A Widow's Tale, and Other Stories - Mrs. Oliphant

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said the indiscreet person, "how is it, with so much music going on, that we have not had a song from May?"

      "Oh, May—has not been singing much for some time," said Miss Bampton, with a little quiver in her voice.

      And Mrs Brunton, startled, gave a sudden look round the room. She saw Fitzroy placing the music upon the piano in a deliberate, conscious way, which made it apparent to her suddenly awakened faculties that he was aware of the meaning in these words; and she caught young Harcourt's look fixed somewhat fiercely upon herself: and Julia, who had turned her head away and would not look at her at all: and May, in the background, smiling and talking to the old lady, talking very fast, smiling a little more than she meant, looking pale and "out of it"—that curious condition which is not to be described, but which betrays itself to a looker-on. All this Nelly saw with a sudden awakening to the real state of affairs, which ought, of course, to have occurred to her before. And for a moment shame and compunction were strong in her.

      "I am so glad," she said. "It is far more suited to her voice than mine: and I want so much to hear her sing it. Please, Mr Harcourt, go and ask her. I hadn't sung for ever so long before I came here," she added, apologetically, to the little circle round the piano, "and they made me begin again; and I never know when to stop—so that I have scarcely heard May. Isn't it a dreadful confession to make?" she said, with an embarrassed laugh.

      "You have so strong a voice," said Miss Bampton, melting a little. "May's voice is a little thing after yours."

      "May herself is a little thing beside me," said Mrs Brunton, sitting down apart from the piano. "I am almost old enough to be her mother!" She felt that in saying this she had made fully the amende honorable to May.

      But May would not sing, though she was entreated by all the company. She had her little dignity. "Oh, no," she said, "I could not sing after Nelly—Nelly has so much stronger a voice than I have. Oh, please no!"

      "There is nobody who sings so sweetly as you do," said young Harcourt, delighted with the opportunity.

      But May would not be persuaded. I don't know that Mrs Brunton was altogether pleased to hear her voice described as so "strong." That is not always a complimentary adjective, and it gave her an amusement tempered with annoyance to hear her organ thus classified. She could not help a little half-angry smile, nor could she help meeting Fitzroy's eye, whose position at the piano, with no one to join him, was a little absurd. He was putting aside the music, looking exceedingly annoyed and rather fierce; but when their eyes met he, too, laughed. They understood each other at once, and when, after this little incident, the music was stopped altogether, he came and sat by her, anxious to communicate his feelings. "What a ridiculous business!" he said. "How silly! to put a stop to everything for the gratification of a little absurd jealousy!"

      "Jealousy!" said Nelly; "that would be the most absurd of all—if there was any jealousy in it. There is very little reason for any one to be jealous of me."

      "I do not think so," said Fitzroy, in a low voice.

      And then Nelly felt again how very foolish it was to remark upon such simple incidents in this strain.

      "You don't understand my cousins, I see," she said. "It is nothing of the kind; but it is extraordinarily foolish of me to have absorbed everything, and forgotten that May was not a child any longer. She always seems a child to me."

      "She looks quite as old as you do," her companion said.

      "Oh, nonsense! she is full ten years younger than I am. However, it does not matter so much, for I am going away."

      "So soon?" murmured Fitzroy.

      "Soon! I have been here a fortnight—away from my little children." Mrs Brunton found it expedient to quench his tone of devotion by putting all her disadvantages in the foreground. He looked at her with more meaning than he had ever felt in his life in his eyes.

      "Would it be indiscreet to ask where you were going?" he said.

      "Not at all; I am going home. I have a little house at Haven Green, where my children are."

      "I am going, too," he said. "May I come and see you? I shall be for some time in town."

      "Oh, if you are in the neighbourhood," said Mrs Brunton; and she turned aside to talk to some one on the other side, an old friend, with whom her colloquy was not conducted in such subdued tones. And soon the name of Haven Green, and the fact that her children were there awaiting her, and that she was going almost immediately, floated from one to another through the room. Miss Bampton heard it, and her heart rose; yet it smote her when she thought these incidents over to feel that she had herself been almost guilty of suggesting to Nelly that it would be better if she went away. As for May, she had seen the conversation, the two heads bent, the exchange of looks, the evidently subdued tone of the communications that passed between them. The poor girl scarcely knew how to behave when Fitzroy approached her some time after. She had been foolish about the song—she had shown her feelings, which is to a girl in such circumstances the worst of sins. Should she tell him she had a headache, or a sore throat, or anything that would excuse her? But he did not leave her the time to invent any excuse.

      "I am so sorry," he said, carrying the war into the enemy's country, "that you would not sing with me to-night: for it will be, I fear, one of the last times, if not the very last, that I shall have the chance."

      May's poor little heart seemed to cease to beat. What a sudden, dreadful punishment was this for her little gentle self-assertion! "The last time?" she cried. "Oh, are you going away?"

      "I must, I fear," he said. "I have been idling too long, and I seem to have outstayed my welcome. I did think that you would have sung with me this last night."

      "Oh, Mr Fitzroy!" was all that May could say. She had hard ado to keep the tears out of her eyes.

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      Bampton-Leigh felt very blank and vacant when both these people who had troubled its peace went away. Had Nelly gone alone and Mr Fitzroy remained, it is possible that there might have been some consolation; indeed, May, in her inmost heart, had looked forward to that period as to a time of peace, when the disturbing element being removed—the "strong" voice of Nelly, and those amusing and enlivening social qualities in which it was natural that a matron of her age should excel a timid girl—things might return to their original condition, and Fitzroy once more hang over her, and encourage her exertions, and praise the sweetness of her voice, which "went" so well with his. Perhaps May had not been aware how eagerly she had been looking forward to this time: and the abyss into which she fell when her hopes came to an end so suddenly, the dull and dreadful vacancy, which was all that remained to her, was almost more than she could bear. It was her first experience of disappointment and deprivation. She had been the spoiled child all her life of her father's house. Whatever she had wanted had been got for her, had it been in any way possible to attain it: and May had never wished for anything that was quite unattainable, until she wished, yet would not for the world have expressed the wish, for the visits, the songs, the fascination of Percy Fitzroy's society, which had come to her without asking, without any action or desire of hers. This gives additional sharpness to the stab of such losses—that the thing which makes your life desolate when it is taken away, has come accidentally, as it were, unsought—to add to and then to annihilate the happiness of (as in this instance) a poor little girl, who had been quite happy without it, who had not wanted it when it originally appeared. Poor May felt that she had no share in bringing on this doom, which to her youthful consciousness seemed to have overwhelmed her for ever. She had not wanted Mrs Spencer-Jackson to invite him; she had not suggested to Julia to bring him to Bampton-Leigh; she had not even begun the singing, poor little May! She was a perfectly innocent victim. And now, alas! she could not bring back the happy unconscious state to which Percy Fitzroy was unknown. The afternoons did not return to her as they had existed before—full of cheerful occupations and amusements. They were blank, and vacant, and impoverished, full of a wistful

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