White Turrets

"It is strange," said Hertha, "but I do not know much about fainting either."

"You see," said Winifred, naively, "I don't think in all my life before I had ever cried so violently, or--or felt so--so unlike myself."

"No," agreed Hertha. And in her own mind she said that there are certainly "more things" close about us than we dream of. Who could say if the awakening of Winifred's finer and more perceptive nature might not have begun?

Two days later, Miss Norreys found herself in the train on her return journey to London. She was alone this time--she could scarcely believe that barely ten days had passed since the exquisite spring morning when she and Winifred travelled down together to the home Hertha had pictured to herself as so modest, if not humble, an abode. And even now she could not repress a smile at the thought of her own astonishment at the first sight of White Turrets, and her indignation against Winifred.

How much seemed to have happened in those few days! It had been to Hertha like the reading of a very interesting book, in which, for the time, her own life and thoughts had been merged.

"And not even the ghost story wanting, which is to be found in every orthodox novel nowadays," she thought. "But I am not at the end of my story of real life yet. I have to prepare for pretty Celia coming to me next month, and to settle up Winifred's small affairs. I am sorry for her accident, poor child, but very glad she is not coming up to London just now. It would have been almost impossible to conceal from her the real state of the case."

For Mr Montague's letter--the letter which Hertha had refrained from reading before her talk with Winifred--had contained matter which would have been sorely mortifying to the heiress of White Turrets. The society among whose workers she had for a short time been enrolled had decided on dismissing her, feeling naturally indignant at the deception which its heads considered had been put upon them. Mr Montague was, of course, exonerated from all intentional collusion, but his position in the matter was unpleasant, and but for his firm and steady regard for Hertha, he might have visited on her some of his annoyance.

"Nor could I have resented it if he had done so," thought Miss Norreys.

But Mr Montague had behaved well and unselfishly. All he could do he had done, and that had been to obtain a promise that if Miss Maryon at once sent in her resignation it would be accepted in lieu of a dismissal.

"They are by no means sorry to be free of her," he wrote, "for though a clever girl in several ways, her self-will and defiance of authority were impossible to stand, coupled as they were with complete inexperience and reluctance to ask or take advice." And then followed the remark already quoted about Winifred's change of quarters.

Hertha sighed.

"I do feel terribly sorry to have involved Mr Montague so uncomfortably," she said. "Even now I feel as if I could shake Winifred with pleasure."

She took the letter out of her bag to read it again. She did not own to herself that in the postscript--for there was a postscript--lay its greatest interest. Yet her eyes dwelt on the two or three lines as if they would read in them more, far more, than was there.

"I think I must tell you," wrote her old friend, "that at last, after all these years, I have heard from Austin. He writes cheerfully, and hopes to be able to return home for good next autumn. He is not married."

But Hertha folded the page and replaced the letter resolutely in the envelope.

"No," she said to herself, "I must not think of him at all. After all these years, as Mr Montague says, it would be worse than folly, utter madness, to risk reopening the old wounds."

And Hertha knew how to use a mental lock and key.

Still, all through the weeks and months that followed--through the fatigue and not infrequent trials and annoyances of her own almost overwhelmingly busy life--through her newly awakened, interest in, and friendship for, the family at White Turrets--through _everything_, there ran, like the rippling of an all but inaudible brook in the summer time, a little acknowledged refrain of gladness, of hope. And the words, which were set to this fairy music were always the same. "Austin is coming home for good next autumn. He is not married."

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Celia, pretty Celia, as Hertha called her to herself, joined Miss Norreys before long, as arranged. Long afterwards--_always_ afterwards, perhaps I should say--Hertha came to see what a happy thing for her at this juncture had been the advent into her own daily life of this fresh, enthusiastic, yet thoughtful young nature. They suited each other admirably. Celia was so entirely in earnest, so forgetful of self in her work, so grateful for the advantages she owed in considerable measure to her friend, that she seemed never in the way. She had, of course, many difficulties to contend with, for even genius cannot walk along a royal road for many steps together; then come the rough bits, the flat, dull, monotonous stretches, when one seems to be making no way, and worst, yet best of all, perhaps, the ever-increasing consciousness of falling short of one's ever ascending ideal.

But by degrees the great fact came to be incontestable--the genius was there.

