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JOHN EAMES ENCOUNTERS TWO ADVENTURES, AND DISPLAYS GREAT COURAGE IN
BOTH.
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Lily thought that her lover's letter was all that it should be. She was not quite aware what might be the course of post between Courcy and Allington, and had not, therefore, felt very grievously disappointed when the letter did not come on the very first day. She had, however, in the course of the morning, walked down to the post-office, in order that she might be sure that it was not remaining there.
"Why, miss, they be all delivered; you know that," said Mrs. Crump, the post-mistress.
"But one might be left behind, I thought."
"John Postman went up to the house this very day, with a newspaper for your mamma. I can't make letters for people if folks don't write them." .
"But they are left behind sometimes, Mrs. Crump. He wouldn't come up with one letter if he'd got nothing else for anybody in the street."
"Indeed but he would then. I wouldn't let him leave a letter here no how, nor yet a paper. It's no good you're coming down here for letters, Miss Lily. If he don't write to you, I can't make him do it." And so poor Lily went home discomforted.
But the letter came on the next morning, and all was right. According to her judgment it lacked nothing, either in fulness or in affection. When he told her how he had planned his early departure in order that he might avoid the pain of parting with her on the last moment, she smiled and pressed the paper, and rejoiced inwardly that she had got the better of him as to that manoeuvre. And then she kissed the words which told her that he had been glad to have her with him at the last moment. When he declared that he had been happier at Allington than he was at Courcy, she believed him thoroughly, and rejoiced that it should be so. And when he accused himself of being worldly, she excused him, persuading herself that he was nearly perfect in this respect as in others. Of course a man living in London, and having to earn his bread out in the world, must be more worldly than a country girl; but the fact of his being able to love such a girl, to choose such a one for his wife,--was not that alone sufficient proof that the world had not enslaved him? "My heart is on the Allington lawns," he said; and then, as she read the words, she kissed the paper again.
In her eyes, and to her ears, and to her heart, the letter was a beautiful letter. I believe there is no bliss greater than that which a thorough love-letter gives to a girl who knows that in receiving it she commits no fault,--who can open it before her father and mother with nothing more than the slight blush which the consciousness of her position gives her. And of all love-letters the first must be the sweetest! What a value there is in every word! How each expression is scanned and turned to the best account! With what importance are all those little phrases invested, which too soon become mere phrases, used as a matter of course. Crosbie had finished his letter by bidding God bless her; "And you too," said Lily, pressing the letter to her bosom.
"Does he say anything particular?" asked Mrs. Dale.
"Yes, mamma; it's all very particular."
"But there's nothing for the public ear."
"He sends his love to you and Bell."
"We are very much obliged to him."
"So you ought to be. And he says that he went to church going through Barchester, and that the clergyman was the grandfather of that Lady Dumbello. When he got to Courcy Castle Lady Dumbello was there."
"What a singular coincidence!" said Mrs. Dale.
"I won't tell you a word more about his letter," said Lily. So she folded it up, and put it in her pocket. But as soon as she found herself alone in her own room, she had it out again, and read it over some half-a-dozen times.
That was the occupation of her morning;--that, and the manufacture of some very intricate piece of work which was intended for the adornment of Mr. Crosbie's person. Her hands, however, were very full of work;--or, rather, she intended that they should be full. She would take with her to her new home, when she was married, all manner of household gear, the produce of her own industry and economy. She had declared that she wanted to do something for her future husband, and she would begin that something at once. And in this matter she did not belie her promises to herself, or allow her good intentions to evaporate unaccomplished. She soon surrounded herself with harder tasks than those embroidered slippers with which she indulged herself immediately after his departure. And Mrs. Dale and Bell,--though in their gentle way they laughed at her,--nevertheless they worked with her, sitting sternly to their long tasks, in order that Crosbie's house might not be empty when their darling should go to take her place there as his wife.
But it was absolutely necessary that the letter should be answered. It would in her eyes have been a great sin to have let that day's post go without carrying a letter from her to Courcy Castle,--a sin of which she felt no temptation to be guilty. It was an exquisite pleasure to her to seat herself at her little table, with her neat desk and small appurtenances for epistle-craft, and to feel that she had a letter to write in which she had truly much to say. Hitherto her correspondence had been uninteresting and almost weak in its nature. From her mother and sister she had hardly yet been parted; and though she had other friends, she had seldom found herself with very much to tell them by post. What could she communicate to Mary Eames at Guestwick, which should be in itself exciting as she wrote it? When she wrote to John Eames, and told "Dear John" that mamma hoped to have the pleasure of seeing him to tea at such an hour, the work of writing was of little moment to her, though the note when written became one of the choicest treasures of him to whom it was addressed.
But now the matter was very different. When she saw the words "Dearest Adolphus" on the paper before her, she was startled with their significance. "And four months ago I had never even heard of him," she said to herself, almost with awe. And now he was more to her, and nearer to her, than even was her sister or her mother! She recollected how she had laughed at him behind his back, and called him a swell on the first day of his coming to the Small House, and how, also, she had striven, in her innocent way, to look her best when called upon to go out and walk with the stranger from London. He was no longer a stranger now, but her own dearest friend.
She had put down her pen that she might think of all this--by no means for the first time--and then resumed it with a sudden start as though fearing that the postman might be in the village before her letter was finished. "Dearest Adolphus, I need not tell you how delighted I was when your letter was brought to me this morning." But I will not repeat the whole of her letter here. She had no incident to relate, none even so interesting as that of Mr. Crosbie's encounter with Mr. Harding at Barchester. She had met no Lady Dumbello, and had no counterpart to Lady Alexandrina, of whom, as a friend, she could say a word in praise. John Eames's name she did not mention, knowing that John Eames was not a favourite with Mr. Crosbie; nor had she anything to say of John Eames, that had not been already said. He had, indeed, promised to come over to Allington; but this visit had not been made when Lily wrote her first letter to Crosbie. It was a sweet, good, honest love-letter, full of assurances of unalterable affection and unlimited confidence, indulging in a little quiet fun as to the grandees of Courcy Castle, and ending with a promise that she would be happy and contented if she might receive his letters constantly, and live with the hope of seeing him at Christmas.
"I am in time, Mrs. Crump, am I not?" she said, as she walked into the post-office.
"Of course you be,--for the next half-hour. T' postman--he bain't stirred from t' ale'us yet. Just put it into t' box, wull ye?"
"But you won't leave it there?"
"Leave it there! Did you ever hear the like of that? If you're afeared to put it in, you can take it away; that's all about it, Miss Lily." And then Mrs. Crump turned away to her avocations at the washing-tub. Mrs. Crump had a bad temper, but perhaps she had some excuse. A separate call was made upon her time with reference to almost every letter brought to her office, and for all this, as she often told her friends in profound disgust, she received as salary no more than "tuppence farden a day. It don't find me in shoe-leather; no more it don't." As Mrs. Crump was never seen out of her own house, unless it was in church once a month, this latter assertion about her shoe-leather, could hardly have been true.
Lily had received another letter, and had answered it before Eames made his promised visit to Allington. He, as will be remembered, had also had a correspondence. He had answered Miss Roper's letter, and had since that been living in fear of two things; in a lesser fear of some terrible rejoinder from Amelia, and in a greater fear of a more terrible visit from his lady-love. Were she to swoop down in very truth upon his Guestwick home, and declare herself to his mother and sister as his affianced bride, what mode of escape would then be left for him? But this she had not yet done, nor had she even answered his cruel missive.
"What an ass I am to be afraid of her!" he said to himself as he walked along under the elms of Guestwick manor, which overspread the road to Allington. When he first went over to Allington after his return home, he had mounted himself on horseback, and had gone forth brilliant with spurs, and trusting somewhat to the glories of his dress and gloves. But he had then known nothing of Lily's engagement. Now he was contented to walk; and as he had taken up his slouched hat and stick in the passage of his mother's house, he had been very indifferent as to his appearance. He walked quickly along the road, taking for the first three miles the shade of the Guestwick elms, and keeping his feet on the broad greensward which skirts the outside of the earl's palings. "What an ass I am to be afraid of her!" And as he swung his big stick in his hand, striking a tree here and there, and knocking the stones from his path, he began to question himself in earnest, and to be ashamed of his position in the world. "Nothing on earth shall make me marry her," he said; "not if they bring a dozen actions against me. She knows as well as I do, that I have never intended to marry her. It's a cheat from beginning to end. If she comes down here, I'll tell her so before my mother." But as the vision of her sudden arrival came before his eyes, he acknowledged to himself that he still held her in great fear. He had told her that he loved her. He had written as much as that. If taxed with so much, he must confess his sin.
Then, by degrees, his mind turned away from Amelia Roper to Lily Dale, not giving him a prospect much more replete with enjoyment than that other one. He had said that he would call at Allington before he returned to town, and he was now redeeming his promise. But he did not know why he should go there. He felt that he should sit silent and abashed in Mrs. Dale's drawing-room, confessing by his demeanour that secret which it behoved him now to hide from every one. He could not talk easily before Lily, nor could he speak to her of the only subject which would occupy his thoughts when in her presence. If indeed, he might find her alone-- But, perhaps that might be worse for him than any other condition.
When he was shown into the drawing-room there was nobody there. "They were here a minute ago, all three," said the servant girl. "If you'll walk down the garden, Mr. John, you'll be sure to find some of 'em." So John Eames, with a little hesitation, walked down the garden.
First of all he went the whole way round the walks, meeting nobody. Then he crossed the lawn, returning again to the farther end; and there, emerging from the little path which led from the Great House, he encountered Lily alone. "Oh, John," she said, "how d'ye do? I'm afraid you did not find anybody in the house. Mamma and Bell are with Hopkins, away in the large kitchen-garden."
"I've just come over," said Eames, "because I promised. I said I'd come before I went back to London."
"And they'll be very glad to see you, and so am I. Shall we go after them into the other grounds? But perhaps you walked over and are tired."
"I did walk," said Eames; "not that I am very tired." But in truth he did not wish to go after Mrs. Dale, though he was altogether at a loss as to what he would say to Lily while remaining with her. He had fancied that he would like to have some opportunity of speaking to her alone before he went away;--of making some special use of the last interview which he should have with her before she became a married woman. But now the opportunity was there, and he hardly dared to avail himself of it.
"You'll stay and dine with us," said Lily.
"No, I'll not do that, for I especially told my mother that I would be back."
"I'm sure it was very good of you to walk so far to see us. If you really are not tired, I think we will go to mamma, as she would be very sorry to miss you."
This she said, remembering at the moment what had been Crosbie's injunctions to her about John Eames. But John had resolved that he would say those words which he had come to speak, and that, as Lily was there with him, he would avail himself of the chance which fortune had given him.
"I don't think I'll go into the squire's garden," he said.
"Uncle Christopher is not there. He is about the farm somewhere."
"If you don't mind, Lily, I think I'll stay here. I suppose they'll be back soon. Of course I should like to see them before I go away to London. But, Lily, I came over now chiefly to see you. It was you who asked me to promise."
Had Crosbie been right in those remarks of his? Had she been imprudent in her little endeavour to be cordially kind to her old friend? "Shall we go into the drawing-room?" she said, feeling that she would be in some degree safer there than out among the shrubs and paths of the garden. And I think she was right in this. A man will talk of love out among the lilacs and roses, who would be stricken dumb by the demure propriety of the four walls of a drawing-room. John Eames also had some feeling of this kind, for he determined to remain out in the garden, if he could so manage it.
"I don't want to go in unless you wish it," he said. "Indeed, I'd rather stay here. So, Lily, you're going to be married?" And thus he rushed at once into the middle of his discourse.
"Yes," said she, "I believe I am."
"I have not told you yet that I congratulated you."
"I have known very well that you did so in your heart. I have always been sure that you wished me well."
"Indeed I have. And if congratulating a person is hoping that she may always be happy, I do congratulate you. But, Lily--" And then he paused, abashed by the beauty, purity, and woman's grace which had forced him to love her.
"I think I understand all that you would say. I do not want ordinary words to tell me that I am to count you among my best friends."
"No, Lily; you don't understand all that I would say. You have never known how often and how much I have thought of you; how dearly I have loved you."
"John, you must not talk of that now."
"I cannot go without telling you. When I came over here, and Mrs. Dale told me that you were to be married to that man--" "You must not speak of Mr. Crosbie in that way," she said, turning upon him almost fiercely.
"I did not mean to say anything disrespectful of him to you. I should hate myself if I were to do so. Of course you like him better than anybody else?"
"I love him better than all the world besides."
"And so do I love you better than all the world besides." And as he spoke he got up from his seat and stood before her. "I know how poor I am, and unworthy of you; and only that you are engaged to him, I don't suppose that I should now tell you. Of course you couldn't accept such a one as me. But I have loved you ever since you remember; and now that you are going to be his wife, I cannot but tell you that it is so. You will go and live in London; but as to my seeing you there, it will be impossible. I could not go into that man's house."
"Oh, John."
"No, never; not if you become his wife. I have loved you as well as he does. When Mrs. Dale told me of it, I thought I should have fallen. I went away without seeing you because I was unable to speak to you. I made a fool of myself, and have been a fool all along. I am foolish now to tell you this, but I cannot help it."
"You will forget it all when you meet some girl that you can really love."
"And have I not really loved you? Well, never mind. I have said what I came to say, and I will now go. If it ever happens that we are down in the country together, perhaps I may see you again; but never in London. Good-by, Lily." And he put out his hand to her.
[ILLUSTRATION: "And have I not really loved you?"]
"And won't you stay for mamma?" she said.
"No. Give her my love, and to Bell. They understand all about it. They will know why I have gone. If ever you should want anybody to do anything for you, remember that I will do it, whatever it is." And as he paced away from her across the lawn, the special deed in her favour to which his mind was turned,--that one thing which he most longed to do on her behalf,--was an act of corporal chastisement upon Crosbie. If Crosbie would but ill-treat her,--ill-treat her with some antenuptial barbarity,--and if only he could be called in to avenge her wrongs! And as he made his way back along the road towards Guestwick, he built up within his own bosom a castle in the air, for her part in which Lily Dale would by no means have thanked him.
Lily when she was left alone burst into tears. She had certainly said very little to encourage her forlorn suitor, and had so borne herself during the interview that even Crosbie could hardly have been dissatisfied; but now that Eames was gone her heart became very tender towards him. She felt that she did love him also;--not at all as she loved Crosbie, but still with a love that was tender, soft, and true. If Crosbie could have known all her thoughts at that moment, I doubt whether he would have liked them. She burst into tears, and then hurried away into some nook where she could not be seen by her mother and Bell on their return.
Eames went on his way, walking very quietly, swinging his stick and kicking through the dust, with his heart full of the scene which had just passed. He was angry with himself, thinking that he had played his part badly, accusing himself in that he had been rough to her, and selfish in the expression of his love; and he was angry with her because she had declared to him that she loved Crosbie better than all the world besides. He knew that of course she must do so;--that at any rate it was to be expected that such was the case. Yet, he thought, she might have refrained from saying so to him. "She chooses to scorn me now," he said to himself; "but the time may come when she will wish that she had scorned him." That Crosbie was wicked, bad, and selfish, he believed most fully. He felt sure that the man would ill-use her and make her wretched. He had some slight doubt whether he would marry her, and from this doubt he endeavoured to draw a scrap of comfort. If Crosbie would desert her, and if to him might be accorded the privilege of beating the man to death with his fists because of this desertion, then the world would not be quite blank for him. In all this he was no doubt very cruel to Lily;--but then had not Lily been very cruel to him?
He was still thinking of these things when he came to the first of the Guestwick pastures. The boundary of the earl's property was very plainly marked, for with it commenced also the shady elms along the roadside, and the broad green margin of turf, grateful equally to those who walked and to those who rode. Eames had got himself on to the grass, but, in the fulness of his thoughts, was unconscious of the change in his path, when he was startled by a voice in the next field and the loud bellowing of a bull. Lord De Guest's choice cattle he knew were there, and there was one special bull which was esteemed by his lordship as of great value, and regarded as a high favourite. The people about the place declared that the beast was vicious, but Lord De Guest had often been heard to boast that it was never vicious with him. "The boys tease him, and the men are almost worse than the boys," said the earl; "but he'll never hurt any one that has not hurt him." Guided by faith in his own teaching the earl had taught himself to look upon his bull as a large, horned, innocent lamb of the flock.
As Eames paused on the road, he fancied that he recognized the earl's voice, and it was the voice of one in distress. Then the bull's roar sounded very plain in his ear, and almost close; upon hearing which he rushed on to the gate, and, without much thinking what he was doing, vaulted over it, and advanced a few steps into the field.
"Halloo!" shouted the earl. "There's a man. Come on." And then his continued shoutings hardly formed themselves into intelligible words; but Eames plainly understood that he was invoking assistance under great pressure and stress of circumstances. The bull was making short runs at his owner, as though determined in each run to have a toss at his lordship; and at each run the earl would retreat quickly for a few paces, but he retreated always facing his enemy, and as the animal got near to him, would make digs at his face with the long spud which he carried in his hand. But in thus making good his retreat he had been unable to keep in a direct line to the gate, and there seemed to be great danger lest the bull should succeed in pressing him up against the hedge. "Come on!" shouted the earl, who was fighting his battle manfully, but was by no means anxious to carry off all the laurels of the victory himself. "Come on, I say!" Then he stopped in his path, shouted into the bull's face, brandished his spud, and threw about his arms, thinking that he might best dismay the beast by the display of these warlike gestures.
Johnny Eames ran on gallantly to the peer's assistance, as he would have run to that of any peasant in the land. He was one to whom I should be perhaps wrong to attribute at this period of his life the gift of very high courage. He feared many things which no man should fear; but he did not fear personal mishap or injury to his own skin and bones. When Cradell escaped out of the house in Burton Crescent, making his way through the passage into the outer air, he did so because he feared that Lupex would beat him or kick him, or otherwise ill-use him. John Eames would also have desired to escape under similar circumstances; but he would have so desired because he could not endure to be looked upon in his difficulties by the people of the house, and because his imagination would have painted the horrors of a policeman dragging him off with a black eye and a torn coat. There was no one to see him now, and no policeman to take offence. Therefore he rushed to the earl's assistance, brandishing his stick, and roaring in emulation of the bull.
When the animal saw with what unfairness he was treated, and that the number of his foes was doubled, while no assistance had lent itself on his side, he stood for a while, disgusted by the injustice of humanity. He stopped, and throwing his head up to the heavens, bellowed out his complaint. "Don't come close!" said the earl, who was almost out of breath. "Keep a little apart. Ugh! ugh! whoop, whoop!" And he threw up his arms manfully, jobbing about with his spud, ever and anon rubbing the perspiration from off his eyebrows with the back of his hand.
As the bull stood pausing, meditating whether under such circumstances flight would not be preferable to gratified passion, Eames made a rush in at him, attempting to hit him on the head. The earl, seeing this, advanced a step also, and got his spud almost up to the animal's eye. But these indignities the beast could not stand. He made a charge, bending his head first towards John Eames, and then, with that weak vacillation which is as disgraceful in a bull as in a general, he changed his purpose, and turned his horns upon his other enemy. The consequence was that his steps carried him in between the two, and that the earl and Eames found themselves for a while behind his tail.
"Now for the gate," said the earl.
"Slowly does it; slowly does it; don't run!" said Johnny, assuming in the heat of the moment a tone of counsel which would have been very foreign to him under other circumstances.
The earl was not a whit offended. "All right," said he, taking with a backward motion the direction of the gate. Then as the bull again faced towards him, he jumped from the ground, labouring painfully with arms and legs, and ever keeping his spud well advanced against the foe. Eames, holding his position a little apart from his friend, stooped low and beat the ground with his stick, and as though defying the creature. The bull felt himself defied, stood still and roared, and then made another vacillating attack.
"Hold on till we reach the gate," said Eames.
"Ugh! ugh! Whoop! whoop!" shouted the earl. And so gradually they made good their ground.
"Now get over," said Eames, when they had both reached the corner of the field in which the gate stood.
"And what'll you do?" said the earl.
"I'll go at the hedge to the right." And Johnny as he spoke dashed his stick about, so as to monopolize, for a moment, the attention of the brute. The earl made a spring at the gate, and got well on to the upper rung. The bull seeing that his prey was going, made a final rush upon the earl and struck the timber furiously with his head, knocking his lordship down on the other side. Lord De Guest was already over, but not off the rail; and thus, though he fell, he fell in safety on the sward beyond the gate. He fell in safety, but utterly exhausted. Eames, as he had purposed, made a leap almost sideways at a thick hedge which divided the field from one of the Guestwick copses. There was a fairly broad ditch, and on the other side a quickset hedge, which had, however, been weakened and injured by trespassers at this corner, close to the gate. Eames was young and active and jumped well. He jumped so well that he carried his body full into the middle of the quickset, and then scrambled through to the other side, not without much injury to his clothes, and some damage also to his hands and face.
The beast, recovering from his shock against the wooden bars, looked wistfully at his last retreating enemy, as he still struggled amidst the bushes. He looked at the ditch and at the broken hedge, but he did not understand how weak were the impediments in his way. He had knocked his head against the stout timber, which was strong enough to oppose him, but was dismayed by the brambles which he might have trodden under foot without an effort. How many of us are like the bull, turning away conquered by opposition which should be as nothing to us, and breaking our feet, and worse still, our hearts, against rocks of adamant. The bull at last made up his mind that he did not dare to face the hedge; so he gave one final roar, and then turning himself round, walked placidly back amidst the herd.
Johnny made his way on to the road by a stile that led out of the copse, and was soon standing over the earl, while the blood ran down his cheeks from the scratches. One of the legs of his trowsers had been caught by a stake, and was torn from the hip downward, and his hat was left in the field, the only trophy for the bull. "I hope you're not hurt, my lord," he said.
"Oh dear, no; but I'm terribly out of breath. Why, you're bleeding all over. He didn't get at you, did he?"
"It's only the thorns in the hedge," said Johnny, passing his hand over his face. "But I've lost my hat."
"There are plenty more hats," said the earl.
"I think I'll have a try for it," said Johnny, with whom the means of getting hats had not been so plentiful as with the earl. "He looks quiet now." And he moved towards the gate.
But Lord De Guest jumped upon his feet, and seized the young man by the collar of his coat. "Go after your hat!" said he. "You must be a fool to think of it. If you're afraid of catching cold, you shall have mine."
"I'm not the least afraid of catching cold," said Johnny. "Is he often like that, my lord?" And he made a motion with his head towards the bull.
"The gentlest creature alive; he's like a lamb generally--just like a lamb. Perhaps he saw my red pocket-handkerchief." And Lord De Guest showed his friend that he carried such an article. "But where should I have been if you hadn't come up?"
"You'd have got to the gate, my lord."
"Yes; with my feet foremost, and four men carrying me. I'm very thirsty. You don't happen to carry a flask, do you?"
"No, my lord, I don't."
"Then we'll make the best of our way home, and have a glass of wine there." And on this occasion his lordship intended that his offer should be accepted.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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22
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LORD DE GUEST AT HOME.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] The earl and John Eames, after their escape from the bull, walked up to the Manor House together. "You can write a note to your mother, and I'll send it by one of the boys," said the earl. This was his lordship's answer when Eames declined to dine at the Manor House, because he would be expected home.
"But I'm so badly off for clothes, my lord," pleaded Johnny. "I tore my trowsers in the hedge."
"There will be nobody there beside us two and Dr. Crofts. The doctor will forgive you when he hears the story; and as for me, I didn't care if you hadn't a stitch to your back. You'll have company back to Guestwick, so come along."
Eames had no further excuse to offer, and therefore did as he was bidden. He was by no means as much at home with the earl now as during those minutes of the combat. He would rather have gone home, being somewhat ashamed of being seen in his present tattered and bare-headed condition by the servants of the house; and moreover, his mind would sometimes revert to the scene which had taken place in the garden at Allington. But he found himself obliged to obey the earl, and so he walked on with him through the woods.
The earl did not say very much, being tired and somewhat thoughtful. In what little he did say he seemed to be specially hurt by the ingratitude of the bull towards himself. "I never teased him, or annoyed him in any way."
"I suppose they are dangerous beasts?" said Eames.
"Not a bit of it, if they're properly treated. It must have been my handkerchief, I suppose. I remember that I did blow my nose."
He hardly said a word in the way of thanks to his assistant. "Where should I have been if you had not come to me?" he had exclaimed immediately after his deliverance; but having said that he didn't think it necessary to say much more to Eames. But he made himself very pleasant, and by the time he had reached the house his companion was almost glad that he had been forced to dine at the Manor House. "And now we'll have a drink," said the earl. "I don't know how you feel, but I never was so thirsty in my life."
Two servants immediately showed themselves, and evinced some surprise at Johnny's appearance. "Has the gentleman hurt hisself, my lord?" asked the butler, looking at the blood upon our friend's face.
"He has hurt his trowsers the worst, I believe," said the earl. "And if he was to put on any of mine they'd be too short and too big, wouldn't they? I am sorry you should be so uncomfortable, but you mustn't mind it for once."
"I don't mind it a bit," said Johnny.
"And I'm sure I don't," said the earl. "Mr. Eames is going to dine here, Vickers."
"Yes, my lord."
"And his hat is down in the middle of the nineteen acres. Let three or four men go for it."
"Three or four men, my lord!"
"Yes,--three or four men. There's something gone wrong with that bull. And you must get a boy with a pony to take a note into Guestwick, to Mrs. Eames. Oh dear, I'm better now," and he put down the tumbler from which he'd been drinking. "Write your note here, and then we'll go and see my pet pheasants before dinner."
Vickers and the footman knew that something had happened of much moment, for the earl was usually very particular about his dinner-table. He expected every guest who sat there to be dressed in such guise as the fashion of the day demanded; and he himself, though his morning costume was by no means brilliant, never dined, even when alone, without having put himself into a suit of black, with a white cravat, and having exchanged the old silver hunting-watch which he carried during the day tied round his neck by a bit of old ribbon, for a small gold watch, with a chain and seals, which in the evening always dangled over his waistcoat. Dr. Gruffen had once been asked to dinner at Guestwick Manor. "Just a bachelor's chop," said the earl; "for there's nobody at home but myself." Whereupon Dr. Gruffen had come in coloured trowsers,--and had never again been asked to dine at Guestwick Manor. All this Vickers knew well; and now his lordship had brought young Eames home to dine with him with his clothes all hanging about him in a manner which Vickers declared in the servants' hall wasn't more than half decent. Therefore, they all knew that something very particular must have happened. "It's some trouble about the bull, I know," said Vickers;--"but bless you, the bull couldn't have tore his things in that way!"
Eames wrote his note, in which he told his mother that he had had an adventure with Lord De Guest, and that his lordship had insisted on bringing him home to dinner. "I have torn my trowsers all to pieces," he added in a postscript, "and have lost my hat. Everything else is all right." He was not aware that the earl also sent a short note to Mrs. Eames.
DEAR MADAM [ran the earl's note],-- Your son has, under Providence, probably saved my life. I will leave the story for him to tell. He has been good enough to accompany me home, and will return to Guestwick after dinner with Dr. Crofts, who dines here. I congratulate you on having a son with so much cool courage and good feeling.
Your very faithful servant, DE GUEST.
Guestwick Manor, Thursday, October, 186--.
And then they went to see the pheasants. "Now, I'll tell you what," said the earl. "I advise you to take to shooting. It's the amusement of a gentleman when a man chances to have the command of game."
"But I'm always up in London."
"No, you're not. You're not up in London now. You always have your holidays. If you choose to try it, I'll see that you have shooting enough while you're here. It's better than going to sleep under the trees. Ha, ha, ha! I wonder what made you lay yourself down there. You hadn't been fighting a bull that day?"
"No, my lord. I hadn't seen the bull then."
"Well; you think of what I've been saying. When I say a thing, I mean it. You shall have shooting enough, if you have a mind to try it." Then they looked at the pheasants, and pottered about the place till the earl said it was time to dress for dinner. "That's hard upon you, isn't it?" said he. "But, at any rate, you can wash your hands, and get rid of the blood. I'll be down in the little drawing-room five minutes before seven, and I suppose I'll find you there."
At five minutes before seven Lord De Guest came into the small drawing-room, and found Johnny seated there, with a book before him. The earl was a little fussy, and showed by his manner that he was not quite at his ease, as some men do when they have any piece of work on hand which is not customary to them. He held something in his hand, and shuffled a little as he made his way up the room. He was dressed, as usual, in black; but his gold chain was not, as usual, dangling over his waistcoat.
"Eames," he said, "I want you to accept a little present from me,--just as a memorial of our affair with the bull. It will make you think of it sometimes, when I'm perhaps gone."
"Oh, my lord--" "It's my own watch, that I have been wearing for some time; but I've got another;--two or three, I believe, somewhere upstairs. You mustn't refuse me. I can't bear being refused. There are two or three little seals, too, which I have worn. I have taken off the one with my arms, because that's of no use to you, and it is to me. It doesn't want a key, but winds up at the handle, in this way," and the earl proceeded to explain the nature of the toy.
"My lord, you think too much of what happened to-day," said Eames, stammering.
"No, I don't; I think very little about it. I know what I think of. Put the watch in your pocket before the doctor comes. There; I hear his horse. Why didn't he drive over, and then he could have taken you back?"
"I can walk very well."
"I'll make that all right. The servant shall ride Crofts' horse, and bring back the little phaeton. How d'you do, doctor? You know Eames, I suppose? You needn't look at him in that way. His leg is not broken; it's only his trowsers." And then the earl told the story of the bull.
"Johnny will become quite a hero in town," said Crofts.
"Yes; I fear he'll get the most of the credit; and yet I was at it twice as long as he was. I'll tell you what, young men, when I got to that gate I didn't think I'd breath enough left in me to get over it. It's all very well jumping into a hedge when you're only two-and-twenty; but when a man comes to be sixty he likes to take his time about such things. Dinner ready, is it? So am I. I quite forgot that mutton chop of yours to-day, doctor. But I suppose a man may eat a good dinner after a fight with a bull?"
The evening passed by without any very pleasurable excitement, and I regret to say that the earl went fast to sleep in the drawing-room as soon as he had swallowed his cup of coffee. During dinner he had been very courteous to both his guests, but towards Eames he had used a good-humoured and almost affectionate familiarity. He had quizzed him for having been found asleep under the tree, telling Crofts that he had looked very forlorn,--"So that I haven't a doubt about his being in love," said the earl. And he had asked Johnny to tell the name of the fair one, bringing up the remnants of his half-forgotten classicalities to bear out the joke. "If I am to take more of the severe Falernian," said he, laying his hand on the decanter of port, "I must know the lady's name. Whoever she be, I'm well sure you need not blush for her. What! you refuse to tell! Then I'll drink no more." And so the earl had walked out of the dining-room; but not till he had perceived by his guest's cheeks that the joke had been too true to be pleasant. As he went, however, he leaned with his hand on Eames's shoulder, and the servants looking on saw that the young man was to be a favourite. "He'll make him his heir," said Vickers. "I shouldn't wonder a bit if he don't make him his heir." But to this the footman objected, endeavouring to prove to Mr. Vickers that, in accordance with the law of the land, his lordship's second cousin, once removed, whom the earl had never seen, but whom he was supposed to hate, must be his heir. "A hearl can never choose his own heir, like you or me," said the footman, laying down the law. "Can't he though really, now? That's very hard on him; isn't it?" said the pretty housemaid. "Psha," said Vickers: "you know nothing about it. My lord could make young Eames his heir to-morrow; that is, the heir of his property. He couldn't make him a hearl, because that must go to the heirs of his body. As to his leaving him the place here, I don't just know how that'd be; and I'm sure Richard don't."
"But suppose he hasn't got any heirs of his body?" asked the pretty housemaid, who was rather fond of putting down Mr. Vickers.
"He must have heirs of his body," said the butler. "Everybody has 'em. If a man don't know 'em himself, the law finds 'em out." And then Mr. Vickers walked away, avoiding further dispute.
In the meantime, the earl was asleep upstairs, and the two young men from Guestwick did not find that they could amuse themselves with any satisfaction. Each took up a book; but there are times at which a man is quite unable to read, and when a book is only a cover for his idleness or dulness. At last, Dr. Crofts suggested, in a whisper, that they might as well begin to think of going home.
"Eh; yes; what?" said the earl: "I'm not asleep." In answer to which the doctor said that he thought he'd go home, if his lordship would let him order his horse. But the earl was again fast bound in slumber, and took no further notice of the proposition.
"Perhaps we could get off without waking him," suggested Eames, in a whisper.
"Eh; what?" said the earl. So they both resumed their books, and submitted themselves to their martyrdom for a further period of fifteen minutes. At the expiration of that time, the footman brought in tea.
"Eh, what? tea!" said the earl. "Yes, we'll have a little tea. I've heard every word you've been saying." It was that assertion on the part of the earl which always made Lady Julia so angry. "You cannot have heard what I have been saying, Theodore, because I have said nothing," she would reply. "But I should have heard it if you had," the earl would rejoin, snappishly. On the present occasion neither Crofts nor Eames contradicted him, and he took his tea and swallowed it while still three parts asleep.
"If you'll allow me, my lord, I think I'll order my horse," said the doctor.
"Yes; horse--yes--" said the earl, nodding.
"But what are you to do, Eames, if I ride?" said the doctor.
"I'll walk," whispered Eames, in his very lowest voice.
"What--what--what?" said the earl, jumping up on his feet. "Oh, ah, yes; going away, are you? I suppose you might as well, as sit here and see me sleeping. But, doctor--I didn't snore, did I?"
"Only occasionally."
"Not loud, did I? Come, Eames, did I snore loud?"
"Well, my lord, you did snore rather loud two or three times."
"Did I?" said the earl, in a voice of great disappointment. "And yet, do you know, I heard every word you said."
The small phaeton had been already ordered, and the two young men started back to Guestwick together, a servant from the house riding the doctor's horse behind them. "Look here, Eames," said the earl, as they parted on the steps of the hall door. "You're going back to town the day after to-morrow, you say, so I shan't see you again?"
"No, my lord," said Johnny.
"Look you here, now. I shall be up for the Cattle-show before Christmas. You must dine with me at my hotel, on the twenty-second of December, Pawkins's, in Jermyn Street; seven o'clock, sharp. Mind you do not forget, now. Put it down in your pocket-book when you get home. Good-by, doctor; good-by. I see I must stick to that mutton chop in the middle of the day." And then they drove off.
"He'll make him his heir for certain," said Vickers to himself, as he slowly returned to his own quarters.
"You were returning from Allington, I suppose," said Crofts, "when you came across Lord De Guest and the bull?"
"Yes: I just walked over to say good-by to them."
"Did you find them all well?"
"I only saw one. The other two were out."
"Mrs. Dale, was it?"
"No; it was Lily."
"Sitting alone, thinking of her fine London lover, of course? I suppose we ought to look upon her as a very lucky girl. I have no doubt she thinks herself so."
"I'm sure I don't know," said Johnny.
"I believe he's a very good young man," said the doctor; "but I can't say I quite liked his manner."
"I should think not," said Johnny.
"But then in all probability he did not like mine a bit better, or perhaps yours either. And if so it's all fair."
"I don't see that it's a bit fair. He's a snob," said Eames; "and I don't believe that I am." He had taken a glass or two of the earl's "severe Falernian," and was disposed to a more generous confidence, and perhaps also to stronger language, than might otherwise have been the case.
"No; I don't think he is a snob," said Crofts. "Had he been so, Mrs. Dale would have perceived it."
"You'll see," said Johnny, touching up the earl's horse with energy as he spoke. "You'll see. A man who gives himself airs is a snob; and he gives himself airs. And I don't believe he's a straightforward fellow. It was a bad day for us all when he came among them at Allington."
"I can't say that I see that."
"I do. But mind, I haven't spoken a word of this to any one. And I don't mean. What would be the good? I suppose she must marry him now?"
"Of course she must."
"And be wretched all her life. Oh-h-h-h!" and he muttered a deep groan. "I'll tell you what it is, Crofts. He is going to take the sweetest girl out of this country that ever was in it, and he don't deserve her."
"I don't think she can be compared to her sister," said Crofts slowly.
"What; not Lily?" said Eames, as though the proposition made by the doctor were one that could not hold water for a minute.
"I have always thought that Bell was the more admired of the two," said Crofts.
"I'll tell you what," said Eames. "I have never yet set my eyes on any human creature whom I thought so beautiful as Lily Dale. And now that beast is going to marry her! I'll tell you what, Crofts; I'll manage to pick a quarrel with him yet." Whereupon the doctor, seeing the nature of the complaint from which his companion was suffering, said nothing more, either about Lily or about Bell.
Soon after this Eames was at his own door, and was received there by his mother and sister with all the enthusiasm due to a hero. "He has saved the earl's life!" Mrs. Eames had exclaimed to her daughter on reading Lord De Guest's note. "Oh, goodness!" and she threw herself back upon the sofa almost in a fainting condition.
"Saved Lord De Guest's life!" said Mary.
"Yes--under Providence," said Mrs. Eames, as though that latter fact added much to her son's good deed.
"But how did he do it?"
"By cool courage and good feeling--so his lordship says. But I wonder how he really did do it?"
"Whatever way it was, he's torn all his clothes and lost his hat," said Mary.
"I don't care a bit about that," said Mrs. Eames. "I wonder whether the earl has any interest at the Income-tax.
"What a thing it would be if he could get Johnny a step. It would be seventy pounds a year at once. He was quite right to stay and dine when his lordship asked him. And so Dr. Crofts is there. It couldn't have been anything in the doctoring way, I suppose."
"No, I should say not; because of what he says of his trowsers." And so the two ladies were obliged to wait for John's return.
"How did you do it, John?" said his mother, embracing him, as soon as the door was opened.
"How did you save the earl's life?" said Mary, who was standing behind her mother.
"Would his lordship really have been killed, if it had not been for you?" asked Mrs. Eames.
"And was he very much hurt?" asked Mary.
"Oh, bother," said Johnny, on whom the results of the day's work, together with the earl's Falernian, had made some still remaining impression. On ordinary occasions, Mrs. Eames would have felt hurt at being so answered by her son; but at the present moment she regarded him as standing so high in general favour that she took no offence. "Oh, Johnny, do tell us. Of course we must be very anxious to know it all."
"There's nothing to tell, except that a bull ran at the earl, as I was going by; so I went into the field and helped him, and then he made me stay and dine with him."
"But his lordship says that you saved his life," said Mary.
"Under Providence," added their mother.
"At any rate, he has given me a gold watch and chain," said Johnny, drawing the present out of his pocket. "I wanted a watch badly. All the same, I didn't like taking it."
"It would have been very wrong to refuse," said his mother. "And I am so glad you have been so fortunate. And look here, Johnny: when a friend like that comes in your way, don't turn your back on him." Then, at last, he thawed beneath their kindness, and told them the whole of the story. I fear that in recounting the earl's efforts with the spud, he hardly spoke of his patron with all that deference which would have been appropriate.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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23
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MR. PLANTAGENET PALLISER.
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A week passed over Mr. Crosbie's head at Courcy Castle without much inconvenience to him from the well-known fact of his matrimonial engagement. Both George De Courcy and John De Courcy had in their different ways charged him with his offence, and endeavoured to annoy him by recurring to the subject; but he did not care much for the wit or malice of George or John De Courcy. The countess had hardly alluded to Lily Dale after those few words which she said on the first day of his visit, and seemed perfectly willing to regard his doings at Allington as the occupation natural to a young man in such a position. He had been seduced down to a dull country house, and had, as a matter of course, taken to such amusements as the place afforded. He had shot the partridges and made love to the young lady, taking those little recreations as compensation for the tedium of the squire's society. Perhaps he had gone a little too far with the young lady; but then no one knew better than the countess how difficult it is for a young man to go far enough without going too far. It was not her business to make herself a censor on a young man's conduct. The blame, no doubt, rested quite as much with Miss Dale as with him. She was quite sorry that any young lady should be disappointed; but if girls will be imprudent, and set their caps at men above their mark, they must encounter disappointment. With such language did Lady De Courcy speak of the affair among her daughters, and her daughters altogether agreed with her that it was out of the question that Mr. Crosbie should marry Lily Dale. From Alexandrina he encountered during the week none of that raillery which he had expected. He had promised to explain to her before he left the castle all the circumstances of his acquaintance with Lily, and she at last showed herself determined to demand the fulfilment of this promise; but, previous to that, she said nothing to manifest either offence or a lessened friendship. And I regret to say, that in the intercourse which had taken place between them, that friendship was by no means less tender that it had been in London.
"And when will you tell me what you promised?" she asked him one afternoon, speaking in a low voice, as they were standing together at the window of the billiard-room, in that idle half-hour which always occurs before the necessity for dinner preparation has come. She had been riding and was still in her habit, and he had returned from shooting. She knew that she looked more than ordinarily well in her tall straight hat and riding gear, and was wont to hang about the house, walking skilfully with her upheld drapery, during this period of the day. It was dusk, but not dark, and there was no artificial light in the billiard-room. There had been some pretence of knocking about the balls, but it had been only pretence. "Even Diana," she had said, "could not have played billiards in a habit." Then she had put down her mace, and they had stood talking together in the recess of a large bow-window.
"And what did I promise?" said Crosbie.
"You know well enough. Not that it is a matter of any special interest to me; only, as you undertook to promise, of course my curiosity has been raised."
"If it be of no special interest," said Crosbie, "you will not object to absolve me from my promise."
"That is just like you," she said. "And how false you men always are. You made up your mind to buy my silence on a distasteful subject by pretending to offer me your future confidence; and now you tell me that you do not mean to confide in me."
"You begin by telling me that the matter is one that does not in the least interest you."
"That is so false again! You know very well what I meant. Do you remember what you said to me the day you came? and am I not bound to tell you after that, that your marriage with this or that young lady is not matter of special interest to me? Still, as your friend--" "Well, as my friend!"
"I shall be glad to know--. But I am not going to beg for your confidence; only I tell you this fairly, that no man is so mean in my eyes as a man who fights under false colours."
"And am I fighting under false colours?"
"Yes, you are." And now, as she spoke, the Lady Alexandrina blushed beneath her hat; and dull as was the remaining light of the evening, Crosbie, looking into her face, saw her heightened colour. "Yes, you are. A gentleman is fighting under false colours who comes into a house like this, with a public rumour of his being engaged, and then conducts himself as though nothing of the kind existed. Of course, it is not anything to me specially; but that is fighting under false colours. Now, sir, you may redeem the promise you made me when you first came here,--or you may let it alone."
It must be acknowledged that the lady was fighting her battle with much courage, and also with some skill. In three or four days Crosbie would be gone; and this victory, if it were ever to be gained, must be gained in those three or four days. And if there were to be no victory, then it would be only fair that Crosbie should be punished for his duplicity, and that she should be avenged as far as any revenge might be in her power. Not that she meditated any deep revenge, or was prepared to feel any strong anger. She liked Crosbie as well as she had ever liked any man. She believed that he liked her also. She had no conception of any very strong passion, but conceived that a married life was more pleasant than one of single bliss. She had no doubt that he had promised to make Lily Dale his wife, but so had he previously promised her, or nearly so. It was a fair game, and she would win it if she could. If she failed, she would show her anger; but she would show it in a mild, weak manner,--turning up her nose at Lily before Crosbie's face, and saying little things against himself behind his back. Her wrath would not carry her much beyond that.
"Now, sir, you may redeem the promise you made me when you first came here,--or you may let it alone." So she spoke, and then she turned her face away from him, gazing out into the darkness.
"Alexandrina!" he said.
"Well, sir? But you have no right to speak to me in that style. You know that you have no right to call me by my name in that way!"
"You mean that you insist upon your title?"
"All ladies insist on what you call their title, from gentlemen, except under the privilege of greater intimacy than you have the right to claim. You did not call Miss Dale by her Christian name till you had obtained permission, I suppose?"
"You used to let me call you so."
"Never! Once or twice, when you have done so, I have not forbidden it, as I should have done. Very well, sir, as you have nothing to tell me, I will leave you. I must confess that I did not think you were such a coward." And she prepared to go, gathering up the skirts of her habit, and taking up the whip which she had laid on the window-sill.
"Stay a moment, Alexandrina," he said; "I am not happy, and you should not say words intended to make me more miserable."
"And why are you unhappy?"
"Because-- I will tell you instantly, if I may believe that I am telling you only, and not the whole household."
"Of course I shall not talk of it to others. Do you think that I cannot keep a secret?"
"It is because I have promised to marry one woman, and because I love another. I have told you everything now; and if you choose to say again that I am fighting under false colours I will leave the castle before you can see me again."
"Mr. Crosbie!"
"Now you know it all, and may imagine whether or no I am very happy. I think you said it was time to dress;--suppose we go?" And without further speech the two went off to their separate rooms.
Crosbie, as soon as he was alone in his chamber, sat himself down in his arm-chair, and went to work striving to make up his mind as to his future conduct. It must not be supposed that the declaration just made by him had been produced solely by his difficulty at the moment. The atmosphere of Courcy Castle had been at work upon him for the last week past. And every word that he had heard, and every word that he had spoken, had tended to destroy all that was good and true within him, and to foster all that was selfish and false. He had said to himself a dozen times during that week that he never could be happy with Lily Dale, and that he never could make her happy. And then he had used the old sophistry in his endeavour to teach himself that it was right to do that which he wished to do. Would it not be better for Lily that he should desert her, than marry her against the dictates of his own heart? And if he really did not love her, would he not be committing a greater crime in marrying her than in deserting her? He confessed to himself that he had been very wrong in allowing the outer world to get such a hold upon him that the love of a pure girl like Lily could not suffice for his happiness. But there was the fact, and he found himself unable to contend against it. If by any absolute self-sacrifice he could secure Lily's well-being, he would not hesitate for a moment. But would it be well to sacrifice her as well as himself?
He had discussed the matter in this way within his own breast, till he had almost taught himself to believe that it was his duty to break off his engagement with Lily; and he had also almost taught himself to believe that a marriage with a daughter of the house of Courcy would satisfy his ambition and assist him in his battle with the world. That Lady Alexandrina would accept him he felt certain, if he could only induce her to forgive him for his sin in becoming engaged to Miss Dale. How very prone she would be to forgiveness in this matter, he had not divined, having not as yet learned how easily such a woman can forgive such a sin, if the ultimate triumph be accorded to herself.
And there was another reason which operated much with Crosbie, urging him on in his present mood and wishes, though it should have given an exactly opposite impulse to his heart. He had hesitated as to marrying Lily Dale at once, because of the smallness of his income. Now he had a prospect of considerable increase to that income. One of the commissioners at his office had been promoted to some greater commissionership, and it was understood by everybody that the secretary at the General Committee Office would be the new commissioner. As to that there was no doubt. But then the question had arisen as to the place of secretary. Crosbie had received two or three letters on the subject, and it seemed that the likelihood of his obtaining this step in the world was by no means slight. It would increase his official income from seven hundred a year to twelve, and would place him altogether above the world. His friend, the present secretary, had written to him, assuring him that no other probable competitor was spoken of as being in the field against him. If such good fortune awaited him, would it not smooth any present difficulty which lay in the way of his marriage with Lily Dale? But, alas, he had not looked at the matter in that light! Might not the countess help him to this preferment? And if his destiny intended for him the good things of this world,--secretaryships, commissionerships, chairmanships, and such like, would it not be well that he should struggle on in his upward path by such assistance as good connections might give him?
He sat thinking over it all in his own room on that evening. He had written twice to Lily since his arrival at Courcy Castle. His first letter has been given. His second was written much in the same tone; though Lily, as she had read it, had unconsciously felt somewhat less satisfied than she had been with the first. Expressions of love were not wanting, but they were vague and without heartiness. They savoured of insincerity, though there was nothing in the words themselves to convict them. Few liars can lie with the full roundness and self-sufficiency of truth; and Crosbie, bad as he was, had not yet become bad enough to reach that perfection. He had said nothing to Lily of the hopes of promotion which had been opened to him; but he had again spoken of his own worldliness--acknowledging that he received an unsatisfying satisfaction from the pomps and vanities of Courcy Castle. In fact he was paving the way for that which he had almost resolved that he would do, now he had told Lady Alexandrina that he loved her; and he was obliged to confess to himself that the die was cast.
As he thought of all this, there was not wanting to him some of the satisfaction of an escape. Soon after making that declaration of love at Allington he had begun to feel that in making it he had cut his throat. He had endeavoured to persuade himself that he could live comfortably with his throat cut in that way; and as long as Lily was with him he would believe that he could do so; but as soon as he was again alone he would again accuse himself of suicide. This was his frame of mind even while he was yet at Allington, and his ideas on the subject had become stronger during his sojourn at Courcy. But the self-immolation had not been completed, and he now began to think that he could save himself. I need hardly say that this was not all triumph to him. Even had there been no material difficulty as to his desertion of Lily,--no uncle, cousin, and mother whose anger he must face,--no vision of a pale face, more eloquent of wrong in its silence than even uncle, cousin, and mother, with their indignant storm of words,--he was not altogether heartless. How should he tell all this to the girl who had loved him so well; who had so loved him, that, as he himself felt, her love would fashion all her future life either for weal or for woe? "I am unworthy of her, and will tell her so," he said to himself. How many a false hound of a man has endeavoured to salve his own conscience by such mock humility? But he acknowledged at this moment, as he rose from his seat to dress himself, that the die was cast, and that it was open to him now to say what he pleased to Lady Alexandrina. "Others have gone through the same fire before," he said to himself, as he walked downstairs, "and have come out scatheless." And then he recalled to himself the names of various men of high repute in the world who were supposed to have committed in their younger days some such little mistake as that into which he had been betrayed.
In passing through the hall he overtook Lady Julia De Guest, and was in time to open for her the door of the drawing-room. He then remembered that she had come into the billiard-room at one side, and had gone out at the other, while he was standing with Alexandrina at the window. He had not, however, then thought much of Lady Julia; and as he now stood for her to pass by him through the door-way, he made to her some indifferent remark.
But Lady Julia was on some subjects a stern woman, and not without a certain amount of courage. In the last week she had seen what had been going on, and had become more and more angry. Though she had disowned any family connection with Lily Dale, nevertheless she now felt for her sympathy and almost affection. Nearly every day she had repeated stiffly to the countess some incident of Crosbie's courtship and engagement to Miss Dale,--speaking of it as with absolute knowledge, as a thing settled at all points. This she had done to the countess alone, in the presence of the countess and Alexandrina, and also before all the female guests of the castle. But what she had said was received simply with an incredulous smile. "Dear me! Lady Julia," the countess had replied at last, "I shall begin to think you are in love with Mr. Crosbie yourself; you harp so constantly on this affair of his. One would think that young ladies in your part of the world must find it very difficult to get husbands, seeing that the success of one young lady is trumpeted so loudly." For the moment, Lady Julia was silenced; but it was not easy to silence her altogether when she had a subject for speech near her heart.
Almost all the Courcy world were assembled in the drawing-room as she now walked into the room with Crosbie at her heels. When she found herself near the crowd she turned round, and addressed him in a voice more audible than that generally required for purposes of drawing-room conversation. "Mr. Crosbie," she said, "have you heard lately from our dear friend, Lily Dale?" And she looked him full in the face, in a manner more significant, probably, than even she had intended it to be. There was, at once, a general hush in the room, and all eyes were turned upon her and upon him.
Crosbie instantly made an effort to bear the attack gallantly, but he felt that he could not quite command his colour, or prevent a sudden drop of perspiration from showing itself upon his brow. "I had a letter from Allington yesterday," he said. "I suppose you have heard of your brother's encounter with the bull?"
"The bull!" said Lady Julia. And it was instantly manifest to all that her attack had been foiled and her flank turned.
"Good gracious! Lady Julia, how very odd you are!" said the countess.
"But what about the bull?" asked the Honourable George.
"It seems that the earl was knocked down in the middle of one of his own fields."
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Alexandrina. And sundry other exclamations were made by all the assembled ladies.
"But he wasn't hurt," said Crosbie. "A young man named Eames seems to have fallen from the sky and carried off the earl on his back."
"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" growled the other earl, as he heard of the discomfiture of his brother peer.
Lady Julia, who had received her own letters that day from Guestwick, knew that nothing of importance had happened to her brother; but she felt that she was foiled for that time.
"I hope that there has not really been any accident," said Mr. Gazebee, with a voice of great solicitude.
"My brother was quite well last night, thank you," said she. And then the little groups again formed themselves, and Lady Julia was left alone on the corner of a sofa.
"Was that all an invention of yours, sir?" said Alexandrina to Crosbie.
"Not quite. I did get a letter this morning from my friend Bernard Dale,--that old harridan's nephew; and Lord De Guest has been worried by some of his animals. I wish I had told her that his stupid old neck had been broken."
"Fie, Mr. Crosbie!"
"What business has she to interfere with me?"
"But I mean to ask the same question that she asked, and you won't put me off with a cock-and-bull story like that." But then, as she was going to ask the question, dinner was announced.
"And is it true that De Guest has been tossed by a bull?" said the earl, as soon as the ladies were gone. He had spoken nothing during dinner except what words he had muttered into the ear of Lady Dumbello. It was seldom that conversation had many charms for him in his own house; but there was a savour of pleasantry in the idea of Lord De Guest having been tossed, by which even he was tickled.
"Only knocked down, I believe," said Crosbie.
"Ha, ha, ha!" growled the earl; then he filled his glass, and allowed some one else to pass the bottle. Poor man! There was not much left to him now in the world which did amuse him.
"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Plantagenet Palliser, who was sitting at the earl's right hand, opposite to Lord Dumbello.
"Don't you?" said the earl. "Ha, ha, ha!"
"I'll be shot if I do. From all I hear De Guest is an uncommon good farmer. And I don't see the joke of tossing a farmer merely because he's a nobleman also. Do you?" and he turned round to Mr. Gazebee, who was sitting on the other side. The earl was an earl, and was also Mr. Gazebee's father-in-law. Mr. Plantagenet Palliser was the heir to a dukedom. Therefore, Mr. Gazebee merely simpered, and did not answer the question put to him. Mr. Palliser said nothing more about it, nor did the earl; and then the joke died away.
Mr. Plantagenet Palliser was the Duke of Omnium's heir--heir to that nobleman's title and to his enormous wealth; and, therefore, was a man of mark in the world. He sat in the House of Commons, of course. He was about five-and-twenty years of age, and was, as yet, unmarried. He did not hunt or shoot or keep a yacht, and had been heard to say that he had never put a foot upon a race-course in his life. He dressed very quietly, never changing the colour or form of his garments; and in society was quiet, reserved, and very often silent. He was tall, slight, and not ill-looking; but more than this cannot be said for his personal appearance--except, indeed, this, that no one could mistake him for other than a gentleman. With his uncle, the duke, he was on good terms--that is to say, they had never quarrelled. A very liberal allowance had been made to the nephew; but the two relatives had no tastes in common, and did not often meet. Once a year Mr. Palliser visited the duke at his great country seat for two or three days, and usually dined with him two or three times during the season in London. Mr. Palliser sat for a borough which was absolutely under the duke's command; but had accepted his seat under the distinct understanding that he was to take whatever part in politics might seem good to himself. Under these well-understood arrangements, the duke and his heir showed to the world quite a pattern of a happy family. "So different to the earl and Lord Porlock!" the people of West Barsetshire used to say. For the estates, both of the duke and of the earl, were situated in the western division of that county.
Mr. Palliser was chiefly known to the world as a rising politician. We may say that he had everything at his command, in the way of pleasure, that the world could offer him. He had wealth, position, power, and the certainty of attaining the highest rank among, perhaps, the most brilliant nobility of the world. He was courted by all who could get near enough to court him. It is hardly too much to say that he might have selected a bride from all that was most beautiful and best among English women. If he would have bought race-horses, and have expended thousands on the turf, he would have gratified his uncle by doing so. He might have been the master of hounds, or the slaughterer of hecatombs of birds. But to none of these things would he devote himself. He had chosen to be a politician, and in that pursuit he laboured with a zeal and perseverance which would have made his fortune at any profession or in any trade. He was constant in committee-rooms up to the very middle of August. He was rarely absent from any debate of importance, and never from any important division. Though he seldom spoke, he was always ready to speak if his purpose required it. No man gave him credit for any great genius--few even considered that he could become either an orator or a mighty statesman. But the world said that he was a rising man, and old Nestor of the Cabinet looked on him as one who would be able, at some far future day, to come among them as a younger brother. Hitherto he had declined such inferior offices as had been offered to him, biding his time carefully; and he was as yet tied hand and neck to no party, though known to be liberal in all his political tendencies. He was a great reader--not taking up a book here, and another there, as chance brought books before him, but working through an enormous course of books, getting up the great subject of the world's history--filling himself full of facts--though perhaps not destined to acquire the power of using those facts otherwise than as precedents. He strove also diligently to become a linguist--not without success, as far as a competent understanding of various languages. He was a thin-minded, plodding, respectable man, willing to devote all his youth to work, in order that in old age he might be allowed to sit among the Councillors of the State.
Hitherto his name had not been coupled by the world with that of any woman whom he had been supposed to admire; but latterly it had been observed that he had often been seen in the same room with Lady Dumbello. It had hardly amounted to more than this; but when it was remembered how undemonstrative were the two persons concerned--how little disposed was either of them to any strong display of feeling--even this was thought matter to be mentioned. He certainly would speak to her from time to time almost with an air of interest; and Lady Dumbello, when she saw that he was in the room, would be observed to raise her head with some little show of life, and to look round as though there were something there on which it might be worth her while to allow her eyes to rest. When such innuendoes were abroad, no one would probably make more of them than Lady De Courcy. Many, when they heard that Mr. Palliser was to be at the castle, had expressed their surprise at her success in that quarter. Others, when they learned that Lady Dumbello had consented to become her guest, had also wondered greatly. But when it was ascertained that the two were to be there together, her good-natured friends had acknowledged that she was a very clever woman. To have either Mr. Palliser or Lady Dumbello would have been a feather in her cap; but to succeed in getting both, by enabling each to know that the other would be there, was indeed a triumph. As regards Lady Dumbello, however, the bargain was not fairly carried out; for, after all, Mr. Palliser came to Courcy Castle only for two nights and a day, and during the whole of that day he was closeted with sundry large blue-books. As for Lady De Courcy, she did not care how he might be employed. Blue-books and Lady Dumbello were all the same to her. Mr. Palliser had been at Courcy Castle, and neither enemy nor friend could deny the fact.
This was his second evening; and as he had promised to meet his constituents at Silverbridge at one P.M. on the following day, with the view of explaining to them his own conduct and the political position of the world in general; and as he was not to return from Silverbridge to Courcy, Lady Dumbello, if she made any way at all, must take advantage of the short gleam of sunshine which the present hour afforded her. No one, however, could say that she showed any active disposition to monopolize Mr. Palliser's attention. When he sauntered into the drawing-room she was sitting, alone, in a large, low chair, made without arms, so as to admit the full expansion of her dress, but hollowed and round at the back, so as to afford her the support that was necessary to her. She had barely spoken three words since she had left the dining-room, but the time had not passed heavily with her. Lady Julia had again attacked the countess about Lily Dale and Mr. Crosbie, and Alexandrina, driven almost to rage, had stalked off to the farther end of the room, not concealing her special concern in the matter.
"How I do wish they were married and done with," said the countess; "and then we should hear no more about them."
All of which Lady Dumbello heard and understood; and in all of it she took a certain interest. She remembered such things, learning thereby who was who, and regulating her own conduct by what she learned. She was by no means idle at this or at other such times, going through, we may say, a considerable amount of really hard work in her manner of working. There she had sat speechless, unless when acknowledging by a low word of assent some expression of flattery from those around her. Then the door opened, and when Mr. Palliser entered she raised her head, and the faintest possible gleam of satisfaction might have been discerned upon her features. But she made no attempt to speak to him; and when, as he stood at the table, he took up a book and remained thus standing for a quarter of an hour, she neither showed nor felt any impatience. After that Lord Dumbello came in, and he stood at the table without a book. Even then Lady Dumbello felt no impatience.
Plantagenet Palliser skimmed through his little book, and probably learned something. When he put it down he sipped a cup of tea, and remarked to Lady De Courcy that he believed it was only twelve miles to Silverbridge.
"I wish it was a hundred and twelve," said the countess.
"In that case I should be forced to start to-night," said Mr. Palliser.
"Then I wish it was a thousand and twelve," said Lady De Courcy.
"In that case I should not have come at all," said Mr. Palliser. He did not mean to be uncivil, and had only stated a fact.
"The young men are becoming absolute bears," said the countess to her daughter Margaretta.
He had been in the room nearly an hour when he did at last find himself standing close to Lady Dumbello: close to her, and without any other very near neighbour.
"I should hardly have expected to find you here," he said.
"Nor I you," she answered.
"Though, for the matter of that, we are both near our own homes."
"I am not near mine."
"I meant Plumstead; your father's place."
"Yes; that was my home once."
"I wish I could show you my uncle's place. The castle is very fine, and he has some good pictures."
"So I have heard."
"Do you stay here long?"
"Oh, no. I go to Cheshire the day after to-morrow. Lord Dumbello is always there when the hunting begins."
"Ah, yes; of course. What a happy fellow he is; never any work to do! His constituents never trouble him, I suppose?"
"I don't think they ever do, much."
After that Mr. Palliser sauntered away again, and Lady Dumbello passed the rest of the evening in silence. It is to be hoped that they both were rewarded by that ten minutes of sympathetic intercourse for the inconvenience which they had suffered in coming to Courcy Castle.
But that which seems so innocent to us had been looked on in a different light by the stern moralists of that house.
"By Jove!" said the Honourable George to his cousin, Mr. Gresham, "I wonder how Dumbello likes it."
"It seems to me that Dumbello takes it very easily."
"There are some men who will take anything easily," said George, who, since his own marriage, had learned to have a holy horror of such wicked things.
"She's beginning to come out a little," said Lady Clandidlem to Lady De Courcy, when the two old women found themselves together over a fire in some back sitting-room. "Still waters always run deep, you know."
"I shouldn't at all wonder if she were to go off with him," said Lady De Courcy.
"He'll never be such a fool as that," said Lady Clandidlem.
"I believe men will be fools enough for anything," said Lady De Courcy. "But, of course, if he did, it would come to nothing afterwards. I know one who would not be sorry. If ever a man was tired of a woman, Lord Dumbello is tired of her."
But in this, as in almost everything else, the wicked old woman spoke scandal. Lord Dumbello was still proud of his wife, and as fond of her as a man can be of a woman whose fondness depends upon mere pride.
There had not been much that was dangerous in the conversation between Mr. Palliser and Lady Dumbello, but I cannot say the same as to that which was going on at the same moment between Crosbie and Lady Alexandrina. She, as I have said, walked away in almost open dudgeon when Lady Julia recommenced her attack about poor Lily, nor did she return to the general circle during the evening. There were two large drawing-rooms at Courcy Castle, joined together by a narrow link of a room, which might have been called a passage, had it not been lighted by two windows coming down to the floor, carpeted as were the drawing-rooms, and warmed with a separate fireplace. Hither she betook herself, and was soon followed by her married sister Amelia.
"That woman almost drives me mad," said Alexandrina, as they stood together with their toes upon the fender.
"But, my dear, you of all people should not allow yourself to be driven mad on such a subject."
"That's all very well, Amelia."
"The question is this, my dear,--what does Mr. Crosbie mean to do?"
"How should I know?"
"If you don't know, it will be safer to suppose that he is going to marry this girl; and in that case--" "Well, what in that case? Are you going to be another Lady Julia? What do I care about the girl?"
"I don't suppose you care much about the girl; and if you care as little about Mr. Crosbie, there's an end of it; only in that case, Alexandrina--" "Well, what in that case?"
"You know I don't want to preach to you. Can't you tell me at once whether you really like him? You and I have always been good friends." And the married sister put her arm affectionately round the waist of her who wished to be married.
"I like him well enough."
"And has he made any declaration to you?"
"In a sort of a way he has. Hark, here he is!" And Crosbie, coming in from the larger room, joined the sisters at the fireplace.
"We were driven away by the clack of Lady Julia's tongue," said the elder.
"I never met such a woman," said Crosbie.
"There cannot well be many like her," said Alexandrina. And after that they all stood silent for a minute or two. Lady Amelia Gazebee was considering whether or no she would do well to go and leave the two together. If it were intended that Mr. Crosbie should marry her sister, it would certainly be well to give him an opportunity of expressing such a wish on his own part. But if Alexandrina was simply making a fool of herself, then it would be well for her to stay. "I suppose she would rather I should go," said the elder sister to herself; and then, obeying the rule which should guide all our actions from one to another, she went back and joined the crowd.
"Will you come on into the other room?" said Crosbie.
"I think we are very well here," Alexandrina replied.
"But I wish to speak to you,--particularly," said he.
"And cannot you speak here?"
"No. They will be passing backwards and forwards." Lady Alexandrina said nothing further, but led the way into the other large room. That also was lighted, and there were in it four or five persons. Lady Rosina was reading a work on the Millennium, with a light to herself in one corner. Her brother John was asleep in an arm-chair, and a young gentleman and lady were playing chess. There was, however, ample room for Crosbie and Alexandrina to take up a position apart.
"And now, Mr. Crosbie, what have you got to say to me? But, first, I mean to repeat Lady Julia's question, as I told you that I should do. --When did you hear last from Miss Dale?"
"It is cruel in you to ask me such a question, after what I have already told you. You know that I have given to Miss Dale a promise of marriage."
"Very well, sir. I don't see why you should bring me in here to tell me anything that is so publicly known as that. With such a herald as Lady Julia it was quite unnecessary."
"If you can only answer me in that tone I will make an end of it at once. When I told you of my engagement, I told you also that another woman possessed my heart. Am I wrong to suppose that you knew to whom I alluded?"
"Indeed, I did not, Mr. Crosbie. I am no conjuror, and I have not scrutinized you so closely as your friend Lady Julia."
"It is you that I love. I am sure I need hardly say so now."
"Hardly, indeed,--considering that you are engaged to Miss Dale."
"As to that I have, of course, to own that I have behaved foolishly;--worse than foolishly, if you choose to say so. You cannot condemn me more absolutely than I condemn myself. But I have made up my mind as to one thing. I will not marry where I do not love." Oh, if Lily could have heard him as he then spoke! "It would be impossible for me to speak in terms too high of Miss Dale; but I am quite sure that I could not make her happy as her husband."
"Why did you not think of that before you asked her?" said Alexandrina. But there was very little of condemnation in her tone.
"I ought to have done so; but it is hardly for you to blame me with severity. Had you, when we were last together in London--had you been less--" "Less what?"
"Less defiant," said Crosbie, "all this might perhaps have been avoided."
Lady Alexandrina could not remember that she had been defiant; but, however, she let that pass. "Oh, yes; of course it was my fault."
"I went down there to Allington with my heart ill at ease, and now I have fallen into this trouble. I tell you all as it has happened. It is impossible that I should marry Miss Dale. It would be wicked in me to do so, seeing that my heart belongs altogether to another. I have told you who is that other; and now may I hope for an answer?"
"An answer to what?"
"Alexandrina, will you be my wife?"
If it had been her object to bring him to a point-blank declaration and proposition of marriage, she had certainly achieved her object now. And she had that trust in her own power of management and in her mother's, that she did not fear that in accepting him she would incur the risk of being served as he was serving Lily Dale. She knew her own position and his too well for that. If she accepted him she would in due course of time become his wife,--let Miss Dale and all her friends say what they might to the contrary. As to that head she had no fear. But nevertheless she did not accept him at once. Though she wished for the prize, her woman's nature hindered her from taking it when it was offered to her.
"How long is it, Mr. Crosbie," she said, "since you put the same question to Miss Dale?"
"I have told you everything, Alexandrina,--as I promised that I would do. If you intend to punish me for doing so--" "And I might ask another question. How long will it be before you put the same question to some other girl?"
He turned round as though to walk away from her in anger; but when he had gone half the distance to the door he returned.
"By heaven!" he said, and he spoke somewhat roughly, too, "I'll have an answer. You at any rate have nothing with which to reproach me. All that I have done wrong, I have done through you, or on your behalf. You have heard my proposal. Do you intend to accept it?"
"I declare you startle me. If you demanded my money or my life, you could not be more imperious."
"Certainly not more resolute in my determination."
"And if I decline the honour?"
"I shall think you the most fickle of your sex."
"And if I were to accept it?"
"I would swear that you were the best, the dearest, and the sweetest of women."
"I would rather have your good opinion than your bad, certainly," said Lady Alexandrina. And then it was understood by both of them that that affair was settled. Whenever she was called on in future to speak of Lily, she always called her, "that poor Miss Dale;" but she never again spoke a word of reproach to her future lord about that little adventure. "I shall tell mamma, to-night," she said to him, as she bade him good-night in some sequestered nook to which they had betaken themselves. Lady Julia's eye was again on them as they came out from the sequestered nook, but Alexandrina no longer cared for Lady Julia.
"George, I cannot quite understand about that Mr. Palliser. Isn't he to be a duke, and oughtn't he to be a lord now?" This question was asked by Mrs. George De Courcy of her husband, when they found themselves together in the seclusion of the nuptial chamber.
"Yes; he'll be Duke of Omnium when the old fellow dies. I think he's one of the slowest fellows I ever came across. He'll take deuced good care of the property, though."
"But, George, do explain it to me. It is so stupid not to understand, and I am afraid of opening my mouth for fear of blundering."
"Then keep your mouth shut, my dear. You'll learn all those sort of things in time, and nobody notices it if you don't say anything."
"Yes, but, George;--I don't like to sit silent all the night. I'd sooner be up here with a novel if I can't speak about anything."
"Look at Lady Dumbello. She doesn't want to be always talking."
"Lady Dumbello is very different from me. But do tell me, who is Mr. Palliser?"
"He's the duke's nephew. If he were the duke's son, he would be the Marquis of Silverbridge."
"And will he be plain Mister till his uncle dies?"
"Yes, a very plain Mister."
"What a pity for him. But, George,--if I have a baby, and if he should be a boy, and if--" "Oh, nonsense; it will be time enough to talk of that when he comes. I'm going to sleep."
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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24
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A MOTHER-IN-LAW AND A FATHER-IN-LAW.
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On the following morning Mr. Plantagenet Palliser was off upon his political mission before breakfast;--either that, or else some private comfort was afforded to him in guise of solitary rolls and coffee. The public breakfast at Courcy Castle was going on at eleven o'clock, and at that hour Mr. Palliser was already closeted with the Mayor of Silverbridge.
"I must get off by the 3.45 train," said Mr. Palliser. "Who is there to speak after me?"
"Well, I shall say a few words; and Growdy,--he'll expect them to listen to him. Growdy has always stood very firm by his grace, Mr. Palliser."
"Mind we are in the room sharp at one. And you can have a fly, for me to get away to the station, ready in the yard. I won't go a moment before I can help. I shall be just an hour and a half myself. No, thank you, I never take any wine in the morning." And I may here state that Mr. Palliser did get away by the 3.45 train, leaving Mr. Growdy still talking on the platform. Constituents must be treated with respect; but time has become so scarce now-a-days that that respect has to be meted out by the quarter of an hour with parsimonious care.
In the meantime there was more leisure at Courcy Castle. Neither the countess nor Lady Alexandrina came down to breakfast, but their absence gave rise to no special remark. Breakfast at the castle was a morning meal at which people showed themselves, or did not show themselves, as it pleased them. Lady Julia was there looking very glum, and Crosbie was sitting next to his future sister-in-law Margaretta, who already had placed herself on terms of close affection with him. As he finished his tea she whispered into his ear, "Mr. Crosbie, if you could spare half an hour, mamma would so like to see you in her own room." Crosbie declared that he would be delighted to wait upon her, and did in truth feel some gratitude in being welcomed as a son-in-law into the house. And yet he felt also that he was being caught, and that in ascending into the private domains of the countess he would be setting the seal upon his own captivity.
Nevertheless, he went with a smiling face and a light step, Lady Margaretta ushering him the way. "Mamma," said she; "I have brought Mr. Crosbie up to you. I did not know that you were here, Alexandrina, or I should have warned him."
The countess and her youngest daughter had been breakfasting together in the elder lady's sitting-room, and were now seated in a very graceful and well-arranged deshabille. The tea-cups out of which they had been drinking were made of some elegant porcelain, the teapot and cream-jug were of chased silver and as delicate in their way. The remnant of food consisted of morsels of French roll which had not even been allowed to crumble themselves in a disorderly fashion, and of infinitesimal pats of butter. If the morning meal of the two ladies had been as unsubstantial as the appearance of the fragments indicated, it must be presumed that they intended to lunch early. The countess herself was arrayed in an elaborate morning wrapper of figured silk, but the simple Alexandrina wore a plain white muslin peignoir, fastened with pink ribbon. Her hair, which she usually carried in long rolls, now hung loose over her shoulders, and certainly added something to her stock of female charms. The countess got up as Crosbie entered and greeted him with an open hand; but Alexandrina kept her seat, and merely nodded at him a little welcome. "I must run down again," said Margaretta, "or I shall have left Amelia with all the cares of the house upon her."
"Alexandrina has told me all about it," said the countess, with her sweetest smile; "and I have given her my approval. I really do think you will suit each other very well."
"I am very much obliged to you," said Crosbie. "I'm sure at any rate of this,--that she will suit me very well."
"Yes; I think she will. She is a good sensible girl."
"Psha, mamma; pray don't go on in that Goody Twoshoes sort of way."
"So you are, my dear. If you were not it would not be well for you to do as you are going to do. If you were giddy and harum-scarum, and devoted to rank and wealth and that sort of thing, it would not be well for you to marry a commoner without fortune. I'm sure Mr. Crosbie will excuse me for saying so much as that."
"Of course I know," said Crosbie, "that I had no right to look so high."
"Well; we'll say nothing more about it," said the countess.
"Pray don't," said Alexandrina. "It sounds so like a sermon."
"Sit down, Mr. Crosbie," said the countess, "and let us have a little conversation. She shall sit by you, if you like it. Nonsense, Alexandrina,--if he asks it!"
"Don't, mamma;--I mean to remain where I am."
"Very well, my dear;--then remain where you are. She is a wilful girl, Mr. Crosbie; as you will say when you hear that she has told me all that you told her last night." Upon hearing this, he changed colour a little, but said nothing. "She has told me," continued the countess, "about that young lady at Allington. Upon my word, I'm afraid you have been very naughty."
"I have been foolish, Lady De Courcy."
"Of course; I did not mean anything worse than that. Yes, you have been foolish;--amusing yourself in a thoughtless way, you know, and, perhaps, a little piqued because a certain lady was not to be won so easily as your Royal Highness wished. Well, now, all that must be settled, you know, as quickly as possible. I don't want to ask any indiscreet questions; but if the young lady has really been left with any idea that you meant anything, don't you think you should undeceive her at once?"
"Of course he will, mamma."
"Of course you will; and it will be a great comfort to Alexandrina to know that the matter is arranged. You hear what Lady Julia is saying almost every hour of her life. Now, of course, Alexandrina does not care what an old maid like Lady Julia may say; but it will be better for all parties that the rumour should be put a stop to. If the earl were to hear it, he might, you know--" And the countess shook her head, thinking that she could thus best indicate what the earl might do, if he were to take it into his head to do anything.
Crosbie could not bring himself to hold any very confidential intercourse with the countess about Lily; but he gave a muttered assurance that he should, as a matter of course, make known the truth to Miss Dale with as little delay as possible. He could not say exactly when he would write, nor whether he would write to her or to her mother; but the thing should be done immediately on his return to town.
"If it will make the matter easier, I will write to Mrs. Dale," said the countess. But to this scheme Mr. Crosbie objected very strongly.
And then a few words were said about the earl. "I will tell him this afternoon," said the countess; "and then you can see him to-morrow morning. I don't suppose he will say very much, you know; and perhaps he may think,--you won't mind my saying it, I'm sure,--that Alexandrina might have done better. But I don't believe that he'll raise any strong objection. There will be something about settlements, and that sort of thing, of course." Then the countess went away, and Alexandrina was left with her lover for half an hour. When the half-hour was over, he felt that he would have given all that he had in the world to have back the last four-and-twenty hours of his existence. But he had no hope. To jilt Lily Dale would, no doubt, be within his power, but he knew that he could not jilt Lady Alexandrina De Courcy.
On the next morning at twelve o'clock he had his interview with the father, and a very unpleasant interview it was. He was ushered into the earl's room, and found the great peer standing on the rug, with his back to the fire, and his hands in his breeches pockets.
"So you mean to marry my daughter?" said he. "I'm not very well, as you see; I seldom am."
These last words were spoken in answer to Crosbie's greeting. Crosbie had held out his hand to the earl, and had carried his point so far that the earl had been forced to take one of his own out of his pocket, and give it to his proposed son-in-law.
"If your lordship has no objection. I have, at any rate, her permission to ask for yours."
"I believe you have not any fortune, have you? She's got none; of course you know that?"
"I have a few thousand pounds, and I believe she has as much."
"About as much as will buy bread to keep the two of you from starving. It's nothing to me. You can marry her if you like; only, look here, I'll have no nonsense. I've had an old woman in with me this morning,--one of those that are here in the house,--telling me some story about some other girl that you have made a fool of. It's nothing to me how much of that sort of thing you may have done, so that you do none of it here. But,--if you play any prank of that kind with me, you'll find that you've made a mistake."
Crosbie hardly made any answer to this, but got himself out of the room as quickly as he could.
"You'd better talk to Gazebee about the trifle of money you've got," said the earl. Then he dismissed the subject from his mind, and no doubt imagined that he had fully done his duty by his daughter.
On the day after this, Crosbie was to go. On the last afternoon, shortly before dinner, he was waylaid by Lady Julia, who had passed the day in preparing traps to catch him.
"Mr. Crosbie," she said, "let me have one word with you. Is this true?"
"Lady Julia," he said, "I really do not know why you should inquire into my private affairs."
"Yes, sir, you do know; you know very well. That poor young lady who has no father and no brother, is my neighbour, and her friends are my friends. She is a friend of my own, and being an old woman, I have a right to speak for her. If this is true, Mr. Crosbie, you are treating her like a villain."
"Lady Julia, I really must decline to discuss the matter with you."
"I'll tell everybody what a villain you are; I will, indeed;--a villain and a poor weak silly fool. She was too good for you; that's what she was." Crosbie, as Lady Julia was addressing to him the last words, hurried upstairs away from her, but her ladyship, standing on a landing-place, spoke up loudly, so that no word should be lost on her retreating enemy.
"We positively must get rid of that woman," the countess, who heard it all, said to Margaretta. "She is disturbing the house and disgracing herself every day."
"She went to papa this morning, mamma."
"She did not get much by that move," said the countess.
On the following morning Crosbie returned to town, but just before he left the castle he received a third letter from Lily Dale. "I have been rather disappointed at not hearing this morning," said Lily, "for I thought the postman would have brought me a letter. But I know you'll be a better boy when you get back to London, and I won't scold you. Scold you, indeed! No; I'll never scold you, not though I shouldn't hear for a month."
He would have given all that he had in the world, three times told, if he could have blotted out that visit to Courcy Castle from the past facts of his existence.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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25
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ADOLPHUS CROSBIE SPENDS AN EVENING AT HIS CLUB.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] Crosbie, as he was being driven from the castle to the nearest station, in a dog-cart hired from the hotel, could not keep himself from thinking of that other morning, not yet a fortnight past, on which he had left Allington; and as he thought of it he knew that he was a villain. On this morning Alexandrina had not come out from the house to watch his departure, and catch the last glance of his receding figure. As he had not started very early she had sat with him at the breakfast-table; but others also had sat there, and when he got up to go, she did no more than smile softly and give him her hand. It had been already settled that he was to spend his Christmas at Courcy; as it had been also settled that he was to spend it at Allington.
Lady Amelia was, of all the family, the most affectionate to him, and perhaps of them all she was the one whose affection was worth the most. She was not a woman endowed with a very high mind or with very noble feelings. She had begun life trusting to the nobility of her blood for everything, and declaring somewhat loudly among her friends that her father's rank and her mother's birth imposed on her the duty of standing closely by her own order. Nevertheless, at the age of thirty-three she had married her father's man of business, under circumstances which were not altogether creditable to her. But she had done her duty in her new sphere of life with some constancy and a fixed purpose; and now that her sister was going to marry, as she had done, a man much below herself in social standing, she was prepared to do her duty as a sister and a sister-in-law.
"We shall be up in town in November, and of course you'll come to us at once. Albert Villa, you know, in Hamilton Terrace, St. John's Wood. We dine at seven, and on Sundays at two; and you'll always find a place. Mind you come to us, and make yourself quite at home. I do so hope you and Mortimer will get on well together."
"I'm sure we shall," said Crosbie. But he had had higher hopes in marrying into this noble family than that of becoming intimate with Mortimer Gazebee. What those hopes were he could hardly define to himself now that he had brought himself so near to the fruition of them. Lady De Courcy had certainly promised to write to her first cousin who was Under-Secretary of State for India, with reference to that secretaryship at the General Committee Office; but Crosbie, when he came to weigh in his mind what good might result to him from this, was disposed to think that his chance of obtaining the promotion would be quite as good without the interest of the Under-Secretary of State for India as with it. Now that he belonged, as we may say, to this noble family, he could hardly discern what were the advantages which he had expected from this alliance. He had said to himself that it would be much to have a countess for a mother-in-law; but now, even already, although the possession to which he had looked was not yet garnered, he was beginning to tell himself that the thing was not worth possessing.
As he sat in the train, with a newspaper in his hand, he went on acknowledging to himself that he was a villain. Lady Julia had spoken the truth to him on the stairs at Courcy, and so he confessed over and over again. But he was chiefly angry with himself for this,--that he had been a villain without gaining anything by his villany; that he had been a villain, and was to lose so much by his villany. He made comparison between Lily and Alexandrina, and owned to himself, over and over again, that Lily would make the best wife that a man could take to his bosom. As to Alexandrina, he knew the thinness of her character. She would stick by him, no doubt; and in a circuitous, discontented, unhappy way, would probably be true to her duties as a wife and mother. She would be nearly such another as Lady Amelia Gazebee. But was that a prize sufficiently rich to make him contented with his own prowess and skill in winning it? And was that a prize sufficiently rich to justify him to himself for his terrible villany? Lily Dale he had loved; and he now declared to himself that he could have continued to love her through his whole life. But what was there for any man to love in Alexandrina De Courcy?
While resolving, during his first four or five days at the castle, that he would throw Lily Dale overboard, he had contrived to quiet his conscience by inward allusions to sundry heroes of romance. He had thought of Lothario, Don Juan, and of Lovelace; and had told himself that the world had ever been full of such heroes. And the world, too, had treated such heroes well; not punishing them at all as villains, but caressing them rather, and calling them curled darlings. Why should not he be a curled darling as well as another? Ladies had ever been fond of the Don Juan character, and Don Juan had generally been popular with men also. And then he named to himself a dozen modern Lotharios,--men who were holding their heads well above water, although it was known that they had played this lady false, and brought that other one to death's door, or perhaps even to death itself. War and love were alike, and the world was prepared to forgive any guile to militants in either camp.
But now that he had done the deed he found himself forced to look at it from quite another point of view. Suddenly that character of Lothario showed itself to him in a different light, and one in which it did not please him to look at it as belonging to himself. He began to feel that it would be almost impossible for him to write that letter to Lily, which it was absolutely necessary that he should write. He was in a position in which his mind would almost turn itself to thoughts of self-destruction as the only means of escape. A fortnight ago he was a happy man, having everything before him that a man ought to want; and now--now that he was the accepted son-in-law of an earl, and the confident expectant of high promotion--he was the most miserable, degraded wretch in the world!
He changed his clothes at his lodgings in Mount Street and went down to his club to dinner. He could, at any rate, do nothing that night. His letter to Allington must, no doubt, be written at once; but, as he could not send it before the next night's post, he was not forced to set to work upon it that evening. As he walked along Piccadilly on his way to St. James's Square, it occurred to him that it might be well to write a short line to Lily, telling her nothing of the truth,--a note written as though his engagement with her was still unbroken, but yet written with care, saying nothing about that engagement, so as to give him a little time. Then he thought that he would telegraph to Bernard and tell everything to him. Bernard would, of course, be prepared to avenge his cousin in some way, but for such vengeance Crosbie felt that he should care little. Lady Julia had told him that Lily was without father or brother, thereby accusing him of the basest cowardice. "I wish she had a dozen brothers," he said to himself. But he hardly knew why he expressed such a wish.
He returned to London on the last day of October, and he found the streets at the West End nearly deserted. He thought, therefore, that he should be quite alone at his club, but as he entered the dinner room he saw one of his oldest and most intimate friends standing before the fire. Fowler Pratt was the man who had first brought him into Sebright's, and had given him almost his earliest start on his successful career in life. Since that time he and his friend Fowler Pratt had lived in close communion, though Pratt had always held a certain ascendancy in their friendship. He was in age a few years senior to Crosbie, and was in truth a man of better parts. But he was less ambitious, less desirous of shining in the world, and much less popular with men in general. He was possessed of a moderate private fortune on which he lived in a quiet, modest manner, and was unmarried, not likely to marry, inoffensive, useless, and prudent. For the first few years of Crosbie's life in London he had lived very much with his friend Pratt, and had been accustomed to depend much on his friend's counsel; but latterly, since he had himself become somewhat noticeable, he had found more pleasure in the society of such men as Dale, who were not his superiors either in age or wisdom. But there had been no coolness between him and Pratt, and now they met with perfect cordiality.
"I thought you were down in Barsetshire," said Pratt.
"And I thought you were in Switzerland."
"I have been in Switzerland," said Pratt.
"And I have been in Barsetshire," said Crosbie. Then they ordered their dinner together.
"And so you're going to be married?" said Pratt, when the waiter had carried away the cheese.
"Who told you that?"
"Well, but you are? Never mind who told me, if I was told the truth."
"But if it be not true?"
"I have heard it for the last month," said Pratt, "and it has been spoken of as a thing certain; and it is true; is it not?"
"I believe it is," said Crosbie, slowly.
"Why, what on earth is the matter with you, that you speak of it in that way? Am I to congratulate you, or am I not? The lady, I'm told, is a cousin of Dale's."
Crosbie had turned his chair from the table round to the fire, and said nothing in answer to this. He sat with his glass of sherry in his hand, looking at the coals, and thinking whether it would not be well that he should tell the whole story to Pratt. No one could give him better advice; and no one, as far as he knew his friend, would be less shocked at the telling of such a story. Pratt had no romance about women, and had never pretended to very high sentiments.
"Come up into the smoking-room and I'll tell you all about it," said Crosbie. So they went off together, and, as the smoking-room was untenanted, Crosbie was able to tell his story.
He found it very hard to tell;--much harder than he had beforehand fancied. "I have got into terrible trouble," he began by saying. Then he told how he had fallen suddenly in love with Lily, how he had been rash and imprudent, how nice she was--"infinitely too good for such a man as I am," he said;--how she had accepted him, and then how he had repented. "I should have told you beforehand," he then said, "that I was already half engaged to Lady Alexandrina De Courcy." The reader, however, will understand that this half-engagement was a fiction.
"And now you mean that you are altogether engaged to her?"
"Exactly so."
"And that Miss Dale must be told that, on second thoughts, you have changed your mind?"
"I know that I have behaved very badly," said Crosbie.
"Indeed you have," said his friend.
"It is one of those troubles in which a man finds himself involved almost before he knows where he is."
"Well; I can't look at it exactly in that light. A man may amuse himself with a girl, and I can understand his disappointing her and not offering to marry her,--though even that sort of thing isn't much to my taste. But, by George, to make an offer of marriage to such a girl as that in September, to live for a month in her family as her affianced husband, and then coolly go away to another house in October, and make an offer to another girl of higher rank--" "You know very well that that has had nothing to do with it."
"It looks very like it. And how are you going to communicate these tidings to Miss Dale?"
"I don't know," said Crosbie, who was beginning to be very sore.
"And you have quite made up your mind that you'll stick to the earl's daughter?"
The idea of jilting Alexandrina instead of Lily had never as yet presented itself to Crosbie, and now, as he thought of it, he could not perceive that it was feasible.
"Yes," he said, "I shall marry Lady Alexandrina;--that is, if I do not cut the whole concern, and my own throat into the bargain."
"If I were in your shoes I think I should cut the whole concern. I could not stand it. What do you mean to say to Miss Dale's uncle?"
"I don't care a ---- for Miss Dale's uncle," said Crosbie. "If he were to walk in at that door this moment, I would tell him the whole story, without--" As he was yet speaking, one of the club servants opened the door of the smoking-room, and seeing Crosbie seated in a lounging-chair near the fire, went up to him with a gentleman's card. Crosbie took the card and read the name. "Mr. Dale, Allington."
"The gentleman is in the waiting-room," said the servant.
Crosbie for the moment was struck dumb. He had declared that very moment that he should feel no personal disinclination to meet Mr. Dale, and now that gentleman was within the walls of the club, waiting to see him!
"Who's that?" asked Pratt. And then Crosbie handed him the card. "Whew-w-w-hew," whistled Pratt.
"Did you tell the gentleman I was here?" asked Crosbie.
"I said I thought you were upstairs, sir."
"That will do," said Pratt. "The gentleman will no doubt wait for a minute." And then the servant went out of the room. "Now, Crosbie, you must make up your mind. By one of these women and all her friends you will ever be regarded as a rascal, and they of course will look out to punish you with such punishment as may come to their hands. You must now choose which shall be the sufferer."
The man was a coward at heart. The reflection that he might, even now, at this moment, meet the old squire on pleasant terms,--or at any rate not on terms of defiance, pleaded more strongly in Lily's favour than had any other argument since Crosbie had first made up his mind to abandon her. He did not fear personal ill-usage;--he was not afraid lest he should be kicked or beaten; but he did not dare to face the just anger of the angry man.
"If I were you," said Pratt, "I would not go down to that man at the present moment for a trifle."
"But what can I do?"
"Shirk away out of the club. Only if you do that it seems to me that you'll have to go on shirking for the rest of your life."
"Pratt, I must say that I expected something more like friendship from you."
"What can I do for you? There are positions in which it is impossible to help a man. I tell you plainly that you have behaved very badly. I do not see that I can help you."
"Would you see him?"
"Certainly not, if I am to be expected to take your part."
"Take any part you like,--only tell him the truth."
"And what is the truth?"
"I was part engaged to that other girl before; and then, when I came to think of it, I knew that I was not fit to marry Miss Dale. I know I have behaved badly; but, Pratt, thousands have done the same thing before."
"I can only say that I have not been so unfortunate as to reckon any of those thousands among my friends."
"You mean to tell me, then, that you are going to turn your back on me?" said Crosbie.
"I haven't said anything of the kind. I certainly won't undertake to defend you, for I don't see that your conduct admits of defence. I will see this gentleman if you wish it, and tell him anything that you may desire me to tell him."
At this moment the servant returned with a note for Crosbie. Mr. Dale had called for paper and envelope, and sent up to him the following missive:--"Do you intend to come down to me? I know that you are in the house." "For heaven's sake go to him," said Crosbie. "He is well aware that I was deceived about his niece,--that I thought he was to give her some fortune. He knows all about that, and that when I learned from him that she was to have nothing--" "Upon my word, Crosbie, I wish you could find another messenger."
"Ah! you do not understand," said Crosbie in his agony. "You think that I am inventing this plea about her fortune now. It isn't so. He will understand. We have talked all this over before, and he knew how terribly I was disappointed. Shall I wait for you here, or will you come to my lodgings? Or I will go down to the Beaufort, and will wait for you there." And it was finally arranged that he should get himself out of this club and wait at the other for Pratt's report of the interview.
"Do you go down first," said Crosbie.
"Yes: I had better," said Pratt. "Otherwise you may be seen. Mr. Dale would have his eye upon you, and there would be a row in the house." There was a smile of sarcasm on Pratt's face as he spoke which angered Crosbie even in his misery, and made him long to tell his friend that he would not trouble him with this mission,--that he would manage his own affairs himself; but he was weakened and mentally humiliated by the sense of his own rascality, and had already lost the power of asserting himself, and of maintaining his ascendancy. He was beginning to recognize the fact that he had done that for which he must endure to be kicked, to be kicked morally if not materially; and that it was no longer possible for him to hold his head up without shame.
Pratt took Mr. Dale's note in his hand and went down into the stranger's room. There he found the squire standing, so that he could see through the open door of the room to the foot of the stairs down which Crosbie must descend before he could leave the club. As a measure of first precaution the ambassador closed the door; then he bowed to Mr. Dale, and asked him if he would take a chair.
"I wanted to see Mr. Crosbie," said the squire.
"I have your note to that gentleman in my hand," said he. "He has thought it better that you should have this interview with me;--and under all the circumstances perhaps it is better."
"Is he such a coward that he dare not see me?"
"There are some actions, Mr. Dale, that will make a coward of any man. My friend Crosbie is, I take it, brave enough in the ordinary sense of the word, but he has injured you."
"It is all true, then?"
"Yes, Mr. Dale; I fear it is all true."
"And you call that man your friend! Mr.--; I don't know what your name is."
"Pratt;--Fowler Pratt. I have known Crosbie for fourteen years,--ever since he was a boy; and it is not my way, Mr. Dale, to throw over an old friend under any circumstances."
"Not if he committed a murder."
"No; not though he committed a murder."
"If what I hear is true, this man is worse than a murderer."
"Of course, Mr. Dale, I cannot know what you have heard. I believe that Mr. Crosbie has behaved very badly to your niece, Miss Dale; I believe that he was engaged to marry her, or, at any rate, that some such proposition had been made."
"Proposition! Why, sir, it was a thing so completely understood that everybody knew it in the county. It was so positively fixed that there was no secret about it. Upon my honour, Mr. Pratt, I can't as yet understand it. If I remember right, it's not a fortnight since he left my house at Allington,--not a fortnight. And that poor girl was with him on the morning of his going as his betrothed bride. Not a fortnight since! And now I've had a letter from an old family friend telling me that he is going to marry one of Lord De Courcy's daughters! I went instantly off to Courcy, and found that he had started for London. Now, I have followed him here; and you tell me it's all true."
"I am afraid it is, Mr. Dale; too true."
"I don't understand it; I don't, indeed. I cannot bring myself to believe that the man who was sitting the other day at my table should be so great a scoundrel. Did he mean it all the time that he was there?"
"No; certainly not. Lady Alexandrina De Courcy was, I believe, an old friend of his;--with whom, perhaps, he had had some lover's quarrel. On his going to Courcy they made it up; and this is the result."
"And that is to be sufficient for my poor girl?"
