The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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The discovery of these books was an adding of alkali to the acid of Mr.
Frayling's disposition at the moment, and he went down to look for his
wife while he was still effervescing. How did Evadne get them? he wanted
to know. Mrs. Frayling could not conceive. She had forgotten all about
Evadne's discovery of the box of books in the attic, and the sort of
general consent she had given when Evadne worried her for permission to
read them.

"She must be a most deceitful girl. I shall go and talk to her myself,"
Mr. Frayling concluded.

And doubtless, if only he had had a pair of wings to spread, he would
presently have appeared sailing over the cathedral into the Close at
Morningquest, a portly bird, in a frock coat, tall hat, and a very bad
temper.

But, poor gentleman! he really was an object for compassion. All his ideas
of propriety and the natural social order of the universe were being
outraged, and by his favourite daughter too, the one whom everybody
thought so like him. And in truth, she was like him, especially in the
matter of sticking to her own opinion; just the very thing he had no
patience with, for he detested obstinate people. He said so himself. He
did not go, however. Having preparations to make and a train to wait for,
gave him time to reflect, and, perceiving that the interview must
inevitably be of a most disagreeable nature, he decided to send his wife
next day to reason with her daughter.

Mrs. Frayling came upon Evadne unawares, and the shock it gave the girl to
see her mother all miserably agitated and worn with worry, was a more
powerful point in favour of the success of the latter's mission than any
argument would have been.

The poor lady was handsomely dressed, and of a large presence calculated
to inspire awe in inferiors unaccustomed to it. She was a well-preserved
woman, with even teeth, thick brown hair, scarcely tinged with gray, and a
beautiful soft transparent pink and white complexion, and Evadne had
always seen her in a state of placid content, never really interrupted
except by such surface squalls as were caused by having to scold the
children, or the shedding of a few sunshiny tears; and had thought her
lovely. But when she entered now, and had given her daughter the corner of
her cheek to kiss for form's sake, she sat down with quivering lips and
watery eyes all red with crying, and a broken-up aspect generally which
cut the girl to the quick.

"Oh, mother!" Evadne cried, kneeling down on the floor beside her, and
putting her arms about her. "It grieves me deeply to see you so
distressed."

But Mrs. Frayling held herself stiffly, refusing to be embraced, and
presenting a surface for the operation as unyielding as the figurehead of
a ship.

"If you are sincere," she said severely, "you will give up this nonsense
at once."

Evadne's arms dropped, and she rose to her feet, and stood, with fingers
interlaced in front of her, looking down at her mother for a moment, and
then up at the cathedral. Her talent for silence came in naturally here.

"You don't say anything, because you know there is nothing to be said for
you," Mrs. Frayling began. "You've broken my heart, Evadne, indeed you
have. And after everything had gone off so well too. What a tragedy! How
could you forget? And on the very day itself! Your wedding day, just
think! Why, we keep ours every year. And all your beautiful presents, and
such a trousseau! I am sure no girl was ever more kindly considered by
father, mother, friends--everybody!"

She was obliged to stop short for a moment. Ideas, by which she was not
much troubled as a rule, had suddenly crowded in so thick upon her when
she began to speak, that she became bewildered, and in an honest attempt
to make the most of them all, only succeeded in laying hold of an end of
each, to the great let and hindrance of all coherency as she herself felt
when she pulled up.

"Yes, you may well look up at the cathedral," she began again,
unreasonably provoked by Evadne's attitude. "But what good does it do you?
I should have supposed that the hallowed associations of this place would
have restored you to a better frame of mind."

"I do feel the force of association strongly," Evadne answered; "and that
is why I shrink from Major Colquhoun. People have their associations as
well as places, and those that cling about him are anything but hallowed."

Mrs, Frayling assumed an aspect of the deepest depression: "I never heard
a girl talk so in my life," she said. "It is positively indelicate. It
really is. But _we_ have done all we could. Now, honestly, have you
anything to complain of?"

"Nothing, mother, nothing," Evadne exclaimed. "Oh, I wish I could make you
understand!"

