CHAPTER V

A FAMILY CONFERENCE AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

It was quite by chance that Philip Winslade did not travel down to Iselford on the second Saturday by the same train that Fanny went by. As it fell out, however, he was detained at the last moment and had to wait for a later train. On Sunday morning his mother went to church without him. If Fanny had reached home she would be sure to be there, and it seemed better not to run the risk of a chance meeting with her on the way to or from church, in view of his impending interview with her father.

When morning service was over and the Rev. Louth Sudlow retired to the vestry to disrobe himself, he found his wife and eldest daughter there before him. Mrs. Sudlow had just taken up a note addressed to her husband which she had found on the table. "Now, who can this be from?" she was saying as the Vicar entered. Fanny, who had recognised the writing, blushed and turned away, but did not answer her mother. The Vicar took the note, opened it, read it in silence, and then handed it to his wife. It was from Philip Winslade, asking the Vicar to name an hour when it would be convenient for him to see the writer on the morrow about "a matter of urgent moment."

"A matter of urgent moment!" repeated Mrs. Sudlow. "What can that be, I wonder?"

The Vicar did not reply, but there and then he sat down and wrote an answer to the note, naming, as before, the vestry for the place of meeting, and the hour of eleven.

It was only natural that, as Fanny walked home with her parents, she should feel somewhat disquieted. Why had her lover not written to her in the course of the week, as he had promised to do? That he was at Whiteash Cottage was proved by his note; why, then, had he omitted to accompany his mother to church? Above all, what could be the matter of urgent moment he was so anxious to see her father about?

As yet the Vicar had not mentioned her lover's name, nor as much as hinted at any knowledge of her engagement. But that did not surprise her. Probably he did not care to enter upon the subject on the Sabbath. Doubtless he would say what he had to say on the morrow. His manner towards her had been, or so she fancied, more than commonly kind and affectionate, and how could she accept that as anything but a happy augury? Had the news of her engagement displeased him, or proved a source of annoyance to him, he would scarcely have failed to make the fact patent to her in one way or another. She longed for the morrow to come, as young people have a way of doing. Never had the even-paced hours seemed to drag themselves to so wearisome a length. She was glad when bedtime had come, and gladder still when, after a restless night, she saw the April dawn begin to brighten in the eastern sky.

It wanted a quarter to eleven when the Vicar left home, and the clock had just struck twelve when Fanny, from the window of the morning-room, saw him coming back across the lawn. Her heart sank, so grave and preoccupied did he look. She would fain have opened the long window and have run to meet him, but her mother's cold eyes were upon her, and she refrained. When the Vicar entered the room two minutes later his first act was to cross to where his daughter was sitting, and taking her head gently between his hands, to kiss her on the forehead.

"Papa!" exclaimed Fanny, looking up into his face with frightened eyes, and laying her hand for a moment on his sleeve. That he was the messenger of ill news her heart portended but too surely.

Mrs. Sudlow was too accustomed to reading her husband's looks not to know that something was amiss; but although her curiosity was keen to hear whatever news he might be the bearer of, she set her thin lips tight and seemed to be intent on her sewing and on nothing beyond it. The Vicar sat down in his easy-chair and proceeded to rub his spectacles with his handkerchief.

"Little did I dream when I left home this morning," he began, sighing as he did so, "that I should have such a strange and distressing story to tell on my return. Dear me--dear me! Who could have believed in the possibility of such a thing?"

"My dear, if you would but endeavour to be a little less prolix!" said Mrs. Sudlow. "If you cannot see that Fanny is dying of impatience, I can."

The Vicar hemmed and fidgeted in his chair.

"Really, my love," he murmured deprecatingly. Then turning to Fanny and addressing himself directly to her, he said: "I am afraid, my child, that what I am about to tell you will distress you greatly, but unfortunately the blow is one which there are no means of averting. The reason Philip Winslade wished to see me this morning was that he might impart to me, in strict confidence, a certain circumstance connected with his personal history which only came to his own knowledge a few days ago. It appears that when Mrs. Winslade became aware of the existence of some sort of an engagement between her son and you, and was told he was about to seek your parents' sanction thereto, she revealed to him the circumstance in question, which had hitherto been kept carefully from him. What she had to tell him was that her husband and his father was a certain notorious bank-note forger, Philip Cordery by name, who was tried and convicted upwards of twenty years ago, and who died in prison a little while afterwards."