"You will, of course, understand that I am not defending Mr. Crosbie. The whole affair is very sad,--very sad, indeed. I can only say, in his excuse, that he is not the first man who has behaved badly to a lady."
"And that is his message to me, is it? And that is what I am to tell my niece? You have been deceived by a scoundrel. But what then? You are not the first! Mr. Pratt, I give you my word as a gentleman, I do not understand it. I have lived a good deal out of the world, and am, therefore, perhaps, more astonished than I ought to be."
"Mr. Dale, I feel for you--" "Feel for me! What is to become of my girl? And do you suppose that I will let this other marriage go on; that I will not tell the De Courcys, and all the world at large, what sort of a man this is;--that I will not get at him to punish him? Does he think that I will put up with this?"
"I do not know what he thinks; I must only beg that you will not mix me up in the matter--as though I were a participator in his offence."
"Will you tell him from me that I desire to see him?"
"I do not think that that would do any good."
"Never mind, sir; you have brought me his message; will you have the goodness now to take back mine to him?"
"Do you mean at once--this evening,--now?"
"Yes, at once--this evening,--now;--this minute."
"Ah; he has left the club; he is not here now; he went when I came to you."
"Then he is a coward as well as a scoundrel." In answer to which assertion, Mr. Fowler Pratt merely shrugged his shoulders.
"He is a coward as well as a scoundrel. Will you have the kindness to tell your friend from me that he is a coward and a scoundrel,--and a liar, sir."
"If it be so, Miss Dale is well quit of her engagement."
"That is your consolation, is it? That may be all very well now-a-days; but when I was a young man, I would sooner have burnt out my tongue than have spoken in such a way on such a subject. I would, indeed. Good-night, Mr. Pratt. Pray make your friend understand that he has not yet seen the last of the Dales; although, as you hint, the ladies of that family will no doubt have learned that he is not fit to associate with them." Then, taking up his hat, the squire made his way out of the club.
"I would not have done it," said Pratt to himself, "for all the beauty, and all the wealth, and all the rank that ever were owned by a woman."
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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26
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LORD DE COURCY IN THE BOSOM OF HIS FAMILY.
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Lady Julia De Guest had not during her life written many letters to Mr. Dale of Allington, nor had she ever been very fond of him. But when she felt certain how things were going at Courcy, or rather, as we may say, how they had already gone, she took pen in hand, and sat herself to work, doing, as she conceived, her duty by her neighbour.
MY DEAR MR. DALE [she said], I believe I need make no secret of having known that your niece Lilian is engaged to Mr. Crosbie, of London. I think it proper to warn you that if this be true Mr. Crosbie is behaving himself in a very improper manner here. I am not a person who concerns myself much in the affairs of other people; and under ordinary circumstances, the conduct of Mr. Crosbie would be nothing to me,--or, indeed, less than nothing; but I do to you as I would wish that others should do unto me. I believe it is only too true that Mr. Crosbie has proposed to Lady Alexandrina De Courcy, and been accepted by her. I think you will believe that I would not say this without warrant, and if there be anything in it, it may be well, for the poor young lady's sake, that you should put yourself in the way of learning the truth.
Believe me to be yours sincerely, JULIA DE GUEST.
Courcy Castle, Thursday.
The squire had never been very fond of any of the De Guest family, and had, perhaps, liked Lady Julia the least of them all. He was wont to call her a meddling old woman,--remembering her bitterness and pride in those now long bygone days in which the gallant major had run off with Lady Fanny. When he first received this letter, he did not, on the first reading of it, believe a word of its contents. "Cross-grained old harridan," he said out loud to his nephew. "Look what that aunt of yours has written to me." Bernard read the letter twice, and as he did so his face became hard and angry.
"You don't mean to say you believe it?" said the squire.
"I don't think it will be safe to disregard it."
"What! you think it possible that your friend is doing as she says?"
"It is certainly possible. He was angry when he found that Lily had no fortune."
"Heavens, Bernard! And you can speak of it in that way?"
"I don't say that it is true; but I think we should look to it. I will go to Courcy Castle and learn the truth."
The squire at last decided that he would go. He went to Courcy Castle, and found that Crosbie had started two hours before his arrival. He asked for Lady Julia, and learned from her that Crosbie had actually left the house as the betrothed husband of Lady Alexandrina.
"The countess, I am sure, will not contradict it, if you will see her," said Lady Julia. But this the squire was unwilling to do. He would not proclaim the wretched condition of his niece more loudly than was necessary, and therefore he started on his pursuit of Crosbie. What was his success on that evening we have already learned.
Both Lady Alexandrina and her mother heard of Mr. Dale's arrival at the castle, but nothing was said between them on the subject. Lady Amelia Gazebee heard of it also, and she ventured to discuss the matter with her sister.
"You don't know exactly how far it went, do you?"
"No; yes;--not exactly, that is," said Alexandrina.
"I suppose he did say something about marriage to the girl?"
"Yes, I'm afraid he did."
"Dear, dear! It's very unfortunate. What sort of people are those Dales? I suppose he talked to you about them."
"No, he didn't; not very much. I daresay she is an artful, sly thing! It's a great pity men should go on in such a way."
"Yes, it is," said Lady Amelia. "And I do suppose that in this case the blame has been more with him than with her. It's only right I should tell you that."
"But what can I do?"
"I don't say you can do anything; but it's as well you should know."
"But I don't know, and you don't know; and I can't see that there is any use talking about it now. I knew him a long while before she did, and if she has allowed him to make a fool of her, it isn't my fault."
"Nobody says it is, my dear."
"But you seem to preach to me about it. What can I do for the girl? The fact is, he don't care for her a bit, and never did."
"Then he shouldn't have told her that he did."
"That's all very well, Amelia; but people don't always do exactly all that they ought to do. I suppose Mr. Crosbie isn't the first man that has proposed to two ladies. I dare say it was wrong, but I can't help it. As to Mr. Dale coming here with a tale of his niece's wrongs, I think it very absurd,--very absurd indeed. It makes it look as though there had been a scheme to catch Mr. Crosbie, and it's my belief that there was such a scheme."
"I only hope that there'll be no quarrel."
"Men don't fight duels now-a-days, Amelia."
"But do you remember what Frank Gresham did to Mr. Moffat when he behaved so badly to poor Augusta?"
"Mr. Crosbie isn't afraid of that kind of thing. And I always thought that Frank was very wrong,--very wrong indeed. What's the good of two men beating each other in the street?"
"Well; I'm sure I hope there'll be no quarrel. But I own I don't like the look of it. You see the uncle must have known all about it, and have consented to the marriage, or he would not have come here."
"I don't see that it can make any difference to me, Amelia."
"No, my dear, I don't see that it can. We shall be up in town soon, and I will see as much as possible of Mr. Crosbie. The marriage, I hope, will take place soon."
"He talks of February."
"Don't put it off, Alley, whatever you do. There are so many slips, you know, in these things."
"I'm not a bit afraid of that," said Alexandrina, sticking up her head.
"I daresay not; and you may be sure that we will keep an eye on him. Mortimer will get him up to dine with us as often as possible, and as his leave of absence is all over, he can't get out of town. He's to be here at Christmas, isn't he?"
"Of course he is."
"Mind you keep him to that. And as to these Dales, I would be very careful, if I were you, not to say anything unkind of them to any one. It sounds badly in your position." And with this last piece of advice Lady Amelia Gazebee allowed the subject to drop.
On that day Lady Julia returned to her own home. Her adieux to the whole family at Courcy Castle were very cold, but about Mr. Crosbie and his lady-love at Allington she said no further word to any of them. Alexandrina did not show herself at all on the occasion, and indeed had not spoken to her enemy since that evening on which she had felt herself constrained to retreat from the drawing-room.
"Good-by," said the countess. "You have been so good to come, and we have enjoyed it so much."
"I thank you very much. Good morning," said Lady Julia, with a stately courtesy.
"Pray remember me to your brother. I wish we could have seen him; I hope he has not been hurt by the--the bull." And then Lady Julia went her way.
"What a fool I have been to have that woman in the house," said the countess, before the door was closed behind her guest's back.
"Indeed you have," said Lady Julia, screaming back through the passage. Then there was a long silence, then a suppressed titter, and after that a loud laugh.
"Oh, mamma, what shall we do?" said Lady Amelia.
"Do!" said Margaretta; "why should we do anything? She has heard the truth for once in her life."
"Dear Lady Dumbello, what will you think of us?" said the countess, turning round to another guest, who was also just about to depart. "Did any one ever know such a woman before?"
"I think she's very nice," said Lady Dumbello, smiling.
"I can't quite agree with you there," said Lady Clandidlem. "But I do believe she means to do her best. She is very charitable, and all that sort of thing."
"I'm sure I don't know," said Rosina. "I asked her for a subscription to the mission for putting down the Papists in the west of Ireland, and she refused me point-blank."
"Now, my dear, if you're quite ready," said Lord Dumbello, coming into the room. Then there was another departure; but on this occasion the countess waited till the doors were shut, and the retreating footsteps were no longer heard. "Have you observed," said she to Lady Clandidlem, "that she has not held her head up since Mr. Palliser went away?"
"Indeed I have," said Lady Clandidlem. "As for poor Dumbello, he's the blindest creature I ever saw in my life."
"We shall hear of something before next May," said Lady De Courcy, shaking her head; "but for all that she'll never be Duchess of Omnium."
"I wonder what your mamma will say of me when I go away to-morrow," said Lady Clandidlem to Margaretta, as they walked across the hall together.
"She won't say that you are going to run away with any gentleman," said Margaretta.
"At any rate not with the earl," said Lady Clandidlem. "Ha, ha, ha! Well, we are all very good-natured, are we not? The best is that it means nothing."
Thus by degrees all the guests went, and the family of the De Courcys was left to the bliss of their own domestic circle. This, we may presume, was not without its charms, seeing that there were so many feelings in common between the mother and her children. There were drawbacks to it, no doubt, arising perhaps chiefly from the earl's bodily infirmities. "When your father speaks to me," said Mrs. George to her husband, "he puts me in such a shiver that I cannot open my mouth to answer him."
"You should stand up to him," said George. "He can't hurt you, you know. Your money's your own; and if I'm ever to be the heir, it won't be by his doing."
"But he gnashes his teeth at me."
"You shouldn't care for that, if he don't bite. He used to gnash them at me; and when I had to ask him for money I didn't like it; but now I don't mind him a bit. He threw the peerage at me one day, but it didn't go within a yard of my head."
"If he throws anything at me, George, I shall drop upon the spot."
But the countess had a worse time with the earl than any of her children. It was necessary that she should see him daily, and necessary also that she should say much that he did not like to hear, and make many petitions that caused him to gnash his teeth. The earl was one of those men who could not endure to live otherwise than expensively, and yet was made miserable by every recurring expense. He ought to have known by this time that butchers, and bakers, and corn-chandlers, and coal-merchants will not supply their goods for nothing; and yet it always seemed as though he had expected that at this special period they would do so. He was an embarrassed man, no doubt, and had not been fortunate in his speculations at Newmarket or Homburg; but, nevertheless, he had still the means of living without daily torment; and it must be supposed that his self-imposed sufferings, with regard to money, rose rather from his disposition than his necessities. His wife never knew whether he were really ruined, or simply pretending it. She had now become so used to her position in this respect, that she did not allow fiscal considerations to mar her happiness. Food and clothing had always come to her,--including velvet gowns, new trinkets, and a man-cook,--and she presumed that they would continue to come. But that daily conference with her husband was almost too much for her. She struggled to avoid it; and, as far as the ways and means were concerned, would have allowed them to arrange themselves, if he would only have permitted it. But he insisted on seeing her daily in his own sitting-room; and she had acknowledged to her favourite daughter, Margaretta, that those half-hours would soon be the death of her. "I sometimes feel," she said, "that I am going mad before I can get out." And she reproached herself, probably without reason, in that she had brought much of this upon herself. In former days the earl had been constantly away from home, and the countess had complained. Like many other women she had not known when she was well off. She had complained, urging upon her lord that he should devote more of his time to his own hearth. It is probable that her ladyship's remonstrances had been less efficacious than the state of his own health in producing that domestic constancy which he now practised; but it is certain that she looked back with bitter regret to the happy days when she was deserted, jealous, and querulous. "Don't you wish we could get Sir Omicron to order him to the German Spas?" she had said to Margaretta. Now Sir Omicron was the great London physician, and might, no doubt, do much in that way.
But no such happy order had as yet been given; and, as far as the family could foresee, paterfamilias intended to pass the winter with them at Courcy. The guests, as I have said, were all gone, and none but the family were in the house when her ladyship waited upon her lord one morning at twelve o'clock, a few days after Mr. Dale's visit to the castle. He always breakfasted alone, and after breakfast found in a French novel and a cigar what solace those innocent recreations were still able to afford him. When the novel no longer excited him and when he was saturated with smoke, he would send for his wife. After that, his valet would dress him. "She gets it worse than I do," the man declared in the servants' hall; "and minds it a deal more. I can give warning, and she can't."
"Better? No, I ain't better," the husband said, in answer to his wife's inquiries. "I never shall be better while you keep that cook in the kitchen."
"But where are we to get another if we send him away?"
"It's not my business to find cooks. I don't know where you're to get one. It's my belief you won't have a cook at all before long. It seems you have got two extra men into the house without telling me."
"We must have servants, you know, when there is company. It wouldn't do to have Lady Dumbello here, and no one to wait on her."
"Who asked Lady Dumbello? I didn't."
"I'm sure, my dear, you liked having her here."
"D---- Lady Dumbello!" and then there was a pause. The countess had no objection whatsoever to the above proposition, and was rejoiced that that question of the servants was allowed to slip aside, through the aid of her ladyship.
"Look at that letter from Porlock," said the earl; and he pushed over to the unhappy mother a letter from her eldest son. Of all her children he was the one she loved the best; but him she was never allowed to see under her own roof. "I sometimes think that he is the greatest rascal with whom I ever had occasion to concern myself," said the earl.
She took the letter and read it. The epistle was certainly not one which a father could receive with pleasure from his son; but the disagreeable nature of its contents was the fault rather of the parent than of the child. The writer intimated that certain money due to him had not been paid with necessary punctuality, and that unless he received it, he should instruct his lawyer to take some authorized legal proceedings. Lord De Courcy had raised certain moneys on the family property, which he could not have raised without the co-operation of his heir, and had bound himself, in return for that co-operation, to pay a certain fixed income to his eldest son. This he regarded as an allowance from himself; but Lord Porlock regarded it as his own, by lawful claim. The son had not worded his letter with any affectionate phraseology. "Lord Porlock begs to inform Lord De Courcy--" Such had been the commencement.
"I suppose he must have his money; else how can he live?" said the countess, trembling.
"Live!" shouted the earl. "And so you think it proper that he should write such a letter as that to his father!"
"It is all very unfortunate," she replied.
"I don't know where the money's to come from. As for him, if he were starving, it would serve him right. He's a disgrace to the name and the family. From all I hear, he won't live long."
"Oh, De Courcy, don't talk of it in that way!"
"What way am I to talk of it? If I say that he's my greatest comfort, and living as becomes a nobleman, and is a fine healthy man of his age, with a good wife and a lot of legitimate children, will that make you believe it? Women are such fools. Nothing that I say will make him worse than he is."
"But he may reform."
"Reform! He's over forty, and when I last saw him he looked nearly sixty. There;--you may answer his letter; I won't."
"And about the money?"
"Why doesn't he write to Gazebee about his dirty money? Why does he trouble me? I haven't got his money. Ask Gazebee about his money. I won't trouble myself about it." Then there was another pause, during which the countess folded the letter, and put it in her pocket.
"How long is George going to remain here with that woman?" he asked.
"I'm sure she is very harmless," pleaded the countess.
"I always think when I see her that I'm sitting down to dinner with my own housemaid. I never saw such a woman. How he can put up with it! But I don't suppose he cares for anything."
"It has made him very steady."
"Steady!"
"And as she will be confined before long it may be as well that she should remain here. If Porlock doesn't marry, you know--" "And so he means to live here altogether, does he? I'll tell you what it is,--I won't have it. He's better able to keep a house over his own head and his wife's than I am to do it for them, and so you may tell them. I won't have it. D'ye hear?" Then there was another short pause. "D'ye hear?" he shouted at her.
"Yes; of course I hear. I was only thinking you wouldn't wish me to turn them out, just as her confinement is coming on."
"I know what that means. Then they'd never go. I won't have it; and if you don't tell them I will." In answer to this Lady De Courcy promised that she would tell them, thinking perhaps that the earl's mode of telling might not be beneficial in that particular epoch which was now coming in the life of Mrs. George.
"Did you know," said he, breaking out on a new subject, "that a man had been here named Dale, calling on somebody in this house?" In answer to which the countess acknowledged that she had known it.
"Then why did you keep it from me?" And that gnashing of the teeth took place which was so specially objectionable to Mrs. George.
"It was a matter of no moment. He came to see Lady Julia De Guest."
"Yes; but he came about that man Crosbie."
"I suppose he did."
"Why have you let that girl be such a fool? You'll find he'll play her some knave's trick."
"Oh dear, no."
"And why should she want to marry such a man as that?"
"He's quite a gentleman, you know, and very much thought of in the world. It won't be at all bad for her, poor thing. It is so very hard for a girl to get married now-a-days without money."
"And so they're to take up with anybody. As far as I can see, this is a worse affair than that of Amelia."
"Amelia has done very well, my dear."
"Oh, if you call it doing well for your girls, I don't. I call it doing uncommon badly; about as bad as they well can do. But it's your affair. I have never meddled with them, and don't intend to do it now."
"I really think she'll be happy, and she is devotedly attached to the young man."
"Devotedly attached to the young man!" The tone and manner in which the earl repeated these words were such as to warrant an opinion that his lordship might have done very well on the stage had his attention been called to that profession. "It makes me sick to hear people talk in that way. She wants to get married, and she's a fool for her pains;--I can't help that; only remember that I'll have no nonsense here about that other girl. If he gives me trouble of that sort, by ----, I'll be the death of him. When is the marriage to be?"
[ILLUSTRATION: "Devotedly attached to the young man!"]
"They talk of February."
"I won't have any tomfoolery and expense. If she chooses to marry a clerk in an office, she shall marry him as clerks are married."
"He'll be the secretary before that, De Courcy."
"What difference does that make? Secretary, indeed! What sort of men do you suppose secretaries are? A beggar that came from nobody knows where! I won't have any tomfoolery;--d'ye hear?" Whereupon the countess said that she did hear, and soon afterwards managed to escape. The valet then took his turn; and repeated, after his hour of service, that "Old Nick" in his tantrums had been more like the Prince of Darkness than ever.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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27
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"ON MY HONOUR, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT."
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In the meantime Lady Alexandrina endeavoured to realize to herself all the advantages and disadvantages of her own position. She was not possessed of strong affections, nor of depth of character, nor of high purpose; but she was no fool, nor was she devoid of principle. She had asked herself many times whether her present life was so happy as to make her think that a permanent continuance in it would suffice for her desires, and she had always replied to herself that she would fain change to some other life if it were possible. She had also questioned herself as to her rank, of which she was quite sufficiently proud, and had told herself that she could not degrade herself in the world without a heavy pang. But she had at last taught herself to believe that she had more to gain by becoming the wife of such a man as Crosbie than by remaining as an unmarried daughter of her father's house. There was much in her sister Amelia's position which she did not envy, but there was less to envy in that of her sister Rosina. The Gazebee house in St. John's Wood Road was not so magnificent as Courcy Castle; but then it was less dull, less embittered by torment, and was moreover her sister's own.
"Very many do marry commoners," she had said to Margaretta.
"Oh, yes, of course. It makes a difference, you know, when a man has a fortune."
Of course it did make a difference. Crosbie had no fortune, was not even so rich as Mr. Gazebee, could keep no carriage, and would have no country house. But then he was a man of fashion, was more thought of in the world than Mr. Gazebee, might probably rise in his own profession,--and was at any rate thoroughly presentable. She would have preferred a gentleman with £5,000 a year; but then as no gentleman with £5,000 a year came that way, would she not be happier with Mr. Crosbie than she would be with no husband at all? She was not very much in love with Mr. Crosbie, but she thought that she could live with him comfortably, and that on the whole it would be a good thing to be married.
And she made certain resolves as to the manner in which she would do her duty by her husband. Her sister Amelia was paramount in her own house, ruling indeed with a moderate, endurable dominion, and ruling much to her husband's advantage. Alexandrina feared that she would not be allowed to rule, but she could at any rate try. She would do all in her power to make him comfortable, and would be specially careful not to irritate him by any insistence on her own higher rank. She would be very meek in this respect; and if children should come she would be as painstaking about them as though her own father had been merely a clergyman or a lawyer. She thought also much about poor Lilian Dale, asking herself sundry questions, with an idea of being high-principled as to her duty in that respect. Was she wrong in taking Mr. Crosbie away from Lilian Dale? In answer to these questions she was able to assure herself comfortably that she was not wrong. Mr. Crosbie would not, under any circumstances, marry Lilian Dale. He had told her so more than once, and that in a solemn way. She could therefore be doing no harm to Lilian Dale. If she entertained any inner feeling that Crosbie's fault in jilting Lilian Dale was less than it would have been had she herself not been an earl's daughter,--that her own rank did in some degree extenuate her lover's falseness,--she did not express it in words even to herself.
She did not get very much sympathy from her own family. "I'm afraid he does not think much of his religious duties. I'm told that young men of that sort seldom do," said Rosina. "I don't say you're wrong," said Margaretta. "By no means. Indeed I think less of it now than I did when Amelia did the same thing. I shouldn't do it myself, that's all." Her father told her that he supposed she knew her own mind. Her mother, who endeavoured to comfort and in some sort to congratulate her, nevertheless, harped constantly on the fact that she was marrying a man without rank and without a fortune. Her congratulations were apologetic, and her comfortings took the guise of consolation. "Of course you won't be rich, my dear; but I really think you'll do very well. Mr. Crosbie may be received anywhere, and you never need be ashamed of him." By which the countess implied that her elder married daughter was occasionally called on to be ashamed of her husband. "I wish he could keep a carriage for you, but perhaps that will come some day." Upon the whole Alexandrina did not repent, and stoutly told her father that she did know her own mind.
During all this time Lily Dale was as yet perfect in her happiness. That delay of a day or two in the receipt of the expected letter from her lover had not disquieted her. She had promised him that she would not distrust him, and she was firmly minded to keep her promises. Indeed no idea of breaking it came to her at this time. She was disappointed when the postman would come and bring no letter for her,--disappointed, as is the husbandman when the longed-for rain does not come to refresh the parched earth; but she was in no degree angry. "He will explain it," she said to herself. And she assured Bell that men never recognized the hunger and thirst after letters which women feel when away from those whom they love.
Then they heard at the Small House that the squire had gone away from Allington. During the last few days Bernard had not been much with them, and now they heard the news, not through their cousin, but from Hopkins. "I really can't undertake to say, Miss Bell, where the master's gone to. It's not likely the master'd tell me where he was going to; not unless it was about seeds, or the likes of that."
"He has gone very suddenly," said Bell.
"Well, miss, I've nothing to say to that. And why shouldn't he go sudden if he likes? I only know he had his gig, and went to the station. If you was to bury me alive I couldn't tell you more."
"I should like to try," said Lily as they walked away. "He is such a cross old thing. I wonder whether Bernard has gone with my uncle." And then they thought no more about it.
On the day after that Bernard came down to the Small House, but he said nothing by way of accounting for the squire's absence. "He is in London, I know," said Bernard.
"I hope he'll call on Mr. Crosbie," said Lily. But on this subject Bernard said not a word. He did ask Lily whether she had heard from Adolphus, in answer to which she replied, with as indifferent a voice as she could assume, that she had not had a letter that morning.
"I shall be angry with him if he's not a good correspondent," said Mrs. Dale, when she and Lily were alone together.
"No, mamma, you mustn't be angry with him. I won't let you be angry with him. Please to remember he's my lover and not yours."
"But I can see you when you watch for the postman."
"I won't watch for the postman any more if it makes you have bad thoughts about him. Yes, they are bad thoughts. I won't have you think that he doesn't do everything that is right."
On the next morning the postman brought a letter, or rather a note, and Lily at once saw that it was from Crosbie. She had contrived to intercept it near the back door, at which the postman called, so that her mother should not watch her watchings, nor see her disappointment if none should come. "Thank you, Jane," she said, very calmly, when the eager, kindly girl ran to her with the little missive; and she walked off to some solitude, trying to hide her impatience. The note had seemed so small that it amazed her; but when she opened it the contents amazed her more. There was neither beginning nor end. There was no appellation of love, and no signature. It contained but two lines. "I will write to you at length to-morrow. This is my first day in London, and I have been so driven about that I cannot write." That was all, and it was scrawled on half a sheet of note-paper. Why, at any rate, had he not called her his dearest Lily? Why had he not assured her that he was ever her own? Such expressions, meaning so much, may be conveyed in a glance of the pen. "Ah," she said, "if he knew how I hunger and thirst after his love!"
She had but a moment left to her before she must join her mother and sister, and she used that moment in remembering her promise. "I know it is all right," she said to herself. "He does not think of these things as I do. He had to write at the last moment,--as he was leaving his office." And then with a quiet, smiling face, she walked into the breakfast-parlour.
"What does he say, Lily?" asked Bell.
"What would you give to know?" said Lily.
"I wouldn't give twopence for the whole of it," said Bell.
"When you get anybody to write to you letters, I wonder whether you'll show them to everybody?"
"But if there's any special London news, I suppose we might hear it," said Mrs. Dale.
"But suppose there's no special London news, mamma. The poor man had only been in town one day, you know: and there never is any news at this time of the year."
"Had he seen uncle Christopher?"
"I don't think he had; but he doesn't say. We shall get all the news from him when he comes. He cares much more about London news than Adolphus does." And then there was no more said about the letter.
But Lily had read her two former letters over and over again at the breakfast-table; and though she had not read them aloud, she had repeated many words out of them, and had so annotated upon them that her mother, who had heard her, could have almost re-written them. Now, she did not even show the paper; and then her absence, during which she had read the letter, had hardly exceeded a minute or two. All this Mrs. Dale observed, and she knew that her daughter had been again disappointed.
In fact that day Lily was very serious, but she did not appear to be unhappy. Early after breakfast Bell went over to the parsonage, and Mrs. Dale and her youngest daughter sat together over their work. "Mamma," she said, "I hope you and I are not to be divided when I go to live in London."
"We shall never be divided in heart, my love."
"Ah, but that will not be enough for happiness, though perhaps enough to prevent absolute unhappiness. I shall want to see you, touch you, and pet you as I do now." And she came and knelt on the cushion at her mother's feet.
"You will have some one else to caress and pet,--perhaps many others."
"Do you mean to say that you are going to throw me off, mamma?"
"God forbid, my darling. It is not mothers that throw off their children. What shall I have left when you and Bell are gone from me?"
"But we will never be gone. That's what I mean. We are to be just the same to you always, even though we are married. I must have my right to be here as much as I have it now; and, in return, you shall have your right to be there. His house must be a home to you,--not a cold place which you may visit now and again, with your best clothes on. You know what I mean, when I say that we must not be divided."
"But Lily--" "Well, mamma?"
"I have no doubt we shall be happy together,--you and I." "But you were going to say more than that."
"Only this,--that your house will be his house, and will be full without me. A daughter's marriage is always a painful parting."
"Is it, mamma?"
"Not that I would have it otherwise than it is. Do not think that I would wish to keep you at home with me. Of course you will both marry and leave me. I hope that he to whom you are going to devote yourself may be spared to love you and protect you." Then the widow's heart became too full, and she put away her child from her that she might hide her face.
"Mamma, mamma, I wish I was not going from you."
"No, Lily; do not say that. I should not be contented with life if I did not see both my girls married. I think that it is the only lot which can give to a woman perfect content and satisfaction. I would have you both married. I should be the most selfish being alive if I wished otherwise."
"Bell will settle herself near you, and then you will see more of her and love her better than you do me."
"I shall not love her better."
"I wish she would marry some London man, and then you would come with us, and be near to us. Do you know, mamma, I sometimes think you don't like this place here."
"Your uncle has been very kind to give it to us."
"I know he has; and we have been very happy here. But if Bell should leave you--" "Then should I go also. Your uncle has been very kind, but I sometimes feel that his kindness is a burden which I should not be strong enough to bear solely on my own shoulders. And what should keep me here, then?" Mrs. Dale as she said this felt that the "here" of which she spoke extended beyond the limits of the home which she held through the charity of her brother-in-law. Might not all the world, as far as she was concerned in it, be contained in that "here"? How was she to live if both her children should be taken away from her? She had already realized the fact that Crosbie's house could never be a home to her,--never even a temporary home. Her visits there must be of that full-dressed nature to which Lily had alluded. It was impossible that she could explain this to Lily. She would not prophesy that the hero of her girl's heart would be inhospitable to his wife's mother; but such had been her reading of Crosbie's character. Alas, alas, as matters were to go, his hospitality or inhospitality would be matter of small moment to them.
Again in the afternoon the two sisters were together, and Lily was still more serious than her wont. It might almost have been gathered from her manner that this marriage of hers was about to take place at once, and that she was preparing to leave her home. "Bell," she said, "I wonder why Dr. Crofts never comes to see us now?"
"It isn't a month since he was here, at our party."
"A month! But there was a time when he made some pretext for being here every other day."
"Yes, when mamma was ill."
"Ay, and since mamma was well, too. But I suppose I must not break the promise you made me give you. He's not to be talked about even yet, is he?"
"I didn't say he was not to be talked about. You know what I meant, Lily; and what I meant then, I mean now."
"And how long will it be before you mean something else? I do hope it will come some day,--I do indeed."
"It never will, Lily. I once fancied that I cared for Dr. Crofts, but it was only fancy. I know it, because--" She was going to explain that her knowledge on that point was assured to her, because since that day she had felt that she might have learned to love another man. But that other man had been Mr. Crosbie, and so she stopped herself.
"I wish he would come and ask you himself."
"He will never do so. He would never ask such a question without encouragement, and I shall give him none. Nor will he ever think of marrying till he can do so without,--without what he thinks to be imprudence as regards money. He has courage enough to be poor himself without unhappiness, but he has not courage to endure poverty with a wife. I know well what his feelings are."
"Well, we shall see," said Lily. "I shouldn't wonder if you were married first now, Bell. For my part I'm quite prepared to wait for three years."
Late on that evening the squire returned to Allington, Bernard having driven over to meet him at the station. He had telegraphed to his nephew that he would be back by a late train, and no more than this had been heard from him since he went. On that day Bernard had seen none of the ladies at the Small House. With Bell at the present moment it was impossible that he should be on easy terms. He could not meet her alone without recurring to the one special subject of interest between them, and as to that he did not choose to speak without much forethought. He had not known himself, when he had gone about his wooing so lightly, thinking it a slight thing, whether or no he might be accepted. Now it was no longer a slight thing to him. I do not know that it was love that made him so eager; not good, honest, downright love. But he had set his heart upon the object, and with the wilfulness of a Dale was determined that it should be his. He had no remotest idea of giving up his cousin, but he had at last persuaded himself that she was not to be won without some toil, and perhaps also some delay.
Nor had he been in a humour to talk either to Mrs. Dale or to Lily. He feared that Lady Julia's news was true,--that at any rate there might be in it something of truth; and while thus in doubt he could not go down to the Small House. So he hung about the place by himself, with a cigar in his mouth, fearing that something evil was going to happen, and when the message came for him, almost shuddered as he seated himself in the gig. What would it become him to do in this emergency if Crosbie had truly been guilty of the villany with which Lady Julia had charged him? Thirty years ago he would have called the man out, and shot at him till one of them was hit. Now-a-days it was hardly possible for a man to do that; and yet what would the world say of him if he allowed such an injury as this to pass without vengeance?
His uncle, as he came forth from the station with his travelling-bag in his hand, was stern, gloomy, and silent. He came out and took his place in the gig almost without speaking. There were strangers about, and therefore his nephew at first could ask no question, but as the gig turned the corner out of the station-house yard he demanded the news.
"What have you heard?" he said.
But even then the squire did not answer at once. He shook his head, and turned away his face, as though he did not choose to be interrogated.
"Have you seen him, sir?" asked Bernard.
"No, he has not dared to see me."
"Then it is true?"
"True? --yes, it is all true. Why did you bring the scoundrel here? It has been your fault."
"No, sir; I must contradict that. I did not know him for a scoundrel."
"But it was your duty to have known him before you brought him here among them. Poor girl! how is she to be told?"
"Then she does not know it?"
"I fear not. Have you seen them?"
"I saw them yesterday, and she did not know it then; she may have heard it to-day."
"I don't think so. I believe he has been too great a coward to write to her. A coward indeed! How can any man find the courage to write such a letter as that?"
By degrees the squire told his tale. How he had gone to Lady Julia, had made his way to London, had tracked Crosbie to his club, and had there learned the whole truth from Crosbie's friend, Fowler Pratt, we already know. "The coward escaped me while I was talking to the man he sent down," said the squire. "It was a concerted plan, and I think he was right. I should have brained him in the hall of the club." On the following morning Pratt had called upon him at his inn with Crosbie's apology. "His apology!" said the squire. "I have it in my pocket. Poor reptile; wretched worm of a man! I cannot understand it. On my honour, Bernard, I do not understand it. I think men are changed since I knew much of them. It would have been impossible for me to write such a letter as that." He went on telling how Pratt had brought him this letter, and had stated that Crosbie declined an interview. "The gentleman had the goodness to assure me that no good could come from such a meeting. 'You mean,' I answered, 'that I cannot touch pitch and not be defiled!' He acknowledged that the man was pitch. Indeed, he could not say a word for his friend."
"I know Pratt. He is a gentleman. I am sure he would not excuse him."
"Excuse him! How could any one excuse him? Words could not be found to excuse him." And then he sat silent for some half mile. "On my honour, Bernard, I can hardly yet bring myself to believe it. It is so new to me. It makes me feel that the world is changed, and that it is no longer worth a man's while to live in it."
"And he is engaged to this other girl?"
"Oh, yes; with the full consent of the family. It is all arranged, and the settlements, no doubt, in the lawyer's hands by this time. He must have gone away from here determined to throw her over. Indeed, I don't suppose he ever meant to marry her. He was just passing away his time here in the country."
"He meant it up to the time of his leaving."
"I don't think it. Had he found me able and willing to give her a fortune he might, perhaps, have married her. But I don't think he meant it for a moment after I told him that she would have nothing. Well, here we are. I may truly say that I never before came back to my own house with so sore a heart."
They sat silently over their supper, the squire showing more open sorrow than might have been expected from his character. "What am I to say to them in the morning?" he repeated over and over again. "How am I to do it? And if I tell the mother, how is she to tell her child?"
"Do you think that he has given no intimation of his purpose?"
"As far as I can tell, none. That man Pratt knew that he had not done so yesterday afternoon. I asked him what were the intentions of his blackguard friend, and he said that he did not know--that Crosbie would probably have written to me. Then he brought me this letter. There it is," and the squire threw the letter over the table; "read it and let me have it back. He thinks probably that the trouble is now over as far as he is concerned."
It was a vile letter to have written--not because the language was bad, or the mode of expression unfeeling, or the facts falsely stated--but because the thing to be told was in itself so vile. There are deeds which will not bear a gloss--sins as to which the perpetrator cannot speak otherwise than as a reptile; circumstances which change a man and put upon him the worthlessness of vermin. Crosbie had struggled hard to write it, going home to do it after his last interview on that night with Pratt. But he had sat moodily in his chair at his lodgings, unable to take the pen in his hand. Pratt was to come to him at his office on the following morning, and he went to bed resolving that he would write it at his desk. On the next day Pratt was there before a word of it had been written.
"I can't stand this kind of thing," said Pratt. "If you mean me to take it, you must write it at once." Then, with inward groaning, Crosbie sat himself at his table, and the words at last were forthcoming. Such words as they were! "I know that I can have no excuse to make to you--or to her. But, circumstanced as I now am, the truth is the best. I feel that I should not make Miss Dale happy; and, therefore, as an honest man, I think I best do my duty by relinquishing the honour which she and you had proposed for me." There was more of it, but we all know of what words such letters are composed, and how men write when they feel themselves constrained to write as reptiles.
"As an honest man!" repeated the squire. "On my honour, Bernard, as a gentleman, I do not understand it. I cannot believe it possible that the man who wrote that letter was sitting the other day as a guest at my table."
"What are we to do to him?" said Bernard, after a while.
"Treat him as you would a rat. Throw your stick at him, if he comes under your feet; but beware, above all things, that he does not get into your house. That is too late for us now."
"There must be more than that, uncle."
"I don't know what more. There are deeds for committing which a man is doubly damned, because he has screened himself from overt punishment by the nature of his own villany. We have to remember Lily's name, and do what may best tend to her comfort. Poor girl! poor girl!"
Then they were silent, till the squire rose and took his bed candle. "Bernard," he said, "let my sister-in-law know early to-morrow that I will see her here, if she will be good enough to come to me after breakfast. Do not have anything else said at the Small House. It may be that he has written to-day."
Then the squire went to bed, and Bernard sat over the dining-room fire, meditating on it all. How would the world expect that he should behave to Crosbie? and what should he do when he met Crosbie at the club?
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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28
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THE BOARD.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] Crosbie, as we already know, went to his office in Whitehall on the morning after his escape from Sebright's, at which establishment he left the Squire of Allington in conference with Fowler Pratt. He had seen Fowler Pratt again that same night, and the course of the story will have shown what took place at that interview.
He went early to his office, knowing that he had before him the work of writing two letters, neither of which would run very glibly from his pen. One was to be his missive to the squire, to be delivered by his friend; the other, that fatal epistle to poor Lily, which, as the day passed away, he found himself utterly unable to accomplish. The letter to the squire he did write, under certain threats; and, as we have seen, was considered to have degraded himself to the vermin rank of humanity by the meanness of his production.
But on reaching his office he found that other cares awaited him,--cares which he would have taken much delight in bearing, had the state of his mind enabled him to take delight in anything. On entering the lobby of his office, at ten o'clock, he became aware that he was received by the messengers assembled there with almost more than their usual deference. He was always a great man at the General Committee Office; but there are shades of greatness and shades of deference, which, though quite beyond the powers of definition, nevertheless manifest themselves clearly to the experienced ear and eye. He walked through to his own apartment, and there found two official letters addressed to him lying on his table. The first which came to hand, though official, was small, and marked private, and it was addressed in the handwriting of his old friend, Butterwell, the outgoing secretary. "I shall see you in the morning, nearly as soon as you get this," said the semi-official note; "but I must be the first to congratulate you on the acquisition of my old shoes. They will be very easy in the wearing to you, though they pinched my corns a little at first. I dare say they want new soling, and perhaps they are a little down at heels; but you will find some excellent cobbler to make them all right, and will give them a grace in the wearing which they have sadly lacked since they came into my possession. I wish you much joy with them," &c., &c. He then opened the larger official letter, but that had now but little interest for him. He could have made a copy of the contents without seeing them. The Board of Commissioners had had great pleasure in promoting him to the office of secretary, vacated by the promotion of Mr. Butterwell to a seat at their own Board; and then the letter was signed by Mr. Butterwell himself.
How delightful to him would have been this welcome on his return to his office had his heart in other respects been free from care! And as he thought of this, he remembered all Lily's charms. He told himself how much she excelled the noble scion of the De Courcy stock, with whom he was now destined to mate himself; how the bride he had rejected excelled the one he had chosen in grace, beauty, faith, freshness, and all feminine virtues. If he could only wipe out the last fortnight from the facts of his existence! But fortnights such as those are not to be wiped out,--not even with many sorrowful years of tedious scrubbing.
And at this moment it seemed to him as though all those impediments which had frightened him when he had thought of marrying Lily Dale were withdrawn. That which would have been terrible with seven or eight hundred a year, would have been made delightful with twelve or thirteen. Why had his fate been so unkind to him? Why had not this promotion come to him but one fortnight earlier? Why had it not been declared before he had made his visit to that terrible castle? He even said to himself that if he had positively known the fact before Pratt had seen Mr. Dale, he would have sent a different message to the squire, and would have braved the anger of all the race of the De Courcys. But in that he lied to himself, and he knew that he did so. An earl, in his imagination, was hedged by so strong a divinity, that his treason towards Alexandrina could do no more than peep at what it would. It had been considered but little by him, when the project first offered itself to his mind, to jilt the niece of a small rural squire; but it was not in him to jilt the daughter of a countess.
That house full of babies in St. John's Wood appeared to him now under a very different guise from that which it wore as he sat in his room at Courcy Castle on the evening of his arrival there. Then such an establishment had to him the flavour of a graveyard. It was as though he were going to bury himself alive. Now that it was out of his reach, he thought of it as a paradise upon earth. And then he considered what sort of a paradise Lady Alexandrina would make for him. It was astonishing how ugly was the Lady Alexandrina, how old, how graceless, how destitute of all pleasant charm, seen through the spectacles which he wore at the present moment.
During his first hour at the office he did nothing. One or two of the younger clerks came in and congratulated him with much heartiness. He was popular at his office, and they had got a step by his promotion. Then he met one or two of the elder clerks, and was congratulated with much less heartiness. "I suppose it's all right," said one bluff old gentleman. "My time is gone by, I know. I married too early to be able to wear a good coat when I was young, and I never was acquainted with any lords or lords' families." The sting of this was the sharper because Crosbie had begun to feel how absolutely useless to him had been all that high interest and noble connection which he had formed. He had really been promoted because he knew more about his work than any of the other men, and Lady De Courcy's influential relation at the India Board had not yet even had time to write a note upon the subject.
At eleven Mr. Butterwell came into Crosbie's room, and the new secretary was forced to clothe himself in smiles. Mr. Butterwell was a pleasant, handsome man of about fifty, who had never yet set the Thames on fire, and had never attempted to do so. He was perhaps a little more civil to great men and a little more patronizing to those below him than he would have been had he been perfect. But there was something frank and English even in his mode of bowing before the mighty ones, and to those who were not mighty he was rather too civil than either stern or supercilious. He knew that he was not very clever, but he knew also how to use those who were clever. He seldom made any mistake, and was very scrupulous not to tread on men's corns. Though he had no enemies, yet he had a friend or two; and we may therefore say of Mr. Butterwell that he had walked his path in life discreetly. At the age of thirty-five he had married a lady with some little fortune, and now he lived a pleasant, easy, smiling life in a villa at Putney. When Mr. Butterwell heard, as he often did hear, of the difficulty which an English gentleman has of earning his bread in his own country, he was wont to look back on his own career with some complacency. He knew that he had not given the world much; yet he had received largely, and no one had begrudged it to him. "Tact," Mr. Butterwell used to say to himself, as he walked along the paths of his Putney villa. "Tact. Tact. Tact."
"Crosbie," he said, as he entered the room cheerily, "I congratulate you with all my heart. I do, indeed. You have got the step early in life, and you deserve it thoroughly;--much better than I did when I was appointed to the same office."
"Oh, no," said Crosbie, gloomily.
"But I say, Oh, yes. We are deuced lucky to have such a man, and so I told the commissioners."
"I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you."
"I've known it all along,--before you left even. Sir Raffle Buffle had told me he was to go to the Income-tax Office. The chair is two thousand there, you know; and I had been promised the first seat at the Board."
"Ah;--I wish I'd known," said Crosbie.
"You are much better as you are," said Butterwell. "There's no pleasure like a surprise! Besides, one knows a thing of that kind, and yet doesn't know it. I don't mind saying now that I knew it,--swearing that I knew it,--but I wouldn't have said so to a living being the day before yesterday. There are such slips between the cups and the lips. Suppose Sir Raffle had not gone to the Income-tax!"
"Exactly so," said Crosbie.
"But it's all right now. Indeed I sat at the Board yesterday, though I signed the letter afterwards. I'm not sure that I don't lose more than I gain."
"What! with three hundred a year more and less work?"
"Ah, but look at the interest of the thing. The secretary sees everything and knows everything. But I'm getting old, and, as you say, the lighter work will suit me. By the by, will you come down to Putney to-morrow? Mrs. Butterwell will be delighted to see the new secretary. There's nobody in town now, so you can have no ground for refusing."
But Mr. Crosbie did find some ground for refusing. It would have been impossible for him to have sat and smiled at Mrs. Butterwell's table in his present frame of mind. In a mysterious, half-explanatory manner, he let Mr. Butterwell know that private affairs of importance made it absolutely necessary that he should remain that evening in town. "And indeed," as he said, "he was not his own master just at present."
"By the by,--of course not. I had quite forgotten to congratulate you on that head. So you're going to be married? Well; I'm very glad, and hope you'll be as lucky as I have been."
"Thank you," said Crosbie, again rather gloomily.
"A young lady from near Guestwick, isn't it; or somewhere in those parts?"
"N--no," stammered Crosbie. "The lady comes from Barsetshire."
"Why, I heard the name. Isn't she a Bell, or Tait, or Ball, or some such name as that?"
"No," said Crosbie, assuming what boldness he could command. "Her name is De Courcy."
"One of the earl's daughters?"
"Yes," said Crosbie.
"Oh, I beg your pardon. I'd heard wrong. You're going to be allied to a very noble family, and I am heartily glad to hear of your success in life." Then Butterwell shook him very cordially by the hand,--having offered him no such special testimony of approval when under the belief that he was going to marry a Bell, a Tait, or a Ball. All the same, Mr. Butterwell began to think that there was something wrong. He had heard from an indubitable source that Crosbie had engaged himself to a niece of a squire with whom he had been staying near Guestwick,--a girl without any money; and Mr. Butterwell, in his wisdom, had thought his friend Crosbie to be rather a fool for his pains. But now he was going to marry one of the De Courcys! Mr. Butterwell was rather at his wits' ends.
"Well; we shall be sitting at two, you know, and of course you'll come to us. If you're at leisure before that I'll make over what papers I have to you. I've not been a Lord Eldon in my office, and they won't break your back."
Immediately after that Fowler Pratt had been shown into Crosbie's room, and Crosbie had written the letter to the squire under Pratt's eye.
He could take no joy in his promotion. When Pratt left him he tried to lighten his heart. He endeavoured to throw Lily and her wrongs behind him, and fix his thoughts on his advancing successes in life; but he could not do it. A self-imposed trouble will not allow itself to be banished. If a man lose a thousand pounds by a friend's fault, or by a turn in the wheel of fortune, he can, if he be a man, put his grief down and trample it under foot; he can exorcise the spirit of his grievance, and bid the evil one depart from out of his house. But such exorcism is not to be used when the sorrow has come from a man's own folly and sin;--especially not if it has come from his own selfishness. Such are the cases which make men drink; which drive them on to the avoidance of all thought; which create gamblers and reckless prodigals; which are the promoters of suicide. How could he avoid writing this letter to Lily? He might blow his brains out, and so let there be an end of it all. It was to such reflections that he came, when he sat himself down endeavouring to reap satisfaction from his promotion.
But Crosbie was not a man to commit suicide. In giving him his due I must protest that he was too good for that. He knew too well that a pistol-bullet could not be the be-all and the end-all here, and there was too much manliness in him for so cowardly an escape. The burden must be borne. But how was he to bear it? There he sat till it was two o'clock, neglecting Mr. Butterwell and his office papers, and not stirring from his seat till a messenger summoned him before the Board. The Board, as he entered the room, was not such a Board as the public may, perhaps, imagine such Boards to be. There was a round table, with a few pens lying about, and a comfortable leathern arm-chair at the side of it, farthest from the door. Sir Raffle Buffle was leaving his late colleagues, and was standing with his back to the fire-place, talking very loudly. Sir Raffle was a great bully, and the Board was uncommonly glad to be rid of him; but as this was to be his last appearance at the Committee Office, they submitted to his voice meekly. Mr. Butterwell was standing close to him, essaying to laugh mildly at Sir Raffle's jokes. A little man, hardly more than five feet high, with small but honest-looking eyes, and close-cut hair, was standing behind the arm-chair, rubbing his hands together, and longing for the departure of Sir Raffle, in order that he might sit down. This was Mr. Optimist, the new chairman, in praise of whose appointment the Daily Jupiter had been so loud, declaring that the present Minister was showing himself superior to all Ministers who had ever gone before him, in giving promotion solely on the score of merit. The Daily Jupiter, a fortnight since, had published a very eloquent article, strongly advocating the claims of Mr. Optimist, and was naturally pleased to find that its advice had been taken. Has not an obedient Minister a right to the praise of those powers which he obeys?
[ILLUSTRATION: The Board.]
Mr. Optimist was, in truth, an industrious little gentleman, very well connected, who had served the public all his life, and who was, at any rate, honest in his dealings. Nor was he a bully, such as his predecessor. It might, however, be a question whether he carried guns enough for the command in which he was now to be employed. There was but one other member of the Board, Major Fiasco by name, a discontented, broken-hearted, silent man, who had been sent to the General Committee Office some few years before because he was not wanted anywhere else. He was a man who had intended to do great things when he entered public life, and had possessed the talent and energy for things moderately great. He had also possessed to a certain extent the ear of those high in office; but, in some way, matters had not gone well with him, and in running his course he had gone on the wrong side of the post. He was still in the prime of life, and yet all men knew that Major Fiasco had nothing further to expect from the public or from the Government. Indeed, there were not wanting those who said that Major Fiasco was already in receipt of a liberal income, for which he gave no work in return; that he merely filled a chair for four hours a day four or five days a week, signing his name to certain forms and documents, reading, or pretending to read, certain papers, but, in truth, doing no good. Major Fiasco, on the other hand, considered himself to be a deeply injured individual, and he spent his life in brooding over his wrongs. He believed now in nothing and in nobody. He had begun public life striving to be honest, and he now regarded all around him as dishonest. He had no satisfaction in any man other than that which he found when some event would show to him that this or that other compeer of his own had proved himself to be self-interested, false, or fraudulent. "Don't tell me, Butterwell," he would say--for with Mr. Butterwell he maintained some semi-official intimacy, and he would take that gentleman by the button-hole, holding him close. "Don't tell me. I know what men are. I've seen the world. I've been looking at things with my eyes open. I knew what he was doing." And then he would tell of the sly deed of some official known well to them both, not denouncing it by any means, but affecting to take it for granted that the man in question was a rogue. Butterwell would shrug his shoulders, and laugh gently, and say that, upon his word, he didn't think the world so bad as Fiasco made it out to be.
Nor did he; for Butterwell believed in many things. He believed in his Putney villa on this earth, and he believed also that he might achieve some sort of Putney villa in the world beyond without undergoing present martyrdom. His Putney villa first, with all its attendant comforts, and then his duty to the public afterwards. It was thus that Mr. Butterwell regulated his conduct; and as he was solicitous that the villa should be as comfortable a home to his wife as to himself, and that it should be specially comfortable to his friends, I do not think that we need quarrel with his creed.
Mr. Optimist believed in everything, but especially he believed in the Prime Minister, in the Daily Jupiter, in the General Committee Office, and in himself. He had long thought that everything was nearly right; but now that he himself was chairman at the General Committee Office, he was quite sure that everything must be right. In Sir Raffle Buffle, indeed, he had never believed; and now it was, perhaps, the greatest joy of his life that he should never again be called upon to hear the tones of that terrible knight's hated voice.
Seeing who were the components of the new Board, it may be presumed that Crosbie would look forward to enjoying a not uninfluential position in his office. There were, indeed, some among the clerks who did not hesitate to say that the new secretary would have it pretty nearly all his own way. As for "Old Opt," there would be, they said, no difficulty about him. Only tell him that such and such a decision was his own, and he would be sure to believe the teller. Butterwell was not fond of work, and had been accustomed to lean upon Crosbie for many years. As for Fiasco, he would be cynical in words, but wholly indifferent in deed. If the whole office were made to go to the mischief, Fiasco, in his own grim way, would enjoy the confusion.
"Wish you joy, Crosbie," said Sir Raffle, standing up on the rug, waiting for the new secretary to go up to him and shake hands. But Sir Raffle was going, and the new secretary did not indulge him.
"Thank ye, Sir Raffle," said Crosbie, without going near the rug.
"Mr. Crosbie, I congratulate you most sincerely," said Mr. Optimist. "Your promotion has been the result altogether of your own merit. You have been selected for the high office which you are now called upon to fill solely because it has been thought that you are the most fit man to perform the onerous duties attached to it. Hum--h-m--ha. As regards my share in the recommendation which we found ourselves bound to submit to the Treasury, I must say that I never felt less hesitation in my life, and I believe I may declare as much as regards the other members of the Board." And Mr. Optimist looked around him for approving words. He had come forward from his standing ground behind his chair to welcome Crosbie, and had shaken his hand cordially. Fiasco also had risen from his seat, and had assured Crosbie in a whisper that he had feathered his nest uncommon well. Then he had sat down again.
"Indeed you may, as far as I am concerned," said Butterwell.
"I told the Chancellor of the Exchequer," said Sir Raffle, speaking very loud and with much authority, "that unless he had some first-rate man to send from elsewhere I could name a fitting candidate. 'Sir Raffle,' he said, 'I mean to keep it in the office, and therefore shall be glad of your opinion.' 'In that case, Mr. Chancellor,' said I, 'Mr. Crosbie must be the man.' 'Mr. Crosbie shall be the man,' said the Chancellor. And Mr. Crosbie is the man."
"Your friend Sark spoke to Lord Brock about it," said Fiasco. Now the Earl of Sark was a young nobleman of much influence at the present moment, and Lord Brock was the Prime Minister. "You should thank Lord Sark."
"Had as much to do with it as if my footman had spoken," said Sir Raffle.
"I am very much obliged to the Board for their good opinion," said Crosbie, gravely. "I am obliged to Lord Sark as well,--and also to your footman, Sir Raffle, if, as you seem to say, he has interested himself in my favour."
"I didn't say anything of the kind," said Sir Raffle. "I thought it right to make you understand that it was my opinion, given, of course, officially, which prevailed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Well, gentlemen, as I shall be wanted in the city, I will say good morning to you. Is my carriage ready, Boggs?" Upon which the attendant messenger opened the door, and the great Sir Raffle Buffle took his final departure from the scene of his former labours.
"As to the duties of your new office"--and Mr. Optimist continued his speech, taking no other notice of the departure of his enemy than what was indicated by an increased brightness of his eye and a more satisfactory tone of voice--"you will find yourself quite familiar with them."
"Indeed he will," said Butterwell.
"And I am quite sure that you will perform them with equal credit to yourself, satisfaction to the department, and advantage to the public. We shall always be glad to have your opinion on any subject of importance that may come before us; and as regards the internal discipline of the office, we feel that we may leave it safely in your hands. In any matter of importance you will, of course, consult us, and I feel very confident that we shall go on together with great comfort and with mutual confidence." Then Mr. Optimist looked at his brother commissioners, sat down in his arm-chair, and taking in his hands some papers before him, began the routine business of the day.
It was nearly five o'clock when, on this special occasion, the secretary returned from the board-room to his own office. Not for a moment had the weight been off his shoulders while Sir Raffle had been bragging or Mr. Optimist making his speech. He had been thinking, not of them, but of Lily Dale; and though they had not discovered his thoughts, they had perceived that he was hardly like himself.
"I never saw a man so little elated by good fortune in my life," said Mr. Optimist.
"Ah, he's got something on his mind," said Butterwell. "He's going to be married, I believe."
"If that's the case, it's no wonder he shouldn't be elated," said Major Fiasco, who was himself a bachelor.
When in his own room again, Crosbie at once seized on a sheet of note-paper, as though by hurrying himself on with it he could get that letter to Allington written. But though the paper was before him, and the pen in his hand, the letter did not, would not, get itself written. With what words was he to begin it? To whom should it be written? How was he to declare himself the villain which he had made himself? The letters from his office were taken away every night shortly after six, and at six o'clock he had not written a word. "I will do it at home to-night," he said to himself, and then, tearing off a scrap of paper, he scratched those few lines which Lily received, and which she had declined to communicate to her mother or sister. Crosbie, as he wrote them, conceived that they would in some way prepare the poor girl for the coming blow,--that they would, at any rate, make her know that all was not right; but in so supposing he had not counted on the constancy of her nature, nor had he thought of the promise which she had given him that nothing should make her doubt him. He wrote the scrap, and then taking his hat walked off through the gloom of the November evening up Charing Cross and St. Martin's Lane, towards the Seven Dials and Bloomsbury, into regions of the town with which he had no business, and which he never frequented. He hardly knew where he went or wherefore. How was he to escape from the weight of the burden which was now crushing him? It seemed to him as though he would change his position with thankfulness for that of the junior clerk in his office, if only that junior clerk had upon his mind no such betrayal of trust as that of which he was guilty.
At half-past seven he found himself at Sebright's, and there he dined. A man will dine, even though his heart be breaking. Then he got into a cab, and had himself taken home to Mount Street. During his walk he had sworn to himself that he would not go to bed that night till the letter was written and posted. It was twelve before the first words were marked on the paper, and yet he kept his oath. Between two and three, in the cold moonlight, he crawled out and deposited his letter in the nearest post-office.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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29
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JOHN EAMES RETURNS TO BURTON CRESCENT.
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John Eames and Crosbie returned to town on the same day. It will be remembered how Eames had assisted Lord De Guest in the matter of the bull, and how great had been the earl's gratitude on the occasion. The memory of this, and the strong encouragement which he received from his mother and sister for having made such a friend by his gallantry, lent some slight satisfaction to his last hours at home. But his two misfortunes were too serious to allow of anything like real happiness. He was leaving Lily behind him, engaged to be married to a man whom he hated, and he was returning to Burton Crescent, where he would have to face Amelia Roper,--Amelia either in her rage or in her love. The prospect of Amelia in her rage was very terrible to him; but his greatest fear was of Amelia in her love. He had in his letter declined matrimony; but what if she talked down all his objections, and carried him off to church in spite of himself!
When he reached London and got into a cab with his portmanteau, he could hardly fetch up courage to bid the man drive him to Burton Crescent. "I might as well go to an hotel for the night," he said to himself, "and then I can learn how things are going on from Cradell at the office." Nevertheless, he did give the direction to Burton Crescent, and when it was once given felt ashamed to change it. But, as he was driven up to the well-known door, his heart was so low within him that he might almost be said to have lost it. When the cabman demanded whether he should knock, he could not answer; and when the maid-servant at the door greeted him, he almost ran away.
"Who's at home?" said he, asking the question in a very low voice.
"There's missus," said the girl, "and Miss Spruce, and Mrs. Lupex. He's away somewhere, in his tantrums again; and there's Mr.--" "Is Miss Roper here?" he said, still whispering.
"Oh, yes! Miss Mealyer's here," said the girl, speaking in a cruelly loud voice. "She was in the dining-room just now, putting out the table. Miss Mealyer!" And the girl, as she called out the name, opened the dining-room door. Johnny Eames felt that his knees were too weak to support him.
But Miss Mealyer was not in the dining-room. She had perceived the advancing cab of her sworn adorer, and had thought it expedient to retreat from her domestic duties, and fortify herself among her brushes and ribbons. Had it been possible that she should know how very weak and cowardly was the enemy against whom she was called upon to put herself in action, she might probably have fought her battle somewhat differently, and have achieved a speedy victory, at the cost of an energetic shot or two. But she did not know. She thought it probable that she might obtain power over him and manage him; but it did not occur to her that his legs were so weak beneath him that she might almost blow him over with a breath. None but the worst and most heartless of women know the extent of their own power over men;--as none but the worst and most heartless of men know the extent of their power over women. Amelia Roper was not a good specimen of the female sex, but there were worse women than her.
"She ain't there, Mr. Eames; but you'll see her in the drawen-room," said the girl. "And it's she'll be glad to see you back again, Mr. Eames." But he scrupulously passed the door of the upstairs sitting-room, not even looking within it, and contrived to get himself into his own chamber without having encountered anybody. "Here's yer 'ot water, Mr. Eames," said the girl, coming up to him after an interval of half-an-hour; "and dinner'll be on the table in ten minutes. Mr. Cradell is come in, and so is missus's son."
It was still open to him to go out and dine at some eating-house in the Strand. He could start out, leaving word that he was engaged, and so postpone the evil hour. He had almost made up his mind to do so, and certainly would have done it, had not the sitting-room door opened as he was on the landing-place. The door opened, and he found himself confronting the assembled company. First came Cradell, and leaning on his arm, I regret to say, was Mrs. Lupex,--_Egyptia conjux! _ Then there came Miss Spruce with young Roper; Amelia and her mother brought up the rear together. There was no longer question of flight now; and poor Eames, before he knew what he was doing, was carried down into the dining-room with the rest of the company. They were all glad to see him, and welcomed him back warmly, but he was so much beside himself that he could not ascertain whether Amelia's voice was joined with the others. He was already seated at table, and had before him a plate of soup, before he recognized the fact that he was sitting between Mrs. Roper and Mrs. Lupex. The latter lady had separated herself from Mr. Cradell as she entered the room. "Under all the circumstances perhaps it will be better for us to be apart," she said. "A lady can't make herself too safe; can she, Mrs. Roper? There's no danger between you and me, is there, Mr. Eames,--specially when Miss Amelia is opposite?" The last words, however, were intended to be whispered into his ear.
But Johnny made no answer to her; contenting himself for the moment with wiping the perspiration from his brow. There was Amelia opposite to him, looking at him--the very Amelia to whom he had written, declining the honour of marrying her. Of what her mood towards him might be, he could form no judgment from her looks. Her face was simply stern and impassive, and she seemed inclined to eat her dinner in silence. A slight smile of derision had passed across her face as she heard Mrs. Lupex whisper, and it might have been discerned that her nose, at the same time, became somewhat elevated; but she said not a word.
"I hope you've enjoyed yourself, Mr. Eames, among the vernal beauties of the country," said Mrs. Lupex.
"Very much, thank you," he replied.
"There's nothing like the country at this autumnal season of the year. As for myself, I've never been accustomed to remain in London after the breaking up of the _beau monde_. We've usually been to Broadstairs, which is a very charming place, with most elegant society, but now--" and she shook her head, by which all the company knew that she intended to allude to the sins of Mr. Lupex.
"I'd never wish to sleep out of London for my part," said Mrs. Roper. "When a woman's got a house over her head, I don't think her mind's ever easy out of it."
She had not intended any reflection on Mrs. Lupex for not having a house of her own, but that lady immediately bristled up. "That's just what the snails say, Mrs. Roper. And as for having a house of one's own, it's a very good thing, no doubt, sometimes; but that's according to circumstances. It has suited me lately to live in lodgings, but there's no knowing whether I mayn't fall lower than that yet, and have--" but here she stopped herself, and looking over at Mr. Cradell nodded her head.
"And have to let them," said Mrs. Roper. "I hope you'll be more lucky with your lodgers than I have been with some of mine. Jemima, hand the potatoes to Miss Spruce. Miss Spruce, do let me send you a little more gravy? There's plenty here, really." Mrs. Roper was probably thinking of Mr. Todgers.
"I hope I shall," said Mrs. Lupex. "But, as I was saying, Broadstairs is delightful. Were you ever at Broadstairs, Mr. Cradell?"
"Never, Mrs. Lupex. I generally go abroad in my leave. One sees more of the world, you know. I was at Dieppe last June, and found that very delightful--though rather lonely. I shall go to Ostend this year; only December is so late for Ostend. It was a deuced shame my getting December, wasn't it, Johnny?"
"Yes, it was," said Eames. "I managed better."
"And what have you been doing, Mr. Eames?" said Mrs. Lupex, with one of her sweetest smiles. "Whatever it may have been, you've not been false to the cause of beauty, I'm sure." And she looked over to Amelia with a knowing smile. But Amelia was engaged upon her plate, and went on with her dinner without turning her eyes either on Mrs. Lupex or on John Eames.
"I haven't done anything particular," said Eames. "I've just been staying with my mother."
"We've been very social here, haven't we, Miss Amelia?" continued Mrs. Lupex. "Only now and then a cloud comes across the heavens, and the lights at the banquet are darkened." Then she put her handkerchief up to her eyes, sobbing deeply, and they all knew that she was again alluding to the sins of her husband.
As soon as dinner was over the ladies with young Mr. Roper retired, and Eames and Cradell were left to take their wine over the dining-room fire,--or their glass of gin and water, as it might be. "Well, Caudle, old fellow," said one. "Well, Johnny, my boy," said the other. "What's the news at the office?" said Eames.
"Muggeridge has been playing the very mischief." Muggeridge was the second clerk in Cradell's room. "We're going to put him into Coventry and not speak to him except officially. But to tell you the truth, my hands have been so full here at home, that I haven't thought much about the office. What am I to do about that woman?"
"Do about her? How do about her?"
"Yes; what am I to do about her? How am I to manage with her? There's Lupex off again in one of his fits of jealousy."
"But it's not your fault, I suppose?"
"Well; I can't just say. I am fond of her, and that's the long and the short of it; deuced fond of her."
"But, my dear Caudle, you know she's that man's wife."
"Oh, yes, I know all about it. I'm not going to defend myself. It's wrong, I know,--pleasant, but wrong. But what's a fellow to do? I suppose in strict morality I ought to leave the lodgings. But, by George, I don't see why a man's to be turned out in that way. And then I couldn't make a clean score with old mother Roper. But I say, old fellow, who gave you the gold chain?"
"Well; it was an old family friend at Guestwick; or rather, I should say, a man who said he knew my father."
"And he gave you that because he knew your governor! Is there a watch to it?"
"Yes, there's a watch. It wasn't exactly that. There was some trouble about a bull. To tell the truth, it was Lord De Guest; the queerest fellow, Caudle, you ever met in your life; but such a trump. I've got to go and dine with him at Christmas." And then the old story of the bull was told.
"I wish I could find a lord in a field with a bull," said Cradell. We may, however, be permitted to doubt whether Mr. Cradell would have earned a watch even if he had had his wish.
"You see," continued Cradell, reverting to the subject on which he most delighted to talk, "I'm not responsible for that man's ill-conduct."
"Does anybody say you are?"
"No; nobody says so. But people seem to think so. When he is by I hardly speak to her. She is thoughtless and giddy, as women are, and takes my arm, and that kind of thing, you know. It makes him mad with rage, but upon my honour I don't think she means any harm."
"I don't suppose she does," said Eames.
"Well; she may or she mayn't. I hope with all my heart she doesn't."
"And where is he now?"
"This is between ourselves, you know; but she went to find him this afternoon. Unless he gives her money she can't stay here, nor, for the matter of that, will she be able to go away. If I mention something to you, you won't tell any one?"
"Of course I won't."
"I wouldn't have it known to any one for the world. I've lent her seven pounds ten. It's that which makes me so short with mother Roper."
"Then I think you're a fool for your pains."
"Ah, that's so like you. I always said you'd no feeling of real romance. If I cared for a woman I'd give her the coat off my back."
"I'd do better than that," said Johnny. "I'd give her the heart out of my body. I'd be chopped up alive for a girl I loved; but it shouldn't be for another man's wife."
"That's a matter of taste. But she's been to Lupex to-day at that house he goes to in Drury Lane. She had a terrible scene there. He was going to commit suicide in the middle of the street, and she declares that it all comes from jealousy. Think what a time I have of it--standing always, as one may say, on gunpowder. He may turn up here any moment, you know. But, upon my word, for the life of me I cannot desert her. If I were to turn my back on her she wouldn't have a friend in the world. And how's L. D.? I'll tell you what it is--you'll have some trouble with the divine Amelia."
"Shall I?"
"By Jove, you will. But how's L. D. all this time?"
"L. D. is engaged to be married to a man named Adolphus Crosbie," said poor Johnny, slowly. "If you please, we will not say any more about her."
"Whew--w--w! That's what makes you so down in the mouth! L. D. going to marry Crosbie! Why, that's the man who is to be the new secretary at the General Committee Office. Old Huffle Scuffle, who was their chair, has come to us, you know. There's been a general move at the G. C., and this Crosbie has got to be secretary. He's a lucky chap, isn't he?"
"I don't know anything about his luck. He's one of those fellows that make me hate them the first time I look at them. I've a sort of a feeling that I shall live to kick him some day."
"That's the time, is it? Then I suppose Amelia will have it all her own way now."
"I'll tell you what, Caudle. I'd sooner get up through the trap-door, and throw myself off the roof into the area, than marry Amelia Roper."
"Have you and she had any conversation since you came back?"
"Not a word."
"Then I tell you fairly you've got trouble before you. Amelia and Maria--Mrs. Lupex, I mean--are as thick as thieves just at present, and they have been talking you over. Maria--that is, Mrs. Lupex--lets it all out to me. You'll have to mind where you are, old fellow."
Eames was not inclined to discuss the matter any further, so he finished his toddy in silence. Cradell, however, who felt that there was something in his affairs of which he had reason to be proud, soon returned to the story of his own very extraordinary position. "By Jove, I don't know that a man was ever so circumstanced," he said. "She looks to me to protect her, and yet what can I do?"
At last Cradell got up, and declared that he must go to the ladies. "She's so nervous, that unless she has some one to countenance her she becomes unwell."
Eames declared his purpose of going to the divan, or to the theatre, or to take a walk in the streets. The smiles of beauty had no longer charms for him in Burton Crescent.
"They'll expect you to take a cup of tea the first night," said Cradell; but Eames declared that they might expect it.
"I'm in no humour for it," said he. "I'll tell you what, Cradell, I shall leave this place, and take rooms for myself somewhere. I'll never go into a lodging-house again."
As he so spoke, he was standing at the dining-room door; but he was not allowed to escape in this easy way. Jemima, as he went out into the passage, was there with a three-cornered note in her hand. "From Miss Mealyer," she said. "Miss Mealyer is in the back parlour all by herself."
Poor Johnny took the note, and read it by the lamp over the front door.
"Are you not going to speak to me on the day of your return? It cannot be that you will leave the house without seeing me for a moment. I am in the back parlour."
When he had read these words, he paused in the passage, with his hat on. Jemima, who could not understand why any young man should hesitate as to seeing his lady-love in the back parlour alone, whispered to him again, in her audible way, "Miss Mealyer is there, sir; and all the rest on 'em's upstairs!" So compelled, Eames put down his hat, and walked with slow steps into the back parlour.
How was it to be with the enemy? Was he to encounter Amelia in anger, or Amelia in love? She had seemed to be stern and defiant when he had ventured to steal a look at her across the dining-table, and now he expected that she would turn upon him with loud threatenings and protestations as to her wrongs. But it was not so. When he entered the room she was standing with her back to him, leaning on the mantel-piece, and at the first moment she did not essay to speak. He walked into the middle of the room and stood there, waiting for her to begin.
"Shut the door!" she said, looking over her shoulder. "I suppose you don't want the girl to hear all you've got to say to me!"
Then he shut the door; but still Amelia stood with her back to him, leaning upon the mantel-piece.
It did not seem that he had much to say, for he remained perfectly silent.
"Well!" said Amelia, after a long pause, and she then again looked over her shoulder. "Well, Mr. Eames!"
"Jemima gave me your note, and so I've come," said he.
"And is this the way we meet!" she exclaimed, turning suddenly upon him, and throwing her long black hair back over her shoulders. There certainly was some beauty about her. Her eyes were large and bright, and her shoulders were well turned. She might have done as an artist's model for a Judith, but I doubt whether any man, looking well into her face, could think that she would do well as a wife. "Oh, John, is it to be thus, after love such as ours?" And she clasped her hands together, and stood before him.
"I don't know what you mean," said Eames.
"If you are engaged to marry L. D., tell me so at once. Be a man, and speak out, sir."
"No," said Eames; "I am not engaged to marry the lady to whom you allude."
"On your honour?"
"I won't have her spoken about. I'm not going to marry her, and that's enough."
"Do you think that I wish to speak of her? What can L. D. be to me as long as she is nothing to you? Oh, Johnny, why did you write me that heartless letter?" Then she leaned upon his shoulder--or attempted to do so.
I cannot say that Eames shook her off, seeing that he lacked the courage to do so; but he shuffled his shoulder about so that the support was uneasy to her, and she was driven to stand erect again. "Why did you write that cruel letter?" she said again.
"Because I thought it best, Amelia. What's a man to do with ninety pounds a year, you know?"
"But your mother allows you twenty."
"And what's a man to do with a hundred and ten?"
"Rising five pounds every year," said the well-informed Amelia. "Of course we should live here, with mamma, and you would just go on paying her as you do now. If your heart was right, Johnny, you wouldn't think so much about money. If you loved me--as you said you did--" Then a little sob came, and the words were stopped. The words were stopped, but she was again upon his shoulder. What was he to do? In truth, his only wish was to escape, and yet his arm, quite in opposition to his own desires, found its way round her waist. In such a combat a woman has so many points in her favour! "Oh, Johnny," she said again, as soon as she felt the pressure of his arm. "Gracious, what a beautiful watch you've got," and she took the trinket out of his pocket. "Did you buy that?"
"No; it was given to me."
"John Eames, did L. D. give it you?"
"No, no, no," he shouted, stamping on the floor as he spoke.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Amelia, quelled for the moment by his energy. "Perhaps it was your mother."
"No; it was a man. Never mind about the watch now."
"I wouldn't mind anything, Johnny, if you would tell me that you loved me again. Perhaps I oughtn't to ask you, and it isn't becoming in a lady; but how can I help it, when you know you've got my heart. Come upstairs and have tea with us now, won't you?"
What was he to do? He said that he would go up and have tea; and as he led her to the door he put down his face and kissed her. Oh, Johnny Eames! But then a woman in such a contest has so many points in her favour.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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30
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IS IT FROM HIM?
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I have already declared that Crosbie wrote and posted the fatal letter to Allington, and we must now follow it down to that place. On the morning following the squire's return to his own house, Mrs. Crump, the post-mistress at Allington, received a parcel by post directed to herself. She opened it, and found an enclosure addressed to Mrs. Dale, with a written request that she would herself deliver it into that lady's own hand at once. This was Crosbie's letter.
"It's from Miss Lily's gentleman," said Mrs. Crump, looking at the handwriting. "There's something up, or he wouldn't be writing to her mamma in this way." But Mrs. Crump lost no time in putting on her bonnet, and trudging up with the letter to the Small House. "I must see the missus herself," said Mrs. Crump. Whereupon Mrs. Dale was called downstairs into the hall, and there received the packet. Lily was in the breakfast-parlour, and had seen the post-mistress arrive;--had seen also that she carried a letter in her hand. For a moment she had thought that it was for her, and imagined that the old woman had brought it herself from simple good-nature. But Lily, when she heard her mother mentioned, instantly withdrew and shut the parlour door. Her heart misgave her that something was wrong, but she hardly tried to think what it might be. After all, the regular postman might bring the letter she herself expected. Bell was not yet downstairs, and she stood alone over the tea-cups on the breakfast-table, feeling that there was something for her to fear. Her mother did not come at once into the room, but, after a pause of a moment or two, went again upstairs. So she remained, either standing against the table, or at the window, or seated in one of the two arm-chairs, for a space of ten minutes, when Bell entered the room.
"Isn't mamma down yet?" said Bell.
"Bell," said Lily, "something has happened. Mamma has got a letter."
"Happened! What has happened? Is anybody ill? Who is the letter from?" And Bell was going to return through the door in search of her mother.
"Stop, Bell," said Lily. "Do not go to her yet. I think it's from--Adolphus."
"Oh, Lily, what do you mean?"
"I don't know, dear. We'll wait a little longer. Don't look like that, Bell." And Lily strove to appear calm, and strove almost successfully.
"You have frightened me so," said Bell.
"I am frightened myself. He only sent me one line yesterday, and now he has sent nothing. If some misfortune should have happened to him! Mrs. Crump brought down the letter herself to mamma, and that is so odd, you know."
"Are you sure it was from him?"
"No; I have not spoken to her. I will go up to her now. Don't you come, Bell. Oh! Bell, do not look so unhappy." She then went over and kissed her sister, and after that, with very gentle steps, made her way up to her mother's room. "Mamma, may I come in?" she said.
"Oh! my child!"
"I know it is from him, mamma. Tell me all at once."
Mrs. Dale had read the letter. With quick, glancing eyes, she had made herself mistress of its whole contents, and was already aware of the nature and extent of the sorrow which had come upon them. It was a sorrow that admitted of no hope. The man who had written that letter could never return again; nor if he should return could he be welcomed back to them. The blow had fallen, and it was to be borne. Inside the letter to herself had been a very small note addressed to Lily. "Give her the enclosed," Crosbie had said in his letter, "if you do not now think it wrong to do so. I have left it open, that you may read it." Mrs. Dale, however, had not yet read it, and she now concealed it beneath her handkerchief.
I will not repeat at length Crosbie's letter to Mrs. Dale. It covered four sides of letter-paper, and was such a letter that any man who wrote it must have felt himself to be a rascal. We saw that he had difficulty in writing it, but the miracle was, that any man could have found it possible to write it. "I know you will curse me," said he; "and I deserve to be cursed. I know that I shall be punished for this, and I must bear my punishment. My worst punishment will be this,--that I never more shall hold up my head again." And then, again, he said:--"My only excuse is my conviction that I should never make her happy. She has been brought up as an angel, with pure thoughts, with holy hopes, with a belief in all that is good, and high, and noble. I have been surrounded through my whole life by things low, and mean, and ignoble. How could I live with her, or she with me? I know now that this is so; but my fault has been that I did not know it when I was there with her. I choose to tell you all," he continued, towards the end of the letter, "and therefore I let you know that I have engaged myself to marry another woman. Ah! I can foresee how bitter will be your feelings when you read this: but they will not be so bitter as mine while I write it. Yes; I am already engaged to one who will suit me, and whom I may suit. You will not expect me to speak ill of her who is to be near and dear to me. But she is one with whom I may mate myself without an inward conviction that I shall destroy all her happiness by doing so. Lilian," he said, "shall always have my prayers; and I trust that she may soon forget, in the love of an honest man, that she ever knew one so dishonest as--Adolphus Crosbie."
Of what like must have been his countenance as he sat writing such words of himself under the ghastly light of his own small, solitary lamp? Had he written his letter at his office, in the day-time, with men coming in and out of his room, he could hardly have written of himself so plainly. He would have bethought himself that the written words might remain, and be read hereafter by other eyes than those for which they were intended. But, as he sat alone, during the small hours of the night, almost repenting of his sin with true repentance, he declared to himself that he did not care who might read them. They should, at any rate, be true. Now they had been read by her to whom they had been addressed, and the daughter was standing before the mother to hear her doom.
"Tell me all at once," Lily had said; but in what words was her mother to tell her?
"Lily," she said, rising from her seat, and leaving the two letters on the couch; that addressed to the daughter was hidden beneath a handkerchief, but that which she had read she left open and in sight. She took both the girl's hands in hers as she looked into her face, and spoke to her. "Lily, my child!" Then she burst into sobs, and was unable to tell her tale.
"Is it from him, mamma? May I read it? He cannot be--" "It is from Mr. Crosbie."
"Is he ill, mamma? Tell me at once. If he is ill I will go to him."
"No, my darling, he is not ill. Not yet;--do not read it yet. Oh, Lily! It brings bad news; very bad news."
"Mamma, if he is not in danger, I can read it. Is it bad to him, or only bad to me?"
At this moment the servant knocked, and not waiting for an answer half opened the door.
"If you please, ma'am, Mr. Bernard is below, and wants to speak to you."
"Mr. Bernard! ask Miss Bell to see him."
"Miss Bell is with him, ma'am, but he says that he specially wants to speak to you."
Mrs. Dale felt that she could not leave Lily alone. She could not take the letter away, nor could she leave her child with the letter open.
"I cannot see him," said Mrs. Dale. "Ask him what it is. Tell him I cannot come down just at present." And then the servant went, and Bernard left his message with Bell.
"Bernard," she had said, "do you know of anything? Is there anything wrong about Mr. Crosbie?" Then, in a few words, he told her all, and understanding why his aunt had not come down to him, he went back to the Great House. Bell, almost stupefied by the tidings, seated herself at the table unconsciously, leaning upon her elbows.
"It will kill her," she said to herself. "My Lily, my darling Lily! It will surely kill her!"
But the mother was still with the daughter, and the story was still untold.
"Mamma," said Lily, "whatever it is, I must, of course, be made to know it. I begin to guess the truth. It will pain you to say it. Shall I read the letter?"
Mrs. Dale was astonished at her calmness. It could not be that she had guessed the truth, or she would not stand like that, with tearless eyes and unquelled courage before her.
"You shall read it, but I ought to tell you first. Oh, my child, my own one!" Lily was now leaning against the bed, and her mother was standing over her, caressing her.
"Then tell me," said she. "But I know what it is. He has thought it all over while away from me, and he finds that it must not be as we have supposed. Before he went I offered to release him, and now he knows that he had better accept my offer. Is it so, mamma?" In answer to this Mrs. Dale did not speak, but Lily understood from her signs that it was so.
"He might have written it to me, myself," said Lily, very proudly. "Mamma, we will go down to breakfast. He has sent nothing to me, then?"
"There is a note. He bids me read it, but I have not opened it. It is here."
"Give it me," said Lily, almost sternly. "Let me have his last words to me;" and she took the note from her mother's hands.
"Lily," said the note, "your mother will have told you all. Before you read these few words you will know that you have trusted one who was quite untrustworthy. I know that you will hate me. --I cannot even ask you to forgive me. You will let me pray that you may yet be happy. --A. C." She read these few words, still leaning against the bed. Then she got up, and walking to a chair, seated herself with her back to her mother. Mrs. Dale moving silently after her stood over the back of the chair, not daring to speak to her. So she sat for some five minutes, with her eyes fixed upon the open window, and with Crosbie's note in her hand.
"I will not hate him, and I do forgive him," she said at last, struggling to command her voice, and hardly showing that she could not altogether succeed in her attempt. "I may not write to him again, but you shall write and tell him so. Now we will go down to breakfast." And so saying, she got up from her chair.
Mrs. Dale almost feared to speak to her, her composure was so complete, and her manner so stern and fixed. She hardly knew how to offer pity and sympathy, seeing that pity seemed to be so little necessary, and that even sympathy was not demanded. And she could not understand all that Lily had said. What had she meant by the offer to release him? Had there, then, been some quarrel between them before he went? Crosbie had made no such allusion in his letter. But Mrs. Dale did not dare to ask any questions.
"You frighten me, Lily," she said. "Your very calmness frightens me."
"Dear mamma!" and the poor girl absolutely smiled as she embraced her mother. "You need not be frightened by my calmness. I know the truth well. I have been very unfortunate;--very. The brightest hopes of my life are all gone;--and I shall never again see him whom I love beyond all the world!" Then at last she broke down, and wept in her mother's arms.
There was not a word of anger spoken then against him who had done all this. Mrs. Dale felt that she did not dare to speak in anger against him, and words of anger were not likely to come from poor Lily. She, indeed, hitherto did not know the whole of his offence, for she had not read his letter.
"Give it me, mamma," she said at last. "It has to be done sooner or later."
"Not now, Lily. I have told you all,--all that you need know at present."
"Yes; now, mamma," and again that sweet silvery voice became stern. "I will read it now, and there shall be an end." Whereupon Mrs. Dale gave her the letter and she read it in silence. Her mother, though standing somewhat behind her, watched her narrowly as she did so. She was now lying over upon the bed, and the letter was on the pillow, as she propped herself upon her arm. Her tears were running, and ever and again she would stop to dry her eyes. Her sobs, too, were very audible, but she went on steadily with her reading till she came to the line on which Crosbie told that he had already engaged himself to another woman. Then her mother could see that she paused suddenly, and that a shudder slightly convulsed all her limbs.
"He has been very quick," she said, almost in a whisper; and then she finished the letter. "Tell him, mamma," she said, "that I do forgive him, and I will not hate him. You will tell him that,--from me; will you not?" And then she raised herself from the bed.
Mrs. Dale would give her no such assurance. In her present mood her feelings against Crosbie were of a nature which she herself hardly could understand or analyze. She felt that if he were present she could almost fly at him as would a tigress. She had never hated before as she now hated this man. He was to her a murderer, and worse than a murderer. He had made his way like a wolf into her little fold, and torn her ewe-lamb and left her maimed and mutilated for life. How could a mother forgive such an offence as that, or consent to be the medium through which forgiveness should be expressed?
"You must, mamma; or, if you do not, I shall do so. Remember that I love him. You know what it is to have loved one single man. He has made me very unhappy; I hardly know yet how unhappy. But I have loved him, and do love him. I believe, in my heart, that he still loves me. Where this has been there must not be hatred and unforgiveness."
"I will pray that I may become able to forgive him," said Mrs. Dale.
"But you must write to him those words. Indeed you must, mamma! 'She bids me tell you that she has forgiven you, and will not hate you.' Promise me that!"
"I can make no promise now, Lily. I will think about it, and endeavour to do my duty."
Lily was now seated, and was holding the skirt of her mother's dress.
"Mamma," she said, looking up into her mother's face, "you must be very good to me now; and I must be very good to you. We shall be always together now. I must be your friend and counsellor; and be everything to you, more than ever. I must fall in love with you now;" and she smiled again, and the tears were almost dry upon her cheeks.
At last they went down to the breakfast-room, from which Bell had not moved. Mrs. Dale entered the room first, and Lily followed, hiding herself for a moment behind her mother. Then she came forward boldly, and taking Bell in her arms, clasped her close to her bosom.
"Bell," she said, "he has gone."
"Lily! Lily! Lily!" said Bell, weeping.
"He has gone! We shall talk it over in a few days, and shall know how to do so without losing ourselves in misery. To-day we will say no more about it. I am so thirsty, Bell; do give me my tea;" and she sat herself down at the breakfast-table.
Lily's tea was given to her, and she drank it. Beyond that I cannot say that any of them partook with much heartiness of the meal. They sat there, as they would have sat if no terrible thunderbolt had fallen among them, and no word further was spoken about Crosbie and his conduct. Immediately after breakfast they went into the other room, and Lily, as was her wont, sat herself immediately down to her drawing. Her mother looked at her with wistful eyes, longing to bid her spare herself, but she shrank from interfering with her. For a quarter of an hour Lily sat over her board, with her brush or pencil in her hand, and then she rose up and put it away.
"It is no good pretending," she said. "I am only spoiling the things; but I will be better to-morrow. I'll go away and lie down by myself, mamma." And so she went.
Soon after this Mrs. Dale took her bonnet and went up to the Great House, having received her brother-in-law's message from Bell.
"I know what he has to tell me," she said; "but I might as well go. It will be necessary that we should speak to each other about it." So she walked across the lawn, and up into the hall of the Great House. "Is my brother in the book-room?" she said to one of the maids; and then knocking at the door, went in unannounced.
The squire rose from his arm-chair, and came forward to meet her.
"Mary," he said, "I believe you know it all."
"Yes," she said. "You can read that," and she handed him Crosbie's letter. "How was one to know that any man could be so wicked as that?"
"And she has heard it?" asked the squire. "Is she able to bear it?"
"Wonderfully! She has amazed me by her strength. It frightens me; for I know that a relapse must come. She has never sunk for a moment beneath it. For myself, I feel as though it were her strength that enables me to bear my share of it." And then she described to the squire all that had taken place that morning.
"Poor child!" said the squire. "Poor child! What can we do for her? Would it be good for her to go away for a time? She is a sweet, good, lovely girl, and has deserved better than that. Sorrow and disappointment come to us all; but they are doubly heavy when they come so early."
Mrs. Dale was almost surprised at the amount of sympathy which he showed.
"And what is to be his punishment?" she asked.
"The scorn which men and women will feel for him; those, at least, whose esteem or scorn are matters of concern to any one. I know no other punishment. You would not have Lily's name brought before a tribunal of law?"
"Certainly not that."
"And I will not have Bernard calling him out. Indeed, it would be for nothing; for in these days a man is not expected to fight duels."
"You cannot think that I would wish that."
"What punishment is there, then? I know of none. There are evils which a man may do, and no one can punish him. I know of nothing. I went up to London after him, but he contrived to crawl out of my way. What can you do to a rat but keep clear of him?"
Mrs. Dale had felt in her heart that it would be well if Crosbie could be beaten till all his bones were sore. I hardly know whether such should have been a woman's thought, but it was hers. She had no wish that he should be made to fight a duel. In that there would have been much that was wicked, and in her estimation nothing that was just. But she felt that if Bernard would thrash the coward for his cowardice she would love her nephew better than ever she had loved him. Bernard also had considered it probable that he might be expected to horsewhip the man who had jilted his cousin, and, as regarded the absolute bodily risk, he would not have felt any insuperable objection to undertake the task. But such a piece of work was disagreeable to him in many ways. He hated the idea of a row at his club. He was most desirous that his cousin's name should not be made public. He wished to avoid anything that might be impolitic. A wicked thing had been done, and he was quite ready to hate Crosbie as Crosbie ought to be hated; but as regarded himself, it made him unhappy to think that the world might probably expect him to punish the man who had so lately been his friend. And then he did not know where to catch him, or how to thrash him when caught. He was very sorry for his cousin, and felt strongly that Crosbie should not be allowed to escape. But what was he to do?
"Would she like to go anywhere?" said the squire again, anxious, if he could, to afford solace by some act of generosity. At this moment he would have settled a hundred a year for life upon his niece if by so doing he could have done her any good.
"She will be better at home," said Mrs. Dale. "Poor thing. For a while she will wish to avoid going out."
"I suppose so;" and then there was a pause. "I'll tell you what, Mary; I don't understand it. On my honour I don't understand it. It is to me as wonderful as though I had caught the man picking my pence out of my pocket. I don't think any man in the position of a gentleman would have done such a thing when I was young. I don't think any man would have dared to do it. But now it seems that a man may act in that way and no harm come to him. He had a friend in London who came to me and talked about it as though it were some ordinary, everyday transaction of life. Yes; you may come in, Bernard. The poor child knows it all now."
Bernard offered to his aunt what of solace and sympathy he had to offer, and made some sort of half-expressed apology for having introduced this wolf into their flock. "We always thought very much of him at his club," said Bernard.
"I don't know much about your London clubs now-a-days," said his uncle, "nor do I wish to do so if the society of that man can be endured after what he has now done."
"I don't suppose half-a-dozen men will ever know anything about it," said Bernard.
"Umph!" ejaculated the squire. He could not say that he wished Crosbie's villany to be widely discussed, seeing that Lily's name was so closely connected with it. But yet he could not support the idea that Crosbie should not be punished by the frown of the world at large. It seemed to him that from this time forward any man speaking to Crosbie should be held to have disgraced himself by so doing.
"Give her my best love," he said, as Mrs. Dale got up to take her leave; "my very best love. If her old uncle can do anything for her she has only to let me know. She met the man in my house, and I feel that I owe her much. Bid her come and see me. It will be better for her than moping at home. And Mary"--this he said to her, whispering into her ear--"think of what I said to you about Bell."
Mrs. Dale, as she walked back to her own house, acknowledged to herself that her brother-in-law's manner was different to her from anything that she had hitherto known of him.
During the whole of that day Crosbie's name was not mentioned at the Small House. Neither of the girls stirred out, and Bell spent the greater part of the afternoon sitting, with her arm round her sister's waist, upon the sofa. Each of them had a book; but though there was little spoken, there was as little read. Who can describe the thoughts that were passing through Lily's mind as she remembered the hours which she had passed with Crosbie, of his warm assurances of love, of his accepted caresses, of her uncontrolled and acknowledged joy in his affection? It had all been holy to her then; and now those things which were then sacred had been made almost disgraceful by his fault. And yet as she thought of this she declared to herself over and over again that she would forgive him;--nay, that she had forgiven him. "And he shall know it, too," she said, speaking almost out loud.
"Lily, dear Lily," said Bell, "turn your thoughts away from it for a while, if you can."
"They won't go away," said Lily. And that was all that was said between them on the subject.
Everybody would know it! I doubt whether that must not be one of the bitterest drops in the cup which a girl in such circumstances is made to drain. Lily perceived early in the day that the parlour-maid well knew that she had been jilted. The girl's manner was intended to convey sympathy; but it did convey pity; and Lily for a moment felt angry. But she remembered that it must be so, and smiled upon the girl, and spoke kindly to her. What mattered it? All the world would know it in a day or two.
On the following day she went up, by her mother's advice, to see her uncle.
"My child," said he, "I am sorry for you. My heart bleeds for you."
"Uncle," she said, "do not mind it. Only do this for me,--do not talk about it,--I mean to me."
"No, no; I will not. That there should ever have been in my house so great a rascal--" "Uncle! uncle! I will not have that! I will not listen to a word against him from any human being,--not a word! Remember that!" And her eyes flashed as she spoke.
He did not answer her, but took her hand and pressed it, and then she left him. "The Dales were ever constant!" he said to himself, as he walked up and down the terrace before his house. "Ever constant!"
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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31
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THE WOUNDED FAWN.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] Nearly two months passed away, and it was now Christmas time at Allington. It may be presumed that there was no intention at either house that the mirth should be very loud. Such a wound as that received by Lily Dale was one from which recovery could not be quick, and it was felt by all the family that a weight was upon them which made gaiety impracticable. As for Lily herself it may be said that she bore her misfortune with all a woman's courage. For the first week she stood up as a tree that stands against the wind, which is soon to be shivered to pieces because it will not bend. During that week her mother and sister were frightened by her calmness and endurance. She would perform her daily task. She would go out through the village, and appear at her place in church on the first Sunday. She would sit over her book of an evening, keeping back her tears; and would chide her mother and sister when she found that they were regarding her with earnest anxiety.
"Mamma, let it all be as though it had never been," she said.
"Ah, dear! if that were but possible!"
"God forbid that it should be possible inwardly," Lily replied, "but it is possible outwardly. I feel that you are more tender to me than you used to be, and that upsets me. If you would only scold me because I am idle, I should soon be better." But her mother could not speak to her as she perhaps might have spoken had no grief fallen upon her pet. She could not cease from those anxious tender glances which made Lily know that she was looked on as a fawn wounded almost to death.
At the end of the first week she gave way. "I won't get up, Bell," she said one morning, almost petulantly. "I am ill;--I had better lie here out of the way. Don't make a fuss about it. I'm stupid and foolish, and that makes me ill."
Thereupon Mrs. Dale and Bell were frightened, and looked into each other's blank faces, remembering stories of poor broken-hearted girls who had died because their loves had been unfortunate,--as small wax tapers whose lights are quenched if a breath of wind blows upon them too strongly. But then Lily was in truth no such slight taper as that. Nor was she the stem that must be broken because it will not bend. She bent herself to the blast during that week of illness, and then arose with her form still straight and graceful, and with her bright light unquenched.
After that she would talk more openly to her mother about her loss,--openly and with a true appreciation of the misfortune which had befallen her; but with an assurance of strength which seemed to ridicule the idea of a broken heart. "I know that I can bear it," she said, "and that I can bear it without lasting unhappiness. Of course I shall always love him, and must feel almost as you felt when you lost my father."