"Understand! What is there to understand? It is easy enough to understand
that you have behaved outrageously. And written letters you ought to be
ashamed of. Quoting Scripture too, for your own purposes. I cannot think
that you are in your right mind, Evadne, I really cannot. No girl ever
acted so before. If only you would read your Bible properly, and say your
prayers, you would see for yourself and repent. Besides, what is to become
of you? We can't have you at home again, you know. How we are any of us to
appear in the neighbourhood if the story gets about--and of course it must
get about if you persist--I cannot think. And everybody said, too, how
sweet you looked on your wedding day, Evadne; but I said, when those
children changed clothes, it was unnatural, and would bring bad luck; and
there was a terrible gale blowing too, and it rained. Everything went so
well up to the very day itself; but, since then, for no reason at all but
your own wicked obstinacy, all has gone wrong. You ought to have been
coming back from your honeymoon soon now, and here you are in hiding--yes,
literally _in hiding like a criminal_, ashamed to be seen. It mast be
a terrible trial for my poor sister, Olive, and a great imposition on her
good nature, having you here. You consider no one. And I might have been a
grandmother in time too, although I don't so much mind about that, for I
don't think it is any blessing to a military man to have a family. They
have to move about so much. But, however, all that it seems is over. And
your poor sisters--five of them--are curious to know what George is doing
all this time at Fraylingay, and asking questions. You cannot have
imagined _my_ difficulties, or you never would have been so selfish
and unnatural. I had to box Barbara's ears the other day, I had indeed,
and who will marry them now, I should like to know? If only you had turned
Roman Catholic and gone into a convent, or died, or never been born--oh,
dear! oh, dear!"

Evadne looked down at her mother again. She was very white, but she did
not utter a word.

"Why don't you speak?" Mrs. Frayling exclaimed. "Why do you stand there
like a stone or statue, deaf to all my arguments?"

Evadne sighed: "Mother, I will do anything you suggest except the one
thing. I will not live with Major Colquhoun as his wife," she said.

"I thought so!" Mrs. Frayling exclaimed. "You will do everything but what
you ought to do. It is just what your father says. Once you over-educate a
girl, you can do nothing with her, she gives herself such airs; and you
have managed to over-educate yourself somehow, although _how_ remains
a mystery. But one thing I am determined upon. Your poor sisters shall
never have a book I don't know off by heart myself. I shall lock them all
up. Not that it is much use, for no one will marry them now. No man will
ever come to the house again to be robbed of his character, as Major
Colquhoun has been by you. I am sure no one ever knew anything bad about
him--at least _I_ never did, whatever your father may have
done--until you went and ferreted all those dreadful stories out. You are
shameless, Evadne, you really are. And what good have you done by it all,
I should like to know? When you might have done so much, too."

Mrs. Frayling paused here, and Evadne looked up at the cathedral again,
feeling for her pitifully. This new view of her mother was another
terrible disillusion, and the more the poor lady exposed herself, the
greater Evadne felt was the claim she had upon her filial tenderness.

"Why don't you say something?" Mrs. Frayling recommenced.

"Mother, what _can_ I say?"

"If you knew what a time I have had with your father and your husband, you
would pity me. I can assure you George has been so sullen there was no
doing anything with him, and the trouble I have had, and the excuses I
have made for you, I am quite worn out. He said if you were that kind of
girl yon might go, and I've had to go down on my knees to him almost to
make him forgive you. And now I will go down on my knees to you"--she
exclaimed, acting on a veritable inspiration, and suiting the action to
the word--"to beg you for the sake of your sisters, and for the love of
God, not to disgrace us all!"

"Oh, mother--no! Don't do that. Get up--do get up! This is too dreadful!"
Evadne cried, almost hysterically.

"Here I shall kneel until you give in," Mrs. Frayling sobbed, clasping her
hands in the attitude of prayer to her daughter, and conscious of the
strength of her position.

Evadne tried in vain to raise her. Her bonnet had slipped to one side, her
dress had been caught up by the heels of her boots, and the soles were
showing behind; her mantle was disarranged; she was a figure for a farce;
but Evadne saw only her own mother, shaken with sobs, on her knees before
her.

"Mother--mother," she cried, sinking into a chair, and covering her face
with her hands to hide the dreadful spectacle: "Tell me what I am to do!
Suggest something!"

