm? Or suppose that under the burden of her misfortunes she had come to regard him as an enemy, as no doubt her husband did, what good would come of his presenting himself thus unexpectedly? She might refuse to see him. And before the stern facts of the situation the indefinite hopes of a meeting which had brought him down from London melted away. He would have done better to wait and see Maxwell first, and learn how matters stood. Mrs. Polwheedle's message, too, was probably connected with Olivia. He should at any rate have waited to see her. Yet how wait when Olivia was in want and trouble? And all this time he had been spending his money on amusement, living a life of luxury and pleasure. And thus reproaching himself there came up a vision of "The Beeches" with all its profusion and waste, and for the moment it and its inmates seemed objects for contempt and almost aversion, while his heart was filled with deepest pity for his old love, the glorious creature he had once known radiant with youth and beauty, now living in this squalor, prematurely aged no doubt by care and sickness, the mother of these poor half-clothed children.
Turning in his irresolution, and walking back again past the cottage, still dark and silent, in the direction of the inn, he met a person, the first he had seen, coming towards him, evidently a resident in the neighbourhood from his leisurely pace; and under a sudden impulse Yorke turned towards him to inquire whether the occupants of the cottage had left it. But as he did so, the stranger, who wore a broad-brimmed hat and large cloak, turned away suddenly, declining his proposal so pointedly that Yorke desisted from his purpose, noticing, as the stranger hurried off to avoid him, that, although walking quickly, he was lame, and moved with evident difficulty.
"The gentleman takes me for a tramp, I suppose," thought Yorke; "and yet even in this light I hardly look like one, although in one sense he is right. But perhaps I shall get some information at the inn." And he continued his course in that direction.
Arrived in front of the inn he turned round to look at the cottage, from this point about a couple of hundred yards off. The outline of the roof could now scarcely be made out in the dim twilight; but while gazing at it a light suddenly appeared in an upper window. So, then, Olivia was still there. "That is her room, no doubt," he said to himself. "Poor soul! she has to be sparing of candles, I suppose;" and again there came up a vision of "The Beeches," and the brilliant illumination of ​which it was the scene every afternoon, when Johnson the engineer attended by a footman went round to light up the house. "Olivia must be keeping her room," he continued, soliloquizing, "so it would have been useless going to the house after all."
But no! while he stood watching the light, it suddenly disappeared from the upper window, and after a brief pause reappeared in a lower room. It had evidently been carried down-stairs. And Yorke, acting under a sudden impulse, hurried across the intervening space, and entering the little garden by the wicket-gate, went up to the door of the cottage and rang the bell
CHAPTER LII.
The summons was answered by the servant whom Yorke had seen with the children in the morning, who fulfilled apparently the double office of housemaid and nurse. He inquired whether Mrs. Wood was within.
The girl stood irresolute, as if not without suspicion of a visitor at such an hour. What name should she say? she asked, holding the door only half open.
"Say an old friend, say Colonel Yorke has called to inquire after Mrs. Wood."
As he spoke, Olivia, attracted by the sound of his voice and his name, appeared at the door of the sitting-room which opened on to the little hall. Seeing her he stepped inside diffidently, not knowing how she would receive him.
But Olivia came forward holding out both hands in greeting. In her solitude the sound of her faithful friend's voice came as a joyful surprise; and as she led the way into the parlour, there was a flush of pleasure on her face which had of late seldom been present there.
But Yorke did not notice this. The room, although lighter than the hall, was lit up only by a pair of candles and a fire which had got low, and he could not make out her face plainly. Still he could see that time had set its mark there. She looked much older than when they last met, but little more than four years before; and, always slight of figure, she was now thin and wasted. This much he had time to note, without looking too fixedly at her; and yet, he thought, no face had ever looked so sweet.
"You are surprised to see me?" he asked, as she motioned to him to be seated.
"I am very pleased to see you," she said, smiling greetings at him, and looking, he thought, more wan than before. "But how did you find me out?" And as she asked the question her face assumed an expression of anxiety and reserve. Perhaps she now began to regret that the secret of her disguise should be discovered.
"It was by a curious chance. I met Mackenzie Maxwell this afternoon."
"Ah! and he told you of my being here. Of course that would easily account for it." And Yorke could see that Olivia looked vexed, as if at the betrayal of her confidence.
"Is it always to be so?" thought Yorke, bitterly. "Are others always to be trusted in preference, and myself made of no account?" Then he added aloud, "No, Maxwell told me nothing. He kept your counsel well enough. But the fact is, as chance would have it, I am staying on a visit in this neighbourhood. Walking to the river this morning, close by, I saw — I saw your children, without knowing whose they were; but meeting Maxwell shortly afterwards in the train coming from this direction, the truth flashed upon me, and I came down to see if I could be of service."
Olivia said something about his great kindness, and that he always was very kind, but still maintaining the reserved manner in which she had now wrapped herself.
Yorke went on: "I should not have presumed to suppose that I could be of use, but that I also knew that you and the children were alone in England. The fact is, I saw your husband in Egypt. That was quite by chance too, and he did not see me; but need I say how truly glad I was to see him in harness again on congenial work? But that was last spring. I conclude he is still there? I hope you have good accounts from him?"