In answer to this Mrs. Dale could say nothing. She could not speak out her thoughts about Crosbie, and explain to Lily that he was unworthy of her love. Love does not follow worth, and is not given to excellence;--nor is it destroyed by ill-usage, nor killed by blows and mutilation. When Lily declared that she still loved the man who had so ill-used her, Mrs. Dale would be silent. Each perfectly understood the other, but on that matter even they could not interchange their thoughts with freedom.
"You must promise never to be tired of me, mamma," said Lily.
"Mothers do not often get tired of their children, whatever the children may do of their mothers."
"I'm not so sure of that when the children turn out old maids. And I mean to have a will of my own, too, mamma; and a way also, if it be possible. When Bell is married I shall consider it a partnership, and I shan't do what I'm told any longer."
"Forewarned will be forearmed."
"Exactly;--and I don't want to take you by surprise. For a year or two longer, till Bell is gone, I mean to be dutiful; but it would be very stupid for a girl to be dutiful all her life."
All of which Mrs. Dale understood thoroughly. It amounted to an assertion on Lily's part that she had loved once and could never love again; that she had played her game, hoping, as other girls hope, that she might win the prize of a husband; but that, having lost, she could never play the game again. It was that inward conviction on Lily's part which made her say such words to her mother. But Mrs. Dale would by no means allow herself to share this conviction. She declared to herself that time would cure Lily's wound, and that her child might yet be crowned by the bliss of a happy marriage. She would not in her heart consent to that plan in accordance with which Lily's destiny in life was to be regarded as already fixed. She had never really liked Crosbie as a suitor, and would herself have preferred John Eames, with all the faults of his hobbledehoyhood on his head. It might yet come to pass that John Eames' love might be made happy.
But in the meantime Lily, as I have said, had become strong in her courage, and recommenced the work of living with no lackadaisical self-assurance that because she had been made more unhappy than others, therefore she should allow herself to be more idle. Morning and night she prayed for him, and daily, almost hour by hour, she assured herself that it was still her duty to love him. It was hard, this duty of loving, without any power of expressing such love. But still she would do her duty.
"Tell me at once, mamma," she said one morning, "when you hear that the day is fixed for his marriage. Pray don't keep me in the dark."
"It is to be in February," said Mrs. Dale.
"But let me know the day. It must not be to me like ordinary days. But do not look unhappy, mamma; I am not going to make a fool of myself. I shan't steal off and appear in the church like a ghost." And then, having uttered her little joke, a sob came, and she hid her face on her mother's bosom. In a moment she raised it again. "Believe me, mamma, that I am not unhappy," she said.
After the expiration of that second week Mrs. Dale did write a letter to Crosbie: I suppose [she said] it is right that I should acknowledge the receipt of your letter. I do not know that I have aught else to say to you. It would not become me as a woman to say what I think of your conduct, but I believe that your conscience will tell you the same things. If it do not, you must, indeed, be hardened. I have promised my child that I will send to you a message from her. She bids me tell you that she has forgiven you, and that she does not hate you. May God also forgive you, and may you recover his love.
MARY DALE.
I beg that no rejoinder may be made to this letter, either to myself or to any of my family.
The squire wrote no answer to the letter which he had received, nor did he take any steps towards the immediate punishment of Crosbie. Indeed he had declared that no such steps could be taken, explaining to his nephew that such a man could be served only as one serves a rat.
"I shall never see him," he said once again; "if I did, I should not scruple to hit him on the head with my stick; but I should think ill of myself to go after him with such an object."
And yet it was a terrible sorrow to the old man that the scoundrel who had so injured him and his should escape scot-free. He had not forgiven Crosbie. No idea of forgiveness had ever crossed his mind. He would have hated himself had he thought it possible that he could be induced to forgive such an injury. "There is an amount of rascality in it,--of low meanness, which I do not understand," he would say over and over again to his nephew. And then as he would walk alone on the terrace he would speculate within his own mind whether Bernard would take any steps towards avenging his cousin's injury. "He is right," he would say to himself; "Bernard is quite right. But when I was young I could not have stood it. In those days a gentleman might have a fellow out who had treated him as he has treated us. A man was satisfied in feeling that he had done something. I suppose the world is different now-a-days." The world is different; but the squire by no means acknowledged in his heart that there had been any improvement.
Bernard also was greatly troubled in his mind. He would have had no objection to fight a duel with Crosbie, had duels in these days been possible. But he believed them to be no longer possible,--at any rate without ridicule. And if he could not fight the man, in what other way was he to punish him? Was it not the fact that for such a fault the world afforded no punishment? Was it not in the power of a man like Crosbie to amuse himself for a week or two at the expense of a girl's happiness for life, and then to escape absolutely without any ill effects to himself? "I shall be barred out of my club lest I should meet him," Bernard said to himself, "but he will not be barred out." Moreover, there was a feeling within him that the matter would be one of triumph to Crosbie rather than otherwise. In having secured for himself the pleasure of his courtship with such a girl as Lily Dale, without encountering the penalty usually consequent upon such amusement, he would be held by many as having merited much admiration. He had sinned against all the Dales, and yet the suffering arising from his sin was to fall upon the Dales exclusively. Such was Bernard's reasoning, as he speculated on the whole affair, sadly enough,--wishing to be avenged, but not knowing where to look for vengeance. For myself I believe him to have been altogether wrong as to the light in which he supposed that Crosbie's falsehood would be regarded by Crosbie's friends. Men will still talk of such things lightly, professing that all is fair in love as it is in war, and speaking almost with envy of the good fortunes of a practised deceiver. But I have never come across the man who thought in this way with reference to an individual case. Crosbie's own judgment as to the consequences to himself of what he had done was more correct than that formed by Bernard Dale. He had regarded the act as venial as long as it was still to do,--while it was still within his power to leave it undone; but from the moment of its accomplishment it had forced itself upon his own view in its proper light. He knew that he had been a scoundrel, and he knew that other men would so think of him. His friend Fowler Pratt, who had the reputation of looking at women simply as toys, had so regarded him. Instead of boasting of what he had done, he was as afraid of alluding to any matter connected with his marriage as a man is of talking of the articles which he has stolen. He had already felt that men at his club looked askance at him; and, though he was no coward as regarded his own skin and bones, he had an undefined fear lest some day he might encounter Bernard Dale purposely armed with a stick. The squire and his nephew were wrong in supposing that Crosbie was unpunished.
And as the winter came on he felt that he was closely watched by the noble family of De Courcy. Some of that noble family he had already learned to hate cordially. The Honourable John came up to town in November, and persecuted him vilely;--insisted on having dinners given to him at Sebright's, of smoking throughout the whole afternoon in his future brother-in-law's rooms, and on borrowing his future brother-in-law's possessions; till at last Crosbie determined that it would be wise to quarrel with the Honourable John,--and he quarrelled with him accordingly, turning him out of his rooms, and telling him in so many words that he would have no more to do with him.
"You'll have to do it, as I did," Mortimer Gazebee had said to him; "I didn't like it because of the family, but Lady Amelia told me that it must be so." Whereupon Crosbie took the advice of Mortimer Gazebee.
But the hospitality of the Gazebees was perhaps more distressing to him than even the importunities of the Honourable John. It seemed as though his future sister-in-law was determined not to leave him alone. Mortimer was sent to fetch him up for the Sunday afternoons, and he found that he was constrained to go to the villa in St. John's Wood, even in opposition to his own most strenuous will. He could not quite analyze the circumstances of his own position, but he felt as though he were a cock with his spurs cut off,--as a dog with his teeth drawn. He found himself becoming humble and meek. He had to acknowledge to himself that he was afraid of Lady Amelia, and almost even afraid of Mortimer Gazebee. He was aware that they watched him, and knew all his goings out and comings in. They called him Adolphus, and made him tame. That coming evil day in February was dinned into his ears. Lady Amelia would go and look at furniture for him, and talked by the hour about bedding and sheets. "You had better get your kitchen things at Tomkins'. They're all good, and he'll give you ten per cent. off if you pay him ready money,--which of course you will, you know!" Was it for this that he had sacrificed Lily Dale? --for this that he had allied himself with the noble house of De Courcy?
Mortimer had been at him about the settlements from the very first moment of his return to London, and had already bound him up hand and foot. His life was insured, and the policy was in Mortimer's hands. His own little bit of money had been already handed over to be tied up with Lady Alexandrina's little bit. It seemed to him that in all the arrangements made the intention was that he should die off speedily, and that Lady Alexandrina should be provided with a decent little income, sufficient for St. John's Wood. Things were to be so settled that he could not even spend the proceeds of his own money, or of hers. They were to go, under the fostering hand of Mortimer Gazebee, in paying insurances. If he would only die the day after his marriage, there would really be a very nice sum of money for Alexandrina, almost worthy of the acceptance of an earl's daughter. Six months ago he would have considered himself able to turn Mortimer Gazebee round his finger on any subject that could be introduced between them. When they chanced to meet Gazebee had been quite humble to him, treating him almost as a superior being. He had looked down on Gazebee from a very great height. But now it seemed as though he were powerless in this man's hands.
But perhaps the countess had become his greatest aversion. She was perpetually writing to him little notes in which she gave him multitudes of commissions, sending him about as though he had been her servant. And she pestered him with advice which was even worse than her commissions, telling him of the style of life in which Alexandrina would expect to live, and warning him very frequently that such an one as he could not expect to be admitted within the bosom of so noble a family without paying very dearly for that inestimable privilege. Her letters had become odious to him, and he would chuck them on one side, leaving them for the whole day unopened. He had already made up his mind that he would quarrel with the countess also, very shortly after his marriage; indeed, that he would separate himself from the whole family if it were possible. And yet he had entered into this engagement mainly with the view of reaping those advantages which would accrue to him from being allied to the De Courcys! The squire and his nephew were wretched in thinking that this man was escaping without punishment, but they might have spared themselves that misery.
It had been understood from the first that he was to spend his Christmas at Courcy Castle. From this undertaking it was quite out of his power to enfranchise himself: but he resolved that his visit should be as short as possible. Christmas Day unfortunately came on a Monday, and it was known to the De Courcy world that Saturday was almost a _dies non_ at the General Committee Office. As to those three days there was no escape for him; but he made Alexandrina understand that the three Commissioners were men of iron as to any extension of those three days. "I must be absent again in February, of course," he said, almost making his wail audible in the words he used, "and therefore it is quite impossible that I should stay now beyond the Monday." Had there been attractions for him at Courcy Castle I think he might have arranged with Mr. Optimist for a week or ten days. "We shall be all alone," the countess wrote to him, "and I hope you will have an opportunity of learning more of our ways than you have ever really been able to do as yet." This was bitter as gall to him. But in this world all valuable commodities have their price; and when men such as Crosbie aspire to obtain for themselves an alliance with noble families, they must pay the market price for the article which they purchase.
"You'll all come up and dine with us on Monday," the squire said to Mrs. Dale, about the middle of the previous week.
"Well, I think not," said Mrs. Dale; "we are better, perhaps, as we are."
At this moment the squire and his sister-in-law were on much more friendly terms than had been usual with them, and he took her reply in good part, understanding her feeling. Therefore, he pressed his request, and succeeded.
"I think you're wrong," he said; "I don't suppose that we shall have a very merry Christmas. You and the girls will hardly have that whether you eat your pudding here or at the Great House. But it will be better for us all to make the attempt. It's the right thing to do. That's the way I look at it."
"I'll ask Lily," said Mrs. Dale.
"Do, do. Give her my love, and tell her from me that, in spite of all that has come and gone, Christmas Day should still be to her a day of rejoicing. We'll dine about three, so that the servants can have the afternoon."
"Of course we'll go," said Lily; "why not? We always do. And we'll have blind-man's-buff with all the Boyces, as we had last year, if uncle will ask them up." But the Boyces were not asked up for that occasion.
But Lily, though she put on it all so brave a face, had much to suffer, and did in truth suffer greatly. If you, my reader, ever chanced to slip into the gutter on a wet day, did you not find that the sympathy of the bystanders was by far the severest part of your misfortune? Did you not declare to yourself that all might yet be well, if the people would only walk on and not look at you? And yet you cannot blame those who stood and pitied you; or, perhaps, essayed to rub you down, and assist you in the recovery of your bedaubed hat. You, yourself, if you see a man fall, cannot walk by as though nothing uncommon had happened to him. It was so with Lily. The people of Allington could not regard her with their ordinary eyes. They would look at her tenderly, knowing that she was a wounded fawn, and thus they aggravated the soreness of her wound. Old Mrs. Hearn condoled with her, telling her that very likely she would be better off as she was. Lily would not lie about it in any way. "Mrs. Hearn," she said, "the subject is painful to me." Mrs. Hearn said no more about it, but on every meeting between them she looked the things she did not say. "Miss Lily!" said Hopkins, one day, "Miss Lily!" --and as he looked up into her face a tear had almost formed itself in his old eye--"I knew what he was from the first. Oh, dear! oh, dear! if I could have had him killed!" "Hopkins, how dare you?" said Lily. "If you speak to me again in such a way, I will tell my uncle." She turned away from him; but immediately turned back again, and put out her little hand to him. "I beg your pardon," she said. "I know how kind you are, and I love you for it." And then she went away. "I'll go after him yet, and break the dirty neck of him," said Hopkins to himself, as he walked down the path.
Shortly before Christmas Day she called with her sister at the vicarage. Bell, in the course of the visit, left the room with one of the Boyce girls, to look at the last chrysanthemums of the year. Then Mrs. Boyce took advantage of the occasion to make her little speech. "My dear Lily," she said, "you will think me cold if I do not say one word to you." "No, I shall not," said Lily, almost sharply, shrinking from the finger that threatened to touch her sore. "There are things which should never be talked about." "Well, well; perhaps so," said Mrs. Boyce. But for a minute or two she was unable to fall back upon any other topic, and sat looking at Lily with painful tenderness. I need hardly say what were Lily's sufferings under such a gaze; but she bore it, acknowledging to herself in her misery that the fault did not lie with Mrs. Boyce. How could Mrs. Boyce have looked at her otherwise than tenderly?
It was settled, then, that Lily was to dine up at the Great House on Christmas Day, and thus show to the Allington world that she was not to be regarded as a person shut out from the world by the depth of her misfortune. That she was right there can, I think, be no doubt; but as she walked across the little bridge, with her mother and sister, after returning from church, she would have given much to be able to have turned round, and have gone to bed instead of to her uncle's dinner.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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32
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PAWKINS'S IN JERMYN STREET.
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The show of fat beasts in London took place this year on the twentieth day of December, and I have always understood that a certain bullock exhibited by Lord De Guest was declared by the metropolitan butchers to have realized all the possible excellences of breeding, feeding, and condition. No doubt the butchers of the next half-century will have learned much better, and the Guestwick beast, could it be embalmed and then produced, would excite only ridicule at the agricultural ignorance of the present age; but Lord De Guest took the praise that was offered to him, and found himself in a seventh heaven of delight. He was never so happy as when surrounded by butchers, graziers, and salesmen who were able to appreciate the work of his life, and who regarded him as a model nobleman. "Look at that fellow," he said to Eames, pointing to the prize bullock. Eames had joined his patron at the show after his office hours, looking on upon the living beef by gaslight. "Isn't he like his sire? He was got by Lambkin, you know."
"Lambkin," said Johnny, who had not as yet been able to learn much about the Guestwick stock.
"Yes, Lambkin. The bull that we had the trouble with. He has just got his sire's back and fore-quarters. Don't you see?"
"I daresay," said Johnny, who looked very hard, but could not see.
"It's very odd," exclaimed the earl, "but do you know, that bull has been as quiet since that day,--as quiet as--as anything. I think it must have been my pocket-handkerchief."
"I daresay it was," said Johnny;--"or perhaps the flies."
"Flies!" said the earl, angrily. "Do you suppose he isn't used to flies? Come away. I ordered dinner at seven, and it's past six now. My brother-in-law, Colonel Dale, is up in town, and he dines with us." So he took Johnny's arm, and led him off through the show, calling his attention as he went to several beasts which were inferior to his own.
And then they walked down through Portman Square and Grosvenor Square, and across Piccadilly to Jermyn Street. John Eames acknowledged to himself that it was odd that he should have an earl leaning on his arm as he passed along through the streets. At home, in his own life, his daily companions were Cradell and Amelia Roper, Mrs. Lupex and Mrs. Roper. The difference was very great, and yet he found it quite as easy to talk to the earl as to Mrs. Lupex.
"You know the Dales down at Allington, of course," said the earl.
"Oh, yes, I know them."
"But, perhaps, you never met the colonel."
"I don't think I ever did."
"He's a queer sort of fellow;--very well in his way, but he never does anything. He and my sister live at Torquay, and as far as I can find out, they neither of them have any occupation of any sort. He's come up to town now because we both had to meet our family lawyers and sign some papers, but he looks on the journey as a great hardship. As for me, I'm a year older than he is, but I wouldn't mind going up and down from Guestwick every day."
"It's looking after the bull that does it," said Eames.
"By George! you're right, Master Johnny. My sister and Crofts may tell me what they like, but when a man's out in the open air for eight or nine hours every day, it doesn't much matter where he goes to sleep after that. This is Pawkins's,--capital good house, but not so good as it used to be while old Pawkins was alive. Show Mr. Eames up into a bedroom to wash his hands."
Colonel Dale was much like his brother in face, but was taller, even thinner, and apparently older. When Eames went into the sitting-room, the colonel was there alone, and had to take upon himself the trouble of introducing himself. He did not get up from his arm-chair, but nodded gently at the young man. "Mr. Eames, I believe? I knew your father at Guestwick, a great many years ago;" then he turned his face back towards the fire and sighed.
"It's got very cold this afternoon," said Johnny, trying to make conversation.
"It's always cold in London," said the colonel.
"If you had to be here in August you wouldn't say so."
"God forbid," said the colonel, and he sighed again, with his eyes fixed upon the fire. Eames had heard of the very gallant way in which Orlando Dale had persisted in running away with Lord De Guest's sister, in opposition to very terrible obstacles, and as he now looked at the intrepid lover, he thought that there must have been a great change since those days. After that nothing more was said till the earl came down.
Pawkins's house was thoroughly old-fashioned in all things, and the Pawkins of that day himself stood behind the earl's elbow when the dinner began, and himself removed the cover from the soup tureen. Lord De Guest did not require much personal attention, but he would have felt annoyed if this hadn't been done. As it was he had a civil word to say to Pawkins about the fat cattle, thereby showing that he did not mistake Pawkins for one of the waiters. Pawkins then took his lordship's orders about the wine and retired.
"He keeps up the old house pretty well," said the earl to his brother-in-law. "It isn't like what it was thirty years ago, but then everything of that sort has got worse and worse."
"I suppose it has," said the colonel.
"I remember when old Pawkins had as good a glass of port as I've got at home,--or nearly. They can't get it now, you know."
"I never drink port," said the colonel. "I seldom take anything after dinner, except a little negus."
His brother-in-law said nothing, but made a most eloquent grimace as he turned his face towards his soup-plate. Eames saw it, and could hardly refrain from laughing. When, at half-past nine o'clock, the colonel retired from the room, the earl, as the door was closed, threw up his hands, and uttered the one word "negus!" Then Eames took heart of grace and had his laughter out.
The dinner was very dull, and before the colonel went to bed Johnny regretted that he had been induced to dine at Pawkins's. It might be a very fine thing to be asked to dinner with an earl, and John Eames had perhaps received at his office some little accession of dignity from the circumstance, of which he had been not unpleasantly aware; but, as he sat at the table, on which there were four or five apples and a plate of dried nuts, looking at the earl, as he endeavoured to keep his eyes open, and at the colonel, to whom it seemed absolutely a matter of indifference whether his companions were asleep or awake, he confessed to himself that the price he was paying was almost too dear. Mrs. Roper's tea-table was not pleasant to him, but even that would have been preferable to the black dinginess of Pawkins's mahogany, with the company of two tired old men, with whom he seemed to have no mutual subject of conversation. Once or twice he tried a word with the colonel, for the colonel sat with his eyes open looking at the fire. But he was answered with monosyllables, and it was evident to him that the colonel did not wish to talk. To sit still, with his hands closed over each other on his lap, was work enough for Colonel Dale during his after-dinner hours.
But the earl knew what was going on. During that terrible conflict between him and his slumber, in which the drowsy god fairly vanquished him for some twenty minutes, his conscience was always accusing him of treating his guests badly. He was very angry with himself, and tried to arouse himself and talk. But his brother-in-law would not help him in his efforts; and even Eames was not bright in rendering him assistance. Then for twenty minutes he slept soundly, and at the end of that he woke himself with one of his own snorts. "By George!" he said, jumping up and standing on the rug, "we'll have some coffee;" and after that he did not sleep any more.
"Dale," said he, "won't you take some more wine?"
[ILLUSTRATION: "Won't you take some more wine?"]
"Nothing more," said the colonel, still looking at the fire, and shaking his head very slowly.
"Come, Johnny, fill your glass." He had already got into the way of calling his young friend Johnny, having found that Mrs. Eames generally spoke of her son by that name.
"I have been filling my glass all the time," said Eames, taking the decanter again in his hand as he spoke.
"I'm glad you've found something to amuse you, for it has seemed to me that you and Dale haven't had much to say to each other. I've been listening all the time."
"You've been asleep," said the colonel.
"Then there's been some excuse for my holding my tongue," said the earl. "By-the-by, Dale, what do you think of that fellow Crosbie?"
Eames' ears were instantly on the alert, and the spirit of dullness vanished from him.
"Think of him?" said the colonel.
"He ought to have every bone in his skin broken," said the earl.
"So he ought," said Eames, getting up from his chair in his eagerness, and speaking in a tone somewhat louder than was perhaps becoming in the presence of his seniors. "So he ought, my lord. He is the most abominable rascal that ever I met in my life. I wish I was Lily Dale's brother." Then he sat down again, remembering that he was speaking in the presence of Lily's uncle, and of the father of Bernard Dale, who might be supposed to occupy the place of Lily's brother.
The colonel turned his head round, and looked at the young man with surprise. "I beg your pardon, sir," said Eames, "but I have known Mrs. Dale and your nieces all my life."
"Oh, have you?" said the colonel. "Nevertheless it is, perhaps, as well not to make too free with a young lady's name. Not that I blame you in the least, Mr. Eames."
"I should think not," said the earl. "I honour him for his feeling. Johnny, my boy, if ever I am unfortunate enough to meet that man, I shall tell him my mind, and I believe you will do the same." On hearing this John Eames winked at the earl, and made a motion with his head towards the colonel, whose back was turned to him. And then the earl winked back at Eames.
"De Guest," said the colonel, "I think I'll go upstairs; I always have a little arrowroot in my own room."
"I'll ring the bell for a candle," said the host. Then the colonel went, and as the door was closed behind him, the earl raised his two hands and uttered that single word, "negus!" Whereupon Johnny burst out laughing, and coming round to the fire, sat himself down in the arm-chair which the colonel had left.
"I've no doubt it's all right," said the earl; "but I shouldn't like to drink negus myself, nor yet to have arrowroot up in my bedroom."
"I don't suppose there's any harm in it."
"Oh dear, no; I wonder what Pawkins says about him. But I suppose they have them of all sorts in an hotel."
"The waiter didn't seem to think much of it when he brought it."
"No, no. If he'd asked for senna and salts, the waiter wouldn't have showed any surprise. By-the-by, you touched him up about that poor girl."
"Did I, my lord? I didn't mean it."
"You see he's Bernard Dale's father, and the question is, whether Bernard shouldn't punish the fellow for what he has done. Somebody ought to do it. It isn't right that he should escape. Somebody ought to let Mr. Crosbie know what a scoundrel he has made himself."
"I'd do it to-morrow, only I'm afraid--" "No, no, no," said the earl; "you are not the right person at all. What have you got to do with it? You've merely known them as family friends, but that's not enough."
"No, I suppose not," said Eames, sadly.
"Perhaps it's best as it is," said the earl. "I don't know that any good would be got by knocking him over the head. And if we are to be Christians, I suppose we ought to be Christians."
"What sort of a Christian has he been?"
"That's true enough; and if I was Bernard, I should be very apt to forget my Bible lessons about meekness."
"Do you know, my lord, I should think it the most Christian thing in the world to pitch into him; I should, indeed. There are some things for which a man ought to be beaten black and blue."
"So that he shouldn't do them again?"
"Exactly. You might say it isn't Christian to hang a man."
"I'd always hang a murderer. It wasn't right to hang men for stealing sheep."
"Much better hang such a fellow as Crosbie," said Eames.
"Well, I believe so. If any fellow wanted now to curry favour with the young lady, what an opportunity he'd have."
Johnny remained silent for a moment or two before he answered. "I'm not so sure of that," he said, mournfully, as though grieving at the thought that there was no chance of currying favour with Lily by thrashing her late lover.
"I don't pretend to know much about girls," said Lord De Guest; "but I should think it would be so. I should fancy that nothing would please her so much as hearing that he had caught it, and that all the world knew that he'd caught it." The earl had declared that he didn't know much about girls, and in so saying, he was no doubt right.
"If I thought so," said Eames, "I'd find him out to-morrow."
"Why so? what difference does it make to you?" Then there was another pause, during which Johnny looked very sheepish. "You don't mean to say that you're in love with Miss Lily Dale?"
"I don't know much about being in love with her," said Johnny, turning very red as he spoke. And then he made up his mind, in a wild sort of way, to tell all the truth to his friend. Pawkins's port wine may, perhaps, have had something to do with the resolution. "But I'd go through fire and water for her, my lord. I knew her years before he had ever seen her, and have loved her a great deal better than he will ever love any one. When I heard that she had accepted him, I had half a mind to cut my own throat,--or else his."
"Highty tighty," said the earl.
"It's very ridiculous, I know," said Johnny, "and of course she would never have accepted me."
"I don't see that at all."
"I haven't a shilling in the world."
"Girls don't care much for that."
"And then a clerk in the Income-tax Office! It's such a poor thing."
"The other fellow was only a clerk in another office."
The earl living down at Guestwick did not understand that the Income-tax Office in the city, and the General Committee Office at Whitehall, were as far apart as Dives and Lazarus, and separated by as impassable a gulf.
"Oh, yes," said Johnny; "but his office is another kind of thing, and then he was a swell himself."
"By George, I don't see it," said the earl.
"I don't wonder a bit at her accepting a fellow like that. I hated him the first moment I saw him; but that's no reason she should hate him. He had that sort of manner, you know. He was a swell, and girls like that kind of thing. I never felt angry with her, but I could have eaten him." As he spoke he looked as though he would have made some such attempt had Crosbie been present.
"Did you ever ask her to have you?" said the earl.
"No; how could I ask her, when I hadn't bread to give her?"
"And you never told her--that you were in love with her, I mean, and all that kind of thing."
"She knows it now," said Johnny; "I went to say good-by to her the other day,--when I thought she was going to be married. I could not help telling her then."
"But it seems to me, my dear fellow, that you ought to be very much obliged to Crosbie;--that is to say, if you've a mind to--" "I know what you mean, my lord. I am not a bit obliged to him. It's my belief that all this will about kill her. As to myself, if I thought she'd ever have me--" Then he was again silent, and the earl could see that the tears were in his eyes.
"I think I begin to understand it," said the earl, "and I'll give you a bit of advice. You come down and spend your Christmas with me at Guestwick."
"Oh, my lord!"
"Never mind my-lording me, but do as I tell you. Lady Julia sent you a message, though I forgot all about it till now. She wants to thank you herself for what you did in the field."
"That's all nonsense, my lord."
"Very well; you can tell her so. You may take my word for this, too,--my sister hates Crosbie quite as much as you do. I think she'd 'pitch into him,' as you call it, herself, if she knew how. You come down to Guestwick for the Christmas, and then go over to Allington and tell them all plainly what you mean."
"I couldn't say a word to her now."
"Say it to the squire, then. Go to him, and tell him what you mean,--holding your head up like a man. Don't talk to me about swells. The man who means honestly is the best swell I know. He's the only swell I recognize. Go to old Dale, and say you come from me,--from Guestwick Manor. Tell him that if he'll put a little stick under the pot to make it boil, I'll put a bigger one. He'll understand what that means."
"Oh, no, my lord."
"But I say, oh, yes;" and the earl, who was now standing on the rug before the fire, dug his hands deep down into his trousers' pockets. "I'm very fond of that girl, and would do much for her. You ask Lady Julia if I didn't say so to her before I ever knew of your casting a sheep's-eye that way. And I've a sneaking kindness for you too, Master Johnny. Lord bless you, I knew your father as well as I ever knew any man; and to tell the truth, I believe I helped to ruin him. He held land of me, you know, and there can't be any doubt that he did ruin himself. He knew no more about a beast when he'd done, than--than--than that waiter. If he'd gone on to this day he wouldn't have been any wiser."
Johnny sat silent, with his eyes full of tears. What was he to say to his friend?
"You come down with me," continued the earl, "and you'll find we'll make it all straight. I daresay you're right about not speaking to the girl just at present. But tell everything to the uncle, and then to the mother. And, above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning. If you are made of dirt, like that fellow Crosbie, you'll be found out at last, no doubt. But then I don't think you are made of dirt."
"I hope not."
"And so do I. You can come down, I suppose, with me the day after to-morrow?"
"I'm afraid not. I have had all my leave."
"Shall I write to old Buffle, and ask it as a favour?"
"No," said Johnny; "I shouldn't like that. But I'll see to-morrow, and then I'll let you know. I can go down by the mail train on Saturday, at any rate."
"That won't be comfortable. See and come with me if you can. Now, good-night, my dear fellow, and remember this,--when I say a thing I mean it. I think I may boast that I never yet went back from my word."
The earl as he spoke gave his left hand to his guest, and looking somewhat grandly up over the young man's head, he tapped his own breast thrice with his right hand. As he went through the little scene, John Eames felt that he was every inch an earl.
"I don't know what to say to you, my lord."
"Say nothing,--not a word more to me. But say to yourself that faint heart never won fair lady. Good-night, my dear boy, good-night. I dine out to-morrow, but you can call and let me know at about six."
Eames then left the room without another word, and walked out into the cold air of Jermyn Street. The moon was clear and bright, and the pavement in the shining light seemed to be as clean as a lady's hand. All the world was altered to him since he had entered Pawkins's Hotel. Was it then possible that Lily Dale might even yet become his wife? Could it be true that he, even now, was in a position to go boldly to the Squire of Allington, and tell him what were his views with reference to Lily? And how far would he be justified in taking the earl at his word? Some incredible amount of wealth would be required before he could marry Lily Dale. Two or three hundred pounds a year at the very least! The earl could not mean him to understand that any such sum as that would be made up with such an object! Nevertheless he resolved as he walked home to Burton Crescent that he would go down to Guestwick, and that he would obey the earl's behest. As regarded Lily herself he felt that nothing could be said to her for many a long day as yet.
"Oh, John, how late you are!" said Amelia, slipping out from the back parlour as he let himself in with his latch-key.
"Yes, I am;--very late," said John, taking his candle, and passing her by on the stairs without another word.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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33
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"THE TIME WILL COME."
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"Did you hear that young Eames is staying at Guestwick Manor?"
As these were the first words which the squire spoke to Mrs. Dale as they walked together up to the Great House, after church, on Christmas Day, it was clear enough that the tidings of Johnny's visit, when told to him, had made some impression.
"At Guestwick Manor!" said Mrs. Dale. "Dear me! Do you hear that, Bell? There's promotion for Master Johnny!"
"Don't you remember, mamma," said Bell, "that he helped his lordship in his trouble with the bull?"
Lily, who remembered accurately all the passages of her last interview with John Eames, said nothing, but felt, in some sort, sore at the idea that he should be so near her at such a time. In some unconscious way she had liked him for coming to her and saying all that he did say. She valued him more highly after that scene than she did before. But now, she would feel herself injured and hurt if he ever made his way into her presence under circumstances as they existed.
"I should not have thought that Lord De Guest was the man to show so much gratitude for so slight a favour," said the squire. "However, I'm going to dine there to-morrow."
"To meet young Eames?" said Mrs. Dale.
"Yes,--especially to meet young Eames. At least, I've been very specially asked to come, and I've been told that he is to be there."
"And is Bernard going?"
"Indeed I'm not," said Bernard. "I shall come over and dine with you."
A half-formed idea flitted across Lily's mind, teaching her to imagine for a moment that she might possibly be concerned in this arrangement. But the thought vanished as quickly as it came, merely leaving some soreness behind it. There are certain maladies which make the whole body sore. The patient, let him be touched on any point,--let him even be nearly touched,--will roar with agony as though his whole body had been bruised. So it is also with maladies of the mind. Sorrows such as that of poor Lily's leave the heart sore at every point, and compel the sufferer to be ever in fear of new wounds. Lily bore her cross bravely and well; but not the less did it weigh heavily upon her at every turn because she had the strength to walk as though she did not bear it. Nothing happened to her, or in her presence, that did not in some way connect itself with her misery. Her uncle was going over to meet John Eames at Lord De Guest's. Of course the men there would talk about her, and all such talking was an injury to her.
The afternoon of that day did not pass away brightly. As long as the servants were in the room the dinner went on much as other dinners. At such times a certain amount of hypocrisy must always be practised in closely domestic circles. At mixed dinner-parties people can talk before Richard and William the same words that they would use if Richard and William were not there. People so mixed do not talk together their inward home thoughts. But when close friends are together, a little conscious reticence is practised till the door is tiled. At such a meeting as this that conscious reticence was of service, and created an effect which was salutary. When the door was tiled, and when the servants were gone, how could they be merry together? By what mirth should the beards be made to wag on that Christmas Day?
"My father has been up in town," said Bernard. "He was with Lord De Guest at Pawkins's."
"Why didn't you go and see him?" asked Mrs. Dale.
"Well, I don't know. He did not seem to wish it. I shall go down to Torquay in February. I must be up in London, you know, in a fortnight, for good." Then they were all silent again for a few minutes. If Bernard could have owned the truth, he would have acknowledged that he had not gone up to London, because he did not yet know how to treat Crosbie when he should meet him. His thoughts on this matter threw some sort of shadow across poor Lily's mind, making her feel that her wound was again opened.
"I want him to give up his profession altogether," said the squire, speaking firmly and slowly. "It would be better, I think, for both of us that he should do so."
"Would it be wise at his time of life," said Mrs. Dale, "and when he has been doing so well?"
"I think it would be wise. If he were my son it would be thought better that he should live here upon the property, among the people who are to become his tenants, than remain up in London, or perhaps be sent to India. He has one profession as the heir of this place, and that, I think, should be enough."
"I should have but an idle life of it down here," said Bernard.
"That would be your own fault. But if you did as I would have you, your life would not be idle." In this he was alluding to Bernard's proposed marriage, but as to that nothing further could be said in Bell's presence. Bell understood it all, and sat quite silent, with demure countenance;--perhaps even with something of sternness in her face.
"But the fact is," said Mrs. Dale, speaking in a low tone, and having well considered what she was about to say, "that Bernard is not exactly the same as your son."
"Why not?" said the squire. "I have even offered to settle the property on him if he will leave the service."
"You do not owe him so much as you would owe your son; and, therefore, he does not owe you as much as he would owe his father."
"If you mean that I cannot constrain him, I know that well enough. As regards money, I have offered to do for him quite as much as any father would feel called upon to do for an only son."
"I hope you don't think me ungrateful," said Bernard.
"No, I do not; but I think you unmindful. I have nothing more to say about it, however;--not about that. If you should marry--" And then he stopped himself, feeling that he could not go on in Bell's presence.
"If he should marry," said Mrs. Dale, "it may well be that his wife would like a house of her own."
"Wouldn't she have this house?" said the squire, angrily. "Isn't it big enough? I only want one room for myself, and I'd give up that if it were necessary."
"That's nonsense," said Mrs. Dale.
"It isn't nonsense," said the squire.
"You'll be squire of Allington for the next twenty years," said Mrs. Dale. "And as long as you are the squire, you'll be master of this house; at least, I hope so. I don't approve of monarchs abdicating in favour of young people."
"I don't think uncle Christopher would look at all well like Charles the Fifth," said Lily.
"I would always keep a cell for you, my darling, if I did," said the squire, regarding her with that painful, special tenderness. Lily, who was sitting next to Mrs. Dale, put her hand out secretly and got hold of her mother's, thereby indicating that she did not intend to occupy the cell offered to her by her uncle; or to look to him as the companion of her monastic seclusion. After that there was nothing more then said as to Bernard's prospects.
"Mrs. Hearn is dining at the vicarage, I suppose?" asked the squire.
"Yes; she went in after church," said Bell. "I saw her go with Mrs. Boyce."
"She told me she never would dine with them again after dark in winter," said Mrs. Dale. "The last time she was there, the boy let the lamp blow out as she was going home, and she lost her way. The truth was, she was angry because Mr. Boyce didn't go with her."
"She's always angry," said the squire. "She hardly speaks to me now. When she paid her rent the other day to Jolliffe, she said she hoped it would do me much good; as though she thought me a brute for taking it."
"So she does," said Bernard.
"She's very old, you know," said Bell.
"I'd give her the house for nothing, if I were you, uncle," said Lily.
"No, my dear; if you were me you would not. I should be very wrong to do so. Why should Mrs. Hearn have her house for nothing, any more than her meat or her clothes? It would be much more reasonable were I to give her so much money into her hand yearly; but it would be wrong in me to do so, seeing that she is not an object of charity;--and it would be wrong in her to take it."
"And she wouldn't take it," said Mrs. Dale.
"I don't think she would. But if she did, I'm sure she would grumble because it wasn't double the amount. And if Mr. Boyce had gone home with her, she would have grumbled because he walked too fast."
"She is very old," said Bell, again.
"But, nevertheless, she ought to know better than to speak disparagingly of me to my servants. She should have more respect for herself." And the squire showed by the tone of his voice that he thought very much about it.
It was very long and very dull that Christmas evening, making Bernard feel strongly that he would be very foolish to give up his profession, and tie himself down to a life at Allington. Women are more accustomed than men to long, dull, unemployed hours; and, therefore, Mrs. Dale and her daughters bore the tedium courageously. While he yawned, stretched himself, and went in and out of the room, they sat demurely, listening as the squire laid down the law on small matters, and contradicting him occasionally when the spirit of either of them prompted her specially to do so. "Of course you know much better than I do," he would say. "Not at all," Mrs. Dale would answer. "I don't pretend to know anything about it. But--" So the evening wore itself away; and when the squire was left alone at half-past nine, he did not feel that the day had passed badly with him. That was his style of life, and he expected no more from it than he got. He did not look to find things very pleasant, and, if not happy, he was, at any rate, contented.
"Only think of Johnny Eames being at Guestwick Manor!" said Bell, as they were going home.
"I don't see why he shouldn't be there," said Lily. "I would rather it should be he than I, because Lady Julia is so grumpy."
"But asking your uncle Christopher especially to meet him!" said Mrs. Dale. "There must be some reason for it." Then Lily felt the soreness come upon her again, and spoke no further upon the subject.
We all know that there was a special reason, and that Lily's soreness was not false in its mysterious forebodings. Eames, on the evening after his dinner at Pawkins's, had seen the earl, and explained to him that he could not leave town till the Saturday evening; but that he could remain over the Tuesday. He must be at his office by twelve on Wednesday, and could manage to do that by an early train from Guestwick.
"Very well, Johnny," said the earl, talking to his young friend with the bedroom candle in his hand, as he was going up to dress. "Then I'll tell you what; I've been thinking of it. I'll ask Dale to come over to dinner on Tuesday; and if he'll come, I'll explain the whole matter to him myself. He's a man of business, and he'll understand. If he won't come, why then you must go over to Allington, and find him, if you can, on the Tuesday morning; or I'll go to him myself, which will be better. You mustn't keep me now, as I am ever so much too late."
Eames did not attempt to keep him, but went away feeling that the whole matter was being arranged for him in a very wonderful way. And when he got to Allington he found that the squire had accepted the earl's invitation. Then he declared to himself that there was no longer any possibility of retractation for him. Of course he did not wish to retract. The one great longing of his life was to call Lily Dale his own. But he felt afraid of the squire,--that the squire would despise him and snub him, and that the earl would perceive that he had made a mistake when he saw how his client was scorned and snubbed. It was arranged that the earl was to take the squire into his own room for a few minutes before dinner, and Johnny felt that he would be hardly able to stand his ground in the drawing-room when the two old men should make their appearance together.
He got on very well with Lady Julia, who gave herself no airs, and made herself very civil. Her brother had told her the whole story, and she felt as anxious as he did to provide Lily with another husband in place of that horrible man Crosbie. "She has been very fortunate in her escape," she said to her brother; "very fortunate." The earl agreed with this, saying that in his opinion his own favourite Johnny would make much the nicer lover of the two. But Lady Julia had her doubts as to Lily's acquiescence. "But, Theodore, he must not speak to Miss Lilian Dale herself about it yet a while."
"No," said the earl; "not for a month or so."
"He will have a better chance if he can remain silent for six months," said Lady Julia.
"Bless my soul! somebody else will have picked her up before that," said the earl.
In answer to this Lady Julia merely shook her head.
Johnny went over to his mother on Christmas Day after church, and was received by her and by his sister with great honour. And she gave him many injunctions as to his behaviour at the earl's table, even descending to small details about his boots and linen. But Johnny had already begun to feel at the Manor that, after all, people are not so very different in their ways of life as they are supposed to be. Lady Julia's manners were certainly not quite those of Mrs. Roper; but she made the tea very much in the way in which it was made at Burton Crescent, and Eames found that he could eat his egg, at any rate on the second morning, without any tremor in his hand, in spite of the coronet on the silver egg-cup. He did feel himself to be rather out of his place in the Manor pew on the Sunday, conceiving that all the congregation was looking at him; but he got over this on Christmas Day, and sat quite comfortably in his soft corner during the sermon, almost going to sleep. And when he walked with the earl after church to the gate over which the noble peer had climbed in his agony, and inspected the hedge through which he had thrown himself, he was quite at home with his little jokes, bantering his august companion as to the mode of his somersault. But be it always remembered that there are two modes in which a young man may be free and easy with his elder and superior,--the mode pleasant and the mode offensive. Had it been in Johnny's nature to try the latter, the earl's back would soon have been up at once, and the play would have been over. But it was not in Johnny's nature to do so, and therefore it was that the earl liked him.
At last came the hour of dinner on Tuesday, or at least the hour at which the squire had been asked to show himself at the Manor House. Eames, as by agreement with his patron, did not come down so as to show himself till after the interview. Lady Julia, who had been present at their discussions, had agreed to receive the squire; and then a servant was to ask him to step into the earl's own room. It was pretty to see the way in which the three conspired together, planning and plotting with an eagerness that was beautifully green and fresh.
"He can be as cross as an old stick when he likes it," said the earl, speaking of the squire; "and we must take care not to rub him the wrong way."
"I shan't know what to say to him when I come down," said Johnny.
"Just shake hands with him and don't say anything," said Lady Julia.
"I'll give him some port wine that ought to soften his heart," said the earl, "and then we'll see how he is in the evening."
Eames heard the wheels of the squire's little open carriage and trembled. The squire, unconscious of all schemes, soon found himself with Lady Julia, and within two minutes of his entrance was walked off to the earl's private room. "Certainly," he said, "certainly;" and followed the man-servant. The earl, as he entered, was standing in the middle of the room, and his round rosy face was a picture of good-humour.
"I'm very glad you've come, Dale," said he. "I've something I want to say to you."
Mr. Dale, who neither in heart nor in manner was so light a man as the earl, took the proffered hand of his host, and bowed his head slightly, signifying that he was willing to listen to anything.
"I think I told you," continued the earl, "that young John Eames is down here; but he goes back to-morrow, as they can't spare him at his office. He's a very good fellow,--as far as I am able to judge, an uncommonly good young man. I've taken a great fancy to him myself."
In answer to this Mr. Dale did not say much. He sat down, and in some general terms expressed his good-will towards all the Eames family.
"As you know, Dale, I'm a very bad hand at talking, and therefore I won't beat about the bush in what I've got to say at present. Of course we've all heard of that scoundrel Crosbie, and the way he has treated your niece Lilian."
"He is a scoundrel,--an unmixed scoundrel. But the less we say about that the better. It is ill mentioning a girl's name in such a matter as that."
"But, my dear Dale, I must mention it at the present moment. Dear young child, I would do anything to comfort her! And I hope that something may be done to comfort her. Do you know that that young man was in love with her long before Crosbie ever saw her?"
"What;--John Eames!"
"Yes, John Eames. And I wish heartily for his sake that he had won her regard before she had met that rascal whom you had to stay down at your house."
"A man cannot help these things, De Guest," said the squire.
"No, no, no! There are such men about the world, and it is impossible to know them at a glance. He was my nephew's friend, and I am not going to say that my nephew was in fault. But I wish,--I only say that I wish,--she had first known what are this young man's feelings towards her."
"But she might not have thought of him as you do."
"He is an uncommonly good-looking young fellow; straight made, broad in the chest, with a good, honest eye, and a young man's proper courage. He has never been taught to give himself airs like a dancing monkey; but I think he's all the better for that."
"But it's too late now, De Guest."
"No, no; that's just where it is. It mustn't be too late! That child is not to lose her whole life because a villain has played her false. Of course she'll suffer. Just at present it wouldn't do, I suppose, to talk to her about a new sweetheart. But, Dale, the time will come; the time will come;--the time always does come."
"It has never come to you and me," said the squire, with the slightest possible smile on his dry cheeks. The story of their lives had been so far the same; each had loved, and each had been disappointed, and then each had remained single through life.
"Yes, it has," said the earl, with no slight touch of feeling and even of romance in what he said. "We have retricked our beams in our own ways, and our lives have not been desolate. But for her,--you and her mother will look forward to see her married some day."
"I have not thought about it."
"But I want you to think about it. I want to interest you in this fellow's favour; and in doing so, I mean to be very open with you. I suppose you'll give her something?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," said the squire, almost offended at an inquiry of such a nature.
"Well, then, whether you do or not, I'll give him something," said the earl. "I shouldn't have ventured to meddle in the matter had I not intended to put myself in such a position with reference to him as would justify me in asking the question." And the peer as he spoke drew himself up to his full height. "If such a match can be made, it shall not be a bad marriage for your niece in a pecuniary point of view. I shall have pleasure in giving to him; but I shall have more pleasure if she can share what I give."
"She ought to be very much obliged to you," said the squire.
"I think she would be if she knew young Eames. I hope the day may come when she will be so. I hope that you and I may see them happy together, and that you too may thank me for having assisted in making them so. Shall we go in to Lady Julia now?" The earl had felt that he had not quite succeeded; that his offer had been accepted somewhat coldly, and had not much hope that further good could be done on that day, even with the help of his best port wine.
"Half a moment," said the squire. "There are matters as to which I never find myself able to speak quickly, and this certainly seems to be one of them. If you will allow me I will think over what you have said, and then see you again."
"Certainly, certainly."
"But for your own part in the matter, for your great generosity and kind heart, I beg to offer you my warmest thanks." Then the squire bowed low, and preceded the earl out of the room.
Lord De Guest still felt that he had not succeeded. We may probably say, looking at the squire's character and peculiarities, that no marked success was probable at the first opening-out of such a subject. He had said of himself that he was never able to speak quickly in matters of moment; but he would more correctly have described his own character had he declared that he could not think of them quickly. As it was, the earl was disappointed; but had he been able to read the squire's mind, his disappointment would have been less strong. Mr. Dale knew well enough that he was being treated well, and that the effort being made was intended with kindness to those belonging to him; but it was not in his nature to be demonstrative and quick at expressions of gratitude. So he entered the drawing-room with a cold, placid face, leading Eames, and Lady Julia also, to suppose that no good had been done.
"How do you do, sir?" said Johnny, walking up to him in a wild sort of manner,--going through a premeditated lesson, but doing it without any presence of mind.
"How do you do, Eames?" said the squire, speaking with a very cold voice. And then there was nothing further said till the dinner was announced.
"Dale, I know you drink port," said the earl when Lady Julia left them. "If you say you don't like that, I shall say you know nothing about it."
"Ah! that's the '20," said the squire, tasting it.
"I should rather think it is," said the earl. "I was lucky enough to get it early, and it hasn't been moved for thirty years. I like to give it to a man who knows it, as you do, at the first glance. Now there's my friend Johnny there; it's thrown away upon him."
"No, my lord, it is not. I think it's uncommonly nice."
"Uncommonly nice! So is champagne, or ginger-beer, or lollipops,--for those who like them. Do you mean to tell me you can taste wine with half a pickled orange in your mouth?"
"It'll come to him soon enough," said the squire.
"Twenty port won't come to him when he is as old as we are," said the earl, forgetting that by that time sixty port will be as wonderful to the then living seniors of the age as was his own pet vintage to him.
The good wine did in some sort soften the squire; but, as a matter of course, nothing further was said as to the new matrimonial scheme. The earl did observe, however, that Mr. Dale was civil, and even kind, to his own young friend, asking a question here and there as to his life in London, and saying something about the work at the Income-tax Office.
"It is hard work," said Eames. "If you're under the line, they make a great row about it, send for you, and look at you as though you'd been robbing the bank; but they think nothing of keeping you till five."
"But how long do you have for lunch and reading the papers?" said the earl.
"Not ten minutes. We take a paper among twenty of us for half the day. That's exactly nine minutes to each; and as for lunch, we only have a biscuit dipped in ink."
"Dipped in ink!" said the squire.
"It comes to that, for you have to be writing while you munch it."
"I hear all about you," said the earl; "Sir Raffle Buffle is an old crony of mine."
"I don't suppose he ever heard my name as yet," said Johnny. "But do you really know him well, Lord De Guest?"
"Haven't seen him these thirty years; but I did know him."
"We call him old Huffle Scuffle."
"Huffle Scuffle! Ha, ha, ha! He always was Huffle Scuffle; a noisy, pretentious, empty-headed fellow. But I oughtn't to say so before you, young man. Come, we'll go into the drawing-room."
"And what did he say?" asked Lady Julia, as soon as the squire was gone.
There was no attempt at concealment, and the question was asked in Johnny's presence.
"Well, he did not say much. And coming from him, that ought to be taken as a good sign. He is to think of it, and let me see him again. You hold your head up, Johnny, and remember that you shan't want a friend on your side. Faint heart never won fair lady."
At seven o'clock on the following morning Eames started on his return journey, and was at his desk at twelve o'clock,--as per agreement with his taskmaster at the Income-tax Office.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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34
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THE COMBAT.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] I have said that John Eames was at his office punctually at twelve; but an incident had happened before his arrival there very important in the annals which are now being told,--so important that it is essentially necessary that it should be described with some minuteness of detail.
Lord De Guest, in the various conversations which he had had with Eames as to Lily Dale and her present position, had always spoken of Crosbie with the most vehement abhorrence. "He is a damned blackguard," said the earl, and the fire had come out of his round eyes as he spoke. Now the earl was by no means given to cursing and swearing, in the sense which is ordinarily applied to these words. When he made use of such a phrase as that quoted above, it was to be presumed that he in some sort meant what he said; and so he did, and had intended to signify that Crosbie by his conduct had merited all such condemnation as was the fitting punishment for blackguardism of the worst description.
"He ought to have his neck broken," said Johnny.
"I don't know about that," said the earl. "The present times have become so pretty behaved that corporal punishment seems to have gone out of fashion. I shouldn't care so much about that, if any other punishment had taken its place. But it seems to me that a blackguard such as Crosbie can escape now altogether unscathed."
"He hasn't escaped yet," said Johnny.
"Don't you go and put your finger in the pie and make a fool of yourself," said the earl. If it had behoved any one to resent in any violent fashion the evil done by Crosbie, Bernard Dale, the earl's nephew, should have been the avenger. This the earl felt, but under these circumstances he was disposed to think that there should be no such violent vengeance. "Things were different when I was young," he said to himself. But Eames gathered from the earl's tone that the earl's words were not strictly in accordance with his thoughts, and he declared to himself over and over again that Crosbie had not yet escaped.
He got into the train at Guestwick, taking a first-class ticket, because the earl's groom in livery was in attendance upon him. Had he been alone he would have gone in a cheaper carriage. Very weak in him, was it not? little also, and mean? My friend, can you say that you would not have done the same at his age? Are you quite sure that you would not do the same now that you are double his age? Be that as it may, Johnny Eames did that foolish thing, and gave the groom in livery half-a-crown into the bargain.
"We shall have you down again soon, Mr. John," said the groom, who seemed to understand that Mr. Eames was to be made quite at home at the manor.
He went fast to sleep in the carriage, and did not awake till the train was stopped at the Barchester Junction.
"Waiting for the up-train from Barchester, sir," said the guard. "They're always late." Then he went to sleep again, and was aroused in a few minutes by some one entering the carriage in a great hurry. The branch train had come in, just as the guardians of the line then present had made up their minds that the passengers on the main line should not be kept waiting any longer. The transfer of men, women, and luggage was therefore made in great haste, and they who were now taking their new seats had hardly time to look about them. An old gentleman, very red about the gills, first came into Johnny's carriage, which up to that moment he had shared with an old lady. The old gentleman was abusing everybody, because he was hurried, and would not take himself well into the compartment, but stuck in the doorway, standing on the step.
"Now, sir, when you're quite at leisure," said a voice behind the old man, which instantly made Eames start up in his seat.
"I'm not at all at leisure," said the old man; "and I'm not going to break my legs if I know it."
"Take your time, sir," said the guard.
"So I mean," said the old man, seating himself in the corner nearest to the open door, opposite to the old lady. Then Eames saw plainly that it was Crosbie who had first spoken, and that he was getting into the carriage.
Crosbie at the first glance saw no one but the old gentleman and the old lady, and he immediately made for the unoccupied corner seat. He was busy with his umbrella and his dressing-bag, and a little flustered by the pushing and hurrying. The carriage was actually in motion before he perceived that John Eames was opposite to him: Eames had, instinctively, drawn up his legs so as not to touch him. He felt that he had become very red in the face, and to tell the truth, the perspiration had broken out upon his brow. It was a great occasion,--great in its imminent trouble, and great in its opportunity for action. How was he to carry himself at the first moment of his recognition by his enemy, and what was he to do afterwards?
It need hardly be explained that Crosbie had also been spending his Christmas with a certain earl of his acquaintance, and that he too was returning to his office. In one respect he had been much more fortunate than poor Eames, for he had been made happy with the smiles of his lady love. Alexandrina and the countess had fluttered about him softly, treating him as a tame chattel, now belonging to the noble house of De Courcy, and in this way he had been initiated into the inner domesticities of that illustrious family. The two extra men-servants, hired to wait upon Lady Dumbello, had vanished. The champagne had ceased to flow in a perennial stream. Lady Rosina had come out from her solitude, and had preached at him constantly. Lady Margaretta had given him some lessons in economy. The Honourable John, in spite of a late quarrel, had borrowed five pounds from him. The Honourable George had engaged to come and stay with his sister during the next May. The earl had used a father-in-law's privilege, and had called him a fool. Lady Alexandrina had told him more than once, in rather a tart voice, that this must be done, and that that must be done; and the countess had given him her orders as though it was his duty, in the course of nature, to obey every word that fell from her. Such had been his Christmas delights; and now, as he returned back from the enjoyment of them, he found himself confronted in the railway carriage with Johnny Eames!
The eyes of the two met, and Crosbie made a slight inclination of his head. To this Eames gave no acknowledgment whatever, but looked straight into the other's face. Crosbie immediately saw that they were not to know each other, and was well contented that it should be so. Among all his many troubles, the enmity of John Eames did not go for much. He showed no appearance of being disconcerted, though our friend had shown much. He opened his bag, and taking out a book was soon deeply engaged in it, pursuing his studies as though the man opposite was quite unknown to him. I will not say that his mind did not run away from his book, for indeed there were many things of which he found it impossible not to think; but it did not revert to John Eames. Indeed, when the carriages reached Paddington, he had in truth all but forgotten him; and as he stepped out of the carriage, with his bag in his hand, was quite free from any remotest trouble on his account.
But it had not been so with Eames himself. Every moment of the journey had for him been crowded with thought as to what he would do now that chance had brought his enemy within his reach. He had been made quite wretched by the intensity of his thinking; and yet, when the carriages stopped, he had not made up his mind. His face had been covered with perspiration ever since Crosbie had come across him, and his limbs had hardly been under his own command. Here had come to him a great opportunity, and he felt so little confidence in himself that he almost knew that he would not use it properly. Twice and thrice he had almost flown at Crosbie's throat in the carriage, but he was restrained by an idea that the world and the police would be against him if he did such a thing in the presence of that old lady.
But when Crosbie turned his back upon him, and walked out, it was absolutely necessary that he should do something. He was not going to let the man escape, after all that he had said as to the expediency of thrashing him. Any other disgrace would be preferable to that. Fearing, therefore, lest his enemy should be too quick for him, he hurried out after him, and only just gave Crosbie time to turn round and face the carriages before he was upon him. "You confounded scoundrel!" he screamed out. "You confounded scoundrel!" and seized him by the throat, throwing himself upon him, and almost devouring him by the fury of his eyes.
The crowd upon the platform was not very dense, but there were quite enough of people to make a very respectable audience for this little play. Crosbie, in his dismay, retreated a step or two, and his retreat was much accelerated by the weight of Eames's attack. He endeavoured to free his throat from his foe's grasp; but in that he failed entirely. For the minute, however, he did manage to escape any positive blow, owing his safety in that respect rather to Eames's awkwardness than to his own efforts. Something about the police he was just able to utter, and there was, as a matter of course, an immediate call for a supply of those functionaries. In about three minutes three policemen, assisted by six porters, had captured our poor friend Johnny; but this had not been done quick enough for Crosbie's purposes. The bystanders, taken by surprise, had allowed the combatants to fall back upon Mr. Smith's book-stall, and there Eames laid his foe prostrate among the newspapers, falling himself into the yellow shilling-novel depot by the over fury of his own energy; but as he fell, he contrived to lodge one blow with his fist in Crosbie's right eye,--one telling blow; and Crosbie had, to all intents and purposes, been thrashed.
"Con--founded scoundrel, rascal, blackguard!" shouted Johnny, with what remnants of voice were left to him, as the police dragged him off. "If you only knew--what he's--done." But in the meantime the policemen held him fast.
As a matter of course the first burst of public sympathy went with Crosbie. He had been assaulted, and the assault had come from Eames. In the British bosom there is so firm a love of well-constituted order, that these facts alone were sufficient to bring twenty knights to the assistance of the three policemen and the six porters; so that for Eames, even had he desired it, there was no possible chance of escape. But he did not desire it. One only sorrow consumed him at present. He had, as he felt, attacked Crosbie, but had attacked him in vain. He had had his opportunity, and had misused it. He was perfectly unconscious of that happy blow, and was in absolute ignorance of the great fact that his enemy's eye was already swollen and closed, and that in another hour it would be as black as his hat.
"He is a con--founded rascal!" ejaculated Eames, as the policemen and porters hauled him about. "You don't know what he's done."
"No, we don't," said the senior constable; "but we know what you have done. I say, Bushers, where's that gentleman? He'd better come along with us."
Crosbie had been picked up from among the newspapers by another policeman and two or three other porters, and was attended also by the guard of the train, who knew him, and knew that he had come up from Courcy Castle. Three or four hangers-on were standing also around him, together with a benevolent medical man who was proposing to him an immediate application of leeches. If he could have done as he wished, he would have gone his way quietly, allowing Eames to do the same. A great evil had befallen him, but he could in no way mitigate that evil by taking the law of the man who had attacked him. To have the thing as little talked about as possible should be his endeavour. What though he should have Eames locked up and fined, and scolded by a police magistrate? That would not in any degree lessen his calamity. If he could have parried the attack, and got the better of his foe; if he could have administered the black eye instead of receiving it, then indeed he could have laughed the matter off at his club, and his original crime would have been somewhat glozed over by his success in arms. But such good fortune had not been his. He was forced, however, on the moment to decide as to what he would do.
"We've got him here in custody, sir," said Bushers, touching his hat. It had become known from the guard that Crosbie was somewhat of a big man, a frequent guest at Courcy Castle, and of repute and station in the higher regions of the Metropolitan world. "The magistrates will be sitting at Paddington, now, sir--or will be by the time we get there."
By this time some mighty railway authority had come upon the scene and made himself cognizant of the facts of the row,--a stern official who seemed to carry the weight of many engines on his brow; one at the very sight of whom smokers would drop their cigars, and porters close their fists against sixpences; a great man with an erect chin, a quick step, and a well-brushed hat powerful with an elaborately upturned brim. This was the platform-superintendent, dominant even over the policemen.
"Step into my room, Mr. Crosbie," he said. "Stubbs, bring that man in with you." And then, before Crosbie had been able to make up his mind as to any other line of conduct, he found himself in the superintendent's room, accompanied by the guard, and by the two policemen who conducted Johnny Eames between them.
"What's all this?" said the superintendent, still keeping on his hat, for he was aware how much of the excellence of his personal dignity was owing to the arrangement of that article; and as he spoke he frowned upon the culprit with his utmost severity. "Mr. Crosbie, I am very sorry that you should have been exposed to such brutality on our platform."
"You don't know what he has done," said Johnny. "He is the most confounded scoundrel living. He has broken--" But then he stopped himself. He was going to tell the superintendent that the confounded scoundrel had broken a beautiful young lady's heart; but he bethought himself that he would not allude more specially to Lily Dale in that hearing.
"Do you know who he is, Mr. Crosbie?" said the superintendent.
"Oh, yes," said Crosbie, whose eye was already becoming blue. "He is a clerk in the Income-tax Office, and his name is Eames. I believe you had better leave him to me."
But the superintendent at once wrote down the words "Income-tax Office--Eames," on his tablet. "We can't allow a row like that to take place on our platform and not notice it. I shall bring it before the directors. It's a most disgraceful affair, Mr. Eames--most disgraceful."
But Johnny by this time had perceived that Crosbie's eye was in a state which proved satisfactorily that his morning's work had not been thrown away, and his spirits were rising accordingly. He did not care two straws for the superintendent or even for the policemen, if only the story could be made to tell well for himself hereafter. It was his object to have thrashed Crosbie, and now, as he looked at his enemy's face, he acknowledged that Providence had been good to him.
"That's your opinion," said Johnny.
"Yes, sir, it is," said the superintendent; "and I shall know how to represent the matter to your superiors, young man."
"You don't know all about it," said Eames; "and I don't suppose you ever will. I had made up my mind what I'd do the first time I saw that scoundrel there; and now I've done it. He'd have got much worse in the railway carriage, only there was a lady there."
"Mr. Crosbie, I really think we had better take him before the magistrates."
To this, however, Crosbie objected. He assured the superintendent that he would himself know how to deal with the matter--which, however, was exactly what he did not know. Would the superintendent allow one of the railway servants to get a cab for him, and to find his luggage? He was very anxious to get home without being subjected to any more of Mr. Eames's insolence.
"You haven't done with Mr. Eames's insolence yet, I can tell you. All London shall hear of it, and shall know why. If you have any shame in you, you shall be ashamed to show your face."
Unfortunate man! Who can say that punishment--adequate punishment--had not overtaken him? For the present, he had to sneak home with a black eye, with the knowledge inside him that he had been whipped by a clerk in the Income-tax Office; and for the future--he was bound over to marry Lady Alexandrina De Courcy!
He got himself smuggled off in a cab, without being forced to go again upon the platform--his luggage being brought to him by two assiduous porters. But in all this there was very little balm for his hurt pride. As he ordered the cabman to drive to Mount Street, he felt that he had ruined himself by that step in life which he had taken at Courcy Castle. Whichever way he looked he had no comfort. "D---- the fellow!" he said, almost out loud in the cab; but though he did with his outward voice allude to Eames, the curse in his inner thoughts was uttered against himself.
Johnny was allowed to make his way down to the platform, and there find his own carpet-bag. One young porter, however, came up and fraternized with him.
"You guve it him tidy just at that last moment, sir. But, laws, sir, you should have let out at him at fust. What's the use of clawing a man's neck-collar?"
It was then a quarter past eleven, but, nevertheless, Eames appeared at his office precisely at twelve.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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35
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VÆ VICTIS.
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Crosbie had two engagements for that day; one being his natural engagement to do his work at his office, and the other an engagement, which was now very often becoming as natural, to dine at St. John's Wood with Lady Amelia Gazebee. It was manifest to him when he looked at himself in the glass that he could keep neither of these engagements. "Oh, laws, Mr. Crosbie," the woman of the house exclaimed when she saw him.
"Yes, I know," said he. "I've had an accident and got a black eye. What's a good thing for it?"
"Oh! an accident!" said the woman, who knew well that that mark had been made by another man's fist. "They do say that a bit of raw beef is about the best thing. But then it must be held on constant all the morning."
Anything would be better than leeches, which tell long-enduring tales, and therefore Crosbie sat through the greater part of the morning holding the raw beef to his eye. But it was necessary that he should write two notes as he held it, one to Mr. Butterwell at his office, and the other to his future sister-in-law. He felt that it would hardly be wise to attempt any entire concealment of the nature of his catastrophe, as some of the circumstances would assuredly become known. If he said that he had fallen over the coal-scuttle, or on to the fender, thereby cutting his face, people would learn that he had fibbed, and would learn also that he had had some reason for fibbing. Therefore he constructed his notes with a phraseology that bound him to no details. To Butterwell he said that he had had an accident--or rather a row--and that he had come out of it with considerable damage to his frontispiece. He intended to be at the office on the next day, whether able to appear decently there or not. But for the sake of decency he thought it well to give himself that one half-day's chance. Then to the Lady Amelia he also said that he had had an accident, and had been a little hurt. "It is nothing at all serious, and affects only my appearance, so that I had better remain in for a day. I shall certainly be with you on Sunday. Don't let Gazebee trouble himself to come to me, as I shan't be at home after to-day." Gazebee did trouble himself to come to Mount Street so often, and South Audley Street, in which was Mr. Gazebee's office, was so disagreeably near to Mount Street, that Crosbie inserted this in order to protect himself if possible. Then he gave special orders that he was to be at home to no one, fearing that Gazebee would call for him after the hours of business--to make him safe and carry him off bodily to St. John's Wood.
The beefsteak and the dose of physic and the cold-water application which was kept upon it all night was not efficacious in dispelling that horrid, black-blue colour by ten o'clock on the following morning.
"It certainly have gone down, Mr. Crosbie; it certainly have," said the mistress of the lodgings, touching the part affected with her finger. "But the black won't go out of them all in a minute; it won't indeed. Couldn't you just stay in one more day?"
"But will one day do it, Mrs. Phillips?"
Mrs. Phillips couldn't take upon herself to say that it would. "They mostly come with little red streaks across the black before they goes away," said Mrs. Phillips, who would seem to have been the wife of a prize-fighter, so well was she acquainted with black eyes.
"And that won't be till to-morrow," said Crosbie, affecting to be mirthful in his agony.
"Not till the third day;--and then they wears themselves out, gradual. I never knew leeches do any good."
He stayed at home the second day, and then resolved that he would go to his office, black eye and all. In that morning's newspaper he saw an account of the whole transaction, saying how Mr. C---- of the office of General Committees, who was soon about to lead to the hymeneal altar the beautiful daughter of the Earl De C----, had been made the subject of a brutal personal attack on the platform of the Great Western Railway Station, and how he was confined to his room from the injuries which he had received. The paragraph went on to state that the delinquent had, as it was believed, dared to raise his eyes to the same lady, and that his audacity had been treated with scorn by every member of the noble family in question. "It was, however, satisfactory to know," so said the newspaper, "that Mr. C---- had amply avenged himself, and had so flogged the young man in question, that he had been unable to stir from his bed since the occurrence."
On reading this Crosbie felt that it would be better that he should show himself at once, and tell as much of the truth as the world would be likely to ascertain at last without his telling. So on that third morning he put on his hat and gloves, and had himself taken to his office, though the red-streaky period of his misfortune had hardly even yet come upon him. The task of walking along the office passage, through the messengers' lobby, and into his room, was very disagreeable. Of course everybody looked at him, and of course he failed in his attempt to appear as though he did not mind it. "Boggs," he said to one of the men as he passed by, "just see if Mr. Butterwell is in his room," and then, as he expected, Mr. Butterwell came to him after the expiration of a few minutes.
"Upon my word, that is serious," said Mr. Butterwell, looking into the secretary's damaged face. "I don't think I would have come out if I had been you."
"Of course it's disagreeable," said Crosbie; "but it's better to put up with it. Fellows do tell such horrid lies if a man isn't seen for a day or two. I believe it's best to put a good face upon it."
"That's more than you can do just at present, eh, Crosbie?" And then Mr. Butterwell tittered. "But how on earth did it happen? The paper says that you pretty well killed the fellow who did it."
"The paper lies, as papers always do. I didn't touch him at all."
"Didn't you, though? I should like to have had a poke at him after getting such a tap in the face as that."
"The policemen came, and all that sort of thing. One isn't allowed to fight it out in a row of that kind as one would have to do on Salisbury heath. Not that I mean to say that I could lick the fellow. How's a man to know whether he can or not?"
"How, indeed, unless he gets a licking,--or gives it? But who was he, and what's this about his having been scorned by the noble family?"
"Trash and lies, of course. He had never seen any of the De Courcy people."
"I suppose the truth is, it was about that other--eh, Crosbie? I knew you'd find yourself in some trouble before you'd done."
"I don't know what it was about, or why he should have made such a brute of himself. You have heard about those people at Allington?"
"Oh, yes; I have heard about them."
"God knows, I didn't mean to say anything against them. They knew nothing about it."
"But the young fellow knew them? Ah, yes, I see all about it. He wants to step into your shoes. I can't say that he sets about it in a bad way. But what do you mean to do?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing! Won't that look queer? I think I should have him before the magistrates."
"You see, Butterwell, I am bound to spare that girl's name. I know I have behaved badly."
"Well, yes; I fear you have."
Mr. Butterwell said this with some considerable amount of decision in his voice, as though he did not intend to mince matters, or in any way to hide his opinion. Crosbie had got into a way of condemning himself in this matter of his marriage, but was very anxious that others, on hearing such condemnation from him, should say something in the way of palliating his fault. It would be so easy for a friend to remark that such little peccadilloes were not altogether uncommon, and that it would sometimes happen in life that people did not know their own minds. He had hoped for some such benevolence from Fowler Pratt, but had hoped in vain. Butterwell was a good-natured, easy man, anxious to stand well with all about him, never pretending to any very high tone of feeling or of morals; and yet Butterwell would say no word of comfort to him. He could get no one to slur over his sin for him, as though it were no sin,--only an unfortunate mistake; no one but the De Courcys, who had, as it were, taken possession of him and swallowed him alive.
"It can't be helped now," said Crosbie. "But as for that fellow who made such a brutal attack on me the other morning, he knows that he is safe behind her petticoats. I can do nothing which would not make some mention of her name necessary."
"Ah, yes; I see," said Butterwell. "It's very unfortunate; very. I don't know that I can do anything for you. Will you come before the Board to-day?"
"Yes; of course I shall," said Crosbie, who was becoming very sore. His sharp ear had told him that all Butterwell's respect and cordiality were gone,--at any rate for the time. Butterwell, though holding the higher official rank, had always been accustomed to treat him as though he, the inferior, were to be courted. He had possessed, and had known himself to possess, in his office as well as in the outside world, a sort of rank much higher than that which from his position he could claim legitimately. Now he was being deposed. There could be no better touchstone in such a matter than Butterwell. He would go as the world went, but he would perceive almost intuitively how the world intended to go. "Tact, tact, tact," as he was in the habit of saying to himself when walking along the paths of his Putney villa. Crosbie was now secretary, whereas a few months before he had been simply a clerk; but, nevertheless, Mr. Butterwell's instinct told him that Crosbie had fallen. Therefore he declined to offer any sympathy to the man in his misfortune, and felt aware, as he left the secretary's room, that it might probably be some time before he visited it again.
Crosbie resolved in his soreness that henceforth he would brazen it out. He would go to the Board, with as much indifference as to his black eye as he was able to assume, and if any one said aught to him he would be ready with his answer. He would go to his club, and let him who intended to show him any slight beware of him in his wrath. He could not turn upon John Eames, but he could turn upon others if it were necessary. He had not gained for himself a position before the world, and held it now for some years, to allow himself to be crushed at once because he had made a mistake. If the world, his world, chose to go to war with him, he would be ready for the fight. As for Butterwell,--Butterwell the incompetent, Butterwell the vapid,--for Butterwell, who in every little official difficulty had for years past come to him, he would let Butterwell know what it was to be thus disloyal to one who had condescended to be his friend. He would show them all at the Board that he scorned them, and could be their master. Then, too, as he was making some other resolves as to his future conduct, he made one or two resolutions respecting the De Courcy people. He would make it known to them that he was not going to be their very humble servant. He would speak out his mind with considerable plainness; and if upon that they should choose to break off this "alliance," they might do so; he would not break his heart. And as he leaned back in his arm-chair, thinking of all this, an idea made its way into his brain,--a floating castle in the air, rather than the image of a thing that might by possibility be realized; and in this castle in the air he saw himself kneeling again at Lily's feet, asking her pardon, and begging that he might once more be taken to her heart.
"Mr. Crosbie is here to-day," said Mr. Butterwell to Mr. Optimist.
"Oh, indeed," said Mr. Optimist, very gravely; for he had heard all about the row at the railway station.
"They've made a monstrous show of him."
"I am very sorry to hear it. It's so--so--so-- If it were one of the younger clerks, you know, we should tell him that it was discreditable to the department."
"If a man gets a blow in the eye, he can't help it, you know. He didn't do it himself, I suppose," said Major Fiasco.
"I am well aware that he didn't do it himself," continued Mr. Optimist; "but I really think that, in his position, he should have kept himself out of any such encounter."
"He would have done so if he could, with all his heart," said the major. "I don't suppose he liked being thrashed any better than I should."
"Nobody gives me a black eye," said Mr. Optimist.
"Nobody has as yet," said the major.
"I hope they never will," said Mr. Butterwell. Then, the hour for their meeting having come round, Mr. Crosbie came into the Board-room.
"We have been very sorry to hear of this misfortune," said Mr. Optimist, very gravely.
"Not half so sorry as I have been," said Crosbie, with a laugh. "It's an uncommon nuisance to have a black eye, and to go about looking like a prize-fighter."
"And like a prize-fighter that didn't win his battle, too," said Fiasco.
"I don't know that there's much difference as to that," said Crosbie. "But the whole thing is a nuisance, and, if you please, we won't say anything more about it."
Mr. Optimist almost entertained an opinion that it was his duty to say something more about it. Was not he the chief Commissioner, and was not Mr. Crosbie secretary to the Board? Ought he, looking at their respective positions, to pass over without a word of notice such a manifest impropriety as this? Would not Sir Raffle Buffle have said something had Mr. Butterwell, when secretary, come to the office with a black eye? He wished to exercise all the full rights of a chairman; but, nevertheless, as he looked at the secretary he felt embarrassed, and was unable to find the proper words. "H--m, ha, well; we'll go to business now, if you please," he said, as though reserving to himself the right of returning to the secretary's black eye when the more usual business of the Board should be completed. But when the more usual business of the Board had been completed, the secretary left the room without any further reference to his eye.
Crosbie, when he got back to his own apartment, found Mortimer Gazebee waiting there for him.
"My dear fellow," said Gazebee, "this is a very nasty affair."
"Uncommonly nasty," said Crosbie; "so nasty that I don't mean to talk about it to anybody."
"Lady Amelia is quite unhappy." He always called her Lady Amelia, even when speaking of her to his own brothers and sisters. He was too well behaved to take the liberty of calling an earl's daughter by her plain Christian name, even though that earl's daughter was his own wife. "She fears that you have been a good deal hurt."
"Not at all hurt; but disfigured, as you see."
"And so you beat the fellow well that did it?"
"No, I didn't," said Crosbie, very angrily. "I didn't beat him at all. You don't believe everything you read in the newspapers, do you?"
"No, I don't believe everything. Of course I didn't believe about his having aspired to an alliance with Lady Alexandrina. That was untrue, of course." Mr. Gazebee showed by the tone of his voice that imprudence so unparalleled as that was quite incredible.
"You shouldn't believe anything; except this,--that I have got a black eye."
"You certainly have got that. Lady Amelia thinks you would be more comfortable if you would come up to us this evening. You can't go out, of course; but Lady Amelia said, very good-naturedly, that you need not mind with her."
"Thank you, no; I'll come on Sunday."
"Of course Lady Alexandrina will be very anxious to hear from her sister; and Lady Amelia begged me very particularly to press you to come."
"Thank you, no; not to-day."
"Why not?"
"Oh, simply because I shall be better at home."
"How can you be better at home? You can have anything that you want. Lady Amelia won't mind, you know."
Another beefsteak to his eye, as he sat in the drawing-room, a cold-water bandage, or any little medical appliance of that sort;--these were the things which Lady Amelia would, in her domestic good nature, condescend not to mind!
"I won't trouble her this evening," said Crosbie.
"Well, upon my word, I think you're wrong. All manner of stories will get down to Courcy Castle, and to the countess's ears; and you don't know what harm may come of it. Lady Amelia thinks she had better write and explain it; but she can't do so till she has heard something about it from you."
"Look here, Gazebee. I don't care one straw what story finds its way down to Courcy Castle."
"But if the earl were to hear anything, and be offended?"
"He may recover from his offence as he best likes."
"My dear fellow; that's talking wildly, you know."
"What on earth do you suppose the earl can do to me? Do you think I'm going to live in fear of Lord De Courcy all my life, because I'm going to marry his daughter? I shall write to Alexandrina myself to-day, and you can tell her sister so. I'll be up to dinner on Sunday, unless my face makes it altogether out of the question."
"And you won't come in time for church?"
"Would you have me go to church with such a face as this?"
Then Mr. Mortimer Gazebee went, and when he got home he told his wife that Crosbie was taking things with a high hand. "The fact is, my dear, that he's ashamed of himself, and therefore tries to put a bold face upon it."
"It was very foolish of him throwing himself in the way of that young man,--very; and so I shall tell him on Sunday. If he chooses to give himself airs to me, I shall make him understand that he is very wrong. He should remember now that the way in which he conducts himself is a matter of moment to all our family."
"Of course he should," said Mr. Gazebee.
When the Sunday came the red-streaky period had arrived, but had by no means as yet passed away. The men at the office had almost become used to it; but Crosbie, in spite of his determination to go down to the club, had not yet shown himself elsewhere. Of course he did not go to church, but at five he made his appearance at the house in St. John's Wood. They always dined at five on Sundays, having some idea that by doing so they kept the Sabbath better than they would have done had they dined at seven. If keeping the Sabbath consists in going to bed early, or is in any way assisted by such a practice, they were right. To the cook that semi-early dinner might perhaps be convenient, as it gave her an excuse for not going to church in the afternoon, as the servants' and children's dinner gave her a similar excuse in the morning. Such little attempts at goodness,--proceeding half the way, or perhaps, as in this instance, one quarter of the way, on the disagreeable path towards goodness,--are very common with respectable people, such as Lady Amelia. If she would have dined at one o'clock, and have eaten cold meat, one perhaps might have felt that she was entitled to some praise.
"Dear, dear, dear; this is very sad, isn't it, Adolphus?" she said on first seeing him.
"Well, it is sad, Amelia," he said. He always called her Amelia, because she called him Adolphus; but Gazebee himself was never quite pleased when he heard it. Lady Amelia was older than Crosbie, and entitled to call him anything she liked; but he should have remembered the great difference in their rank. "It is sad, Amelia," he said. "But will you oblige me in one thing?"
"What thing, Adolphus?"
"Not to say a word more about it. The black eye is a bad thing, no doubt, and has troubled me much; but the sympathy of my friends has troubled me a great deal more. I had all the family commiseration from Gazebee on Friday, and if it is repeated again, I shall lie down and die."
"Shall 'oo die, uncle Dolphus, 'cause 'oo've got a bad eye?" asked De Courcy Gazebee, the eldest hope of the family, looking up into his face.
"No, my hero," said Crosbie, taking the boy up into his arms, "not because I've got a black eye. There isn't very much harm in that, and you'll have a great many before you leave school. But because the people will go on talking about it."
"But aunt Dina on't like 'oo, if oo've got an ugly bad eye."
"But, Adolphus," said Lady Amelia, settling herself for an argument, "that's all very well, you know--and I'm sure I'm very sorry to cause you any annoyance,--but really one doesn't know how to pass over such a thing without speaking of it. I have had a letter from mamma."
"I hope Lady De Courcy is quite well."
"Quite well, thank you. But as a matter of course she is very anxious about this affair. She had read what has been said in the newspapers, and it may be necessary that Mortimer should take it up, as the family solicitor."
"Quite out of the question," said Adolphus.
"I don't think I should advise any such step as that," said Gazebee.
"Perhaps not; very likely not. But you cannot be surprised, Mortimer, that my mother under such circumstances should wish to know what are the facts of the case."
"Not at all surprised," said Gazebee.
"Then once for all, I'll tell you the facts. As I got out of the train a man I'd seen once before in my life made an attack upon me, and before the police came up, I got a blow in the face. Now you know all about it."
At that moment dinner was announced. "Will you give Lady Amelia your arm?" said the husband.
"It's a very sad occurrence," said Lady Amelia with a slight toss of her head, "and, I'm afraid, will cost my sister a great deal of vexation."
"You agree with De Courcy, do you, that aunt Dina won't like me with an ugly black eye?"
"I really don't think it's a joking matter," said the Lady Amelia. And then there was nothing more said about it during the dinner.
There was nothing more said about it during the dinner, but it was plain enough from Lady Amelia's countenance that she was not very well pleased with her future brother-in-law's conduct. She was very hospitable to him, pressing him to eat; but even in doing that she made repeated little references to his present unfortunate state. She told him that she did not think fried plum-pudding would be bad for him, but that she would recommend him not to drink port-wine after dinner. "By-the-by, Mortimer, you'd better have some claret up," she remarked. "Adolphus shouldn't take anything that is heating."
"Thank you," said Crosbie. "I'll have some brandy-and-water, if Gazebee will give it me."
"Brandy-and-water!" said Lady Amelia. Crosbie in truth was not given to the drinking of brandy-and-water; but he was prepared to call for raw gin, if he were driven much further by Lady Amelia's solicitude.
At these Sunday dinners the mistress of the house never went away into the drawing-room, and the tea was always brought into them at the table on which they had dined. It was another little step towards keeping holy the first day of the week. When Lady Rosina was there, she was indulged with the sight of six or seven solid good books which were laid upon the mahogany as soon as the bottles were taken off it. At her first prolonged visit she had obtained for herself the privilege of reading a sermon; but as on such occasions both Lady Amelia and Mr. Gazebee would go to sleep,--and as the footman had also once shown a tendency that way,--the sermon had been abandoned. But the master of the house, on these evenings, when his sister-in-law was present, was doomed to sit in idleness, or else to find solace in one of the solid good books. But Lady Rosina just now was in the country, and therefore the table was left unfurnished.
"And what am I to say to my mother?" said Lady Amelia, when they were alone.
"Give her my kindest regards," said Crosbie. It was quite clear, both to the husband and to the wife, that he was preparing himself for rebellion against authority.
For some ten minutes there was nothing said. Crosbie amused himself by playing with the boy whom he called Dicksey, by way of a nickname for De Courcy.
"Mamma, he calls me Dicksey. Am I Dicksey? I'll call 'oo old Cross, and then aunt Dina 'on't like 'oo."
"I wish you would not call the child nicknames, Adolphus. It seems as though you would wish to cast a slur upon the one which he bears."
"I should hardly think that he would feel disposed to do that," said Mr. Gazebee.
"Hardly, indeed," said Crosbie.
"It has never yet been disgraced in the annals of our country by being made into a nickname," said the proud daughter of the house. She was probably unaware that among many of his associates her father had been called Lord De Curse'ye, from the occasional energy of his language. "And any such attempt is painful in my ears. I think something of my family, I can assure you, Adolphus, and so does my husband."
"A very great deal," said Mr. Gazebee.
"So do I of mine," said Crosbie. "That's natural to all of us. One of my ancestors came over with William the Conqueror. I think he was one of the assistant cooks in the king's tent."
"A cook!" said young De Courcy.
"Yes, my boy, a cook. That was the way most of our old families were made noble. They were cooks, or butlers to the kings--or sometimes something worse."
"But your family isn't noble?"
"No--I'll tell you how that was. The king wanted this cook to poison half-a-dozen of his officers who wished to have a way of their own; but the cook said, 'No, my Lord King; I am a cook, not an executioner.' So they sent him into the scullery, and when they called all the other servants barons and lords, they only called him Cookey. They've changed the name to Crosbie since that, by degrees."
Mr. Gazebee was awestruck, and the face of the Lady Amelia became very dark. Was it not evident that this snake, when taken into their innermost bosoms that they might there warm him, was becoming an adder, and preparing to sting them? There was very little more conversation that evening, and soon after the story of the cook, Crosbie got up and went away to his own home.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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36
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"SEE, THE CONQUERING HERO COMES."
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John Eames had reached his office precisely at twelve o'clock, but when he did so he hardly knew whether he was standing on his heels or his head. The whole morning had been to him one of intense excitement, and latterly, to a certain extent, one of triumph. But he did not at all know what might be the results. Would he be taken before a magistrate and locked up? Would there be a row at the office? Would Crosbie call him out, and, if so, would it be incumbent on him to fight a duel with pistols? What would Lord De Guest say--Lord De Guest, who had specially warned him not to take upon himself the duty of avenging Lily's wrongs? What would all the Dale family say of his conduct? And, above all, what would Lily say and think? Nevertheless, the feeling of triumph was predominant; and now, at this interval of time, he was beginning to remember with pleasure the sensation of his fist as it went into Crosbie's eye.
During his first day at the office he heard nothing about the affair, nor did he say a word of it to any one. It was known in his room that he had gone down to spend his Christmas holiday with Lord De Guest, and he was treated with some increased consideration accordingly. And, moreover, I must explain, in order that I may give Johnny Eames his due, he was gradually acquiring for himself a good footing among the Income-tax officials. He knew his work, and did it with some manly confidence in his own powers, and also with some manly indifference to the occasional frowns of the mighty men of the department. He was, moreover, popular--being somewhat of a radical in his official demeanour, and holding by his own rights, even though mighty men should frown. In truth, he was emerging from his hobbledehoyhood and entering upon his young manhood, having probably to go through much folly and some false sentiment in that period of his existence, but still with fair promise of true manliness beyond, to those who were able to read the signs of his character.
Many questions on that first day were asked him about the glories of his Christmas, but he had very little to say on the subject. Indeed nothing could have been much more commonplace than his Christmas visit, had it not been for the one great object which had taken him down to that part of the country, and for the circumstance with which his holiday had been ended. On neither of these subjects was he disposed to speak openly; but as he walked home to Burton Crescent with Cradell, he did tell him of the affair with Crosbie.
"And you went in at him on the station?" asked Cradell, with admiring doubt.
[ILLUSTRATION: "And you went in at him on the station?"]
"Yes, I did. If I didn't do it there, where was I to do it? I'd said I would, and therefore when I saw him I did it." Then the whole affair was told as to the black eye, the police, and the superintendent. "And what's to come next?" asked our hero.
"Well, he'll put it in the hands of a friend, of course; as I did with Fisher in that affair with Lupex. And, upon my word, Johnny, I shall have to do something of the kind again. His conduct last night was outrageous; would you believe it--" "Oh, he's a fool."
"He's a fool you wouldn't like to meet when he's in one of his mad fits, I can tell you that. I absolutely had to sit up in my own bedroom all last night. Mother Roper told me that if I remained in the drawing-room she would feel herself obliged to have a policeman in the house. What could I do, you know? I made her have a fire for me, of course."
"And then you went to bed."
"I waited ever so long, because I thought that Maria would want to see me. At last she sent me a note. Maria is so imprudent, you know. If he had found anything in her writing, it would have been terrible, you know,--quite terrible. And who can say whether Jemima mayn't tell?"
"And what did she say?"
"Come; that's tellings, Master Johnny. I took very good care to take it with me to the office this morning, for fear of accidents."
But Eames was not so widely awake to the importance of his friend's adventures as he might have been had he not been weighted with adventures of his own.
"I shouldn't care so much," said he, "about that fellow Crosbie going to a friend, as I should about his going to a police magistrate."
"He'll put it in a friend's hands, of course," said Cradell, with the air of a man who from experience was well up in such matters. "And I suppose you'll naturally come to me. It's a deuced bore to a man in a public office, and all that kind of thing, of course. But I'm not the man to desert my friend. I'll stand by you, Johnny, my boy."
"Oh, thank you," said Eames, "I don't think that I shall want that."
"You must be ready with a friend, you know."
"I should write down to a man I know in the country, and ask his advice," said Eames; "an older sort of friend, you know."
"By Jove, old fellow, take care what you're about. Don't let them say of you that you show the white feather. Upon my honour, I'd sooner have anything said of me than that. I would, indeed,--anything."
"I'm not afraid of that," said Eames, with a touch of scorn in his voice. "There isn't much thought about white feathers now-a-days,--not in the way of fighting duels."
After that, Cradell managed to carry back the conversation to Mrs. Lupex and his own peculiar position, and as Eames did not care to ask from his companion further advice in his own matters, he listened nearly in silence till they reached Burton Crescent.
"I hope you found the noble earl well," said Mrs. Roper to him, as soon as they were all seated at dinner.
"I found the noble earl pretty well, thank you," said Johnny.
It had become plainly understood by all the Roperites that Eames's position was quite altered since he had been honoured with the friendship of Lord De Guest. Mrs. Lupex, next to whom he always sat at dinner, with a view to protecting her as it were from the dangerous neighbourhood of Cradell, treated him with a marked courtesy. Miss Spruce always called him "sir." Mrs. Roper helped him the first of the gentlemen, and was mindful about his fat and gravy, and Amelia felt less able than she was before to insist upon the possession of his heart and affections. It must not be supposed that Amelia intended to abandon the fight, and allow the enemy to walk off with his forces; but she felt herself constrained to treat him with a deference that was hardly compatible with the perfect equality which should attend any union of hearts.
"It is such a privilege to be on visiting terms with the nobility," said Mrs. Lupex. "When I was a girl, I used to be very intimate--" "You ain't a girl any longer, and so you'd better not talk about it," said Lupex. Mr. Lupex had been at that little shop in Drury Lane after he came down from his scene-painting.
"My dear, you needn't be a brute to me before all Mrs. Roper's company. If, led away by feelings which I will not now describe, I left my proper circles in marrying you, you need not before all the world teach me how much I have to regret." And Mrs. Lupex, putting down her knife and fork, applied her handkerchief to her eyes.
"That's pleasant for a man over his meals, isn't it?" said Lupex, appealing to Miss Spruce. "I have plenty of that kind of thing, and you can't think how I like it."
"Them whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder," said Miss Spruce. "As for me myself, I'm only an old woman."
This little ebullition threw a gloom over the dinner-table, and nothing more was said on the occasion as to the glories of Eames's career. But, in the course of the evening, Amelia heard of the encounter which had taken place at the railway station, and at once perceived that she might use the occasion for her own purposes.
"John," she whispered to her victim, finding an opportunity for coming upon him when almost alone, "what is this I hear? I insist upon knowing. Are you going to fight a duel?"
"Nonsense," said Johnny.
"But it is not nonsense. You don't know what my feelings will be, if I think that such a thing is going to happen. But then you are so hard-hearted!"
"I ain't hard-hearted a bit, and I'm not going to fight a duel."
"But is it true that you beat Mr. Crosbie at the station?"
"It is true. I did beat him."
"Oh, John! not that I mean to say you were wrong, and indeed I honour you for the feeling. There can be nothing so dreadful as a young man's deceiving a young woman and leaving her after he has won her heart--particularly when she has had his promise in plain words, or, perhaps, even in black and white." John thought of that horrid, foolish, wretched note which he had written. "And a poor girl, if she can't right herself by a breach of promise, doesn't know what to do. Does she, John?"
"A girl who'd right herself that way wouldn't be worth having."
"I don't know about that. When a poor girl is in such a position, she has to be aided by her friends. I suppose, then, Miss Lily Dale won't bring a breach of promise against him."
This mention of Lily's name in such a place was sacrilege in the ears of poor Eames. "I cannot tell," said he, "what may be the intention of the lady of whom you speak. But from what I know of her friends, I should not think that she will be disgraced by such a proceeding."
"That may be all very well for Miss Lily Dale--" Amelia said, and then she hesitated. It would not be well, she thought, absolutely to threaten him as yet,--not as long as there was any possibility that he might be won without a threat. "Of course I know all about it," she continued. "She was your L. D., you know. Not that I was ever jealous of her. To you she was no more than one of childhood's friends. Was she, Johnny?"
He stamped his foot upon the floor, and then jumped up from his seat. "I hate all that sort of twaddle about childhood's friends, and you know I do. You'll make me swear that I'll never come into this room again."
"Johnny!"
"So I will. The whole thing makes me sick. And as for that Mrs. Lupex--" "If this is what you learn, John, by going to a lord's house, I think you had better stay at home with your own friends."
"Of course I had;--much better stay at home with my own friends. Here's Mrs. Lupex, and at any rate I can't stand her." So he went off, and walked round the Crescent, and down to the New Road, and almost into the Regent's Park, thinking of Lily Dale and of his own cowardice with Amelia Roper.
On the following morning he received a message, at about one o'clock, by the mouth of the Board-room messenger, informing him that his presence was required in the Board-room. "Sir Raffle Buffle has desired your presence, Mr. Eames."
"My presence, Tupper! what for?" said Johnny, turning upon the messenger almost with dismay.
"Indeed I can't say, Mr. Eames; but Sir Raffle Buffle has desired your presence in the Board-room."
Such a message as that in official life always strikes awe into the heart of a young man. And yet, young men generally come forth from such interviews without having received any serious damage, and generally talk about the old gentlemen whom they have encountered with a good deal of light-spirited sarcasm,--or chaff, as it is called in the slang phraseology of the day. It is that same "majesty which doth hedge a king" that does it. The turkey-cock in his own farmyard is master of the occasion, and the thought of him creates fear. A bishop in his lawn, a judge on the bench, a chairman in the big room at the end of a long table, or a policeman with his bull's-eye lamp upon his beat, can all make themselves terrible by means of those appanages of majesty which have been vouchsafed to them. But how mean is the policeman in his own home, and how few thought much of Sir Raffle Buffle as he sat asleep after dinner in his old slippers! How well can I remember the terror created within me by the air of outraged dignity with which a certain fine old gentleman, now long since gone, could rub his hands slowly, one on the other, and look up to the ceiling, slightly shaking his head, as though lost in the contemplation of my iniquities! I would become sick in my stomach, and feel as though my ankles had been broken. That upward turn of the eye unmanned me so completely that I was speechless as regarded any defence. I think that that old man could hardly have known the extent of his own power.