"If you would even consent," Mrs. Frayling began, gathering herself up
slowly, and standing over her daughter; "if you would even consent to live
in the same house with him until you get used to him and forget all this
nonsense, I am sure he would agree. For he is _dreadfully_ afraid of
scandal, Evadne. I never knew a man more so. In fact, he shows nothing but
right and proper feeling, and you will love him as much as ever again when
you know him better, and get over all these exaggerated ideas. _Do_
consent to this, dear child, for my sake. You shall have your own way in
everything else. And I will arrange it all for you, and get his written
promise to allow you to live in his house quite independently, like
brother and sister, as long as you like, and there will be no awkwardness
for you whatever. Do, my child, do consent to this," and the poor old lady
knelt once more, and put her arms about her daughter, and wept aloud.

Evadne broke down. The sight of the dear face so distorted, the poor lips
quivering, the kind eyes all swollen and blurred with tears was too much
for her, and she flung her arms round her mother's neck and cried: "I
consent, mother, for your sake--to keep up appearances; but only that,
mother, you promise me. You will arrange all that?"

"I promise you, my dear, I promise," Mrs. Frayling rejoined, rising with
alacrity, her countenance clearing on the instant, her heart swelling with
the joy and pride of a great victory. She knew she had done what the whole
bench of bishops could not have done--nor that most remarkable man, her
husband, either, for the matter of that, and she enjoyed her triumph.

As she had anticipated, Major Colquhoun made no difficulty about the
arrangement.

"I should not care a rap for an unwilling wife," he said. "Let her go
_her_ way, and I'll go mine. All I want now is to keep up
appearances. It would be a deuced nasty thing for me if the story got
about. Fellows would think there was more in it than there is."

"But she will come round," said Mrs. Frayling. "If only you are nice to
her, and I am sure you will be, she is sure to come round."

"Oh, of course she will," Mr. Frayling decided.

And Major Colquhoun smiled complacently. He often asserted that there was
no knowing women; but he took credit to himself for a superior knowledge
of the sex all the same.

CHAPTER XVII.

Before writing the promise which Evadne required, Major Colquhoun begged
to be allowed to have an interview with her, and to this also she
consented at her mother's earnest solicitation, although the idea of it
went very much against the grain. She perceived, however, that the first
meeting must be awkward in any case, and she was one of those energetic
people who, when there is a disagreeable thing to be done, do it, and get
it over at once. So she strengthened her mind by adding a touch of
severity to her costume, and sat herself down in the drawing room with a
book on her lap when the morning came, well nerved for the interview. Her
heart began to beat unpleasantly when he rang, and she heard him in the
hall, doubtless inquiring for her. At the sound of his voice she arose
from her seat involuntarily, and stood, literally awaiting in fear and
trembling the dreadful moment of meeting.

"What a horrible sensation!" she ejaculated mentally.

"Colonel Colquhoun," the servant announced.

He entered with an air of displeasure he could not conceal, and bowed to
her from a distance stiffly; but, although she looked hard at him, she
could not see him, so great was her trepidation. It was she, however, who
was the first to speak.

"I--I'm nervous," she gasped, clasping her hands and holding them out to
him piteously.

Colonel Colquhoun relaxed. It flattered his vanity to perceive that this
curiously well-informed and exceedingly strong-minded young lady became as
weakly emotional as any ordinary school girl the moment she found herself
face to face with him. "There is nothing to be afraid of," he blandly
assured her.

"Will you--sit down," Evadne managed to mumble, dropping into her own
chair again from sheer inability to stand any longer.

Colonel Colquhoun took a seat at an exaggerated distance from her. His
idea was to impress her with a sense of his extreme delicacy, but the act
had a contrary effect upon her. His manners had been perfect so far as she
had hitherto seen them, but thus to emphasize an already sufficiently
awkward position was not good taste, and she registered the fact against
him.

After they were seated, there was a painful pause. Evadne knit her brows
and cast about in her mind for something to say. Suddenly the fact that
the maid had announced him as "Colonel" Colquhoun recurred to her.

"Have you been promoted?" she asked very naturally.

"Yes," he answered.

"I congratulate you," she faltered.

Again he bowed stiffly.