"Ah!" was the sole comment vouchsafed by Mrs. Sudlow; but although a word of two letters only, it can be made to convey a variety of meanings, and on the present occasion what it conveyed to the Vicar was, "I always felt sure that there was something discreditable in that woman's past, and now you see how right I was."

Fanny's cheek had turned a shade paler, but as yet she scarcely realised the full significance of her father's news. After the silence had lasted a few moments she said, "But why, after keeping the fact a secret for so many years, should Mrs. Winslade have thought it needful to speak of it now?"

"Whatever may have been her trials and misfortunes, Mrs. Winslade is a high-principled woman," replied the Vicar. "When informed that her son was seeking to become engaged to a certain young lady, she revealed to him the story of his parentage as a measure of simple right both to the person in question and her parents. It would rest with them to accept or dismiss him as they might deem best, when the truth about him had been told; but in any case Mrs. Winslade was determined that there should be no risk of accepting him blindfold and under a cloak of false pretence."

"It seems to me," said Fanny, with a little glow of colour, "that it was a very magnanimous thing of Mrs. Winslade to do."

"You talk like a school-girl," broke in Mrs. Sudlow. "For very shame the woman could not do otherwise than as she did."

"On that point, my dear, I must venture to differ from you," remarked her husband in his blandest accents. "I fully believe there are many women who would have continued to keep silence in the future as they had in the past rather than run the risk of spoiling their son's chance of marrying into a reputable family. Such persons might not unreasonably allege that the fact of their having been able to keep their secret for so long a time might be taken as a strong argument that they would be able to keep it for ever." Then, a moment later, he added: "Poor young fellow! I felt truly sorry for him. There was a touch of manly pathos in the way he told his tale, which affected me more than anything it has been my lot to listen to for a very long time."

"It is an extremely disagreeable episode well ended," remarked Mrs. Sudlow with an air of satisfaction, as her sharp teeth bit in two the thread she was sewing. "Of course, you gave the young man his _congé_ there and then?"

Fanny stared at her mother as if doubting whether she had heard aright.

"I told him that I would write to him in the course of a day or two--nothing more."

"I think it a great pity you did not send him packing at once. I have no patience with such temporising ways."

"But, mamma----" began Fanny, and then stopped at sight of her father's uplifted hand.

"My dear, it was not for me to dismiss the young man after so summary a fashion. It seemed to me due to Fanny that before arriving at any decision in the matter, the whole of the circumstances should be made known to her."

"There I differ from you _in toto_," said Mrs. Sudlow with accentuated acidity. "You are Fanny's father, and as such it was your bounden duty to give young Winslade clearly to understand that all is at an end between him and her, now and for ever."

"But, mamma, all is not at an end between us. Far from it," said Fanny, with that little air of determination which her mother was learning to know so well.

Mrs. Sudlow turned quickly on her.

"Girl, are you mad?" she demanded with a stamp of her foot. "What way but one can there be of dealing with a man whose father was a forger and a felon, and whose mother for years has been passing under a name not her own? Why, even to shake hands with such a person would make me feel as if there was a gaol taint about me for days to come."

The Vicar coughed uneasily. "Pardon me, my dear, but your sentiments are scarcely such as become the wife of a minister of the Gospel."

Mrs. Sudlow sniffed, but did not condescend to any reply.

"That Philip Winslade's father was what he was," said Fanny, "is Philip's misfortune, but in no wise his fault; and why such a fact should be allowed to affect anyone's estimate of him is what, so far, I fail to understand."

Mrs. Sudlow's dull eyes flamed out as they did on rare occasions only. "Do you mean to tell me, Fanny Sudlow," she said with a cold, slow emphasis, which was the more effective in that her anger was so evidently at white-heat--"do you wish me for one moment to credit that, after what you have been told, it is not your intention at once to break off whatever engagement (oh, how rashly entered into!) may heretofore have existed between yourself and this unhappy young man?"