Once upon a time a careless lad, having the charge of a bundle of letters addressed to the King,--petitions and such like, which in the course of business would not get beyond the hands of some lord-in-waiting's deputy assistant,--sent the bag which contained them to the wrong place; to Windsor, perhaps, if the Court were in London; or to St. James's, if it were at Windsor. He was summoned; and the great man of the occasion contented himself with holding his hands up to the heavens as he stood up from his chair, and exclaiming twice, "Mis-sent the Monarch's pouch! Mis-sent the Monarch's pouch!" That young man never knew how he escaped from the Board-room; but for a time he was deprived of all power of exertion, and could not resume his work till he had had six months' leave of absence, and been brought round upon rum and asses' milk. In that instance the peculiar use of the word Monarch had a power which the official magnate had never contemplated. The story is traditional; but I believe that the circumstance happened as lately as in the days of George the Third.
John Eames could laugh at the present chairman of the Income-tax Office with great freedom, and call him old Huffle Scuffle, and the like; but now that he was sent for, he also, in spite of his radical propensities, felt a little weak about his ankle joints. He knew, from the first hearing of the message, that he was wanted with reference to that affair at the railway station. Perhaps there might be a rule that any clerk should be dismissed who used his fists in any public place. There were many rules entailing the punishment of dismissal for many offences,--and he began to think that he did remember something of such a regulation. However, he got up, looked once around him upon his friends, and then followed Tupper into the Board-room.
"There's Johnny been sent for by old Scuffles," said one clerk.
"That's about his row with Crosbie," said another. "The Board can't do anything to him for that."
"Can't it?" said the first. "Didn't young Outonites have to resign because of that row at the Cider Cellars, though his cousin, Sir Constant Outonites, did all that he could for him?"
"But he was regularly up the spout with accommodation bills."
"I tell you that I wouldn't be in Eames's shoes for a trifle. Crosbie is secretary at the Committee Office, where Scuffles was chairman before he came here; and of course they're as thick as thieves. I shouldn't wonder if they didn't make him go down and apologize."
"Johnny won't do that," said the other.
In the meantime John Eames was standing in the august presence. Sir Raffle Buffle was throned in his great oak arm-chair at the head of a long table in a very large room; and by him, at the corner of the table, was seated one of the assistant secretaries of the office. Another member of the Board was also at work upon the long table; but he was reading and signing papers at some distance from Sir Raffle, and paid no heed whatever to the scene. The assistant secretary, looking on, could see that Sir Raffle was annoyed by this want of attention on the part of his colleague, but all this was lost upon Eames.
"Mr. Eames?" said Sir Raffle, speaking with a peculiarly harsh voice, and looking at the culprit through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, which he perched for the occasion upon his big nose. "Isn't that Mr. Eames?"
"Yes," said the assistant secretary, "this is Eames."
"Ah!" --and then there was a pause. "Come a little nearer, Mr. Eames, will you?" and Johnny drew nearer, advancing noiselessly over the Turkey carpet.
"Let me see; in the second class, isn't he? Ah! Do you know, Mr. Eames, that I have received a letter from the secretary to the Directors of the Great Western Railway Company, detailing circumstances which,--if truly stated in that letter,--redound very much to your discredit?"
"I did get into a row there yesterday, sir."
"Got into a row! It seems to me that you have got into a very serious row, and that I must tell the Directors of the Great Western Railway Company that the law must be allowed to take its course."
"I shan't mind that, sir, in the least," said Eames, brightening up a little under this view of the case.
"Not mind that, sir!" said Sir Raffle--or rather, he shouted out the words at the offender before him. I am inclined to think that he overdid it, missing the effect which a milder tone might have attained. Perhaps there was lacking to him some of that majesty of demeanour and dramatic propriety of voice which had been so efficacious in the little story as to the King's bag of letters. As it was, Johnny gave a slight jump, but after his jump he felt better than he had been before. "Not mind, sir, being dragged before the criminal tribunals of your country, and being punished as a felon,--or rather as a misdemeanour,--for an outrage committed on a public platform! Not mind it! What do you mean, sir?"
"I mean, that I don't think the magistrate would say very much about it, sir. And I don't think Mr. Crosbie would come forward."
"But Mr. Crosbie must come forward, young man. Do you suppose that an outrage against the peace of the Metropolis is to go unpunished because he may not wish to pursue the matter? I'm afraid you must be very ignorant, young man."
"Perhaps I am," said Johnny.
"Very ignorant indeed,--very ignorant indeed. And are you aware, sir, that it would become a question with the Commissioners of this Board whether you could be retained in the service of this department if you were publicly punished by a police magistrate for such a disgraceful outrage as that?"
Johnny looked round at the other Commissioner, but that gentleman did not raise his face from his papers.
"Mr. Eames is a very good clerk," whispered the assistant secretary, but in a voice which made his words audible to Eames; "one of the best young men we have," he added, in a voice which was not audible.
"Oh,--ah; very well. Now, I'll tell you what, Mr. Eames, I hope this will be a lesson to you,--a very serious lesson."
The assistant secretary, leaning back in his chair so as to be a little behind the head of Sir Raffle, did manage to catch the eye of the other Commissioner. The other Commissioner, barely looking round, smiled a little, and then the assistant secretary smiled also. Eames saw this, and he smiled too.
"Whether any ulterior consequences may still await the breach of the peace of which you have been guilty, I am not yet prepared to say," continued Sir Raffle. "You may go now."
And Johnny returned to his own place, with no increased reverence for the dignity of the chairman.
On the following morning one of his colleagues showed him with great glee the passage in the newspaper which informed the world that he had been so desperately beaten by Crosbie that he was obliged to keep his bed at this present time in consequence of the flogging that he had received. Then his anger was aroused, and he bounced about the big room of the Income-tax Office, regardless of assistant secretaries, head clerks, and all other official grandees whatsoever, denouncing the iniquities of the public press, and declaring his opinion that it would be better to live in Russia than in a country which allowed such audacious falsehoods to be propagated.
"He never touched me, Fisher; I don't think he ever tried; but, upon my honour, he never touched me."
"But, Johnny, it was bold in you to make up to Lord De Courcy's daughter," said Fisher.
"I never saw one of them in my life."
"He's going it altogether among the aristocracy, now," said another; "I suppose you wouldn't look at anybody under a viscount?"
"Can I help what that thief of an editor puts into his paper? Flogged! Huffle Scuffle told me I was a felon, but that wasn't half so bad as this fellow;" and Johnny kicked the newspaper across the room.
"Indict him for a libel," said Fisher.
"Particularly for saying you wanted to marry a countess's daughter," said another clerk.
"I never heard such a scandal in my life," declared a third; "and then to say that the girl wouldn't look at you."
But not the less was it felt by all in the office that Johnny Eames was becoming a leading man among them, and that he was one with whom each of them would be pleased to be intimate. And even among the grandees this affair of the railway station did him no real harm. It was known that Crosbie had deserved to be thrashed, and known that Eames had thrashed him. It was all very well for Sir Raffle Buffle to talk of police magistrates and misdemeanours, but all the world at the Income-tax Office knew very well that Eames had come out from that affair with his head upright, and his right foot foremost.
"Never mind about the newspaper," a thoughtful old senior clerk said to him. "As he did get the licking and you didn't, you can afford to laugh at the newspaper."
"And you wouldn't write to the editor?"
"No, no; certainly not. No one thinks of defending himself to a newspaper except an ass;--unless it be some fellow who wants to have his name puffed. You may write what's as true as the gospel, but they'll know how to make fun of it."
Johnny therefore gave up his idea of an indignant letter to the editor, but he felt that he was bound to give some explanation of the whole matter to Lord De Guest. The affair had happened as he was coming from the earl's house, and all his own concerns had now been made so much a matter of interest to his kind friend, that he thought that he could not with propriety leave the earl to learn from the newspapers either the facts or the falsehoods. And, therefore, before he left his office he wrote the following letter:-- Income-tax Office, December 29, 186--.
MY LORD,-- He thought a good deal about the style in which he ought to address the peer, never having hitherto written to him. He began, "My dear Lord," on one sheet of paper, and then put it aside, thinking that it looked over-bold.
MY LORD,-- As you have been so very kind to me, I feel that I ought to tell you what happened the other morning at the railway station, as I was coming back from Guestwick. That scoundrel Crosbie got into the same carriage with me at the Barchester Junction, and sat opposite to me all the way up to London. I did not speak a word to him, or he to me; but when he got out at the Paddington Station, I thought I ought not to let him go away, so I-- I can't say that I thrashed him as I wished to do; but I made an attempt, and I did give him a black eye. A whole quantity of policemen got round us, and I hadn't a fair chance. I know you will think that I was wrong, and perhaps I was; but what could I do when he sat opposite to me there for two hours, looking as though he thought himself the finest fellow in all London?
They've put a horrible paragraph into one of the newspapers, saying that I got so "flogged" that I haven't been able to stir since. It is an atrocious falsehood, as is all the rest of the newspaper account. I was not touched. He was not nearly so bad a customer as the bull, and seemed to take it all very quietly. I must acknowledge, though, that he didn't get such a beating as he deserved.
Your friend Sir R. B. sent for me this morning, and told me I was a felon. I didn't seem to care much for that, for he might as well have called me a murderer or a burglar; but I shall care very much indeed if I have made you angry with me. But what I most fear is the anger of some one else,--at Allington.
Believe me to be, my Lord, Yours very much obliged and most sincerely, JOHN EAMES.
"I knew he'd do it if ever he got the opportunity," said the earl when he had read his letter; and he walked about his room striking his hands together, and then thrusting his thumbs into his waistcoat-pockets. "I knew he was made of the right stuff," and the earl rejoiced greatly in the prowess of his favourite. "I'd have done it myself if I'd seen him. I do believe I would." Then he went back to the breakfast-room and told Lady Julia. "What do you think?" said he; "Johnny Eames has come across Crosbie, and given him a desperate beating."
"No!" said Lady Julia, putting down her newspaper and spectacles, and expressing by the light of her eyes anything but Christian horror at the wickedness of the deed.
"But he has, though. I knew he would if he saw him."
"Beaten him! Actually beaten him!"
"Sent him home to Lady Alexandrina with two black eyes."
"Two black eyes! What a young pickle! But did he get hurt himself?"
"Not a scratch, he says."
"And what'll they do to him?"
"Nothing. Crosbie won't be fool enough to do anything. A man becomes an outlaw when he plays such a game as he has played. Anybody's hand may be raised against him with impunity. He can't show his face, you know. He can't come forward and answer questions as to what he has done. There are offences which the law can't touch, but which outrage public feeling so strongly that any one may take upon himself the duty of punishing them. He has been thrashed, and that will stick to him till he dies."
"Do tell Johnny from me that I hope he didn't get hurt," said Lady Julia. The old lady could not absolutely congratulate him on his feat of arms, but she did the next thing to it.
But the earl did congratulate him, with a full open assurance of his approval.
"I hope," he said, "I should have done the same at your age, under similar circumstances, and I'm very glad that he proved less difficult than the bull. I'm quite sure you didn't want any one to help you with Master Crosbie. As for that other person at Allington, if I understand such matters at all, I think she will forgive you." It may, however, be a question whether the earl did understand such matters at all. And then he added, in a postscript: "When you write to me again,--and don't be long first, begin your letter, 'My dear Lord De Guest,'--that is the proper way."
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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37
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AN OLD MAN'S COMPLAINT.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] "Have you been thinking again of what I was saying to you, Bell?" Bernard said to his cousin one morning.
"Thinking of it, Bernard? Why should I think more of it? I had hoped that you had forgotten it yourself."
"No," he said; "I am not so easy-hearted as that. I cannot look on such a thing as I would the purchase of a horse, which I could give up without sorrow if I found that the animal was too costly for my purse. I did not tell you that I loved you till I was sure of myself, and having made myself sure I cannot change at all."
"And yet you would have me change."
"Yes, of course I would. If your heart be free now, it must of course be changed before you come to love any man. Such change as that is to be looked for. But when you have loved, then it will not be easy to change you."
"But I have not."
"Then I have a right to hope. I have been hanging on here, Bell, longer than I ought to have done, because I could not bring myself to leave you without speaking of this again. I did not wish to seem to you to be importunate--" "If you could only believe me in what I say."
"It is not that I do not believe. I am not a puppy or a fool, to flatter myself that you must be in love with me. I believe you well enough. But still it is possible that your mind may alter."
"It is impossible."
"I do not know whether my uncle or your mother have spoken to you about this."
"Such speaking would have no effect."
In fact, her mother had spoken to her, but she truly said that such speaking would have no effect. If her cousin could not win the battle by his own skill, he might have been quite sure, looking at her character as it was known to him, that he would not be able to win it by the skill of others.
"We have all been made very unhappy," he went on to say, "by this calamity which has fallen on poor Lily."
"And because she has been deceived by the man she did love, I am to make matters square by marrying a man I--" and then she paused. "Dear Bernard, you should not drive me to say words which will sound harsh to you."
"No words can be harsher than those which you have already spoken. But, Bell, at any rate, you may listen to me."
Then he told her how desirable it was with reference to all the concerns of the Dale family that she should endeavour to look favourably on his proposition. It would be good for them all, he said, especially for Lily, as to whom, at the present moment, their uncle felt so kindly. He, as Bernard pleaded, was so anxious at heart for this marriage, that he would do anything that was asked of him if he were gratified. But if he were not gratified in this, he would feel that he had ground for displeasure.
Bell, as she had been desired to listen, did listen very patiently. But when her cousin had finished, her answer was very short. "Nothing that my uncle can say, or think, or do, can make any difference in this," said she.
"You will think nothing, then, of the happiness of others."
"I would not marry a man I did not love, to ensure any amount of happiness to others;--at least I know I ought not to do so. But I do not believe I should ensure any one's happiness by this marriage. Certainly not yours."
After this Bernard had acknowledged to himself that the difficulties in his way were great. "I will go away till next autumn," he said to his uncle.
"If you would give up your profession and remain here, she would not be so perverse."
"I cannot do that, sir. I cannot risk the well-being of my life on such a chance." Then his uncle had been angry with him, as well as with his niece. In his anger he determined that he would go again to his sister-in-law, and, after some unreasonable fashion, he resolved that it would become him to be very angry with her also, if she declined to assist him with all her influence as a mother.
"Why should they not both marry?" he said to himself. Lord De Guest's offer as to young Eames had been very generous. As he had then declared, he had not been able to express his own opinion at once; but on thinking over what the earl had said, he had found himself very willing to heal the family wound in the manner proposed, if any such healing might be possible. That, however, could not be done quite as yet. When the time should come, and he thought it might come soon,--perhaps in the spring, when the days should be fine and the evenings again long,--he would be willing to take his share with the earl in establishing that new household. To Crosbie he had refused to give anything, and there was upon his conscience a shade of remorse in that he had so refused. But if Lily could be brought to love this other man, he would be more open-handed. She should have her share as though she was in fact his daughter. But then, if he intended to do so much for them at the Small House, should not they in return do something also for him? So thinking, he went again to his sister-in-law, determined to explain his views, even though it might be at the risk of some hard words between them. As regarded himself, he did not much care for hard words spoken to him. He almost expected that people's words should be hard and painful. He did not look for the comfort of affectionate soft greetings, and perhaps would not have appreciated them had they come to him. He caught Mrs. Dale walking in the garden, and brought her into his own room, feeling that he had a better chance there than in her own house. She, with an old dislike to being lectured in that room, had endeavoured to avoid the interview, but had failed.
"So I met John Eames at the manor," he had said to her in the garden.
"Ah, yes; and how did he get on there? I cannot conceive poor Johnny keeping holiday with the earl and his sister. How did he behave to them, and how did they behave to him?"
"I can assure you he was very much at home there."
"Was he, indeed? Well, I hope it will do him good. He is, I'm sure, a very good young man; only rather awkward."
"I didn't think him awkward at all. You'll find, Mary, that he'll do very well;--a great deal better than his father did."
"I'm sure I hope he may." After that Mrs. Dale made her attempt to escape; but the squire had taken her prisoner, and led her captive into the house. "Mary," he said, as soon as he had induced her to sit down, "it is time that this should be settled between my nephew and niece."
"I am afraid there will be nothing to settle."
"What do you mean;--that you disapprove of it?"
"By no means,--personally. I should approve of it very strongly. But that has nothing to do with the question."
"Yes, it has. I beg your pardon, but it must have, and should have a great deal to do with it. Of course, I am not saying that anybody should now ever be compelled to marry anybody."
"I hope not."
"I never said that they ought, and never thought so. But I do think that the wishes of all her family should have very great weight with a girl that has been well brought up."
"I don't know whether Bell has been well brought up; but in such a matter as this nobody's wishes would weigh a feather with her; and, indeed, I could not take upon myself even to express a wish. To you I can say that I should have been very happy if she could have regarded her cousin as you wish her to do."
"You mean that you are afraid to tell her so?"
"I am afraid to do what I think is wrong, if you mean that."
"I don't think it would be wrong, and therefore I shall speak to her myself."
"You must do as you like about that, Mr. Dale; I can't prevent you. I shall think you wrong to harass her on such a matter, and I fear also that her answer will not be satisfactory to you. If you choose to tell her your opinion, you must do so. Of course I shall think you wrong, that's all."
Mrs. Dale's voice as she said this was stern enough, and so was her countenance. She could not forbid the uncle to speak his mind to his niece, but she especially disliked the idea of any interference with her daughter. The squire got up and walked about the room, trying to compose himself that he might answer her rationally, but without anger.
"May I go now?" said Mrs. Dale.
"May you go? Of course you may go if you like it. If you think that I am intruding upon you in speaking to you of the welfare of your two girls, whom I endeavour to regard as my own daughters,--except in this, that I know they have never been taught to love me,--if you think that it is an interference on my part to show anxiety for their welfare, of course you may go."
"I did not mean to say anything to hurt you, Mr. Dale."
"Hurt me! What does it signify whether I am hurt or not? I have no children of my own, and of course my only business in life is to provide for my nephews and nieces. I am an old fool if I expect that they are to love me in return, and if I venture to express a wish I am interfering and doing wrong! It is hard,--very hard. I know well that they have been brought up to dislike me, and yet I am endeavouring to do my duty by them."
"Mr. Dale, that accusation has not been deserved. They have not been brought up to dislike you. I believe that they have both loved and respected you as their uncle; but such love and respect will not give you a right to dispose of their hands."
"Who wants to dispose of their hands?"
"There are some things in which I think no uncle,--no parent,--should interfere, and of all such things this is the chief. If after that you may choose to tell her your wishes, of course you can do so."
"It will not be much good after you have set her against me."
"Mr. Dale, you have no right to say such things to me, and you are very unjust in doing so. If you think that I have set my girls against you, it will be much better that we should leave Allington altogether. I have been placed in circumstances which have made it difficult for me to do my duty to my children; but I have endeavoured to do it, not regarding my own personal wishes. I am quite sure, however, that it would be wrong in me to keep them here, if I am to be told by you that I have taught them to regard you unfavourably. Indeed, I cannot suffer such a thing to be said to me."
All this Mrs. Dale said with an air of decision, and with a voice expressing a sense of injury received, which made the squire feel that she was very much in earnest.
"Is it not true," he said, defending himself, "that in all that relates to the girls you have ever regarded me with suspicion?"
"No, it is not true." And then she corrected herself, feeling that there was something of truth in the squire's last assertion. "Certainly not with suspicion," she said. "But as this matter has gone so far, I will explain what my real feelings have been. In worldly matters you can do much for my girls, and have done much."
"And wish to do more," said the squire.
"I am sure you do. But I cannot on that account give up my place as their only living parent. They are my children, and not yours. And even could I bring myself to allow you to act as their guardian and natural protector, they would not consent to such an arrangement. You cannot call that suspicion."
"I can call it jealousy."
"And should not a mother be jealous of her children's love?"
During all this time the squire was walking up and down the room with his hands in his trousers pockets. And when Mrs. Dale had last spoken, he continued his walk for some time in silence.
"Perhaps it is well that you should have spoken out," he said.
"The manner in which you accused me made it necessary."
"I did not intend to accuse you, and I do not do so now; but I think that you have been, and that you are, very hard to me,--very hard indeed. I have endeavoured to make your children, and yourself also, sharers with me in such prosperity as has been mine. I have striven to add to your comfort and to their happiness. I am most anxious to secure their future welfare. You would have been very wrong had you declined to accept this on their behalf; but I think that in return for it you need not have begrudged me the affection and obedience which generally follows from such good offices."
"Mr. Dale, I have begrudged you nothing of this."
"I am hurt;--I am hurt," he continued. And she was surprised by his look of pain even more than by the unaccustomed warmth of his words. "What you have said has, I have known, been the case all along. But though I had felt it to be so, I own that I am hurt by your open words."
"Because I have said that my own children must ever be my own?"
"Ah, you have said more than that. You and the girls have been living here, close to me, for--how many years is it now? --and during all those years there has grown up for me no kindly feeling. Do you think that I cannot hear, and see, and feel? Do you suppose that I am a fool and do not know? As for yourself you would never enter this house if you did not feel yourself constrained to do so for the sake of appearances. I suppose it is all as it should be. Having no children of my own, I owe the duty of a parent to my nieces; but I have no right to expect from them in return either love, regard, or obedience. I know I am keeping you here against your will, Mary. I won't do so any longer." And he made a sign to her that she was to depart.
As she rose from her seat her heart was softened towards him. In these latter days he had shown much kindness to the girls,--a kindness that was more akin to the gentleness of love than had ever come from him before. Lily's fate had seemed to melt even his sternness, and he had striven to be tender in his words and ways. And now he spoke as though he had loved the girls, and had loved them in vain. Doubtless he had been a disagreeable neighbour to his sister-in-law, making her feel that it was never for her personally that he had opened his hand. Doubtless he had been moved by an unconscious desire to undermine and take upon himself her authority with her own children. Doubtless he had looked askance at her from the first day of her marriage with his brother. She had been keenly alive to all this since she had first known him, and more keenly alive to it than ever since the failure of those efforts she had made to live with him on terms of affection, made during the first year or two of her residence at the Small House. But, nevertheless, in spite of all, her heart bled for him now. She had gained her victory over him, having fully held her own position with her children; but now that he complained that he had been beaten in the struggle, her heart bled for him.
"My brother," she said, and as she spoke she offered him her hands, "it may be that we have not thought as kindly of each other as we should have done."
"I have endeavoured," said the old man. "I have endeavoured--" And then he stopped, either hindered by some excess of emotion, or unable to find the words which were necessary for the expression of his meaning.
"Let us endeavour once again,--both of us."
"What, begin again at near seventy! No, Mary, there is no more beginning again for me. All this shall make no difference to the girls. As long as I am here they shall have the house. If they marry, I will do for them what I can. I believe Bernard is much in earnest in his suit, and if Bell will listen to him, she shall still be welcomed here as mistress of Allington. What you have said shall make no difference;--but as to beginning again, it is simply impossible."
After that Mrs. Dale walked home through the garden by herself. He had studiously told her that that house in which they lived should be lent, not to her, but to her children, during his lifetime. He had positively declined the offer of her warmer regard. He had made her understand that they were to look on each other almost as enemies; but that she, enemy as she was, should still be allowed the use of his munificence, because he chose to do his duty by his nieces!
"It will be better for us that we shall leave it," she said to herself as she seated herself in her own arm-chair over the drawing-room fire.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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38
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DOCTOR CROFTS IS CALLED IN.
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Mrs. Dale had not sat long in her drawing-room before tidings were brought to her which for a while drew her mind away from that question of her removal. "Mamma," said Bell, entering the room, "I really do believe that Jane has got scarlatina." Jane, the parlour-maid, had been ailing for the last two days, but nothing serious had hitherto been suspected.
Mrs. Dale instantly jumped up. "Who is with her?" she asked.
It appeared from Bell's answer that both she and Lily had been with the girl, and that Lily was still in the room. Whereupon Mrs. Dale ran upstairs, and there was on the sudden a commotion in the house. In an hour or so the village doctor was there, and he expressed an opinion that the girl's ailment was certainly scarlatina. Mrs. Dale, not satisfied with this, sent off a boy to Guestwick for Dr. Crofts, having herself maintained an opposition of many years' standing against the medical reputation of the apothecary, and gave a positive order to the two girls not to visit poor Jane again. She herself had had scarlatina, and might do as she pleased. Then, too, a nurse was hired.
All this changed for a few hours the current of Mrs. Dale's thoughts: but in the evening she went back to the subject of her morning conversation, and before the three ladies went to bed, they held together an open council of war upon the subject. Dr. Crofts had been found to be away from Guestwick, and word had been sent on his behalf that he would be over at Allington early on the following morning. Mrs. Dale had almost made up her mind that the malady of her favourite maid was not scarlatina, but had not on that account relaxed her order as to the absence of her daughters from the maid's bedside.
"Let us go at once," said Bell, who was even more opposed to any domination on the part of her uncle than was her mother. In the discussion which had been taking place between them the whole matter of Bernard's courtship had come upon the carpet. Bell had kept her cousin's offer to herself as long as she had been able to do so; but since her uncle had pressed the subject upon Mrs. Dale, it was impossible for Bell to remain silent any longer. "You do not want me to marry him, mamma; do you?" she had said, when her mother had spoken with some show of kindness towards Bernard. In answer to this, Mrs. Dale had protested vehemently that she had no such wish, and Lily, who still held to her belief in Dr. Crofts, was almost equally animated. To them all, the idea that their uncle should in any way interfere in their own views of life, on the strength of the pecuniary assistance which they had received from him, was peculiarly distasteful. But it was especially distasteful that he should presume to have even an opinion as to their disposition in marriage. They declared to each other that their uncle could have no right to object to any marriage which either of them might contemplate as long as their mother should approve of it. The poor old squire had been right in saying that he was regarded with suspicion. He was so regarded. The fault had certainly been his own, in having endeavoured to win the daughters without thinking it worth his while to win the mother. The girls had unconsciously felt that the attempt was made, and had vigorously rebelled against it. It had not been their fault that they had been brought to live in their uncle's house, and made to ride on his ponies, and to eat partially of his bread. They had so eaten, and so lived, and declared themselves to be grateful. The squire was good in his way, and they recognized his goodness; but not on that account would they transfer to him one jot of the allegiance which as children they owed to their mother. When she told them her tale, explaining to them the words which their uncle had spoken that morning, they expressed their regret that he should be so grieved; but they were strong in assurances to their mother that she had been sinned against, and was not sinning.
"Let us go at once," said Bell.
"It is much easier said than done, my dear."
"Of course it is, mamma; else we shouldn't be here now. What I mean is this,--let us take some necessary first step at once. It is clear that my uncle thinks that our remaining here should give him some right over us. I do not say that he is wrong to think so. Perhaps it is natural. Perhaps, in accepting his kindness, we ought to submit ourselves to him. If that be so, it is a conclusive reason for our going."
"Could we not pay him rent for the house," said Lily, "as Mrs. Hearn does? You would like to remain here, mamma, if you could do that?"
"But we could not do that, Lily. We must choose for ourselves a smaller house than this, and one that is not burdened with the expense of a garden. Even if we paid but a moderate rent for this place, we should not have the means of living here."
"Not if we lived on toast and tea?" said Lily, laughing.
"But I should hardly wish you to live upon toast and tea; and indeed I fancy that I should get tired of such a diet myself."
"Never, mamma," said Lily. "As for me, I confess to a longing after mutton chops; but I don't think you would ever want such vulgar things."
"At any rate, it would be impossible to remain here," said Bell. "Uncle Christopher would not take rent from mamma; and even if he did, we should not know how to go on with our other arrangements after such a change. No; we must give up the dear old Small House."
"It is a dear old house," said Lily, thinking, as she spoke, more of those late scenes in the garden, when Crosbie had been with them in the autumn months, than of any of the former joys of her childhood.
"After all, I do not know that I should be right to move," said Mrs. Dale, doubtingly.
"Yes, yes," said both the girls at once. "Of course you will be right, mamma; there cannot be a doubt about it, mamma. If we can get any cottage, or even lodgings, that would be better than remaining here, now that we know what uncle Christopher thinks of it."
"It will make him very unhappy," said Mrs. Dale.
But even this argument did not in the least move the girls. They were very sorry that their uncle should be unhappy. They would endeavour to show him by some increased show of affection that their feelings towards him were not unkind. Should he speak to them they would endeavour to explain to him that their thoughts towards him were altogether affectionate. But they could not remain at Allington increasing their load of gratitude, seeing that he expected a certain payment which they did not feel themselves able to render.
"We should be robbing him, if we stayed here," Bell declared;--"wilfully robbing him of what he believes to be his just share of the bargain."
So it was settled among them that notice should be given to their uncle of their intention to quit the Small House of Allington.
And then came the question as to their new home. Mrs. Dale was aware that her income was at any rate better than that possessed by Mrs. Eames, and therefore she had fair ground for presuming that she could afford to keep a house at Guestwick. "If we do go away, that is what we must do," she said.
"And we shall have to walk out with Mary Eames, instead of Susan Boyce," said Lily. "It won't make so much difference after all."
"In that respect we shall gain as much as we lose," said Bell.
"And then it will be so nice to have the shops," said Lily, ironically.
"Only we shall never have any money to buy anything," said Bell.
"But we shall see more of the world," said Lily. "Lady Julia's carriage comes into town twice a week, and the Miss Gruffens drive about in great style. Upon the whole, we shall gain a great deal; only for the poor old garden. Mamma, I do think I shall break my heart at parting with Hopkins; and as to him, I shall be disappointed in mankind if he ever holds his head up again after I am gone."
But in truth there was very much of sadness in their resolution, and to Mrs. Dale it seemed as though she were managing matters badly for her daughters, and allowing poverty and misfortune to come upon them through her own fault. She well knew how great a load of sorrow was lying on Lily's heart, hidden beneath those little attempts at pleasantry which she made. When she spoke of being disappointed in mankind, Mrs. Dale could hardly repress an outward shudder that would betray her thoughts. And now she was consenting to take them forth from their comfortable home, from the luxury of their lawns and gardens, and to bring them to some small dingy corner of a provincial town,--because she had failed to make herself happy with her brother-in-law. Could she be right to give up all the advantages which they enjoyed at Allington,--advantages which had come to them from so legitimate a source,--because her own feelings had been wounded? In all their future want of comfort, in the comfortless dowdiness of the new home to which she would remove them, would she not always blame herself for having brought them to that by her own false pride? And yet it seemed to her that she now had no alternative. She could not now teach her daughters to obey their uncle's wishes in all things. She could not make Bell understand that it would be well that she should marry Bernard because the squire had set his heart on such a marriage. She had gone so far that she could not now go back.
"I suppose we must move at Lady-day?" said Bell, who was in favour of instant action. "If so, had you not better let uncle Christopher know at once?"
"I don't think that we can find a house by that time."
"We can get in somewhere," continued Bell. "There are plenty of lodgings in Guestwick, you know." But the sound of the word lodgings was uncomfortable in Mrs. Dale's ears.
"If we are to go, let us go at once," said Lily. "We need not stand much upon the order of our going."
"Your uncle will be very much shocked," said Mrs. Dale.
"He cannot say that it is your fault," said Bell.
It was thus agreed between them that the necessary information should be at once given to the squire, and that the old, well-loved house should be left for ever. It would be a great fall in a worldly point of view,--from the Allington Small House to an abode in some little street of Guestwick. At Allington they had been county people,--raised to a level with their own squire and other squires by the circumstance of their residence; but at Guestwick they would be small even among the people of the town. They would be on an equality with the Eameses, and much looked down upon by the Gruffens. They would hardly dare to call any more at Guestwick Manor, seeing that they certainly could not expect Lady Julia to call upon them at Guestwick. Mrs. Boyce no doubt would patronize them, and they could already anticipate the condolence which would be offered to them by Mrs. Hearn. Indeed such a movement on their part would be tantamount to a confession of failure in the full hearing of so much of the world as was known to them.
I must not allow my readers to suppose that these considerations were a matter of indifference to any of the ladies at the Small House. To some women of strong mind, of highly-strung philosophic tendencies, such considerations might have been indifferent. But Mrs. Dale was not of this nature, nor were her daughters. The good things of the world were good in their eyes, and they valued the privilege of a pleasant social footing among their friends. They were by no means capable of a wise contempt of the advantages which chance had hitherto given to them. They could not go forth rejoicing in the comparative poverty of their altered condition. But then, neither could they purchase those luxuries which they were about to abandon at the price which was asked for them.
"Had you not better write to my uncle?" said one of the girls. But to this Mrs. Dale objected that she could not make a letter on such a subject clearly intelligible, and that therefore she would see the squire on the following morning. "It will be very dreadful," she said, "but it will soon be over. It is not what he will say at the moment that I fear so much, as the bitter reproaches of his face when I shall meet him afterwards." So, on the following morning, she again made her way, and now without invitation, to the squire's study.
"Mr. Dale," she began, starting upon her work with some confusion in her manner, and hurry in her speech, "I have been thinking over what we were saying together yesterday, and I have come to a resolution which I know I ought to make known to you without a moment's delay."
The squire also had thought of what had passed between them, and had suffered much as he had done so; but he had thought of it without acerbity or anger. His thoughts were ever gentler than his words, and his heart softer than any exponent of his heart that he was able to put forth. He wished to love his brother's children, and to be loved by them; but even failing that, he wished to do good to them. It had not occurred to him to be angry with Mrs. Dale after that interview was over. The conversation had not gone pleasantly with him; but then he hardly expected that things would go pleasantly. No idea had occurred to him that evil could come upon any of the Dale ladies from the words which had then been spoken. He regarded the Small House as their abode and home as surely as the Great House was his own. In giving him his due, it must be declared that any allusion to their holding these as a benefit done to them by him had been very far from his thoughts. Mrs. Hearn, who held her cottage at half its real value, grumbled almost daily at him as her landlord; but it never occurred to him that therefore he should raise her rent, or that in not doing so he was acting with special munificence. It had ever been to him a grumbling, cross-grained, unpleasant world; and he did not expect from Mrs. Hearn, or from his sister-in-law, anything better than that to which he had ever been used.
"It will make me very happy," said he, "if it has any bearing on Bell's marriage with her cousin."
"Mr. Dale, that is out of the question. I would not vex you by saying so if I were not certain of it; but I know my child so well!"
"Then we must leave it to time, Mary."
"Yes, of course; but no time will suffice to make Bell change her mind. We will, however, leave the subject. And now, Mr. Dale, I have to tell you of something else;--we have resolved to leave the Small House."
"Resolved on what?" said the squire, turning his eyes full upon her.
"We have resolved to leave the Small House."
"Leave the Small House!" he said, repeating her words; "and where on earth do you mean to go?"
"We think we shall go into Guestwick."
"And why?"
"Ah, that is so hard to explain. If you would only accept the fact as I tell it to you, and not ask for the reasons which have guided me!"
"But that is out of the question, Mary. In such a matter as that I must ask your reasons; and I must tell you also that, in my opinion, you will not be doing your duty to your daughters in carrying out such an intention, unless your reasons are very strong indeed."
"But they are very strong," said Mrs. Dale; and then she paused.
"I cannot understand it," said the squire. "I cannot bring myself to believe that you are really in earnest. Are you not comfortable there?"
"More comfortable than we have any right to be with our means."
"But I thought you always did very nicely with your money. You never get into debt."
"No; I never get into debt. It is not that, exactly. The fact is, Mr. Dale, we have no right to live there without paying rent; but we could not afford to live there if we did pay rent."
"Who has talked about rent?" he said, jumping up from his chair. "Some one has been speaking falsehoods of me behind my back." No gleam of the real truth had yet come to him. No idea had reached his mind that his relatives thought it necessary to leave his house in consequence of any word that he himself had spoken. He had never considered himself to have been in any special way generous to them, and would not have thought it reasonable that they should abandon the house in which they had been living, even if his anger against them had been strong and hot. "Mary," he said, "I must insist upon getting to the bottom of this. As for your leaving the house, it is out of the question. Where can you be better off, or so well? As to going into Guestwick, what sort of life would there be for the girls? I put all that aside as out of the question; but I must know what has induced you to make such a proposition. Tell me honestly,--has any one spoken evil of me behind my back?"
Mrs. Dale had been prepared for opposition and for reproach; but there was a decision about the squire's words, and an air of masterdom in his manner, which made her recognize more fully than she had yet done the difficulty of her position. She almost began to fear that she would lack power to carry out her purpose.
"Indeed, it is not so, Mr. Dale."
"Then what is it?"
"I know that if I attempt to tell you, you will be vexed, and will contradict me."
"Vexed I shall be, probably."
"And yet I cannot help it. Indeed, I am endeavouring to do what is right by you and by the children."
"Never mind me; your duty is to think of them."
"Of course it is; and in doing this they most cordially agree with me."
In using such argument as that, Mrs. Dale showed her weakness, and the squire was not slow to take advantage of it. "Your duty is to them," he said; "but I do not mean by that that your duty is to let them act in any way that may best please them for the moment. I can understand that they should be run away with by some romantic nonsense, but I cannot understand it of you."
"The truth is this, Mr. Dale. You think that my children owe to you that sort of obedience which is due to a parent, and as long as they remain here, accepting from your hands so large a part of their daily support, it is perhaps natural that you should think so. In this unhappy affair about Bell--" "I have never said anything of the kind," said the squire, interrupting her.
"No; you have not said so. And I do not wish you to think that I make any complaint. But I feel that it is so, and they feel it. And, therefore, we have made up our minds to go away."
Mrs. Dale, as she finished, was aware that she had not told her story well, but she had acknowledged to herself that it was quite out of her power to tell it as it should be told. Her main object was to make her brother-in-law understand that she certainly would leave his house, and to make him understand this with as little pain to himself as possible. She did not in the least mind his thinking her foolish, if only she could so carry her point as to be able to tell her daughters on her return that the matter was settled. But the squire, from his words and manners, seemed indisposed to give her this privilege.
"Of all the propositions which I ever heard," said he, "it is the most unreasonable. It amounts to this, that you are too proud to live rent-free in a house which belongs to your husband's brother, and therefore you intend to subject yourself and your children to the great discomfort of a very straitened income. If you yourself only were concerned I should have no right to say anything; but I think myself bound to tell you that, as regards the girls, everybody that knows you will think you to have been very wrong. It is in the natural course of things that they should live in that house. The place has never been let. As far as I know, no rent has ever been paid for the house since it was built. It has always been given to some member of the family, who has been considered as having the best right to it. I have considered your footing there as firm as my own here. A quarrel between me and your children would be to me a great calamity, though, perhaps, they might be indifferent to it. But if there were such a quarrel it would afford no reason for their leaving that house. Let me beg you to think over the matter again."
[ILLUSTRATION: "Let me beg you to think over the matter again."]
The squire could assume an air of authority on certain occasions, and he had done so now. Mrs. Dale found that she could only answer him by a simple repetition of her own intention; and, indeed, failed in making him any serviceable answer whatsoever.
"I know that you are very good to my girls," she said.
"I will say nothing about that," he answered; not thinking at that moment of the Small House, but of the full possession which he had desired to give to the elder of all the privileges which should belong to the mistress of Allington,--thinking also of the means by which he was hoping to repair poor Lily's shattered fortunes. What words were further said had no great significance, and Mrs. Dale got herself away, feeling that she had failed. As soon as she was gone the squire arose, and putting on his great-coat, went forth with his hat and stick to the front of the house. He went out in order that his thoughts might be more free, and that he might indulge in that solace which an injured man finds in contemplating his injury. He declared to himself that he was very hardly used,--so hardly used, that he almost began to doubt himself and his own motives. Why was it that the people around him disliked him so strongly,--avoided him and thwarted him in the efforts which he made for their welfare? He offered to his nephew all the privileges of a son,--much more indeed than the privileges of a son,--merely asking in return that he would consent to live permanently in the house which was to be his own. But his nephew refused. "He cannot bear to live with me," said the old man to himself sorely. He was prepared to treat his nieces with more generosity than the daughters of the House of Allington had usually received from their fathers; and they repelled his kindness, running away from him, and telling him openly that they would not be beholden to him. He walked slowly up and down the terrace, thinking of this very bitterly. He did not find in the contemplation of his grievance all that solace which a grievance usually gives, because he accused himself in his thoughts rather than others. He declared to himself that he was made to be hated, and protested to himself that it would be well that he should die and be buried out of memory, so that the remaining Dales might have a better chance of living happily; and then as he thus discussed all this within his own bosom, his thoughts were very tender, and though he was aggrieved, he was most affectionate to those who had most injured him. But it was absolutely beyond his power to reproduce outwardly, with words and outward signs, such thoughts and feelings.
It was now very nearly the end of the year, but the weather was still soft and open. The air was damp rather than cold, and the lawns and fields still retained the green tints of new vegetation. As the squire was walking on the terrace Hopkins came up to him, and touching his hat, remarked that they should have frost in a day or two.
"I suppose we shall," said the squire.
"We must have the mason to the flues of that little grape-house, sir, before I can do any good with a fire there."
"Which grape-house?" said the squire, crossly.
"Why, the grape-house in the other garden, sir. It ought to have been done last year by rights." This Hopkins said to punish his master for being cross to him. On that matter of the flues of Mrs. Dale's grape-house he had, with much consideration, spared his master during the last winter, and he felt that this ought to be remembered now. "I can't put any fire in it, not to do any real good, till something's done. That's sure."
"Then don't put any fire in it," said the squire.
Now the grapes in question were supposed to be peculiarly fine, and were the glory of the garden of the Small House. They were always forced, though not forced so early as those at the Great House, and Hopkins was in a state of great confusion.
"They'll never ripen, sir; not the whole year through."
"Then let them be unripe," said the squire, walking about.
Hopkins did not at all understand it. The squire in his natural course was very unwilling to neglect any such matter as this, but would be specially unwilling to neglect anything touching the Small House. So Hopkins stood on the terrace, raising his hat and scratching his head. "There's something wrong amongst them," said he to himself, sorrowfully.
But when the squire had walked to the end of the terrace and had turned upon the path which led round the side of the house, he stopped and called to Hopkins.
"Have what is needful done to the flue," he said.
"Yes, sir; very well, sir. It'll only be re-setting the bricks. Nothing more ain't needful, just this winter."
"Have the place put in perfect order while you're about it," said the squire, and then he walked away.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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39
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DR. CROFTS IS TURNED OUT.
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"Have you heard the news, my dear, from the Small House?" said Mrs. Boyce to her husband, some two or three days after Mrs. Dale's visit to the squire. It was one o'clock, and the parish pastor had come in from his ministrations to dine with his wife and children.
"What news?" said Mr. Boyce, for he had heard none.
"Mrs. Dale and the girls are going to leave the Small House; they're going into Guestwick to live."
"Mrs. Dale going away; nonsense!" said the vicar. "What on earth should take her into Guestwick? She doesn't pay a shilling of rent where she is."
"I can assure you it's true, my dear. I was with Mrs. Hearn just now, and she had it direct from Mrs. Dale's own lips. Mrs. Hearn said she'd never been taken so much aback in her whole life. There's been some quarrel, you may be sure of that."
Mr. Boyce sat silent, pulling off his dirty shoes preparatory to his dinner. Tidings so important, as touching the social life of his parish, had not come to him for many a day, and he could hardly bring himself to credit them at so short a notice.
"Mrs. Hearn says that Mrs. Dale spoke ever so firmly about it, as though determined that nothing should change her."
"And did she say why?"
"Well, not exactly. But Mrs. Hearn said she could understand there had been words between her and the squire. It couldn't be anything else, you know. Probably it had something to do with that man Crosbie."
"They'll be very pushed about money," said Mr. Boyce, thrusting his feet into his slippers.
"That's just what I said to Mrs. Hearn. And those girls have never been used to anything like real economy. What's to become of them I don't know;" and Mrs. Boyce, as she expressed her sympathy for her dear friends, received considerable comfort from the prospect of their future poverty. It always is so, and Mrs. Boyce was not worse than her neighbours.
"You'll find they'll make it up before the time comes," said Mr. Boyce, to whom the excitement of such a change in affairs was almost too good to be true.
"I am afraid not," said Mrs. Boyce; "I'm afraid not. They are both so determined. I always thought that riding and giving the girls hats and habits was injurious. It was treating them as though they were the squire's daughters, and they were not the squire's daughters."
"It was almost the same thing."
"But now we see the difference," said the judicious Mrs. Boyce. "I often said that dear Mrs. Dale was wrong, and it turns out that I was right. It will make no difference to me, as regards calling on them and that sort of thing."
"Of course it won't."
"Not but what there must be a difference, and a very great difference too. It will be a terrible come down for poor Lily, with the loss of her fine husband and all."
After dinner, when Mr. Boyce had again gone forth upon his labours, the same subject was discussed between Mrs. Boyce and her daughters, and the mother was very careful to teach her children that Mrs. Dale would be just as good a person as ever she had been, and quite as much a lady, even though she should live in a very dingy house at Guestwick; from which lesson the Boyce girls learned plainly that Mrs. Dale, with Bell and Lily, were about to have a fall in the world, and that they were to be treated accordingly.
From all this, it will be discovered that Mrs. Dale had not given way to the squire's arguments, although she had found herself unable to answer them. As she had returned home she had felt herself to be almost vanquished, and had spoken to the girls with the air and tone of a woman who hardly knew in which course lay the line of her duty. But they had not seen the squire's manner on the occasion, nor heard his words, and they could not understand that their own purpose should be abandoned because he did not like it. So they talked their mother into fresh resolves, and on the following morning she wrote a note to her brother-in-law, assuring him that she had thought much of all that he had said, but again declaring that she regarded herself as bound in duty to leave the Small House. To this he had returned no answer, and she had communicated her intention to Mrs. Hearn, thinking it better that there should be no secret in the matter.
"I am sorry to hear that your sister-in-law is going to leave us," Mr. Boyce said to the squire that same afternoon.
"Who told you that?" asked the squire, showing by his tone that he by no means liked the topic of conversation which the parson had chosen.
"Well, I had it from Mrs. Boyce, and I think Mrs. Hearn told her."
"I wish Mrs. Hearn would mind her own business, and not spread idle reports."
The squire said nothing more, and Mr. Boyce felt that he had been very unjustly snubbed.
Dr. Crofts had come over and pronounced as a fact that it was scarlatina. Village apothecaries are generally wronged by the doubts which are thrown upon them, for the town doctors when they come always confirm what the village apothecaries have said.
"There can be no doubt as to its being scarlatina," the doctor declared; "but the symptoms are all favourable."
There was, however, much worse coming than this. Two days afterwards Lily found herself to be rather unwell. She endeavoured to keep it to herself, fearing that she should be brought under the doctor's notice as a patient; but her efforts were unavailing, and on the following morning it was known that she had also taken the disease. Dr. Crofts declared that everything was in her favour. The weather was cold. The presence of the malady in the house had caused them all to be careful, and, moreover, good advice was at hand at once. The doctor begged Mrs. Dale not to be uneasy, but he was very eager in begging that the two sisters might not be allowed to be together. "Could you not send Bell into Guestwick,--to Mrs. Eames's?" said he. But Bell did not choose to be sent to Mrs. Eames's, and was with great difficulty kept out of her mother's bedroom, to which Lily as an invalid was transferred.
"If you will allow me to say so," he said to Bell, on the second day after Lily's complaint had declared itself, "you are wrong to stay here in the house."
"I certainly shall not leave mamma, when she has got so much upon her hands," said Bell.
"But if you should be taken ill she would have more on her hands," pleaded the doctor.
"I could not do it," Bell replied. "If I were taken over to Guestwick, I should be so uneasy that I should walk back to Allington the first moment that I could escape from the house."
"I think your mother would be more comfortable without you."
"And I think she would be more comfortable with me. I don't ever like to hear of a woman running away from illness; but when a sister or a daughter does so, it is intolerable." So Bell remained, without permission indeed to see her sister, but performing various outside administrations which were much needed.
And thus all manner of trouble came upon the inhabitants of the Small House, falling upon them as it were in a heap together. It was as yet barely two months since those terrible tidings had come respecting Crosbie; tidings which, it was felt at the time, would of themselves be sufficient to crush them; and now to that misfortune other misfortunes had been added,--one quick upon the heels of another. In the teeth of the doctor's kind prophecy Lily became very ill, and after a few days was delirious. She would talk to her mother about Crosbie, speaking of him as she used to speak in the autumn that was passed. But even in her madness she remembered that they had resolved to leave their present home; and she asked the doctor twice whether their lodgings in Guestwick were ready for them.
It was thus that Crofts first heard of their intention. Now, in these days of Lily's worst illness, he came daily over to Allington, remaining there, on one occasion, the whole night. For all this he would take no fee;--nor had he ever taken a fee from Mrs. Dale. "I wish you would not come so often," Bell said to him one evening, as he stood with her at the drawing-room fire, after he had left the patient's room; "you are overloading us with obligations." On that day Lily was over the worst of the fever, and he had been able to tell Mrs. Dale that he did not think that she was now in danger.
"It will not be necessary much longer," he said; "the worst of it is over."
"It is such a luxury to hear you say so. I suppose we shall owe her life to you; but nevertheless--" "Oh, no; scarlatina is not such a terrible thing now as it used to be."
"Then why should you have devoted your time to her as you have done? It frightens me when I think of the injury we must have done you."
"My horse has felt it more than I have," said the doctor, laughing. "My patients at Guestwick are not so very numerous." Then, instead of going, he sat himself down. "And it is really true," he said, "that you are all going to leave this house?"
"Quite true. We shall do so at the end of March, if Lily is well enough to be moved."
"Lily will be well long before that, I hope; not, indeed, that she ought to be moved out of her own rooms for many weeks to come yet."
"Unless we are stopped by her we shall certainly go at the end of March." Bell now had also sat down, and they both remained for some time looking at the fire in silence.
"And why is it, Bell?" he said, at last. "But I don't know whether I have a right to ask."
"You have a right to ask any question about us," she said. "My uncle is very kind. He is more than kind; he is generous. But he seems to think that our living here gives him a right to interfere with mamma. We don't like that, and, therefore, we are going."
The doctor still sat on one side of the fire, and Bell still sat opposite to him; but the conversation did not form itself very freely between them. "It is bad news," he said, at last.
"At any rate, when we are ill you will not have so far to come and see us."
"Yes, I understand. That means that I am ungracious not to congratulate myself on having you all so much nearer to me; but I do not in the least. I cannot bear to think of you as living anywhere but here at Allington. Dales will be out of their place in a street at Guestwick."
"That's hard upon the Dales, too."
"It is hard upon them. It's a sort of offshoot from that very tyrannical law of noblesse oblige. I don't think you ought to go away from Allington, unless the circumstances are very imperative."
"But they are very imperative."
"In that case, indeed!" And then again he fell into silence.
"Have you never seen that mamma is not happy here?" she said, after another pause. "For myself, I never quite understood it all before as I do now; but now I see it."
"And I have seen it;--have seen at least what you mean. She has led a life of restraint; but then, how frequently is such restraint the necessity of a life? I hardly think that your mother would move on that account."
"No. It is on our account. But this restraint, as you call it, makes us unhappy, and she is governed by seeing that. My uncle is generous to her as regards money; but in other things,--in matters of feeling,--I think he has been ungenerous."
"Bell," said the doctor; and then he paused.
She looked up at him, but made no answer. He had always called her by her Christian name, and they two had ever regarded each other as close friends. At the present moment she had forgotten all else besides this, and yet she had infinite pleasure in sitting there and talking to him.
"I am going to ask you a question which perhaps I ought not to ask, only that I have known you so long that I almost feel that I am speaking to a sister."
"You may ask me what you please," said she.
"It is about your cousin Bernard."
"About Bernard!" said Bell.
It was now dusk; and as they were sitting without other light than that of the fire, she knew that he could not discern the colour which covered her face as her cousin's name was mentioned. But, had the light of day pervaded the whole room, I doubt whether Crofts would have seen that blush, for he kept his eyes firmly fixed upon the fire.
"Yes, about Bernard. I don't know whether I ought to ask you."
"I'm sure I can't say," said Bell, speaking words of the nature of which she was not conscious.
"There has been a rumour in Guestwick that he and you--" "It is untrue," said Bell; "quite untrue. If you hear it repeated, you should contradict it. I wonder why people should say such things."
"It would have been an excellent marriage;--all your friends must have approved it."
"What do you mean, Dr. Crofts? How I do hate those words, 'an excellent marriage.' In them is contained more of wicked worldliness than any other words that one ever hears spoken. You want me to marry my cousin simply because I should have a great house to live in, and a coach. I know that you are my friend; but I hate such friendship as that."
"I think you misunderstand me, Bell. I mean that it would have been an excellent marriage, provided you had both loved each other."
"No, I don't misunderstand you. Of course it would be an excellent marriage, if we loved each other. You might say the same if I loved the butcher or the baker. What you mean is, that it makes a reason for loving him."
"I don't think I did mean that."
"Then you mean nothing."
After that, there were again some minutes of silence during which Dr. Crofts got up to go away. "You have scolded me very dreadfully," he said, with a slight smile, "and I believe I have deserved it for interfering--" "No; not at all for interfering."
"But at any rate you must forgive me before I go."
"I won't forgive you at all, unless you repent of your sins, and alter altogether the wickedness of your mind. You will become very soon as bad as Dr. Gruffen."
"Shall I?"
"Oh, but I will forgive you; for after all, you are the most generous man in the world."
"Oh, yes; of course I am. Well,--good-by."
"But, Dr. Crofts, you should not suppose others to be so much more worldly than yourself. You do not care for money so very much--" "But I do care very much."
"If you did, you would not come here for nothing day after day."
"I do care for money very much. I have sometimes nearly broken my heart because I could not get opportunities of earning it. It is the best friend that a man can have--" "Oh, Dr. Crofts!" " --the best friend that a man can have, if it be honestly come by. A woman can hardly realize the sorrow which may fall upon a man from the want of such a friend."
"Of course a man likes to earn a decent living by his profession; and you can do that."
"That depends upon one's ideas of decency."
"Ah! mine never ran very high. I've always had a sort of aptitude for living in a pigsty;--a clean pigsty, you know, with nice fresh bean straw to lie upon. I think it was a mistake when they made a lady of me. I do, indeed."
"I do not," said Dr. Crofts.
"That's because you don't quite know me yet. I've not the slightest pleasure in putting on three different dresses a day. I do it very often because it comes to me to do it, from the way in which we have been taught to live. But when we get to Guestwick I mean to change all that; and if you come in to tea, you'll see me in the same brown frock that I wear in the morning,--unless, indeed, the morning work makes the brown frock dirty. Oh, Dr. Crofts! you'll have it pitch-dark riding home under the Guestwick elms."
"I don't mind the dark," he said; and it seemed as though he hardly intended to go even yet.
"But I do," said Bell, "and I shall ring for candles." But he stopped her as she put her hand out to the bell-pull.
"Stop a moment, Bell. You need hardly have the candles before I go, and you need not begrudge my staying either, seeing that I shall be all alone at home."
"Begrudge your staying!"
"But, however, you shall begrudge it, or else make me very welcome." He still held her by the wrist, which he had caught as he prevented her from summoning the servant.
"What do you mean?" said she. "You know you are welcome to us as flowers in May. You always were welcome; but now, when you have come to us in our trouble-- At any rate, you shall never say that I turn you out."
"Shall I never say so?" And still he held her by the wrist. He had kept his chair throughout, but she was standing before him,--between him and the fire. But she, though he held her in this way, thought little of his words, or of his action. They had known each other with great intimacy, and though Lily would still laugh at her, saying that Dr. Crofts was her lover, she had long since taught herself that no such feeling as that would ever exist between them.
"Shall I never say so, Bell? What if so poor a man as I ask for the hand that you will not give to so rich a man as your cousin Bernard?"
She instantly withdrew her arm and moved back very quickly a step or two across the rug. She did it almost with the motion which she might have used had he insulted her; or had a man spoken such words who would not, under any circumstances, have a right to speak them.
"Ah, yes! I thought it would be so," he said. "I may go now, and may know that I have been turned out."
"What is it you mean, Dr. Crofts? What is it you are saying? Why do you talk that nonsense, trying to see if you can provoke me?"
"Yes; it is nonsense. I have no right to address you in that way, and certainly should not have done it now that I am in your house in the way of my profession. I beg your pardon." Now he also was standing, but he had not moved from his side of the fireplace. "Are you going to forgive me before I go?"
"Forgive you for what?" said she.
"For daring to love you; for having loved you almost as long as you can remember; for loving you better than all beside. This alone you should forgive; but will you forgive me for having told it?"
He had made her no offer, nor did she expect that he was about to make one. She herself had hardly yet realized the meaning of his words, and she certainly had asked herself no question as to the answer which she should give to them. There are cases in which lovers present themselves in so unmistakeable a guise, that the first word of open love uttered by them tells their whole story, and tells it without the possibility of a surprise. And it is generally so when the lover has not been an old friend, when even his acquaintance has been of modern date. It had been so essentially in the case of Crosbie and Lily Dale. When Crosbie came to Lily and made his offer, he did it with perfect ease and thorough self-possession, for he almost knew that it was expected. And Lily, though she had been flurried for a moment, had her answer pat enough. She already loved the man with all her heart, delighted in his presence, basked in the sunshine of his manliness, rejoiced in his wit, and had tuned her ears to the tone of his voice. It had all been done, and the world expected it. Had he not made his offer, Lily would have been ill-treated;--though, alas, alas, there was future ill-treatment, so much heavier, in store for her! But there are other cases in which a lover cannot make himself known as such without great difficulty, and when he does do so, cannot hope for an immediate answer in his favour. It is hard upon old friends that this difficulty should usually fall the heaviest upon them. Crofts had been so intimate with the Dale family that very many persons had thought it probable that he would marry one of the girls. Mrs. Dale herself had thought so, and had almost hoped it. Lily had certainly done both. These thoughts and hopes had somewhat faded away, but yet their former existence should have been in the doctor's favour. But now, when he had in some way spoken out, Bell started back from him and would not believe that he was in earnest. She probably loved him better than any man in the world, and yet, when he spoke to her of love, she could not bring herself to understand him.
"I don't know what you mean, Dr. Crofts; indeed I do not," she said.
"I had meant to ask you to be my wife; simply that. But you shall not have the pain of making me a positive refusal. As I rode here to-day I thought of it. During my frequent rides of late I have thought of little else. But I told myself that I had no right to do it. I have not even a house in which it would be fit that you should live."
"Dr. Crofts, if I loved you,--if I wished to marry you--" and then she stopped herself.
"But you do not?"
"No; I think not. I suppose not. No. But in any way no consideration about money has anything to do with it."
"But I am not that butcher or that baker whom you could love?"
"No," said Bell; and then she stopped herself from further speech, not as intending to convey all her answer in that one word, but as not knowing how to fashion any further words.
"I knew it would be so," said the doctor.
It will, I fear, be thought by those who condescend to criticize this lover's conduct and his mode of carrying on his suit, that he was very unfit for such work. Ladies will say that he wanted courage, and men will say that he wanted wit. I am inclined, however, to believe that he behaved as well as men generally do behave on such occasions, and that he showed himself to be a good average lover. There is your bold lover, who knocks his lady-love over as he does a bird, and who would anathematize himself all over, and swear that his gun was distraught, and look about as though he thought the world was coming to an end, if he missed to knock over his bird. And there is your timid lover, who winks his eyes when he fires, who has felt certain from the moment in which he buttoned on his knickerbockers that he at any rate would kill nothing, and who, when he hears the loud congratulations of his friends, cannot believe that he really did bag that beautiful winged thing by his own prowess. The beautiful winged thing which the timid man carries home in his bosom, declining to have it thrown into a miscellaneous cart, so that it may never be lost in a common crowd of game, is better to him than are the slaughtered hecatombs to those who kill their birds by the hundred.
But Dr. Crofts had so winked his eye, that he was not in the least aware whether he had winged his bird or no. Indeed, having no one at hand to congratulate him, he was quite sure that the bird had flown away uninjured into the next field. "No" was the only word which Bell had given in answer to his last sidelong question, and No is not a comfortable word to lovers. But there had been that in Bell's No which might have taught him that the bird was not escaping without a wound, if he had still had any of his wits about him.
"Now I will go," said he. Then he paused for an answer, but none came. "And you will understand what I meant when I spoke of being turned out."
"Nobody--turns you out." And Bell, as she spoke, had almost descended to a sob.
"It is time, at any rate, that I should go; is it not? And, Bell, don't suppose that this little scene will keep me away from your sister's bedside. I shall be here to-morrow, and you will find that you will hardly know me again for the same person." Then in the dark he put out his hand to her.
"Good-by," she said, giving him her hand. He pressed hers very closely, but she, though she wished to do so, could not bring herself to return the pressure. Her hand remained passive in his, showing no sign of offence; but it was absolutely passive.
"Good-by, dearest friend," he said.
"Good-by," she answered,--and then he was gone.
She waited quite still till she heard the front-door close after him, and then she crept silently up to her own bedroom, and sat herself down in a low rocking-chair over the fire. It was in accordance with a custom already established that her mother should remain with Lily till the tea was ready downstairs; for in these days of illness such dinners as were provided were eaten early. Bell, therefore, knew that she had still some half-hour of her own, during which she might sit and think undisturbed.
And what naturally should have been her first thoughts? --that she had ruthlessly refused a man who, as she now knew, loved her well, and for whom she had always felt at any rate the warmest friendship? Such were not her thoughts, nor were they in any way akin to this. They ran back instantly to years gone by,--over long years, as her few years were counted,--and settled themselves on certain halcyon days, in which she had dreamed that he had loved her, and had fancied that she had loved him. How she had schooled herself for those days since that, and taught herself to know that her thoughts had been over-bold! And now it had all come round. The only man that she had ever liked had loved her. Then there came to her a memory of a certain day, in which she had been almost proud to think that Crosbie had admired her, in which she had almost hoped that it might be so; and as she thought of this she blushed, and struck her foot twice upon the floor. "Dear Lily," she said to herself--"poor Lily!" But the feeling which induced her then to think of her sister had had no relation to that which had first brought Crosbie into her mind.
And this man had loved her through it all,--this priceless, peerless man,--this man who was as true to the backbone as that other man had shown himself to be false; who was as sound as the other man had proved himself to be rotten. A smile came across her face as she sat looking at the fire, thinking of this. A man had loved her, whose love was worth possessing. She hardly remembered whether or no she had refused him or accepted him. She hardly asked herself what she would do. As to all that it was necessary that she should have many thoughts, but the necessity did not press upon her quite immediately. For the present, at any rate, she might sit and triumph;--and thus triumphant she sat there till the old nurse came in and told her that her mother was waiting for her below.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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40
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PREPARATIONS FOR THE WEDDING.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] The fourteenth of February was finally settled as the day on which Mr. Crosbie was to be made the happiest of men. A later day had been at first named, the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth having been suggested as an improvement over the first week in March; but Lady Amelia had been frightened by Crosbie's behaviour on that Sunday evening, and had made the countess understand that there should be no unnecessary delay. "He doesn't scruple at that kind of thing," Lady Amelia had said in one of her letters, showing perhaps less trust in the potency of her own rank than might have been expected from her. The countess, however, had agreed with her, and when Crosbie received from his mother-in-law a very affectionate epistle, setting forth all the reasons which would make the fourteenth so much more convenient a day than the twenty-eighth, he was unable to invent an excuse for not being made happy a fortnight earlier than the time named in the bargain. His first impulse had been against yielding, arising from some feeling which made him think that more than the bargain ought not to be exacted. But what was the use to him of quarrelling? What the use, at least, of quarrelling just then? He believed that he could more easily enfranchise himself from the De Courcy tyranny when he should be once married than he could do now. When Lady Alexandrina should be his own he would let her know that he intended to be her master. If in doing so it would be necessary that he should divide himself altogether from the De Courcys, such division should be made. At the present moment he would yield to them, at any rate in this matter. And so the fourteenth of February was fixed for the marriage.
In the second week in January Alexandrina came up to look after her things; or, in more noble language, to fit herself with becoming bridal appanages. As she could not properly do all this work alone, or even under the surveillance and with the assistance of a sister, Lady De Courcy was to come up also. But Alexandrina came first, remaining with her sister in St. John's Wood till the countess should arrive. The countess had never yet condescended to accept of her son-in-law's hospitality, but always went to the cold, comfortless house in Portman Square,--the house which had been the De Courcy town family mansion for many years, and which the countess would long since have willingly exchanged for some abode on the other side of Oxford Street; but the earl had been obdurate; his clubs and certain lodgings which he had occasionally been wont to occupy, were on the right side of Oxford Street; why should he change his old family residence? So the countess was coming up to Portman Square, not having been even asked on this occasion to St. John's Wood.
"Don't you think we'd better," Mr. Gazebee had said to his wife, almost trembling at the renewal of his own proposition.
"I think not, my dear," Lady Amelia had answered. "Mamma is not very particular; but there are little things, you know--" "Oh, yes, of course," said Mr. Gazebee; and then the conversation had been dropped. He would most willingly have entertained his august mother-in-law during her visit to the metropolis, and yet her presence in his house would have made him miserable as long as she remained there.
But for a week Alexandrina sojourned under Mr. Gazebee's roof, during which time Crosbie was made happy with all the delights of an expectant bridegroom. Of course he was given to understand that he was to dine at the Gazebees' every day, and spend all his evenings there; and, under the circumstances, he had no excuse for not doing so. Indeed, at the present moment, his hours would otherwise have hung heavily enough upon his hands. In spite of his bold resolution with reference to his eye, and his intention not to be debarred from the pleasures of society by the marks of the late combat, he had not, since that occurrence, frequented his club very closely; and though London was now again becoming fairly full, he did not find himself going out so much as had been his wont. The brilliance of his coming marriage did not seem to have added much to his popularity; in fact, the world,--his world,--was beginning to look coldly at him. Therefore that daily attendance at St. John's Wood was not felt to be so irksome as might have been expected.
A residence had been taken for the couple in a very fashionable row of buildings abutting upon the Bayswater Road, called Princess Royal Crescent. The house was quite new, and the street being unfinished had about it a strong smell of mortar, and a general aspect of builders' poles and brickbats; but nevertheless, it was acknowledged to be a quite correct locality. From one end of the crescent a corner of Hyde Park could be seen, and the other abutted on a very handsome terrace indeed, in which lived an ambassador,--from South America,--a few bankers' senior clerks, and a peer of the realm. We know how vile is the sound of Baker Street, and how absolutely foul to the polite ear is the name of Fitzroy Square. The houses, however, in those purlieus are substantial, warm, and of good size. The house in Princess Royal Crescent was certainly not substantial, for in these days substantially-built houses do not pay. It could hardly have been warm, for, to speak the truth, it was even yet not finished throughout; and as for the size, though the drawing-room was a noble apartment, consisting of a section of the whole house, with a corner cut out for the staircase, it was very much cramped in its other parts, and was made like a cherub, in this respect, that it had no rear belonging to it. "But if you have no private fortune of your own, you cannot have everything," as the countess observed when Crosbie objected to the house because a closet under the kitchen-stairs was to be assigned to him as his own dressing-room.
When the question of the house was first debated, Lady Amelia had been anxious that St. John's Wood should be selected as the site, but to this Crosbie had positively objected.
"I think you don't like St. John's Wood," Lady Amelia had said to him somewhat sternly, thinking to awe him into a declaration that he entertained no general enmity to the neighbourhood. But Crosbie was not weak enough for this.
"No; I do not," he said. "I have always disliked it. It amounts to a prejudice, I daresay. But if I were made to live here I am convinced I should cut my throat in the first six months."
Lady Amelia had then drawn herself up, declaring her sorrow that her house should be so hateful to him.
"Oh, dear, no," said he. "I like it very much for you, and enjoy coming here of all things. I speak only of the effect which living here myself would have upon me."
Lady Amelia was quite clever enough to understand it all; but she had her sister's interest at heart, and therefore persevered in her affectionate solicitude for her brother-in-law, giving up that point as to St. John's Wood. Crosbie himself had wished to go to one of the new Pimlico squares down near Vauxhall Bridge and the river, actuated chiefly by consideration of the enormous distance lying between that locality and the northern region in which Lady Amelia lived; but to this Lady Alexandrina had objected strongly. If, indeed, they could have achieved Eaton Square, or a street leading out of Eaton Square,--if they could have crept on to the hem of the skirt of Belgravia,--the bride would have been delighted. And at first she was very nearly being taken in with the idea that such was the proposal made to her. Her geographical knowledge of Pimlico had not been perfect, and she had nearly fallen into a fatal error. But a friend had kindly intervened. "For heaven's sake, my dear, don't let him take you anywhere beyond Eccleston Square!" had been exclaimed to her in dismay by a faithful married friend. Thus warned, Alexandrina had been firm, and now their tent was to be pitched in Princess Royal Crescent, from one end of which the Hyde Park may be seen.
The furniture had been ordered chiefly under the inspection, and by the experience, of the Lady Amelia. Crosbie had satisfied himself by declaring that she at any rate could get the things cheaper than he could buy them, and that he had no taste for such employment. Nevertheless, he had felt that he was being made subject to tyranny and brought under the thumb of subjection. He could not go cordially into this matter of beds and chairs, and, therefore, at last deputed the whole matter to the De Courcy faction. And for this there was another reason, not hitherto mentioned. Mr. Mortimer Gazebee was finding the money with which all the furniture was being bought. He, with an honest but almost unintelligible zeal for the De Courcy family, had tied up every shilling on which he could lay his hand as belonging to Crosbie, in the interest of Lady Alexandrina. He had gone to work for her, scraping here and arranging there, strapping the new husband down upon the grindstone of his matrimonial settlement, as though the future bread of his, Gazebee's, own children were dependent on the validity of his legal workmanship. And for this he was not to receive a penny, or gain any advantage, immediate or ulterior. It came from his zeal,--his zeal for the coronet which Lord De Courcy wore. According to his mind an earl and an earl's belongings were entitled to such zeal. It was the theory in which he had been educated, and amounted to a worship which, unconsciously, he practised. Personally, he disliked Lord De Courcy, who ill-treated him. He knew that the earl was a heartless, cruel, bad man. But as an earl he was entitled to an amount of service which no commoner could have commanded from Mr. Gazebee. Mr. Gazebee, having thus tied up all the available funds in favour of Lady Alexandrina's seemingly expected widowhood, was himself providing the money with which the new house was to be furnished. "You can pay me a hundred and fifty a year with four per cent. till it is liquidated," he had said to Crosbie; and Crosbie had assented with a grunt. Hitherto, though he had lived in London expensively, and as a man of fashion, he had never owed any one anything. He was now to begin that career of owing. But when a clerk in a public office marries an earl's daughter, he cannot expect to have everything his own way.
Lady Amelia had bought the ordinary furniture--the beds, the stair-carpets, the washing-stands, and the kitchen things. Gazebee had got a bargain of the dinner-table and sideboard. But Lady Alexandrina herself was to come up with reference to the appurtenances of the drawing-room. It was with reference to matters of costume that the countess intended to lend her assistance--matters of costume as to which the bill could not be sent in to Gazebee, and be paid for by him with five per cent. duly charged against the bridegroom. The bridal trousseau must be produced by De Courcy's means, and, therefore, it was necessary that the countess herself should come upon the scene. "I will have no bills, d'ye hear?" snarled the earl, gnashing and snapping upon his words with one specially ugly black tooth. "I won't have any bills about this affair." And yet he made no offer of ready money. It was very necessary under such circumstances that the countess herself should come upon the scene. An ambiguous hint had been conveyed to Mr. Gazebee, during a visit of business which he had lately made to Courcy Castle, that the milliner's bills might as well be pinned on to those of the furniture-makers, the crockery-mongers, and the like. The countess, putting it in her own way, had gently suggested that the fashion of the thing had changed lately, and that such an arrangement was considered to be the proper thing among people who lived really in the world. But Gazebee was a clear-headed, honest man; and he knew the countess. He did not think that such an arrangement could be made on the present occasion. Whereupon the countess pushed her suggestion no further, but made up her mind that she must come up to London herself.
It was pleasant to see the Ladies Amelia and Alexandrina, as they sat within a vast emporium of carpets in Bond Street, asking questions of the four men who were waiting upon them, putting their heads together and whispering, calculating accurately as to extra twopences a yard, and occasioning as much trouble as it was possible for them to give. It was pleasant because they managed their large hoops cleverly among the huge rolls of carpets, because they were enjoying themselves thoroughly, and taking to themselves the homage of the men as clearly their due. But it was not so pleasant to look at Crosbie, who was fidgeting to get away to his office, to whom no power of choosing in the matter was really given, and whom the men regarded as being altogether supernumerary. The ladies had promised to be at the shop by half-past ten, so that Crosbie should reach his office at eleven--or a little after. But it was nearly eleven before they left the Gazebee residence, and it was very evident that half-an-hour among the carpets would be by no means sufficient. It seemed as though miles upon miles of gorgeous colouring were unrolled before them; and then when any pattern was regarded as at all practicable, it was unrolled backwards and forwards till a room was nearly covered by it. Crosbie felt for the men who were hauling about the huge heaps of material; but Lady Amelia sat as composed as though it were her duty to inspect every yard of stuff in the warehouse. "I think we'll look at that one at the bottom again." Then the men went to work and removed a mountain. "No, my dear, that green in the scroll-work won't do. It would fly directly, if any hot water were spilt." The man smiling ineffably, declared that that particular green never flew anywhere. But Lady Amelia paid no attention to him, and the carpet for which the mountain had been removed became part of another mountain.
"That might do," said Alexandrina, gazing upon a magnificent crimson ground through which rivers of yellow meandered, carrying with them in their streams an infinity of blue flowers. And as she spoke she held her head gracefully on one side, and looked down upon the carpet doubtingly. Lady Amelia poked it with her parasol as though to test its durability, and whispered something about yellows showing the dirt. Crosbie took out his watch and groaned.
[ILLUSTRATION: "That might do."]
"It's a superb carpet, my lady, and about the newest thing we have. We put down four hundred and fifty yards of it for the Duchess of South Wales, at Cwddglwlch Castle, only last month. Nobody has had it since, for it has not been in stock." Whereupon Lady Amelia again poked it, and then got up and walked upon it. Lady Alexandrina held her head a little more on one side.
"Five and three?" said Lady Amelia.
"Oh, no, my lady; five and seven; and the cheapest carpet we have in the house. There is twopence a yard more in the colour; there is, indeed."
"And the discount?" asked Lady Amelia.
"Two and a half, my lady."
"Oh dear, no," said Lady Amelia. "I always have five per cent. for immediate payment--quite immediate, you know." Upon which the man declared the question must be referred to his master. Two and a half was the rule of the house. Crosbie, who had been looking out of the window, said that upon his honour he couldn't wait any longer.
"And what do you think of it, Adolphus?" asked Alexandrina.
"Think of what?"
"Of the carpet--this one, you know!"
"Oh--what do I think of the carpet? I don't think I quite like all these yellow bands; and isn't it too red? I should have thought something brown with a small pattern would have been better. But, upon my word, I don't much care."
"Of course he doesn't," said Lady Amelia. Then the two ladies put their heads together for another five minutes, and the carpet was chosen--subject to that question of the discount. "And now about the rug," said Lady Amelia. But here Crosbie rebelled, and insisted that he must leave them and go to his office. "You can't want me about the rug," he said. "Well, perhaps not," said Lady Amelia. But it was manifest that Alexandrina did not approve of being thus left by her male attendant.
The same thing happened in Oxford Street with reference to the chairs and sofas, and Crosbie began to wish that he were settled, even though he should have to dress himself in the closet below the kitchen-stairs. He was learning to hate the whole household in St. John's Wood, and almost all that belonged to it. He was introduced there to little family economies of which hitherto he had known nothing, and which were disgusting to him, and the necessity for which was especially explained to him. It was to men placed as he was about to place himself that these economies were so vitally essential--to men who with limited means had to maintain a decorous outward face towards the fashionable world. Ample supplies of butchers' meat and unlimited washing-bills might be very well upon fifteen hundred a year to those who went out but seldom, and who could use the first cab that came to hand when they did go out. But there were certain things that Lady Alexandrina must do, and therefore the strictest household economy became necessary. Would Lily Dale have required the use of a carriage, got up to look as though it were private, at the expense of her husband's beefsteaks and clean shirts? That question and others of that nature were asked by Crosbie within his own mind, not unfrequently.
But, nevertheless, he tried to love Alexandrina, or rather to persuade himself that he loved her. If he could only get her away from the De Courcy faction, and especially from the Gazebee branch of it, he would break her of all that. He would teach her to sit triumphantly in a street cab, and to cater for her table with a plentiful hand. Teach her! --at some age over thirty; and with such careful training as she had already received! Did he intend to forbid her ever again to see her relations, ever to go to St. John's Wood, or to correspond with the countess and Lady Margaretta? Teach her, indeed! Had he yet to learn that he could not wash a blackamoor white? --that he could not have done so even had he himself been well adapted for the attempt, whereas he was in truth nearly as ill adapted as a man might be? But who could pity him? Lily, whom he might have had in his bosom, would have been no blackamoor.
Then came the time of Lady De Courcy's visit to town, and Alexandrina moved herself off to Portman Square. There was some apparent comfort in this to Crosbie, for he would thereby be saved from those daily dreary journeys up to the north-west. I may say that he positively hated that windy corner near the church, round which he had to walk in getting to the Gazebee residence, and that he hated the lamp which guided him to the door, and the very door itself. This door stood buried as it were in a wall, and opened on to a narrow passage which ran across a so-called garden, or front yard, containing on each side two iron receptacles for geraniums, painted to look like Palissy ware, and a naked female on a pedestal. No spot in London was, as he thought, so cold as the bit of pavement immediately in front of that door. And there he would be kept five, ten, fifteen minutes, as he declared--though I believe in my heart that the time never exceeded three,--while Richard was putting off the trappings of his work and putting on the trappings of his grandeur.
If people would only have their doors opened to you by such assistance as may come most easily and naturally to the work! I stood lately for some minutes on a Tuesday afternoon at a gallant portal, and as I waxed impatient a pretty maiden came and opened it. She was a pretty maiden, though her hands and face and apron told tales of the fire-grates. "Laws, sir," she said, "the visitors' day is Wednesday; and if you would come then, there would be the man in livery!" She took my card with the corner of her apron, and did just as well as the man in livery; but what would have happened to her had her little speech been overheard by her mistress?
Crosbie hated the house in St. John's Wood, and therefore the coming of the countess was a relief to him. Portman Square was easily to be reached, and the hospitalities of the countess would not be pressed upon him so strongly as those of the Gazebees. When he first called he was shown into the great family dining-room, which looked out towards the back of the house. The front windows were, of course, closed, as the family was not supposed to be in London. Here he remained in the room for some quarter of an hour, and then the countess descended upon him in all her grandeur. Perhaps he had never before seen her so grand. Her dress was very large, and rustled through the broad doorway, as if demanding even a broader passage. She had on a wonder of a bonnet, and a velvet mantle that was nearly as expansive as her petticoats. She threw her head a little back as she accosted him, and he instantly perceived that he was enveloped in the fumes of an affectionate but somewhat contemptuous patronage. In old days he had liked the countess, because her manner to him had always been flattering. In his intercourse with her he had been able to feel that he gave quite as much as he got, and that the countess was aware of the fact. In all the circumstances of their acquaintance the ascendancy had been with him, and therefore the acquaintance had been a pleasant one. The countess had been a good-natured, agreeable woman, whose rank and position had made her house pleasant to him; and therefore he had consented to shine upon her with such light as he had to give. Why was it that the matter was reversed, now that there was so much stronger a cause for good feeling between them? He knew that there was such change, and with bitter internal upbraidings he acknowledged to himself that this woman was getting the mastery over him. As the friend of the countess he had been a great man in her eyes;--in all her little words and looks she had acknowledged his power; but now, as her son-in-law, he was to become a very little man,--such as was Mortimer Gazebee!
"My dear Adolphus," she said, taking both his hands, "the day is coming very near now; is it not?"
"Very near, indeed," he said.
"Yes, it is very near. I hope you feel yourself a happy man."
"Oh, yes, that's of course."
"It ought to be. Speaking very seriously, I mean that it ought to be a matter of course. She is everything that a man should desire in a wife. I am not alluding now to her rank, though of course you feel what a great advantage she gives you in this respect."
Crosbie muttered something as to his consciousness of having drawn a prize in the lottery; but he so muttered it as not to convey to the lady's ears a proper sense of his dependent gratitude. "I know of no man more fortunate than you have been," she continued; "and I hope that my dear girl will find that you are fully aware that it is so. I think that she is looking rather fagged. You have allowed her to do more than was good for her in the way of shopping."
"She has done a good deal, certainly," said Crosbie.
"She is so little used to anything of that kind! But of course, as things have turned out, it was necessary that she should see to these things herself."
"I rather think she liked it," said Crosbie.
"I believe she will always like doing her duty. We are just going now to Madame Millefranc's, to see some silks;--perhaps you would wish to go with us?"
Just at this moment Alexandrina came into the room, and looked as though she were in all respects a smaller edition of her mother. They were both well-grown women, with handsome, large figures, and a certain air about them which answered almost for beauty. As to the countess, her face, on close inspection, bore, as it was entitled to do, deep signs of age; but she so managed her face that any such close inspection was never made; and her general appearance for her time of life was certainly good. Very little more than this could be said in favour of her daughter.
"Oh dear, no, mamma," she said, having heard her mother's last words. "He's the worst person in a shop in the world. He likes nothing, and dislikes nothing. Do you, Adolphus?"
"Indeed I do. I like all the cheap things, and dislike all the dear things."
"Then you certainly shall not go with us to Madame Millefranc's," said Alexandrina.
"It would not matter to him there, you know, my dear," said the countess, thinking perhaps of the suggestion she had lately made to Mr. Gazebee.
On this occasion Crosbie managed to escape, simply promising to return to Portman Square in the evening after dinner. "By-the-by, Adolphus," said the countess, as he handed her into the hired carriage which stood at the door, "I wish you would go to Lambert's, on Ludgate Hill, for me. He has had a bracelet of mine for nearly three months. Do, there's a good creature. Get it if you can, and bring it up this evening."
Crosbie, as he made his way back to his office, swore that he would not do the bidding of the countess. He would not trudge off into the city after her trinkets. But at five o'clock, when he left his office, he did go there. He apologized to himself by saying that he had nothing else to do, and bethought himself that at the present moment his lady mother-in-law's smiles might be more convenient than her frowns. So he went to Lambert's, on Ludgate Hill, and there learned that the bracelet had been sent down to Courcy Castle full two months since.
After that he dined at his club, at Sebright's. He dined alone, sitting by no means in bliss with his half-pint of sherry on the table before him. A man now and then came up and spoke to him, one a few words, and another a few, and two or three congratulated him as to his marriage; but the club was not the same thing to him as it had formerly been. He did not stand in the centre of the rug, speaking indifferently to all or any around him, ready with his joke, and loudly on the alert with the last news of the day. How easy it is to be seen when any man has fallen from his pride of place, though the altitude was ever so small, and the fall ever so slight. Where is the man who can endure such a fall without showing it in his face, in his voice, in his step, and in every motion of every limb? Crosbie knew that he had fallen, and showed that he knew it by the manner in which he ate his mutton chop.
At half-past eight he was again in Portman Square, and found the two ladies crowding over a small fire in a small back drawing-room. The furniture was all covered with brown holland, and the place had about it that cold comfortless feeling which uninhabited rooms always produce. Crosbie, as he had walked from the club up to Portman Square, had indulged in some serious thoughts. The kind of life which he had hitherto led had certainly passed away from him. He could never again be the pet of a club, or indulged as one to whom all good things were to be given without any labour at earning them on his own part. Such for some years had been his good fortune, but such could be his good fortune no longer. Was there anything within his reach which he might take in lieu of that which he had lost? He might still be victorious at his office, having more capacity for such victory than others around him. But such success alone would hardly suffice for him. Then he considered whether he might not even yet be happy in his own home,--whether Alexandrina, when separated from her mother, might not become such a wife as he could love. Nothing softens a man's feelings so much as failure, or makes him turn so anxiously to an idea of home as buffetings from those he meets abroad. He had abandoned Lily because his outer world had seemed to him too bright to be deserted. He would endeavour to supply her place with Alexandrina, because his outer world had seemed to him too harsh to be supported. Alas! alas! a man cannot so easily repent of his sins, and wash himself white from their stains!
When he entered the room the two ladies were sitting over the fire, as I have stated, and Crosbie could immediately perceive that the spirit of the countess was not serene. In fact there had been a few words between the mother and child on that matter of the trousseau, and Alexandrina had plainly told her mother that if she were to be married at all she would be married with such garments belonging to her as were fitting for an earl's daughter. It was in vain that her mother had explained with many circumlocutional phrases, that the fitness in this respect should be accommodated rather to the plebeian husband than to the noble parent. Alexandrina had been very firm, and had insisted on her rights, giving the countess to understand that if her orders for finery were not complied with, she would return as a spinster to Courcy, and prepare herself for partnership with Rosina.
"My dear," said the countess, piteously, "you can have no idea of what I shall have to go through with your father. And, of course, you could get all these things afterwards."
"Papa has no right to treat me in such a way. And if he would not give me any money himself, he should have let me have some of my own."
"Ah, my dear, that was Mr. Gazebee's fault."
"I don't care whose fault it was. It certainly was not mine. I won't have him to tell me"--"him" was intended to signify Adolphus Crosbie--"that he had to pay for my wedding-clothes."
"Of course not that, my dear."
"No; nor yet for the things which I wanted immediately. I'd much rather go and tell him at once that the marriage must be put off."
Alexandrina of course carried her point, the countess reflecting with a maternal devotion equal almost to that of the pelican, that the earl could not do more than kill her. So the things were ordered as Alexandrina chose to order them, and the countess desired that the bills might be sent in to Mr. Gazebee. Much self-devotion had been displayed by the mother, but the mother thought that none had been displayed by the daughter, and therefore she had been very cross with Alexandrina.
Crosbie, taking a chair, sat himself between them, and in a very good-humoured tone explained the little affair of the bracelet. "Your ladyship's memory must have played you false," said he, with a smile.
"My memory is very good," said the countess; "very good indeed. If Twitch got it, and didn't tell me, that was not my fault." Twitch was her ladyship's lady's-maid. Crosbie, seeing how the land lay, said nothing more about the bracelet.
After a minute or two he put out his hand to take that of Alexandrina. They were to be married now in a week or two, and such a sign of love might have been allowed to him, even in the presence of the bride's mother. He did succeed in getting hold of her fingers, but found in them none of the softness of a response. "Don't," said Lady Alexandrina, withdrawing her hand; and the tone of her voice as she spoke the word was not sweet to his ears. He remembered at the moment a certain scene which took place one evening at the little bridge at Allington, and Lily's voice, and Lily's words, and Lily's passion, as he caressed her: "Oh, my love, my love, my love!"
"My dear," said the countess, "they know how tired I am. I wonder whether they are going to give us any tea." Whereupon Crosbie rang the bell, and, on resuming his chair, moved it a little farther away from his lady-love.
Presently the tea was brought to them by the housekeeper's assistant, who did not appear to have made herself very smart for the occasion, and Crosbie thought that he was _de trop_. This, however, was a mistake on his part. As he had been admitted into the family, such little matters were no longer subject of care. Two or three months since, the countess would have fainted at the idea of such a domestic appearing with a tea-tray before Mr. Crosbie. Now, however, she was utterly indifferent to any such consideration. Crosbie was to be admitted into the family, thereby becoming entitled to certain privileges,--and thereby also becoming subject to certain domestic drawbacks. In Mrs. Dale's little household there had been no rising to grandeur; but then, also, there had never been any bathos of dirt. Of this also Crosbie thought as he sat with his tea in his hand.
He soon, however, got himself away. When he rose to go Alexandrina also rose, and he was permitted to press his nose against her cheekbone by way of a salute.
"Good-night, Adolphus," said the countess, putting out her hand to him. "But stop a minute; I know there is something I want you to do for me. But you will look in as you go to your office to-morrow morning."
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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41
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DOMESTIC TROUBLES.
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When Crosbie was making his ineffectual inquiry after Lady De Courcy's bracelet at Lambert's, John Eames was in the act of entering Mrs. Roper's front door in Burton Crescent.
"Oh, John, where's Mr. Cradell?" were the first words which greeted him, and they were spoken by the divine Amelia. Now, in her usual practice of life, Amelia did not interest herself much as to the whereabouts of Mr. Cradell.
"Where's Cradell?" said Eames, repeating the question. "Upon my word, I don't know. I walked to the office with him, but I haven't seen him since. We don't sit in the same room, you know."
"John!" and then she stopped.
"What's up now?" said John.
"John! That woman's off and left her husband. As sure as your name's John Eames, that foolish fellow has gone off with her."
"What, Cradell? I don't believe it."
"She went out of this house at two o'clock in the afternoon, and has never been back since." That, certainly, was only four hours from the present time, and such an absence from home in the middle of the day was but weak evidence on which to charge a married woman with the great sin of running off with a lover. This Amelia felt, and therefore she went on to explain. "He's there upstairs in the drawing-room, the very picture of disconsolateness."
"Who,--Cradell?"
"Lupex is. He's been drinking a little, I'm afraid; but he's very unhappy, indeed. He had an appointment to meet his wife here at four o'clock, and when he came he found her gone. He rushed up into their room, and now he says she has broken open a box he had and taken off all his money."
"But he never had any money."
"He paid mother some the day before yesterday."
"That's just the reason he shouldn't have any to-day."
"She certainly has taken things she wouldn't have taken if she'd merely gone out shopping or anything like that, for I've been up in the room and looked about it. She'd three necklaces. They weren't much account; but she must have them all on, or else have got them in her pocket."
"Cradell has never gone off with her in that way. He may be a fool--" "Oh, he is, you know. I've never seen such a fool about a woman as he has been."
"But he wouldn't be a party to stealing a lot of trumpery trinkets, or taking her husband's money. Indeed, I don't think he has anything to do with it." Then Eames thought over the circumstances of the day, and remembered that he had certainly not seen Cradell since the morning. It was that public servant's practice to saunter into Eames's room in the middle of the day, and there consume bread and cheese and beer,--in spite of an assertion which Johnny had once made as to crumbs of biscuit bathed in ink. But on this special day he had not done so. "I can't think he has been such a fool as that," said Johnny.
"But he has," said Amelia. "It's dinner-time now, and where is he? Had he any money left, Johnny?"
So interrogated, Eames disclosed a secret confided to him by his friend which no other circumstances would have succeeded in dragging from his breast.
"She borrowed twelve pounds from him about a fortnight since, immediately after quarter-day. And she owed him money, too, before that."
"Oh, what a soft!" exclaimed Amelia; "and he hasn't paid mother a shilling for the last two months!"
"It was his money, perhaps, that Mrs. Roper got from Lupex the day before yesterday. If so, it comes to the same thing as far as she is concerned, you know."
"And what are we to do now?" said Amelia, as she went before her lover upstairs. "Oh, John, what will become of me if ever you serve me in that way? What should I do if you were to go off with another lady?"
"Lupex hasn't gone off," said Eames, who hardly knew what to say when the matter was brought before him with so closely personal a reference.
"But it's the same thing," said Amelia. "Hearts is divided. Hearts that have been joined together ought never to be divided; ought they?" And then she hung upon his arm just as they got to the drawing-room door.
"Hearts and darts are all my eye," said Johnny. "My belief is that a man had better never marry at all. How d'you do, Mr. Lupex? Is anything the matter?"
Mr. Lupex was seated on a chair in the middle of the room, and was leaning with his head over the back of it. So despondent was he in his attitude that his head would have fallen off and rolled on to the floor, had it followed the course which its owner seemed to intend that it should take. His hands hung down also along the back legs of the chair, till his fingers almost touched the ground, and altogether his appearance was pendent, drooping, and wobegone. Miss Spruce was seated in one corner of the room, with her hands folded in her lap before her, and Mrs. Roper was standing on the rug with a look of severe virtue on her brow,--of virtue which, to judge by its appearance, was very severe. Nor was its severity intended to be exercised solely against Mrs. Lupex. Mrs. Roper was becoming very tired of Mr. Lupex also, and would not have been unhappy if he also had run away,--leaving behind him so much of his property as would have paid his bill.
Mr. Lupex did not stir when first addressed by John Eames, but a certain convulsive movement was to be seen on the back of his head, indicating that this new arrival in the drawing-room had produced a fresh accession of agony. The chair, too, quivered under him, and his fingers stretched themselves nearer to the ground and shook themselves.
"Mr. Lupex, we're going to dinner immediately," said Mrs. Roper. "Mr. Eames, where is your friend, Mr. Cradell?"
"Upon my word I don't know," said Eames.
"But I know," said Lupex, jumping up and standing at his full height, while he knocked down the chair which had lately supported him. "The traitor to domestic bliss! I know. And wherever he is, he has that false woman in his arms. Would he were here!" And as he expressed the last wish he went through a motion with his hands and arms which seemed intended to signify that if that unfortunate young man were in the company he would pull him in pieces and double him up, and pack him close, and then despatch his remains off, through infinite space, to the Prince of Darkness. "Traitor," he exclaimed, as he finished the process. "False traitor! Foul traitor! And she too!" Then, as he thought of this softer side of the subject, he prepared himself to relapse again on to the chair. Finding it on the ground he had to pick it up. He did pick it up, and once more flung away his head over the back of it, and stretched his finger-nails almost down to the carpet.
"James," said Mrs. Roper to her son, who was now in the room, "I think you'd better stay with Mr. Lupex while we are at dinner. Come, Miss Spruce, I'm very sorry that you should be annoyed by this kind of thing."
"It don't hurt me," said Miss Spruce, preparing to leave the room. "I'm only an old woman."
"Annoyed!" said Lupex, raising himself again from his chair, not perhaps altogether disposed to remain upstairs while the dinner, for which it was intended that he should some day pay, was being eaten below. "Annoyed! It is a profound sorrow to me that any lady should be annoyed by my misfortunes. As regards Miss Spruce, I look upon her character with profound veneration."
"You needn't mind me; I'm only an old woman," said Miss Spruce.