But Evadne was recovering herself. She could look at him now, and it
surprised her to find that he was not in appearance the monster she had
been picturing him--no more a monster, indeed, than he had seemed before
she knew of his past. Until now, however, except for that one glimpse in
the carriage, she had always seen him through such a haze of feeling as to
make the seeing practically null and void, so far as any perception of his
true character might be gathered from his appearance, and useless for
anything really but ordinary purposes of identification. Now, however,
that the misty veil of passion was withdrawn from her eyes, the man whom
she had thought noble she saw to be merely big; the face which had seemed
to beam with intellect certainly remained fine-featured still, but it was
like the work of a talented artist when it lacks the perfectly
perceptible, indefinable finishing touch of genius that would have raised
it above criticism, and drawn you back to it again, but, wanting which,
after the first glance of admiration, interest fails, and you pass on only
convinced of a certain cleverness, a thing that soon satiates without
satisfying. Evadne had seen soul in her lover's eyes, but now they struck
her as hard, shallow, glittering, and obtrusively blue; and she noticed
that his forehead, although high, shelved back abruptly to the crown of
his head, which dipped down again sheer to the back of his neck, a very
precipice without a single boss upon which to rest a hope of some saving
grace in the way of eminent social qualities. "Thank Heaven, I see you as
you are in time!" thought Evadne.

Colonel Colquhoun was the next to speak.

"I shall be able to give you rather a better position now," he said.

"Yes," she replied, but she did not at all appreciate the advantage,
because she had never known what it was to be in an inferior position.

"May I speak to you with reference to our future relations?" he continued.

She bowed a kind of cold assent, then looked at him expectantly, her eyes
opening wide, and her heart thumping horribly in the very natural
perturbation which again seized upon her as they approached the subject;
yet, in spite of her quite perceptible agitation, there was both dignity
and determination in her attitude, and Colonel Colquhoun, meeting the
unflinching glance direct, became suddenly aware of the fact that the
timid little love-sick girl with half-shut, sleepy eyes he had had such a
fancy for, and this young lady, modestly shrinking in every inch of her
sensitive frame, but undaunted in spirit, nevertheless, were two very
different people. There had been misapprehension of character on both
sides, it seemed, but he liked pluck, and, by Jove! the girl was handsomer
than he had imagined. Views or no views, he would lay siege to her senses
in earnest; there would be some satisfaction in such a conquest.

"Is there no hope for me, Evadne?" he pleaded.

"None--none," she burst out impetuously, becoming desperate in her
embarrassment, "But I cannot discuss the subject. I beg you will let it
drop."

Her one idea was to get rid of this big blond man, who gazed at her with
an expression in his eyes from which, now that her own passion was dead,
she shrunk in revolt.

Again Colonel Colquhoun bowed stiffly. "As you please," he said. "My only
wish is to please you." He paused for a reply, but as Evadne had nothing
more to say, he was obliged to recommence: "The regiment," he said, "is
going to Malta at once, and I must go with it. And what I would venture to
suggest is, that you should follow when you feel inclined, by P. and O.
Fellows will understand that I don't care to have you come out on a
troopship. And I should like to get your rooms fitted up for you, too,
before you arrive. I am anxious to do all in my power to meet your wishes.
I will make every arrangement with that end in view; and if you can
suggest anything yourself that does not occur to me I shall be glad. You
had better bring an English maid out with you, or a German. Frenchwomen
are flighty." He got up as he said this, and added: "You'll like Malta, I
think. It is a bright little place, and very jolly in the season."

Evadne rose too. "Thank you," she said. "You are showing me more
consideration than I have any right to expect, and I am sure to be
satisfied with any arrangement you may think it right to make."

"I will telegraph to you when my arrangements for your reception are
complete," he concluded. "And I think that is all."

"I can think of nothing else," she answered.

"Good-bye, then," he said.

"Good-bye," she rejoined, "and I wish you a pleasant voyage and all
possible success with your regiment."

"Thank you," he answered, putting his heels together, and making her a
profound bow as he spoke.

So they parted, and he went his way through the old Cathedral Close with
that set expression of countenance which he had worn when he first became
aware of her flight. But, curiously enough, although he had no atom of
lover-like feeling left for her, and the amount of thought she had
displayed in her letters had shocked his most cherished prejudices on the
subject of her sex, she had gained in his estimation. He liked her pluck.
He felt she could be nothing but a credit to him.