"You are right, mamma, when you term him an unhappy young man. But is not that the very reason why our engagement, instead of being broken off, should, if possible, be riveted more firmly than before? Who should stand by him now this great trouble has come upon him if not I, to whom he has given the greatest treasure a man has to give?" Her cheeks glowed, her eyes shone with an inner radiance--never, to her father's thinking, had she looked so beautiful as at that moment.

Mrs. Sudlow turned upon her husband. "Louth, speak to her!" she commanded. "If she has so far forgotten herself and the lessons of her upbringing as no longer to heed her mother's wishes and commands, it is to be hoped that this new evil influence has not yet obtained such complete control over her as to induce her to treat her father's admonitions as contemptuously as she has seen fit to treat mine."

The Rev. Louth Sudlow felt that his position was anything but an enviable one. His sympathies were altogether with his daughter; but to a man who loved peace and quietness as he loved them, to sanction the unfurling of the flag of rebellion on the domestic hearth might well represent itself as a very serious thing indeed. Such being the case, he did what weak men nearly always do when they find themselves in a corner--he resolved to play the timid game of expediency, and to attempt the impossible feat of steering a straight course between two strongly opposite currents.

Addressing himself to Fanny, he said: "My dear girl, while fully agreeing with you that in the case of a person who has been overtaken by a misfortune which he has had no hand in bringing on himself, and yet from the consequences of which it is impossible for him to escape, it is the duty of those who know him and respect him--and--and like him--to rally round him, and prove to him that though the world at large may look askance on him, he will find no change in them, it is still possible, I think, to push even so admirable a sentiment to a point at which it not only becomes Quixotic, but--but, so to speak, indefensible. And this, my dear, as it appears to me, is just what you seem inclined to do in the case under discussion. Young Winslade by his action in coming to me first of all has proved his entire willingness to release you from any promise you may have made him--such promise having been given in ignorance of what has since become known, and accepted by him in equal ignorance. The question therefore now is, whether you ought not at once to reclaim your promise, and release him from any he may have given you. Although at present, as far as we are aware, the knowledge of this painful episode is confined to us three, there is no knowing how soon, nor by what mischance, it may become common property. Think, then--consider, I beg of you most seriously--what in such a case would be your position as a member of a family which society (always terribly unrelenting in such cases) would shun and contemn almost as if it were plague-smitten. Are you willing for the sake of a passing girlish fancy--(you shake your head; but, knowing the world far better than you know it, I hold by the phrase)--to run the risk of overshadowing and embittering your whole future life? Strive to realise all that you would sacrifice by such a step, and then ask yourself what compensation you can reasonably expect in return. The wrench of parting might be a sharp one, and just at first the pain might seem almost intolerable, but time would heal the wound, as it does the wounds of all of us, and before long life would again look as bright to you, and as full of promise, as ever it had done."

When the Vicar ceased he rubbed his white hands softly one within the other like a man well satisfied with himself. He had not been oblivious of certain contemptuous sniffs on the part of his wife during the progress of his little oration; but he was too familiar with such tokens of disparagement to allow himself to be affected thereby. Fanny felt that one of the most important moments of her life had come. Drawing a deep breath she said:

"Papa, when I gave my promise to Philip Winslade that I would one day become his wife, it was with no intention of ever taking it back, and far less than ever should I think of doing so now that a shadow has crept over his life of which neither he nor I knew anything when my promise was given. As for the world, or that small section of it which, as you say, would look askance at him and his if his story were to become known, it seems to me not worth a moment's consideration when weighed in the balance against other things. Disgrace comes but as we bring it on ourselves. Papa--and you too, mamma--permit me, therefore, with all due deference and respect, to say, once for all, that I have given my heart into the keeping of Philip Winslade, and in his keeping I mean it to remain."

"If such be the case, my dear child, there is nothing more to be said," remarked the Vicar.

"Nothing more to be said? Oh!" said Mrs. Sudlow, as she started to her feet, a vivid spot of colour flaming in either cheek. Then staring her husband full in the face, she said, in quiet, venomous accents, "Louth Sudlow, you are a fool!" After which emphatic asseveration she swept slowly from the room with all the dignity of which so little a woman was capable, leaving father and daughter gazing blankly at each other.