"But, by heavens, I do mind!" exclaimed Lupex; and hurrying forward he seized Miss Spruce by the hand. "I shall always regard age as entitled--" But the special privileges which Mr. Lupex would have accorded to age were never made known to the inhabitants of Mrs. Roper's boarding-house, for the door of the room was again opened at this moment, and Mr. Cradell entered.
"Here you are, old fellow, to answer for yourself," said Eames.
Cradell, who had heard something as he came in at the front door, but had not heard that Lupex was in the drawing-room, made a slight start backwards when he saw that gentleman's face. "Upon my word and honour," he began;--but he was able to carry his speech no further. Lupex, dropping the hand of the elderly lady whom he reverenced, was upon him in an instant, and Cradell was shaking beneath his grasp like an aspen leaf,--or rather not like an aspen leaf, unless an aspen leaf when shaken is to be seen with its eyes shut, its mouth open, and its tongue hanging out.
"Come, I say," said Eames, stepping forward to his friend's assistance; "this won't do at all, Mr. Lupex. You've been drinking. You'd better wait till to-morrow morning, and speak to Cradell then."
"To-morrow morning, viper," shouted Lupex, still holding his prey, but looking back at Eames over his shoulder. Who the viper was had not been clearly indicated. "When will he restore to me my wife? When will he restore to me my honour?"
"Upon-on-on-on my--" It was for the moment in vain that poor Mr. Cradell endeavoured to asseverate his innocence, and to stake his honour upon his own purity as regarded Mrs. Lupex. Lupex still held to his enemy's cravat, though Eames had now got him by the arm, and so far impeded his movements as to hinder him from proceeding to any graver attack.
"Jemima, Jemima, Jemima!" shouted Mrs. Roper. "Run for the police; run for the police!" But Amelia, who had more presence of mind than her mother, stopped Jemima as she was making to one of the front windows. "Keep where you are," said Amelia. "They'll come quiet in a minute or two." And Amelia no doubt was right. Calling for the police when there is a row in the house is like summoning the water-engines when the soot is on fire in the kitchen chimney. In such cases good management will allow the soot to burn itself out, without aid from the water-engines. In the present instance the police were not called in, and I am inclined to think that their presence would not have been advantageous to any of the party.
"Upon-my-honour--I know nothing about her," were the first words which Cradell was able to articulate, when Lupex, under Eames's persuasion, at last relaxed his hold.
Lupex turned round to Miss Spruce with a sardonic grin. "You hear his words,--this enemy to domestic bliss,--Ha, ha! man, tell me whither you have conveyed my wife!"
"If you were to give me the Bank of England I don't know," said Cradell.
"And I'm sure he does not know," said Mrs. Roper, whose suspicions against Cradell were beginning to subside. But as her suspicions subsided, her respect for him decreased. Such was the case also with Miss Spruce, and with Amelia, and with Jemima. They had all thought him to be a great fool for running away with Mrs. Lupex, but now they were beginning to think him a poor creature because he had not done so. Had he committed that active folly he would have been an interesting fool. But now, if, as they all suspected, he knew no more about Mrs. Lupex than they did, he would be a fool without any special interest whatever.
"Of course he doesn't," said Eames.
"No more than I do," said Amelia.
"His very looks show him innocent," said Mrs. Roper.
"Indeed they do," said Miss Spruce.
Lupex turned from one to the other as they thus defended the man whom he suspected, and shook his head at each assertion that was made. "And if he doesn't know who does?" he asked. "Haven't I seen it all for the last three months? Is it reasonable to suppose that a creature such as she, used to domestic comforts all her life, should have gone off in this way, at dinner-time, taking with her my property and all her jewels, and that nobody should have instigated her; nobody assisted her! Is that a story to tell to such a man as me! You may tell it to the marines!" Mr. Lupex, as he made this speech, was walking about the room, and as he finished it he threw his pocket-handkerchief with violence on to the floor. "I know what to do, Mrs. Roper," he said. "I know what steps to take. I shall put the affair into the hands of my lawyer to-morrow morning." Then he picked up his handkerchief and walked down into the dining-room.
"Of course you know nothing about it?" said Eames to his friend, having run upstairs for the purpose of saying a word to him while he washed his hands.
"What,--about Maria? I don't know where she is, if you mean that."
"Of course I mean that. What else should I mean? And what makes you call her Maria?"
"It is wrong. I admit it's wrong. The word will come out, you know."
"Will come out! I'll tell you what it is, old fellow, you'll get yourself into a mess, and all for nothing. That fellow will have you up before the police for stealing his things--" "But, Johnny--" "I know all about it. Of course you have not stolen them, and of course there was nothing to steal. But if you go on calling her Maria you'll find that he'll have a pull on you. Men don't call other men's wives names for nothing."
"Of course we've been friends," said Cradell, who rather liked this view of the matter.
"Yes,--you have been friends! She's diddled you out of your money, and that's the beginning and the end of it. And now, if you go on showing off your friendship, you'll be done out of more money. You're making an ass of yourself. That's the long and the short of it."
"And what have you made of yourself with that girl? There are worse asses than I am yet, Master Johnny." Eames, as he had no answer ready to this counter attack, left the room and went downstairs. Cradell soon followed him, and in a few minutes they were all eating their dinner together at Mrs. Roper's hospitable table.
Immediately after dinner Lupex took himself away, and the conversation upstairs became general on the subject of the lady's departure.
"If I was him I'd never ask a question about her, but let her go," said Amelia.
"Yes; and then have all her bills following you, wherever you went," said Amelia's brother.
"I'd sooner have her bills than herself," said Eames.
"My belief is, that she's been an ill-used woman," said Cradell. "If she had a husband that she could respect and have loved, and all that sort of thing, she would have been a charming woman."
"She's every bit as bad as he is," said Mrs. Roper.
"I can't agree with you, Mrs. Roper," continued the lady's champion. "Perhaps I ought to understand her position better than any one here, and--" "Then that's just what you ought not to do, Mr. Cradell," said Mrs. Roper. And now the lady of the house spoke out her mind with much maternal dignity and with some feminine severity. "That's just what a young man like you has no business to know. What's a married woman like that to you, or you to her; or what have you to do with understanding her position? When you've a wife of your own, if ever you do have one, you'll find you'll have trouble enough then without anybody else interfering with you. Not but what I believe you're innocent as a lamb about Mrs. Lupex; that is, as far as any harm goes. But you've got yourself into all this trouble by meddling, and was like enough to get yourself choked upstairs by that man. And who's to wonder when you go on pretending to be in love with a woman in that way, and she old enough to be your mother? What would your mamma say if she saw you at it?"
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Cradell.
"It's all very well your laughing, but I hate such folly. If I see a young man in love with a young woman, I respect him for it;" and then she looked at Johnny Eames. "I respect him for it,--even though he may now and then do things as he shouldn't. They most of 'em does that. But to see a young man like you, Mr. Cradell, dangling after an old married woman, who doesn't know how to behave herself; and all just because she lets him to do it;--ugh! --an old broomstick with a petticoat on would do just as well! It makes me sick to see it, and that's the truth of it. I don't call it manly; and it ain't manly, is it, Miss Spruce?"
"Of course I know nothing about it," said the lady to whom the appeal was thus made. "But a young gentleman should keep himself to himself till the time comes for him to speak out,--begging your pardon all the same, Mr. Cradell."
"I don't see what a married woman should want with any one after her but her own husband," said Amelia.
"And perhaps not always that," said John Eames.
It was about an hour after this when the front-door bell was rung, and a scream from Jemima announced to them all that some critical moment had arrived. Amelia, jumping up, opened the door, and then the rustle of a woman's dress was heard on the lower stairs. "Oh, laws, ma'am, you have given us sich a turn," said Jemima. "We all thought you was run away."
"It's Mrs. Lupex," said Amelia. And in two minutes more that ill-used lady was in the room.
"Well, my dears," said she, gaily, "I hope nobody has waited dinner."
"No; we didn't wait dinner," said Mrs. Roper, very gravely.
"And where's my Orson? Didn't he dine at home? Mr. Cradell, will you oblige me by taking my shawl? But perhaps you had better not. People are so censorious; ain't they, Miss Spruce? Mr. Eames shall do it; and everybody knows that that will be quite safe. Won't it, Miss Amelia?"
"Quite, I should think," said Amelia. And Mrs. Lupex knew that she was not to look for an ally in that quarter on the present occasion. Eames got up to take the shawl, and Mrs. Lupex went on.
"And didn't Orson dine at home? Perhaps they kept him down at the theatre. But I've been thinking all day what fun it would be when he thought his bird was flown."
"He did dine at home," said Mrs. Roper; "and he didn't seem to like it. There wasn't much fun, I can assure you."
"Ah, wasn't there, though? I believe that man would like to have me tied to his button-hole. I came across a few friends,--lady friends, Mr. Cradell, though two of them had their husbands; so we made a party, and just went down to Hampton Court. So my gentleman has gone again, has he? That's what I get for gadding about myself, isn't it, Miss Spruce?"
Mrs. Roper, as she went to bed that night, made up her mind that, whatever might be the cost and trouble of doing so, she would lose no further time in getting rid of her married guests.
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{
"id": "4599"
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42
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LILY'S BEDSIDE.
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Lily Dale's constitution was good, and her recovery was retarded by no relapse or lingering debility; but, nevertheless, she was forced to keep her bed for many days after the fever had left her. During all this period Dr. Crofts came every day. It was in vain that Mrs. Dale begged him not to do so; telling him in simple words that she felt herself bound not to accept from him all this continuation of his unremunerated labours now that the absolute necessity for them was over. He answered her only by little jokes, or did not answer her at all; but still he came daily, almost always at the same hour, just as the day was waning, so that he could sit for a quarter of an hour in the dusk, and then ride home to Guestwick in the dark. At this time Bell had been admitted into her sister's room, and she would always meet Dr. Crofts at Lily's bedside; but she never sat with him alone, since the day on which he had offered her his love with half-articulated words, and she had declined it with words also half-articulated. She had seen him alone since that, on the stairs, or standing in the hall, but she had not remained with him, talking to him after her old fashion, and no further word of his love had been spoken in speech either half or wholly articulate.
Nor had Bell spoken of what had passed to any one else. Lily would probably have told both her mother and sister instantly; but then no such scene as that which had taken place with Bell would have been possible with Lily. In whatever way the matter might have gone with her, there would certainly have been some clear tale to tell when the interview was over. She would have known whether or no she loved the man, or could love him, and would have given him some true and intelligible answer. Bell had not done so, but had given him an answer which, if true, was not intelligible, and if intelligible was not true. And yet, when she had gone away to think over what had passed, she had been happy and satisfied, and almost triumphant. She had never yet asked herself whether she expected anything further from Dr. Crofts, nor what that something further might be,--and yet she was happy!
Lily had now become pert and saucy in her bed, taking upon herself the little airs which are allowed to a convalescent invalid as compensation for previous suffering and restraint. She pretended to much anxiety on the subject of her dinner, and declared that she would go out on such or such a day, let Dr. Crofts be as imperious as he might. "He's an old savage, after all," she said to her sister, one evening, after he was gone, "and just as bad as the rest of them."
"I do not know who the rest of them are," said Bell, "but at any rate he's not very old."
"You know what I mean. He's just as grumpy as Dr. Gruffen, and thinks everybody is to do what he tells them. Of course, you take his part."
"And of course you ought, seeing how good he has been."
"And of course I should, to anybody but you. I do like to abuse him to you."
"Lily, Lily!"
"So I do. It's so hard to knock any fire out of you, that when one does find the place where the flint lies, one can't help hammering at it. What did he mean by saying that I shouldn't get up on Sunday? Of course I shall get up if I like it."
"Not if mamma asks you not?"
"Oh, but she won't, unless he interferes and dictates to her. Oh, Bell, what a tyrant he would be if he were married!"
"Would he?"
"And how submissive you would be, if you were his wife! It's a thousand pities that you are not in love with each other;--that is, if you are not."
"Lily, I thought that there was a promise between us about that."
"Ah! but that was in other days. Things are all altered since that promise was given,--all the world has been altered." And as she said this the tone of her voice was changed, and it had become almost sad. "I feel as though I ought to be allowed now to speak about anything I please."
"You shall, if it pleases you, my pet."
"You see how it is, Bell; I can never again have anything of my own to talk about."
"Oh, my darling, do not say that."
"But it is so, Bell; and why not say it? Do you think I never say it to myself in the hours when I am all alone, thinking over it--thinking, thinking, thinking. You must not,--you must not grudge to let me talk of it sometimes."
"I will not grudge you anything;--only I cannot believe that it must be so always."
"Ask yourself, Bell, how it would be with you. But I sometimes fancy that you measure me differently from yourself."
"Indeed I do, for I know how much better you are."
"I am not so much better as to be ever able to forget all that. I know I never shall do so. I have made up my mind about it clearly and with an absolute certainty."
"Lily, Lily, Lily! pray do not say so."
"But I do say it. And yet I have not been very mopish and melancholy; have I, Bell? I do think I deserve some little credit, and yet, I declare, you won't allow me the least privilege in the world."
"What privilege would you wish me to give you?"
"To talk about Dr. Crofts."
"Lily, you are a wicked, wicked tyrant." And Bell leaned over her, and fell upon her, and kissed her, hiding her own face in the gloom of the evening. After that it came to be an accepted understanding between them that Bell was not altogether indifferent to Dr. Crofts.
"You heard what he said, my darling," Mrs. Dale said the next day, as the three were in the room together after Dr. Crofts was gone. Mrs. Dale was standing on one side of the bed, and Bell on the other, while Lily was scolding them both. "You can get up for an hour or two to-morrow, but he thinks you had better not go out of the room."
"What would be the good of that, mamma? I am so tired of looking always at the same paper. It is such a tiresome paper. It makes one count the pattern over and over again. I wonder how you ever can live here."
"I've got used to it, you see."
"I never can get used to that sort of thing; but go on counting, and counting, and counting. I'll tell you what I should like; and I'm sure it would be the best thing, too."
"And what would you like?" said Bell.
"Just to get up at nine o'clock to-morrow, and go to church as though nothing had happened. Then, when Dr. Crofts came in the evening, you would tell him I was down at the school."
"I wouldn't quite advise that," said Mrs. Dale.
"It would give him such a delightful start. And when he found I didn't die immediately, as of course I ought to do according to rule, he would be so disgusted."
"It would be very ungrateful, to say the least of it," said Bell.
"No, it wouldn't, a bit. He needn't come, unless he likes it. And I don't believe he comes to see me at all. It's all very well, mamma, your looking in that way; but I'm sure it's true. And I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll pretend to be bad again, otherwise the poor man will be robbed of his only happiness."
"I suppose we must allow her to say what she likes till she gets well," said Mrs. Dale, laughing. It was now nearly dark, and Mrs. Dale did not see that Bell's hand had crept under the bed-clothes, and taken hold of that of her sister. "It's true, mamma," continued Lily, "and I defy her to deny it. I would forgive him for keeping me in bed if he would only make her fall in love with him."
"She has made a bargain, mamma," said Bell, "that she is to say whatever she likes till she gets well."
"I am to say whatever I like always; that was the bargain, and I mean to stand to it."
On the following Sunday Lily did get up, but did not leave her mother's bedroom. There she was, seated in that half-dignified and half-luxurious state which belongs to the first getting up of an invalid, when Dr. Crofts called. There she had eaten her tiny bit of roast mutton, and had called her mother a stingy old creature, because she would not permit another morsel; and there she had drunk her half glass of port wine, pretending that it was very bad, and twice worse than the doctor's physic; and there, Sunday though it was, she had fully enjoyed the last hour of daylight, reading that exquisite new novel which had just completed itself, amidst the jarring criticisms of the youth and age of the reading public.
"I am quite sure she was right in accepting him, Bell," she said, putting down the book as the light was fading, and beginning to praise the story.
"It was a matter of course," said Bell. "It always is right in the novels. That's why I don't like them. They are too sweet."
"That's why I do like them, because they are so sweet. A sermon is not to tell you what you are, but what you ought to be, and a novel should tell you not what you are to get, but what you'd like to get."
"If so, then, I'd go back to the old school, and have the heroine really a heroine, walking all the way up from Edinburgh to London, and falling among thieves; or else nursing a wounded hero, and describing the battle from the window. We've got tired of that; or else the people who write can't do it now-a-days. But if we are to have real life, let it be real."
"No, Bell, no!" said Lily. "Real life sometimes is so painful." Then her sister, in a moment, was down on the floor at her feet, kissing her hand and caressing her knees, and praying that the wound might be healed.
On that morning Lily had succeeded in inducing her sister to tell her all that had been said by Dr. Crofts. All that had been said by herself also, Bell had intended to tell; but when she came to this part of the story, her account was very lame. "I don't think I said anything," she said. "But silence always gives consent. He'll know that," Lily had rejoined. "No, he will not; my silence didn't give any consent; I'm sure of that. And he didn't think that it did." "But you didn't mean to refuse him?" "I think I did. I don't think I knew what I meant; and it was safer, therefore, to look no, than to look yes. If I didn't say it, I'm sure I looked it." "But you wouldn't refuse him now?" asked Lily. "I don't know," said Bell. "It seems as though I should want years to make up my mind; and he won't ask me again."
Bell was still at her sister's feet, caressing them, and praying with all her heart that that wound might be healed in due time, when Mrs. Dale came in and announced the doctor's daily visit. "Then I'll go," said Bell.
"Indeed you won't," said Lily. "He's coming simply to make a morning call, and nobody need run away. Now, Dr. Crofts, you need not come and stand over me with your watch, for I won't let you touch my hand except to shake hands with me;" and then she held her hand out to him. "And all you'll know of my tongue you'll learn from the sound."
"I don't care in the least for your tongue."
"I dare say not, and yet you may some of these days. I can speak out, if I like it; can't I, mamma?"
"I should think Dr. Crofts knows that by this time, my dear."
"I don't know. There are some things gentlemen are very slow to learn. But you must sit down, Dr. Crofts, and make yourself comfortable and polite; for you must understand that you are not master here any longer. I am out of bed now, and your reign is over."
"That's the gratitude of the world, all through," said Mrs. Dale.
"Who is ever grateful to a doctor? He only cures you that he may triumph over some other doctor, and declare, as he goes by Dr. Gruffen's door, 'There, had she called you in, she'd have been dead before now; or else would have been ill for twelve months.' Don't you jump for joy when Dr. Gruffen's patients die?"
"Of course I do--out in the market-place, so that everybody shall see me," said the doctor.
"Lily, how can you say such shocking things?" said her sister.
Then the doctor did sit down, and they were all very cosy together over the fire, talking about things which were not medical, or only half medical in their appliance. By degrees the conversation came round to Mrs. Eames and to John Eames. Two or three days since, Crofts had told Mrs. Dale of that affair at the railway station, of which up to that time she had heard nothing. Mrs. Dale, when she was assured that young Eames had given Crosbie a tremendous thrashing--the tidings of the affair which had got themselves substantiated at Guestwick so described the nature of the encounter--could not withhold some meed of applause.
"Dear boy!" she said, almost involuntarily. "Dear boy! it came from the honestness of his heart!" And then she gave special injunctions to the doctor--injunctions which were surely unnecessary--that no word of the matter should be whispered before Lily.
"I was at the manor, yesterday," said the doctor, "and the earl would talk about nothing but Master Johnny. He says he's the finest fellow going." Whereupon Mrs. Dale touched him with her foot, fearing that the conversation might be led away in the direction of Johnny's prowess.
"I am so glad," said Lily. "I always knew that they'd find John out at last."
"And Lady Julia is just as fond of him," said the doctor.
"Dear me!" said Lily. "Suppose they were to make up a match!"
"Lily, how can you be so absurd?"
"Let me see; what relation would he be to us? He would certainly be Bernard's uncle, and uncle Christopher's half brother-in-law. Wouldn't it be odd?"
"It would rather," said Mrs. Dale.
"I hope he'll be civil to Bernard. Don't you, Bell? Is he to give up the Income-tax Office, Dr. Crofts?"
"I didn't hear that that was settled yet." And so they went on talking about John Eames.
"Joking apart," said Lily, "I am very glad that Lord De Guest has taken him by the hand. Not that I think an earl is better than anybody else, but because it shows that people are beginning to understand that he has got something in him. I always said that they who laughed at John would see him hold up his head yet." All which words sank deep into Mrs. Dale's mind. If only, in some coming time, her pet might be taught to love this new young hero! But then would not that last heroic deed of his militate most strongly against any possibility of such love!
"And now I may as well be going," said the doctor, rising from his chair. At this time Bell had left the room, but Mrs. Dale was still there.
"You need not be in such a hurry, especially this evening," said Lily.
"Why especially this evening?"
"Because it will be the last. Sit down again, Dr. Crofts. I've got a little speech to make to you. I've been preparing it all the morning, and you must give me an opportunity of speaking it."
"I'll come the day after to-morrow, and I'll hear it then."
"But I choose, sir, that you should hear it now. Am I not to be obeyed when I first get up on to my own throne? Dear, dear Dr. Crofts, how am I to thank you for all that you have done?"
"How are any of us to thank him?" said Mrs. Dale.
"I hate thanks," said the doctor. "One kind glance of the eye is worth them all, and I've had many such in this house."
"You have our hearts' love, at any rate," said Mrs. Dale.
"God bless you all!" said he, as he prepared to go.
"But I haven't made my speech yet," said Lily. "And to tell the truth, mamma, you must go away, or I shall never be able to make it. It's very improper, is it not, turning you out, but it shall only take three minutes." Then Mrs. Dale, with some little joking word, left the room; but, as she left it, her mind was hardly at ease. Ought she to have gone, leaving it to Lily's discretion to say what words she might think fit to Dr. Crofts? Hitherto she had never doubted her daughters--not even their discretion; and therefore it had been natural to her to go when she was bidden. But as she went downstairs she had her doubts whether she was right or no.
"Dr. Crofts," said Lily, as soon as they were alone. "Sit down there, close to me. I want to ask you a question. What was it you said to Bell when you were alone with her the other evening in the parlour?"
The doctor sat for a moment without answering, and Lily, who was watching him closely, could see by the light of the fire that he had been startled--had almost shuddered as the question was asked him.
"What did I say to her?" and he repeated her words in a very low voice. "I asked her if she could love me, and be my wife."
"And what answer did she make to you?"
"What answer did she make? She simply refused me."
"No, no, no; don't believe her, Dr. Crofts. It was not so;--I think it was not so. Mind you, I can say nothing as coming from her. She has not told me her own mind. But if you really love her, she will be mad to refuse you."
"I do love her, Lily; that at any rate is true."
"Then go to her again. I am speaking for myself now. I cannot afford to lose such a brother as you would be. I love you so dearly that I cannot spare you. And she,--I think she'll learn to love you as you would wish to be loved. You know her nature, how silent she is, and averse to talk about herself. She has confessed nothing to me but this,--that you spoke to her and took her by surprise. Are we to have another chance? I know how wrong I am to ask such a question. But, after all, is not the truth the best?"
"Another chance!"
"I know what you mean, and I think she is worthy to be your wife. I do, indeed; and if so, she must be very worthy. You won't tell of me, will you now, doctor?"
"No; I won't tell of you."
"And you'll try again?"
"Yes; I'll try again."
"God bless you, my brother! I hope,--I hope you'll be my brother." Then, as he put out his hand to her once more, she raised her head towards him, and he, stooping down, kissed her forehead. "Make mamma come to me," were the last words she spoke as he went out at the door.
"So you've made your speech," said Mrs. Dale.
"Yes, mamma."
"I hope it was a discreet speech."
"I hope it was, mamma. But it has made me so tired, and I believe I'll go to bed. Do you know I don't think I should have done much good down at the school to-day?"
Then Mrs. Dale, in her anxiety to repair what injury might have been done to her daughter by over-exertion, omitted any further mention of the farewell speech.
Dr. Crofts as he rode home enjoyed but little of the triumph of a successful lover. "It may be that she's right," he said to himself; "and, at any rate, I'll ask again." Nevertheless, that "No" which Bell had spoken, and had repeated, still sounded in his ears harsh and conclusive. There are men to whom a peal of noes rattling about their ears never takes the sound of a true denial, and others to whom the word once pronounced, be it whispered ever so softly, comes as though it were an unchangeable verdict from the supreme judgment-seat.
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{
"id": "4599"
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43
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FIE, FIE!
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] Will any reader remember the loves,--no, not the loves; that word is so decidedly ill-applied as to be incapable of awakening the remembrance of any reader; but the flirtations--of Lady Dumbello and Mr. Plantagenet Palliser? Those flirtations, as they had been carried on at Courcy Castle, were laid bare in all their enormities to the eye of the public, and it must be confessed that if the eye of the public was shocked, that eye must be shocked very easily.
But the eye of the public was shocked, and people who were particular as to their morals said very strange things. Lady De Courcy herself said very strange things indeed, shaking her head, and dropping mysterious words; whereas Lady Clandidlem spoke much more openly, declaring her opinion that Lady Dumbello would be off before May. They both agreed that it would not be altogether bad for Lord Dumbello that he should lose his wife, but shook their heads very sadly when they spoke of poor Plantagenet Palliser. As to the lady's fate, that lady whom they had both almost worshipped during the days at Courcy Castle,--they did not seem to trouble themselves about that.
And it must be admitted that Mr. Palliser had been a little imprudent,--imprudent, that is, if he knew anything about the rumours afloat,--seeing that soon after his visit at Courcy Castle he had gone down to Lady Hartletop's place in Shropshire, at which the Dumbellos intended to spend the winter, and on leaving it had expressed his intention of returning in February. The Hartletop people had pressed him very much,--the pressure having come with peculiar force from Lord Dumbello. Therefore it is reasonable to suppose that the Hartletop people had at any rate not heard of the rumour.
Mr. Plantagenet Palliser spent his Christmas with his uncle, the Duke of Omnium, at Gatherum Castle. That is to say, he reached the castle in time for dinner on Christmas eve, and left it on the morning after Christmas day. This was in accordance with the usual practice of his life, and the tenants, dependants, and followers of the Omnium interest were always delighted to see this manifestation of a healthy English domestic family feeling between the duke and his nephew. But the amount of intercourse on such occasions between them was generally trifling. The duke would smile as he put out his right hand to his nephew, and say,-- "Well, Plantagenet,--very busy, I suppose?"
The duke was the only living being who called him Plantagenet to his face, though there were some scores of men who talked of Planty Pal behind his back. The duke had been the only living being so to call him. Let us hope that it still was so, and that there had arisen no feminine exception, dangerous in its nature and improper in its circumstances.
"Well, Plantagenet," said the duke, on the present occasion, "very busy, I suppose?"
"Yes, indeed, duke," said Mr. Palliser. "When a man gets the harness on him he does not easily get quit of it."
The duke remembered that his nephew had made almost the same remark at his last Christmas visit.
"By-the-by," said the duke, "I want to say a word or two to you before you go."
Such a proposition on the duke's part was a great departure from his usual practice, but the nephew of course undertook to obey his uncle's behests.
"I'll see you before dinner to-morrow," said Plantagenet.
"Ah, do," said the duke. "I'll not keep you five minutes." And at six o'clock on the following afternoon the two were closeted together in the duke's private room.
"I don't suppose there is much in it," began the duke, "but people are talking about you and Lady Dumbello."
"Upon my word, people are very kind." And Mr. Palliser bethought himself of the fact,--for it certainly was a fact,--that people for a great many years had talked about his uncle and Lady Dumbello's mother-in-law.
"Yes; kind enough; are they not? You've just come from Hartlebury, I believe." Hartlebury was the Marquis of Hartletop's seat in Shropshire.
"Yes, I have. And I'm going there again in February."
"Ah, I'm sorry for that. Not that I mean, of course, to interfere with your arrangements. You will acknowledge that I have not often done so, in any matter whatever."
"No; you have not," said the nephew, comforting himself with an inward assurance that no such interference on his uncle's part could have been possible.
"But in this instance it would suit me, and I really think it would suit you too, that you should be as little at Hartlebury as possible. You have said you would go there, and of course you will go. But if I were you, I would not stay above a day or two."
Mr. Plantagenet Palliser received everything he had in the world from his uncle. He sat in Parliament through his uncle's interest, and received an allowance of ever so many thousand a year which his uncle could stop to-morrow by his mere word. He was his uncle's heir, and the dukedom, with certain entailed properties, must ultimately fall to him, unless his uncle should marry and have a son. But by far the greater portion of the duke's property was unentailed; the duke might probably live for the next twenty years or more; and it was quite possible that, if offended, he might marry and become a father. It may be said that no man could well be more dependent on another than Plantagenet Palliser was upon his uncle; and it may be said also that no father or uncle ever troubled his heir with less interference. Nevertheless, the nephew immediately felt himself aggrieved by this allusion to his private life, and resolved at once that he would not submit to such surveillance.
"I don't know how long I shall stay," said he; "but I cannot say that my visit will be influenced one way or the other by such a rumour as that."
"No; probably not. But it may perhaps be influenced by my request." And the duke, as he spoke, looked a little savage.
"You wouldn't ask me to regard a report that has no foundation."
"I am not asking about its foundation. Nor do I in the least wish to interfere with your manner in life." By which last observation the duke intended his nephew to understand that he was quite at liberty to take away any other gentleman's wife, but that he was not at liberty to give occasion even for a surmise that he wanted to take Lord Dumbello's wife. "The fact is this, Plantagenet. I have for many years been intimate with that family. I have not many intimacies, and shall probably never increase them. Such friends as I have, I wish to keep, and you will easily perceive that any such report as that which I have mentioned, might make it unpleasant for me to go to Hartlebury, or for the Hartlebury people to come here." The duke certainly could not have spoken plainer, and Mr. Palliser understood him thoroughly. Two such alliances between the two families could not be expected to run pleasantly together, and even the rumour of any such second alliance might interfere with the pleasantness of the former one.
"That's all," said the duke.
"It's a most absurd slander," said Mr. Palliser.
"I dare say. Those slanders always are absurd; but what can we do? We can't tie up people's tongues." And the duke looked as though he wished to have the subject considered as finished, and to be left alone.
"But we can disregard them," said the nephew, indiscreetly.
"You may. I have never been able to do so. And yet, I believe, I have not earned for myself the reputation of being subject to the voices of men. You think that I am asking much of you; but you should remember that hitherto I have given much and have asked nothing. I expect you to oblige me in this matter."
Then Mr. Plantagenet Palliser left the room, knowing that he had been threatened. What the duke had said amounted to this. --If you go on dangling after Lady Dumbello, I'll stop the seven thousand a year which I give you. I'll oppose your next return at Silverbridge, and I'll make a will and leave away from you Matching and The Horns,--a beautiful little place in Surrey, the use of which had been already offered to Mr. Palliser in the event of his marriage; all the Littlebury estate in Yorkshire, and the enormous Scotch property. Of my personal goods, and money invested in loans, shares, and funds, you shall never touch a shilling, or the value of a shilling. And, if I find that I can suit myself, it may be that I'll leave you plain Mr. Plantagenet Palliser, with a little first cousin for the head of your family.
The full amount of this threat Mr. Palliser understood, and, as he thought of it, he acknowledged to himself that he had never felt for Lady Dumbello anything like love. No conversation between them had ever been warmer than that of which the reader has seen a sample. Lady Dumbello had been nothing to him. But now,--now that the matter had been put before him in this way, might it not become him, as a gentleman, to fall in love with so very beautiful a woman, whose name had already been linked with his own? We all know that story of the priest, who, by his question in the confessional, taught the ostler to grease the horses' teeth. "I never did yet," said the ostler, "but I'll have a try at it." In this case, the duke had acted the part of the priest, and Mr. Palliser, before the night was over, had almost become as ready a pupil as the ostler. As to the threat, it would ill become him, as a Palliser and a Plantagenet, to regard it. The duke would not marry. Of all men in the world he was the least likely to spite his own face by cutting off his own nose; and, for the rest of it, Mr. Palliser would take his chance. Therefore he went down to Hartlebury early in February, having fully determined to be very particular in his attentions to Lady Dumbello.
Among a houseful of people at Hartlebury, he found Lord Porlock, a slight, sickly, worn-out looking man, who had something about his eye of his father's hardness, but nothing in his mouth of his father's ferocity.
"So your sister is going to be married?" said Mr. Palliser.
"Yes. One has no right to be surprised at anything they do, when one remembers the life their father leads them."
"I was going to congratulate you."
"Don't do that."
"I met him at Courcy, and rather liked him."
Mr. Palliser had barely spoken to Mr. Crosbie at Courcy, but then in the usual course of his social life he seldom did more than barely speak to anybody.
"Did you?" said Lord Porlock. "For the poor girl's sake I hope he's not a ruffian. How any man should propose to my father to marry a daughter out of his house, is more than I can understand. How was my mother looking?"
"I didn't see anything amiss about her."
"I expect that he'll murder her some day." Then that conversation came to an end.
Mr. Palliser himself perceived--as he looked at her he could not but perceive--that a certain amount of social energy seemed to enliven Lady Dumbello when he approached her. She was given to smile when addressed, but her usual smile was meaningless, almost leaden, and never in any degree flattering to the person to whom it was accorded. Very many women smile as they answer the words which are spoken to them, and most who do so flatter by their smile. The thing is so common that no one thinks of it. The flattering pleases, but means nothing. The impression unconsciously taken simply conveys a feeling that the woman has made herself agreeable, as it was her duty to do,--agreeable, as far as that smile went, in some very infinitesimal degree. But she has thereby made her little contribution to society. She will make the same contribution a hundred times in the same evening. No one knows that she has flattered anybody; she does not know it herself; and the world calls her an agreeable woman. But Lady Dumbello put no flattery into her customary smiles. They were cold, unmeaning, accompanied by no special glance of the eye, and seldom addressed to the individual. They were given to the room at large; and the room at large, acknowledging her great pretensions, accepted them as sufficient. But when Mr. Palliser came near to her she would turn herself slightly, ever so slightly, on her seat, and would allow her eyes to rest for a moment upon his face. Then when he remarked that it had been rather cold, she would smile actually upon him as she acknowledged the truth of his observation. All this Mr. Palliser taught himself to observe, having been instructed by his foolish uncle in that lesson as to the greasing of the horses' teeth.
But, nevertheless, during the first week of his stay at Hartlebury, he did not say a word to her more tender than his observation about the weather. It is true that he was very busy. He had undertaken to speak upon the address, and as Parliament was now about to be opened, and as his speech was to be based upon statistics, he was full of figures and papers. His correspondence was pressing, and the day was seldom long enough for his purposes. He felt that the intimacy to which he aspired was hindered by the laborious routine of his life; but nevertheless he would do something before he left Hartlebury, to show the special nature of his regard. He would say something to her, that should open to her view the secret of--shall we say his heart? Such was his resolve, day after day. And yet day after day went by, and nothing was said. He fancied that Lord Dumbello was somewhat less friendly in his manner than he had been, that he put himself in the way and looked cross; but, as he declared to himself, he cared very little for Lord Dumbello's looks.
"When do you go to town?" he said to her one evening.
"Probably in April. We certainly shall not leave Hartlebury before that."
"Ah, yes. You stay for the hunting."
"Yes; Lord Dumbello always remains here through March. He may run up to town for a day or two."
"How comfortable! I must be in London on Thursday, you know."
"When Parliament meets, I suppose?"
"Exactly. It is such a bore; but one has to do it."
"When a man makes a business of it, I suppose he must."
"Oh, dear, yes; it's quite imperative." Then Mr. Palliser looked round the room, and thought he saw Lord Dumbello's eye fixed upon him. It was really very hard work. If the truth must be told, he did not know how to begin. What was he to say to her? How was he to commence a conversation that should end by being tender? She was very handsome certainly, and for him she could look interesting; but for his very life he did not know how to begin to say anything special to her. A liaison with such a woman as Lady Dumbello,--platonic, innocent, but nevertheless very intimate,--would certainly lend a grace to his life, which, under its present circumstances, was rather dry. He was told,--told by public rumour which had reached him through his uncle,--that the lady was willing. She certainly looked as though she liked him; but how was he to begin? The art of startling the House of Commons and frightening the British public by the voluminous accuracy of his statistics he had already learned; but what was he to say to a pretty woman?
"You'll be sure to be in London in April?"
This was on another occasion.
"Oh, yes; I think so."
"In Carlton Gardens, I suppose."
"Yes; Lord Dumbello has got a lease of the house now."
"Has he, indeed? Ah, it's an excellent house. I hope I shall be allowed to call there sometimes."
"Certainly,--only I know you must be so busy."
"Not on Saturdays and Sundays."
"I always receive on Sundays," said Lady Dumbello. Mr. Palliser felt that there was nothing peculiarly gracious in this. A permission to call when all her other acquaintances would be there, was not much; but still, perhaps, it was as much as he could expect to obtain on that occasion. He looked up and saw that Lord Dumbello's eyes were again upon him, and that Lord Dumbello's brow was black. He began to doubt whether a country house, where all the people were thrown together, was the best place in the world for such manoeuvring. Lady Dumbello was very handsome, and he liked to look at her, but he could not find any subject on which to interest her in that drawing-room at Hartlebury. Later in the evening he found himself saying something to her about the sugar duties, and then he knew that he had better give it up. He had only one day more, and that was required imperatively for his speech. The matter would go much easier in London, and he would postpone it till then. In the crowded rooms of London private conversation would be much easier, and Lord Dumbello wouldn't stand over and look at him. Lady Dumbello had taken his remarks about the sugar very kindly, and had asked for a definition of an ad valorem duty. It was a nearer approach to a real conversation than he had ever before made; but the subject had been unlucky, and could not, in his hands, be brought round to anything tender; so he resolved to postpone his gallantry till the London spring should make it easy, and felt as he did so, that he was relieved for the time from a heavy weight.
"Good-by, Lady Dumbello," he said, on the next evening. "I start early to-morrow morning."
"Good-by, Mr. Palliser."
As she spoke she smiled ever so sweetly, but she certainly had not learned to call him Plantagenet as yet. He went up to London and immediately got himself to work. The accurate and voluminous speech came off with considerable credit to himself,--credit of that quiet, enduring kind which is accorded to such men. The speech was respectable, dull, and correct. Men listened to it, or sat with their hats over their eyes, asleep, pretending to do so; and the Daily Jupiter in the morning had a leading article about it, which, however, left the reader at its close altogether in doubt whether Mr. Palliser might be supposed to be a great financial pundit or no. Mr. Palliser might become a shining light to the moneyed world, and a glory to the banking interests; he might be a future Chancellor of the Exchequer. But then again, it might turn out that, in these affairs, he was a mere ignis fatuus, a blind guide,--a man to be laid aside as very respectable, but of no depth. Who, then, at the present time, could judiciously risk his credit by declaring whether Mr. Palliser understood his subject or did not understand it? We are not content in looking to our newspapers for all the information that earth and human intellect can afford; but we demand from them what we might demand if a daily sheet could come to us from the world of spirits. The result, of course, is this,--that the papers do pretend that they have come daily from the world of spirits; but the oracles are very doubtful, as were those of old.
Plantagenet Palliser, though he was contented with this article, felt, as he sat in his chambers in the Albany, that something else was wanting to his happiness. This sort of life was all very well. Ambition was a grand thing, and it became him, as a Palliser and a future peer, to make politics his profession. But might he not spare an hour or two for Amaryllis in the shade? Was it not hard, this life of his? Since he had been told that Lady Dumbello smiled upon him, he had certainly thought more about her smiles than had been good for his statistics. It seemed as though a new vein in his body had been brought into use, and that blood was running where blood had never run before. If he had seen Lady Dumbello before Dumbello had seen her, might he not have married her? Ah! in such case as that, had she been simply Miss Grantly, or Lady Griselda Grantly, as the case might have been, he thought he might have been able to speak to her with more ease. As it was, he certainly had found the task difficult, down in the country, though he had heard of men of his class doing the same sort of thing all his life. For my own part, I believe that the reputed sinners are much more numerous than the sinners.
As he sat there, a certain Mr. Fothergill came in upon him. Mr. Fothergill was a gentleman who managed most of his uncle's ordinary affairs,--a clever fellow, who knew on which side his bread was buttered. Mr. Fothergill was naturally anxious to stand well with the heir; but to stand well with the owner was his business in life, and with that business he never allowed anything to interfere. On this occasion Mr. Fothergill was very civil, complimenting his future possible patron on his very powerful speech, and predicting for him political power with much more certainty than the newspapers which had, or had not, come from the world of spirits. Mr. Fothergill had come in to say a word or two about some matter of business. As all Mr. Palliser's money passed through Mr. Fothergill's hands, and as his electioneering interests were managed by Mr. Fothergill, Mr. Fothergill not unfrequently called to say a necessary word or two. When this was done he said another word or two, which might be necessary or not, as the case might be.
"Mr. Palliser," said he, "I wonder you don't think of marrying. I hope you'll excuse me."
Mr. Palliser was by no means sure that he would excuse him, and sat himself suddenly upright in his chair in a manner that was intended to exhibit a first symptom of outraged dignity. But, singularly enough, he had himself been thinking of marriage at that moment. How would it have been with him had he known the beautiful Griselda before the Dumbello alliance had been arranged? Would he have married her? Would he have been comfortable if he had married her? Of course he could not marry now, seeing that he was in love with Lady Dumbello, and that the lady in question, unfortunately, had a husband of her own; but though he had been thinking of marrying, he did not like to have the subject thus roughly thrust before his eyes, and, as it were, into his very lap by his uncle's agent. Mr. Fothergill, no doubt, saw the first symptom of outraged dignity, for he was a clever, sharp man. But, perhaps, he did not in truth much regard it. Perhaps he had received instructions which he was bound to regard above all other matters.
"I hope you'll excuse me, Mr. Palliser, I do, indeed; but I say it because I am half afraid of some,--some,--some diminution of good feeling, perhaps, I had better call it, between you and your uncle. Anything of that kind would be such a monstrous pity."
"I am not aware of any such probability."
This Mr. Palliser said with considerable dignity; but when the words were spoken he bethought himself whether he had not told a fib.
"No; perhaps not. I trust there is no such probability. But the duke is a very determined man if he takes anything into his head;--and then he has so much in his power."
"He has not me in his power, Mr. Fothergill."
"No, no, no. One man does not have another in his power in this country,--not in that way; but then you know, Mr. Palliser, it would hardly do to offend him; would it?"
"I would rather not offend him, as is natural. Indeed, I do not wish to offend any one."
"Exactly so; and least of all the duke, who has the whole property in his own hands. We may say the whole, for he can marry to-morrow if he pleases. And then his life is so good. I don't know a stouter man of his age, anywhere."
"I'm very glad to hear it."
"I'm sure you are, Mr. Palliser. But if he were to take offence, you know?"
"I should put up with it."
"Yes, exactly; that's what you would do. But it would be worth while to avoid it, seeing how much he has in his power."
"Has the duke sent you to me now, Mr. Fothergill?"
"No, no, no,--nothing of the sort. But he dropped words the other day which made me fancy that he was not quite,--quite,--quite at ease about you. I have long known that he would be very glad indeed to see an heir born to the property. The other morning,--I don't know whether there was anything in it,--but I fancied he was going to make some change in the present arrangements. He did not do it, and it might have been fancy. Only think, Mr. Palliser, what one word of his might do! If he says a word, he never goes back from it." Then, having said so much, Mr. Fothergill went his way.
Mr. Palliser understood the meaning of all this very well. It was not the first occasion on which Mr. Fothergill had given him advice,--advice such as Mr. Fothergill himself had no right to give him. He always received such counsel with an air of half-injured dignity, intending thereby to explain to Mr. Fothergill that he was intruding. But he knew well whence the advice came; and though, in all such cases, he had made up his mind not to follow such counsel, it had generally come to pass that Mr. Palliser's conduct had more or less accurately conformed itself to Mr. Fothergill's advice. A word from the duke might certainly do a great deal! Mr. Palliser resolved that in that affair of Lady Dumbello he would follow his own devices. But, nevertheless, it was undoubtedly true that a word from the duke might do a great deal!
We, who are in the secret, know how far Mr. Palliser had already progressed in his iniquitous passion before he left Hartlebury. Others, who were perhaps not so well informed, gave him credit for a much more advanced success. Lady Clandidlem, in her letter to Lady De Courcy, written immediately after the departure of Mr. Palliser, declared that, having heard of that gentleman's intended matutinal departure, she had confidently expected to learn at the breakfast-table that Lady Dumbello had flown with him. From the tone of her ladyship's language, it seemed as though she had been robbed of an anticipated pleasure by Lady Dumbello's prolonged sojourn in the halls of her husband's ancestors. "I feel, however, quite convinced," said Lady Clandidlem, "that it cannot go on longer than the spring. I never yet saw a man so infatuated as Mr. Palliser. He did not leave her for one moment all the time he was here. No one but Lady Hartletop would have permitted it. But, you know, there is nothing so pleasant as good old family friendships."
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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44
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VALENTINE'S DAY AT ALLINGTON.
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Lily had exacted a promise from her mother before her illness, and during the period of her convalescence often referred to it, reminding her mother that that promise had been made, and must be kept. Lily was to be told the day on which Crosbie was to be married. It had come to the knowledge of them all that the marriage was to take place in February. But this was not sufficient for Lily. She must know the day.
And as the time drew nearer,--Lily becoming stronger the while, and less subject to medical authority,--the marriage of Crosbie and Alexandrina was spoken of much more frequently at the Small House. It was not a subject which Mrs. Dale or Bell would have chosen for conversation; but Lily would refer to it. She would begin by doing so almost in a drolling strain, alluding to herself as a forlorn damsel in a play-book; and then she would go on to speak of his interests as a matter which was still of great moment to her. But in the course of such talking she would too often break down, showing by some sad word or melancholy tone how great was the burden on her heart. Mrs. Dale and Bell would willingly have avoided the subject, but Lily would not have it avoided. For them it was a very difficult matter on which to speak in her hearing. It was not permitted to them to say a word of abuse against Crosbie, as to whom they thought that no word of condemnation could be sufficiently severe; and they were forced to listen to such excuses for his conduct as Lily chose to manufacture, never daring to point out how vain those excuses were.
Indeed, in those days Lily reigned as a queen at the Small House. Ill-usage and illness together falling into her hands had given her such power, that none of the other women were able to withstand it. Nothing was said about it; but it was understood by them all, Jane and the cook included, that Lily was for the time paramount. She was a dear, gracious, loving, brave queen, and no one was anxious to rebel;--only that those praises of Crosbie were so very bitter in the ears of her subjects. The day was named soon enough, and the tidings came down to Allington. On the fourteenth of February, Crosbie was to be made a happy man. This was not known to the Dales till the twelfth, and they would willingly have spared the knowledge then, had it been possible to spare it. But it was not so, and on that evening Lily was told.
During these days, Bell used to see her uncle daily. Her visits were made with the pretence of taking to him information as to Lily's health; but there was perhaps at the bottom of them a feeling that, as the family intended to leave the Small House at the end of March, it would be well to let the squire know that there was no enmity in their hearts against him. Nothing more had been said about their moving,--nothing, that is, from them to him. But the matter was going on, and he knew it. Dr. Crofts was already in treaty on their behalf for a small furnished house at Guestwick. The squire was very sad about it,--very sad indeed. When Hopkins spoke to him on the subject, he sharply desired that faithful gardener to hold his tongue, giving it to be understood that such things were not to be made matter of talk by the Allington dependants till they had been officially announced. With Bell during these visits he never alluded to the matter. She was the chief sinner, in that she had refused to marry her cousin, and had declined even to listen to rational counsel upon the matter. But the squire felt that he could not discuss the subject with her, seeing that he had been specially informed by Mrs. Dale that his interference would not be permitted; and then he was perhaps aware that if he did discuss the subject with Bell, he would not gain much by such discussion. Their conversation, therefore, generally fell upon Crosbie, and the tone in which he was mentioned in the Great House was very different from that assumed in Lily's presence.
"He'll be a wretched man," said the squire, when he told Bell of the day that had been fixed.
"I don't want him to be wretched," said Bell. "But I can hardly think that he can act as he has done without being punished."
"He will be a wretched man. He gets no fortune with her, and she will expect everything that fortune can give. I believe, too, that she is older than he is. I cannot understand it. Upon my word, I cannot understand how a man can be such a knave and such a fool. Give my love to Lily. I'll see her to-morrow or the next day. She's well rid of him; I'm sure of that;--though I suppose it would not do to tell her so."
The morning of the fourteenth came upon them at the Small House, as comes the morning of those special days which have been long considered, and which are to be long remembered. It brought with it a hard, bitter frost,--a black, biting frost,--such a frost as breaks the water-pipes, and binds the ground to the hardness of granite. Lily, queen as she was, had not yet been allowed to go back to her own chamber, but occupied the larger bed in her mother's room, her mother sleeping on a smaller one.
"Mamma," she said, "how cold they'll be!" Her mother had announced to her the fact of the black frost, and these were the first words she spoke.
"I fear their hearts will be cold also," said Mrs. Dale. She ought not to have said so. She was transgressing the acknowledged rule of the house in saying any word that could be construed as being inimical to Crosbie or his bride. But her feeling on the matter was too strong, and she could not restrain herself.
"Why should their hearts be cold? Oh, mamma, that is a terrible thing to say. Why should their hearts be cold?"
"I hope it may not be so."
"Of course you do; of course we all hope it. He was not cold-hearted, at any rate. A man is not cold-hearted, because he does not know himself. Mamma, I want you to wish for their happiness."
Mrs. Dale was silent for a minute or two before she answered this, but then she did answer it. "I think I do," said she. "I think I do wish for it."
"I am very sure that I do," said Lily.
At this time Lily had her breakfast upstairs, but went down into the drawing-room in the course of the morning.
"You must be very careful in wrapping yourself as you go downstairs," said Bell, who stood by the tray on which she had brought up the toast and tea. "The cold is what you would call awful."
"I should call it jolly," said Lily, "if I could get up and go out. Do you remember lecturing me about talking slang the day that he first came?"
"Did I, my pet?"
"Don't you remember, when I called him a swell? Ah, dear! so he was. That was the mistake, and it was all my own fault, as I had seen it from the first."
Bell for a moment turned her face away, and beat with her foot against the ground. Her anger was more difficult of restraint than was even her mother's,--and now, not restraining it, but wishing to hide it, she gave it vent in this way.
"I understand, Bell. I know what your foot means when it goes in that way; and you shan't do it. Come here, Bell, and let me teach you Christianity. I'm a fine sort of teacher, am I not? And I did not quite mean that."
"I wish I could learn it from some one," said Bell. "There are circumstances in which what we call Christianity seems to me to be hardly possible."
"When your foot goes in that way it is a very unchristian foot, and you ought to keep it still. It means anger against him, because he discovered before it was too late that he would not be happy,--that is, that he and I would not be happy together if we were married."
"Don't scrutinize my foot too closely, Lily."
"But your foot must bear scrutiny, and your eyes, and your voice. He was very foolish to fall in love with me. And so was I very foolish to let him love me, at a moment's notice,--without a thought as it were. I was so proud of having him, that I gave myself up to him all at once, without giving him a chance of thinking of it. In a week or two it was done. Who could expect that such an engagement should be lasting?"
"And why not? That is nonsense, Lily. But we will not talk about it."
"Ah, but I want to talk about it. It was as I have said, and if so, you shouldn't hate him because he did the only thing which he honestly could do when he found out his mistake."
"What; become engaged again within a week!"
"There had been a very old friendship, Bell; you must remember that. But I was speaking of his conduct to me, and not of his conduct to--" And then she remembered that that other lady might at this very moment possess the name which she had once been so proud to think that she would bear herself. "Bell," she said, stopping her other speech suddenly, "at what o'clock do people get married in London?"
"Oh, at all manner of hours,--any time before twelve. They will be fashionable, and will be married late."
"You don't think she's Mrs. Crosbie yet, then?"
"Lady Alexandrina Crosbie," said Bell, shuddering.
"Yes, of course; I forgot. I should so like to see her. I feel such an interest about her. I wonder what coloured hair she has. I suppose she is a sort of Juno of a woman,--very tall and handsome. I'm sure she has not got a pug-nose like me. Do you know what I should really like, only of course it's not possible;--to be godmother to his first child."
"Oh, Lily!"
"I should. Don't you hear me say that I know it's not possible? I'm not going up to London to ask her. She'll have all manner of grandees for her godfathers and godmothers. I wonder what those grand people are really like."
"I don't think there's any difference. Look at Lady Julia."
"Oh, she's not a grand person. It isn't merely having a title. Don't you remember that he told us that Mr. Palliser is about the grandest grandee of them all. I suppose people do learn to like them. He always used to say that he had been so long among people of that sort, that it would be very difficult for him to divide himself off from them. I should never have done for that kind of thing; should I?"
"There is nothing I despise so much as what you call that kind of thing."
"Do you? I don't. After all, think how much work they do. He used to tell me of that. They have all the governing in their hands, and get very little money for doing it."
"Worse luck for the country."
"The country seems to do pretty well. But you're a radical, Bell. My belief is, you wouldn't be a lady if you could help it."
"I'd sooner be an honest woman."
"And so you are,--my own dear, dearest, honest Bell,--and the fairest lady that I know. If I were a man, Bell, you are just the girl that I should worship."
"But you are not a man; so it's no good."
"But you mustn't let your foot go astray in that way; you mustn't, indeed. Somebody said, that whatever is, is right, and I declare I believe it."
"I'm sometimes inclined to think, that whatever is, is wrong."
"That's because you're a radical. I think I'll get up now, Bell; only it's so frightfully cold that I'm afraid."
"There's a beautiful fire," said Bell.
"Yes; I see. But the fire won't go all around me, like the bed does. I wish I could know the very moment when they're at the altar. It's only half-past ten yet."
"I shouldn't be at all surprised if it's over."
"Over! What a word that is! A thing like that is over, and then all the world cannot put it back again. What if he should be unhappy after all?"
"He must take his chance," said Bell, thinking within her own mind that that chance would be a very bad one.
"Of course he must take his chance. Well,--I'll get up now." And then she took her first step out into the cold world beyond her bed. "We must all take our chance. I have made up my mind that it will be at half-past eleven."
When half-past eleven came, she was seated in a large easy chair over the drawing-room fire, with a little table by her side, on which a novel was lying. She had not opened her book that morning, and had been sitting for some time perfectly silent, with her eyes closed, and her watch in her hand.
"Mamma," she said at last, "it is over now, I'm sure."
[ILLUSTRATION: "Mamma," she said at last, "it is over now, I'm sure."]
"What is over, my dear?"
"He has made that lady his wife. I hope God will bless them, and I pray that they may be happy." As she spoke these words, there was an unwonted solemnity in her tone which startled Mrs. Dale and Bell.
"I also will hope so," said Mrs. Dale. "And now, Lily, will it not be well that you should turn your mind away from the subject, and endeavour to think of other things?"
"But I can't, mamma. It is so easy to say that; but people can't choose their own thoughts."
"They can usually direct them as they will, if they make the effort."
"But I can't make the effort. Indeed, I don't know why I should. It seems natural to me to think about him, and I don't suppose it can be very wrong. When you have had so deep an interest in a person, you can't drop him all of a sudden." Then there was again silence, and after a while Lily took up her novel. She made that effort of which her mother had spoken, but she made it altogether in vain. "I declare, Bell," she said, "it's the greatest rubbish I ever attempted to read." This was specially ungrateful, because Bell had recommended the book. "All the books have got to be so stupid! I think I'll read Pilgrim's Progress again."
"What do you say to Robinson Crusoe?" said Bell.
"Or Paul and Virginia?" said Lily. "But I believe I'll have Pilgrim's Progress. I never can understand it, but I rather think that makes it nicer."
"I hate books I can't understand," said Bell. "I like a book to be clear as running water, so that the whole meaning may be seen at once."
"The quick seeing of the meaning must depend a little on the reader, must it not?" said Mrs. Dale.
"The reader mustn't be a fool, of course," said Bell.
"But then so many readers are fools," said Lily. "And yet they get something out of their reading. Mrs. Crump is always poring over the Revelations, and nearly knows them by heart. I don't think she could interpret a single image, but she has a hazy, misty idea of the truth. That's why she likes it,--because it's too beautiful to be understood; and that's why I like Pilgrim's Progress." After which Bell offered to get the book in question.
"No, not now," said Lily. "I'll go on with this, as you say it's so grand. The personages are always in their tantrums, and go on as though they were mad. Mamma, do you know where they're going for the honeymoon?"
"No, my dear."
"He used to talk to me about going to the lakes." And then there was another pause, during which Bell observed that her mother's face became clouded with anxiety. "But I won't think of it any more," continued Lily; "I will fix my mind to something." And then she got up from her chair. "I don't think it would have been so difficult if I had not been ill."
"Of course it would not, my darling."
"And I'm going to be well again now, immediately. Let me see: I was told to read Carlyle's History of the French Revolution, and I think I'll begin now." It was Crosbie who had told her to read the book, as both Bell and Mrs. Dale were well aware. "But I must put it off till I can get it down from the other house."
"Jane shall fetch it, if you really want it," said Mrs. Dale.
"Bell shall get it, when she goes up in the afternoon; will you, Bell? And I'll try to get on with this stuff in the meantime." Then again she sat with her eyes fixed upon the pages of the book. "I'll tell you what, mamma,--you may have some comfort in this: that when to-day's gone by, I shan't make a fuss about any other day."
"Nobody thinks that you are making a fuss, Lily."
"Yes, but I am. Isn't it odd, Bell, that it should take place on Valentine's day? I wonder whether it was so settled on purpose, because of the day. Oh, dear, I used to think so often of the letter that I should get from him on this day, when he would tell me that I was his valentine. Well; he's got another--valen--tine--now." So much she said with articulate voice, and then she broke down, bursting out into convulsive sobs, and crying in her mother's arms as though she would break her heart. And yet her heart was not broken, and she was still strong in that resolve which she had made, that her grief should not overpower her. As she had herself said, the thing would not have been so difficult, had she not been weakened by illness.
"Lily, my darling; my poor, ill-used darling."
"No, mamma, I won't be that." And she struggled grievously to get the better of the hysterical attack which had overpowered her. "I won't be regarded as ill-used; not as specially ill-used. But I am your darling, your own darling. Only I wish you'd beat me and thump me when I'm such a fool, instead of pitying me. It's a great mistake being soft to people when they make fools of themselves. There, Bell; there's your stupid book, and I won't have any more of it. I believe it was that that did it." And she pushed the book away from her.
After this little scene she said no further word about Crosbie and his bride on that day, but turned the conversation towards the prospect of their new house at Guestwick.
"It will be a great comfort to be nearer Dr. Crofts; won't it, Bell?"
"I don't know," said Bell.
"Because if we are ill, he won't have such a terrible distance to come."
"That will be a comfort for him, I should think," said Bell, very demurely.
In the evening the first volume of the French Revolution had been procured, and Lily stuck to her reading with laudable perseverance; till at eight her mother insisted on her going to bed, queen as she was.
"I don't believe a bit, you know, that the king was such a bad man as that," she said.
"I do," said Bell.
"Ah, that's because you're a radical. I never will believe that kings are so much worse than other people. As for Charles the First, he was about the best man in history."
This was an old subject of dispute; but Lily on the present occasion was allowed her own way,--as being an invalid.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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45
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VALENTINE'S DAY IN LONDON.
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The fourteenth of February in London was quite as black, and cold, and as wintersome as it was at Allington, and was, perhaps, somewhat more melancholy in its coldness. Nevertheless Lady Alexandrina De Courcy looked as bright as bridal finery could make her, when she got out of her carriage and walked into St. James's church at eleven o'clock on that morning.
It had been finally arranged that the marriage should take place in London. There were certainly many reasons which would have made a marriage from Courcy Castle more convenient. The De Courcy family were all assembled at their country family residence, and could therefore have been present at the ceremony without cost or trouble. The castle too was warm with the warmth of life, and the pleasantness of home would have lent a grace to the departure of one of the daughters of the house. The retainers and servants were there, and something of the rich mellowness of a noble alliance might have been felt, at any rate by Crosbie, at a marriage so celebrated. And it must have been acknowledged, even by Lady De Courcy, that the house in Portman Square was very cold--that a marriage from thence would be cold,--that there could be no hope of attaching to it any honour and glory, or of making it resound with fashionable éclat in the columns of the _Morning Post_. But then, had they been married in the country, the earl would have been there; whereas there was no probability of his travelling up to London for the purpose of being present on such an occasion.
The earl was very terrible in these days, and Alexandrina, as she became confidential in her communications with her future husband, spoke of him as of an ogre, who could not by any means be avoided in all the concerns of life, but whom one might shun now and again by some subtle device and careful arrangement of favourable circumstances. Crosbie had more than once taken upon himself to hint that he did not specially regard the ogre, seeing that for the future he could keep himself altogether apart from the malicious monster's dominions.
"He will not come to me in our new home," he had said to his love, with some little touch of affection. But to this view of the case Lady Alexandrina had demurred. The ogre in question was not only her parent, but was also a noble peer, and she could not agree to any arrangement by which their future connection with the earl, and with nobility in general, might be endangered. Her parent, doubtless, was an ogre, and in his ogreship could make himself very terrible to those near him; but then might it not be better for them to be near to an earl who was an ogre, than not to be near to any earl at all? She had therefore signified to Crosbie that the ogre must be endured.
But, nevertheless, it was a great thing to be rid of him on that happy occasion. He would have said very dreadful things,--things so dreadful that there might have been a question whether the bridegroom could have borne them. Since he had heard of Crosbie's accident at the railway station, he had constantly talked with fiendish glee of the beating which had been administered to his son-in-law. Lady De Courcy in taking Crosbie's part, and maintaining that the match was fitting for her daughter, had ventured to declare before her husband that Crosbie was a man of fashion, and the earl would now ask, with a loathsome grin, whether the bridegroom's fashion had been improved by his little adventure at Paddington. Crosbie, to whom all this was not repeated, would have preferred a wedding in the country. But the countess and Lady Alexandrina knew better.
The earl had strictly interdicted any expenditure, and the countess had of necessity construed this as forbidding any unnecessary expense. "To marry a girl without any immediate cost was a thing which nobody could understand," as the countess remarked to her eldest daughter.
"I would really spend as little as possible," Lady Amelia had answered. "You see, mamma, there are circumstances about it which one doesn't wish to have talked about just at present. There's the story of that girl,--and then that fracas at the station. I really think it ought to be as quiet as possible." The good sense of Lady Amelia was not to be disputed, as her mother acknowledged. But then if the marriage were managed in any notoriously quiet way, the very notoriety of that quiet would be as dangerous as an attempt at loud glory. "But it won't cost as much," said Amelia. And thus it had been resolved that the wedding should be very quiet.
To this Crosbie had assented very willingly, though he had not relished the manner in which the countess had explained to him her views.
"I need not tell you, Adolphus," she had said, "how thoroughly satisfied I am with this marriage. My dear girl feels that she can be happy as your wife, and what more can I want? I declared to her and to Amelia that I was not ambitious, for their sakes, and have allowed them both to please themselves."
"I hope they have pleased themselves," said Crosbie.
"I trust so; but nevertheless,--I don't know whether I make myself understood?"
"Quite so, Lady De Courcy. If Alexandrina were going to marry the eldest son of a marquis, you would have a longer procession to church than will be necessary when she marries me."
"You put it in such an odd way, Adolphus."
"It's all right so long as we understand each other. I can assure you I don't want any procession at all. I should be quite contented to go down with Alexandrina, arm in arm, like Darby and Joan, and let the clerk give her away."
We may say that he would have been much better contented could he have been allowed to go down the street without any encumbrance on his arm. But there was no possibility now for such deliverance as that.
Both Lady Amelia and Mr. Gazebee had long since discovered the bitterness of his heart and the fact of his repentance, and Gazebee had ventured to suggest to his wife that his noble sister-in-law was preparing for herself a life of misery.
"He'll become quiet and happy when he's used to it," Lady Amelia had replied, thinking, perhaps, of her own experiences.
"I don't know, my dear; he's not a quiet man. There's something in his eye which tells me that he could be very hard to a woman."
"It has gone too far now for any change," Lady Amelia had answered.
"Well; perhaps it has."
"And I know my sister so well; she would not hear of it. I really think they will do very well when they become used to each other."
Mr. Gazebee, who also had had his own experiences, hardly dared to hope so much. His home had been satisfactory to him, because he had been a calculating man, and having made his calculation correctly was willing to take the net result. He had done so all his life with success. In his house his wife was paramount,--as he very well knew. But no effort on his wife's part, had she wished to make such effort, could have forced him to spend more than two-thirds of his income. Of this she also was aware, and had trimmed her sails accordingly, likening herself to him in this respect. But of such wisdom, and such trimmings, and such adaptability, what likelihood was there with Mr. Crosbie and Lady Alexandrina?
"At any rate, it is too late now," said Lady Amelia, thus concluding the conversation.
But nevertheless, when the last moment came, there was some little attempt at glory. Who does not know the way in which a lately married couple's little dinner-party stretches itself out from the pure simplicity of a fried sole and a leg of mutton to the attempt at clear soup, the unfortunately cold dish of round balls which is handed about after the sole, and the brightly red jelly, and beautifully pink cream, which are ordered, in the last agony of ambition, from the next pastrycook's shop?
"We cannot give a dinner, my dear, with only cook and Sarah."
It has thus begun, and the husband has declared that he has no such idea. "If Phipps and Dowdney can come here and eat a bit of mutton, they are very welcome; if not, let them stay away. And you might as well ask Phipps's sister; just to have some one to go with you into the drawing-room."
"I'd much rather go alone, because then I can read,"--or sleep, we may say.
But her husband has explained that she would look friendless in this solitary state, and therefore Phipps's sister has been asked. Then the dinner has progressed down to those costly jellies which have been ordered in a last agony. There has been a conviction on the minds of both of them that the simple leg of mutton would have been more jolly for them all. Had those round balls not been carried about by a hired man; had simple mutton with hot potatoes been handed to Miss Phipps by Sarah, Miss Phipps would not have simpered with such unmeaning stiffness when young Dowdney spoke to her. They would have been much more jolly. "Have a bit more mutton, Phipps; and where do you like it?" How pleasant it sounds! But we all know that it is impossible. My young friend had intended this, but his dinner had run itself away to cold round balls and coloured forms from the pastrycook. And so it was with the Crosbie marriage.
The bride must leave the church in a properly appointed carriage, and the postboys must have wedding favours. So the thing grew; not into noble proportions, not into proportions of true glory, justifying the attempt and making good the gala. A well-cooked rissole, brought pleasantly to you, is good eating. A gala marriage, when everything is in keeping, is excellent sport. Heaven forbid that we should have no gala marriages. But the small spasmodic attempt, made in opposition to manifest propriety, made with an inner conviction of failure,--that surely should be avoided in marriages, in dinners, and in all affairs of life.
There were bridesmaids and there was a breakfast. Both Margaretta and Rosina came up to London for the occasion, as did also a first cousin of theirs, one Miss Gresham, a lady whose father lived in the same county. Mr. Gresham had married a sister of Lord De Courcy's, and his services were also called into requisition. He was brought up to give away the bride, because the earl,--as the paragraph in the newspaper declared,--was confined at Courcy Castle by his old hereditary enemy, the gout. A fourth bridesmaid also was procured, and thus there was a bevy, though not so large a bevy as is now generally thought to be desirable. There were only three or four carriages at the church, but even three or four were something. The weather was so frightfully cold that the light-coloured silks of the ladies carried with them a show of discomfort. Girls should be very young to look nice in light dresses on a frosty morning, and the bridesmaids at Lady Alexandrina's wedding were not very young. Lady Rosina's nose was decidedly red. Lady Margaretta was very wintry, and apparently very cross. Miss Gresham was dull, tame, and insipid; and the Honourable Miss O'Flaherty, who filled the fourth place, was sulky at finding that she had been invited to take a share in so very lame a performance.
But the marriage was made good, and Crosbie bore up against his misfortunes like a man. Montgomerie Dobbs and Fowler Pratt both stood by him, giving him, let us hope, some assurance that he was not absolutely deserted by all the world,--that he had not given himself up, bound hand and foot, to the De Courcys, to be dealt with in all matters as they might please. It was that feeling which had been so grievous to him,--and that other feeling, cognate to it, that if he should ultimately succeed in rebelling against the De Courcys, he would find himself a solitary man.
"Yes; I shall go," Fowler Pratt had said to Montgomerie Dobbs. "I always stick to a fellow if I can. Crosbie has behaved like a blackguard, and like a fool also; and he knows that I think so. But I don't see why I should drop him on that account. I shall go as he has asked me."
"So shall I," said Montgomerie Dobbs, who considered that he would be safe in doing whatever Fowler Pratt did, and who remarked to himself that after all Crosbie was marrying the daughter of an earl.
Then, after the marriage, came the breakfast, at which the countess presided with much noble magnificence. She had not gone to church, thinking, no doubt, that she would be better able to maintain her good humour at the feast, if she did not subject herself to the chance of lumbago in the church. At the foot of the table sat Mr. Gresham, her brother-in-law, who had undertaken to give the necessary toast and make the necessary speech. The Honourable John was there, saying all manner of ill-natured things about his sister and new brother-in-law, because he had been excluded from his proper position at the foot of the table. But Alexandrina had declared that she would not have the matter entrusted to her brother. The Honourable George would not come, because the countess had not asked his wife.
"Maria may be slow, and all that sort of thing," George had said; "but she is my wife. And she had got what they haven't. Love me, love my dog, you know." So he had stayed down at Courcy,--very properly as I think.
Alexandrina had wished to go away before breakfast, and Crosbie would not have cared how early an escape had been provided for him; but the countess had told her daughter that if she would not wait for the breakfast, there should be no breakfast at all, and in fact no wedding; nothing but a simple marriage. Had there been a grand party, that going away of the bride and bridegroom might be very well; but the countess felt that on such an occasion as this nothing but the presence of the body of the sacrifice could give any reality to the festivity. So Crosbie and Lady Alexandrina Crosbie heard Mr. Gresham's speech, in which he prophesied for the young couple an amount of happiness and prosperity almost greater than is compatible with the circumstances of humanity. His young friend Crosbie, whose acquaintance he had been delighted to make, was well known as one of the rising pillars of the State. Whether his future career might be parliamentary, or devoted to the permanent Civil Service of the country, it would be alike great, noble, and prosperous. As to his dear niece, who was now filling that position in life which was most beautiful and glorious for a young woman,--she could not have done better. She had preferred genius to wealth,--so said Mr. Gresham,--and she would find her fitting reward. As to her finding her fitting reward, whatever her preferences may have been, there Mr. Gresham was no doubt quite right. On that head I myself have no doubt whatever. After that Crosbie returned thanks, making a much better speech than nine men do out of ten on such occasions, and then the thing was over. No other speaking was allowed, and within half an hour from that time, he and his bride were in the post-chaise, being carried away to the Folkestone railway station; for that place had been chosen as the scene of their honeymoon. It had been at one time intended that the journey to Folkestone should be made simply as the first stage to Paris, but Paris and all foreign travelling had been given up by degrees.
"I don't care a bit about France,--we have been there so often," Alexandrina said.
She had wished to be taken to Naples, but Crosbie had made her understand at the first whispering of the word, that Naples was quite out of the question. He must look now in all things to money. From the very first outset of his career he must save a shilling wherever a shilling could be saved. To this view of life no opposition was made by the De Courcy interest. Lady Amelia had explained to her sister that they ought so to do their honeymooning that it should not cost more than if they began keeping house at once. Certain things must be done which, no doubt, were costly in their nature. The bride must take with her a well-dressed lady's-maid. The rooms at the Folkestone hotel must be large, and on the first floor. A carriage must be hired for her use while she remained; but every shilling must be saved the spending of which would not make itself apparent to the outer world. Oh, deliver us from the poverty of those who, with small means, affect a show of wealth! There is no whitening equal to that of sepulchres whited as they are whited!
By the proper administration of a slight bribe Crosbie secured for himself and his wife a compartment in the railway carriage to themselves. And as he seated himself opposite to Alexandrina, having properly tucked her up with all her bright-coloured trappings, he remembered that he had never in truth been alone with her before. He had danced with her frequently, and been left with her for a few minutes between the figures. He had flirted with her in crowded drawing-rooms, and had once found a moment at Courcy Castle to tell her that he was willing to marry her in spite of his engagement with Lilian Dale. But he had never walked with her for hours together as he had walked with Lily. He had never talked to her about government, and politics, and books, nor had she talked to him of poetry, of religion, and of the little duties and comforts of life. He had known the Lady Alexandrina for the last six or seven years; but he had never known her,--perhaps never would know her,--as he had learned to know Lily Dale within the space of two months.
And now that she was his wife, what was he to say to her? They two had commenced a partnership which was to make of them for the remaining term of their lives one body and one flesh. They were to be all-in-all to each other. But how was he to begin this all-in-all partnership? Had the priest, with his blessing, done it so sufficiently that no other doing on Crosbie's own part was necessary? There she was, opposite to him, his very actual wife,--bone of his bone; and what was he to say to her? As he settled himself on his seat, taking over his own knees a part of a fine fur rug trimmed with scarlet, with which he had covered her other mufflings, he bethought himself how much easier it would have been to talk to Lily. And Lily would have been ready with all her ears, and all her mind, and all her wit, to enter quickly upon whatever thoughts had occurred to him. In that respect Lily would have been a wife indeed,--a wife that would have transferred herself with quick mental activity into her husband's mental sphere. Had he begun about his office Lily would have been ready for him, but Alexandrina had never yet asked him a single question about his official life. Had he been prepared with a plan for to-morrow's happiness Lily would have taken it up eagerly, but Alexandrina never cared for such trifles.
"Are you quite comfortable?" he said, at last.
"Oh, yes, quite, thank you. By-the-by, what did you do with my dressing-case?"
And that question she did ask with some energy.
"It is under you. You can have it as foot-stool if you like it."
"Oh, no; I should scratch it. I was afraid that if Hannah had it, it might be lost." Then again there was silence, and Crosbie again considered as to what he would next say to his wife.
We all know the advice given us of old as to what we should do under such circumstances; and who can be so thoroughly justified in following that advice as a newly-married husband? So he put out his hand for hers and drew her closer to him.
"Take care of my bonnet," she said, as she felt the motion of the railway carriage when he kissed her. I don't think he kissed her again till he had landed her and her bonnet safely at Folkestone. How often would he have kissed Lily, and how pretty would her bonnet have been when she reached the end of her journey, and how delightfully happy would she have looked when she scolded him for bending it! But Alexandrina was quite in earnest about her bonnet; by far too much in earnest for any appearance of happiness.
So he sat without speaking, till the train came to the tunnel.
"I do so hate tunnels," said Alexandrina.
He had half intended to put out his hand again, under some mistaken idea that the tunnel afforded him an opportunity. The whole journey was one long opportunity, had he desired it; but his wife hated tunnels, and so he drew his hand back again. Lily's little fingers would have been ready for his touch. He thought of this, and could not help thinking of it.
He had _The Times_ newspaper in his dressing-bag. She also had a novel with her. Would she be offended if he took out the paper and read it? The miles seemed to pass by very slowly, and there was still another hour down to Folkestone. He longed for his _Times_, but resolved at last that he would not read unless she read first. She also had remembered her novel; but by nature she was more patient than he, and she thought that on such a journey any reading might perhaps be almost improper. So she sat tranquilly, with her eyes fixed on the netting over her husband's head.
At last he could stand it no longer, and he dashed off into a conversation, intended to be most affectionate and serious.
"Alexandrina," he said, and his voice was well-tuned for the tender serious manner, had her ears been alive to such tuning. "Alexandrina, this is a very important step that you and I have taken to-day."
"Yes; it is, indeed," said she.
"I trust we shall succeed in making each other happy."
"Yes; I hope we shall."
"If we both think seriously of it, and remember that that is our chief duty, we shall do so."
"Yes, I suppose we shall. I only hope we shan't find the house very cold. It is so new, and I am so subject to colds in my head. Amelia says we shall find it very cold; but then she was always against our going there."
"The house will do very well," said Crosbie. And Alexandrina could perceive that there was something of the master in his tone as he spoke.
"I am only telling you what Amelia said," she replied.
Had Lily been his bride, and had he spoken to her of their future life and mutual duties, how she would have kindled to the theme! She would have knelt at his feet on the floor of the carriage, and, looking up into his face, would have promised him to do her best,--her best,--her very best. And with what an eagerness of inward resolution would she have determined to keep her promise. He thought of all this now, but he knew that he ought not to think of it. Then, for some quarter of an hour, he did take out his newspaper, and she, when she saw him do so, did take out her novel.
He took out his newspaper, but he could not fix his mind upon the politics of the day. Had he not made a terrible mistake? Of what use to him in life would be that thing of a woman that sat opposite to him? Had not a great punishment come upon him, and had he not deserved the punishment? In truth, a great punishment had come upon him. It was not only that he had married a woman incapable of understanding the higher duties of married life, but that he himself would have been capable of appreciating the value of a woman who did understand them. He would have been happy with Lily Dale; and therefore we may surmise that his unhappiness with Lady Alexandrina would be the greater. There are men who, in marrying such as Lady Alexandrina De Courcy, would get the article best suited to them, as Mortimer Gazebee had done in marrying her sister. Miss Griselda Grantly, who had become Lady Dumbello, though somewhat colder and somewhat cleverer than Lady Alexandrina, had been of the same sort. But in marrying her, Lord Dumbello had got the article best suited to him;--if only the ill-natured world would allow him to keep the article. It was in this that Crosbie's failure had been so grievous,--that he had seen and approved the better course, but had chosen for himself to walk in that which was worse. During that week at Courcy Castle,--the week which he passed there immediately after his second visit to Allington,--he had deliberately made up his mind that he was more fit for the bad course than for the good one. The course was now before him, and he had no choice but to walk in it.
It was very cold when they got to Folkestone, and Lady Alexandrina shivered as she stepped into the private-looking carriage which had been sent to the station for her use.
"We shall find a good fire in the parlour at the hotel," said Crosbie.
"Oh, I hope so," said Alexandrina, "and in the bedroom too."
The young husband felt himself to be offended, but he hardly knew why. He felt himself to be offended, and with difficulty induced himself to go through all those little ceremonies the absence of which would have been remarked by everybody. He did his work, however, seeing to all her shawls and wrappings, speaking with good-nature to Hannah, and paying special attention to the dressing-case.
"What time would you like to dine?" he asked, as he prepared to leave her alone with Hannah in the bedroom.
"Whenever you please; only I should like some tea and bread-and-butter presently."
Crosbie went into the sitting-room, ordered the tea and bread-and-butter, ordered also the dinner, and then stood himself up with his back to the fire, in order that he might think a little of his future career.
He was a man who had long since resolved that his life should be a success. It would seem that all men would so resolve, if the matter were simply one of resolution. But the majority of men, as I take it, make no such resolution, and very many men resolve that they will be unsuccessful. Crosbie, however, had resolved on success, and had done much towards carrying out his purpose. He had made a name for himself, and had acquired a certain fame. That, however, was, as he acknowledged to himself, departing from him. He looked the matter straight in the face, and told himself that his fashion must be abandoned; but the office remained to him. He might still rule over Mr. Optimist, and make a subservient slave of Butterwell. That must be his line in life now, and to that line he would endeavour to be true. As to his wife and his home,--he would look to them for his breakfast, and perhaps his dinner. He would have a comfortable arm-chair, and if Alexandrina should become a mother, he would endeavour to love his children; but above all things he would never think of Lily. After that he stood and thought of her for half an hour.
"If you please, sir, my lady wants to know at what time you have ordered dinner."
"At seven, Hannah."
"My lady says she is very tired, and will lie down till dinner-time."
"Very well, Hannah. I will go into her room when it is time to dress. I hope they are making you comfortable downstairs?"
Then Crosbie strolled out on the pier in the dusk of the cold winter evening.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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46
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JOHN EAMES AT HIS OFFICE.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] Mr. Crosbie and his wife went upon their honeymoon tour to Folkestone in the middle of February, and returned to London about the end of March. Nothing of special moment to the interests of our story occurred during those six weeks, unless the proceedings of the young married couple by the sea-side may be thought to have any special interest. With regard to those proceedings I can only say that Crosbie was very glad when they were brought to a close. All holiday-making is hard work, but holiday-making with nothing to do is the hardest work of all. At the end of March they went into their new house, and we will hope that Lady Alexandrina did not find it very cold.
During this time Lily's recovery from her illness was being completed. She had no relapse, nor did anything occur to create a new fear on her account. But, nevertheless, Dr. Crofts gave it as his opinion that it would be inexpedient to move her into a fresh house at Lady-day. March is not a kindly month for invalids; and therefore with some regret on the part of Mrs. Dale, with much impatience on that of Bell, and with considerable outspoken remonstrance from Lily herself, the squire was requested to let them remain through the month of April. How the squire received this request, and in what way he assented to the doctor's reasoning, will be told in the course of a chapter or two.
In the meantime John Eames had continued his career in London without much immediate satisfaction to himself, or to the lady who boasted to be his heart's chosen queen. Miss Amelia Roper, indeed, was becoming very cross, and in her ill-temper was playing a game that was tending to create a frightful amount of hot water in Burton Crescent. She was devoting herself to a flirtation with Mr. Cradell, not only under the immediate eyes of Johnny Eames, but also under those of Mrs. Lupex. John Eames, the blockhead, did not like it. He was above all things anxious to get rid of Amelia and her claims; so anxious, that on certain moody occasions he would threaten himself with diverse tragical terminations to his career in London. He would enlist. He would go to Australia. He would blow out his brains. He would have "an explanation" with Amelia, tell her that she was a vixen, and proclaim his hatred. He would rush down to Allington and throw himself in despair at Lily's feet. Amelia was the bugbear of his life. Nevertheless, when she flirted with Cradell, he did not like it, and was ass enough to speak to Cradell about it.
"Of course I don't care," he said, "only it seems to me that you are making a fool of yourself."
"I thought you wanted to get rid of her."
"She's nothing on earth to me; only it does, you know--" "Does do what?" asked Cradell.
"Why, if I was to be fal-lalling with that married woman, you wouldn't like it. That's all about it. Do you mean to marry her?"
"What! --Amelia?"
"Yes; Amelia."
"Not if I know it."
"Then if I were you I would leave her alone. She's only making a fool of you."
Eames's advice may have been good, and the view taken by him of Amelia's proceedings may have been correct; but as regarded his own part in the affair, he was not wise. Miss Roper, no doubt, wished to make him jealous; and she succeeded in the teeth of his aversion to her and of his love elsewhere. He had no desire to say soft things to Miss Roper. Miss Roper, with all her skill, could not extract a word pleasantly soft from him once a week. But, nevertheless, soft words to her and from her in another quarter made him uneasy. Such being the case, must we not acknowledge that John Eames was still floundering in the ignorance of his hobbledehoyhood?
The Lupexes at this time still held their ground in the Crescent, although repeated warnings to go had been given them. Mrs. Roper, though she constantly spoke of sacrificing all that they owed her, still hankered, with a natural hankering, after her money. And as each warning was accompanied by a demand for payment, and usually produced some slight subsidy on account, the thing went on from week to week; and at the beginning of April Mr. and Mrs. Lupex were still boarders at Mrs. Roper's house.
Eames had heard nothing from Allington since the time of his Christmas visit, and his subsequent correspondence with Lord De Guest. In his letters from his mother he was told that game came frequently from Guestwick Manor, and in this way he knew that he was not forgotten by the earl. But of Lily he had heard not a word,--except, indeed, the rumour, which had now become general, that the Dales from the Small House were about to move themselves into Guestwick. When first he learned this he construed the tidings as favourable to himself, thinking that Lily, removed from the grandeur of Allington, might possibly be more easily within his reach; but, latterly, he had given up any such hope as that, and was telling himself that his friend at the Manor had abandoned all idea of making up the marriage. Three months had already elapsed since his visit. Five months had passed since Crosbie had surrendered his claim. Surely such a knave as Crosbie might be forgotten in five months! If any steps could have been taken through the squire, surely three months would have sufficed for them! It was very manifest to him that there was no ground of hope for him at Allington, and it would certainly be well for him to go off to Australia. He would go to Australia, but he would thrash Cradell first for having dared to interfere with Amelia Roper. That, generally, was the state of his mind during the first week in April.
Then there came to him a letter from the earl which instantly effected a great change in all his feelings; which taught him to regard Australia as a dream, and almost put him into a good humour with Cradell. The earl had by no means lost sight of his friend's interests at Allington; and, moreover, those interests were now backed by an ally who in this matter must be regarded as much more powerful than the earl. The squire had given in his consent to the Eames alliance.
The earl's letter was as follows:-- Guestwick Manor, April 7, 18--.
MY DEAR JOHN, I told you to write to me again, and you haven't done it. I saw your mother the other day, or else you might have been dead for anything I knew. A young man always ought to write letters when he is told to do so.
Eames, when he had got so far, felt himself rather aggrieved by this rebuke, knowing that he had abstained from writing to his patron simply from an unwillingness to intrude upon him with his letters. "By Jove, I'll write to him every week of his life, till he's sick of me," Johnny said to himself when he found himself thus instructed as to a young man's duties.
And now I have got to tell you a long story, and I should like it much better if you were down here, so that I might save myself the trouble; but you would think me ill-natured if I were to keep you waiting. I happened to meet Mr. Dale the other day, and he said that he should be very glad if a certain young lady would make up her mind to listen to a certain young friend of mine. So I asked him what he meant to do about the young lady's fortune, and he declared himself willing to give her a hundred a year during his life, and to settle four thousand pounds upon her after his death. I said that I would do as much on my part by the young man; but as two hundred a year, with your salary, would hardly give you enough to begin with, I'll make mine a hundred and fifty. You'll be getting up in your office soon, and with five hundred a year you ought to be able to get along; especially as you need not insure your life. I should live somewhere near Bloomsbury Square at first, because I'm told you can get a house for nothing. After all, what's fashion worth? You can bring your wife down here in the autumn, and have some shooting. She won't let you go to sleep under the trees, I'll be bound.
But you must look after the young lady. You will understand that no one has said a word to her about it; or, if they have, I don't know it. You'll find the squire on your side, that's all. Couldn't you manage to come down this Easter? Tell old Buffle, with my compliments, that I want you. I'll write to him if you like it. I did know him at one time, though I can't say I was ever very fond of him. It stands to reason that you can't get on with Miss Lily without seeing her; unless, indeed, you like better to write to her, which always seems to me to be very poor sort of fun. You'd much better come down, and go a-wooing in the regular old-fashioned way. I need not tell you that Lady Julia will be delighted to see you. You are a prime favourite with her since that affair at the railway station. She thinks a great deal more about that than she does about the bull.
Now, my dear fellow, you know all about it, and I shall take it very much amiss of you if you don't answer my letter soon.
Your very sincere friend, DE GUEST.
When Eames had finished this letter, sitting at his office-desk, his surprise and elation were so great that he hardly knew where he was or what he ought to do. Could it be the truth that Lily's uncle had not only consented that the match should be made, but that he had also promised to give his niece a considerable fortune? For a few minutes it seemed to Johnny as though all obstacles to his happiness were removed, and that there was no impediment between him and an amount of bliss of which he had hitherto hardly dared to dream. Then, when he considered the earl's munificence, he almost cried. He found that he could not compose his mind to think, or even his hand to write. He did not know whether it would be right in him to accept such pecuniary liberality from any living man, and almost thought that he should feel himself bound to reject the earl's offer. As to the squire's money, that he knew he might accept. All that comes in the shape of a young woman's fortune may be taken by any man.
He would certainly answer the earl's letter, and that at once. He would not leave the office till he had done so. His friend should have cause to bring no further charge against him of that kind. And then again he reverted to the injustice which had been done to him in the matter of letter-writing--as if that consideration were of moment in such a state of circumstances as was now existing. But at last his thoughts brought themselves to the real question at issue. Would Lily Dale accept him? After all, the realization of his good fortune depended altogether upon her feelings; and, as he remembered this, his mind misgave him sorely. It was filled not only with a young lover's ordinary doubts,--with the fear and trembling incidental to the bashfulness of hobbledehoyhood--but with an idea that that affair with Crosbie would still stand in his way. He did not, perhaps, rightly understand all that Lily had suffered, but he conceived it to be probable that there had been wounds which even the last five months might not yet have cured. Could it be that she would allow him to cure these wounds? As he thought of this he felt almost crushed to the earth by an indomitable bashfulness and conviction of his own unworthiness. What had he to offer worthy of the acceptance of such a girl as Lilian Dale?
I fear that the Crown did not get out of John Eames an adequate return for his salary on that day. So adequate, however, had been the return given by him for some time past, that promotion was supposed throughout the Income-tax Office to be coming in his way, much to the jealousy of Cradell, Fisher, and others, his immediate compeers and cronies. And the place assigned to him by rumour was one which was generally regarded as a perfect Elysium upon earth in the Civil Service world. He was, so rumour said, to become private secretary to the First Commissioner. He would be removed by such a change as this from the large uncarpeted room in which he at present sat; occupying the same desk with another man to whom he had felt himself to be ignominiously bound, as dogs must feel when they are coupled. This room had been the bear-garden of the office. Twelve or fourteen men sat in it. Large pewter pots were brought into it daily at one o'clock, giving it an air that was not aristocratic. The senior of the room, one Mr. Love, who was presumed to have it under his immediate dominion, was a clerk of the ancient stamp, dull, heavy, unambitious, living out on the farther side of Islington, and unknown beyond the limits of his office to any of his younger brethren. He was generally regarded as having given a bad tone to the room. And then the clerks in this room would not unfrequently be blown up,--with very palpable blowings up,--by an official swell, a certain chief clerk, named Kissing, much higher in standing though younger in age than the gentleman of whom we have before spoken. He would hurry in, out of his own neighbouring chamber, with quick step and nose in the air, shuffling in his office slippers, looking on each occasion as though there were some cause to fear that the whole Civil Service were coming to an abrupt termination, and would lay about him with hard words, which some of those in the big room did not find it very easy to bear. His hair was always brushed straight up, his eyes were always very wide open,--and he usually carried a big letter-book with him, keeping in it a certain place with his finger. This book was almost too much for his strength, and he would flop it down, now on this man's desk and now on that man's, and in a long career of such floppings had made himself to be very much hated. On the score of some old grudge he and Mr. Love did not speak to each other; and for this reason, on all occasions of fault-finding, the blown-up young man would refer Mr. Kissing to his enemy.
"I know nothing about it," Mr. Love would say, not lifting his face from his desk for a moment.
"I shall certainly lay the matter before the Board," Mr. Kissing would reply, and would then shuffle out of the room with the big book.
Sometimes Mr. Kissing would lay the matter before the Board, and then he, and Mr. Love, and two or three delinquent clerks would be summoned thither. It seldom led to much. The delinquent clerks would be cautioned. One Commissioner would say a word in private to Mr. Love, and another a word in private to Mr. Kissing. Then, when left alone, the Commissioners would have their little jokes, saying that Kissing, they feared, went by favour; and that Love should still be lord of all. But these things were done in the mild days, before Sir Raffle Buffle came to the Board.
There had been some fun in this at first; but of late John Eames had become tired of it. He disliked Mr. Kissing, and the big book out of which Mr. Kissing was always endeavouring to convict him of some official sin, and had got tired of that joke of setting Kissing and Love by the ears together. When the Assistant Secretary first suggested to him that Sir Raffle had an idea of selecting him as private secretary, and when he remembered the cosy little room, all carpeted, with a leathern arm-chair and a separate washing-stand, which in such case would be devoted to his use, and remembered also that he would be put into receipt of an additional hundred a year, and would stand in the way of still better promotion, he was overjoyed. But there were certain drawbacks. The present private secretary,--who had been private secretary also to the late First Commissioner,--was giving up his Elysium because he could not endure the tones of Sir Raffle's voice. It was understood that Sir Raffle required rather more of a private secretary, in the way of obsequious attendance, than was desirable, and Eames almost doubted his own fitness for the place.
"And why should he choose me?" he had asked the Assistant Secretary.
"Well, we have talked it over together, and I think that he prefers you to any other that has been named."
"But he was so very hard upon me about the affair at the railway station."
"I think he has heard more about that since; I think that some message has reached him from your friend, Earl De Guest."
"Oh, indeed!" said Johnny, beginning to comprehend what it was to have an earl for his friend. Since his acquaintance with the nobleman had commenced, he had studiously avoided all mention of the earl's name at his office; and yet he received almost daily intimation that the fact was well known there, and not a little considered.
"But he is so very rough," said Johnny.
"You can put up with that," said his friend the Assistant Secretary. "His bark is worse than his bite, as you know; and then a hundred a year is worth having." Eames was at that moment inclined to take a gloomy view of life in general, and was disposed to refuse the place, should it be offered to him. He had not then received the earl's letter; but now, as he sat with that letter open before him, lying in the drawer beneath his desk so that he could still read it as he leaned back in his chair, he was enabled to look at things in general through a different atmosphere. In the first place, Lilian Dale's husband ought to have a room to himself, with a carpet and an arm-chair; and then that additional hundred a year would raise his income at once to the sum as to which the earl had made some sort of stipulation. But could he get that leave of absence at Easter? If he consented to be Sir Raffle's private secretary, he would make that a part of the bargain.
At this moment the door of the big room was opened, and Mr. Kissing shuffled in with very quick little steps. He shuffled in, and coming direct up to John's desk, flopped his ledger down upon it before its owner had had time to close the drawer which contained the precious letter.
"What have you got in that drawer, Mr. Eames?"
"A private letter, Mr. Kissing."
"Oh;--a private letter!" said Mr. Kissing, feeling strongly convinced there was a novel hidden there, but not daring to express his belief. "I have been half the morning, Mr. Eames, looking for this letter to the Admiralty, and you've put it under S!" A bystander listening to Mr. Kissing's tone would have been led to believe that the whole Income-tax Office was jeopardized by the terrible iniquity thus disclosed.
"Somerset House," pleaded Johnny.
"Psha;--Somerset House! Half the offices in London--" "You'd better ask Mr. Love," said Eames. "It's all done under his special instructions." Mr. Kissing looked at Mr. Love, and Mr. Love looked steadfastly at his desk. "Mr. Love knows all about the indexing," continued Johnny. "He's index master general to the department."
"No, I'm not, Mr. Eames," said Mr. Love, who rather liked John Eames, and hated Mr. Kissing with his whole heart. "But I believe the indexes, on the whole, are very well done in this room. Some people don't know how to find letters."
"Mr. Eames," began Mr. Kissing, still pointing with a finger of bitter reproach to the misused S, and beginning an oration which was intended for the benefit of the whole room, and for the annihilation of old Mr. Love, "if you have yet to learn that the word Admiralty begins with A and not with S, you have much to learn which should have been acquired before you first came into this office. Somerset House is not a department." Then he turned round to the room at large, and repeated the last words, as though they might become very useful if taken well to heart--"Is not a department. The Treasury is a department; the Home Office is a department; the India Board is a department--" "No, Mr. Kissing, it isn't," said a young clerk from the other end of the room.