And Winifred, for her part, kept her promise man--or womanfully. She had not boasted in saying she was not one to do things by halves. She set her shoulder to the wheel of the duties she had never before taken any real interest in. There came up to Celia now and then lists of appallingly clever books on eminently practical subjects, all directly or indirectly connected with the management, on the best possible lines, of a large estate.

And when Celia returned to London again, after a happy Christmastide at White Turrets the following winter, her report was most encouraging.

"I cannot tell you how well Winifred is getting on," she said, "and how excellently she does everything. And with her as his more than right hand, papa seems a different being. She really _is_ very clever."

"I am sure of it," Miss Norreys replied warmly.

"And the queer thing is, that though she has never been so useful in her life, she is so much less self-confident," said Celia. "She is, oh, so _much_ softer and more sympathising!"

"I think that is natural. She is no longer at war with herself, and unconsciously on the defensive," replied the elder woman.

"But is it not delightful to you to think that it is really all _your_ doing, dear Hertha?" asked Celia.

Hertha smiled.

"I do not feel that it was," she said. "At least, my hands were strengthened very strangely. I--Celia," she broke off abruptly, "I want to ask you something. Has the White Weeper been heard of or seen of late?"

"No, I believe not once," said Celia in surprise.

Hertha bent her head in sign of satisfaction.

"I thought so," she said. "Celia," she went on, "I think I will tell you now what I have never told any one but Winifred."

And she related the story of her strange experience that moonlight night at White Turrets.

Celia listened breathlessly, her face growing a shade paler.

"How extraordinary, _how_ strange!" she exclaimed. "And you think Winifred was really influenced by it?"

"At least she did not mock at it--not in the very slightest," said Hertha. "And--there was something more, that day she fainted, you remember?"

"Yes," said Celia.

"Did she never tell you what she had felt?" And Hertha repeated what Winifred had told her.

Celia shook her head.

"No, she never told me. She knows I have always been so frightened about it. But--I scarcely see why she came, or tried to come, to Winifred herself, when the point _was_ gained and she had given in?"

"Ah--I must tell you the rest, and this I think impressed your sister most of all. A day or two after I returned to London, after that Easter time--I went, at her request, to collect her things and pay some money _she_ thought due to the people she had lodged with. What do you think I found? A deserted house--in the possession of the police. There had been a fire the night but one before, caused, no doubt, by the people themselves, for they were a very undesirable lot. They had all escaped, however, as they lived below; but the upper rooms, the very rooms Winifred had had, were literally gutted--in a state of black, charred desolation. We cannot say, of course, but when I explained my errand, the policeman said the lady should be thankful that she had been prevented returning. `Ten to one if she could have been got out alive,' he said."

"Oh, Hertha!" exclaimed Celia, horror-struck. "And you told Winifred?"

"Yes, though not immediately. She was still ill when it happened. But I think it impressed her exceedingly. Still, as she has not told you about it, it may be as well never to mention it."

"I will never do so," said Celia. "But I think I shall never feel _afraid_ of the White Weeper again."

Then she went on to tell her friend about Louise and Lennox in their own house, their marriage having taken place the preceding autumn.

"They are as happy as the good people in a fairy tale," she said.

When Celia went home the next time--a little more than a year after she had joined Miss Norreys, she took with her an astonishing piece of news. Hertha, Winifred's typical, self-dependent woman, _Hertha_, was going to be married!

"It is an old story," said Celia, calmly. "An old story, ending very beautifully, _I_ think. I cannot tell you much, for I do not know the whole. But they were separated for years, through nobody's fault exactly, and neither has ever cared for any one else," she added simply.

"All the same," said Winifred, "I am just a _little_ disappointed in her."

Celia's own plans were not materially affected by this unexpected event, as, having by this time gathered experience, she was able to go on with her studies without actually sharing her friend's home. Before long, those studies led her further afield for a time. But this sketch, or rough outline, rather--not worthy of the name of a story--of some girls' experiences, must come to an end without chronicling the successes of the young painter, of whom great things are prophesied.

There _are_ those, too, who predict that Celia Maryon is about to try the experiment of reconciling the claims and duties of married life with those of a special vocation. And if it be possible to succeed in so doing, assuredly no woman could have a wiser, less exacting, and more sympathising husband than the one whom rumour has selected for her--Eric Balderson.

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The End.