A couple of hours after the somewhat stormy scene detailed above, the following note was delivered at Whiteash Cottage:

"Dear Phil,--Papa has told me _everything_. The only effect has been to make me love you the more, if, indeed, that be possible. This afternoon I am going to Frimpton to see my old nurse, who is ill, and I shall return by the footpath through the meadows between six and seven o'clock. You may come part of the way and meet me if you like.

"Always and always yours,

"F. S."

They met at the stile where the footpath through the fields loses itself in the high road, about a quarter of a mile on the hither side of Frimpton--Phil being determined that the walk back to Iselford should be as long a one as possible. They had only seen each other once since their parting on the landing-stage at Liverpool, and they now stood for a moment or two, hand clasped in hand and eyes gazing into eyes, trying to read whatever secrets of the heart might perchance be revealed therein, and feeling their inmost being flooded with a gladness which, for the little while they stood thus, made speech seem an impertinence.

Fanny was the first to find her tongue. She withdrew her hand from Phil's grasp, and, instead, slipped it under his arm. Then they set their faces towards Iselford.

"Do you know, Phil," began Miss Fan, "it was very noble of you to come to my father and tell him what you did."

"It was simply my duty. No other course was open to me."

"But we don't, some of us, always care to do our duty, even when we see it clearly before us. And, in your case, I am by no means sure that it was a duty, or, indeed, anything more than a piece of modern-day chivalry, beyond the reach of folk of ordinary stature."

"I am afraid you rate what I have done far more highly than it deserves."

"I can, at least, think my own thoughts about it," replied Fan softly. "But poor Mrs. Winslade--what she must have suffered at finding herself driven to make such a confession! My heart bleeds for her." As she spoke she could feel a shiver run through the arm on which her hand was resting.

For a minute or two they walked on in silence. Phil felt that it was now his turn to speak. "My dear," he began, "in the note I received from you this afternoon you tell me that you only love me the more after what I said to your father."

"I told you no more than the truth."

He lifted her hand and pressed it passionately to his lips.

"But there are your parents to think of," he went on. "It is your place, your duty to consider them first of all. It is too much to expect that they should welcome to their fireside, or be willing to allow their daughter to ally herself to, the son of a felon. They would deem both her and themselves disgraced by so doing." Here an involuntary sigh broke from him. "Listen, then, dearest. Let the cost to myself be what it may, I here and now cancel the promise you gave me three weeks ago on board ship. Take it back and try to forget that it ever had an existence. We did not know then all that we have learnt since. To you a far different fate is due than to wed the son of Philip Cordery the forger."

Fanny laughed a little laugh that had in it more of tears than mirth. "You foolish, foolish Phil!" she exclaimed. "And is that the sort of young woman you take me for? What a low opinion you must have formed of me! How strangely you must have misread me! No, sir, you not only have my promise, but I have yours, and I mean to keep it fast--fast---fast! So 'no more of that, Hal, an' thou lovest me.' As for papa, I feel sure that in his heart he admires and likes you to-day far more than he ever did before. He will never as much as lift his little finger in opposition to our engagement. With mamma I admit that it is different. She is not without her opinions, and there is always that fetich of our noble relations to block the way. But this she knows from me and clearly understands, that neither on account of our relatives (who care nothing for us), nor for any other cause--certainly not by reason of anything you told papa--will I take back my plighted word. I am yours, and you are mine." Then, a moment later, she added: "Beyond my father and mother, there is no one else to consider, for that your and Mrs. Winslade's secret is safe in their keeping cannot for one moment be doubted. The world will never be any wiser than it is now."

In the face of such a declaration of unwavering love, so unfalteringly given, so instinct with loyalty and determination, what could Philip, what could any lover, have done save that which he did? The place was solitary, not a creature was in sight; his arms encircled her, he drew her to him, and then his lips pressed hers in a lingering kiss which was repeated again and again. "O my love--my love!" he murmured. "I am not worthy, indeed I am not, of all that you are sacrificing for my sake."

With her head resting against his shoulder, she looked up into his face with a heavenly smile. "Where true love exists there can be no such thing as a sacrifice."