"You know very well what I mean, sir. The India Office is a department."
"There's no Board, sir."
"Never mind; but how any gentleman who has been in the service three months,--not to say three years,--can suppose Somerset House to be a department, is beyond my comprehension. If you have been improperly instructed--" "We shall know all about it another time," said Eames. "Mr. Love will make a memorandum of it."
"I shan't do anything of the kind," said Mr. Love.
"If you have been wrongly instructed,--" Mr. Kissing began again, stealing a glance at Mr. Love as he did so; but at this moment the door was again opened, and a messenger summoned Johnny to the presence of the really great man. "Mr. Eames, to wait upon Sir Raffle." Upon hearing this Johnny immediately started, and left Mr. Kissing and the big book in possession of his desk. How the battle was waged, and how it raged in the large room, we cannot stop to hear, as it is necessary that we should follow our hero into the presence of Sir Raffle Buffle.
"Ah, Eames,--yes," said Sir Raffle, looking up from his desk when the young man entered; "just wait half a minute, will you?" And the knight went to work at his papers, as though fearing that any delay in what he was doing might be very prejudicial to the nation at large. "Ah, Eames,--well,--yes," he said again, as he pushed away from him, almost with a jerk, the papers on which he had been writing. "They tell me that you know the business of this office pretty well."
"Some of it, sir," said Eames.
"Well, yes; some of it. But you'll have to understand the whole of it if you come to me. And you must be very sharp about it too. You know that FitzHoward is leaving me?"
"I have heard of it, sir."
"A very excellent young man, though perhaps not-- But we won't mind that. The work is a little too much for him, and he's going back into the office. I believe Lord De Guest is a friend of yours; isn't he?"
"Yes; he is a friend of mine, certainly. He's been very kind to me."
"Ah, well. I've known the earl for many years,--for very many years; and intimately at one time. Perhaps you may have heard him mention my name?"
"Yes, I have, Sir Raffle."
"We were intimate once, but those things go off, you know. He's been the country mouse and I've been the town mouse. Ha, ha, ha! You may tell him that I say so. He won't mind that coming from me."
"Oh, no; not at all," said Eames.
"Mind you tell him when you see him. The earl is a man for whom I've always had a great respect,--a very great respect,--I may say regard. And now, Eames, what do you say to taking FitzHoward's place? The work is hard. It is fair that I should tell you that. The work will, no doubt, be very hard. I take a greater share of what's going than my predecessors have done; and I don't mind telling you that I have been sent here, because a man was wanted who would do that." The voice of Sir Raffle, as he continued, became more and more harsh, and Eames began to think how wise FitzHoward had been. "I mean to do my duty, and I shall expect that my private secretary will do his. But, Mr. Eames, I never forget a man. Whether he be good or bad, I never forget a man. You don't dislike late hours, I suppose."
"Coming late to the office, you mean? Oh, no, not in the least."
"Staying late,--staying late. Six or seven o'clock if necessary,--putting your shoulder to the wheel when the coach gets into the mud. That's what I've been doing all my life. They've known what I am very well. They've always kept me for the heavy roads. If they paid, in the Civil Service, by the hour, I believe I should have drawn a larger income than any man in it. If you take the vacant chair in the next room you'll find it's no joke. It's only fair that I should tell you that."
"I can work as hard as any man," said Eames.
"That's right. That's right. Stick to that and I'll stick to you. It will be a great gratification to me to have by me a friend of my old friend De Guest. Tell him I say so. And now you may as well get into harness at once. FitzHoward is there. You can go in to him, and at half-past four exactly I'll see you both. I'm very exact, mind,--very;--and therefore you must be exact." Then Sir Raffle looked as though he desired to be left alone.
"Sir Raffle, there's one favour I want to ask of you," said Johnny.
"And what's that?"
"I am most anxious to be absent for a fortnight or three weeks, just at Easter. I shall want to go in about ten days."
"Absent for three weeks at Easter, when the parliamentary work is beginning! That won't do for a private secretary."
"But it's very important, Sir Raffle."
"Out of the question, Eames; quite out of the question."
"It's almost life and death to me."
"Almost life and death. Why, what are you going to do?" With all his grandeur and national importance, Sir Raffle would be very curious as to little people.
"Well, I can't exactly tell you, and I'm not quite sure myself."
"Then don't talk nonsense. It's impossible that I should spare my private secretary just at that time of the year. I couldn't do it. The service won't admit of it. You're not entitled to leave at that season. Private secretaries always take their leave in the autumn."
"I should like to be absent in the autumn too, but--" "It's out of the question, Mr. Eames."
Then John Eames reflected that it behoved him in such an emergency to fire off his big gun. He had a great dislike to firing this big gun, but, as he said to himself, there are occasions which make a big gun very necessary. "I got a letter from Lord De Guest this morning, pressing me very much to go to him at Easter. It's about business," added Johnny. "If there was any difficulty, he said, he should write to you."
"Write to me," said Sir Raffle, who did not like to be approached too familiarly in his office, even by an earl.
"Of course I shouldn't tell him to do that. But, Sir Raffle, if I remained out there, in the office," and Johnny pointed towards the big room with his head, "I could choose April for my month. And as the matter is so important to me, and to the earl--" "What can it be?" said Sir Raffle.
"It's quite private," said John Eames.
Hereupon Sir Raffle became very petulant, feeling that a bargain was being made with him. This young man would only consent to become his private secretary upon certain terms! "Well, go in to FitzHoward now. I can't lose all my day in this way."
"But I shall be able to get away at Easter?"
"I don't know. We shall see about it. But don't stand talking there now." Then John Eames went into FitzHoward's room, and received that gentleman's congratulations on his appointment. "I hope you like being rung for, like a servant, every minute, for he's always ringing that bell. And he'll roar at you till you're deaf. You must give up all dinner engagements, for though there is not much to do, he'll never let you go. I don't think anybody ever asks him out to dinner, for he likes being here till seven. And you'll have to write all manner of lies about big people. And, sometimes, when he has sent Rafferty out about his private business, he'll ask you to bring him his shoes." Now Rafferty was the First Commissioner's messenger.
It must be remembered, however, that this little account was given by an outgoing and discomfited private secretary. "A man is not asked to bring another man his shoes," said Eames to himself, "until he shows himself fit for that sort of business." Then he made within his own breast a little resolution about Sir Raffle's shoes.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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47
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THE NEW PRIVATE SECRETARY.
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Income-tax Office, April 8, 18--.
MY DEAR LORD DE GUEST, I hardly know how to answer your letter, it is so very kind--more than kind. And about not writing before,--I must explain that I have not liked to trouble you with letters. I should have seemed to be encroaching if I had written much. Indeed it didn't come from not thinking about you. And first of all, about the money,--as to your offer, I mean. I really feel that I do not know what I ought to say to you about it, without appearing to be a simpleton. The truth is, I don't know what I ought to do, and can only trust to you not to put me wrong. I have an idea that a man ought not to accept a present of money, unless from his father, or somebody like that. And the sum you mention is so very large that it makes me wish you had not named it. If you choose to be so generous, would it not be better that you should leave it me in your will?
"So that he might always want me to be dying," said Lord De Guest, as he read the letter out loud to his sister.
"I'm sure he wouldn't want that," said Lady Julia. "But you may live for twenty-five years, you know."
"Say fifty," said the earl. And then he continued the reading of his letter.
But all that depends so much upon another person, that it is hardly worth while talking about it. Of course I am very much obliged to Mr. Dale,--very much indeed,--and I think that he is behaving very handsomely to his niece. But whether it will do me any good, that is quite another thing. However, I shall certainly accept your kind invitation for Easter, and find out whether I have a chance or not. I must tell you that Sir Raffle Buffle has made me his private secretary, by which I get a hundred a year. He says he was a great crony of yours many years ago, and seems to like talking about you very much. You will understand what all that means. He has sent you ever so many messages, but I don't suppose you will care to get them. I am to go to him to-morrow, and from all I hear I shall have a hard time of it.
"By George, he will," said the earl. "Poor fellow!"
"But I thought a private secretary never had anything to do," said Lady Julia.
"I shouldn't like to be private secretary to Sir Raffle, myself. But he's young, and a hundred a year is a great thing. How we all of us used to hate that man. His voice sounded like a bell with a crack in it. We always used to be asking for some one to muffle the Buffle. They call him Huffle Scuffle at his office. Poor Johnny!" Then he finished the letter:-- I told him that I must have leave of absence at Easter, and he at first declared that it was impossible. But I shall carry my point about that. I would not stay away to be made private secretary to the Prime Minister; and yet I almost feel that I might as well stay away for any good that I shall do.
Give my kind regards to Lady Julia, and tell her how very much obliged to her I am. I cannot express the gratitude which I owe to you. But pray believe me, my dear Lord De Guest, always very faithfully yours, JOHN EAMES.
It was late before Eames had finished his letter. He had been making himself ready for his exodus from the big room, and preparing his desk and papers for his successor. About half-past five Cradell came up to him, and suggested that they should walk home together.
"What! you here still?" said Eames. "I thought you always went at four." Cradell had remained, hanging about the office, in order that he might walk home with the new private secretary. But Eames did not desire this. He had much of which he desired to think alone, and would fain have been allowed to walk by himself.
"Yes; I had things to do. I say, Johnny, I congratulate you most heartily; I do, indeed."
"Thank you, old fellow!"
"It is such a grand thing, you know. A hundred a year and all at once! And then such a snug room to yourself,--and that fellow, Kissing, never can come near you. He has been making himself such a beast all day. But, Johnny, I always knew you'd come to something more than common. I always said so."
"There's nothing uncommon about this; except that Fitz says that old Huffle Scuffle makes himself uncommon nasty."
"Never mind what Fitz says. It's all jealousy. You'll have it all your own way, if you look sharp. I think you always do have it all your own way. Are you nearly ready?"
"Well,--not quite. Don't wait for me, Caudle."
"Oh, I'll wait. I don't mind waiting. They'll keep dinner for us if we both stay. Besides, what matters? I'd do more than that for you."
"I have some idea of working on till eight, and having a chop sent in," said Johnny. "Besides--I've got somewhere to call, by myself."
Then Cradell almost cried. He remained silent for two or three minutes, striving to master his emotion; and at last, when he did speak, had hardly succeeded in doing so. "Oh, Johnny," he said, "I know what that means. You are going to throw me over because you are getting up in the world. I have always stuck to you, through everything; haven't I?"
"Don't make yourself a fool, Caudle."
"Well; so I have. And if they had made me private secretary, I should have been just the same to you as ever. You'd have found no change in me."
"What a goose you are. Do you say I'm changed, because I want to dine in the city?"
"It's all because you don't want to walk home with me, as we used to do. I'm not such a goose but what I can see. But, Johnny-- I suppose I mustn't call you Johnny, now."
"Don't be such a--con-founded--" Then Eames got up, and walked about the room. "Come along," said he, "I don't care about staying, and don't mind where I dine." And he bustled away with his hat and gloves, hardly giving Cradell time to catch him before he got out into the streets. "I tell you what it is, Caudle," said he, "all that kind of thing is disgusting."
"But how would you feel," whimpered Cradell, who had never succeeded in putting himself quite on a par with his friend, even in his own estimation, since that glorious victory at the railway station. If he could only have thrashed Lupex as Johnny had thrashed Crosbie; then indeed they might have been equal,--a pair of heroes. But he had not done so. He had never told himself that he was a coward, but he considered that circumstances had been specially unkind to him. "But how would you feel," he whimpered, "if the friend whom you liked better than anybody else in the world, turned his back upon you?"
"I haven't turned my back upon you; except that I can't get you to walk fast enough. Come along, old fellow, and don't talk confounded nonsense. I hate all that kind of thing. You never ought to suppose that a man will give himself airs, but wait till he does. I don't believe I shall remain with old Scuffles above a month or two. From all that I can hear that's as much as any one can bear."
Then Cradell by degrees became happy and cordial, and during the whole walk flattered Eames with all the flattery of which he was master. And Johnny, though he did profess himself to be averse to "all that kind of thing," was nevertheless open to flattery. When Cradell told him that though FitzHoward could not manage the Tartar knight, he might probably do so; he was inclined to believe what Cradell said. "And as to getting him his shoes," said Cradell, "I don't suppose he'd ever think of asking you to do such a thing, unless he was in a very great hurry, or something of that kind."
"Look here, Johnny," said Cradell, as they got into one of the streets bordering on Burton Crescent, "you know the last thing in the world I should like to do would be to offend you."
"All right, Caudle," said Eames, going on, whereas his companion had shown a tendency towards stopping.
"Look here, now; if I have vexed you about Amelia Roper, I'll make you a promise never to speak to her again."
"D---- Amelia Roper," said Eames, suddenly stopping himself and stopping Cradell as well. The exclamation was made in a deep angry voice which attracted the notice of one or two who were passing. Johnny was very wrong,--wrong to utter any curse;--very wrong to ejaculate that curse against a human being; and especially wrong to fulminate it against a woman--a woman whom he had professed to love! But he did do so, and I cannot tell my story thoroughly without repeating the wicked word.
Cradell looked up at him and stared. "I only meant to say," said Cradell, "I'll do anything you like in the matter."
"Then never mention her name to me again. And as to talking to her, you may talk to her till you're both blue in the face, if you please."
"Oh;--I didn't know. You didn't seem to like it the other day."
"I was a fool the other day,--a confounded fool. And so I have been all my life. Amelia Roper! Look here, Caudle; if she makes up to you this evening, as I've no doubt she will, for she seems to be playing that game constantly now, just let her have her fling. Never mind me; I'll amuse myself with Mrs. Lupex, or Miss Spruce."
"But there'll be the deuce to pay with Mrs. Lupex. She's as cross as possible already whenever Amelia speaks to me. You don't know what a jealous woman is, Johnny." Cradell had got upon what he considered to be his high ground. And on that he felt himself equal to any man. It was no doubt true that Eames had thrashed a man, and that he had not; it was true also that Eames had risen to very high place in the social world, having become a private secretary; but for a dangerous, mysterious, overwhelming, life-enveloping intrigue--was not he the acknowledged hero of such an affair? He had paid very dearly, both in pocket and in comfort, for the blessing of Mrs. Lupex's society; but he hardly considered that he had paid too dearly. There are certain luxuries which a man will find to be expensive; but, for all that, they may be worth their price. Nevertheless as he went up the steps of Mrs. Roper's house he made up his mind that he would oblige his friend. The intrigue might in that way become more mysterious, and more life-enveloping; whereas it would not become more dangerous, seeing that Mr. Lupex could hardly find himself to be aggrieved by such a proceeding.
The whole number of Mrs. Roper's boarders were assembled at dinner that day. Mr. Lupex seldom joined that festive board, but on this occasion he was present, appearing from his voice and manner to be in high good-humour. Cradell had communicated to the company in the drawing-room the great good fortune which had fallen upon his friend, and Johnny had thereby become the mark of a certain amount of hero-worship.
"Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Roper. "An 'appy woman your mother will be when she hears it. But I always said you'd come down right side uppermost."
"Handsome is as handsome does," said Miss Spruce.
"Oh, Mr. Eames!" exclaimed Mrs. Lupex, with graceful enthusiasm, "I wish you joy from the very depth of my heart. It is such an elegant appointment."
"Accept the hand of a true and disinterested friend," said Lupex. And Johnny did accept the hand, though it was very dirty and stained all over with paint.
Amelia stood apart and conveyed her congratulations by a glance,--or, I might better say, by a series of glances. "And now,--now will you not be mine," the glances said; "now that you are rolling in wealth and prosperity?" And then before they went downstairs she did whisper one word to him. "Oh, I am so happy, John;--so very happy."
"Bother!" said Johnny, in a tone quite loud enough to reach the lady's ear. Then making his way round the room, he gave his arm to Miss Spruce. Amelia, as she walked downstairs alone, declared to herself that she would wring his heart. She had been employed in wringing it for some days past, and had been astonished at her own success. It had been clear enough to her that Eames had been piqued by her overtures to Cradell, and she had therefore to play out that game.
"Oh, Mr. Cradell," she said, as she took her seat next to him. "The friends I like are the friends that remain always the same. I hate your sudden rises. They do so often make a man upsetting."
"I should like to try, myself, all the same," said Cradell.
"Well, I don't think it would make any difference in you; I don't indeed. And of course your time will come too. It's that earl as has done it,--he that was worried by the bull. Since we have known an earl we have been so mighty fine." And Amelia gave her head a little toss, and then smiled archly, in a manner which, to Cradell's eyes, was really very becoming. But he saw that Mrs. Lupex was looking at him from the other side of the table, and he could not quite enjoy the goods which the gods had provided for him.
When the ladies left the dining-room Lupex and the two young men drew their chairs near the fire, and each prepared for himself a moderate potation. Eames made a little attempt at leaving the room, but he was implored by Lupex with such earnest protestations of friendship to remain, and was so weakly fearful of being charged with giving himself airs, that he did as he was desired.
"And here, Mr. Eames, is to your very good health," said Lupex, raising to his mouth a steaming goblet of gin-and-water, "and wishing you many years to enjoy your official prosperity."
"Thank ye," said Eames. "I don't know much about the prosperity, but I'm just as much obliged."
"Yes, sir; when I see a young man of your age beginning to rise in the world, I know he'll go on. Now look at me, Mr. Eames. Mr. Cradell, here's your very good health, and may all unkindness be drowned in the flowing bowl-- Look at me, Mr. Eames. I've never risen in the world; I've never done any good in the world, and never shall."
"Oh, Mr. Lupex, don't say that."
"Ah, but I do say it. I've always been pulling the devil by the tail, and never yet got as much as a good hold on to that. And I'll tell you why; I never got a chance when I was young. If I could have got any big fellow, a star, you know, to let me paint his portrait when I was your age,--such a one, let us say, as your friend Sir Raffle--" "What a star!" said Cradell.
"Well, I suppose he's pretty much known in the world, isn't he? Or Lord Derby, or Mr. Spurgeon. You know what I mean. If I'd got such a chance as that when I was young, I should never have been doing jobs of scene-painting at the minor theatres at so much a square yard. You've got the chance now, but I never had it."
Whereupon Mr. Lupex finished his first measure of gin-and-water.
"It's a very queer thing,--life is," continued Lupex; and, though he did not at once go to work boldly at the mixing of another glass of toddy, he began gradually, and as if by instinct, to finger the things which would be necessary for that operation. "A very queer thing. Now, remember, young gentlemen, I'm not denying that success in life will depend upon good conduct;--of course it does; but, then, how often good conduct comes from success! Should I have been what I am now, do you suppose, if some big fellow had taken me by the hand when I was struggling to make an artist of myself? I could have drunk claret and champagne just as well as gin-and-water, and worn ruffles to my shirt as gracefully as many a fellow who used to be very fond of me, and now won't speak to me if he meets me in the streets. I never got a chance,--never."
"But it's not too late yet, Mr. Lupex," said Eames.
"Yes, it is, Eames,--yes, it is." And now Mr. Lupex had grasped the gin-bottle. "It's too late now. The game's over, and the match is lost. The talent is here. I'm as sure of that now as ever I was. I've never doubted my own ability,--never for a moment. There are men this very day making a thousand a year off their easels who haven't so good and true an eye in drawing as I have, or so good a feeling in colours. I could name them; only I won't."
"And why shouldn't you try again?" said Eames.
"If I were to paint the finest piece that ever delighted the eye of man, who would come and look at it? Who would have enough belief in me to come as far as this place and see if it were true? No, Eames; I know my own position and my own ways, and I know my own weakness. I couldn't do a day's work now, unless I were certain of getting a certain number of shillings at the end of it. That's what a man comes to when things have gone against him."
"But I thought men got lots of money by scene-painting?"
"I don't know what you may call lots, Mr. Cradell; I don't call it lots. But I'm not complaining. I know who I have to thank; and if ever I blow my own brains out I shan't be putting the blame on the wrong shoulders. If you'll take my advice,"--and now he turned round to Eames,--"you'll beware of marrying too soon in life."
"I think a man should marry early, if he marries well," said Eames.
"Don't misunderstand me," continued Lupex. "It isn't about Mrs. L. I'm speaking. I've always regarded my wife as a very fascinating woman."
"Hear, hear, hear!" said Cradell, thumping the table.
"Indeed she is," said Eames.
"And when I caution you against marrying, don't you misunderstand me. I've never said a word against her to any man, and never will. If a man don't stand by his wife, whom will he stand by? I blame no one but myself. But I do say this; I never had a chance;--I never had a chance;--never had a chance." And as he repeated the words for the third time, his lips were already fixed to the rim of his tumbler.
At this moment the door of the dining-room was opened, and Mrs. Lupex put in her head.
"Lupex," she said, "what are you doing?"
"Yes, my dear. I can't say I'm doing anything at the present moment. I was giving a little advice to these young gentlemen."
"Mr. Cradell, I wonder at you. And, Mr. Eames, I wonder at you, too,--in your position! Lupex, come upstairs at once." She then stepped into the room and secured the gin-bottle.
"Oh, Mr. Cradell, do come here," said Amelia, in her liveliest tone, as soon as the men made their appearance above. "I've been waiting for you this half-hour. I've got such a puzzle for you." And she made way for him to a chair which was between herself and the wall. Cradell looked half afraid of his fortunes as he took the proffered seat; but he did take it, and was soon secured from any positive physical attack by the strength and breadth of Miss Roper's crinoline.
"Dear me! Here's a change," said Mrs. Lupex, out loud.
Johnny Eames was standing close, and whispered into her ear, "Changes are so pleasant sometimes! Don't you think so? I do."
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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48
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NEMESIS.
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Crosbie had now settled down to the calm realities of married life, and was beginning to think that the odium was dying away which for a week or two had attached itself to him, partly on account of his usage of Miss Dale, but more strongly in consequence of the thrashing which he had received from John Eames. Not that he had in any way recovered his former tone of life, or that he ever hoped to do so. But he was able to go in and out of his club without embarrassment. He could talk with his wonted voice, and act with his wonted authority at his office. He could tell his friends, with some little degree of pleasure in the sound, that Lady Alexandrina would be very happy to see them. And he could make himself comfortable in his own chair after dinner, with his slippers and his newspaper. He could make himself comfortable, or at any rate could tell his wife that he did so.
It was very dull. He was obliged to acknowledge to himself, when he thought over the subject, that the life which he was leading was dull. Though he could go into his club without annoyance, nobody there ever thought of asking him to join them at dinner. It was taken for granted that he was going to dine at home; and in the absence of any provocation to the contrary, he always did dine at home. He had now been in his house for three weeks, and had been asked with his wife to a few bridal dinner-parties, given chiefly by friends of the De Courcy family. Except on such occasions he never passed an evening out of his own house, and had not yet, since his marriage, dined once away from his wife. He told himself that his good conduct in this respect was the result of his own resolution; but, nevertheless, he felt that there was nothing else left for him to do. Nobody asked him to go to the theatre. Nobody begged him to drop in of an evening. Men never asked him why he did not play a rubber. He would generally saunter into Sebright's after he left his office, and lounge about the room for half an hour, talking to a few men. Nobody was uncivil to him. But he knew that the whole thing was changed, and he resolved, with some wisdom, to accommodate himself to his altered circumstances.
Lady Alexandrina also found her new life rather dull, and was sometimes inclined to be a little querulous. She would tell her husband that she never got out, and would declare, when he offered to walk with her, that she did not care for walking in the streets. "I don't exactly see, then, where you are to walk," he once replied. She did not tell him that she was fond of riding, and that the Park was a very fitting place for such exercise; but she looked it, and he understood her. "I'll do all I can for her," he said to himself; "but I'll not ruin myself." "Amelia is coming to take me for a drive," she said another time. "Ah, that'll be very nice," he answered. "No; it won't be very nice," said Alexandrina. "Amelia is always shopping and bargaining with the tradespeople. But it will be better than being kept in the house without ever stirring out."
They breakfasted nominally at half-past nine; in truth, it was always nearly ten, as Lady Alexandrina found it difficult to get herself out of her room. At half-past ten punctually he left his house for his office. He usually got home by six, and then spent the greatest part of the hour before dinner in the ceremony of dressing. He went, at least, into his dressing-room, after speaking a few words to his wife, and there remained, pulling things about, clipping his nails, looking over any paper that came in his way, and killing the time. He expected his dinner punctually at seven, and began to feel a little cross if he were kept waiting. After dinner, he drank one glass of wine in company with his wife, and one other by himself, during which latter ceremony he would stare at the hot coals, and think of the thing he had done. Then he would go upstairs, and have, first a cup of coffee, and then a cup of tea. He would read his newspaper, open a book or two, hide his face when he yawned, and try to make believe that he liked it. She had no signs or words of love for him. She never sat on his knee, or caressed him. She never showed him that any happiness had come to her in being allowed to live close to him. They thought that they loved each other:--each thought so; but there was no love, no sympathy, no warmth. The very atmosphere was cold;--so cold that no fire could remove the chill.
In what way would it have been different had Lily Dale sat opposite to him there as his wife, instead of Lady Alexandrina? He told himself frequently that either with one or with the other life would have been the same; that he had made himself for a while unfit for domestic life, and that he must cure himself of that unfitness. But though he declared this to himself in one set of half-spoken thoughts, he would also declare to himself in another set, that Lily would have made the whole house bright with her brightness; that had he brought her home to his hearth, there would have been a sun shining on him every morning and every evening. But, nevertheless, he strove to do his duty, and remembered that the excitement of official life was still open to him. From eleven in the morning till five in the afternoon he could still hold a position which made it necessary that men should regard him with respect, and speak to him with deference. In this respect he was better off than his wife, for she had no office to which she could betake herself.
"Yes," she said to Amelia, "it is all very nice, and I don't mind the house being damp; but I get so tired of being alone."
"That must be the case with women who are married to men of business."
"Oh, I don't complain. Of course I knew what I was about. I suppose it won't be so very dull when everybody is up in London."
"I don't find the season makes much difference to us after Christmas," said Amelia; "but no doubt London is gayer in May. You'll find you'll like it better next year; and perhaps you'll have a baby, you know."
"Psha!" ejaculated Lady Alexandrina; "I don't want a baby, and don't suppose I shall have one."
"It's always something to do, you know."
Lady Alexandrina, though she was not of an energetic temperament, could not but confess to herself that she had made a mistake. She had been tempted to marry Crosbie because Crosbie was a man of fashion, and now she was told that the London season would make no difference to her;--the London season which had hitherto always brought to her the excitement of parties, if it had not given her the satisfaction of amusement. She had been tempted to marry because it appeared to her that a married woman could enjoy society with less restraint than a girl who was subject to her mother or her chaperon; that she would have more freedom of action as a married woman; and now she was told that she must wait for a baby before she could have anything to do. Courcy Castle was sometimes dull, but Courcy Castle would have been better than this.
When Crosbie returned home after this little conversation about the baby, he was told by his wife that they were to dine with the Gazebees on the next Sunday. On hearing this he shook his head with vexation. He knew, however, that he had no right to make complaint, as he had been only taken to St. John's Wood once since they had come home from their marriage trip. There was, however, one point as to which he could grumble. "Why, on earth, on Sunday?"
[ILLUSTRATION: "Why, on earth, on Sunday?"]
"Because Amelia asked me for Sunday. If you are asked for Sunday, you cannot say you'll go on Monday."
"It is so terrible on a Sunday afternoon. At what hour?"
"She said half-past five."
"Heavens and earth! What are we to do all the evening?"
"It is not kind of you, Adolphus, to speak in that way of my relations."
"Come, my love, that's a joke; as if I hadn't heard you say the same thing twenty times. You've complained of having to go up there much more bitterly than I ever did. You know I like your sister, and, in his way, Gazebee is a very good fellow; but after three or four hours, one begins to have had enough of him."
"It can't be much duller than it is--;" but Lady Alexandrina stopped herself before she finished her speech.
"One can always read at home, at any rate," said Crosbie.
"One can't always be reading. However, I have said you would go. If you choose to refuse, you must write and explain."
When the Sunday came the Crosbies of course did go to St. John's Wood, arriving punctually at that door which he so hated at half-past five. One of the earliest resolutions which he made when he first contemplated the De Courcy match, was altogether hostile to the Gazebees. He would see but very little of them. He would shake himself free of that connexion. It was not with that branch of the family that he desired an alliance. But now, as things had gone, that was the only branch of the family with which he seemed to be allied. He was always hearing of the Gazebees. Amelia and Alexandrina were constantly together. He was now dragged there to a Sunday dinner; and he knew that he should often be dragged there,--that he could not avoid such draggings. He already owed money to Mortimer Gazebee, and was aware that his affairs had been allowed to fall into that lawyer's hands in such a way that he could not take them out again. His house was very thoroughly furnished, and he knew that the bills had been paid; but he had not paid them; every shilling had been paid through Mortimer Gazebee.
"Go with your mother and aunt, De Courcy," the attorney said to the lingering child after dinner; and then Crosbie was left alone with his wife's brother-in-law. This was the period of the St. John's Wood purgatory which was so dreadful to him. With his sister-in-law he could talk, remembering perhaps always that she was an earl's daughter. But with Gazebee he had nothing in common. And he felt that Gazebee, who had once treated him with great deference, had now lost all such feeling. Crosbie had once been a man of fashion in the estimation of the attorney, but that was all over. Crosbie, in the attorney's estimation, was now simply the secretary of a public office,--a man who owed him money. The two had married sisters, and there was no reason why the light of the prosperous attorney should pale before that of the civil servant, who was not very prosperous. All this was understood thoroughly by both the men.
"There's terrible bad news from Courcy," said the attorney, as soon as the boy was gone.
"Why; what's the matter?"
"Porlock has married--that woman, you know."
"Nonsense."
"He has. The old lady has been obliged to tell me, and she's nearly broken-hearted about it. But that's not the worst of it to my mind. All the world knows that Porlock had gone to the mischief. But he is going to bring an action against his father for some arrears of his allowance, and he threatens to have everything out in court, if he doesn't get his money."
"But is there money due to him?"
"Yes, there is. A couple of thousand pounds or so. I suppose I shall have to find it. But, upon my honour, I don't know where it's to come from; I don't, indeed. In one way or another, I've paid over fourteen hundred pounds for you."
"Fourteen hundred pounds!"
"Yes, indeed;--what with the insurance and the furniture, and the bill from our house for the settlements. That's not paid yet, but it's the same thing. A man doesn't get married for nothing, I can tell you."
"But you've got security."
"Oh, yes; I've got security. But the thing is the ready money. Our house has advanced so much on the Courcy property, that they don't like going any further; and therefore it is that I have to do this myself. They'll all have to go abroad,--that'll be the end of it. There's been such a scene between the earl and George. George lost his temper and told the earl that Porlock's marriage was his fault. It has ended in George with his wife being turned out."
"He has money of his own."
"Yes, but he won't spend it. He's coming up here, and we shall find him hanging about us. I don't mean to give him a bed here, and I advise you not to do so either. You'll not get rid of him if you do."
"I have the greatest possible dislike to him."
"Yes; he's a bad fellow. So is John. Porlock was the best, but he's gone altogether to ruin. They've made a nice mess of it between them; haven't they?"
This was the family for whose sake Crosbie had jilted Lily Dale! His single and simple ambition had been that of being an earl's son-in-law. To achieve that it had been necessary that he should make himself a villain. In achieving it he had gone through all manner of dirt and disgrace. He had married a woman whom he knew he did not love. He was thinking almost hourly of a girl whom he had loved, whom he did love, but whom he had so injured, that, under no circumstances, could he be allowed to speak to her again. The attorney there--who sat opposite to him, talking about his thousands of pounds with that disgusting assumed solicitude which such men put on, when they know very well what they are doing--had made a similar marriage. But he had known what he was about. He had got from his marriage all that he had expected. But what had Crosbie got?
"They're a bad set,--a bad set," said he in his bitterness.
"The men are," said Gazebee, very comfortably.
"H--m," said Crosbie. It was manifest to Gazebee that his friend was expressing a feeling that the women, also, were not all that they should be, but he took no offence, though some portion of the censure might thereby be supposed to attach to his own wife.
"The countess means well," said Gazebee. "But she's had a hard life of it,--a very hard life. I've heard him call her names that would frighten a coal-heaver. I have, indeed. But he'll die soon, and then she'll be comfortable. She has three thousand a year jointure."
He'll die soon, and then she'll be comfortable! That was one phase of married life. As Crosbie's mind dwelt upon the words, he remembered Lily's promise made in the fields, that she would do everything for him. He remembered her kisses; the touch of her fingers; the low silvery laughing voice; the feel of her dress as she would press close to him. After that he reflected whether it would not be well that he too should die, so that Alexandrina might be comfortable. She and her mother might be very comfortable together, with plenty of money, at Baden-Baden!
The squire at Allington, and Mrs. Dale, and Lady Julia De Guest, had been, and still were, uneasy in their minds because no punishment had fallen upon Crosbie,--no vengeance had overtaken him in consequence of his great sin. How little did they know about it! Could he have been prosecuted and put into prison, with hard labour, for twelve months, the punishment would not have been heavier. He would, in that case, at any rate, have been saved from Lady Alexandrina.
"George and his wife are coming up to town; couldn't we ask them to come to us for a week or so?" said his wife to him, as soon as they were in the fly together, going home.
"No," shouted Crosbie; "we will do no such thing." There was not another word said on the subject,--nor on any other subject till they got home. When they reached their house Alexandrina had a headache, and went up to her room immediately. Crosbie threw himself into a chair before the remains of a fire in the dining-room, and resolved that he would cut the whole De Courcy family altogether. His wife, as his wife, should obey him. She should obey him--or else leave him and go her way by herself, leaving him to go his way. There was an income of twelve hundred a year. Would it not be a fine thing for him if he could keep six hundred for himself and return to his old manner of life. All his old comforts of course he would not have,--nor the old esteem and regard of men. But the luxury of a club dinner he might enjoy. Unembarrassed evenings might be his,--with liberty to him to pass them as he pleased. He knew many men who were separated from their wives, and who seemed to be as happy as their neighbours. And then he remembered how ugly Alexandrina had been this evening, wearing a great tinsel coronet full of false stones, with a cold in her head which had reddened her nose. There had, too, fallen upon her in these her married days a certain fixed dreary dowdiness. She certainly was very plain! So he said to himself, and then he went to bed. I myself am inclined to think that his punishment was sufficiently severe.
The next morning his wife still complained of headache, so that he breakfasted alone. Since that positive refusal which he had given to her proposition for inviting her brother, there had not been much conversation between them. "My head is splitting, and Sarah shall bring some tea and toast up to me, if you will not mind it."
He did not mind it in the least, and ate his breakfast by himself, with more enjoyment than usually attended that meal.
It was clear to him that all the present satisfaction of his life must come to him from his office work. There are men who find it difficult to live without some source of daily comfort, and he was such a man. He could hardly endure his life unless there were some page in it on which he could look with gratified eyes. He had always liked his work, and he now determined that he would like it better than ever. But in order that he might do so it was necessary that he should have much of his own way. According to the theory of his office, it was incumbent on him as Secretary simply to take the orders of the Commissioners, and see that they were executed; and to such work as this his predecessor had strictly confined himself. But he had already done more than this, and had conceived the ambition of holding the Board almost under his thumb. He flattered himself that he knew his own work and theirs better than they knew either, and that by a little management he might be their master. It is not impossible that such might have been the case had there been no fracas at the Paddington station; but, as we all know, the dominant cock of the farmyard must be ever dominant. When he shall once have had his wings so smeared with mud as to give him even the appearance of adversity, no other cock will ever respect him again. Mr. Optimist and Mr. Butterwell knew very well that their secretary had been cudgelled, and they could not submit themselves to a secretary who had been so treated.
"Oh, by-the-by, Crosbie," said Butterwell, coming into his room, soon after his arrival at his office on that day of his solitary breakfast, "I want to say just a few words to you." And Butterwell turned round and closed the door, the lock of which had not previously been fastened. Crosbie, without much thinking, immediately foretold himself the nature of the coming conversation.
"Do you know--" said Butterwell, beginning.
"Sit down, won't you?" said Crosbie, seating himself as he spoke. If there was to be a contest, he would make the best fight he could. He would show a better spirit here than he had done on the railway platform. Butterwell did sit down, and felt as he did so, that the very motion of sitting took away some of his power. He ought to have sent for Crosbie into his own room. A man, when he wishes to reprimand another, should always have the benefit of his own atmosphere.
"I don't want to find any fault," Butterwell began.
"I hope you have not any cause," said Crosbie.
"No, no; I don't say that I have. But we think at the Board--" "Stop, stop, Butterwell. If anything unpleasant is coming, it had better come from the Board. I should take it in better spirit; I should, indeed."
"What takes place at the Board must be official."
"I shall not mind that in the least. I should rather like it than otherwise."
"It simply amounts to this,--that we think you are taking a little too much on yourself. No doubt, it's a fault on the right side, and arises from your wishing to have the work well done."
"And if I don't do it, who will?" asked Crosbie.
"The Board is very well able to get through all that appertains to it. Come, Crosbie, you and I have known each other a great many years, and it would be a pity that we should have any words. I have come to you in this way because it would be disagreeable to you to have any question raised officially. Optimist isn't given to being very angry, but he was downright angry yesterday. You had better take what I say in good part, and go along a little quieter."
But Crosbie was not in a humour to take anything quietly. He was sore all over, and prone to hit out at everybody that he met. "I have done my duty to the best of my ability, Mr. Butterwell," he said, "and I believe I have done it well. I believe I know my duty here as well as any one can teach me. If I have done more than my share of work, it is because other people have done less than theirs." As he spoke, there was a black cloud upon his brow, and the Commissioner could perceive that the Secretary was very wrathful.
"Oh! very well," said Butterwell, rising from his chair. "I can only, under such circumstances, speak to the Chairman, and he will tell you what he thinks at the Board. I think you're foolish; I do, indeed. As for myself, I have only meant to act kindly by you." After that, Mr. Butterwell took himself off.
On the same afternoon, Crosbie was summoned into the Board-room in the usual way, between two and three. This was a daily occurrence, as he always sat for about an hour with two out of the three Commissioners, after they had fortified themselves with a biscuit and a glass of sherry. On the present occasion, the usual amount of business was transacted, but it was done in a manner which made Crosbie feel that they did not all stand together on their usual footing. The three Commissioners were all there. The Chairman gave his directions in a solemn, pompous voice, which was by no means usual to him when he was in good humour. The Major said little or nothing; but there was a gleam of satisfied sarcasm in his eye. Things were going wrong at the Board, and he was pleased. Mr. Butterwell was exceedingly civil in his demeanour, and rather more than ordinarily brisk. As soon as the regular work of the day was over, Mr. Optimist shuffled about on his chair, rising from his seat, and then sitting down again. He looked through a lot of papers close to his hand, peering at them over his spectacles. Then he selected one, took off his spectacles, leaned back in his chair, and began his little speech.
"Mr. Crosbie," he said, "we are all very much gratified,--very much gratified, indeed,--by your zeal and energy in the service."
"Thank you, sir," said Crosbie; "I am fond of the service."
"Exactly, exactly; we all feel that. But we think that you,--if I were to say take too much upon yourself, I should say, perhaps, more than we mean."
"Don't say more than you mean, Mr. Optimist." Crosbie's eyes, as he spoke, gleamed slightly with his momentary triumph; as did also those of Major Fiasco.
"No, no, no," said Mr. Optimist; "I would say rather less than more to so very good a public servant as yourself. But you, doubtless, understand me?"
"I don't think I do quite, sir. If I have not taken too much on me, what is it that I have done that I ought not to have done?"
"You have given directions in many cases for which you ought first to have received authority. Here is an instance," and the selected paper was at once brought out.
It was a matter in which the Secretary had been manifestly wrong according to written law, and he could not defend it on its own merits.
"If you wish me," said he, "to confine myself exactly to the positive instructions of the office, I will do so; but I think you will find it inconvenient."
"It will be far the best," said Mr. Optimist.
"Very well," said Mr. Crosbie, "it shall be done." And he at once determined to make himself as unpleasant to the three gentlemen in the room as he might find it within his power to do. He could make himself very unpleasant, but the unpleasantness would be as much to him as to them.
Nothing would now go right with him. He could look in no direction for satisfaction. He sauntered into Sebright's, as he went home, but he could not find words to speak to any one about the little matters of the day. He went home, and his wife, though she was up, complained still of her headache.
"I haven't been out of the house all day," she said, "and that has made it worse."
"I don't know how you are to get out if you won't walk," he answered.
Then there was no more said between them till they sat down to their meal.
Had the squire at Allington known all, he might, I think, have been satisfied with the punishment which Crosbie had encountered.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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49
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PREPARATIONS FOR GOING.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] "Mamma, read that letter."
It was Mrs. Dale's eldest daughter who spoke to her, and they were alone together in the parlour at the Small House. Mrs. Dale took the letter and read it very carefully. She then put it back into its envelope and returned it to Bell.
"It is, at any rate, a good letter, and, as I believe, tells the truth."
"I think it tells a little more than the truth, mamma. As you say, it is a well-written letter. He always writes well when he is in earnest. But yet--" "Yet what, my dear?"
"There is more head than heart in it."
"If so, he will suffer the less; that is, if you are quite resolved in the matter."
"I am quite resolved, and I do not think he will suffer much. He would not, I suppose, have taken the trouble to write like that, if he did not wish this thing."
"I am quite sure that he does wish it, most earnestly; and that he will be greatly disappointed."
"As he would be if any other scheme did not turn out to his satisfaction; that is all."
The letter, of course, was from Bell's cousin Bernard, and containing the strongest plea he was able to make in favour of his suit for her hand. Bernard Dale was better able to press such a plea by letter than by spoken words. He was a man capable of doing anything well in the doing of which a little time for consideration might be given to him; but he had not in him that power of passion which will force a man to eloquence in asking for that which he desires to obtain. His letter on this occasion was long, and well argued. If there was little in it of passionate love, there was much of pleasant flattery. He told Bell how advantageous to both their families their marriage would be; he declared to her that his own feeling in the matter had been rendered stronger by absence; he alluded without boasting to his past career of life as her best guarantee for his future conduct; he explained to her that if this marriage could be arranged there need then, at any rate, be no further question as to his aunt removing with Lily from the Small House; and then he told her that his affection for herself was the absorbing passion of his existence. Had the letter been written with the view of obtaining from a third person a favourable verdict as to his suit, it would have been a very good letter indeed; but there was not a word in it that could stir the heart of such a girl as Bell Dale.
"Answer him kindly," Mrs. Dale said.
"As kindly as I know how," said Bell. "I wish you would write the letter, mamma."
"I fear that would not do. What I should say would only tempt him to try again."
Mrs. Dale knew very well,--had known for some months past,--that Bernard's suit was hopeless. She felt certain, although the matter had not been discussed between them, that whenever Dr. Crofts might choose to come again and ask for her daughter's hand he would not be refused. Of the two men she probably liked Dr. Crofts the best; but she liked them both, and she could not but remember that the one, in a worldly point of view, would be a very poor match, whereas the other would, in all respects, be excellent. She would not, on any account, say a word to influence her daughter, and knew, moreover, that no word which she could say would influence her; but she could not divest herself of some regret that it should be so.
"I know what you would wish, mamma," said Bell.
"I have but one wish, dearest, and that is for your happiness. May God preserve you from any such fate as Lily's. When I tell you to write kindly to your cousin, I simply mean that I think him to have deserved a kind reply by his honesty."
"It shall be as kind as I can make it, mamma; but you know what the lady says in the play,--how hard it is to take the sting from that word 'no.'" Then Bell walked out alone for a while, and on her return got her desk and wrote her letter. It was very firm and decisive. As for that wit which should pluck the sting "from such a sharp and waspish word as 'no,'" I fear she had it not. "It will be better to make him understand that I, also, am in earnest," she said to herself; and in this frame of mind she wrote her letter. "Pray do not allow yourself to think that what I have said is unfriendly," she added, in a postscript. "I know how good you are, and I know the great value of what I refuse; but in this matter it must be my duty to tell you the simple truth."
It had been decided between the squire and Mrs. Dale that the removal from the Small House to Guestwick was not to take place till the first of May. When he had been made to understand that Dr. Crofts had thought it injudicious that Lily should be taken out of their present house in March, he had used all the eloquence of which he was master to induce Mrs. Dale to consent to abandon her project. He had told her that he had always considered that house as belonging, of right, to some other of the family than himself; that it had always been so inhabited, and that no squire of Allington had for years past taken rent for it. "There is no favour conferred,--none at all," he had said; but speaking nevertheless in his usual sharp, ungenial tone.
"There is a favour, a great favour, and great generosity," Mrs. Dale had replied. "And I have never been too proud to accept it; but when I tell you that we think we shall be happier at Guestwick, you will not refuse to let us go. Lily has had a great blow in that house, and Bell feels that she is running counter to your wishes on her behalf,--wishes that are so very kind!"
"No more need be said about that. All that may come right yet, if you will remain where you are."
But Mrs. Dale knew that "all that" could never come right, and persisted. Indeed, she would hardly have dared to tell her girls that she had yielded to the squire's entreaties. It was just then, at that very time, that the squire was, as it were, in treaty with the earl about Lily's fortune; and he did feel it hard that he should be opposed in such a way by his own relatives at the moment when he was behaving towards them with so much generosity. But in his arguments about the house he said nothing of Lily, or her future prospects.
They were to move on the first of May, and one week of April was already past. The squire had said nothing further on the matter after the interview with Mrs. Dale to which allusion has just been made. He was vexed and sore at the separation, thinking that he was ill-used by the feeling which was displayed by this refusal. He had done his duty by them, as he thought; indeed more than his duty, and now they told him that they were leaving him because they could no longer bear the weight of an obligation conferred by his hands. But in truth he did not understand them; nor did they understand him. He had been hard in his manner, and had occasionally domineered, not feeling that his position, though it gave him all the privileges of a near and a dear friend, did not give him the authority of a father or a husband. In that matter of Bernard's proposed marriage he had spoken as though Bell should have considered his wishes before she refused her cousin. He had taken upon himself to scold Mrs. Dale, and had thereby given offence to the girls, which they at the time had found it utterly impossible to forgive.
But they were hardly better satisfied in the matter than was he; and now that the time had come, though they could not bring themselves to go back from their demand, almost felt that they were treating the squire with cruelty. When their decision had been made,--while it had been making,--he had been stern and hard to them. Since that he had been softened by Lily's misfortune, and softened also by the anticipated loneliness which would come upon him when they should be gone from his side. It was hard upon him that they should so treat him when he was doing his best for them all! And they also felt this, though they did not know the extent to which he was anxious to go in serving them. When they had sat round the fire planning the scheme of their removal, their hearts had been hardened against him, and they had resolved to assert their independence. But now, when the time for action had come, they felt that their grievances against him had already been in a great measure assuaged. This tinged all that they did with a certain sadness; but still they continued their work.
Who does not know how terrible are those preparations for house-moving;--how infinite in number are the articles which must be packed, how inexpressibly uncomfortable is the period of packing, and how poor and tawdry is the aspect of one's belongings while they are thus in a state of dislocation? Now-a-days people who understand the world, and have money commensurate with their understanding, have learned the way of shunning all these disasters, and of leaving the work to the hands of persons paid for doing it. The crockery is left in the cupboards, the books on the shelves, the wine in the bins, the curtains on their poles, and the family that is understanding goes for a fortnight to Brighton. At the end of that time the crockery is comfortably settled in other cupboards, the books on other shelves, the wine in other bins, the curtains are hung on other poles, and all is arranged. But Mrs. Dale and her daughters understood nothing of such a method of moving as this. The assistance of the village carpenter in filling certain cases that he had made was all that they knew how to obtain beyond that of their own two servants. Every article had to pass through the hands of some one of the family; and as they felt almost overwhelmed by the extent of the work to be done, they began it much sooner than was necessary, so that it became evident as they advanced in their work, that they would have to pass a dreadfully dull, stupid, uncomfortable week at last, among their boxes and cases, in all the confusion of dismantled furniture.
At first an edict had gone forth that Lily was to do nothing. She was an invalid, and was to be petted and kept quiet. But this edict soon fell to the ground, and Lily worked harder than either her mother or her sister. In truth she was hardly an invalid any longer, and would not submit to an invalid's treatment. She felt herself that for the present constant occupation could alone save her from the misery of looking back,--and she had conceived an idea that the harder that occupation was, the better it would be for her. While pulling down the books, and folding the linen, and turning out from their old hiding-places the small long-forgotten properties of the household, she would be as gay as ever she had been in old times. She would talk over her work, standing with flushed cheek and laughing eyes among the dusty ruins around her, till for a moment her mother would think that all was well within her. But then at other moments, when the reaction came, it would seem as though nothing were well. She could not sit quietly over the fire, with quiet rational work in her hands, and chat in a rational quiet way. Not as yet could she do so. Nevertheless it was well with her,--within her own bosom. She had declared to herself that she would conquer her misery,--as she had also declared to herself during her illness that her misfortune should not kill her,--and she was in the way to conquer it. She told herself that the world was not over for her because her sweet hopes had been frustrated. The wound had been deep and very sore, but the flesh of the patient had been sound and healthy, and her blood pure. A physician having knowledge in such cases would have declared, after long watching of her symptoms, that a cure was probable. Her mother was the physician who watched her with the closest eyes; and she, though she was sometimes driven to doubt, did hope, with stronger hope from day to day, that her child might live to remember the story of her love without abiding agony.
That nobody should talk to her about it,--that had been the one stipulation which she had seemed to make, not sending forth a request to that effect among her friends in so many words, but showing by certain signs that such was her stipulation. A word to that effect she had spoken to her uncle,--as may be remembered, which word had been regarded with the closest obedience. She had gone out into her little world very soon after the news of Crosbie's falsehood had reached her,--first to church and then among the people of the village, resolving to carry herself as though no crushing weight had fallen upon her. The village people had understood it all, listening to her and answering her without the proffer of any outspoken parley.
"Lord bless 'ee," said Mrs. Crump, the postmistress,--and Mrs. Crump was supposed to have the sourest temper in Allington,--"whenever I look at thee, Miss Lily, I thinks that surely thee is the beautifulest young 'ooman in all these parts."
"And you are the crossest old woman," said Lily, laughing, and giving her hand to the postmistress.
"So I be," said Mrs. Crump. "So I be." Then Lily sat down in the cottage and asked after her ailments. With Mrs. Hearn it was the same. Mrs. Hearn, after that first meeting which has been already mentioned, petted and caressed her, but spoke no further word of her misfortune. When Lily called a second time upon Mrs. Boyce, which she did boldly by herself, that lady did begin one other word of commiseration. "My dearest Lily, we have all been made so unhappy--" So far Mrs. Boyce got, sitting close to Lily and striving to look into her face; but Lily, with a slightly heightened colour, turned sharp round upon one of the Boyce girls, tearing Mrs. Boyce's commiseration into the smallest shreds. "Minnie," she said, speaking quite loud, almost with girlish ecstasy, "what do you think Tartar did yesterday? I never laughed so much in my life." Then she told a ludicrous story about a very ugly terrier which belonged to the squire. After that even Mrs. Boyce made no further attempt. Mrs. Dale and Bell both understood that such was to be the rule--the rule even to them. Lily would speak to them occasionally on the matter,--to one of them at a time, beginning with some almost single word of melancholy resignation, and then would go on till she opened her very bosom before them; but no such conversation was ever begun by them. But now, in these busy days of the packing, that topic seemed to have been banished altogether.
"Mamma," she said, standing on the top rung of a house-ladder, from which position she was handing down glass out of a cupboard, "are you sure that these things are ours? I think some of them belong to the house."
"I'm sure about that bowl at any rate, because it was my mother's before I was married."
"Oh, dear, what should I do if I were to break it? Whenever I handle anything very precious I always feel inclined to throw it down and smash it. Oh! it was as nearly gone as possible, mamma; but that was your fault."
"If you don't take care you'll be nearly gone yourself. Do take hold of something."
"Oh, Bell, here's the inkstand for which you've been moaning for three years."
[ILLUSTRATION: "Bell, here's the inkstand."]
"I haven't been moaning for three years; but who could have put it up there?"
"Catch it," said Lily; and she threw the bottle down on to a pile of carpets.
At this moment a step was heard in the hall, and the squire entered through the open door of the room. "So you're all at work," said he.
"Yes, we're at work," said Mrs. Dale, almost with a tone of shame. "If it is to be done it is as well that it should be got over."
"It makes me wretched enough," said the squire. "But I didn't come to talk about that. I've brought you a note from Lady Julia De Guest, and I've had one from the earl. They want us all to go there and stay the week after Easter."
Mrs. Dale and the girls, when this very sudden proposition was made to them, all remained fixed in their places, and, for a moment, were speechless. Go and stay a week at Guestwick Manor! The whole family! Hitherto the intercourse between the Manor and the Small House had been confined to morning calls, very far between. Mrs. Dale had never dined there, and had latterly even deputed the calling to her daughters. Once Bell had dined there with her uncle, the squire, and once Lily had gone over with her uncle Orlando. Even this had been long ago, before they were quite brought out, and they had regarded the occasion with the solemn awe of children. Now, at this time of their flitting into some small mean dwelling at Guestwick, they had previously settled among themselves that that affair of calling at the Manor might be allowed to drop. Mrs. Eames never called, and they were descending to the level of Mrs. Eames. "Perhaps we shall get game sent to us, and that will be better," Lily had said. And now, at this very moment of their descent in life, they were all asked to go and stay a week at the Manor! Stay a week with Lady Julia! Had the Queen sent the Lord Chamberlain down to bid them all go to Windsor Castle it could hardly have startled them more at the first blow. Bell had been seated on the folded carpet when her uncle had entered, and now had again sat herself in the same place. Lily was still standing at the top of the ladder, and Mrs. Dale was at the foot with one hand on Lily's dress. The squire had told his story very abruptly, but he was a man who, having a story to tell, knew nothing better than to tell it out abruptly, letting out everything at the first moment.
"Wants us all!" said Mrs. Dale. "How many does the all mean?" Then she opened Lady Julia's note and read it, not moving from her position at the foot of the ladder.
"Do let me see, mamma," said Lily; and then the note was handed up to her. Had Mrs. Dale well considered the matter she might probably have kept the note to herself for a while, but the whole thing was so sudden that she had not considered the matter well.
MY DEAR MRS. DALE [the letter ran], I send this inside a note from my brother to Mr. Dale. We particularly want you and your two girls to come to us for a week from the seventeenth of this month. Considering our near connection we ought to have seen more of each other than we have done for years past, and of course it has been our fault. But it is never too late to amend one's ways; and I hope you will receive my confession in the true spirit of affection in which it is intended, and that you will show your goodness by coming to us. I will do all I can to make the house pleasant to your girls, for both of whom I have much real regard.
I should tell you that John Eames will be here for the same week. My brother is very fond of him, and thinks him the best young man of the day. He is one of my heroes, too, I must confess.
Very sincerely yours, JULIA DE GUEST.
Lily, standing on the ladder, read the letter very attentively. The squire meanwhile stood below speaking a word or two to his sister-in-law and niece. No one could see Lily's face, as it was turned away towards the window, and it was still averted when she spoke. "It is out of the question that we should go, mamma;--that is, all of us."
"Why out of the question?" said the squire.
"A whole family!" said Mrs. Dale.
"That is just what they want," said the squire.
"I should like of all things to be left alone for a week," said Lily, "if mamma and Bell would go."
"That wouldn't do at all," said the squire. "Lady Julia specially wants you to be one of the party."
The thing had been badly managed altogether. The reference in Lady Julia's note to John Eames had explained to Lily the whole scheme at once, and had so opened her eyes that all the combined influence of the Dale and De Guest families could not have dragged her over to the Manor.
"Why not do?" said Lily. "It would be out of the question a whole family going in that way, but it would be very nice for Bell."
"No, it would not," said Bell.
"Don't be ungenerous about it, my dear," said the squire, turning to Bell; "Lady Julia means to be kind. But, my darling," and the squire turned again towards Lily, addressing her, as was his wont in these days, with an affection that was almost vexatious to her; "but, my darling, why should you not go? A change of scene like that will do you all the good in the world, just when you are getting well. Mary, tell the girls that they ought to go."
Mrs. Dale stood silent, again reading the note, and Lily came down from the ladder. When she reached the floor she went directly up to her uncle, and taking his hand turned him round with herself towards one of the windows, so that they stood with their backs to the room. "Uncle," she said, "do not be angry with me. I can't go;" and then she put up her face to kiss him.
He stooped and kissed her and still held her hand. He looked into her face and read it all. He knew well, now, why she could not go; or, rather, why she herself thought that she could not go. "Cannot you, my darling?" he said.
"No, uncle. It is very kind,--very kind; but I cannot go. I am not fit to go anywhere."
"But you should get over that feeling. You should make a struggle."
"I am struggling, and I shall succeed; but I cannot do it all at once. At any rate I could not go there. You must give my love to Lady Julia, and not let her think me cross. Perhaps Bell will go."
What would be the good of Bell's going--or the good of his putting himself out of the way, by a visit which would of itself be so tiresome to him, if the one object of the visit could not be carried out? The earl and his sister had planned the invitation with the express intention of bringing Lily and Eames together. It seemed that Lily was firm in her determination to resist this intention; and, if so, it would be better that the whole thing should fall to the ground. He was very vexed, and yet he was not angry with her. Everybody lately had opposed him in everything. All his intended family arrangements had gone wrong. But yet he was seldom angry respecting them. He was so accustomed to be thwarted that he hardly expected success. In this matter of providing Lily with a second lover, he had not come forward of his own accord. He had been appealed to by his neighbour the earl, and had certainly answered the appeal with much generosity. He had been induced to make the attempt with eagerness, and a true desire for its accomplishment; but in this, as in all his own schemes, he was met at once by opposition and failure.
"I will leave you to talk it over among yourselves," he said. "But, Mary, you had better see me before you send your answer. If you will come up by-and-by, Ralph shall take the two notes over together in the afternoon." So saying, he left the Small House, and went back to his own solitary home.
"Lily, dear," said Mrs. Dale, as soon as the front door had been closed, "this is meant for kindness to you,--for most affectionate kindness."
"I know it, mamma; and you must go to Lady Julia, and must tell her that I know it. You must give her my love. And, indeed, I do love her now. But--" "You won't go, Lily?" said Mrs. Dale, beseechingly.
"No, mamma; certainly I will not go." Then she escaped out of the room by herself, and for the next hour neither of them dared to go to her.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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50
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MRS. DALE IS THANKFUL FOR A GOOD THING.
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On that day they dined early at the Small House, as they had been in the habit of doing since the packing had commenced. And after dinner Mrs. Dale went through the gardens, up to the other house, with a written note in her hand. In that note she had told Lady Julia, with many protestations of gratitude, that Lily was unable to go out so soon after her illness, and that she herself was obliged to stay with Lily. She explained also, that the business of moving was in hand, and that, therefore, she could not herself accept the invitation. But her other daughter, she said, would be very happy to accompany her uncle to Guestwick Manor. Then, without closing her letter, she took it up to the squire in order that it might be decided whether it would or would not suit his views. It might well be that he would not care to go to Lord De Guest's with Bell alone.
"Leave it with me," he said; "that is, if you do not object."
"Oh dear, no!"
"I'll tell you the plain truth at once, Mary. I shall go over myself with it, and see the earl. Then I will decline it or not, according to what passes between me and him. I wish Lily would have gone."
"Ah! she could not."
"I wish she could. I wish she could. I wish she could." As he repeated the words over and over again, there was an eagerness in his voice that filled Mrs. Dale's heart with tenderness towards him.
"The truth is," said Mrs. Dale, "she could not go there to meet John Eames."
"Oh, I know," said the squire: "I understand it. But that is just what we want her to do. Why should she not spend a week in the same house with an honest young man whom we all like."
"There are reasons why she would not wish it."
"Ah, exactly; the very reasons which should make us induce her to go there if we can. Perhaps I had better tell you all. Lord De Guest has taken him by the hand, and wishes him to marry. He has promised to settle on him an income which will make him comfortable for life."
"That is very generous; and I am delighted to hear it,--for John's sake."
"And they have promoted him at his office."
"Ah! then he will do well."
"He will do very well. He is private secretary now to their head man. And, Mary, so that she, Lily, should not be empty-handed if this marriage can be arranged, I have undertaken to settle a hundred a year on her,--on her and her children, if she will accept him. Now you know it all. I did not mean to tell you; but it is as well that you should have the means of judging. That other man was a villain. This man is honest. Would it not be well that she should learn to like him? She always did like him, I thought, before that other fellow came down here among us."
"She has always liked him--as a friend."
"She will never get a better lover."
Mrs. Dale sat silent, thinking over it all. Every word that the squire said was true. It would be a healing of wounds most desirable and salutary; an arrangement advantageous to them all; a destiny for Lily most devoutly to be desired,--if only it were possible. Mrs. Dale firmly believed that if her daughter could be made to accept John Eames as her second lover in a year or two all would be well. Crosbie would then be forgotten or thought of without regret, and Lily would become the mistress of a happy home. But there are positions which cannot be reached, though there be no physical or material objection in the way. It is the view which the mind takes of a thing which creates the sorrow that arises from it. If the heart were always malleable and the feelings could be controlled, who would permit himself to be tormented by any of the reverses which affection meets? Death would create no sorrow; ingratitude would lose its sting; and the betrayal of love would do no injury beyond that which it might entail upon worldly circumstances. But the heart is not malleable; nor will the feelings admit of such control.
"It is not possible for her," said Mrs. Dale. "I fear it is not possible. It is too soon."
"Six months," pleaded the squire.
"It will take years,--not months," said Mrs. Dale.
"And she will lose all her youth."
"Yes; he has done all that by his treachery. But it is done, and we cannot now go back. She loves him yet as dearly as she ever loved him."
Then the squire muttered certain words below his breath,--ejaculations against Crosbie, which were hardly voluntary; but even as involuntary ejaculations were very improper. Mrs. Dale heard them, and was not offended either by their impropriety or their warmth. "But you can understand," she said, "that she cannot bring herself to go there." The squire struck the table with his fist, and repeated his ejaculations. If he could only have known how very disagreeable Lady Alexandrina was making herself, his spirit might, perhaps, have been less vehemently disturbed. If, also, he could have perceived and understood the light in which an alliance with the De Courcy family was now regarded by Crosbie, I think that he would have received some consolation from that consideration. Those who offend us are generally punished for the offence they give; but we so frequently miss the satisfaction of knowing that we are avenged! It is arranged, apparently, that the injurer shall be punished, but that the person injured shall not gratify his desire for vengeance.
"And will you go to Guestwick yourself?" asked Mrs. Dale.
"I will take the note," said the squire, "and will let you know to-morrow. The earl has behaved so kindly that every possible consideration is due to him. I had better tell him the whole truth, and go or stay, as he may wish. I don't see the good of going. What am I to do at Guestwick Manor? I did think that if we had all been there it might have cured some difficulties."
Mrs. Dale got up to leave him, but she could not go without saying some word of gratitude for all that he had attempted to do for them. She well knew what he meant by the curing of difficulties. He had intended to signify that had they lived together for a week at Guestwick the idea of flitting from Allington might possibly have been abandoned. It seemed now to Mrs. Dale as though her brother-in-law were heaping coals of fire on her head in return for that intention. She felt half-ashamed of what she was doing, almost acknowledging to herself that she should have borne with his sternness in return for the benefits he had done to her daughters. Had she not feared their reproaches she would, even now, have given way.
"I do not know what I ought to say to you for your kindness."
"Say nothing,--either for my kindness or unkindness; but stay where you are, and let us live like Christians together, striving to think good and not evil." These were kind, loving words, showing in themselves a spirit of love and forbearance; but they were spoken in a harsh, unsympathizing voice, and the speaker, as he uttered them, looked gloomily at the fire. In truth the squire, as he spoke, was half-ashamed of the warmth of what he said.
"At any rate I will not think evil," Mrs. Dale answered, giving him her hand. After that she left him, and returned home. It was too late for her to abandon her project of moving and remain at the Small House; but as she went across the garden she almost confessed to herself that she repented of what she was doing.
In these days of the cold early spring, the way from the lawn into the house, through the drawing-room window, was not as yet open, and it was necessary to go round by the kitchen-garden on to the road, and thence in by the front door; or else to pass through the back door, and into the house by the kitchen. This latter mode of entrance Mrs. Dale now adopted; and as she made her way into the hall Lily came upon her, with very silent steps, out from the parlour, and arrested her progress. There was a smile upon Lily's face as she lifted up her finger as if in caution, and no one looking at her would have supposed that she was herself in trouble. "Mamma," she said, pointing to the drawing-room door, and speaking almost in a whisper, "you must not go in there; come into the parlour."
"Who's there? Where's Bell?" and Mrs. Dale went into the parlour as she was bidden. "But who is there?" she repeated.
"He's there!"
"Who is he?"
"Oh, mamma, don't be a goose! Dr. Crofts is there, of course. He's been nearly an hour. I wonder how he is managing, for there is nothing on earth to sit upon but the old lump of a carpet. The room is strewed about with crockery, and Bell is such a figure! She has got on your old checked apron, and when he came in she was rolling up the fire-irons in brown paper. I don't suppose she was ever in such a mess before. There's one thing certain,--he can't kiss her hand."
"It's you are the goose, Lily."
"But he's in there certainly, unless he has gone out through the window, or up the chimney."
"What made you leave them?"
"He met me here, in the passage, and spoke to me ever so seriously. 'Come in,' I said, 'and see Bell packing the pokers and tongs.' 'I will go in,' he said, 'but don't come with me.' He was ever so serious, and I'm sure he had been thinking of it all the way along."
"And why should he not be serious?"
"Oh, no, of course he ought to be serious; but are you not glad, mamma? I am so glad. We shall live alone together, you and I; but she will be so close to us! My belief is that he'll stay there for ever unless somebody does something. I have been so tired of waiting and looking out for you. Perhaps he's helping her to pack the things. Don't you think we might go in; or would it be ill-natured?"
"Lily, don't be in too great a hurry to say anything. You may be mistaken, you know; and there's many a slip between the cup and the lip."
"Yes, mamma, there is," said Lily, putting her hand inside her mother's arm, "that's true enough."
"Oh, my darling, forgive me," said the mother, suddenly remembering that the use of the old proverb at the present moment had been almost cruel.
"Do not mind it," said Lily, "it does not hurt me, it does me good; that is to say, when there is nobody by except yourself. But, with God's help, there shall be no slip here, and she shall be happy. It is all the difference between one thing done in a hurry, and another done with much thinking. But they'll remain there for ever if we don't go in. Come, mamma, you open the door."
Then Mrs. Dale did open the door, giving some little premonitory notice with the handle, so that the couple inside might be warned of approaching footsteps. Crofts had not escaped, either through the window or up the chimney, but was seated in the middle of the room on an empty box, just opposite to Bell, who was seated upon the lump of carpeting. Bell still wore the checked apron as described by her sister. What might have been the state of her hands I will not pretend to say; but I do not believe that her lover had found anything amiss with them. "How do you do, doctor?" said Mrs. Dale, striving to use her accustomed voice, and to look as though there were nothing of special importance in his visit. "I have just come down from the Great House."
"Mamma," said Bell, jumping up, "you must not call him doctor any more."
"Must I not? Has any one undoctored him?"
"Oh, mamma, you understand," said Bell.
"I understand," said Lily, going up to the doctor, and giving him her cheek to kiss, "he is to be my brother, and I mean to claim him as such from this moment. I expect him to do everything for us, and not to call a moment of his time his own."
"Mrs. Dale," said the doctor, "Bell has consented that it shall be so, if you will consent."
"There is but little doubt of that," said Mrs. Dale.
"We shall not be rich--" began the doctor.
"I hate to be rich," said Bell. "I hate even to talk about it. I don't think it quite manly even to think about it; and I'm sure it isn't womanly."
"Bell was always a fanatic in praise of poverty," said Mrs. Dale.
"No; I'm no fanatic. I'm very fond of money earned. I would like to earn some myself if I knew how."
"Let her go out and visit the lady patients," said Lily. "They do in America."
Then they all went into the parlour and sat round the fire talking as though they were already one family. The proceeding, considering the nature of it,--that a young lady, acknowledged to be of great beauty and known to be of good birth, had on the occasion been asked and given in marriage,--was carried on after a somewhat humdrum fashion, and in a manner that must be called commonplace. How different had it been when Crosbie had made his offer! Lily for the time had been raised to a pinnacle,--a pinnacle which might be dangerous, but which was, at any rate, lofty. With what a pretty speech had Crosbie been greeted! How it had been felt by all concerned that the fortunes of the Small House were in the ascendant,--felt, indeed, with some trepidation, but still with much inward triumph. How great had been the occasion, forcing Lily almost to lose herself in wonderment at what had occurred! There was no great occasion now, and no wonderment. No one, unless it was Crofts, felt very triumphant. But they were all very happy, and were sure that there was safety in their happiness. It was but the other day that one of them had been thrown rudely to the ground through the treachery of a lover, but yet none of them feared treachery from this lover. Bell was as sure of her lot in life as though she were already being taken home to her modest house in Guestwick. Mrs. Dale already looked upon the man as her son, and the party of four as they sat round the fire grouped themselves as though they already formed one family.
But Bell was not seated next to her lover. Lily, when she had once accepted Crosbie, seemed to think that she could never be too near to him. She had been in no wise ashamed of her love, and had shown it constantly by some little caressing motion of her hand, leaning on his arm, looking into his face, as though she were continually desirous of some palpable assurance of his presence. It was not so at all with Bell. She was happy in loving and in being loved, but she required no overt testimonies of affection. I do not think it would have made her unhappy if some sudden need had required that Crofts should go to India and back before they were married. The thing was settled, and that was enough for her. But, on the other hand, when he spoke of the expediency of an immediate marriage, she raised no difficulty. As her mother was about to go into a new residence, it might be as well that that residence should be fitted to the wants of two persons instead of three. So they talked about chairs and tables, carpets and kitchens, in a most unromantic, homely, useful manner! A considerable portion of the furniture in the house they were now about to leave belonged to the squire,--or to the house rather, as they were in the habit of saying. The older and more solid things,--articles of household stuff that stand the wear of half a century,--had been in the Small House when they came to it. There was, therefore, a question of buying new furniture for a house in Guestwick,--a question not devoid of importance to the possessor of so moderate an income as that owned by Mrs. Dale. In the first month or two they were to live in lodgings, and their goods were to be stored in some friendly warehouse. Under such circumstances would it not be well that Bell's marriage should be so arranged that the lodging question might not be in any degree complicated by her necessities? This was the last suggestion made by Dr. Crofts, induced no doubt by the great encouragement he had received.
"That would be hardly possible," said Mrs. Dale. "It only wants three weeks;--and with the house in such a condition!"
"James is joking," said Bell.
"I was not joking at all," said the doctor.
"Why not send for Mr. Boyce, and carry her off at once on a pillion behind you?" said Lily. "It's just the sort of thing for primitive people to do, like you and Bell. All the same, Bell, I do wish you could have been married from this house."
"I don't think it will make much difference," said Bell.
"Only if you would have waited till summer we would have had such a nice party on the lawn. It sounds so ugly, being married from lodgings; doesn't it, mamma?"
"It doesn't sound at all ugly to me," said Bell.
"I shall always call you Dame Commonplace when you're married," said Lily.
Then they had tea, and after tea Dr. Crofts got on his horse and rode back to Guestwick.
"Now may I talk about him?" said Lily, as soon as the door was closed behind his back.
"No; you may not."
"As if I hadn't known it all along! And wasn't it hard to bear that you should have scolded me with such pertinacious austerity, and that I wasn't to say a word in answer!"
"I don't remember the austerity," said Mrs. Dale.
"Nor yet Lily's silence," said Bell.
"But it's all settled now," said Lily, "and I'm downright happy. I never felt more satisfaction,--never, Bell!"
"Nor did I," said her mother; "I may truly say that I thank God for this good thing."
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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51
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JOHN EAMES DOES THINGS WHICH HE OUGHT NOT TO HAVE DONE.
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John Eames succeeded in making his bargain with Sir Raffle Buffle. He accepted the private secretaryship on the plainly expressed condition that he was to have leave of absence for a fortnight towards the end of April. Having arranged this he took an affectionate leave of Mr. Love, who was really much affected at parting with him, discussed valedictory pots of porter in the big room, over which many wishes were expressed that he might be enabled to compass the length and breadth of old Huffle's feet, uttered a last cutting joke at Mr. Kissing as he met that gentleman hurrying through the passages with an enormous ledger in his hands, and then took his place in the comfortable arm-chair which FitzHoward had been forced to relinquish.
"Don't tell any of the fellows," said Fitz, "but I'm going to cut the concern altogether. My governor wouldn't let me stop here in any other place than that of private secretary."
"Ah, your governor is a swell," said Eames.
"I don't know about that," said FitzHoward. "Of course he has a good deal of family interest. My cousin is to come in for St. Bungay at the next election, and then I can do better than remain here."
"That's a matter of course," said Eames. "If my cousin were Member for St. Bungay, I'd never stand anything east of Whitehall."
"And I don't mean," said FitzHoward. "This room, you know, is all very nice; but it is a bore coming into the City every day. And then one doesn't like to be rung for like a servant. Not that I mean to put you out of conceit with it."
"It will do very well for me," said Eames. "I never was very particular." And so they parted, Eames assuming the beautiful arm-chair and the peril of being asked to carry Sir Raffle's shoes, while FitzHoward took the vacant desk in the big room till such time as some member of his family should come into Parliament for the borough of St. Bungay.
But Eames, though he drank the porter, and quizzed FitzHoward, and gibed at Kissing, did not seat himself in his new arm-chair without some serious thoughts. He was aware that his career in London had not hitherto been one on which he could look back with self-respect. He had lived with friends whom he did not esteem; he had been idle, and sometimes worse than idle; and he had allowed himself to be hampered by the pretended love of a woman for whom he had never felt any true affection, and by whom he had been cozened out of various foolish promises which even yet were hanging over his head. As he sat with Sir Raffle's notes before him, he thought almost with horror of the men and women in Burton Crescent. It was now about three years since he had first known Cradell, and he shuddered as he remembered how very poor a creature was he whom he had chosen for his bosom friend. He could not make for himself those excuses which we can make for him. He could not tell himself that he had been driven by circumstances to choose a friend, before he had learned to know what were the requisites for which he should look. He had lived on terms of closest intimacy with this man for three years, and now his eyes were opening themselves to the nature of his friend's character. Cradell was in age three years his senior. "I won't drop him," he said to himself; "but he is a poor creature." He thought, too, of the Lupexes, of Miss Spruce, and of Mrs. Roper, and tried to imagine what Lily Dale would do if she found herself among such people. It would be impossible that she should ever so find herself. He might as well ask her to drink at the bar of a gin-shop as to sit down in Mrs. Roper's drawing-room. If destiny had in store for him such good fortune as that of calling Lily his own, it was necessary that he should altogether alter his mode of life.
In truth his hobbledehoyhood was dropping off from him, as its old skin drops from a snake. Much of the feeling and something of the knowledge of manhood was coming on him, and he was beginning to recognize to himself that the future manner of his life must be to him a matter of very serious concern. No such thought had come near him when he first established himself in London. It seems to me that in this respect the fathers and mothers of the present generation understand but little of the inward nature of the young men for whom they are so anxious. They give them credit for so much that it is impossible they should have, and then deny them credit for so much that they possess! They expect from them when boys the discretion of men,--that discretion which comes from thinking; but will not give them credit for any of that power of thought which alone can ultimately produce good conduct. Young men are generally thoughtful,--more thoughtful than their seniors; but the fruit of their thought is not as yet there. And then so little is done for the amusement of lads who are turned loose into London at nineteen or twenty. Can it be that any mother really expects her son to sit alone evening after evening in a dingy room drinking bad tea, and reading good books? And yet it seems that mothers do so expect,--the very mothers who talk about the thoughtlessness of youth! O ye mothers who from year to year see your sons launched forth upon the perils of the world, and who are so careful with your good advice, with under flannel shirting, with books of devotion and tooth-powder, does it never occur to you that provision should be made for amusement, for dancing, for parties, for the excitement and comfort of women's society? That excitement your sons will have, and if it be not provided by you of one kind, will certainly be provided by themselves of another kind. If I were a mother sending lads out into the world, the matter most in my mind would be this,--to what houses full of nicest girls could I get them admission, so that they might do their flirting in good company.
Poor John Eames had been so placed that he had been driven to do his flirting in very bad company, and he was now fully aware that it had been so. It wanted but two days to his departure for Guestwick Manor, and as he sat breathing a while after the manufacture of a large batch of Sir Raffle's notes, he made up his mind that he would give Mrs. Roper notice before he started, that on his return to London he would be seen no more in Burton Crescent. He would break his bonds altogether asunder, and if there should be any penalty for such breaking he would pay it in what best manner he might be able. He acknowledged to himself that he had been behaving badly to Amelia, confessing, indeed, more sin in that respect than he had in truth committed; but this, at any rate, was clear to him, that he must put himself on a proper footing in that quarter before he could venture to speak to Lily Dale.
As he came to a definite conclusion on this subject the little handbell which always stood on Sir Raffle's table was sounded, and Eames was called into the presence of the great man. "Ah," said Sir Raffle, leaning back in his arm-chair, and stretching himself after the great exertions which he had been making--"Ah, let me see! You are going out of town the day after to-morrow."
"Yes, Sir Raffle, the day after to-morrow."
"Ah! it's a great annoyance,--a very great annoyance. But on such occasions I never think of myself. I never have done so, and don't suppose I ever shall. So you're going down to my old friend De Guest?"
Eames was always angered when his new patron Sir Raffle talked of his old friendship with the earl, and never gave the Commissioner any encouragement. "I am going down to Guestwick," said he.
"Ah! yes; to Guestwick Manor? I don't remember that I was ever there. I daresay I may have been, but one forgets those things."
"I never heard Lord De Guest speak of it."
"Oh, dear, no. Why should his memory be better than mine? Tell him, will you, how very glad I shall be to renew our old intimacy. I should think nothing of running down to him for a day or two in the dull time of the year,--say in September or October. It's rather a coincidence our both being interested about you,--isn't it?"
"I'll be sure to tell him."
"Mind you do. He's one of our most thoroughly independent noblemen, and I respect him very highly. Let me see; didn't I ring my bell? What was it I wanted? I think I rang my bell."
"You did ring your bell."
"Ah, yes; I know. I am going away, and I wanted my--would you tell Rafferty to bring me--my boots?" Whereupon Johnny rang the bell--not the little handbell, but the other bell. "And I shan't be here to-morrow," continued Sir Raffle. "I'll thank you to send my letters up to the square; and if they should send down from the Treasury;--but the Chancellor would write, and in that case you'll send up his letter at once by a special messenger, of course."
"Here's Rafferty," said Eames, determined that he would not even sully his lips with speaking of Sir Raffle's boots.
"Oh, ah, yes; Rafferty, bring me my boots."
"Anything else to say?" asked Eames.
"No, nothing else. Of course you'll be careful to leave everything straight behind you."
"Oh, yes; I'll leave it all straight." Then Eames withdrew, so that he might not be present at the interview between Sir Raffle and his boots. "He'll not do," said Sir Raffle to himself. "He'll never do. He's not quick enough,--has no go in him. He's not man enough for the place. I wonder why the earl has taken him by the hand in that way."
Soon after the little episode of the boots Eames left his office, and walked home alone to Burton Crescent. He felt that he had gained a victory in Sir Raffle's room, but the victory there had been easy. Now he had another battle on his hands, in which, as he believed, the achievement of victory would be much more difficult. Amelia Roper was a person much more to be feared than the Chief Commissioner. He had one strong arrow in his quiver on which he would depend, if there should come to him the necessity of giving his enemy a death-wound. During the last week she had been making powerful love to Cradell, so as to justify the punishment of desertion from a former lover. He would not throw Cradell in her teeth if he could help it; but it was incumbent on him to gain a victory, and if the worst should come to the worst, he must use such weapons as destiny and the chance of war had given him.
He found Mrs. Roper in the dining-room as he entered, and immediately began his work. "Mrs. Roper," he said, "I'm going out of town the day after to-morrow."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Eames, we know that. You're going as a visitor to the noble mansion of the Earl De Guest."
"I don't know about the mansion being very noble, but I'm going down into the country for a fortnight. When I come back--" "When you come back, Mr. Eames, I hope you'll find your room a deal more comfortable. I know it isn't quite what it should be for a gentleman like you, and I've been thinking for some time past--" "But, Mrs. Roper, I don't mean to come back here any more. It's just that that I want to say to you."
"Not come back to the crescent!"
"No, Mrs. Roper. A fellow must move sometimes, you know; and I'm sure I've been very constant to you for a long time."
"But where are you going, Mr. Eames?"
"Well; I haven't just made up my mind as yet. That is, it will depend on what I may do,--on what friends of mine may say down in the country. You'll not think I'm quarrelling with you, Mrs. Roper."
"It's them Lupexes as have done it," said Mrs. Roper, in her deep distress.
"No, indeed, Mrs. Roper, nobody has done it."
"Yes, it is; and I'm not going to blame you, Mr. Eames. They've made the house unfit for any decent young gentleman like you. I've been feeling that all along; but it's hard upon a lone woman like me, isn't it, Mr. Eames?"
"But, Mrs. Roper, the Lupexes have had nothing to do with my going."
"Oh, yes, they have; I understand it all. But what could I do, Mr. Eames? I've been giving them warning every week for the last six months; but the more I give them warning, the more they won't go. Unless I were to send for a policeman, and have a row in the house--" "But I haven't complained of the Lupexes, Mrs. Roper."
"You wouldn't be quitting without any reason, Mr. Eames. You are not going to be married in earnest, are you, Mr. Eames?"
"Not that I know of."
"You may tell me; you may, indeed. I won't say a word,--not to anybody. It hasn't been my fault about Amelia. It hasn't really."
"Who says there's been any fault?"
"I can see, Mr. Eames. Of course it didn't do for me to interfere. And if you had liked her, I will say I believe she'd have made as good a wife as any young man ever took; and she can make a few pounds go farther than most girls. You can understand a mother's feelings; and if there was to be anything, I couldn't spoil it; could I, now?"
"But there isn't to be anything."
"So I've told her for months past. I'm not going to say anything to blame you; but young men ought to be very particular; indeed they ought." Johnny did not choose to hint to the disconsolate mother that it also behoved young women to be very particular, but he thought it. "I've wished many a time, Mr. Eames, that she had never come here; indeed I have. But what's a mother to do? I couldn't put her outside the door." Then Mrs. Roper raised her apron up to her eyes, and began to sob.
"I'm very sorry if I've made any mischief," said Johnny.
"It hasn't been your fault," continued the poor woman, from whom, as her tears became uncontrollable, her true feelings forced themselves and the real outpouring of her feminine nature. "Nor it hasn't been my fault. But I knew what it would come to when I saw how she was going on; and I told her so. I knew you wouldn't put up with the likes of her."
"Indeed, Mrs. Roper, I've always had a great regard for her, and for you too."
"But you weren't going to marry her. I've told her so all along, and I've begged her not to do it,--almost on my knees I have; but she wouldn't be said by me. She never would. She's always been that wilful that I'd sooner have her away from me than with me. Though she's a good young woman in the house,--she is, indeed, Mr. Eames;--and there isn't a pair of hands in it that works so hard; but it was no use my talking."
"I don't think any harm has been done."
"Yes, there has; great harm. It has made the place not respectable. It's the Lupexes is the worst. There's Miss Spruce, who has been with me for nine years,--ever since I've had the house,--she's been telling me this morning that she means to go into the country. It's all the same thing. I understand it. I can see it. The house isn't respectable, as it should be; and your mamma, if she were to know all, would have a right to be angry with me. I did mean to be respectable, Mr. Eames; I did indeed."
"Miss Spruce will think better of it."
"You don't know what I've had to go through. There's none of them pays, not regular,--only she and you. She's been like the Bank of England, has Miss Spruce."
"I'm afraid I've not been very regular, Mrs. Roper."
"Oh, yes, you have. I don't think of a pound or two more or less at the end of a quarter, if I'm sure to have it some day. The butcher,--he understands one's lodgers just as well as I do,--if the money's really coming, he'll wait; but he won't wait for such as them Lupexes, whose money's nowhere. And there's Cradell; would you believe it, that fellow owes me eight and twenty pounds!"
"Eight and twenty pounds!"
"Yes, Mr. Eames, eight and twenty pounds! He's a fool. It's them Lupexes as have had his money. I know it. He don't talk of paying, and going away. I shall be just left with him and the Lupexes on my hands; and then the bailiffs may come and sell every stick about the place. I won't say nay to them." Then she threw herself into the old horsehair arm-chair, and gave way to her womanly sorrow.
"I think I'll go upstairs, and get ready for dinner," said Eames.
"And you must go away when you come back?" said Mrs. Roper.
"Well, yes, I'm afraid I must. I meant you to have a month's warning from to-day. Of course I shall pay for the month."
"I don't want to take any advantage; indeed, I don't. But I do hope you'll leave your things. You can have them whenever you like. If Chumpend knows that you and Miss Spruce are both going, of course he'll be down upon me for his money." Chumpend was the butcher. But Eames made no answer to this piteous plea. Whether or no he could allow his old boots to remain in Burton Crescent for the next week or two, must depend on the manner in which he might be received by Amelia Roper this evening.
When he came down to the drawing-room, there was no one there but Miss Spruce. "A fine day, Miss Spruce," said he.
"Yes, Mr. Eames, it is a fine day for London; but don't you think the country air is very nice?"
"Give me the town," said Johnny, wishing to say a good word for poor Mrs. Roper, if it were possible.
"You're a young man, Mr. Eames; but I'm only an old woman. That makes a difference," said Miss Spruce.
"Not much," said Johnny, meaning to be civil. "You don't like to be dull any more than I do."
"I like to be respectable, Mr. Eames. I always have been respectable, Mr. Eames." This the old woman said almost in a whisper, looking anxiously to see that the door had not been opened to other listening ears.
"I'm sure Mrs. Roper is very respectable."
"Yes; Mrs. Roper is respectable, Mr. Eames; but there are some here that-- Hush-sh-sh!" And the old lady put her finger up to her lips. The door opened and Mrs. Lupex swam into the room.
"How d'ye do, Miss Spruce? I declare you're always first. It's to get a chance of having one of the young gentlemen to yourself, I believe. What's the news in the city to-day, Mr. Eames? In your position now of course you hear all the news."
"Sir Raffle Buffle has got a new pair of shoes. I don't know that for certain, but I guess it from the time it took him to put them on."
"Ah! now you're quizzing. That's always the way with you gentlemen when you get a little up in the world. You don't think women are worth talking to then, unless just for a joke or so."
"I'd a great deal sooner talk to you, Mrs. Lupex, than I would to Sir Raffle Buffle."
"It's all very well for you to say that. But we women know what such compliments as those mean;--don't we, Miss Spruce? A woman that's been married five years as I have--or I may say six,--doesn't expect much attention from young men. And though I was young when I married--young in years, that is,--I'd seen too much and gone through too much to be young in heart." This she said almost in a whisper; but Miss Spruce heard it, and was confirmed in her belief that Burton Crescent was no longer respectable.
"I don't know what you were then, Mrs. Lupex," said Eames; "but you're young enough now for anything."
"Mr. Eames, I'd sell all that remains of my youth at a cheap rate,--at a very cheap rate, if I could only be sure of--" "Sure of what, Mrs. Lupex?"
"The undivided affection of the one person that I loved. That is all that is necessary to a woman's happiness."
"And isn't Lupex--" "Lupex! But, hush, never mind. I should not have allowed myself to be betrayed into an expression of feeling. Here's your friend Mr. Cradell. Do you know I sometimes wonder what you find in that man to be so fond of him." Miss Spruce saw it all, and heard it all, and positively resolved upon moving herself to those two small rooms at Dulwich.
Hardly a word was exchanged between Amelia and Eames before dinner. Amelia still devoted herself to Cradell, and Johnny saw that that arrow, if it should be needed, would be a strong weapon. Mrs. Roper they found seated at her place at the dining-table, and Eames could perceive the traces of her tears. Poor woman! Few positions in life could be harder to bear than hers! To be ever tugging at others for money that they could not pay; to be ever tugged at for money which she could not pay; to desire respectability for its own sake, but to be driven to confess that it was a luxury beyond her means; to put up with disreputable belongings for the sake of lucre, and then not to get the lucre, but be driven to feel that she was ruined by the attempt! How many Mrs. Ropers there are who from year to year sink down and fall away, and no one knows whither they betake themselves! One fancies that one sees them from time to time at the corners of the streets in battered bonnets and thin gowns, with the tattered remnants of old shawls upon their shoulders, still looking as though they had within them a faint remembrance of long-distant respectability. With anxious eyes they peer about, as though searching in the streets for other lodgers. Where do they get their daily morsels of bread, and their poor cups of thin tea,--their cups of thin tea, with perhaps a pennyworth of gin added to it, if Providence be good! Of this state of things Mrs. Roper had a lively appreciation, and now, poor woman, she feared that she was reaching it, by the aid of the Lupexes. On the present occasion she carved her joint of meat in silence, and sent out her slices to the good guests that would leave her, and to the bad guests that would remain, with apathetic impartiality. What was the use now of doing favour to one lodger or disfavour to another? Let them take their mutton,--they who would pay for it and they who would not. She would not have the carving of many more joints in that house if Chumpend acted up to all the threats which he had uttered to her that morning.
The reader may, perhaps, remember the little back room behind the dining parlour. A description was given in some former pages of an interview which was held between Amelia and her lover. It was in that room that all the interviews of Mrs. Roper's establishment had their existence. A special room for interviews is necessary in all households of a mixed nature. If a man lives alone with his wife, he can have his interviews where he pleases. Sons and daughters, even when they are grown up, hardly create the necessity of an interview-chamber, though some such need may be felt if the daughters are marriageable and independent in their natures. But when the family becomes more complicated than this, if an extra young man be introduced, or an aunt comes into residence, or grown up children by a former wife interfere with the domestic simplicity, then such accommodation becomes quite indispensable. No woman would think of taking in lodgers without such a room; and this room there was at Mrs. Roper's, very small and dingy, but still sufficient,--just behind the dining parlour and opposite to the kitchen stairs. Hither, after dinner, Amelia was summoned. She had just seated herself between Mrs. Lupex and Miss Spruce, ready to do battle with the former because she would stay, and with the latter because she would go, when she was called out by the servant girl.
"Miss Mealyer, Miss Mealyer,--sh--sh--sh!" And Amelia, looking round, saw a large red hand beckoning to her. "He's down there," said Jemima, as soon as her young mistress had joined her, "and wants to see you most partic'lar."
"Which of 'em?" asked Amelia, in a whisper.
"Why, Mr. Heames, to be sure. Don't you go and have anythink to say to the other one, Miss Mealyer, pray don't; he ain't no good; he ain't indeed."
Amelia stood still for a moment on the landing, calculating whether it would be well for her to have the interview, or well to decline it. Her objects were two;--or, rather, her object was in its nature twofold. She was, naturally, anxious to drive John Eames to desperation; and anxious also, by some slight added artifice, to make sure of Cradell if Eames's desperation did not have a very speedy effect. She agreed with Jemima's criticism in the main, but she did not go quite so far as to think that Cradell was no good at all. Let it be Eames, if Eames were possible; but let the other string be kept for use if Eames were not possible. Poor girl! in coming to this resolve she had not done so without agony. She had a heart, and with such power as it gave her, she loved John Eames. But the world had been hard to her; knocking her about hither and thither unmercifully; threatening, as it now threatened, to take from her what few good things she enjoyed. When a girl is so circumstanced she cannot afford to attend to her heart. She almost resolved not to see Eames on the present occasion, thinking that he might be made the more desperate by such refusal, and remembering also that Cradell was in the house and would know of it.
"He's there a-waiting, Miss Mealyer. Why don't yer come down?" and Jemima plucked her young mistress by the arm.
"I am coming," said Amelia. And with dignified steps she descended to the interview.
"Here she is, Mr. Heames," said the girl. And then Johnny found himself alone with his lady-love.
"You have sent for me, Mr. Eames," she said, giving her head a little toss, and turning her face away from him. "I was engaged upstairs, but I thought it uncivil not to come down to you as you sent for me so special."
"Yes, Miss Roper, I did want to see you very particularly."
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, and he understood fully that the exclamation referred to his having omitted the customary use of her Christian name.
"I saw your mother before dinner, and I told her that I am going away the day after to-morrow."
"We all know about that;--to the earl's, of course!" And then there was another chuck of her head.
"And I told her also that I had made up my mind not to come back to Burton Crescent."
"What! leave the house altogether!"
"Well; yes. A fellow must make a change sometimes, you know."
"And where are you going, John?"
"That I don't know as yet."
"Tell me the truth, John; are you going to be married? Are you--going--to marry--that young woman,--Mr. Crosbie's leavings? I demand to have an answer at once. Are you going to marry her?"
He had determined very resolutely that nothing she might say should make him angry, but when she thus questioned him about "Crosbie's leavings" he found it very difficult to keep his temper. "I have not come," said he, "to speak to you about any one but ourselves."
"That put-off won't do with me, sir. You are not to treat any girl you may please in that sort of way;--oh, John!" Then she looked at him as though she did not know whether to fly at him and cover him with kisses, or to fly at him and tear his hair.
"I know I haven't behaved quite as I should have done," he began.
"Oh, John!" and she shook her head. "You mean, then, to tell me that you are going to marry her?"
"I mean to say nothing of the kind. I only mean to say that I am going away from Burton Crescent."
"John Eames, I wonder what you think will come to you! Will you answer me this; have I had a promise from you,--a distinct promise, over and over again, or have I not?"
"I don't know about a distinct promise--" "Well, well! I did think that you was a gentleman that would not go back from your word. I did think that. I did think that you would never put a young lady to the necessity of bringing forward her own letters to prove that she is not expecting more than she has a right! You don't know! And that, after all that has been between us! John Eames!" And again it seemed to him as though she were about to fly.
"I tell you that I know I haven't behaved well. What more can I say?"
"What more can you say? Oh, John! to ask me such a question! If you were a man you would know very well what more to say. But all you private secretaries are given to deceit, as the sparks fly upwards. However, I despise you,--I do, indeed. I despise you."
"If you despise me, we might as well shake hands and part at once. I daresay that will be best. One doesn't like to be despised, of course; but sometimes one can't help it." And then he put out his hand to her.
