“I am more thankful than I can say that it was not my imprudent tongue which parted you.”
An hour later, walking alone on the ramparts, she told herself that in all probability this desolate wife was only throwing dust in her eyes, and that Vansittart’s inconstancy had been clearly demonstrated in accordance with Sefton’s story. It would be only like a devoted wife to violate truth in order to vindicate her husband. Pride and love would alike urge Eve to deny her husband’s infidelity.
XXXI
“Oh Tell Her, Brief Is Life, but Love Is Long”
As soon as Eve was well enough to be moved she left the rock and went to finish the winter at Dinard. The doctor who attended her through her illness suggested the south of France, Cannes for instance, as the better climate for her; but she told him she had lost a sister at Cannes, and that all that lovely coast was associated with her loss.
“It is very beautiful,” she said; “but I shall never go there again. My sister was sent there because she was consumptive; but my case is altogether different. It would be absurd to go to the south just because I have had a touch of congestion, in consequence of an autumnal ramble.”
“It was a somewhat severe touch, madam,” said the doctor; “but perhaps Dinard may suit you very well. There are some people who say the climate is almost as good as Provence.”
Sophy went with her sister to Dinard, which she pronounced a considerable improvement upon Mont St. Michel, the medievalism of which picturesque settlement had in no wise reconciled her to existence in a place without people and without shops. At Dinard there were smart residents even in winter, and if Eve had not been obstinately bent upon isolation they might have known people, as Sophy murmured regretfully.
Not knowing people, she soon wearied of Dinard, which was only the sands and the sea over again, when one had exhausted the town and the quaintness of shops which were unlike English shops, and had explored St. Malo and St. Servan, and excursionized, chaperoned by Benson, as far as Dinan, where she was more impressed by the bad drainage than by the fine architecture.
Sophy began to talk of her home duties. Jenny’s letters had been most exasperating of late, and it was too evident she was interfering with Nancy, and making a mess of the housekeeping. Finally Sophy declared that things at Fernhurst could go on no longer without her. Jenny had been entertaining in a most reckless manner—people to luncheon, people to tea. “She will be giving dinner-parties next,” said Sophy. “Nancy is so weak about her, because she saved her life in the measles—as if it was any merit of Jenny to have had measles worse than any of us.”
Eve did not oppose her departure, being somewhat weary of that light talk which centred chiefly in self, one’s own experiences, sensations, hopes, disappointments.
“How I wish you would go back with me, Eve!” urged Sophy, with very real warmth. “Surely you would be happier at Fernhurst than here, and it would be like the old days for us to have you again. You would be one of us, the head of the family once more. You would forget that you had ever left home.”
“Ah, Sophy, if that were possible! If anyone could forget! They can’t, dear. They only harden their hearts and call it forgetting. Dear old Fernhurst! Yes, I should love to be there; to ramble over Blackdown again, and hear the wind whistling in the dark fir trees; to look over the weald far off to the faint streak of distant sea, just a line of light on the horizon and no more. But it can’t be, Sophy. Fernhurst is too near Redwold Towers, too near Mr. Sefton’s place, too near all the people I have done with.”
“Poor Eve, it is sad to hear you talk of yourself as if you had committed a crime. It was most trying when Mrs. Vansittart came over to see us, and questioned us so closely about you. Did we think this or that? Had we known of any unhappiness between you and Jack? Had we any idea why you parted? I felt it more than the others, for I thought I was at the bottom of it all with my foolish speech about your husband. But I held my tongue. The others declared they knew nothing, could not even surmise a reason for your conduct. They adored Jack, thought him simply perfect as a husband, and Eve the luckiest girl of their acquaintance. And then there was Lady Hartley. Of course we had to go through the same kind of thing with her, not once but several times, for she is always nice in asking us to her house, and in coming to tea with us every now and then, and I know that she is very fond of you, in her light-minded way. But, indeed, Eve, I don’t see any reason why you should not go home with me. Nobody will venture to question you, and Jack is in Africa—”
“No, no; I could not bear to see the people I know, or the old places. I should be miserable. I see them often in my dreams—hill and common, and lane, and cottage garden—and wake disappointed to find myself so far away. But I could not bear to be there again—without him. No, dear. Jack is travelling, and I am travelling. That is much the best arrangement.”
“But you don’t travel,” remonstrated Sophy. “You bury yourself alive in a place like this, and walk up and down the same stretch of sand every day, or tramp along the same chalky road, or cross the same ridiculous ferry, and march round the same windy ramparts. Surely you don’t call that travelling.”
“I mean to do better by-and-by. I mean to go to Italy. Perhaps you would spare me Hetty for a travelling