"Thank you," said Olivia, "he is very well: at least he was when last I heard. He has gone on an expedition into Upper Egypt just now, so that his letters do not come very regularly, but I believe the life agrees with him very well."
"And is there any prospect of your going out to join him there?"
"My husband has not said anything about my doing so, and it would be difficult to leave the children. It will probably be best that I should stay at home till he is able to join me here."
Olivia said this with an effort, her face as she did so seeming to grow still more sad and wan, and Yorke began to feel certain of what he had suspected from the first. She was not merely contending with ill health, and poverty shared with ​her husband; she was also a deserted wife.
Indignation struggled with the desire not to say anything that might offend against her sense of wifely dignity. After some hesitation he continued: "My desire to be of service arose from my seeing you here." Looking round the little room, the shabby furniture of which appeared the worse that it was very untidy and littered with toys — Olivia herself, still neatly though cheaply clad, the only comely object in it — he added, "This surely is not a fit place for you to be in. It must be a very damp house in winter, on the edge of the river, and a cold one too. I was sorry when I heard this morning that it was occupied by a lady in delicate health, little guessing who the lady was; but now ——"
"It is not a nice situation at this time of year, certainly. The children suffer — we all suffer who are in the house; but we came down for the autumn only, and stayed on for various reasons longer than was intended."
"I think I can understand; your husband being in such remote parts, there may be a difficulty about remittances coming punctually."
"Quite so," said Olivia, catching at the suggestion. "It was very embarrassing, of course; but in my difficulty I bethought me of Dr. Maxwell, such a very old friend of my poor father's, you know — and he put matters straight at once. His kindness has been perfectly invaluable to me in this temporary difficulty; indeed I don't know what I should have done but for his help." And at this point poor Olivia nearly broke down, and the tear stood in the dark eyes, which seemed larger and more lustrous than ever.
"Then are you not going to stay here much longer? "
"No; Dr. Maxwell is going to take lodgings for us on the south coast, where the air is milder; we move the day after to-morrow. I must summon up courage in the morning," she added, smiling faintly, "to undertake the labour of packing."
"But I suppose the small worries of life may not end with a change of residence. I don't want to put myself on a footing with Maxwell, but surely I may claim to be an old friend too. Time was, perhaps," he continued, with some hesitation, "when I could not have professed the same disinterested views, but all that, as you know, is past and gone. May I not now offer the hearty services of one who claims to be an old friend too, and nothing more?"
Having said this, his conscience misgave him for his heartlessness. Was this a time, when her state had fallen so low, to twit her with the loss of the spell by which she held him so long enchained?
And poor Olivia herself may have been woman enough to feel a passing pang on being reminded that she had no longer the same power of fascination over the once constant lover, for there was a slight tone of pique in her manner as she thanked him for putting the matter on so straight-forward a footing; but she added that there was really no need to make use of his most kind offers of service — for that Dr. Maxwell had got over all her difculties for her.
"But still there may be present wants," persisted Yorke; "surely when I have more money than I know what to do with at my bankers, the obligation would be quite nominal only if you made use of a small sum, till you were placed in funds yourself. The children, for instance, might surely have some warmer clothing with advantage."
"Poor little darlings," said their mother, "I am afraid they have felt the cold very much; but they will be better off to-morrow, I hope. The fact is, — I can hardly explain how it is — I never was a good hand at business matters, you know, — it appears there is some money due to me, which ought to have come before. Dr. Maxwell has put it all right now. And to-morrow the children's warm clothes will be here. But I am so very much obliged to you all the same. Pray do not think me ungrateful."
​Presently, while Olivia, still trying to hide her own troubles, was turning the conversation to Yorke himself and his doings, and inquiring, with a semblance of great interest about the Peevors, the fame of whose beautiful place had reached her, and expressing her regret at being unable to return their visit, the servant came in to say tea was ready, should she bring it in? looking, as she spoke, doubtfully towards the visitor, as if to suggest that it had better be deferred till his departure.
Olivia told her to bring it, adding to Yorke that she hoped he would stop and take tea; it was more than tea, she said, with a little laugh — it was the children's tea and her dinner in one: but something in her way of putting the invitation — whether arising from prudery or reserve, or a wish not to exhibit before him the humble nature of the meal, he could not tell — seemed to imply that she did not really wish him to stay, and reluctantly refusing the offer, he rose to go. How short and unsatisfactory and commonplace the visit had been!
The leave-taking was less cordial on Olivia's part than had been the first greeting. This time she held out only one hand, but she followed him to the outer door. She appeared indeed glad in her loneliness to have seen him, and at times it seemed as if she were acting a part, and the forced composure could not be sustained; but, on the whole, the desire to maintain reserve seemed uppermost.
Just as Yorke was opening the hall-door, Olivia standing by him, he bethought him of Mrs. Polwheedle's message, and turning round he said that he expected to see that lady the next day.
"Mrs. Polwheedle in England!" cried Olivia; "how I should like to see her! To meet an old friend like her again would be such a happiness. She was so kind to me when we were up in the hills together," continued Olivia, seeing that Yorke appeared surprised at her speaking thus warmly of the lady. "I do not know what I should have done, for I was very helpless and strange to the country, without her help. She quite took care of me in those days."