"And is this to be the end of all?" she said, taking it.
"Well, yes; I suppose so. You say I'm despised."
"You shouldn't take up a poor girl in that way for a sharp word,--not when she is suffering as I am made to suffer. If you only think of it,--think what I have been expecting!" And now Amelia began to cry, and to look as though she were going to fall into his arms.
"It is better to tell the truth," he said; "isn't it?"
"But it shouldn't be the truth."
"But it is the truth. I couldn't do it. I should ruin myself and you too, and we should never be happy."
"I should be happy,--very happy indeed." At this moment the poor girl's tears were unaffected, and her words were not artful. For a minute or two her heart,--her actual heart,--was allowed to prevail.
"It cannot be, Amelia. Will you not say good-by?"
"Good-by," she said, leaning against him as she spoke.
"I do so hope you will be happy," he said. And then, putting his arm round her waist, he kissed her; which he certainly ought not to have done.
When the interview was over, he escaped out into the crescent, and as he walked down through the squares,--Woburn Square, and Russell Square, and Bedford Square,--towards the heart of London, he felt himself elated almost to a state of triumph. He had got himself well out of his difficulties, and now he would be ready for his love-tale to Lily.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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52
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THE FIRST VISIT TO THE GUESTWICK BRIDGE.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] When John Eames arrived at Guestwick Manor, he was first welcomed by Lady Julia. "My dear Mr. Eames," she said, "I cannot tell you how glad we are to see you." After that she always called him John, and treated him throughout his visit with wonderful kindness. No doubt that affair of the bull had in some measure produced this feeling; no doubt, also, she was well disposed to the man who she hoped might be accepted as a lover by Lily Dale. But I am inclined to think that the fact of his having beaten Crosbie had been the most potential cause of this affection for our hero on the part of Lady Julia. Ladies,--especially discreet old ladies, such as Lady Julia De Guest,--are bound to entertain pacific theories, and to condemn all manner of violence. Lady Julia would have blamed any one who might have advised Eames to commit an assault upon Crosbie. But, nevertheless, deeds of prowess are still dear to the female heart, and a woman, be she ever so old and discreet, understands and appreciates the summary justice which may be done by means of a thrashing. Lady Julia, had she been called upon to talk of it, would undoubtedly have told Eames that he had committed a fault in striking Mr. Crosbie; but the deed had been done, and Lady Julia became very fond of John Eames.
"Vickers shall show you your room, if you like to go upstairs; but you'll find my brother close about the house if you choose to go out; I saw him not half an hour since." But John seemed to be well satisfied to sit in the arm-chair over the fire, and talk to his hostess; so neither of them moved.
"And now that you're a private secretary, how do you like it?"
"I like the work well enough; only I don't like the man, Lady Julia. But I shouldn't say so, because he is such an intimate friend of your brother's."
"An intimate friend of Theodore's! --Sir Raffle Buffle!" Lady Julia stiffened her back and put on a serious face, not being exactly pleased at being told that the Earl De Guest had any such intimate friend.
"At any rate he tells me so about four times a day, Lady Julia. And he particularly wants to come down here next September."
"Did he tell you that, too?"
"Indeed he did. You can't believe what a goose he is! Then his voice sounds like a cracked bell; it's the most disagreeable voice you ever heard in your life. And one has always to be on one's guard lest he should make one do something that is--is--that isn't quite the thing for a gentleman. You understand;--what the messenger ought to do."
"You shouldn't be too much afraid of your own dignity."
"No, I'm not. If Lord De Guest were to ask me to fetch him his shoes, I'd run to Guestwick and back for them and think nothing of it,--just because I know he's my friend. He'd have a right to send me. But I'm not going to do such things as that for Sir Raffle Buffle."
"Fetch him his shoes!"
"That's what FitzHoward had to do, and he didn't like it."
"Isn't Mr. FitzHoward nephew to the Duchess of St. Bungay?"
"Nephew, or cousin, or something."
"Dear me!" said Lady Julia, "what a horrible man!" And in this way John Eames and her ladyship became very intimate.
There was no one at dinner at the Manor that day but the earl and his sister and their single guest. The earl when he came in was very warm in his welcome, slapping his young friend on the back, and poking jokes at him with a good-humoured if not brilliant pleasantry.
"Thrashed anybody lately, John?"
"Nobody to speak of," said Johnny.
"Brought your nightcap down for your out-o'-doors nap?"
"No; but I've got a grand stick for the bull," said Johnny.
"Ah! that's no joke now, I can tell you," said the earl. "We had to sell him, and it half broke my heart. We don't know what had come to him, but he became quite unruly after that;--knocked Darvell down in the straw-yard! It was a very bad business,--a very bad business, indeed! Come, go and dress. Do you remember how you came down to dinner that day? I shall never forget how Crofts stared at you. Come, you've only got twenty minutes, and you London fellows always want an hour."
"He's entitled to some consideration now he's a private secretary," said Lady Julia.
"Bless us all! yes; I forgot that. Come, Mr. Private Secretary, don't stand on the grandeur of your neck-tie to-day, as there's nobody here but ourselves. You shall have an opportunity to-morrow."
Then Johnny was handed over to the groom of the chambers, and exactly in twenty minutes he re-appeared in the drawing-room.
As soon as Lady Julia had left them after dinner, the earl began to explain his plan for the coming campaign. "I'll tell you now what I have arranged," said he. "The squire is to be here to-morrow with his eldest niece,--your Miss Lily's sister, you know."
"What, Bell?"
"Yes, with Bell, if her name is Bell. She's a very pretty girl, too. I don't know whether she's not the prettiest of the two, after all."
"That's a matter of opinion."
"Just so, Johnny; and do you stick to your own. They're coming here for three or four days. Lady Julia did ask Mrs. Dale and Lily. I wonder whether you'll let me call her Lily?"
"Oh, dear! I wish I might have the power of letting you."
"That's just the battle that you've got to fight. But the mother and the younger sister wouldn't come. Lady Julia says it's all right;--that, as a matter of course, she wouldn't come when she heard you were to be here. I don't quite understand it. In my days the young girls were ready enough to go where they knew they'd meet their lovers, and I never thought any the worse of them for it."
"It wasn't because of that," said Eames.
"That's what Lady Julia says, and I always find her to be right in things of that sort. And she says you'll have a better chance in going over there than you would here, if she were in the same house with you. If I was going to make love to a girl, of course I'd sooner have her close to me,--staying in the same house. I should think it the best fun in the world. And we might have had a dance, and all that kind of thing. But I couldn't make her come, you know."
"Oh, no; of course not."
"And Lady Julia thinks that it's best as it is. You must go over, you know, and get the mother on your side, if you can. I take it, the truth is this;--you mustn't be angry with me, you know, for saying it."
"You may be sure of that."
"I suppose she was fond of that fellow, Crosbie. She can't be very fond of him now, I should think, after the way he has treated her; but she'll find a difficulty in making her confession that she really likes you better than she ever liked him. Of course that's what you'll want her to say."
"I want her to say that she'll be my wife,--some day."
"And when she has agreed to the some day, then you'll begin to press her to agree to your day;--eh, sir? My belief is you'll bring her round. Poor girl! why should she break her heart when a decent fellow like you will only be too glad to make her a happy woman?" And in this way the earl talked to Eames till the latter almost believed that the difficulties were vanishing from out of his path. "Could it be possible," he asked himself, as he went to bed, "that in a fortnight's time Lily Dale should have accepted him as her future husband?" Then he remembered that day on which Crosbie, with the two girls, had called at his mother's house, when in the bitterness of his heart, he had sworn to himself that he would always regard Crosbie as his enemy. Since then the world had gone well with him; and he had no longer any very bitter feeling against Crosbie. That matter had been arranged on the platform of the Paddington Station. He felt that if Lily would now accept him he could almost shake hands with Crosbie. The episode in his life and in Lily's would have been painful; but he would learn to look back upon that without regret, if Lily could be taught to believe that a kind fate had at last given her to the better of her two lovers. "I'm afraid she won't bring herself to forget him," he had said to the earl. "She'll only be too happy to forget him," the earl had answered, "if you can induce her to begin the attempt. Of course it is very bitter at first;--all the world knew about it; but, poor girl, she is not to be wretched for ever, because of that. Do you go about your work with some little confidence, and I doubt not but what you'll have your way. You have everybody in your favour,--the squire, her mother, and all." While such words as these were in his ears how could he fail to hope and to be confident? While he was sitting cozily over his bedroom fire he resolved that it should be as the earl had said. But when he got up on the following morning, and stood shivering as he came out of his bath, he could not feel the same confidence. "Of course I shall go to her," he said to himself, "and make a plain story of it. But I know what her answer will be. She will tell me that she cannot forget him." Then his feelings towards Crosbie were not so friendly as they had been on the previous evening.
He did not visit the Small House on that, his first day. It had been thought better that he should first meet the squire and Bell at Guestwick Manor, so he postponed his visit to Mrs. Dale till the next morning.
"Go when you like," said the earl. "There's the brown cob for you to do what you like with him while you are here."
"I'll go and see my mother," said John; "but I won't take the cob to-day. If you'll let me have him to-morrow, I'll ride to Allington." So he walked off to Guestwick by himself.
He knew well every yard of the ground over which he went, remembering every gate and stile and greensward from the time of his early boyhood. And now as he went along through his old haunts, he could not but look back and think of the thoughts which had filled his mind in his earlier wanderings. As I have said before, in some of these pages, no walks taken by the man are so crowded with thought as those taken by the boy. He had been early taught to understand that the world to him would be very hard; that he had nothing to look to but his own exertions, and that those exertions would not, unfortunately, be backed by any great cleverness of his own. I do not know that anybody had told him that he was a fool; but he had come to understand, partly through his own modesty, and partly, no doubt, through the somewhat obtrusive diffidence of his mother, that he was less sharp than other lads. It is probably true that he had come to his sharpness later in life than is the case with many young men. He had not grown on the sunny side of the wall. Before that situation in the Income-tax Office had fallen in his way, very humble modes of life had offered themselves,--or, rather, had not offered themselves for his acceptance. He had endeavoured to become an usher at a commercial seminary, not supposed to be in a very thriving condition; but he had been, luckily, found deficient in his arithmetic. There had been some chance of his going into the leather-warehouse of Messrs. Basil and Pigskin, but those gentlemen had required a premium, and any payment of that kind had been quite out of his mother's power. A country attorney, who had known the family for years, had been humbly solicited, the widow almost kneeling before him with tears, to take Johnny by the hand and make a clerk of him; but the attorney had discovered that Master Johnny Eames was not supposed to be sharp, and would have none of him. During those days, those gawky, gainless, un-admired days, in which he had wandered about the lanes of Guestwick as his only amusement, and had composed hundreds of rhymes in honour of Lily Dale which no human eye but his own had ever seen, he had come to regard himself as almost a burden upon the earth. Nobody seemed to want him. His own mother was very anxious; but her anxiety seemed to him to indicate a continual desire to get rid of him. For hours upon hours he would fill his mind with castles in the air, dreaming of wonderful successes in the midst of which Lily Dale always reigned as a queen. He would carry on the same story in his imagination from month to month, almost contenting himself with such ideal happiness. Had it not been for the possession of that power, what comfort could there have been to him in his life? There are lads of seventeen who can find happiness in study, who can busy themselves in books and be at their ease among the creations of other minds. These are they who afterwards become well-informed men. It was not so with John Eames. He had never been studious. The perusal of a novel was to him in those days a slow affair; and of poetry he read but little, storing up accurately in his memory all that he did read. But he created for himself his own romance, though to the eye a most unromantic youth; and he wandered through the Guestwick woods with many thoughts of which they who knew him best knew nothing. All this he thought of now as, with devious steps, he made his way towards his old home;--with very devious steps, for he went backwards through the woods by a narrow path which led right away from the town down to a little water-course, over which stood a wooden foot-bridge with a rail. He stood on the centre of the plank, at a spot which he knew well, and rubbing his hand upon the rail, cleansed it for the space of a few inches of the vegetable growth produced by the spray of the water. There, rudely carved in the wood, was still the word LILY. When he cut those letters she had been almost a child. "I wonder whether she will come here with me and let me show it to her," he said to himself. Then he took out his knife and cleared the cuttings of the letters, and having done so, leaned upon the rail, and looked down upon the running water. How well things in the world had gone for him! How well! And yet what would it all be if Lily would not come to him? How well the world had gone for him! In those days when he stood there carving the girl's name everybody had seemed to regard him as a heavy burden, and he had so regarded himself. Now he was envied by many, respected by many, taken by the hand as a friend by those high in the world's esteem. When he had come near the Guestwick Mansion in his old walks,--always, however, keeping at a great distance lest the grumpy old lord should be down upon him and scold him,--he had little dreamed that he and the grumpy old lord would ever be together on such familiar terms, that he would tell to that lord more of his private thoughts than to any other living being; yet it had come to that. The grumpy old lord had now told him that that gift of money was to be his whether Lily Dale accepted him or no. "Indeed, the thing's done," said the grumpy lord, pulling out from his pocket certain papers, "and you've got to receive the dividends as they become due." Then, when Johnny had expostulated,--as, indeed, the circumstances had left him no alternative but to expostulate,--the earl had roughly bade him hold his tongue, telling him that he would have to fetch Sir Raffle's boots directly he got back to London. So the conversation had quickly turned itself away to Sir Raffle, whom they had both ridiculed with much satisfaction. "If he finds his way down here in September, Master Johnny, or in any other month either, you may fit my head with a foolscap. Not remember, indeed! Is it not wonderful that any man should make himself so mean a fool?" All this was thought over again, as Eames leaned upon the bridge. He remembered every word, and remembered many other words,--earlier words, spoken years ago, filling him with desolation as to the prospects of his life. It had seemed that his friends had united in prophesying that the outlook into the world for him was hopeless, and that the earning of bread must be for ever beyond his power. And now his lines had fallen to him in very pleasant places, and he was among those whom the world had determined to caress. And yet, what would it all be if Lily would not share his happiness? When he had carved that name on the rail, his love for Lily had been an idea. It had now become a reality which might probably be full of pain. If it were so,--if such should be the result of his wooing,--would not those old dreamy days have been better than these--the days of his success?
It was one o'clock by the time that he reached his mother's house, and he found her and his sister in a troubled and embarrassed state. "Of course you know, John," said his mother, as soon as their first embraces were over, "that we are going to dine at the Manor this evening?" But he did not know it, neither the earl nor Lady Julia having said anything on the subject. "Of course we are going," said Mrs. Eames, "and it was so very kind. But I've never been out to such a house for so many years, John, and I do feel in such a twitter. I dined there once, soon after we were married; but I never have been there since that."
"It's not the earl I mind, but Lady Julia," said Mary Eames.
"She's the most good-natured woman in the world," said Johnny.
"Oh, dear; people say she is so cross!"
"That's because people don't know her. If I was asked who is the kindest-hearted woman I know in the world, I think I should say Lady Julia De Guest. I think I should."
"Ah! but then they're so fond of you," said the admiring mother. "You saved his lordship's life,--under Providence."
"That's all bosh, mother. You ask Dr. Crofts. He knows them as well as I do."
"Dr. Crofts is going to marry Bell Dale," said Mary; and then the conversation was turned from the subject of Lady Julia's perfections, and the awe inspired by the earl.
"Crofts going to marry Bell!" exclaimed Eames, thinking almost with dismay of the doctor's luck in thus getting himself accepted all at once, while he had been suing with the constancy almost of a Jacob.
"Yes," said Mary; "and they say that she has refused her cousin Bernard, and that, therefore, the squire is taking away the house from them. You know they're all coming into Guestwick."
"Yes, I know they are. But I don't believe that the squire is taking away the house."
"Why should they come then? Why should they give up such a charming place as that?"
"Rent-free!" said Mrs. Eames.
"I don't know why they should come away, but I can't believe the squire is turning them out; at any rate not for that reason." The squire was prepared to advocate John's suit, and therefore John was bound to do battle on the squire's behalf.
"He is a very stern man," said Mrs. Eames, "and they say that since that affair of poor Lily's he has been more cross than ever with them. As far as I know, it was not Lily's fault."
"Poor Lily!" said Mary. "I do pity her. If I was her I should hardly know how to show my face; I shouldn't, indeed."
"And why shouldn't she show her face?" said John, in an angry tone. "What has she done to be ashamed of? Show her face indeed! I cannot understand the spite which one woman will sometimes have to another."
"There is no spite, John; and it's very wrong of you to say so," said Mary, defending herself. "But it is a very unpleasant thing for a girl to be jilted. All the world knows that she was engaged to him."
"And all the world knows--" But he would not proceed to declare that all the world knew also that Crosbie had been well thrashed for his baseness. It would not become him to mention that even before his mother and sister. All the world did know it; all the world that cared to know anything of the matter;--except Lily Dale herself. Nobody had ever yet told Lily Dale of that occurrence at the Paddington Railway Station, and it was well for John that her friends and his had been so discreet.
"Oh, of course you are her champion," said Mary. "And I didn't mean to say anything unkind. Indeed I didn't. Of course it was a misfortune."
"I think it was the best piece of good fortune that could have happened to her, not to marry a d---- scoundrel like--" "Oh, John!" exclaimed Mrs. Eames.
"I beg your pardon, mother. But it isn't swearing to call such a man as that a d---- scoundrel." And he particularly emphasized the naughty word, thinking that thereby he would add to its import, and take away from its naughtiness. "But we won't talk any more about him. I hate the man's very name. I hated him the first moment that I saw him, and knew that he was a blackguard from his look. And I don't believe a word about the squire having been cross to them. Indeed I know he has been the reverse of cross. So Bell is going to marry Dr. Crofts!"
"There is no doubt on earth about that," said Mary. "And they say that Bernard Dale is going abroad with his regiment."
Then John discussed with his mother his duties as private secretary, and his intention of leaving Mrs. Roper's house. "I suppose it isn't nice enough for you now, John," said his mother.
"It never was very nice, mother, to tell you the truth. There were people there--. But you mustn't think I am turning up my nose because I'm getting grand. I don't want to live any better than we all lived at Mrs. Roper's; but she took in persons that were not agreeable. There is a Mr. and Mrs. Lupex there." Then he described something of their life in Burton Crescent, but did not say much about Amelia Roper. Amelia Roper had not made her appearance in Guestwick, as he had once feared that she would do; and therefore it did not need that he should at present make known to his mother that episode in his life.
When he got back to the Manor House he found that Mr. Dale and his niece had arrived. They were both sitting with Lady Julia when he went into the morning room, and Lord De Guest was standing over the fire talking to them. Eames as he came among them felt terribly conscious of his position, as though all there were aware that he had been brought down from London on purpose to make a declaration of love;--as, indeed, all of them were aware of that fact. Bell, though no one had told her so in direct words, was as sure of it as the others.
"Here comes the prince of matadores," said the earl.
"No, my lord; you're the prince. I'm only your first follower." Though he could contrive that his words should be gay, his looks were sheepish, and when he gave his hand to the squire it was only by a struggle that he could bring himself to look straight into the old man's face.
"I'm very glad to see you, John," said the squire, "very glad indeed."
"And so am I," said Bell. "I have been so happy to hear that you have been promoted at your office, and so is mamma."
"I hope Mrs. Dale is quite well," said he;--"and Lily." The word had been pronounced, but it had been done with so manifest an effort that all in the room were conscious of it, and paused as Bell prepared her little answer.
"My sister has been very ill, you know,--with scarlatina. But she has recovered with wonderful quickness, and is nearly well again now. She will be so glad to see you if you will go over."
"Yes; I shall certainly go over," said John.
"And now shall I show you your room, Miss Dale?" said Lady Julia. And so the party was broken up, and the ice had been broken.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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53
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LOQUITUR HOPKINS.
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The squire had been told that his niece Bell had accepted Dr. Crofts, and he had signified a sort of acquiescence in the arrangement, saying that if it were to be so, he had nothing to say against Dr. Crofts. He spoke this in a melancholy tone of voice, wearing on his face that look of subdued sorrow which was now almost habitual to him. It was to Mrs. Dale that he spoke on the subject. "I could have wished that it might have been otherwise," he said, "as you are well aware. I had family reasons for wishing that it might be otherwise. But I have nothing to say against it. Dr. Crofts, as her husband, shall be welcome to my house." Mrs. Dale, who had expected much worse than this, began to thank him for his kindness, and to say that she also would have preferred to see her daughter married to her cousin. "But in such a matter the decision should be left entirely to the girl. Don't you think so?"
"I have not a word to say against her," he repeated. Then Mrs. Dale left him, and told her daughter that her uncle's manner of receiving the news had been, for him, very gracious. "You were his favourite, but Lily will be so now," said Mrs. Dale.
"I don't care a bit about that;--or, rather, I do care, and think it will be in every way better. But as I, who am the naughty one, will go away, and as Lily, who is the good one, will remain with you, doesn't it almost seem a pity that you should be leaving the house?"
Mrs. Dale thought it was almost a pity, but she could not say so now. "You think Lily will remain," she said.
"Yes, mamma; I feel sure she will."
"She was always very fond of John Eames;--and he is doing so well."
"It will be of no use, mamma. She is fond of him,--very fond. In a sort of a way she loves him--so well, that I feel sure she never mentions his name without some inward reference to her old childish thoughts and fancies. If he had come before Mr. Crosbie it would have all been well with her. But she cannot do it now. Her pride would prevent her, even if her heart permitted it. Oh! dear; it's very wrong of me to say so, after all that I have said before; but I almost wish you were not going. Uncle Christopher seems to be less hard than he used to be; and as I was the sinner, and as I am disposed of--" "It is too late now, my dear."
"And we should neither of us have the courage to mention it to Lily," said Bell.
On the following morning the squire sent for his sister-in-law, as it was his wont to do when necessity came for any discussion on matters of business. This was perfectly understood between them, and such sending was not taken as indicating any lack of courtesy on the part of Mr. Dale. "Mary," he said, as soon as Mrs. Dale was seated, "I shall do for Bell exactly what I have proposed to do for Lily. I had intended more than that once, of course. But then it would all have gone into Bernard's pocket; as it is, I shall make no difference between them. They shall each have a hundred a year,--that is, when they marry. You had better tell Crofts to speak to me."
"Mr. Dale, he doesn't expect it. He does not expect a penny."
"So much the better for him; and, indeed, so much the better for her. He won't make her the less welcome to his home because she brings some assistance to it."
"We have never thought of it,--any of us. The offer has come so suddenly that I don't know what I ought to say."
"Say--nothing. If you choose to make me a return for it--; but I am only doing what I conceive to be my duty, and have no right to ask for a kindness in return."
"But what kindness can we show you, Mr. Dale?"
"Remain in that house." In saying these last words he spoke as though he were again angry,--as though he were again laying down the law to them,--as though he were telling her of a duty which was due to him and incumbent on her. His voice was as stern and his face as acid as ever. He said that he was asking for a kindness; but surely no man ever asked for kindness in a voice so peremptory. "Remain in that house." Then he turned himself in towards his table as though he had no more to say.
But Mrs. Dale was beginning, now at last, to understand something of his mind and real character. He could be affectionate and forbearing in his giving; but when asking, he could not be otherwise than stern. Indeed, he could not ask; he could only demand.
"We have done so much now," Mrs. Dale began to plead.
"Well, well, well. I did not mean to speak about that. Things are unpacked easier than they are packed. But, however-- Never mind. Bell is to go with me this afternoon to Guestwick Manor. Let her be up here at two. Grimes can bring her box round, I suppose."
"Oh, yes: of course."
"And don't be talking to her about money before she starts. I had rather you didn't;--you understand. But when you see Crofts, tell him to come to me. Indeed, he'd better come at once, if this thing is to go on quickly."
It may easily be understood that Mrs. Dale would disobey the injunctions contained in the squire's last words. It was quite out of the question that she should return to her daughters and not tell them the result of her morning's interview with their uncle. A hundred a year in the doctor's modest household would make all the difference between plenty and want, between modest plenty and endurable want. Of course she told them, giving Bell to understand that she must dissemble so far as to pretend ignorance of the affair.
"I shall thank him at once," said Bell; "and tell him that I did not at all expect it, but am not too proud to accept it."
"Pray don't, my dear; not just now. I am breaking a sort of promise in telling you at all,--only I could not keep it to myself. And he has so many things to worry him! Though he says nothing about it now, he has half broken his heart about you and Bernard." Then, too, Mrs. Dale told the girls what request the squire had just made, and the manner in which he had made it. "The tone of his voice as he spoke brought tears into my eyes. I almost wish we had not done anything."
"But, mamma," said Lily, "what difference can it make to him? You know that our presence near him was always a trouble to him. He never really wanted us. He liked to have Bell there when he thought that Bell would marry his pet."
"Don't be unkind, Lily."
"I don't mean to be unkind. Why shouldn't Bernard be his pet? I love Bernard dearly, and always thought it the best point in uncle Christopher that he was so fond of him. I knew, you know, that it was no use. Of course I knew it, as I understood all about--somebody else. But Bernard is his pet."
"He's fond of you all, in his own way," said Mrs. Dale.
"But is he fond of you? --that's the question," said Lily. "We could have forgiven him anything done to us, and have put up with any words he might have spoken to us, because he regards us as children. His giving a hundred a year to Bell won't make you comfortable in this house if he still domineers over you. If a neighbour be neighbourly, near neighbourhood is very nice. But uncle Christopher has not been neighbourly. He has wanted to be more than an uncle to us, on condition that he might be less than a brother to you. Bell and I have always felt that his regard on such terms was not worth having."
"I almost feel that we have been wrong," said Mrs. Dale; "but in truth I never thought that the matter would be to him one of so much moment."
When Bell had gone, Mrs. Dale and Lily were not disposed to continue with much energy the occupation on which they had all been employed for some days past. There had been life and excitement in the work when they had first commenced their packing, but now it was grown wearisome, dull, and distasteful. Indeed so much of it was done that but little was left to employ them, except those final strappings and fastenings, and that last collection of odds and ends which could not be accomplished till they were absolutely on the point of starting. The squire had said that unpacking would be easier than packing, and Mrs. Dale, as she wandered about among the hampers and cases, began to consider whether the task of restoring all the things to their old places would be very disagreeable. She said nothing of this to Lily, and Lily herself, whatever might be her thoughts, made no such suggestion to her mother.
"I think Hopkins will miss us more than any one else," she said. "Hopkins will have no one to scold."
Just at that moment Hopkins appeared at the parlour window, and signified his desire for a conference.
"You must come round," said Lily. "It's too cold for the window to be opened. I always like to get him into the house, because he feels himself a little abashed by the chairs and tables; or, perhaps, it is the carpet that is too much for him. Out on the gravel-walks he is such a terrible tyrant, and in the greenhouse he almost tramples upon one!"
Hopkins, when he did appear at the parlour door, seemed by his manner to justify Lily's discretion. He was not at all masterful in his tone or bearing, and seemed to pay to the chairs and tables all the deference which they could have expected.
"So you be going in earnest, ma'am," he said, looking down at Mrs. Dale's feet.
As Mrs. Dale did not answer him at once, Lily spoke:--"Yes, Hopkins, we are going in a very few days, now. We shall see you sometimes, I hope, over at Guestwick."
"Humph!" said Hopkins. "So you be really going! I didn't think it'd ever come to that, miss; I didn't indeed,--and no more it oughtn't; but of course it isn't for me to speak."
"People must change their residence sometimes, you know," said Mrs. Dale, using the same argument by which Eames had endeavoured to excuse his departure to Mrs. Roper.
"Well, ma'am; it ain't for me to say anything. But this I will say, I've lived here about t' squire's place, man and boy, jist all my life, seeing I was born here, as you knows, Mrs. Dale; and of all the bad things I ever see come about the place, this is a sight the worst."
"Oh, Hopkins!"
"The worst of all, ma'am; the worst of all! It'll just kill t' squire! There's ne'ery doubt in the world about that. It'll be the very death of t' old man."
"That's nonsense, Hopkins," said Lily.
"Very well, miss. I don't say but what it is nonsense; only you'll see. There's Mr. Bernard,--he's gone away; and by all accounts he never did care very much for the place. They all say he's a-going to the Hingies. And Miss Bell is going to be married,--which is all proper, in course; why shouldn't she? And why shouldn't you, too, Miss Lily?"
"Perhaps I shall, some day, Hopkins."
"There's no day like the present, Miss Lily. And I do say this, that the man as pitched into him would be the man for my money." This, which Hopkins spoke in the excitement of the moment, was perfectly unintelligible to Lily, and Mrs. Dale, who shuddered as she heard him, said not a word to call for any explanation. "But," continued Hopkins, "that's all as it may be, Miss Lily, and you be in the hands of Providence,--as is others."
"Exactly so, Hopkins."
"But why should your mamma be all for going away? She ain't going to marry no one. Here's the house, and there's she, and there's t' squire; and why should she be for going away? So much going away all at once can't be for any good. It's just a breaking up of everything, as though nothing wasn't good enough for nobody. I never went away, and I can't abide it."
"Well, Hopkins; it's settled now," said Mrs. Dale, "and I'm afraid it can't be unsettled."
"Settled;--well. Tell me this: do you expect, Mrs. Dale, that he's to live there all alone by hisself without any one to say a cross word to,--unless it be me or Dingles; for Jolliffe's worse than nobody, he's so mortial cross hisself. Of course he can't stand it. If you goes away, Mrs. Dale, Mister Bernard, he'll be squire in less than twelve months. He'll come back from the Hingies, then, I suppose?"
"I don't think my brother-in-law will take it in that way, Hopkins."
"Ah, ma'am, you don't know him,--not as I knows him;--all the ins and outs and crinks and crannies of him. I knows him as I does the old apple-trees that I've been a-handling for forty year. There's a deal of bad wood about them old cankered trees, and some folk say they ain't worth the ground they stand on; but I know where the sap runs, and when the fruit-blossom shows itself I know where the fruit will be the sweetest. It don't take much to kill one of them old trees,--but there's life in 'm yet if they be well handled."
"I'm sure I hope my brother's life may be long spared to him," said Mrs. Dale.
"Then don't be taking yourself away, ma'am, into them gashly lodgings at Guestwick. I says they are gashly for the likes of a Dale. It is not for me to speak, ma'am, of course. And I only came up now just to know what things you'd like with you out of the greenhouse."
"Oh, nothing, Hopkins, thank you," said Mrs. Dale.
"He told me to put up for you the best I could pick, and I means to do it;" and Hopkins, as he spoke, indicated by a motion of his head that he was making reference to the squire.
"We shan't have any place for them," said Lily.
"I must send a few, miss, just to cheer you up a bit. I fear you'll be very dolesome there. And the doctor,--he ain't got what you can call a regular garden, but there is a bit of a place behind."
"But we wouldn't rob the dear old place," said Lily.
"For the matter of that what does it signify? T' squire'll be that wretched he'll turn sheep in here to destroy the place, or he'll have the garden ploughed. You see if he don't. As for the place, the place is clean done for, if you leave it. You don't suppose he'll go and let the Small House to strangers. T' squire ain't one of that sort any ways."
"Ah me!" exclaimed Mrs. Dale, as soon as Hopkins had taken himself off.
"What is it, mamma? He's a dear old man, but surely what he says cannot make you really unhappy."
"It is so hard to know what one ought to do. I did not mean to be selfish, but it seems to me as though I were doing the most selfish thing in the world."
"Nay, mamma; it has been anything but selfish. Besides, it is we that have done it; not you."
"Do you know, Lily, that I also have that feeling as to breaking up one's old mode of life of which Hopkins spoke. I thought that I should be glad to escape from this place, but now that the time has come I dread it."
"Do you mean that you repent?"
Mrs. Dale did not answer her daughter at once, fearing to commit herself by words which could not be retracted. But at last she said, "Yes, Lily; I think I do repent. I think that it has not been well done."
"Then let it be undone," said Lily.
The dinner-party at Guestwick Manor on that day was not very bright, and yet the earl had done all in his power to make his guests happy. But gaiety did not come naturally to his house, which, as will have been seen, was an abode very unlike in its nature to that of the other earl at Courcy Castle. Lady De Courcy at any rate understood how to receive and entertain a house full of people, though the practice of doing so might give rise to difficult questions in the privacy of her domestic relations. Lady Julia did not understand it; but then Lady Julia was never called upon to answer for the expense of extra servants, nor was she asked about twice a week who the ---- was to pay the wine-merchant's bill? As regards Lord De Guest and the Lady Julia themselves, I think they had the best of it; but I am bound to admit, with reference to chance guests, that the house was dull. The people who were now gathered at the earl's table could hardly have been expected to be very sprightly when in company with each other. The squire was not a man much given to general society, and was unused to amuse a table full of people. On the present occasion he sat next to Lady Julia, and from time to time muttered a few words to her about the state of the country. Mrs. Eames was terribly afraid of everybody there, and especially of the earl, next to whom she sat, and whom she continually called "my lord," showing by her voice as she did so that she was almost alarmed by the sound of her own voice. Mr. and Mrs. Boyce were there, the parson sitting on the other side of Lady Julia, and the parson's wife on the other side of the earl. Mrs. Boyce was very studious to show that she was quite at home, and talked perhaps more than any one else; but in doing so she bored the earl most exquisitely, so that he told John Eames the next morning that she was worse than the bull. The parson ate his dinner, but said little or nothing between the two graces. He was a heavy, sensible, slow man, who knew himself and his own powers. "Uncommon good stewed beef," he said, as he went home; "why can't we have our beef stewed like that?" "Because we don't pay our cook sixty pounds a year," said Mrs. Boyce. "A woman with sixteen pounds can stew beef as well as a woman with sixty," said he; "she only wants looking after." The earl himself was possessed of a sort of gaiety. There was about him a lightness of spirit which often made him an agreeable companion to one single person. John Eames conceived him to be the most sprightly old man of his day,--an old man with the fun and frolic almost of a boy. But this spirit, though it would show itself before John Eames, was not up to the entertainment of John Eames's mother and sister, together with the squire, the parson, and the parson's wife of Allington. So that the earl was overweighted and did not shine on this occasion at his own dinner-table. Dr. Crofts, who had also been invited, and who had secured the place which was now peculiarly his own, next to Bell Dale, was no doubt happy enough; as, let us hope, was the young lady also; but they added very little to the general hilarity of the company. John Eames was seated between his own sister and the parson, and did not at all enjoy his position. He had a full view of the doctor's felicity, as the happy pair sat opposite to him, and conceived himself to be hardly treated by Lily's absence.
The party was certainly very dull, as were all such dinners at Guestwick Manor. There are houses, which, in their every-day course, are not conducted by any means in a sad or unsatisfactory manner,--in which life, as a rule, runs along merrily enough; but which cannot give a dinner-party; or, I might rather say, should never allow themselves to be allured into the attempt. The owners of such houses are generally themselves quite aware of the fact, and dread the dinner which they resolved to give quite as much as it is dreaded by their friends. They know that they prepare for their guests an evening of misery, and for themselves certain long hours of purgatory which are hardly to be endured. But they will do it. Why that long table, and all those supernumerary glasses and knives and forks, if they are never to be used? That argument produces all this misery; that and others cognate to it. On the present occasion, no doubt, there were excuses to be made. The squire and his niece had been invited on special cause, and their presence would have been well enough. The doctor added in would have done no harm. It was good-natured, too, that invitation given to Mrs. Eames and her daughter. The error lay in the parson and his wife. There was no necessity for their being there, nor had they any ground on which to stand, except the party-giving ground. Mr. and Mrs. Boyce made the dinner-party, and destroyed the social circle. Lady Julia knew that she had been wrong as soon as she had sent out the note.
Nothing was said on that evening which has any bearing on our story. Nothing, indeed, was said which had any bearing on anything. The earl's professed object had been to bring the squire and young Eames together; but people are never brought together on such melancholy occasions. Though they sip their port in close contiguity, they are poles asunder in their minds and feelings. When the Guestwick fly came for Mrs. Eames, and the parson's pony phaeton came for him and Mrs. Boyce, a great relief was felt; but the misery of those who were left had gone too far to allow of any reaction on that evening. The squire yawned, and the earl yawned, and then there was an end of it for that night.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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54
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THE SECOND VISIT TO THE GUESTWICK BRIDGE.
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Bell had declared that her sister would be very happy to see John Eames if he would go over to Allington, and he had replied that of course he would go there. So much having been, as it were, settled, he was able to speak of his visit as a matter of course at the breakfast-table, on the morning after the earl's dinner-party. "I must get you to come round with me, Dale, and see what I am doing to the land," the earl said. And then he proposed to order saddle-horses. But the squire preferred walking, and in this way they were disposed of soon after breakfast.
John had it in his mind to get Bell to himself for half an hour, and hold a conference with her; but it either happened that Lady Julia was too keen in her duties as a hostess, or else, as was more possible, Bell avoided the meeting. No opportunity for such an interview offered itself, though he hung about the drawing-room all the morning. "You had better wait for luncheon, now," Lady Julia said to him about twelve. But this he declined; and taking himself away hid himself about the place for the next hour and a half. During this time he considered much whether it would be better for him to ride or walk. If she should give him any hope, he could ride back triumphant as a field-marshal. Then the horse would be delightful to him. But if she should give him no hope,--if it should be his destiny to be rejected utterly on that morning,--then the horse would be terribly in the way of his sorrow. Under such circumstances what could he do but roam wide about across the fields, resting when he might choose to rest, and running when it might suit him to run. "And she is not like other girls," he thought to himself. "She won't care for my boots being dirty." So at last he elected to walk.
"Stand up to her boldly, man," the earl had said to him. "By George, what is there to be afraid of? It's my belief they'll give most to those who ask for most. There's nothing sets 'em against a man like being sheepish." How the earl knew so much, seeing that he had not himself given signs of any success in that walk of life, I am not prepared to say. But Eames took his advice as being in itself good, and resolved to act upon it. "Not that any resolution will be of any use," he said to himself, as he walked along. "When the moment comes I know that I shall tremble before her, and I know that she'll see it; but I don't think it will make any difference in her."
He had last seen her on the lawn behind the Small House, just at that time when her passion for Crosbie was at the strongest. Eames had gone thither impelled by a foolish desire to declare to her his hopeless love, and she had answered him by telling him that she loved Mr. Crosbie better than all the world besides. Of course she had done so, at that time; but, nevertheless, her manner of telling him had seemed to him to be cruel. And he also had been cruel. He had told her that he hated Crosbie,--calling him "that man," and assuring her that no earthly consideration should induce him to go into "that man's house." Then he had walked away moodily wishing him all manner of evil. Was it not singular that all the evil things which he, in his mind, had meditated for the man, had fallen upon him. Crosbie had lost his love! He had so proved himself to be a villain that his name might not be so much as mentioned! He had been ignominiously thrashed! But what good would all this be if his image were still dear to Lily's heart? "I told her that I loved her then," he said to himself, "though I had no right to do so. At any rate I have a right to tell her now."
When he reached Allington he did not go in through the village and up to the front of the Small House by the cross street, but turned by the church gate and passed over the squire's terrace, and by the end of the Great House through the garden. Here he encountered Hopkins. "Why, if that b'aint Mr. Eames!" said the gardener. "Mr. John, may I make so bold!" and Hopkins held out a very dirty hand, which Eames of course took, unconscious of the cause of this new affection.
"I'm just going to call at the Small House, and I thought I'd come this way."
"To be sure; this way, or that way, or any way, who's so welcome, Mr. John? I envies you; I envies you more than I envies any man. If I could a got him by the scuff of the neck, I'd a treated him jist like any wermin;--I would, indeed! He was wermin! I ollays said it. I hated him ollays; I did indeed, Mr. John, from the first moment when he used to be nigging away at them foutry balls, knocking them in among the rhododendrons, as though there weren't no flower blossoms for next year. He never looked at one as though one were a Christian; did he, Mr. John?"
"I wasn't very fond of him myself, Hopkins."
"Of course you weren't very fond of him. Who was? --only she, poor young lady. She'll be better now, Mr. John, a deal better. He wasn't a wholesome lover,--not like you are. Tell me, Mr. John, did you give it him well when you got him? I heard you did;--two black eyes, and all his face one mash of gore!" And Hopkins, who was by no means a young man, stiffly put himself into a fighting attitude.
Eames passed on over the little bridge, which seemed to be in a state of fast decay, unattended to by any friendly carpenter, now that the days of its use were so nearly at an end; and on into the garden, lingering on the spot where he had last said farewell to Lily. He looked about as though he expected still to find her there; but there was no one to be seen in the garden, and no sound to be heard. As every step brought him nearer to her whom he was seeking, he became more and more conscious of the hopelessness of his errand. Him she had never loved, and why should he venture to hope that she would love him now? He would have turned back had he not been aware that his promise to others required that he should persevere. He had said that he would do this thing, and he would be as good as his word. But he hardly ventured to hope that he might be successful. In this frame of mind he slowly made his way up across the lawn.
"My dear, there is John Eames," said Mrs. Dale, who had first seen him from the parlour window.
"Don't go, mamma."
"I don't know; perhaps it will be better that I should."
"No, mamma, no; what good can it do? It can do no good. I like him as well as I can like any one. I love him dearly. But it can do no good. Let him come in here, and be very kind to him; but do not go away and leave us. Of course I knew he would come, and I shall be very glad to see him."
Then Mrs. Dale went round to the other room, and admitted her visitor through the window of the drawing-room. "We are in terrible confusion, John, are we not?"
"And so you are really going to live in Guestwick?"
"Well, it looks like it, does it not? But, to tell you a secret,--only it must be a secret; you must not mention it at Guestwick Manor; even Bell does not know;--we have half made up our minds to unpack all our things and stay where we are."
Eames was so intent on his own purpose, and so fully occupied with the difficulty of the task before him, that he could hardly receive Mrs. Dale's tidings with all the interest which they deserved. "Unpack them all again," he said. "That will be very troublesome. Is Lily with you, Mrs. Dale?"
"Yes, she is in the parlour. Come and see her." So he followed Mrs. Dale through the hall, and found himself in the presence of his love.
"How do you do, John?" "How do you do, Lily?" We all know the way in which such meetings are commenced. Each longed to be tender and affectionate to the other,--each in a different way; but neither knew how to throw any tenderness into this first greeting. "So you're staying at the Manor House," said Lily.
"Yes; I'm staying there. Your uncle and Bell came yesterday afternoon."
"Have you heard about Bell?" said Mrs. Dale.
"Oh, yes; Mary told me. I'm so glad of it. I always liked Dr. Crofts very much. I have not congratulated her, because I didn't know whether it was a secret. But Crofts was there last night, and if it is a secret he didn't seem to be very careful about keeping it."
"It is no secret," said Mrs. Dale. "I don't know that I am fond of such secrets." But as she said this, she thought of Crosbie's engagement, which had been told to every one, and of its consequences.
"Is it to be soon?" he asked.
"Well, yes; we think so. Of course nothing is settled."
"It was such fun," said Lily. "James, who took, at any rate, a year or two to make his proposal, wanted to be married the next day afterwards."
"No, Lily; not quite that."
"Well, mamma, it was very nearly that. He thought it could all be done this week. It has made us so happy, John! I don't know anybody I should so much like for a brother. I'm very glad you like him;--very glad. I hope you'll be friends always." There was some little tenderness in this,--as John acknowledged to himself.
"I'm sure we shall,--if he likes it. That is, if I ever happen to see him. I'll do anything for him I can if he ever comes up to London. Wouldn't it be a good thing, Mrs. Dale, if he settled himself in London?"
"No, John; it would be a very bad thing. Why should he wish to rob me of my daughter?"
Mrs. Dale was speaking of her eldest daughter; but the very allusion to any such robbery covered John Eames's face with a blush, made him hot up to the roots of his hair, and for the moment silenced him.
"You think he would have a better career in London?" said Lily, speaking under the influence of her superior presence of mind.
She had certainly shown defective judgment in desiring her mother not to leave them alone; and of this Mrs. Dale soon felt herself aware. The thing had to be done, and no little precautionary measure, such as this of Mrs. Dale's enforced presence, would prevent it. Of this Mrs. Dale was well aware; and she felt, moreover, that John was entitled to an opportunity of pleading his own cause. It might be that such opportunity would avail him nothing, but not the less should he have it of right, seeing that he desired it. But yet Mrs. Dale did not dare to get up and leave the room. Lily had asked her not to do so, and at the present period of their lives all Lily's requests were sacred. They continued for some time to talk of Crofts and his marriage; and when that subject was finished, they discussed their own probable,--or, as it seemed now, improbable,--removal to Guestwick. "It's going too far, mamma," said Lily, "to say that you think we shall not go. It was only last night that you suggested it. The truth is, John, that Hopkins came in and discoursed with the most wonderful eloquence. Nobody dared to oppose Hopkins. He made us almost cry; he was so pathetic."
"He has just been talking to me, too," said John, "as I came through the squire's garden."
"And what has he been saying to you?" said Mrs. Dale.
"Oh, I don't know; not much." John, however, remembered well, at this moment, all that the gardener had said to him. Did she know of that encounter between him and Crosbie? and if she did know of it, in what light did she regard it?
They had sat thus for an hour together, and Eames was not as yet an inch nearer to his object. He had sworn to himself that he would not leave the Small House without asking Lily to be his wife. It seemed to him as though he would be guilty of falsehood towards the earl if he did so. Lord De Guest had opened his house to him, and had asked all the Dales there, and had offered himself up as a sacrifice at the cruel shrine of a serious dinner-party, to say nothing of that easier and lighter sacrifice which he had made in a pecuniary point of view, in order that this thing might be done. Under such circumstances Eames was too honest a man not to do it, let the difficulties in his way be what they might.
He had sat there for an hour, and Mrs. Dale still remained with her daughter. Should he get up boldly and ask Lily to put on her bonnet and come out into the garden? As the thought struck him, he rose and grasped at his hat. "I am going to walk back to Guestwick," said he.
"It was very good of you to come so far to see us."
"I was always fond of walking," he said. "The earl wanted me to ride, but I prefer being on foot when I know the country, as I do here."
"Have a glass of wine before you go."
"Oh, dear, no. I think I'll go back through the squire's fields, and out on the road at the white gate. The path is quite dry now."
"I dare say it is," said Mrs. Dale.
"Lily, I wonder whether you would come as far as that with me." As the request was made Mrs. Dale looked at her daughter almost beseechingly. "Do, pray do," said he; "it is a beautiful day for walking."
The path proposed lay right across the field into which Lily had taken Crosbie when she made her offer to let him off from his engagement. Could it be possible that she should ever walk there again with another lover? "No, John," she said; "not to-day, I think. I am almost tired, and I had rather not go out."
"It would do you good," said Mrs. Dale.
"I don't want to be done good to, mamma. Besides, I should have to come back by myself."
"I'll come back with you," said Johnny.
"Oh, yes; and then I should have to go again with you. But, John, really I don't wish to walk to-day." Whereupon John Eames again put down his hat.
"Lily," said he; and then he stopped. Mrs. Dale walked away to the window, turning her back upon her daughter and visitor. "Lily, I have come over here on purpose to speak to you. Indeed, I have come down from London only that I might see you."
"Have you, John?"
"Yes, I have. You know well all that I have got to tell you. I loved you before he ever saw you; and now that he has gone, I love you better than I ever did. Dear Lily!" and he put out his hand to her.
"No, John; no," she answered.
"Must it be always no?"
"Always no to that. How can it be otherwise? You would not have me marry you while I love another!"
"But he is gone. He has taken another wife."
"I cannot change myself because he is changed. If you are kind to me you will let that be enough."
"But you are so unkind to me!"
"No, no; oh, I would wish to be so kind to you! John, here; take my hand. It is the hand of a friend who loves you, and will always love you. Dear John, I will do anything,--everything for you but that."
"There is only one thing," said he, still holding her by the hand, but with his face turned from her.
"Nay; do not say so. Are you worse off than I am? I could not have that one thing, and I was nearer to my heart's longings than you have ever been. I cannot have that one thing; but I know that there are other things, and I will not allow myself to be broken-hearted."
"You are stronger than I am," he said.
"Not stronger, but more certain. Make yourself as sure as I am, and you, too, will be strong. Is it not so, mamma?"
"I wish it could be otherwise;--I wish it could be otherwise! If you can give him any hope--" "Mamma!"
"Tell me that I may come again,--in a year," he pleaded.
"I cannot tell you so. You may not come again,--not in this way. Do you remember what I told you before, in the garden; that I loved him better than all the world besides? It is still the same. I still love him better than all the world. How, then, can I give you any hope?"
"But it will not be so for ever, Lily."
"For ever! Why should he not be mine as well as hers when that for ever comes? John, if you understand what it is to love, you will say nothing more of it. I have spoken to you more openly about this than I have ever done to anybody, even to mamma, because I have wished to make you understand my feelings. I should be disgraced in my own eyes if I admitted the love of another man, after--after--. It is to me almost as though I had married him. I am not blaming him, remember. These things are different with a man."
She had not dropped his hand, and as she made her last speech was sitting in her old chair with her eyes fixed upon the ground. She spoke in a low voice, slowly, almost with difficulty; but still the words came very clearly, with a clear, distinct voice which caused them to be remembered with accuracy, both by Eames and Mrs. Dale. To him it seemed to be impossible that he should continue his suit after such a declaration. To Mrs. Dale they were terrible words, speaking of a perpetual widowhood, and telling of an amount of suffering greater even than that which she had anticipated. It was true that Lily had never said so much to her as she had now said to John Eames, or had attempted to make so clear an exposition of her own feelings. "I should be disgraced in my own eyes if I admitted the love of another man!" They were terrible words, but very easy to be understood. Mrs. Dale had felt, from the first, that Eames was coming too soon, that the earl and the squire together were making an effort to cure the wound too quickly after its infliction; that time should have been given to her girl to recover. But now the attempt had been made, and words had been forced from Lily's lips, the speaking of which would never be forgotten by herself.
"I knew that it would be so," said John.
"Ah, yes; you know it, because your heart understands my heart. And you will not be angry with me, and say naughty, cruel words, as you did once before. We will think of each other, John, and pray for each other; and will always love one another. When we do meet let us be glad to see each other. No other friend shall ever be dearer to me than you are. You are so true and honest! When you marry I will tell your wife what an infinite blessing God has given her."
"You shall never do that."
"Yes, I will. I understand what you mean; but yet I will."
"Good-by, Mrs. Dale," he said.
"Good-by, John. If it could have been otherwise with her, you should have had all my best wishes in the matter. I would have loved you dearly as my son; and I will love you now." Then she put up her lips and kissed his face.
"And so will I love you," said Lily, giving him her hand again. He looked longingly into her face as though he had thought it possible that she also might kiss him: then he pressed her hand to his lips, and without speaking any further farewell, took up his hat and left the room.
"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Dale.
"They should not have let him come," said Lily. "But they don't understand. They think that I have lost a toy, and they mean to be good-natured, and to give me another." Very shortly after that Lily went away by herself, and sat alone for hours; and when she joined her mother again at tea-time, nothing further was said of John Eames's visit.
He made his way out by the front door, and through the churchyard, and in this way on to the field through which he had asked Lily to walk with him. He hardly began to think of what had passed till he had left the squire's house behind him. As he made his way through the tombstones he paused and read one, as though it interested him. He stood a moment under the tower looking up at the clock, and then pulled out his own watch, as though to verify the one by the other. He made, unconsciously, a struggle to drive away from his thoughts the facts of the late scene, and for some five or ten minutes he succeeded. He said to himself a word or two about Sir Raffle and his letters, and laughed inwardly as he remembered the figure of Rafferty bringing in the knight's shoes. He had gone some half mile upon his way before he ventured to stand still and tell himself that he had failed in the great object of his life.
Yes; he had failed: and he acknowledged to himself, with bitter reproaches, that he had failed, now and for ever. He told himself that he had obtruded upon her in her sorrow with an unmannerly love, and rebuked himself as having been not only foolish but ungenerous. His friend the earl had been wont, in his waggish way, to call him the conquering hero, and had so talked him out of his common sense as to have made him almost think that he would be successful in his suit. Now, as he told himself that any such success must have been impossible, he almost hated the earl for having brought him to this condition. A conquering hero, indeed! How should he manage to sneak back among them all at the Manor House, crestfallen and abject in his misery? Everybody knew the errand on which he had gone, and everybody must know of his failure. How could he have been such a fool as to undertake such a task under the eyes of so many lookers-on? Was it not the case that he had so fondly expected success, as to think only of his triumph in returning, and not of his more probable disgrace? He had allowed others to make a fool of him, and had so made a fool of himself that now all hope and happiness were over for him. How could he escape at once out of the country,--back to London? How could he get away without saying a word further to any one? That was the thought that at first occupied his mind.
He crossed the road at the end of the squire's property, where the parish of Allington divides itself from that of Abbot's Guest in which the earl's house stands, and made his way back along the copse which skirted the field in which they had encountered the bull, into the high woods which were at the back of the park. Ah, yes; it had been well for him that he had not come out on horseback. That ride home along the high road and up to the Manor House stables would, under his present circumstances, have been almost impossible to him. As it was, he did not think it possible that he should return to his place in the earl's house. How could he pretend to maintain his ordinary demeanour under the eyes of those two old men? It would be better for him to get home to his mother,--to send a message from thence to the Manor, and then to escape back to London. So thinking, but with no resolution made, he went on through the woods, and down from the hill back towards the town till he again came to the little bridge over the brook. There he stopped and stood a while with his broad hand spread over the letters which he had cut in those early days, so as to hide them from his sight. "What an ass I have been,--always and ever!" he said to himself.
It was not only of his late disappointment that he was thinking, but of his whole past life. He was conscious of his hobbledehoyhood,--of that backwardness on his part in assuming manhood which had rendered him incapable of making himself acceptable to Lily before she had fallen into the clutches of Crosbie. As he thought of this he declared to himself that if he could meet Crosbie again he would again thrash him,--that he would so belabour him as to send him out of the world, if such sending might possibly be done by fair beating, regardless whether he himself might be called upon to follow him. Was it not hard that for the two of them,--for Lily and for him also,--there should be such punishment because of the insincerity of that man? When he had thus stood upon the bridge for some quarter of an hour, he took out his knife, and, with deep, rough gashes in the wood, cut out Lily's name from the rail.
He had hardly finished, and was still looking at the chips as they were being carried away by the stream, when a gentle step came close up to him, and turning round, he saw that Lady Julia was on the bridge. She was close to him, and had already seen his handiwork. "Has she offended you, John?" she said.
"Oh, Lady Julia!"
"Has she offended you?"
"She has refused me, and it is all over."
[ILLUSTRATION: "She has refused me, and it is all over."]
"It may be that she has refused you, and that yet it need not be all over. I am sorry that you have cut out the name, John. Do you mean to cut it out from your heart?"
"Never. I would if I could, but I never shall."
"Keep to it as to a great treasure. It will be a joy to you in after years, and not a sorrow. To have loved truly, even though you shall have loved in vain, will be a consolation when you are as old as I am. It is something to have had a heart."
"I don't know. I wish that I had none."
"And, John;--I can understand her feeling now; and indeed, I thought all through that you were asking her too soon; but the time may yet come when she will think better of your wishes."
"No, no; never. I begin to know her now."
"If you can be constant in your love you may win her yet. Remember how young she is; and how young you both are. Come again in two years' time, and then, when you have won her, you shall tell me that I have been a good old woman to you both."
"I shall never win her, Lady Julia." As he spoke these last words the tears were running down his cheeks, and he was weeping openly in presence of his companion. It was well for him that she had come upon him in his sorrow. When he once knew that she had seen his tears, he could pour out to her the whole story of his grief; and as he did so she led him back quietly to the house.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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55
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NOT VERY FIE FIE AFTER ALL.
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It will perhaps be remembered that terrible things had been foretold as about to happen between the Hartletop and Omnium families. Lady Dumbello had smiled whenever Mr. Plantagenet Palliser had spoken to her. Mr. Palliser had confessed to himself that politics were not enough for him, and that Love was necessary to make up the full complement of his happiness. Lord Dumbello had frowned latterly when his eyes fell on the tall figure of the duke's heir; and the duke himself,--that potentate, generally so mighty in his silence,--the duke himself had spoken. Lady De Courcy and Lady Clandidlem were, both of them, absolutely certain that the thing had been fully arranged. I am, therefore, perfectly justified in stating that the world was talking about the loves,--the illicit loves,--of Mr. Palliser and Lady Dumbello.
And the talking of the world found its way down to that respectable country parsonage in which Lady Dumbello had been born, and from which she had been taken away to those noble halls which she now graced by her presence. The talking of the world was heard at Plumstead Episcopi, where still lived Archdeacon Grantly, the lady's father; and was heard also at the deanery of Barchester, where lived the lady's aunt and grandfather. By whose ill-mannered tongue the rumour was spread in these ecclesiastical regions it boots not now to tell. But it may be remembered that Courcy Castle was not far from Barchester, and that Lady De Courcy was not given to hide her lights under a bushel.
It was a terrible rumour. To what mother must not such a rumour respecting her daughter be very terrible? In no mother's ears could it have sounded more frightfully than it did in those of Mrs. Grantly. Lady Dumbello, the daughter, might be altogether worldly; but Mrs. Grantly had never been more than half worldly. In one moiety of her character, her habits, and her desires, she had been wedded to things good in themselves,--to religion, to charity, and to honest-hearted uprightness. It is true that the circumstances of her life had induced her to serve both God and Mammon, and that, therefore, she had gloried greatly in the marriage of her daughter with the heir of a marquis. She had revelled in the aristocratic elevation of her child, though she continued to dispense books and catechisms with her own hands to the children of the labourers of Plumstead Episcopi. When Griselda first became Lady Dumbello the mother feared somewhat lest her child should find herself unequal to the exigencies of her new position. But the child had proved herself more than equal to them, and had mounted up to a dizzy height of success, which brought to the mother great glory and great fear also. She delighted to think that her Griselda was great even among the daughters of marquises; but she trembled as she reflected how deadly would be the fall from such a height--should there ever be a fall!
But she had never dreamed of such a fall as this! She would have said,--indeed, she often had said,--to the archdeacon that Griselda's religious principles were too firmly fixed to be moved by outward worldly matters; signifying, it may be, her conviction that that teaching of Plumstead Episcopi had so fastened her daughter into a groove, that all the future teaching of Hartlebury would not suffice to undo the fastenings. When she had thus boasted no such idea as that of her daughter running from her husband's house had ever come upon her; but she had alluded to vices of a nature kindred to that vice,--to vices into which other aristocratic ladies sometimes fell, who had been less firmly grooved; and her boastings had amounted to this,--that she herself had so successfully served God and Mammon together, that her child might go forth and enjoy all worldly things without risk of damage to things heavenly. Then came upon her this rumour. The archdeacon told her in a hoarse whisper that he had been recommended to look to it, that it was current through the world that Griselda was about to leave her husband.
"Nothing on earth shall make me believe it," said Mrs. Grantly. But she sat alone in her drawing-room afterwards and trembled. Then came her sister, Mrs. Arabin, the dean's wife, over to the parsonage, and in half-hidden words told the same story. She had heard it from Mrs. Proudie, the bishop's wife. "That woman is as false as the father of falsehoods," said Mrs. Grantly. But she trembled the more; and as she prepared her parish work, could think of nothing but her child. What would be all her life to come, what would have been all that was past of her life, if this thing should happen to her? She would not believe it; but yet she trembled the more as she thought of her daughter's exaltation, and remembered that such things had been done in that world to which Griselda now belonged. Ah! would it not have been better for them if they had not raised their heads so high! And she walked out alone among the tombs of the neighbouring churchyard, and stood over the grave in which had been laid the body of her other daughter. Could be it that the fate of that one had been the happier.
Very few words were spoken on the subject between her and the archdeacon, and yet it seemed agreed among them that something should be done. He went up to London, and saw his daughter,--not daring, however, to mention such a subject. Lord Dumbello was cross with him, and very uncommunicative. Indeed both the archdeacon and Mrs. Grantly had found that their daughter's house was not comfortable to them, and as they were sufficiently proud among their own class they had not cared to press themselves on the hospitality of their son-in-law. But he had been able to perceive that all was not right in the house in Carlton Gardens. Lord Dumbello was not gracious with his wife, and there was something in the silence, rather than in the speech, of men, which seemed to justify the report which had reached him.
"He is there oftener than he should be," said the archdeacon. "And I am sure of this, at least, that Dumbello does not like it."
"I will write to her," said Mrs. Grantly at last. "I am still her mother;--I will write to her. It may be that she does not know what people say of her."
And Mrs. Grantly did write.
Plumstead, April, 186--.
DEAREST GRISELDA, It seems sometimes that you have been moved so far away from me that I have hardly a right to concern myself more in the affairs of your daily life, and I know that it is impossible that you should refer to me for advice or sympathy, as you would have done had you married some gentleman of our own standing. But I am quite sure that my child does not forget her mother, or fail to look back upon her mother's love; and that she will allow me to speak to her if she be in trouble, as I would to any other child whom I had loved and cherished. I pray God that I may be wrong in supposing that such trouble is near you. If I am so you will forgive me my solicitude.
Rumours have reached us from more than one quarter that--Oh! Griselda, I hardly know in what words to conceal and yet to declare that which I have to write. They say that you are intimate with Mr. Palliser, the nephew of the duke, and that your husband is much offended. Perhaps I had better tell you all, openly, cautioning you not to suppose that I have believed it. They say that it is thought that you are going to put yourself under Mr. Palliser's protection. My dearest child, I think you can imagine with what an agony I write these words,--with what terrible grief I must have been oppressed before I could have allowed myself to entertain the thoughts which have produced them. Such things are said openly in Barchester, and your father, who has been in town and has seen you, feels himself unable to tell me that my mind may be at rest.
I will not say to you a word as to the injury in a worldly point of view which would come to you from any rupture with your husband. I believe that you can see what would be the effect of so terrible a step quite as plainly as I can show it you. You would break the heart of your father, and send your mother to her grave;--but it is not even on that that I may most insist. It is this,--that you would offend your God by the worst sin that a woman can commit, and cast yourself into a depth of infamy in which repentance before God is almost impossible, and from which escape before man is not permitted.
I do not believe it, my dearest, dearest child,--my only living daughter; I do not believe what they have said to me. But as a mother I have not dared to leave the slander unnoticed. If you will write to me and say that it is not so, you will make me happy again, even though you should rebuke me for my suspicion.
Believe that at all times, and under all circumstances, I am still your loving mother, as I was in other days.
SUSAN GRANTLY.
We will now go back to Mr. Palliser as he sat in his chambers at the Albany, thinking of his love. The duke had cautioned him, and the duke's agent had cautioned him; and he, in spite of his high feeling of independence, had almost been made to tremble. All his thousands a year were in the balance, and perhaps everything on which depended his position before the world. But, nevertheless, though he did tremble, he resolved to persevere. Statistics were becoming dry to him, and love was very sweet. Statistics, he thought, might be made as enchanting as ever, if only they could be mingled with love. The mere idea of loving Lady Dumbello had seemed to give a salt to his life of which he did not now know how to rob himself. It is true that he had not as yet enjoyed many of the absolute blessings of love, seeing that his conversations with Lady Dumbello had never been warmer than those which have been repeated in these pages; but his imagination had been at work; and now that Lady Dumbello was fully established at her house in Carlton Gardens, he was determined to declare his passion on the first convenient opportunity. It was sufficiently manifest to him that the world expected him to do so, and that the world was already a little disposed to find fault with the slowness of his proceedings.
He had been once at Carlton Gardens since the season had commenced, and the lady had favoured him with her sweetest smile. But he had only been half a minute alone with her, and during that half-minute had only time to remark that he supposed she would now remain in London for the season.
"Oh, yes," she had answered, "we shall not leave till July." Nor could he leave till July, because of the exigencies of his statistics. He therefore had before him two, if not three, clear months in which to manoeuvre, to declare his purposes, and prepare for the future events of his life. As he resolved on a certain morning that he would say his first tender word to Lady Dumbello that very night, in the drawing-room of Lady De Courcy, where he knew that he should meet her, a letter came to him by the post. He well knew the hand and the intimation which it would contain. It was from the duke's agent, Mr. Fothergill, and informed him that a certain sum of money had been placed to his credit at his banker's. But the letter went further, and informed him also that the duke had given his agent to understand that special instructions would be necessary before the next quarterly payment could be made. Mr. Fothergill said nothing further, but Mr. Palliser understood it all. He felt his blood run cold round his heart; but, nevertheless, he determined that he would not break his word to Lady De Courcy that night.
And Lady Dumbello received her letter also on the same morning. She was being dressed as she read it, and the maidens who attended her found no cause to suspect that anything in the letter had excited her ladyship. Her ladyship was not often excited, though she was vigilant in exacting from them their utmost cares. She read her letter, however, very carefully, and as she sat beneath the toilet implements of her maidens thought deeply of the tidings which had been brought to her. She was angry with no one;--she was thankful to no one. She felt no special love for any person concerned in the matter. Her heart did not say, "Oh, my lord and husband!" or, "Oh, my lover!" or, "Oh, my mother, the friend of my childhood!" But she became aware that matter for thought had been brought before her, and she did think. "Send my love to Lord Dumbello," she said, when the operations were nearly completed, "and tell him that I shall be so glad to see him if he will come to me while I am at breakfast."
"Yes, my lady." And then the message came back: "His lordship would be with her ladyship certainly."
"Gustavus," she said, as soon as she had seated herself discreetly in her chair, "I have had a letter from my mother, which you had better read;" and she handed to him the document. "I do not know what I have done to deserve such suspicions from her; but she lives in the country, and has probably been deceived by ill-natured people. At any rate you must read it, and tell me what I should do."
We may predicate from this that Mr. Palliser's chance of being able to shipwreck himself upon that rock was but small, and that he would, in spite of himself, be saved from his uncle's anger. Lord Dumbello took the letter and read it very slowly, standing, as he did so, with his back to the fire. He read it very slowly, and his wife, though she never turned her face directly upon his, could perceive that he became very red, that he was fluttered and put beyond himself, and that his answer was not ready. She was well aware that his conduct to her during the last three months had been much altered from his former usages; that he had been rougher with her in his speech when alone, and less courteous in his attention when in society; but she had made no complaint or spoken a word to show him that she had marked the change. She had known, moreover, the cause of his altered manner, and having considered much, had resolved that she would live it down. She had declared to herself that she had done no deed and spoken no word that justified suspicion, and therefore she would make no change in her ways, or show herself to be conscious that she was suspected. But now,--having her mother's letter in her hand,--she could bring him to an explanation without making him aware that she had ever thought that he had been jealous of her. To her, her mother's letter was a great assistance. It justified a scene like this, and enabled her to fight her battle after her own fashion. As for eloping with any Mr. Palliser, and giving up the position which she had won;--no, indeed! She had been fastened in her grooves too well for that! Her mother, in entertaining any fear on such a subject, had shown herself to be ignorant of the solidity of her daughter's character.
"Well, Gustavus," she said at last. "You must say what answer I shall make, or whether I shall make any answer." But he was not even yet ready to instruct her. So he unfolded the letter and read it again, and she poured out for herself a cup of tea.
"It's a very serious matter," said he.
"Yes, it is serious; I could not but think such a letter from my mother to be serious. Had it come from any one else I doubt whether I should have troubled you; unless, indeed, it had been from any as near to you as she is to me. As it is, you cannot but feel that I am right."
"Right! Oh, yes, you are right,--quite right to tell me; you should tell me everything. D---- them!" But whom he meant to condemn he did not explain.
"I am above all things averse to cause you trouble," she said. "I have seen some little things of late--" "Has he ever said anything to you?"
"Who,--Mr. Palliser? Never a word."
"He has hinted at nothing of this kind?"
"Never a word. Had he done so, I must have made you understand that he could not have been allowed again into my drawing-room." Then again he read the letter, or pretended to do so.
"Your mother means well," he said.
"Oh, yes, she means well. She has been foolish to believe the tittle-tattle that has reached her,--very foolish to oblige me to give you this annoyance."
"Oh, as for that, I'm not annoyed. By Jove, no. Come, Griselda, let us have it all out; other people have said this, and I have been unhappy. Now, you know it all."
"Have I made you unhappy?"
"Well, no; not you. Don't be hard upon me when I tell you the whole truth. Fools and brutes have whispered things that have vexed me. They may whisper till the devil fetches them, but they shan't annoy me again. Give me a kiss, my girl." And he absolutely put out his arms and embraced her. "Write a good-natured letter to your mother, and ask her to come up for a week in May. That'll be the best thing; and then she'll understand. By Jove, it's twelve o'clock. Good-by."
Lady Dumbello was well aware that she had triumphed, and that her mother's letter had been invaluable to her. But it had been used, and therefore she did not read it again. She ate her breakfast in quiet comfort, looking over a milliner's French circular as she did so; and then, when the time for such an operation had fully come, she got to her writing-table and answered her mother's letter.
DEAR MAMMA [she said], I thought it best to show your letter at once to Lord Dumbello. He said that people would be ill-natured, and seemed to think that the telling of such stories could not be helped. As regards you, he was not a bit angry, but said that you and papa had better come to us for a week about the end of next month. Do come. We are to have rather a large dinner-party on the 23rd. His Royal Highness is coming, and I think papa would like to meet him. Have you observed that those very high bonnets have all gone out: I never liked them; and as I had got a hint from Paris, I have been doing my best to put them down. I do hope nothing will prevent your coming.
Your affectionate daughter, G. DUMBELLO.
Carlton Gardens, Wednesday.
Mrs. Grantly was aware, from the moment in which she received the letter, that she had wronged her daughter by her suspicions. It did not occur to her to disbelieve a word that was said in the letter, or an inference that was implied. She had been wrong, and rejoiced that it was so. But nevertheless there was that in the letter which annoyed and irritated her, though she could not explain to herself the cause of her annoyance. She had thrown all her heart into that which she had written, but in the words which her child had written not a vestige of heart was to be found. In that reconciling of God and Mammon which Mrs. Grantly had carried on so successfully in the education of her daughter, the organ had not been required, and had become withered, if not defunct, through want of use.
"We will not go there, I think," said Mrs. Grantly, speaking to her husband.
"Oh dear, no; certainly not. If you want to go to town at all, I will take rooms for you. And as for his Royal Highness--! I have a great respect for his Royal Highness, but I do not in the least desire to meet him at Dumbello's table."
And so that matter was settled, as regarded the inhabitants of Plumstead Episcopi.
And whither did Lord Dumbello betake himself when he left his wife's room in so great a hurry at twelve o'clock? Not to the Park, nor to Tattersall's, nor to a Committee-room of the House of Commons, nor yet to the bow-window of his club. But he went straight to a great jeweller's in Ludgate-hill, and there purchased a wonderful green necklace, very rare and curious, heavy with green sparkling drops, with three rows of shining green stones embedded in chaste gold,--a necklace amounting almost to a jewelled cuirass in weight and extent. It had been in all the exhibitions, and was very costly and magnificent. While Lady Dumbello was still dressing in the evening this was brought to her with her lord's love, as his token of renewed confidence; and Lady Dumbello, as she counted the sparkles, triumphed inwardly, telling herself that she had played her cards well.
But while she counted the sparkles produced by her full reconciliation with her lord, poor Plantagenet Palliser was still trembling in his ignorance. If only he could have been allowed to see Mrs. Grantly's letter, and the lady's answer, and the lord's present! But no such seeing was vouchsafed to him, and he was carried off in his brougham to Lady De Courcy's house, twittering with expectant love, and trembling with expectant ruin. To this conclusion he had come at any rate, that if anything was to be done, it should be done now. He would speak a word of love, and prepare his future in accordance with the acceptance it might receive.
Lady De Courcy's rooms were very crowded when he arrived there. It was the first great crushing party of the season, and all the world had been collected into Portman Square. Lady De Courcy was smiling as though her lord had no teeth, as though her eldest son's condition was quite happy, and all things were going well with the De Courcy interests. Lady Margaretta was there behind her, bland without and bitter within; and Lady Rosina also, at some further distance, reconciled to this world's vanity and finery because there was to be no dancing. And the married daughters of the house were there also, striving to maintain their positions on the strength of their undoubted birth, but subjected to some snubbing by the lowness of their absolute circumstances. Gazebee was there, happy in the absolute fact of his connection with an earl, and blessed with the consideration that was extended to him as an earl's son-in-law. And Crosbie, also, was in the rooms,--was present there, though he had sworn to himself that he would no longer dance attendance on the countess, and that he would sever himself away from the wretchedness of the family. But if he gave up them and their ways, what else would then be left to him? He had come, therefore, and now stood alone, sullen, in a corner, telling himself that all was vanity. Yes; to the vain all will be vanity; and to the poor of heart all will be poor.
Lady Dumbello was there in a small inner room, seated on a couch to which she had been brought on her first arrival at the house, and on which she would remain till she departed. From time to time some very noble or very elevated personage would come before her and say a word, and she would answer that elevated personage with another word; but nobody had attempted with her the task of conversation. It was understood that Lady Dumbello did not converse,--unless it were occasionally with Mr. Palliser.
She knew well that Mr. Palliser was to meet her there. He had told her expressly that he should do so, having inquired, with much solicitude, whether she intended to obey the invitation of the countess. "I shall probably be there," she had said, and now had determined that her mother's letter and her husband's conduct to her should not cause her to break her word. Should Mr. Palliser "forget" himself, she would know how to say a word to him as she had known how to say a word to her husband. Forget himself! She was very sure that Mr. Palliser had been making up his mind to forget himself for some months past.
He did come to her, and stood over her, looking unutterable things. His unutterable things, however, were so looked, that they did not absolutely demand notice from the lady. He did not sigh like a furnace, nor open his eyes upon her as though there were two suns in the firmament above her head, nor did he beat his breast or tear his hair. Mr. Palliser had been brought up in a school which delights in tranquillity, and never allows its pupils to commit themselves either to the sublime or to the ridiculous. He did look an unutterable thing or two; but he did it with so decorous an eye, that the lady, who was measuring it all with great accuracy, could not, as yet, declare that Mr. Palliser had "forgotten himself."
There was room by her on the couch, and once or twice, at Hartlebury, he had ventured so to seat himself. On the present occasion, however, he could not do so without placing himself manifestly on her dress. She would have known how to fill a larger couch even than that,--as she would have known, also, how to make room,--had it been her mind to do so. So he stood still over her, and she smiled at him. Such a smile! It was cold as death, flattering no one, saying nothing, hideous in its unmeaning, unreal grace. Ah! how I hate the smile of a woman who smiles by rote! It made Mr. Palliser feel very uncomfortable;--but he did not analyze it, and persevered.
"Lady Dumbello," he said, and his voice was very low, "I have been looking forward to meeting you here."
"Have you, Mr. Palliser? Yes; I remember that you asked me whether I was coming."
"I did. Hm--Lady Dumbello!" and he almost trenched upon the outside verge of that schooling which had taught him to avoid both the sublime and the ridiculous. But he had not forgotten himself as yet, and so she smiled again.
"Lady Dumbello, in this world in which we live, it is so hard to get a moment in which we can speak." He had thought that she would move her dress, but she did not.
"Oh, I don't know," she said; "one doesn't often want to say very much, I think."
"Ah, no; not often, perhaps. But when one does want! How I do hate these crowded rooms!" Yet, when he had been at Hartlebury he had resolved that the only ground for him would be the crowded drawing-room of some large London house. "I wonder whether you ever desire anything beyond them?"
"Oh, yes," said she; "but I confess that I am fond of parties."
Mr. Palliser looked round and thought that he saw that he was unobserved. He had made up his mind as to what he would do, and he was determined to do it. He had in him none of that readiness which enables some men to make love and carry off their Dulcineas at a moment's notice, but he had that pluck which would have made himself disgraceful in his own eyes if he omitted to do that as to the doing of which he had made a solemn resolution. He would have preferred to do it sitting, but, faute de mieux, seeing that a seat was denied to him, he would do it standing.
"Griselda," he said,--and it must be admitted that his tone was not bad. The word sank softly into her ear, like small rain upon moss, and it sank into no other ear. "Griselda!"
"Mr. Palliser!" said she;--and though she made no scene, though she merely glanced upon him once, he could see that he was wrong.
"May I not call you so?"
"Certainly not. Shall I ask you to see if my people are there?" He stood a moment before her hesitating. "My carriage, I mean." As she gave the command she glanced at him again, and then he obeyed her orders.
When he returned she had left her seat; but he heard her name announced on the stairs, and caught a glance of the back of her head as she made her way gracefully down through the crowd. He never attempted to make love to her again, utterly disappointing the hopes of Lady De Courcy, Mrs. Proudie, and Lady Clandidlem.
As I would wish those who are interested in Mr. Palliser's fortunes to know the ultimate result of this adventure, and as we shall not have space to return to his affairs in this little history, I may, perhaps, be allowed to press somewhat forward, and tell what Fortune did for him before the close of that London season. Everybody knows that in that spring Lady Glencora MacCluskie was brought out before the world, and it is equally well known that she, as the only child of the late Lord of the Isles, was the great heiress of the day. It is true that the hereditary possession of Skye, Staffa, Mull, Arran, and Bute went, with the title, to the Marquis of Auldreekie, together with the counties of Caithness and Ross-shire. But the property in Fife, Aberdeen, Perth, and Kincardine-shire, comprising the greater part of those counties, and the coal-mines in Lanark, as well as the enormous estate within the city of Glasgow, were unentailed, and went to the Lady Glencora. She was a fair girl, with bright blue eyes and short wavy flaxen hair, very soft to the eye. The Lady Glencora was small in stature, and her happy round face lacked, perhaps, the highest grace of female beauty. But there was ever a smile upon it, at which it was very pleasant to look; and the intense interest with which she would dance, and talk, and follow up every amusement that was offered her, was very charming. The horse she rode was the dearest love--oh! she loved him so dearly! And she had a little dog that was almost as dear as the horse. The friend of her youth, Sabrina Scott, was--oh, such a girl! And her cousin, the little Lord of the Isles, the heir of the marquis, was so gracious and beautiful that she was always covering him with kisses. Unfortunately he was only six, so that there was hardly a possibility that the properties should be brought together.
But Lady Glencora, though she was so charming, had even in this, her first outset upon the world, given great uneasiness to her friends, and caused the Marquis of Auldreekie to be almost wild with dismay. There was a terribly handsome man about town, who had spent every shilling that anybody would give him, who was very fond of brandy, who was known, but not trusted, at Newmarket, who was said to be deep in every vice, whose father would not speak to him;--and with him the Lady Glencora was never tired of dancing. One morning she had told her cousin the marquis, with a flashing eye,--for the round blue eye could flash,--that Burgo Fitzgerald was more sinned against than sinning. Ah me! what was a guardian marquis, anxious for the fate of the family property, to do under such circumstances as that?
But before the end of the season the marquis and the duke were both happy men, and we will hope that the Lady Glencora also was satisfied. Mr. Plantagenet Palliser had danced with her twice, and had spoken his mind. He had an interview with the marquis, which was pre-eminently satisfactory, and everything was settled. Glencora no doubt told him how she had accepted that plain gold ring from Burgo Fitzgerald, and how she had restored it; but I doubt whether she ever told him of that wavy lock of golden hair which Burgo still keeps in his receptacle for such treasures.
"Plantagenet," said the duke, with quite unaccustomed warmth, "in this, as in all things, you have shown yourself to be everything that I could desire. I have told the marquis that Matching Priory, with the whole estate, should be given over to you at once. It is the most comfortable country-house I know. Glencora shall have The Horns as her wedding present."
But the genial, frank delight of Mr. Fothergill pleased Mr. Palliser the most. The heir of the Pallisers had done his duty, and Mr. Fothergill was unfeignedly a happy man.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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56
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SHOWING HOW MR. CROSBIE BECAME AGAIN A HAPPY MAN.
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It has been told in the last chapter how Lady De Courcy gave a great party in London in the latter days of April, and it may therefore be thought that things were going well with the De Courcys; but I fear the inference would be untrue. At any rate, things were not going well with Lady Alexandrina, for she, on her mother's first arrival in town, had rushed to Portman-square with a long tale of her sufferings.
"Oh, mamma! you would not believe it; but he hardly ever speaks to me."
"My dear, there are worse faults in a man than that."
"I am alone there all the day. I never get out. He never offers to get me a carriage. He asked me to walk with him once last week, when it was raining. I saw that he waited till the rain began. Only think, I have not been out three evenings this month,--except to Amelia's; and now he says he won't go there any more, because a fly is so expensive. You can't believe how uncomfortable the house is."
"I thought you chose it, my dear."
"I looked at it, but, of course, I didn't know what a house ought to be. Amelia said it wasn't nice, but he would have it. He hates Amelia. I'm sure of that, for he says everything he can to snub her and Mr. Gazebee. Mr. Gazebee is as good as he, at any rate. What do you think? He has given Richard warning to go. You never saw him, but he was a very good servant. He has given him warning, and he is not talking of getting another man. I won't live with him without somebody to wait upon me."
"My dearest girl, do not think of such a thing as leaving him."
"But I will think of it, mamma. You do not know what my life is in that house. He never speaks to me,--never. He comes home before dinner at half-past six, and when he has just shown himself he goes to his dressing-room. He is always silent at dinner-time, and after dinner he goes to sleep. He breakfasts always at nine, and goes away at half-past nine, though I know he does not get to his office till eleven. If I want anything, he says that it cannot be afforded. I never thought before that he was stingy, but I am sure now that he must be a miser at heart."
"It is better so than a spendthrift, Alexandrina."
"I don't know that it is better. He could not make me more unhappy than I am. Unhappy is no word for it. What can I do, shut up in such a house as that by myself from nine o'clock in the morning till six in the evening? Everybody knows what he is, so that nobody will come to see me. I tell you fairly, mamma, I will not stand it. If you cannot help me, I will look for help elsewhere."
It may, at any rate, be said that things were not going well with that branch of the De Courcy family. Nor, indeed, was it going well with some other branches. Lord Porlock had married, not having selected his partner for life from the choicest cream of the aristocratic circles, and his mother, while endeavouring to say a word in his favour, had been so abused by the earl that she had been driven to declare that she could no longer endure such usage. She had come up to London in direct opposition to his commands, while he was fastened to his room by gout; and had given her party in defiance of him, so that people should not say, when her back was turned, that she had slunk away in despair.
"I have borne it," she said to Margaretta, "longer than any other woman in England would have done. While I thought that any of you would marry--" "Oh, don't talk of that, mamma," said Margaretta, putting a little scorn into her voice. She had not been quite pleased that even her mother should intimate that all her chance was over, and yet she herself had often told her mother that she had given up all thought of marrying.
"Rosina will go to Amelia's," the countess continued; "Mr. Gazebee is quite satisfied that it should be so, and he will take care that she shall have enough to cover her own expenses. I propose that you and I, dear, shall go to Baden-Baden."
"And about money, mamma?"
"Mr. Gazebee must manage it. In spite of all that your father says, I know that there must be money. The expense will be much less so than in our present way."
"And what will papa do himself?"
"I cannot help it, my dear. No one knows what I have had to bear. Another year of it would kill me. His language has become worse and worse, and I fear every day that he is going to strike me with his crutch."
Under all these circumstances it cannot be said that the De Courcy interests were prospering.
But Lady De Courcy, when she had made up her mind to go to Baden-Baden, had by no means intended to take her youngest daughter with her. She had endured for years, and now Alexandrina was unable to endure for six months. Her chief grievance, moreover, was this,--that her husband was silent. The mother felt that no woman had a right to complain much of any such sorrow as that. If her earl had sinned only in that way, she would have been content to have remained by him till the last!
And yet I do not know whether Alexandrina's life was not quite as hard as that of her mother. She barely exceeded the truth when she said that he never spoke to her. The hours with her in her new comfortless house were very long,--very long and very tedious. Marriage with her had by no means been the thing that she had expected. At home, with her mother, there had always been people around her, but they had not always been such as she herself would have chosen for her companions. She had thought that, when married, she could choose and have those about her who were congenial to her; but she found that none came to her. Her sister, who was a wiser woman than she, had begun her married life with a definite idea, and had carried it out; but this poor creature found herself, as it were, stranded. When once she had conceived it in her heart to feel anger against her husband,--and she had done so before they had been a week together,--there was no love to bring her back to him again. She did not know that it behoved her to look pleased when he entered the room, and to make him at any rate think that his presence gave her happiness. She became gloomy before she reached her new house, and never laid her gloom aside. He would have made a struggle for some domestic comfort, had any seemed to be within his reach. As it was, he struggled for domestic propriety, believing that he might so best bolster up his present lot in life. But the task became harder and harder to him, and the gloom became denser and more dense. He did not think of her unhappiness, but of his own; as she did not think of his tedium, but of hers. "If this be domestic felicity!" he would say to himself, as he sat in his arm-chair, striving to fix his attention upon a book.
"If this be the happiness of married life!" she thought, as she remained listless, without even the pretence of a book, behind her teacups. In truth she would not walk with him, not caring for such exercise round the pavement of a London square; and he had resolutely determined that she should not run into debt for carriage hire. He was not a curmudgeon with his money; he was no miser. But he had found that in marrying an earl's daughter he had made himself a poor man, and he was resolved that he would not also be an embarrassed man.
When the bride heard that her mother and sister were about to escape to Baden-Baden, there rushed upon her a sudden hope that she might be able to accompany the flight. She would not be parted from her husband, or at least not so parted that the world should suppose that they had quarrelled. She would simply go away and make a long visit,--a very long visit. Two years ago a sojourn with her mother and Margaretta at Baden-Baden would not have offered to her much that was attractive; but now, in her eyes, such a life seemed to be a life in Paradise. In truth, the tedium of those hours in Princess Royal Crescent had been very heavy.
But how could she contrive that it should be so? That conversation with her mother had taken place on the day preceding the party, and Lady De Courcy had repeated it with dismay to Margaretta.
"Of course he would allow her an income," Margaretta had coolly said.
"But, my dear, they have been married only ten weeks."
"I don't see why people are to be made absolutely wretched because they are married," Margaretta answered. "I don't want to persuade her to leave him, but if what she says is true, it must be very uncomfortable."
Crosbie had consented to go to the party in Portman-square, but had not greatly enjoyed himself on that festive occasion. He had stood about moodily, speaking hardly a word to any one. His whole aspect of life seemed to have been altered during the last few months. It was here, in such spots as this that he had been used to find his glory. On such occasions he had shone with peculiar light, making envious the hearts of many who watched the brilliance of his career as they stood around in dull quiescence. But now no one in those rooms had been more dull, more silent, or less courted than he; and yet he was established there as the son-in-law of that noble house. "Rather slow work; isn't it?" Gazebee had said to him, having, after many efforts, succeeded in reaching his brother-in-law in a corner. In answer to this Crosbie had only grunted. "As for myself," continued Gazebee, "I would a deal sooner be at home with my paper and slippers. It seems to me these sort of gatherings don't suit married men." Crosbie had again grunted, and had then escaped into another corner.
Crosbie and his wife went home together in a cab,--speechless both of them. Alexandrina hated cabs,--but she had been plainly told that in such vehicles, and in such vehicles only, could she be allowed to travel. On the following morning he was at the breakfast-table punctually by nine, but she did not make her appearance till after he had gone to his office. Soon after that, however, she was away to her mother and her sister; but she was seated grimly in her drawing-room when he came in to see her, on his return to his house. Having said some word which might be taken for a greeting, he was about to retire; but she stopped him with a request that he would speak to her.
"Certainly," said he. "I was only going to dress. It is nearly the half-hour."
"I won't keep you very long, and if dinner is a few minutes late it won't signify. Mamma and Margaretta are going to Baden-Baden."
"To Baden-Baden, are they?"
"Yes; and they intend to remain there--for a considerable time." There was a little pause, and Alexandrina found it necessary to clear her voice and to prepare herself for further speech by a little cough. She was determined to make her proposition, but was rather afraid of the manner in which it might be first received.
"Has anything happened at Courcy Castle?" Crosbie asked.
"No; that is, yes; there may have been some words between papa and mamma; but I don't quite know. That, however, does not matter now. Mamma is going, and purposes to remain there for the rest of the year."
"And the house in town will be given up."
"I suppose so, but that will be as papa chooses. Have you any objection to my going with mamma?"
What a question to be asked by a bride of ten weeks' standing! She had hardly been above a month with her husband in her new house, and she was now asking permission to leave it, and to leave him also, for an indefinite number of months--perhaps for ever. But she showed no excitement as she made her request. There was neither sorrow, nor regret, nor hope in her face. She had not put on half the animation which she had once assumed in asking for the use, twice a week, of a carriage done up to look as though it were her own private possession. Crosbie had then answered her with great sternness, and she had wept when his refusal was made certain to her. But there was to be no weeping now. She meant to go,--with his permission if he would accord it, and without it if he should refuse it. The question of money was no doubt important, but Gazebee should manage that,--as he managed all those things.
"Going with them to Baden-Baden?" said Crosbie. "For how long?"
"Well; it would be no use unless it were for some time."
"For how long a time do you mean, Alexandrina? Speak out what you really have to say. For a month?"
"Oh, more than that."
"For two months, or six, or as long as they may stay there?"
"We could settle that afterwards, when I am there." During all this time she did not once look into his face, though he was looking hard at her throughout.
"You mean," said he, "that you wish to go away from me."
"In one sense it would be going away, certainly."
"But in the ordinary sense? is it not so? When you talk of going to Baden-Baden for an unlimited number of months, have you any idea of coming back again?"
"Back to London, you mean?"
"Back to me,--to my house,--to your duties as a wife! Why cannot you say at once what it is you want? You wish to be separated from me?"
"I am not happy here,--in this house."
"And who chose the house? Did I want to come here? But it is not that. If you are not happy here, what could you have in any other house to make you happy?"
"If you were left alone in this room for seven or eight hours at a time, without a soul to come to you, you would know what I mean. And even after that, it is not much better. You never speak to me when you are here."
"Is it my fault that nobody comes to you? The fact is, Alexandrina, that you will not reconcile yourself to the manner of life which is suitable to my income. You are wretched because you cannot have yourself driven round the Park. I cannot find you a carriage, and will not attempt to do so. You may go to Baden-Baden, if you please;--that is, if your mother is willing to take you."
"Of course I must pay my own expenses," said Alexandrina. But to this he made no answer on the moment. As soon as he had given his permission he had risen from his seat and was going, and her last words only caught him in the doorway. After all, would not this be the cheapest arrangement that he could make? As he went through his calculations he stood up with his elbow on the mantel-piece in his dressing-room. He had scolded his wife because she had been unhappy with him; but had he not been quite as unhappy with her? Would it not be better that they should part in this quiet, half-unnoticed way;--that they should part and never again come together? He was lucky in this, that hitherto had come upon them no prospect of any little Crosbie to mar the advantages of such an arrangement. If he gave her four hundred a year, and allowed Gazebee two more towards the paying off of encumbrances, he would still have six on which to enjoy himself in London. Of course he could not live as he had lived in those happy days before his marriage, nor, independently of the cost, would such a mode of life be within his reach. But he might go to his club for his dinners; he might smoke his cigar in luxury; he would not be bound to that wooden home which, in spite of all his resolutions, had become almost unendurable to him. So he made his calculations, and found that it would be well that his bride should go. He would give over his house and furniture to Gazebee, allowing Gazebee to do as he would about that. To be once more a bachelor, in lodgings, with six hundred a year to spend on himself, seemed to him now such a prospect of happiness that he almost became light-hearted as he dressed himself. He would let her go to Baden-Baden.
There was nothing said about it at dinner, nor did he mention the subject again till the servant had left the tea-things on the drawing-room table. "You can go with your mother if you like it," he then said.
"I think it will be best," she answered.
"Perhaps it will. At any rate you shall suit yourself."
"And about money?"
"You had better leave me to speak to Gazebee about that."
"Very well. Will you have some tea?" And then the whole thing was finished.
On the next day she went after lunch to her mother's house, and never came back again to Princess Royal Crescent. During that morning she packed up those things which she cared to pack herself, and sent her sisters there, with an old family servant, to bring away whatever else might be supposed to belong to her. "Dear, dear," said Amelia, "what trouble I had in getting these things together for them, and only the other day. I can't but think she's wrong to go away."
"I don't know," said Margaretta. "She has not been so lucky as you have in the man she has married. I always felt that she would find it difficult to manage him."
"But, my dear, she has not tried. She has given up at once. It isn't management that was wanting. The fact is that when Alexandrina began she didn't make up her mind to the kind of thing she was coming to. I did. I knew it wasn't to be all party-going and that sort of thing. But I must own that Crosbie isn't the same sort of man as Mortimer. I don't think I could have gone on with him. You might as well have those small books put up; he won't care about them." And in this way Crosbie's house was dismantled.
She saw him no more, for he made no farewell visit to the house in Portman Square. A note had been brought to him at his office: "I am here with mamma, and may as well say good-by now. We start on Tuesday. If you wish to write, you can send your letters to the housekeeper here. I hope you will make yourself comfortable, and that you will be well. Yours affectionately, A. C." He made no answer to it, but went that day and dined at his club.
"I haven't seen you this age," said Montgomerie Dobbs.
"No. My wife is going abroad with her mother, and while she is away I shall come back here again."
There was nothing more said to him, and no one ever made any inquiry about his domestic affairs. It seemed to him now as though he had no friend sufficiently intimate with him to ask him after his wife or family. She was gone, and in a month's time he found himself again in Mount Street,--beginning the world with five hundred a year, not six. For Mr. Gazebee, when the reckoning came, showed him that a larger income at the present moment was not possible for him. The countess had for a long time refused to let Lady Alexandrina go with her on so small a pittance as four hundred and fifty;--and then were there not the insurances to be maintained?
But I think he would have consented to accept his liberty with three hundred a year,--so great to him was the relief.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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57
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LILIAN DALE VANQUISHES HER MOTHER.
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Mrs. Dale had been present during the interview in which John Eames had made his prayer to her daughter, but she had said little or nothing on that occasion. All her wishes had been in favour of the suitor, but she had not dared to express them, neither had she dared to leave the room. It had been hard upon him to be thus forced to declare his love in the presence of a third person, but he had done it, and had gone away with his answer. Then, when the thing was over, Lily, without any communion with her mother, took herself off, and was no more seen till the evening hours had come on, in which it was natural that they should be together again. Mrs. Dale, when thus alone, had been able to think of nothing but this new suit for her daughter's hand. If only it might be accomplished! If any words from her to Lily might be efficacious to such an end! And yet, hitherto, she had been afraid almost to utter a word.
