第22章 BARBARA OF THE HOUSE OF GREBE(5)

'Sure,'tis mighty hard for you,poor Barbara,that the one little gift he had to justify your rash choice of him--his wonderful good looks--should be taken away like this,to leave 'ee no excuse at all for your conduct in the world's eyes ...Well,I wish you'd married t'other--that do I!'And the lady sighed.

'He'll soon get right again,'said her father soothingly.

Such remarks as the above were not often made;but they were frequent enough to cause Barbara an uneasy sense of self-stultification.She determined to hear them no longer;and the house at Yewsholt being ready and furnished,she withdrew thither with her maids,where for the first time she could feel mistress of a home that would be hers and her husband's exclusively,when he came.

After long weeks Willowes had recovered sufficiently to be able to write himself;and slowly and tenderly he enlightened her upon the full extent of his injuries.It was a mercy,he said,that he had not lost his sight entirely;but he was thankful to say that he still retained full vision in one eye,though the other was dark for ever.The sparing manner in which he meted out particulars of his condition told Barbara how appalling had been his experience.He was grateful for her assurance that nothing could change her;but feared she did not fully realize that he was so sadly disfigured as to make it doubtful if she would recognize him.However,in spite of all,his heart was as true to her as it ever had been.

Barbara saw from his anxiety how much lay behind.She replied that she submitted to the decrees of Fate,and would welcome him in any shape as soon as he could come.She told him of the pretty retreat in which she had taken up her abode,pending their joint occupation of it,and did not reveal how much she had sighed over the information that all his good looks were gone.Still less did she say that she felt a certain strangeness in awaiting him,the weeks they had lived together having been so short by comparison with the length of his absence.

Slowly drew on the time when Willowes found himself well enough to come home.He landed at Southampton,and posted thence towards Yewsholt.Barbara arranged to go out to meet him as far as Lornton Inn--the spot between the Forest and the Chase at which he had waited for night on the evening of their elopement.Thither she drove at the appointed hour in a little pony-chaise,presented her by her father on her birthday for her especial use in her new house;which vehicle she sent back on arriving at the inn,the plan agreed upon being that she should perform the return journey with her husband in his hired coach.

There was not much accommodation for a lady at this wayside tavern;but,as it was a fine evening in early summer,she did not mind--walking about outside,and straining her eyes along the highway for the expected one.But each cloud of dust that enlarged in the distance and drew near was found to disclose a conveyance other than his post-chaise.Barbara remained till the appointment was two hours passed,and then began to fear that owing to some adverse wind in the Channel he was not coming that night.

While waiting she was conscious of a curious trepidation that was not entirely solicitude,and did not amount to dread;her tense state of incertitude bordered both on disappointment and on relief.

She had lived six or seven weeks with an imperfectly educated yet handsome husband whom now she had not seen for seventeen months,and who was so changed physically by an accident that she was assured she would hardly know him.Can we wonder at her compound state of mind?

But her immediate difficulty was to get away from Lornton Inn,for her situation was becoming embarrassing.Like too many of Barbara's actions,this drive had been undertaken without much reflection.

Expecting to wait no more than a few minutes for her husband in his post-chaise,and to enter it with him,she had not hesitated to isolate herself by sending back her own little vehicle.She now found that,being so well known in this neighbourhood,her excursion to meet her long-absent husband was exciting great interest.She was conscious that more eyes were watching her from the inn-windows than met her own gaze.Barbara had decided to get home by hiring whatever kind of conveyance the tavern afforded,when,straining her eyes for the last time over the now darkening highway,she perceived yet another dust-cloud drawing near.She paused;a chariot ascended to the inn,and would have passed had not its occupant caught sight of her standing expectantly.The horses were checked on the instant.

'You here--and alone,my dear Mrs.Willowes?'said Lord Uplandtowers,whose carriage it was.

She explained what had brought her into this lonely situation;and,as he was going in the direction of her own home,she accepted his offer of a seat beside him.Their conversation was embarrassed and fragmentary at first;but when they had driven a mile or two she was surprised to find herself talking earnestly and warmly to him:her impulsiveness was in truth but the natural consequence of her late existence--a somewhat desolate one by reason of the strange marriage she had made;and there is no more indiscreet mood than that of a woman surprised into talk who has long been imposing upon herself a policy of reserve.Therefore her ingenuous heart rose with a bound into her throat when,in response to his leading questions,or rather hints,she allowed her troubles to leak out of her.Lord Uplandtowers took her quite to her own door,although he had driven three miles out of his way to do so;and in handing her down she heard from him a whisper of stern reproach:'It need not have been thus if you had listened to me!'