She remained for a few seconds as he had left her, listening to his
footsteps in the hall and the shutting of the door; and then from where
she stood she saw him pass, and watched him out of sight--a fine figure of
a man, certainly; and she sighed. She had been touched by his
consideration, and thought it a pity that such a kindly disposition should
be unsupported by the solid qualities which alone could command her
lasting respect and affection.

She walked to the window, and stood there drumming idly on the glass,
thinking over the conclusion they had come to, for some time after Colonel
Colquhoun had disappeared. She felt it to be a lame one, and she was far
from satisfied. But what, under the circumstances, would have been a
better arrangement? The persistent question contained in itself its own
answer. Only the prospect was blank--blank. The excitement of the contest
was over now; the reaction had set in. She ventured to look forward; and,
seeing for the first time what was before her, the long, dark, dreary
level of a hopelessly uncongenial existence, reaching from here to
eternity, as it seemed from her present point of view, her over-wrought
nerves gave way; and, when Mrs. Orton Beg came to her a moment later, she
threw herself into her arms and sobbed hysterically: "Oh, auntie I have
suffered horribly! I wish I were dead!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

The first news that Evadne received on arriving in Malta was contained in
a letter from her mother. It announced that her father had determined to
cut her off from all communication with her family until she came to her
senses.

She had remained quiety with Mrs. Orton Beg until it was time to leave
England. She did not want to go to Fraylingay. She shrank from occupying
her old rooms in her new state of mind, and she would not have thought of
proposing such a thing herself; but she did half expect to be asked. This
not liking to return home, not recognizing it as home any longer, or
herself as having any right to go there uninvited, marked the change in
her position, and made her realize it with a pang. Her mother came and
went, but she brought no message from her father nor ever mentioned him.
Something in ourselves warns us at once of any change of feeling in a
friend, and Evadne asked no questions, and sent no messages either. But
this attitude did not satisfy her father at all. He thought it her duty
clearly to throw herself at his feet and beg for mercy and forgiveness;
and he waited for her to make some sign of contrition until his patience
could hold out no longer, and then he asked his wife: "Has
Evadne--eh--what is her attitude at present?"

"She is perfectly cheerful and happy," Mrs. Frayling replied.

"She expresses no remorse for her most unjustifiable conduct?"

"She thinks she only did what is right," Mrs. Frayling reminded him.

"Then she is quite indifferent to my opinion?" he began, swelling visibly
and getting red in the face. "Has she asked what I think? Does she ever
mention me?"

"No, never," Mrs. Frayling declared apprehensively.

"A most unnatural child," he exclaimed in his pompous way; "a most
unnatural child."

It was after this that he became obstinately determined to cut Evadne off
from all communication with her friends until she should become reconciled
to Colonel Colquhoun as a husband. Mr. Frayling was not an astute man. He
was simply incapable of sitting down and working out a deliberate scheme
of punishment which should have the effect of bringing Evadne's unruly
spirit into what he considered proper subjection. In this matter he acted,
not upon any system which he could have reduced to writing, but rather as
the lower animals do when they build nests, or burrow in the ground, or
repeat, generation after generation, other arrangements of a like nature
with a precision which the cumulative practice of the race makes perfect
in each individual. He possessed a certain faculty, transmitted from
father to son, that gives the stupidest man a power in his dealings with
women which the brightest intelligence would not acquire without it; and
he used to obtain his end with the decision of instinct, which is always
neater and more effectual than reason and artifice in such matters. He
denied hotly, for instance, that Evadne had any natural affection, and yet
it was upon that woman's weakness of hers that he set to work at once,
proving himself to be possessed of a perfect, if unconscious, knowledge of
her most vulnerable point; and he displayed much ingenuity in his manner
of making it a means of torture. He let no hint of the cruel edict be
breathed before she went abroad; she might have altered her arrangements
had she known of it before, and remained with Mrs. Orton Beg--and there
was something of foresight too, in timing her mother's tear-stained letter
of farewell, good advice, pious exhortation, and plaintive reproach to
meet her on her arrival, to greet her on the threshold of her new life,
and make her realize the terrible gulf which she was setting between
herself and those who were dearest to her, by her obstinacy.

The object was to make her suffer, and she did suffer; but her father's
cruelty did not alter the facts of the case, or appeal to her reason as an
argument worthy to influence her decision.