"Then may I tell her you are here? May I bring her down with me to-morrow, if she is able to come?"
Olivia hesitated for an instant. In her loneliness her face brightened at the prospect of seeing her old companion again. But then she shook her head sadly. "Major Yorke," she said, for by this title she knew him, "you see me living here under a false name; how can I dare to face my old friends while in such a state of degradation? No; you are all very kind — it has been a real pleasure to see you; perhaps some day," she continued, with a quivering lip, struggling to repress the emotion which almost broke her down, — "perhaps some day things will look brighter for my husband and myself, and we may be able to come out of of this concealment and disgrace. God knows! the way does not look very clear at present." Then she offered him her hand once more in token that he was dismissed, and having no further excuse for staying, he gave one earnest look at the sad eyes, and turning round left the house.
He walked through the little garden, and then letting himself out by the gate, stood musing awhile, thinking how unsatisfactory his visit had been — how unlike what he should have expected it to be, if he had thought about it beforehand. To meet after an absence of several years the woman who had been to him for so long more than all the world besides, to find her friendless and in distress, and yet to come away having done nothing to help her, and with nothing (except just at the last) said on either side which might not have passed between casual visiting acquaintances. "Must it always be so, that I am never to be able to help her in any way? And why is it." he also asked himself, "that while I am no longer in love with her, and would not marry her if she were free and wanted to have me, her voice thrills through me as that of no other woman has ever done or ever will do; and that sitting there, worn and faded, in that shabby little room, she still seems to me the noblest and most lovely of her sex? Am I under a spell, or is she really so far above all other women that none are worth gaining when she is lost?"
Thoughts of this sort passing through his mind, Yorke moved on towards the inn. But he had made only two or three steps when, raising his head, he noticed the figure of a man standing on the side of the pathway, leaning over the paling and looking into the garden.
Yorke stopped; his first thought was that the house was lonely and occupied by women, and a man watching it at that hour might mean no good. And he stepped up to the figure to see who it was. As he did so, the person turned away and moved off up the river; and although it was now quite dark, he could distinguish the large hat and lame gait of the gentleman ​gentleman he had seen before. Reassured on this point Yorke resumed his course to the inn, for he now stood in want of food, wondering that the gentleman should choose such a time for exercise.
The interior of the "River Belle," for such was the name of the wayside inn, looked cheerful by contrast with the gloomy evening outside. On the right side of the little hall or entrance passage was a parlour, the open door of which showed a fire to be burning inside; on the opposite side was a sort of public coffee-room, with the bar at one end, at the back of which a door opened into another room. Walking into the coffee-room, and ordering some refreshment to be got ready and served in the parlour, he was told that it was engaged, but that another private room could be provided if he wished it. He elected, however, to stay where he was; a cheerful fire burnt in the hearth, before which was a small round table, and the room was empty save for the hostess, sitting behind the bar engaged in needlework.
Yorke began talking with the landlady, when after giving orders from the back room about his dinner she returned to her station behind the bar. The River Belle seemed a snug little place, he remarked; he supposed they had plenty of visitors in the summer. Plenty, said the landlady; very often more than they could find room for: sometimes as many as a dozen gents would be taking their meals at a time in that very room, besides them that preferred to sit outside under the trees. But in the winter they had not much business? Not much, nothing to speak of; indeed they might as well shut up in winter if it wasn't for the look of the thing. But they had a visitor just now, had they not? Yes, the gent who occupies the parlour; he was out just now taking a bit of a walk, which he oughtn't to be, on such a night, for he was quite an invalid gentleman; seemed to have met with a dreadful railway accident or something of the sort, quite a cripple as one might say, and a terrible object to look at, poor man. "That's him," continued the woman, "speaking to my husband outside."
Yorke had started to his feet on hearing the sound of the voice. Many a time had he faced danger, battle, murder, and sudden death, but never before had the blood seemed to stand still within him as it did on hearing the accents of this voice. For a moment his limbs refused obedience, as he stood trembling with surprise and horror; then summoning strength, he passed out into the passage.
The stranger was standing in the doorway with his back to Yorke, speaking to some one under the porch outside, the landlord apparently, who was making some remarks about the weather.
Again that voice, so often heard before in years gone by, that voice so clear and stern in the day of battle, so sweet and gentle in friendly converse, that voice, once known as Yorke had known it, never again to be forgotten!
The stranger turned round, and moved along the little passage towards the parlour door, his head bent down. Then as he reached the door, he looked up for an instant, and his eye fell on Yorke standing transfixed close to him.
The stranger started, and put out a hand under his cloak as if to steady himself against the wall, as he did so raising his head and displaying for an instant, to the horror-stricken Yorke, a ghastly view of a sightless eye in the scarred socket, and a mutilated brow and face, which had lost all likeness to the original features. Then, as the vision turned, and the other side of it became presented to his view, there could be traced a resemblance to the well-remembered face.
"Falkland!" cried Yorke, making a step forward, and seizing the other by the arm. "Falkland! risen from the dead!"