She knew that it was very difficult. She declared to herself over and over that he had come too soon,--that the attempt had been made too quickly after that other shipwreck. How was it possible that the ship should put to sea again at once, with all her timbers so rudely strained? And yet, now that the attempt had been made, now that Eames had uttered his request and been sent away with an answer, she felt that she must at once speak to Lily on the subject, if ever she were to speak upon it. She thought that she understood her child and all her feelings. She recognized the violence of the shock which must be encountered before Lily could be brought to acknowledge such a change in her heart. But if the thing could be done, Lily would be a happy woman. When once done it would be in all respects a blessing. And if it were not done, might not Lily's life be blank, lonely, and loveless to the end? Yet when Lily came down in the evening, with some light, half-joking word on her lips, as was usual to her, Mrs. Dale was still afraid to venture upon her task.
"I suppose, mamma, we may consider it as a settled thing that everything must be again unpacked, and that the lodging scheme will be given up."
"I don't know that, my dear."
"Oh, but I do--after what you said just now. What geese everybody will think us!"
"I shouldn't care a bit for that, if we didn't think ourselves geese, or if your uncle did not think us so."
"I believe he would think we were swans. If I had ever thought he would be so much in earnest about it, or that he would ever have cared about our being here, I would never have voted for going. But he is so strange. He is affectionate when he ought to be angry, and ill-natured when he ought to be gentle and kind."
"He has, at any rate, given us reason to feel sure of his affection."
"For us girls, I never doubted it. But, mamma, I don't think I could face Mrs. Boyce. Mrs. Hearn and Mrs. Crump would be very bad, and Hopkins would come down upon us terribly when he found that we had given way. But Mrs. Boyce would be worse than any of them. Can't you fancy the tone of her congratulations?"
"I think I should survive Mrs. Boyce."
"Ah, yes; because we should have to go and tell her. I know your cowardice of old, mamma; don't I? And Bell wouldn't care a bit, because of her lover. Mrs. Boyce will be nothing to her. It is I that must bear it all. Well, I don't mind; I'll vote for staying if you will promise to be happy here. Oh, mamma, I'll vote for anything if you will be happy."
"And will you be happy?"
"Yes, as happy as the day is long. Only I know we shall never see Bell. People never do see each other when they live just at that distance. It's too near for long visits, and too far for short visits. I'll tell you what; we might make arrangements each to walk half-way, and meet at the corner of Lord De Guest's wood. I wonder whether they'd let us put up a seat there. I think we might have a little house and carry sandwiches and a bottle of beer. Couldn't we see something of each other in that way?"
Thus it came to be the fixed idea of both of them that they would abandon their plan of migrating to Guestwick, and on this subject they continued to talk over their tea-table; but on that evening Mrs. Dale ventured to say nothing about John Eames.
But they did not even yet dare to commence the work of reconstructing their old home. Bell must come back before they would do that, and the express assent of the squire must be formally obtained. Mrs. Dale must, in a degree, acknowledge herself to have been wrong, and ask to be forgiven for her contumacy.
"I suppose the three of us had better go up in sackcloth, and throw ashes on our foreheads as we meet Hopkins in the garden," said Lily, "and then I know he'll heap coals of fire on our heads by sending us an early dish of peas. And Dingles would bring us in a pheasant, only that pheasants don't grow in May."
"If the sackcloth doesn't take an unpleasanter shape than that, I shan't mind it."
"That's because you've got no delicate feelings. And then uncle Christopher's gratitude!"
"Ah! I shall feel that."
"But, mamma, we'll wait till Bell comes home. She shall decide. She is going away, and therefore she'll be free from prejudice. If uncle offers to paint the house,--and I know he will,--then I shall be humbled to the dust."
But yet Mrs. Dale had said nothing on the subject which was nearest to her heart. When Lily in pleasantry had accused her of cowardice, her mind had instantly gone off to that other matter, and she had told herself that she was a coward. Why should she be afraid of offering her counsel to her own child? It seemed to her as though she had neglected some duty in allowing Crosbie's conduct to have passed away without hardly a word of comment on it between herself and Lily. Should she not have forced upon her daughter's conviction the fact that Crosbie had been a villain, and as such should be discarded from her heart? As it was, Lily had spoken the simple truth when she told John Eames that she was dealing more openly with him on that affair of her engagement than she had ever dealt, even with her mother. Thinking of this as she sat in her own room that night, before she allowed herself to rest, Mrs. Dale resolved that on the next morning she would endeavour to make Lily see as she saw and think as she thought.
She let breakfast pass by before she began her task, and even then she did not rush at it at once. Lily sat herself down to her work when the teacups were taken away, and Mrs. Dale went down to her kitchen as was her wont. It was nearly eleven before she seated herself in the parlour, and even then she got her work-box before her and took out her needle.
"I wonder how Bell gets on with Lady Julia," said Lily.
"Very well, I'm sure."
"Lady Julia won't bite her, I know, and I suppose her dismay at the tall footmen has passed off by this time."
"I don't know that they have any tall footmen."
"Short footmen then,--you know what I mean; all the noble belongings. They must startle one at first, I'm sure, let one determine ever so much not to be startled. It's a very mean thing, no doubt, to be afraid of a lord merely because he is a lord; yet I'm sure I should be afraid at first, even of Lord De Guest, if I were staying in the house."
"It's well you didn't go then."
"Yes, I think it is. Bell is of a firmer mind, and I dare say she'll get over it after the first day. But what on earth does she do there? I wonder whether they mend their stockings in such a house as that."
"Not in public, I should think."
"In very grand houses they throw them away at once, I suppose. I've often thought about it. Do you believe the Prime Minister ever has his shoes sent to a cobbler?"
"Perhaps a regular shoemaker will condescend to mend a Prime Minister's shoes."
"You do think they are mended then? But who orders it? Does he see himself when there's a little hole coming, as I do? Does an archbishop allow himself so many pairs of gloves in a year?"
"Not very strictly, I should think."
"Then I suppose it comes to this, that he has a new pair whenever he wants them. But what constitutes the want? Does he ever say to himself that they'll do for another Sunday? I remember the bishop coming here once, and he had a hole at the end of his thumb. I was going to be confirmed, and I remember thinking that he ought to have been smarter."
"Why didn't you offer to mend it?"
"I shouldn't have dared for all the world."
The conversation had commenced itself in a manner that did not promise much assistance to Mrs. Dale's project. When Lily got upon any subject, she was not easily induced to leave it, and when her mind had twisted itself in one direction, it was difficult to untwist it. She was now bent on a consideration of the smaller social habits of the high and mighty among us, and was asking her mother whether she supposed that the royal children ever carried halfpence in their pockets, or descended so low as fourpenny-bits.
"I suppose they have pockets like other children," said Lily.
But her mother stopped her suddenly,-- "Lily, dear, I want to say something to you about John Eames."
"Mamma, I'd sooner talk about the Royal Family just at present."
"But, dear, you must forgive me if I persist. I have thought much about it, and I'm sure you will not oppose me when I am doing what I think to be my duty."
"No, mamma; I won't oppose you, certainly."
"Since Mr. Crosbie's conduct was made known to you, I have mentioned his name in your hearing very seldom."
"No, mamma, you have not. And I have loved you so dearly for your goodness to me. Do not think that I have not understood and known how generous you have been. No other mother ever was so good as you have been. I have known it all, and thought of it every day of my life, and thanked you in my heart for your trusting silence. Of course, I understand your feelings. You think him bad and you hate him for what he has done."
"I would not willingly hate any one, Lily."
"Ah, but you do hate him. If I were you, I should hate him; but I am not you, and I love him. I pray for his happiness every night and morning, and for hers. I have forgiven him altogether, and I think that he was right. When I am old enough to do so without being wrong, I will go to him and tell him so. I should like to hear of all his doings and all his success, if it were only possible. How, then, can you and I talk about him? It is impossible. You have been silent and I have been silent,--let us remain silent."
"It is not about Mr. Crosbie that I wish to speak. But I think you ought to understand that conduct such as his will be rebuked by all the world. You may forgive him, but you should acknowledge--" "Mamma, I don't want to acknowledge anything;--not about him. There are things as to which a person cannot argue." Mrs. Dale felt that this present matter was one as to which she could not argue. "Of course, mamma," continued Lily, "I don't want to oppose you in anything, but I think we had better be silent about this."
"Of course I am thinking only of your future happiness."
"I know you are; but pray believe me that you need not be alarmed. I do not mean to be unhappy. Indeed, I think I may say I am not unhappy; of course I have been unhappy,--very unhappy. I did think that my heart would break. But that has passed away, and I believe I can be as happy as my neighbours. We're all of us sure to have some troubles, as you used to tell us when we were children."
Mrs. Dale felt that she had begun wrong, and that she would have been able to make better progress had she omitted all mention of Crosbie's name. She knew exactly what it was that she wished to say,--what were the arguments which she desired to expound before her daughter; but she did not know what language to use, or how she might best put her thoughts into words. She paused for a while, and Lily went on with her work as though the conversation was over. But the conversation was not over.
"It was about John Eames, and not about Mr. Crosbie, that I wished to speak to you."
"Oh, mamma!"
"My dear, you must not hinder me in doing what I think to be a duty. I heard what he said to you and what you replied, and of course I cannot but have my mind full of the subject. Why should you set yourself against him in so fixed a manner?"
"Because I love another man." These words she spoke out loud, in a steady, almost dogged tone, with a certain show of audacity,--as though aware that the declaration was unseemly, but resolved that, though unseemly, it must be made.
"But, Lily, that love, from its very nature, must cease; or, rather, such love is not the same as that you felt when you thought that you were to be his wife."
"Yes, it is. If she died, and he came to me in five years' time, I would still take him. I should think myself constrained to take him."
"But she is not dead, nor likely to die."
"That makes no difference. You don't understand me, mamma."
"I think I do, and I want you to understand me also. I know how difficult is your position; I know what your feelings are; but I know this also, that if you could reason with yourself, and bring yourself in time to receive John Eames as a dear friend--" "I did receive him as a dear friend. Why not? He is a dear friend. I love him heartily,--as you do."
"You know what I mean?"
"Yes, I do; and I tell you it is impossible."
"If you would make the attempt, all this misery would soon be forgotten. If once you could bring yourself to regard him as a friend, who might become your husband, all this would be changed,--and I should see you happy!"
"You are strangely anxious to be rid of me, mamma!"
"Yes, Lily;--to be rid of you in that way. If I could see you put your hand in his as his promised wife, I think that I should be the happiest woman in the world."
"Mamma, I cannot make you happy in that way. If you really understood my feelings, my doing as you propose would make you very unhappy. I should commit a great sin,--the sin against which women should be more guarded than against any other. In my heart I am married to that other man. I gave myself to him, and loved him, and rejoiced in his love. When he kissed me I kissed him again, and I longed for his kisses. I seemed to live only that he might caress me. All that time I never felt myself to be wrong,--because he was all in all to me. I was his own. That has been changed,--to my great misfortune; but it cannot be undone or forgotten. I cannot be the girl I was before he came here. There are things that will not have themselves buried and put out of sight, as though they had never been. I am as you are, mamma,--widowed. But you have your daughter, and I have my mother. If you will be contented, so will I." Then she got up and threw herself on her mother's neck.
Mrs. Dale's argument was over now. To such an appeal as that last made by Lily no rejoinder on her part was possible. After that she was driven to acknowledge to herself that she must be silent. Years as they rolled on might make a change, but no reasoning could be of avail. She embraced her daughter, weeping over her,--whereas Lily's eyes were dry. "It shall be as you will," Mrs. Dale murmured.
"Yes, as I will. I shall have my own way; shall I not? That is all I want; to be a tyrant over you, and make you do my bidding in everything, as a well-behaved mother should do. But I won't be stern in my orderings. If you will only be obedient, I will be so gracious to you! There's Hopkins again. I wonder whether he has come to knock us down and trample upon us with another speech."
Hopkins knew very well to which window he must come, as only one of the rooms was at the present time habitable. He came up to the dining-room, and almost flattened his nose against the glass.
"Well, Hopkins," said Lily, "here we are." Mrs. Dale had turned her face away, for she knew that the tears were still on her cheek.
"Yes, miss, I see you. I want to speak to your mamma, miss."
"Come round," said Lily, anxious to spare her mother the necessity of showing herself at once. "It's too cold to open the window; come round, and I'll open the door."
"Too cold!" muttered Hopkins, as he went. "They'll find it a deal colder in lodgings at Guestwick." However, he went round through the kitchen, and Lily met him in the hall.
"Well, Hopkins, what is it? Mamma has got a headache."
"Got a headache, has she? I won't make her headache no worse. It's my opinion that there's nothing for a headache so good as fresh air. Only some people can't abear to be blowed upon, not for a minute. If you don't let down the lights in a greenhouse more or less every day, you'll never get any plants,--never;--and it's just the same with the grapes. Is I to go back and say as how I couldn't see her?"
"You can come in if you like; only be quiet, you know."
"Ain't I ollays quiet, miss? Did anybody ever hear me rampage? If you please, ma'am, the squire's come home."
"What, home from Guestwick? Has he brought Miss Bell?"
"He ain't brought none but hisself, 'cause he come on horseback; and it's my belief he's going back almost immediate. But he wants you to come to him, Mrs. Dale."
"Oh, yes, I'll come at once."
"He bade me say with his kind love. I don't know whether that makes any difference."
"At any rate, I'll come, Hopkins."
"And I ain't to say nothing about the headache?"
"About what?" said Mrs. Dale.
"No, no, no," said Lily. "Mamma will be there at once. Go and tell my uncle, there's a good man," and she put up her hand and backed him out of the room.
"I don't believe she's got no headache at all," said Hopkins, grumbling, as he returned through the back premises. "What lies gentlefolks do tell! If I said I'd a headache when I ought to be out among the things, what would they say to me? But a poor man mustn't never lie, nor yet drink, nor yet do nothing." And so he went back with his message.
"What can have brought your uncle home?" said Mrs. Dale.
"Just to look after the cattle, and to see that the pigs are not all dead. My wonder is that he should ever have gone away."
"I must go up to him at once."
"Oh, yes, of course."
"And what shall I say about the house?"
"It's not about that,--at least I think not. I don't think he'll speak about that again till you speak to him."
"But if he does?"
"You must put your trust in Providence. Declare you've got a bad headache, as I told Hopkins just now; only you would throw me over by not understanding. I'll walk with you down to the bridge." So they went off together across the lawn.
But Lily was soon left alone, and continued her walk, waiting for her mother's return. As she went round and round the gravel paths, she thought of the words that she had said to her mother. She had declared that she also was widowed. "And so it should be," she said, debating the matter with herself. "What can a heart be worth if it can be transferred hither and thither as circumstances and convenience and comfort may require? When he held me here in his arms"--and, as the thoughts ran through her brain, she remembered the very spot on which they had stood--"oh, my love!" she had said to him then as she returned his kisses--"oh, my love, my love, my love!" "When he held me here in his arms, I told myself that it was right, because he was my husband. He has changed, but I have not. It might be that I should have ceased to love him, and then I should have told him so. I should have done as he did." But, as she came to this, she shuddered, thinking of the Lady Alexandrina. "It was very quick," she said, still speaking to herself; "very, very. But then men are not the same as women." And she walked on eagerly, hardly remembering where she was, thinking over it all, as she did daily; remembering every little thought and word of those few eventful months in which she had learned to regard Crosbie as her husband and master. She had declared that she had conquered her unhappiness; but there were moments in which she was almost wild with misery. "Tell me to forget him!" she said. "It is the one thing which will never be forgotten."
At last she heard her mother's step coming down across the squire's garden, and she took up her post at the bridge.
"Stand and deliver," she said, as her mother put her foot upon the plank. "That is, if you've got anything worth delivering. Is anything settled?"
"Come up to the house," said Mrs. Dale, "and I'll tell you all."
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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58
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THE FATE OF THE SMALL HOUSE.
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[ILLUSTRATION: (untitled)] There was something in the tone of Mrs. Dale's voice, as she desired her daughter to come up to the house, and declared that her budget of news should be opened there, which at once silenced Lily's assumed pleasantry. Her mother had been away fully two hours, during which Lily had still continued her walk round the garden, till at last she had become impatient for her mother's footstep. Something serious must have been said between her uncle and her mother during those long two hours. The interviews to which Mrs. Dale was occasionally summoned at the Great House did not usually exceed twenty minutes, and the upshot would be communicated to the girls in a turn or two round the garden; but in the present instance Mrs. Dale positively declined to speak till she was seated within the house.
"Did he come over on purpose to see you, mamma?"
"Yes, my dear, I believe so. He wished to see you, too; but I asked his permission to postpone that till after I had talked to you."
"To see me, mamma? About what?"
"To kiss you, and bid you love him; solely for that. He has not a word to say to you that will vex you."
"Then I will kiss him, and love him, too."
"Yes, you will when I have told you all. I have promised him solemnly to give up all idea of going to Guestwick. So that is over."
"Oh, oh! And we may begin to unpack at once? What an episode in one's life!"
"We may certainly unpack, for I have pledged myself to him; and he is to go into Guestwick himself and arrange about the lodgings."
"Does Hopkins know it?"
"I should think not yet."
"Nor Mrs. Boyce! Mamma, I don't believe I shall be able to survive this next week. We shall look such fools! I'll tell you what we'll do;--it will be the only comfort I can have;--we'll go to work and get everything back into its place before Bell comes home, so as to surprise her."
"What! in two days?"
"Why not? I'll make Hopkins come and help, and then he'll not be so bad. I'll begin at once and go to the blankets and beds, because I can undo them myself."
"But I haven't half told you all; and, indeed, I don't know how to make you understand what passed between us. He is very unhappy about Bernard; Bernard has determined to go abroad, and may be away for years."
"One can hardly blame a man for following up his profession."
"There was no blaming. He only said that it was very sad for him that, in his old age, he should be left alone. This was before there was any talk about our remaining. Indeed he seemed determined not to ask that again as a favour. I could see that in his eye, and I understood it from his tone. He went on to speak of you and Bell, saying how well he loved you both; but that, unfortunately, his hopes regarding you had not been fulfilled."
"Ah, but he shouldn't have had hopes of that sort."
"Listen, my dear, and I think that you will not feel angry with him. He said that he felt his house had never been pleasant to you. Then there followed words which I could not repeat, even if I could remember them. He said much about myself, regretting that the feeling between us had not been more kindly. 'But my heart,' he said, 'has ever been kinder than my words.' Then I got up from where I was seated, and going over to him, I told him that we would remain here."
"And what did he say?"
"I don't know what he said. I know that I was crying, and that he kissed me. It was the first time in his life. I know that he was pleased,--beyond measure pleased. After a while he became animated, and talked of doing ever so many things. He promised that very painting of which you spoke."
"Ah, yes, I knew it; and Hopkins will be here with the peas before dinner-time to-morrow, and Dingles with his shoulders smothered with rabbits. And then Mrs. Boyce! Mamma, he didn't think of Mrs. Boyce; or, in very charity of heart, he would still have maintained his sadness."
"Then he did not think of her; for when I left him he was not at all sad. But I haven't told you half yet."
"Dear me, mamma; was there more than that?"
"And I've told it all wrong; for what I've got to tell now was said before a word was spoken about the house. He brought it in just after what he said about Bernard. He said that Bernard would, of course, be his heir."
"Of course he will."
"And that he should think it wrong to encumber the property with any charges for you girls."
"Mamma, did any one ever--" "Stop, Lily, stop; and make your heart kinder towards him if you can."
"It is kind; only I hate to be told that I'm not to have a lot of money, as though I had ever shown a desire for it. I have never envied Bernard his man-servant, or his maid-servant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is his. To tell the truth I didn't even wish it to be Bell's, because I knew well that there was somebody she would like a great deal better than ever she could like Bernard."
"I shall never get to the end of my story."
"Yes, you will, mamma, if you persevere."
"The long and the short of it is this, that he has given Bell three thousand pounds, and has given you three thousand also."
"But why me, mamma?" said Lily, and the colour of her cheeks became red as she spoke. There should if possible be nothing more said about John Eames; but whatever might or might not be the necessity of speaking, at any rate, let there be no mistake. "But why me, mamma?"
"Because, as he explained to me, he thinks it right to do the same by each of you. The money is yours at this moment,--to buy hair-pins with, if you please. I had no idea that he could command so large a sum."
"Three thousand pounds! The last money he gave me was half-a-crown, and I thought that he was so stingy! I particularly wanted ten shillings. I should have liked it so much better now if he had given me a nice new five-pound note."
"You'd better tell him so."
"No; because then he'd give me that too. But with five pounds I should have the feeling that I might do what I liked with it;--buy a dressing-case, and a thing for a squirrel to run round in. But nobody ever gives girls money like that, so that they can enjoy it."
"Oh, Lily; you ungrateful child!"
"No, I deny it. I'm not ungrateful. I'm very grateful, because his heart was softened--and because he cried and kissed you. I'll be ever so good to him! But how I'm to thank him for giving me three thousand pounds, I cannot think. It's a sort of thing altogether beyond my line of life. It sounds like something that's to come to me in another world, but which I don't want quite yet. I am grateful, but with a misty, mazy sort of gratitude. Can you tell me how soon I shall have a new pair of Balmoral boots because of this money? If that were brought home to me I think it would enliven my gratitude."
The squire, as he rode back to Guestwick, fell again from that animation, which Mrs. Dale had described, into his natural sombre mood. He thought much of his past life, declaring to himself the truth of those words in which he had told his sister-in-law that his heart had ever been kinder than his words. But the world, and all those nearest to him in the world, had judged him always by his words rather than by his heart. They had taken the appearance, which he could not command or alter, rather than the facts, of which he had been the master. Had he not been good to all his relations? --and yet was there one among them that cared for him? "I'm almost sorry that they are going to stay," he said to himself;--"I know that I shall disappoint them." Yet when he met Bell at the Manor House he accosted her cheerily, telling her with much appearance of satisfaction that that flitting into Guestwick was not to be accomplished.
"I am so glad," said she. "It is long since I wished it."
"And I do not think your mother wishes it now."
"I am sure she does not. It was all a misunderstanding from the first. When some of us could not do all that you wished, we thought it better--" Then Bell paused, finding that she would get herself into a mess if she persevered.
"We will not say any more about it," said the squire. "The thing is over, and I am very glad that it should be so pleasantly settled. I was talking to Dr. Crofts yesterday."
"Were you, uncle?"
"Yes; and he is to come and stay with me the day before he is married. We have arranged it all. And we'll have the breakfast up at the Great House. Only you must fix the day. I should say some time in May. And, my dear, you'll want to make yourself fine; here's a little money for you. You are to spend that before your marriage, you know." Then he shambled away, and as soon as he was alone, again became sad and despondent. He was a man for whom we may predicate some gentle sadness and continued despondency to the end of his life's chapter.
We left John Eames in the custody of Lady Julia, who had overtaken him in the act of erasing Lily's name from the railing which ran across the brook. He had been premeditating an escape home to his mother's house in Guestwick, and thence back to London, without making any further appearance at the Manor House. But as soon as he heard Lady Julia's step, and saw her figure close upon him, he knew that his retreat was cut off from him. So he allowed himself to be led away quietly up to the house. With Lady Julia herself he openly discussed the whole matter,--telling her that his hopes were over, his happiness gone, and his heart half-broken. Though he would perhaps have cared but little for her congratulations in success, he could make himself more amenable to consolation and sympathy from her than from any other inmate in the earl's house. "I don't know what I shall say to your brother," he whispered to her, as they approached the side door at which she intended to enter.
"Will you let me break it to him? After that he will say a few words to you of course, but you need not be afraid of him."
"And Mr. Dale?" said Johnny. "Everybody has heard about it. Everybody will know what a fool I have made myself." She suggested that the earl should speak to the squire, assured him that nobody would think him at all foolish, and then left him to make his way up to his own bedroom. When there he found a letter from Cradell, which had been delivered in his absence; but the contents of that letter may best be deferred to the next chapter. They were not of a nature to give him comfort or to add to his sorrow.
About an hour before dinner there was a knock at his door, and the earl himself, when summoned, made his appearance in the room. He was dressed in his usual farming attire, having been caught by Lady Julia on his first approach to the house, and had come away direct to his young friend, after having been duly trained in what he ought to say by his kind-hearted sister. I am not, however, prepared to declare that he strictly followed his sister's teaching in all that he said upon the occasion.
"Well, my boy," he began, "so the young lady has been perverse."
"Yes, my lord. That is, I don't know about being perverse. It is all over."
"That's as may be, Johnny. As far as I know, not half of them accept their lovers the first time of asking."
"I shall not ask her again."
"Oh, yes, you will. You don't mean to say you are angry with her for refusing you."
"Not in the least. I have no right to be angry. I am only angry with myself for being such a fool, Lord De Guest. I wish I had been dead before I came down here on this errand. Now I think of it, I know there are so many things which ought to have made me sure how it would be."
"I don't see that at all. You come down again,--let me see,--it's May now. Say you come when the shooting begins in September. If we can't get you leave of absence in any other way, we'll make old Buffle come too. Only, by George, I believe he'd shoot us all. But never mind; we'll manage that. You keep up your spirits till September, and then we'll fight the battle in another way. The squire shall get up a little party for the bride, and my lady Lily must go then. You shall meet her so; and then we'll shoot over the squire's land. We'll bring you together so; you see if we don't. Lord bless me! Refused once! My belief is, that in these days a girl thinks nothing of a man till she has refused him half-a-dozen times."
"I don't think Lily is at all like that."
"Look here, Johnny. I have not a word to say against Miss Lily. I like her very much, and think her one of the nicest girls I know. When she's your wife, I'll love her dearly, if she'll let me. But she's made of the same stuff as other girls, and will act in the same way. Things have gone a little astray among you, and they won't right themselves all in a minute. She knows now what your feelings are, and she'll go on thinking of it, till at last you'll be in her thoughts more than that other fellow. Don't tell me about her becoming an old maid, because at her time of life she has been so unfortunate as to come across a false-hearted man like that. It may take a little time; but if you'll carry on and not be down-hearted, you'll find it will all come right in the end. Everybody doesn't get all that they want in a minute. How I shall quiz you about all this when you have been two or three years married!"
"I don't think I shall ever be able to ask her again; and I feel sure, if I do, that her answer will be the same. She told me in so many words--; but never mind, I cannot repeat her words."
"I don't want you to repeat them; nor yet to heed them beyond their worth. Lily Dale is a very pretty girl; clever, too, I believe, and good, I'm sure; but her words are not more sacred than those of other men or women. What she has said to you now, she means, no doubt; but the minds of men and women are prone to change, especially when such changes are conducive to their own happiness."
"At any rate I'll never forget your kindness, Lord De Guest."
"And there is one other thing I want to say to you, Johnny. A man should never allow himself to be cast down by anything,--not outwardly, to the eyes of other men."
"But how is he to help it?"
"His pluck should prevent him. You were not afraid of a roaring bull, nor yet of that man when you thrashed him at the railway station. You've pluck enough of that kind. You must now show that you've that other kind of pluck. You know the story of the boy who would not cry though the wolf was gnawing him underneath his frock. Most of us have some wolf to gnaw us somewhere; but we are generally gnawed beneath our clothes, so that the world doesn't see; and it behoves us so to bear it that the world shall not suspect. The man who goes about declaring himself to be miserable will be not only miserable, but contemptible as well."
"But the wolf hasn't gnawed me beneath my clothes; everybody knows it."
"Then let those who do know it learn that you are able to bear such wounds without outward complaint. I tell you fairly that I cannot sympathize with a lackadaisical lover."
"I know that I have made myself ridiculous to everybody. I wish I had never come here. I wish you had never seen me."
"Don't say that, my dear boy; but take my advice for what it is worth. And remember what it is that I say; with your grief I do sympathize, but not with any outward expression of it;--not with melancholy looks, and a sad voice, and an unhappy gait. A man should always be able to drink his wine and seem to enjoy it. If he can't, he is so much less of a man than he would be otherwise,--not so much more, as some people seem to think. Now get yourself dressed, my dear fellow, and come down to dinner as though nothing had happened to you."
As soon as the earl was gone John looked at his watch and saw that it still wanted some forty minutes to dinner. Fifteen minutes would suffice for him to dress, and therefore there was time sufficient for him to seat himself in his arm-chair and think over it all. He had for a moment been very angry when his friend had told him that he could not sympathize with a lackadaisical lover. It was an ill-natured word. He felt it to be so when he heard it, and so he continued to think during the whole of the half-hour that he sat in that chair. But it probably did him more good than any word that the earl had ever spoken to him,--or any other word that he could have used. "Lackadaisical! I'm not lackadaisical," he said to himself, jumping up from his chair, and instantly sitting down again. "I didn't say anything to him. I didn't tell him. Why did he come to me?" And yet, though he endeavoured to abuse Lord De Guest in his thoughts, he knew that Lord De Guest was right, and that he was wrong. He knew that he had been lackadaisical, and was ashamed of himself; and at once resolved that he would henceforth demean himself as though no calamity had happened to him. "I've a good mind to take him at his word, and drink wine till I'm drunk." Then he strove to get up his courage by a song.
If she be not fair for me, What care I how-- "But I do care. What stuff it is a man writing poetry and putting into it such lies as that! Everybody knows that he did care,--that is, if he wasn't a heartless beast."
But nevertheless, when the time came for him to go down into the drawing-room he did make the effort which his friend had counselled, and walked into the room with less of that hang-dog look than the earl and Lady Julia had expected. They were both there, as was also the squire, and Bell followed him in less than a minute.
"You haven't seen Crofts to-day, John, have you?" said the earl.
"No; I haven't been anywhere his way!"
"His way! His ways are every way, I take it. I wanted him to come and dine, but he seemed to think it improper to eat two dinners in the same house two days running. Isn't that his theory, Miss Dale?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Lord De Guest. At any rate, it isn't mine."
So they went to their feast, and before his last chance was over John Eames found himself able to go through the pretence of enjoying his roast mutton.
There can, I think, be no doubt that in all such calamities as that which he was now suffering, the agony of the misfortune is much increased by the conviction that the facts of the case are known to those round about the sufferer. A most warm-hearted and intensely-feeling young gentleman might, no doubt, eat an excellent dinner after being refused by the girl of his devotions, provided that he had reason to believe that none of those in whose company he ate it knew anything of his rejection. But the same warm-hearted and intensely-feeling young gentleman would find it very difficult to go through the ceremony with any appearance of true appetite or gastronomic enjoyment, if he were aware that all his convives knew all the facts of his little misfortune. Generally, we may suppose, a man in such condition goes to his club for his dinner, or seeks consolation in the shades of some adjacent Richmond or Hampton Court. There he meditates on his condition in silence, and does ultimately enjoy his little plate of whitebait, his cutlet and his moderate pint of sherry. He probably goes alone to the theatre, and, in his stall, speculates with a somewhat bitter sarcasm on the vanity of the world. Then he returns home, sad indeed, but with a moderated sadness, and as he puffs out the smoke of his cigar at the open window,--with perhaps the comfort of a little brandy-and-water at his elbow,--swears to himself that, "By Jove, he'll have another try for it." Alone, a man may console himself, or among a crowd of unconscious mortals; but it must be admitted that the position of John Eames was severe. He had been invited down there to woo Lily Dale, and the squire and Bell had been asked to be present at the wooing. Had it all gone well, nothing could have been nicer. He would have been the hero of the hour, and everybody would have sung for him his song of triumph. But everything had not gone well, and he found it very difficult to carry himself otherwise than lackadaisically. On the whole, however, his effort was such that the earl gave him credit for his demeanour, and told him when parting with him for the night that he was a fine fellow, and that everything should go right with him yet.
"And you mustn't be angry with me for speaking harshly to you," he said.
"I wasn't a bit angry."
"Yes, you were; and I rather meant that you should be. But you mustn't go away in dudgeon."
He stayed at the Manor House one day longer, and then he returned to his room at the Income-tax Office, to the disagreeable sound of Sir Raffle's little bell, and the much more disagreeable sound of Sir Raffle's big voice.
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{
"id": "4599"
}
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59
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JOHN EAMES BECOMES A MAN.
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Eames, when he was half way up to London in the railway carriage, took out from his pocket a letter and read it. During the former portion of his journey he had been thinking of other things; but gradually he had resolved that it would be better for him not to think more of those other things for the present, and therefore he had recourse to his letter by way of dissipating his thoughts. It was from Cradell, and ran as follows:-- Income-Tax Office, May --, 186--.
MY DEAR JOHN,--I hope the tidings which I have to give you will not make you angry, and that you will not think I am untrue to the great friendship which I have for you because of that which I am now going to tell you. There is no _man_--[and the word man was underscored]--there is no _man_ whose regard I value so highly as I do yours; and though I feel that you can have no just ground to be displeased with me after all that I have heard you say on many occasions, nevertheless, in matters of the heart it is very hard for one person to understand the sentiments of another, and when the affections of a lady are concerned, I know that quarrels will sometimes arise.
Eames, when he had got so far as this, on the first perusal of the letter, knew well what was to follow. "Poor Caudle!" he said to himself; "he's hooked, and he'll never get himself off the hook again."
But let that be as it may, the matter has now gone too far for any alteration to be made by me; nor would any mere earthly inducement suffice to change me. The claims of friendship are very strong, _but those of love are paramount_. Of course I know all that has passed between you and Amelia Roper. Much of this I had heard from you before, but the rest she has now told me with that pure-minded honesty which is the most remarkable feature in her character. She has confessed that at one time she felt attached to you, and that she was induced by your perseverance to allow you to regard her as your fiancy. [Fancy-girl he probably conceived to be the vulgar English for the elegant term which he used.] But all that must be over between you now. _Amelia has promised to be mine_--[this also was underscored]--and mine I intend that she shall be. That you may find in the kind smiles of L. D. consolation for any disappointment which this may occasion you, is the ardent wish of your true friend, JOSEPH CRADELL.
P.S.--Perhaps I had better tell you the whole. Mrs. Roper has been in some trouble about her house. She is a little in arrears with her rent, and some bills have not been paid. As she explained that she has been brought into this by those dreadful Lupexes I have consented to take the house into my own hands, and have given bills to one or two tradesmen for small amounts. Of course she will take them up, but it was the credit that was wanting. She will carry on the house, but I shall, in fact, be the proprietor. I suppose it will not suit you now to remain here, but don't you think I might make it comfortable enough for some of our fellows; say half-a-dozen, or so? That is Mrs. Roper's idea, and I certainly think it is not a bad one. Our first efforts must be to get rid of the Lupexes. Miss Spruce goes next week. In the meantime we are all taking our meals up in our own rooms, so that there is nothing for the Lupexes to eat. But they don't seem to mind that, and still keep the sitting-room and best bedroom. We mean to lock them out after Tuesday, and send all their boxes to the public-house.
Poor Cradell! Eames, as he threw himself back upon his seat and contemplated the depth of misfortune into which his friend had fallen, began to be almost in love with his own position. He himself was, no doubt, a very miserable fellow. There was only one thing in life worth living for, and that he could not get. He had been thinking for the last three days of throwing himself before a locomotive steam-engine, and was not quite sure that he would not do it yet; but, nevertheless, his place was a place among the gods as compared to that which poor Cradell had selected for himself. To be not only the husband of Amelia Roper, but to have been driven to take upon himself as his bride's fortune the whole of his future mother-in-law's debts! To find himself the owner of a very indifferent lodging-house;--the owner as regarded all responsibility, though not the owner as regarded any possible profit! And then, above and almost worse than all the rest, to find himself saddled with the Lupexes in the beginning of his career! Poor Cradell indeed!
Eames had not taken his things away from the lodging-house before he left London, and therefore determined to drive to Burton Crescent immediately on his arrival, not with the intention of remaining there, even for a night, but that he might bid them farewell, speak his congratulations to Amelia, and arrange for his final settlement with Mrs. Roper. It should have been explained in the last chapter that the earl had told him before parting with him that his want of success with Lily would make no difference as regarded money. John had, of course, expostulated, saying that he did not want anything, and would not, under his existing circumstances, accept anything; but the earl was a man who knew how to have his own way, and in this matter did have it. Our friend, therefore, was a man of wealth when he returned to London, and could tell Mrs. Roper that he would send her a cheque for her little balance as soon as he reached his office.
He arrived in the middle of the day,--not timing his return at all after the usual manner of Government clerks, who generally manage to reach the metropolis not more than half an hour before the moment at which they are bound to show themselves in their seats. But he had come back two days before he was due, and had run away from the country as though London in May to him were much pleasanter than the woods and fields. But neither had London nor the woods and fields any influence on his return. He had gone down that he might throw himself at the feet of Lily Dale,--gone down, as he now confessed to himself, with hopes almost triumphant, and he had returned because Lily Dale would not have him at her feet. "I loved him,--him, Crosbie,--better than all the world besides. It is still the same. I still love him better than all the world." Those were the words which had driven him back to London; and having been sent away with such words as those, it was little matter to him whether he reached his office a day or two sooner or later. The little room in the city, even with the accompaniment of Sir Raffle's bell and Sir Raffle's voice, would be now more congenial to him than Lady Julia's drawing-room. He would therefore present himself to Sir Raffle on that very afternoon, and expel some interloper from his seat. But he would first call in Burton Crescent and say farewell to the Ropers.
The door was opened for him by the faithful Jemima. "Mr. Heames, Mr. Heames! ho dear, ho dear!" and the poor girl, who had always taken his side in the adventures of the lodging-house, raised her hands on high and lamented the fate which had separated her favourite from its fortunes. "I suppose you knows it all, Mister Johnny?" Mister Johnny said that he believed he did know it all, and asked for the mistress of the house. "Yes, sure enough, she's at home. She don't dare stir out much, 'cause of them Lupexes. Ain't this a pretty game? No dinner and no nothink! Them boxes is Miss Spruce's. She's agoing now, this minute. You'll find 'em all upstairs in the drawen-room." So upstairs into the drawing-room he went, and there he found the mother and daughter, and with them Miss Spruce, tightly packed up in her bonnet and shawl. "Don't, mother," Amelia was saying; "what's the good of going on in that way? If she chooses to go, let her go."
"But she's been with me now so many years," said Mrs. Roper, sobbing; "and I've always done everything for her! Haven't I, now, Sally Spruce?" It struck Eames immediately that, though he had been an inmate in the house for two years, he had never before heard that maiden lady's Christian name. Miss Spruce was the first to see Eames as he entered the room. It is probable that Mrs. Roper's pathos might have produced some answering pathos on her part had she remained unobserved, but the sight of a young man brought her back to her usual state of quiescence. "I'm only an old woman," said she; "and here's Mr. Eames come back again."
"How d'ye do, Mrs. Roper? how d'ye do,--Amelia? how d'ye do, Miss Spruce?" and he shook hands with them all.
"Oh, laws," said Mrs. Roper, "you have given me such a start!"
"Dear me, Mr. Eames; only think of your coming back in that way," said Amelia.
"Well, what way should I come back? You didn't hear me knock at the door, that's all. So Miss Spruce is really going to leave you?"
"Isn't it dreadful, Mr. Eames? Nineteen years we've been together;--taking both houses together, Miss Spruce, we have, indeed." Miss Spruce, at this point, struggled very hard to convince John Eames that the period in question had in truth extended over only eighteen years, but Mrs. Roper was authoritative, and would not permit it. "It's nineteen years if it's a day. No one ought to know dates if I don't, and there isn't one in the world understands her ways unless it's me. Haven't I been up to your bedroom every night, and with my own hand given you--" But she stopped herself, and was too good a woman to declare before a young man what had been the nature of her nightly ministrations to her guest.
"I don't think you'll be so comfortable anywhere else, Miss Spruce," said Eames.
"Comfortable! of course she won't," said Amelia. "But if I was mother I wouldn't have any more words about it."
"It isn't the money I'm thinking of, but the feeling of it," said Mrs. Roper. "The house will be so lonely like. I shan't know myself; that I shan't. And now that things are all settled so pleasantly, and that the Lupexes must go on Tuesday-- I'll tell you what, Sally; I'll pay for the cab myself, and I'll start off to Dulwich by the omnibus to-morrow, and settle it all out of my own pocket. I will indeed. Come; there's the cab. Let me go down, and send him away."
"I'll do that," said Eames. "It's only sixpence, off the stand," Mrs. Roper called to him as he left the room. But the cabman got a shilling, and John, as he returned, found Jemima in the act of carrying Miss Spruce's boxes back to her room. "So much the better for poor Caudle," said he to himself. "As he has gone into the trade it's well that he should have somebody that will pay him."
Mrs. Roper followed Miss Spruce up the stairs and Johnny was left with Amelia. "He's written to you, I know," said she, with her face turned a little away from him. She was certainly very handsome, but there was a hard, cross, almost sullen look about her, which robbed her countenance of all its pleasantness. And yet she had no intention of being sullen with him.
"Yes," said John. "He has told me how it's all going to be."
"Well?" she said.
"Well?" said he.
"Is that all you've got to say?"
"I'll congratulate you, if you'll let me."
"Psha;--congratulations! I hate such humbug. If you've no feelings about it, I'm sure that I've none. Indeed I don't know what's the good of feelings. They never did me any good. Are you engaged to marry L. D.?"
"No, I am not."
"And you've nothing else to say to me?"
"Nothing,--except my hopes for your happiness. What else can I say? You are engaged to marry my friend Cradell, and I think it will be a happy match."
She turned away her face further from him, and the look of it became even more sullen. Could it be possible that at such a moment she still had a hope that he might come back to her?
"Good-by, Amelia," he said, putting out his hand to her.
"And this is to be the last of you in this house!"
"Well, I don't know about that. I'll come and call upon you, if you'll let me, when you're married."
"Yes," she said, "that there may be rows in the house, and noise, and jealousy,--as there have been with that wicked woman upstairs. Not if I know it, you won't! John Eames, I wish I'd never seen you. I wish we might have both fallen dead when we first met. I didn't think ever to have cared for a man as I have cared for you. It's all trash and nonsense and foolery; I know that. It's all very well for young ladies as can sit in drawing-rooms all their lives, but when a woman has her way to make in the world it's all foolery. And such a hard way too to make as mine is!"
"But it won't be hard now."
"Won't it? But I think it will. I wish you would try it. Not that I'm going to complain. I never minded work, and as for company, I can put up with anybody. The world's not to be all dancing and fiddling for the likes of me. I know that well enough. But--" and then she paused.
"What's the 'but' about, Amelia?"
"It's like you to ask me; isn't it?" To tell the truth he should not have asked her. "Never mind. I'm not going to have any words with you. If you've been a knave I've been a fool, and that's worse."
"But I don't think I have been a knave."
"I've been both," said the girl; "and both for nothing. After that you may go. I've told you what I am, and I'll leave you to name yourself. I didn't think it was in me to have been such a fool. It's that that frets me. Never mind, sir; it's all over now, and I wish you good-by."
I do not think that there was the slightest reason why John should have again kissed her at parting, but he did so. She bore it, not struggling with him; but she took his caress with sullen endurance. "It'll be the last," she said. "Good-by, John Eames."
"Good-by, Amelia. Try to make him a good wife and then you'll be happy." She turned up her nose at this, assuming a look of unutterable scorn. But she said nothing further, and then he left the room. At the parlour door he met Mrs. Roper, and had his parting words with her.
"I am so glad you came," said she. "It was just that word you said that made Miss Spruce stay. Her money is so ready, you know! And so you've had it all out with her about Cradell. She'll make him a good wife, she will indeed;--much better than you've been giving her credit for."
"I don't doubt she'll be a very good wife."
"You see, Mr. Eames, it's all over now, and we understand each other; don't we? It made me very unhappy when she was setting her cap at you; it did indeed. She is my own daughter, and I couldn't go against her;--could I? But I knew it wasn't in any way suiting. Laws, I know the difference. She's good enough for him any day of the week, Mr. Eames."
"That she is,--Saturdays or Sundays," said Johnny, not knowing exactly what he ought to say.
"So she is; and if he does his duty by her she won't go astray in hers by him. And as for you, Mr. Eames, I am sure I've always felt it an honour and a pleasure to have you in the house; and if ever you could use a good word in sending to me any of your young men, I'd do by them as a mother should; I would indeed. I know I've been to blame about those Lupexes, but haven't I suffered for it, Mr. Eames? And it was difficult to know at first; wasn't it? And as to you and Amelia, if you would send any of your young men to try, there couldn't be anything more of that kind, could there? I know it hasn't all been just as it should have been;--that is as regards you; but I should like to hear you say that you've found me honest before you went. I have tried to be honest, I have indeed."
Eames assured her that he was convinced of her honesty, and that he had never thought of impugning her character either in regard to those unfortunate people, the Lupexes, or in reference to other matters. "He did not think," he said, "that any young men would consult him as to their lodgings; but if he could be of any service to her, he would." Then he bade her good-by, and having bestowed half-a-sovereign on the faithful Jemima, he took a long farewell of Burton Crescent. Amelia had told him not to come and see her when she should be married, and he had resolved that he would take her at her word. So he walked off from the Crescent, not exactly shaking the dust from his feet, but resolving that he would know no more either of its dust or of its dirt. Dirt enough he had encountered there certainly, and he was now old enough to feel that the inmates of Mrs. Roper's house had not been those among whom a resting-place for his early years should judiciously have been sought. But he had come out of the fire comparatively unharmed, and I regret to say that he felt but little for the terrible scorchings to which his friend had been subjected and was about to subject himself. He was quite content to look at the matter exactly as it was looked at by Mrs. Roper. Amelia was good enough for Joseph Cradell--any day of the week. Poor Cradell, of whom in these pages after this notice no more will be heard! I cannot but think that a hard measure of justice was meted out to him, in proportion to the extent of his sins. More weak and foolish than our friend and hero he had been, but not to my knowledge more wicked. But it is to the vain and foolish that the punishments fall;--and to them they fall so thickly and constantly that the thinker is driven to think that vanity and folly are of all sins those which may be the least forgiven. As for Cradell I may declare that he did marry Amelia, that he did, with some pride, take the place of master of the house at the bottom of Mrs. Roper's table, and that he did make himself responsible for all Mrs. Roper's debts. Of his future fortunes there is not space to speak in these pages.
Going away from the Crescent Eames had himself driven to his office, which he reached just as the men were leaving it, at four o'clock. Cradell was gone, so that he did not see him on that afternoon; but he had an opportunity of shaking hands with Mr. Love, who treated him with all the smiling courtesy due to an official bigwig,--for a private secretary, if not absolutely a big-wig, is semi-big, and entitled to a certain amount of reverence;--and he passed Mr. Kissing in the passage, hurrying along as usual with a huge book under his arm. Mr. Kissing, hurried as he was, stopped his shuffling feet; but Eames only looked at him, hardly honouring him with the acknowledgment of a nod of his head. Mr. Kissing, however, was not offended; he knew that the private secretary of the First Commissioner had been the guest of an earl; and what more than a nod could be expected from him? After that John made his way into the august presence of Sir Raffle, and found that great man putting on his shoes in the presence of FitzHoward. FitzHoward blushed; but the shoes had not been touched by him, as he took occasion afterwards to inform John Eames.
Sir Raffle was all smiles and civility. "Delighted to see you back, Eames: am, upon my word; though I and FitzHoward have got on capitally in your absence; haven't we, FitzHoward?"
"Oh, yes," drawled FitzHoward. "I haven't minded it for a time, just while Eames has been away."
"You're much too idle to keep at it, I know; but your bread will be buttered for you elsewhere, so it doesn't signify. My compliments to the duchess when you see her." Then FitzHoward went. "And how's my dear old friend?" asked Sir Raffle, as though of all men living Lord De Guest were the one for whom he had the strongest and the oldest love. And yet he must have known that John Eames knew as much about it as he did himself. But there are men who have the most lively gratification in calling lords and marquises their friends, though they know that nobody believes a word of what they say,--even though they know how great is the odium they incur, and how lasting is the ridicule which their vanity produces. It is a gentle insanity which prevails in the outer courts of every aristocracy; and as it brings with itself considerable annoyance and but a lukewarm pleasure, it should not be treated with too keen a severity.
"And how's my dear old friend?" Eames assured him that his dear old friend was all right, that Lady Julia was all right, that the dear old place was all right. Sir Raffle now spoke as though the "dear old place" were quite well known to him. "Was the game doing pretty well? Was there a promise of birds?" Sir Raffle's anxiety was quite intense, and expressed with almost familiar affection. "And, by-the-by, Eames, where are you living at present?"
"Well, I'm not settled. I'm at the Great Western Railway Hotel at this moment."
"Capital house, very; only it's expensive if you stay there the whole season." Johnny had no idea of remaining there beyond one night, but he said nothing as to this. "By-the-by, you might as well come and dine with us to-morrow. Lady Buffle is most anxious to know you. There'll be one or two with us. I did ask my friend Dumbello, but there's some nonsense going on in the House, and he thinks that he can't get away." Johnny was more gracious than Lord Dumbello, and accepted the invitation. "I wonder what Lady Buffle will be like?" he said to himself, as he walked away from the office.
He had turned into the Great Western Hotel, not as yet knowing where to look for a home; and there we will leave him, eating his solitary mutton-chop at one of those tables which are so comfortable to the eye, but which are so comfortless in reality. I speak not now with reference to the excellent establishment which has been named, but to the nature of such tables in general. A solitary mutton-chop in an hotel coffee-room is not a banquet to be envied by any god; and if the mutton-chop be converted into soup, fish, little dishes, big dishes, and the rest, the matter becomes worse and not better. What comfort are you to have, seated alone on that horsehair chair, staring into the room and watching the waiters as they whisk about their towels? No one but an Englishman has ever yet thought of subjecting himself to such a position as that! But here we will leave John Eames, and in doing so I must be allowed to declare that only now, at this moment, has he entered on his manhood. Hitherto he has been a hobbledehoy,--a calf, as it were, who had carried his calfishness later into life than is common with calves; but who did not, perhaps, on that account, give promise of making a worse ox than the rest of them. His life hitherto, as recorded in these pages, had afforded him no brilliant success, had hardly qualified him for the role of hero which he has been made to play. I feel that I have been in fault in giving such prominence to a hobbledehoy, and that I should have told my story better had I brought Mr. Crosbie more conspicuously forward on my canvas. He at any rate has gotten to himself a wife--as a hero always should do; whereas I must leave my poor friend Johnny without any matrimonial prospects.
It was thus that he thought of himself as he sat moping over his solitary table in the hotel coffee-room. He acknowledged to himself that he had not hitherto been a man; but at the same time he made some resolution which, I trust, may assist him in commencing his manhood from this date.
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{
"id": "4599"
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60
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CONCLUSION.
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It was early in June that Lily went up to her uncle at the Great House, pleading for Hopkins,--pleading that to Hopkins might be restored all the privileges of head gardener at the Great House. There was some absurdity in this, seeing that he had never really relinquished his privileges; but the manner of the quarrel had been in this wise.
There was in those days, and had been for years, a vexed question between Hopkins and Jolliffe the bailiff on the matter of--stable manure. Hopkins had pretended to the right of taking what he required from the farmyard, without asking leave of any one. Jolliffe in return had hinted, that if this were so, Hopkins would take it all. "But I can't eat it," Hopkins had said. Jolliffe merely grunted, signifying by the grunt, as Hopkins thought, that though a gardener couldn't eat a mountain of manure fifty feet long and fifteen high--couldn't eat in the body,--he might convert it into things edible for his own personal use. And so there had been a great feud. The unfortunate squire had of course been called on to arbitrate, and having postponed his decision by every contrivance possible to him, had at last been driven by Jolliffe to declare that Hopkins should take nothing that was not assigned to him. Hopkins, when the decision was made known to him by his master, bit his old lips, and turned round upon his old heel, speechless. "You'll find it's so at all other places," said the squire, apologetically. "Other places!" sneered Hopkins. Where would he find other gardeners like himself? It is hardly necessary to declare that from that moment he resolved that he would abide by no such order. Jolliffe on the next morning informed the squire that the order had been broken, and the squire fretted and fumed, wishing that Jolliffe were well buried under the mountain in question. "If they all is to do as they like," said Jolliffe, "then nobody won't care for nobody." The squire understood that an order if given must be obeyed, and therefore, with many inner groanings of the spirit, resolved that war must be waged against Hopkins.
On the following morning he found the old man himself wheeling a huge barrow of manure round from the yard into the kitchen-garden. Now, on ordinary occasions, Hopkins was not required to do with his own hands work of that description. He had a man under him who hewed wood, and carried water, and wheeled barrows,--one man always, and often two. The squire knew when he saw him that he was sinning, and bade him stop upon his road.
"Hopkins," he said, "why didn't you ask for what you wanted, before you took it?" The old man put down the barrow on the ground, looked up in his master's face, spat into his hands, and then again resumed his barrow. "Hopkins, that won't do," said the squire. "Stop where you are."
"What won't do?" said Hopkins, still holding the barrow from the ground, but not as yet progressing.
"Put it down, Hopkins," and Hopkins did put it down. "Don't you know that you are flatly disobeying my orders?"
"Squire, I've been here about this place going on nigh seventy years."
"If you've been going on a hundred and seventy it wouldn't do that there should be more than one master. I'm the master here, and I intend to be so to the end. Take that manure back into the yard."
"Back into the yard?" said Hopkins, very slowly.
"Yes; back into the yard."
"What,--afore all their faces?"
"Yes; you've disobeyed me before all their faces?"
Hopkins paused a moment, looking away from the squire, and shaking his head as though he had need of deep thought, but by the aid of deep thought had come at last to a right conclusion. Then he resumed the barrow, and putting himself almost into a trot, carried away his prize into the kitchen-garden. At the pace which he went it would have been beyond the squire's power to stop him, nor would Mr. Dale have wished to come to a personal encounter with his servant. But he called after the man in dire wrath that if he were not obeyed the disobedient servant should rue the consequences for ever. Hopkins, equal to the occasion, shook his head as he trotted on, deposited his load at the foot of the cucumber-frames, and then at once returning to his master, tendered to him the key of the greenhouse.
"Master," said Hopkins, speaking as best he could with his scanty breath, "there it is;--there's the key; of course I don't want no warning, and doesn't care about my week's wages. I'll be out of the cottage afore night, and as for the work'us, I suppose they'll let me in at once, if your honour'll give 'em a line."
Now as Hopkins was well known by the squire to be the owner of three or four hundred pounds, the hint about the workhouse must be allowed to have been melodramatic.
"Don't be a fool," said the squire, almost gnashing his teeth.
"I know I've been a fool," said Hopkins, "about that 'ere doong; my feelings has been too much for me. When a man's feelings has been too much for him, he'd better just take hisself off, and lie in the work'us till he dies." And then he again tendered the key. But the squire did not take the key, and so Hopkins went on. "I s'pose I'd better just see to the lights and the like of that, till you've suited yourself, Mr. Dale. It 'ud be a pity all them grapes should go off, and they, as you may say, all one as fit for the table. It's a long way the best crop I ever see on 'em. I've been that careful with 'em that I haven't had a natural night's rest, not since February. There ain't nobody about this place as understands grapes, nor yet anywhere nigh that could be got at. My lord's head man is wery ignorant; but even if he knew ever so, of course he couldn't come here. I suppose I'd better keep the key till you're suited, Mr. Dale."
Then for a fortnight there was an interregnum in the gardens, terrible in the annals of Allington. Hopkins lived in his cottage indeed, and looked most sedulously after the grapes. In looking after the grapes, too, he took the greenhouses under his care; but he would have nothing to do with the outer gardens, took no wages, returning the amount sent to him back to the squire, and insisted with everybody that he had been dismissed. He went about with some terrible horticultural implement always in his hand, with which it was said that he intended to attack Jolliffe; but Jolliffe prudently kept out of his way.
As soon as it had been resolved by Mrs. Dale and Lily that the flitting from the Small House at Allington was not to be accomplished, Lily communicated the fact to Hopkins.
"Miss," said he, "when I said them few words to you and your mamma, I knew that you would listen to reason."
This was no more than Lily had expected; that Hopkins should claim the honour of having prevailed by his arguments was a matter of course.
"Yes," said Lily; "we've made up our minds to stay. Uncle wishes it."
"Wishes it! Laws, miss; it ain't only wishes. And we all wishes it. Why, now, look at the reason of the thing. Here's this here house--" "But, Hopkins, it's decided. We're going to stay. What I want to know is this; can you come at once and help me to unpack?"
"What! this very evening, as is--" "Yes, now; we want to have the things about again before they come back from Guestwick."
Hopkins scratched his head and hesitated, not wishing to yield to any proposition that could be considered as childish; but he gave way at last, feeling that the work itself was a good work. Mrs. Dale also assented, laughing at Lily for her folly as she did so, and in this way the things were unpacked very quickly, and the alliance between Lily and Hopkins became, for the time, very close. This work of unpacking and resettling was not yet over, when the battle of the manure broke out, and therefore it was that Hopkins, when his feelings had become altogether too much for him "about the doong," came at last to Lily, and laying down at her feet all the weight and all the glory of his sixty odd years of life, implored her to make matters straight for him. "It's been a killing me, miss, so it has; to see the way they've been a cutting that 'sparagus. It ain't cutting at all. It's just hocking it up;--what is fit, and what isn't, all together. And they've been a-putting the plants in where I didn't mean 'em, though they know'd I didn't mean 'em. I've stood by, miss, and said never a word. I'd a died sooner. But, Miss Lily, what my sufferings have been, 'cause of my feelings getting the better of me about that--you know, miss--nobody will ever tell;--nobody--nobody--nobody." Then Hopkins turned away and wept.
"Uncle," said Lily, creeping close up against his chair, "I want to ask you a great favour."
"A great favour. Well, I don't think I shall refuse you anything at present. It isn't to ask another earl to the house,--is it?"
"Another earl!" said Lily.
"Yes; haven't you heard? Miss Bell has been here this morning, insisting that I should have over Lord De Guest and his sister for the marriage. It seems that there was some scheming between Bell and Lady Julia."
"Of course you'll ask them."
"Of course I must. I've no way out of it. It'll be all very well for Bell, who'll be off to Wales with her lover; but what am I to do with the earl and Lady Julia, when they're gone? Will you come and help me?"
In answer to this, Lily of course promised that she would come and help. "Indeed," said she, "I thought we were all asked up for the day. And now for my favour. Uncle, you must forgive poor Hopkins."
"Forgive a fiddlestick!" said the squire.
"No, but you must. You can't think how unhappy he is."
"How can I forgive a man who won't forgive me. He goes prowling about the place doing nothing; and he sends me back his wages, and he looks as though he were going to murder some one; and all because he wouldn't do as he was told. How am I to forgive such a man as that?"
"But, uncle, why not?"
"It would be his forgiving me. He knows very well that he may come back whenever he pleases; and, indeed, for the matter of that he has never gone away."
"But he is so very unhappy."
"What can I do to make him happier?"
"Just go down to his cottage and tell him that you forgive him."
"Then he'll argue with me."
"No; I don't think he will. He is too much down in the world for arguing now."
"Ah! you don't know him as I do. All the misfortunes in the world wouldn't stop that man's conceit. Of course I'll go if you ask me, but it seems to me that I'm made to knock under to everybody. I hear a great deal about other people's feelings, but I don't know that mine are very much thought of." He was not altogether in a happy mood, and Lily almost regretted that she had persevered; but she did succeed in carrying him off across the garden to the cottage, and as they went together she promised him that she would think of him always,--always. The scene with Hopkins cannot be described now, as it would take too many of our few remaining pages. It resulted, I am afraid I must confess, in nothing more triumphant to the squire than a treaty of mutual forgiveness. Hopkins acknowledged, with much self-reproach, that his feelings had been too many for him; but then, look at his provocation! He could not keep his tongue from that matter, and certainly said as much in his own defence as he did in confession of his sins. The substantial triumph was altogether his, for nobody again ever dared to interfere with his operations in the farmyard. He showed his submission to his master mainly by consenting to receive his wages for the two weeks which he had passed in idleness.
Owing to this little accident, Lily was not so much oppressed by Hopkins as she had expected to be in that matter of their altered plans; but this salvation did not extend to Mrs. Hearn, to Mrs. Crump, or, above all, to Mrs. Boyce. They, all of them, took an interest more or less strong in the Hopkins controversy; but their interest in the occupation of the Small House was much stronger, and it was found useless to put Mrs. Hearn off with the gardener's persistent refusal of his wages, when she was big with inquiry whether the house was to be painted inside, as well as out. "Ah," said she, "I think I'll go and look at lodgings at Guestwick myself, and pack up some of my beds." Lily made no answer to this, feeling that it was a part of that punishment which she had expected. "Dear, dear," said Mrs. Crump to the two girls; "well, to be sure, we should 'a been 'lone without 'ee, and mayhap we might 'a got worse in your place; but why did 'ee go and fasten up all your things in them big boxes, just to unfasten 'em all again?"
"We changed our minds, Mrs. Crump," said Bell, with some severity.
"Yees, I know ye changed your mindses. Well, it's all right for loiks o' ye, no doubt; but if we changes our mindses, we hears of it."
"So, it seems, do we!" said Lily. "But never mind, Mrs. Crump. Do you send us our letters up early, and then we won't quarrel."
"Oh, letters! Drat them for letters. I wish there weren't no sich things. There was a man here yesterday with his imperence. I don't know where he come from,--down from Lun'on, I b'leeve: and this was wrong, and that was wrong, and everything was wrong; and then he said he'd have me discharged the sarvice."
"Dear me, Mrs. Crump; that wouldn't do at all."
"Discharged the sarvice! Tuppence farden a day. So I told 'un to discharge hisself, and take all the old bundles and things away upon his shoulders. Letters indeed! What business have they with post-missusses, if they cannot pay 'em better nor tuppence farden a day?" And in this way, under the shelter of Mrs. Crump's storm of wrath against the inspector who had visited her, Lily and Bell escaped much that would have fallen upon their own heads; but Mrs. Boyce still remained. I may here add, in order that Mrs. Crump's history may be carried on to the farthest possible point, that she was not "discharged the sarvice," and that she still receives her twopence farthing a day from the Crown. "That's a bitter old lady," said the inspector to the man who was driving him. "Yes, sir; they all says the same about she. There ain't none of 'em get much change out of Mrs. Crump."
Bell and Lily went together also to Mrs. Boyce's. "If she makes herself very disagreeable, I shall insist upon talking of your marriage," said Lily.
"I've not the slightest objection," said Bell; "only I don't know what there can be to say about it. Marrying the doctor is such a very commonplace sort of thing."
"Not a bit more commonplace than marrying the parson," said Lily.
"Oh, yes, it is. Parsons' marriages are often very grand affairs. They come in among county people. That's their luck in life. Doctors never do; nor lawyers. I don't think lawyers ever get married in the country. They're supposed to do it up in London. But a country doctor's wedding is not a thing to be talked about much."
Mrs. Boyce probably agreed in this view of the matter, seeing that she did not choose the coming marriage as her first subject of conversation. As soon as the two girls were seated she flew away immediately to the house, and began to express her very great surprise,--her surprise and her joy also,--at the sudden change which had been made in their plans. "It is so much nicer, you know," said she, "that things should be pleasant among relatives."
"Things always have been tolerably pleasant with us," said Bell.
"Oh, yes; I'm sure of that. I've always said it was quite a pleasure to see you and your uncle together. And when we heard about your all having to leave--" "But we didn't have to leave, Mrs. Boyce. We were going to leave because we thought mamma would be more comfortable in Guestwick; and now we're not going to leave, because we've all 'changed our mindses,' as Mrs. Crump calls it."
"And is it true the house is going to be painted?" asked Mrs. Boyce.
"I believe it is true," said Lily.
"Inside and out?"
"It must be done some day," said Bell.
"Yes, to be sure; but I must say it is generous of the squire. There's such a deal of wood-work about your house. I know I wish the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would paint ours; but nobody ever does anything for the clergy. I'm sure I'm delighted you're going to stay. As I said to Mr. Boyce, what should we ever have done without you? I believe the squire had made up his mind that he would not let the place."
"I don't think he ever has let it."
"And if there was nobody in it, it would all go to rack and ruin; wouldn't it? Had your mamma to pay anything for the lodgings she engaged at Guestwick?"
"Upon my word, I don't know. Bell can tell you better about that than I, as Dr. Crofts settled it. I suppose Dr. Crofts tells her everything." And so the conversation was changed, and Mrs. Boyce was made to understand that whatever further mystery there might be, it would not be unravelled on that occasion.
It was settled that Dr. Crofts and Bell should be married about the middle of June, and the squire determined to give what grace he could to the ceremony by opening his own house on the occasion. Lord De Guest and Lady Julia were invited by special arrangement between her ladyship and Bell, as has been before explained. The colonel also with Lady Fanny came up from Torquay on the occasion, this being the first visit made by the colonel to his paternal roof for many years. Bernard did not accompany his father. He had not yet gone abroad, but there were circumstances which made him feel that he would not find himself comfortable at the wedding. The service was performed by Mr. Boyce, assisted, as the _County Chronicle_ very fully remarked, by the Reverend John Joseph Jones, M.A., late of Jesus College, Cambridge, and curate of St. Peter's, Northgate, Guestwick; the fault of which little advertisement was this,--that as none of the readers of the paper had patience to get beyond the Reverend John Joseph Jones, the fact of Bell's marriage with Dr. Crofts was not disseminated as widely as might have been wished.
The marriage went off very nicely. The squire was upon his very best behaviour, and welcomed his guests as though he really enjoyed their presence there in his halls. Hopkins, who was quite aware that he had been triumphant, decorated the old rooms with mingled flowers and greenery with an assiduous care which pleased the two girls mightily. And during this work of wreathing and decking there was one little morsel of feeling displayed which may as well be told in these last lines. Lily had been encouraging the old man while Bell for a moment had been absent.
"I wish it had been for thee, my darling!" he said; "I wish it had been for thee!"
"It is much better as it is, Hopkins," she answered, solemnly.
"Not with him, though," he went on, "not with him. I wouldn't 'a hung a bough for him. But with t'other one."
Lily said no word further. She knew that the man was expressing the wishes of all around her. She said no word further, and then Bell returned to them.
But no one at the wedding was so gay as Lily,--so gay, so bright, and so wedding-like. She flirted with the old earl till he declared that he would marry her himself. No one seeing her that evening, and knowing nothing of her immediate history, would have imagined that she herself had been cruelly jilted some six or eight months ago. And those who did know her could not imagine that what she then suffered had hit her so hard, that no recovery seemed possible for her. But though no recovery, as she herself believed, was possible for her--though she was as a man whose right arm had been taken from him in the battle, still all the world had not gone with that right arm. The bullet which had maimed her sorely had not touched her life, and she scorned to go about the world complaining either by word or look of the injury she had received. "Wives when they have lost their husbands still eat and laugh," she said to herself, "and he is not dead like that." So she resolved that she would be happy, and I here declare that she not only seemed to carry out her resolution, but that she did carry it out in very truth. "You're a dear good man, and I know you'll be good to her," she said to Crofts just as he was about to start with his bride.
"I'll try, at any rate," he answered.
"And I shall expect you to be good to me too. Remember you have married the whole family; and, sir, you mustn't believe a word of what that bad man says in his novels about mothers-in-law. He has done a great deal of harm, and shut half the ladies in England out of their daughters' houses."
"He shan't shut Mrs. Dale out of mine."
"Remember he doesn't. Now, good-by." So the bride and bridegroom went off, and Lily was left to flirt with Lord De Guest.
Of whom else is it necessary that a word or two should be said before I allow the weary pen to fall from my hand? The squire, after much inward struggling on the subject, had acknowledged to himself that his sister-in-law had not received from him that kindness which she had deserved. He had acknowledged this, purporting to do his best to amend his past errors; and I think I may say that his efforts in that line would not be received ungraciously by Mrs. Dale. I am inclined therefore to think that life at Allington, both at the Great House and at the Small, would soon become pleasanter than it used to be in former days. Lily soon got the Balmoral boots, or, at least, soon learned that the power of getting them as she pleased had devolved upon her from her uncle's gift; so that she talked even of buying the squirrel's cage; but I am not aware that her extravagance led her as far as that.
Lord De Courcy we left suffering dreadfully from gout and ill-temper at Courcy Castle. Yes, indeed! To him in his latter days life did not seem to offer much that was comfortable. His wife had now gone from him, and declared positively to her son-in-law that no earthly consideration should ever induce her to go back again;--"not if I were to starve!" she said. By which she intended to signify that she would be firm in her resolve, even though she should thereby lose her carriage and horses. Poor Mr. Gazebee went down to Courcy, and had a dreadful interview with the earl; but matters were at last arranged, and her ladyship remained at Baden-Baden in a state of semi-starvation. That is to say, she had but one horse to her carriage.
As regards Crosbie, I am inclined to believe that he did again recover his power at his office. He was Mr. Butterwell's master, and the master also of Mr. Optimist, and the major. He knew his business, and could do it, which was more, perhaps, than might fairly be said of any of the other three. Under such circumstances he was sure to get in his hand, and lead again. But elsewhere his star did not recover its ascendancy. He dined at his club almost daily, and there were those with whom he habitually formed some little circle. But he was not the Crosbie of former days,--the Crosbie known in Belgravia and in St. James's Street. He had taken his little vessel bravely out into the deep waters, and had sailed her well while fortune stuck close to him. But he had forgotten his nautical rules, and success had made him idle. His plummet and lead had not been used, and he had kept no look-out ahead. Therefore the first rock he met shivered his bark to pieces. His wife, the Lady Alexandrina, is to be seen in the one-horse carriage with her mother at Baden-Baden.
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The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors. It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.
Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely to wash a shirt. He came flying back from a brook waving his garment bannerlike. He was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard it from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at division headquarters. He adopted the important air of a herald in red and gold. "We're goin' t' move t'morrah--sure," he said pompously to a group in the company street. "We're goin' 'way up the river, cut across, an' come around in behint 'em."
To his attentive audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a very brilliant campaign. When he had finished, the blue-clothed men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown huts. A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker box with the hilarious encouragement of twoscore soldiers was deserted. He sat mournfully down. Smoke drifted lazily from a multitude of quaint chimneys.
"It's a lie! that's all it is--a thunderin' lie!" said another private loudly. His smooth face was flushed, and his hands were thrust sulkily into his trousers' pockets. He took the matter as an affront to him. "I don't believe the derned old army's ever going to move. We're set. I've got ready to move eight times in the last two weeks, and we ain't moved yet."
The tall soldier felt called upon to defend the truth of a rumor he himself had introduced. He and the loud one came near to fighting over it.
A corporal began to swear before the assemblage. He had just put a costly board floor in his house, he said. During the early spring he had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his environment because he had felt that the army might start on the march at any moment. Of late, however, he had been impressed that they were in a sort of eternal camp.
Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate. One outlined in a peculiarly lucid manner all the plans of the commanding general. He was opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans of campaign. They clamored at each other, numbers making futile bids for the popular attention. Meanwhile, the soldier who had fetched the rumor bustled about with much importance. He was continually assailed by questions.
"What's up, Jim?"
"Th' army's goin' t' move."
"Ah, what yeh talkin' about? How yeh know it is?"
"Well, yeh kin b'lieve me er not, jest as yeh like. I don't care a hang."
There was much food for thought in the manner in which he replied. He came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs. They grew excited over it.
There was a youthful private who listened with eager ears to the words of the tall soldier and to the varied comments of his comrades. After receiving a fill of discussions concerning marches and attacks, he went to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served it as a door. He wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had lately come to him.
He lay down on a wide bank that stretched across the end of the room. In the other end, cracker boxes were made to serve as furniture. They were grouped about the fireplace. A picture from an illustrated weekly was upon the log walls, and three rifles were paralleled on pegs. Equipments hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay upon a small pile of firewood. A folded tent was serving as a roof. The sunlight, without, beating upon it, made it glow a light yellow shade. A small window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon the cluttered floor. The smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay chimney and wreathed into the room, and this flimsy chimney of clay and sticks made endless threats to set ablaze the whole establishment.
The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last going to fight. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and he would be in it. For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself believe. He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth.
He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life--of vague and bloody conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire. In visions he had seen himself in many struggles. He had imagined peoples secure in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess. But awake he had regarded battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past. He had put them as things of the bygone with his thought-images of heavy crowns and high castles. There was a portion of the world's history which he had regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone over the horizon and had disappeared forever.
From his home his youthful eyes had looked upon the war in his own country with distrust. It must be some sort of a play affair. He had long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle. Such would be no more, he had said. Men were better, or more timid. Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.
He had burned several times to enlist. Tales of great movements shook the land. They might not be distinctly Homeric, but there seemed to be much glory in them. He had read of marches, sieges, conflicts, and he had longed to see it all. His busy mind had drawn for him large pictures extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds.
But his mother had discouraged him. She had affected to look with some contempt upon the quality of his war ardor and patriotism. She could calmly seat herself and with no apparent difficulty give him many hundreds of reasons why he was of vastly more importance on the farm than on the field of battle. She had had certain ways of expression that told him that her statements on the subject came from a deep conviction. Moreover, on her side, was his belief that her ethical motive in the argument was impregnable.
At last, however, he had made firm rebellion against this yellow light thrown upon the color of his ambitions. The newspapers, the gossip of the village, his own picturings had aroused him to an uncheckable degree. They were in truth fighting finely down there. Almost every day the newspapers printed accounts of a decisive victory.
One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the clangoring of the church bell as some enthusiast jerked the rope frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle. This voice of the people rejoicing in the night had made him shiver in a prolonged ecstasy of excitement. Later, he had gone down to his mother's room and had spoken thus: "Ma, I'm going to enlist."
"Henry, don't you be a fool," his mother had replied. She had then covered her face with the quilt. There was an end to the matter for that night.
Nevertheless, the next morning he had gone to a town that was near his mother's farm and had enlisted in a company that was forming there. When he had returned home his mother was milking the brindle cow. Four others stood waiting. "Ma, I've enlisted," he had said to her diffidently. There was a short silence. "The Lord's will be done, Henry," she had finally replied, and had then continued to milk the brindle cow.
When he had stood in the doorway with his soldier's clothes on his back, and with the light of excitement and expectancy in his eyes almost defeating the glow of regret for the home bonds, he had seen two tears leaving their trails on his mother's scarred cheeks.
Still, she had disappointed him by saying nothing whatever about returning with his shield or on it. He had privately primed himself for a beautiful scene. He had prepared certain sentences which he thought could be used with touching effect. But her words destroyed his plans. She had doggedly peeled potatoes and addressed him as follows: "You watch out, Henry, an' take good care of yerself in this here fighting business--you watch out, an' take good care of yerself. Don't go a-thinkin' you can lick the hull rebel army at the start, because yeh can't. Yer jest one little feller amongst a hull lot of others, and yeh've got to keep quiet an' do what they tell yeh. I know how you are, Henry.
"I've knet yeh eight pair of socks, Henry, and I've put in all yer best shirts, because I want my boy to be jest as warm and comf'able as anybody in the army. Whenever they get holes in 'em, I want yeh to send 'em right-away back to me, so's I kin dern 'em.
"An' allus be careful an' choose yer comp'ny. There's lots of bad men in the army, Henry. The army makes 'em wild, and they like nothing better than the job of leading off a young feller like you, as ain't never been away from home much and has allus had a mother, an' a-learning 'em to drink and swear. Keep clear of them folks, Henry. I don't want yeh to ever do anything, Henry, that yeh would be 'shamed to let me know about. Jest think as if I was a-watchin' yeh. If yeh keep that in yer mind allus, I guess yeh'll come out about right.
"Yeh must allus remember yer father, too, child, an' remember he never drunk a drop of licker in his life, and seldom swore a cross oath.
"I don't know what else to tell yeh, Henry, excepting that yeh must never do no shirking, child, on my account. If so be a time comes when yeh have to be kilt or do a mean thing, why, Henry, don't think of anything 'cept what's right, because there's many a woman has to bear up 'ginst sech things these times, and the Lord 'll take keer of us all.
"Don't forgit about the socks and the shirts, child; and I've put a cup of blackberry jam with yer bundle, because I know yeh like it above all things. Good-by, Henry. Watch out, and be a good boy."
He had, of course, been impatient under the ordeal of this speech. It had not been quite what he expected, and he had borne it with an air of irritation. He departed feeling vague relief.
Still, when he had looked back from the gate, he had seen his mother kneeling among the potato parings. Her brown face, upraised, was stained with tears, and her spare form was quivering. He bowed his head and went on, feeling suddenly ashamed of his purposes.
From his home he had gone to the seminary to bid adieu to many schoolmates. They had thronged about him with wonder and admiration. He had felt the gulf now between them and had swelled with calm pride. He and some of his fellows who had donned blue were quite overwhelmed with privileges for all of one afternoon, and it had been a very delicious thing. They had strutted.
A certain light-haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial spirit, but there was another and darker girl whom he had gazed at steadfastly, and he thought she grew demure and sad at sight of his blue and brass. As he had walked down the path between the rows of oaks, he had turned his head and detected her at a window watching his departure. As he perceived her, she had immediately begun to stare up through the high tree branches at the sky. He had seen a good deal of flurry and haste in her movement as she changed her attitude. He often thought of it.
On the way to Washington his spirit had soared. The regiment was fed and caressed at station after station until the youth had believed that he must be a hero. There was a lavish expenditure of bread and cold meats, coffee, and pickles and cheese. As he basked in the smiles of the girls and was patted and complimented by the old men, he had felt growing within him the strength to do mighty deeds of arms.
After complicated journeyings with many pauses, there had come months of monotonous life in a camp. He had had the belief that real war was a series of death struggles with small time in between for sleep and meals; but since his regiment had come to the field the army had done little but sit still and try to keep warm.
He was brought then gradually back to his old ideas. Greeklike struggles would be no more. Men were better, or more timid. Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions.
He had grown to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue demonstration. His province was to look out, as far as he could, for his personal comfort. For recreation he could twiddle his thumbs and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals. Also, he was drilled and drilled and reviewed, and drilled and drilled and reviewed.
The only foes he had seen were some pickets along the river bank. They were a sun-tanned, philosophical lot, who sometimes shot reflectively at the blue pickets. When reproached for this afterward, they usually expressed sorrow, and swore by their gods that the guns had exploded without their permission. The youth, on guard duty one night, conversed across the stream with one of them. He was a slightly ragged man, who spat skillfully between his shoes and possessed a great fund of bland and infantile assurance. The youth liked him personally.
"Yank," the other had informed him, "yer a right dum good feller." This sentiment, floating to him upon the still air, had made him temporarily regret war.
Various veterans had told him tales. Some talked of gray, bewhiskered hordes who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco with unspeakable valor; tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who were sweeping along like the Huns. Others spoke of tattered and eternally hungry men who fired despondent powders. "They'll charge through hell's fire an' brimstone t' git a holt on a haversack, an' sech stomachs ain't a-lastin' long," he was told. From the stories, the youth imagined the red, live bones sticking out through slits in the faded uniforms.
Still, he could not put a whole faith in veterans' tales, for recruits were their prey. They talked much of smoke, fire, and blood, but he could not tell how much might be lies. They persistently yelled "Fresh fish!" at him, and were in no wise to be trusted.
However, he perceived now that it did not greatly matter what kind of soldiers he was going to fight, so long as they fought, which fact no one disputed. There was a more serious problem. He lay in his bunk pondering upon it. He tried to mathematically prove to himself that he would not run from a battle.
Previously he had never felt obliged to wrestle too seriously with this question. In his life he had taken certain things for granted, never challenging his belief in ultimate success, and bothering little about means and roads. But here he was confronted with a thing of moment. It had suddenly appeared to him that perhaps in a battle he might run. He was forced to admit that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself.
A sufficient time before he would have allowed the problem to kick its heels at the outer portals of his mind, but now he felt compelled to give serious attention to it.
A little panic-fear grew in his mind. As his imagination went forward to a fight, he saw hideous possibilities. He contemplated the lurking menaces of the future, and failed in an effort to see himself standing stoutly in the midst of them. He recalled his visions of broken-bladed glory, but in the shadow of the impending tumult he suspected them to be impossible pictures.
He sprang from the bunk and began to pace nervously to and fro. "Good Lord, what's th' matter with me?" he said aloud.
He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity. He saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he had in early youth. He must accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him. "Good Lord!" he repeated in dismay.
After a time the tall soldier slid dexterously through the hole. The loud private followed. They were wrangling.
"That's all right," said the tall soldier as he entered. He waved his hand expressively. "You can believe me or not, jest as you like. All you got to do is to sit down and wait as quiet as you can. Then pretty soon you'll find out I was right."
His comrade grunted stubbornly. For a moment he seemed to be searching for a formidable reply. Finally he said: "Well, you don't know everything in the world, do you?"
"Didn't say I knew everything in the world," retorted the other sharply. He began to stow various articles snugly into his knapsack.
The youth, pausing in his nervous walk, looked down at the busy figure. "Going to be a battle, sure, is there, Jim?" he asked.
"Of course there is," replied the tall soldier. "Of course there is. You jest wait 'til to-morrow, and you'll see one of the biggest battles ever was. You jest wait."
"Thunder!" said the youth.
"Oh, you'll see fighting this time, my boy, what'll be regular out-and-out fighting," added the tall soldier, with the air of a man who is about to exhibit a battle for the benefit of his friends.
"Huh!" said the loud one from a corner.
"Well," remarked the youth, "like as not this story'll turn out jest like them others did."
"Not much it won't," replied the tall soldier, exasperated. "Not much it won't. Didn't the cavalry all start this morning?" He glared about him. No one denied his statement. "The cavalry started this morning," he continued. "They say there ain't hardly any cavalry left in camp. They're going to Richmond, or some place, while we fight all the Johnnies. It's some dodge like that. The regiment's got orders, too. A feller what seen 'em go to headquarters told me a little while ago. And they're raising blazes all over camp--anybody can see that."
"Shucks!" said the loud one.
The youth remained silent for a time. At last he spoke to the tall soldier. "Jim!"
"What?"
"How do you think the reg'ment 'll do?"
"Oh, they'll fight all right, I guess, after they once get into it," said the other with cold judgment. He made a fine use of the third person. "There's been heaps of fun poked at 'em because they're new, of course, and all that; but they'll fight all right, I guess."
"Think any of the boys 'll run?" persisted the youth.
"Oh, there may be a few of 'em run, but there's them kind in every regiment, 'specially when they first goes under fire," said the other in a tolerant way. "Of course it might happen that the hull kit-and-boodle might start and run, if some big fighting came first-off, and then again they might stay and fight like fun. But you can't bet on nothing. Of course they ain't never been under fire yet, and it ain't likely they'll lick the hull rebel army all-to-oncet the first time; but I think they'll fight better than some, if worse than others. That's the way I figger. They call the reg'ment 'Fresh fish' and everything; but the boys come of good stock, and most of 'em 'll fight like sin after they oncet git shootin'," he added, with a mighty emphasis on the last four words.
"Oh, you think you know--" began the loud soldier with scorn.
The other turned savagely upon him. They had a rapid altercation, in which they fastened upon each other various strange epithets.
The youth at last interrupted them. "Did you ever think you might run yourself, Jim?" he asked. On concluding the sentence he laughed as if he had meant to aim a joke. The loud soldier also giggled.
The tall private waved his hand. "Well," said he profoundly, "I've thought it might get too hot for Jim Conklin in some of them scrimmages, and if a whole lot of boys started and run, why, I s'pose I'd start and run. And if I once started to run, I'd run like the devil, and no mistake. But if everybody was a-standing and a-fighting, why, I'd stand and fight. Be jiminey, I would. I'll bet on it."
"Huh!" said the loud one.
The youth of this tale felt gratitude for these words of his comrade. He had feared that all of the untried men possessed a great and correct confidence. He now was in a measure reassured.
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"id": "463"
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The next morning the youth discovered that his tall comrade had been the fast-flying messenger of a mistake. There was much scoffing at the latter by those who had yesterday been firm adherents of his views, and there was even a little sneering by men who had never believed the rumor. The tall one fought with a man from Chatfield Corners and beat him severely.
The youth felt, however, that his problem was in no wise lifted from him. There was, on the contrary, an irritating prolongation. The tale had created in him a great concern for himself. Now, with the newborn question in his mind, he was compelled to sink back into his old place as part of a blue demonstration.
For days he made ceaseless calculations, but they were all wondrously unsatisfactory. He found that he could establish nothing. He finally concluded that the only way to prove himself was to go into the blaze, and then figuratively to watch his legs to discover their merits and faults. He reluctantly admitted that he could not sit still and with a mental slate and pencil derive an answer. To gain it, he must have blaze, blood, and danger, even as a chemist requires this, that, and the other. So he fretted for an opportunity.
Meanwhile he continually tried to measure himself by his comrades. The tall soldier, for one, gave him some assurance. This man's serene unconcern dealt him a measure of confidence, for he had known him since childhood, and from his intimate knowledge he did not see how he could be capable of anything that was beyond him, the youth. Still, he thought that his comrade might be mistaken about himself. Or, on the other hand, he might be a man heretofore doomed to peace and obscurity, but, in reality, made to shine in war.
The youth would have liked to have discovered another who suspected himself. A sympathetic comparison of mental notes would have been a joy to him.
He occasionally tried to fathom a comrade with seductive sentences. He looked about to find men in the proper mood. All attempts failed to bring forth any statement which looked in any way like a confession to those doubts which he privately acknowledged in himself. He was afraid to make an open declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to place some unscrupulous confidant upon the high plane of the unconfessed from which elevation he could be derided.
In regard to his companions his mind wavered between two opinions, according to his mood. Sometimes he inclined to believing them all heroes. In fact, he usually admitted in secret the superior development of the higher qualities in others. He could conceive of men going very insignificantly about the world bearing a load of courage unseen, and although he had known many of his comrades through boyhood, he began to fear that his judgment of them had been blind. Then, in other moments, he flouted these theories, and assured himself that his fellows were all privately wondering and quaking.
His emotions made him feel strange in the presence of men who talked excitedly of a prospective battle as of a drama they were about to witness, with nothing but eagerness and curiosity apparent in their faces. It was often that he suspected them to be liars.
He did not pass such thoughts without severe condemnation of himself. He dinned reproaches at times. He was convicted by himself of many shameful crimes against the gods of traditions.
In his great anxiety his heart was continually clamoring at what he considered the intolerable slowness of the generals. They seemed content to perch tranquilly on the river bank, and leave him bowed down by the weight of a great problem. He wanted it settled forthwith. He could not long bear such a load, he said. Sometimes his anger at the commanders reached an acute stage, and he grumbled about the camp like a veteran.
One morning, however, he found himself in the ranks of his prepared regiment. The men were whispering speculations and recounting the old rumors. In the gloom before the break of the day their uniforms glowed a deep purple hue. From across the river the red eyes were still peering. In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a rug laid for the feet of the coming sun; and against it, black and patternlike, loomed the gigantic figure of the colonel on a gigantic horse.
From off in the darkness came the trampling of feet. The youth could occasionally see dark shadows that moved like monsters. The regiment stood at rest for what seemed a long time. The youth grew impatient. It was unendurable the way these affairs were managed. He wondered how long they were to be kept waiting.
As he looked all about him and pondered upon the mystic gloom, he began to believe that at any moment the ominous distance might be aflare, and the rolling crashes of an engagement come to his ears. Staring once at the red eyes across the river, he conceived them to be growing larger, as the orbs of a row of dragons advancing. He turned toward the colonel and saw him lift his gigantic arm and calmly stroke his mustache.
At last he heard from along the road at the foot of the hill the clatter of a horse's galloping hoofs. It must be the coming of orders. He bent forward, scarce breathing. The exciting clickety-click, as it grew louder and louder, seemed to be beating upon his soul. Presently a horseman with jangling equipment drew rein before the colonel of the regiment. The two held a short, sharp-worded conversation. The men in the foremost ranks craned their necks.
As the horseman wheeled his animal and galloped away he turned to shout over his shoulder, "Don't forget that box of cigars!" The colonel mumbled in reply. The youth wondered what a box of cigars had to do with war.
A moment later the regiment went swinging off into the darkness. It was now like one of those moving monsters wending with many feet. The air was heavy, and cold with dew. A mass of wet grass, marched upon, rustled like silk.
There was an occasional flash and glimmer of steel from the backs of all these huge crawling reptiles. From the road came creakings and grumblings as some surly guns were dragged away.
The men stumbled along still muttering speculations. There was a subdued debate. Once a man fell down, and as he reached for his rifle a comrade, unseeing, trod upon his hand. He of the injured fingers swore bitterly and aloud. A low, tittering laugh went among his fellows.
Presently they passed into a roadway and marched forward with easy strides. A dark regiment moved before them, and from behind also came the tinkle of equipments on the bodies of marching men.
The rushing yellow of the developing day went on behind their backs. When the sunrays at last struck full and mellowingly upon the earth, the youth saw that the landscape was streaked with two long, thin, black columns which disappeared on the brow of a hill in front and rearward vanished in a wood. They were like two serpents crawling from the cavern of the night.
The river was not in view. The tall soldier burst into praises of what he thought to be his powers of perception.
Some of the tall one's companions cried with emphasis that they, too, had evolved the same thing, and they congratulated themselves upon it. But there were others who said that the tall one's plan was not the true one at all. They persisted with other theories. There was a vigorous discussion.
The youth took no part in them. As he walked along in careless line he was engaged with his own eternal debate. He could not hinder himself from dwelling upon it. He was despondent and sullen, and threw shifting glances about him. He looked ahead, often expecting to hear from the advance the rattle of firing.
But the long serpents crawled slowly from hill to hill without bluster of smoke. A dun-colored cloud of dust floated away to the right. The sky overhead was of a fairy blue.
The youth studied the faces of his companions, ever on the watch to detect kindred emotions. He suffered disappointment. Some ardor of the air which was causing the veteran commands to move with glee--almost with song--had infected the new regiment. The men began to speak of victory as of a thing they knew. Also, the tall soldier received his vindication. They were certainly going to come around in behind the enemy. They expressed commiseration for that part of the army which had been left upon the river bank, felicitating themselves upon being a part of a blasting host.
The youth, considering himself as separated from the others, was saddened by the blithe and merry speeches that went from rank to rank. The company wags all made their best endeavors. The regiment tramped to the tune of laughter.
The blatant soldier often convulsed whole files by his biting sarcasms aimed at the tall one.
And it was not long before all the men seemed to forget their mission. Whole brigades grinned in unison, and regiments laughed.
A rather fat soldier attempted to pilfer a horse from a dooryard. He planned to load his knap-sack upon it. He was escaping with his prize when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed the animal's mane. There followed a wrangle. The young girl, with pink cheeks and shining eyes, stood like a dauntless statue.
The observant regiment, standing at rest in the roadway, whooped at once, and entered whole-souled upon the side of the maiden. The men became so engrossed in this affair that they entirely ceased to remember their own large war. They jeered the piratical private, and called attention to various defects in his personal appearance; and they were wildly enthusiastic in support of the young girl.
To her, from some distance, came bold advice. "Hit him with a stick."
There were crows and catcalls showered upon him when he retreated without the horse. The regiment rejoiced at his downfall. Loud and vociferous congratulations were showered upon the maiden, who stood panting and regarding the troops with defiance.
At nightfall the column broke into regimental pieces, and the fragments went into the fields to camp. Tents sprang up like strange plants. Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.
The youth kept from intercourse with his companions as much as circumstances would allow him. In the evening he wandered a few paces into the gloom. From this little distance the many fires, with the black forms of men passing to and fro before the crimson rays, made weird and satanic effects.
He lay down in the grass. The blades pressed tenderly against his cheek. The moon had been lighted and was hung in a treetop. The liquid stillness of the night enveloping him made him feel vast pity for himself. There was a caress in the soft winds; and the whole mood of the darkness, he thought, was one of sympathy for himself in his distress.
He wished, without reserve, that he was at home again making the endless rounds from the house to the barn, from the barn to the fields, from the fields to the barn, from the barn to the house. He remembered he had often cursed the brindle cow and her mates, and had sometimes flung milking stools. But, from his present point of view, there was a halo of happiness about each of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass buttons on the continent to have been enabled to return to them. He told himself that he was not formed for a soldier. And he mused seriously upon the radical differences between himself and those men who were dodging imp-like around the fires.
As he mused thus he heard the rustle of grass, and, upon turning his head, discovered the loud soldier. He called out, "Oh, Wilson!"
The latter approached and looked down. "Why, hello, Henry; is it you? What you doing here?"
"Oh, thinking," said the youth.
The other sat down and carefully lighted his pipe. "You're getting blue, my boy. You're looking thundering peeked. What the dickens is wrong with you?"
"Oh, nothing," said the youth.
The loud soldier launched then into the subject of the anticipated fight. "Oh, we've got 'em now!" As he spoke his boyish face was wreathed in a gleeful smile, and his voice had an exultant ring. "We've got 'em now. At last, by the eternal thunders, we'll lick 'em good!"
"If the truth was known," he added, more soberly, "THEY'VE licked US about every clip up to now; but this time--this time--we'll lick 'em good!"
"I thought you was objecting to this march a little while ago," said the youth coldly.
"Oh, it wasn't that," explained the other. "I don't mind marching, if there's going to be fighting at the end of it. What I hate is this getting moved here and moved there, with no good coming of it, as far as I can see, excepting sore feet and damned short rations."
"Well, Jim Conklin says we'll get a plenty of fighting this time."
"He's right for once, I guess, though I can't see how it come. This time we're in for a big battle, and we've got the best end of it, certain sure. Gee rod! how we will thump 'em!"
He arose and began to pace to and fro excitedly. The thrill of his enthusiasm made him walk with an elastic step. He was sprightly, vigorous, fiery in his belief in success. He looked into the future with clear, proud eye, and he swore with the air of an old soldier.
The youth watched him for a moment in silence. When he finally spoke his voice was as bitter as dregs. "Oh, you're going to do great things, I s'pose!"
The loud soldier blew a thoughtful cloud of smoke from his pipe. "Oh, I don't know," he remarked with dignity; "I don't know. I s'pose I'll do as well as the rest. I'm going to try like thunder." He evidently complimented himself upon the modesty of this statement.
"How do you know you won't run when the time comes?" asked the youth.
"Run?" said the loud one; "run? --of course not!" He laughed.
"Well," continued the youth, "lots of good-a-'nough men have thought they was going to do great things before the fight, but when the time come they skedaddled."
"Oh, that's all true, I s'pose," replied the other; "but I'm not going to skedaddle. The man that bets on my running will lose his money, that's all." He nodded confidently.
"Oh, shucks!" said the youth. "You ain't the bravest man in the world, are you?"
"No, I ain't," exclaimed the loud soldier indignantly; "and I didn't say I was the bravest man in the world, neither. I said I was going to do my share of fighting--that's what I said. And I am, too. Who are you, anyhow. You talk as if you thought you was Napoleon Bonaparte." He glared at the youth for a moment, and then strode away.
The youth called in a savage voice after his comrade: "Well, you needn't git mad about it!" But the other continued on his way and made no reply.
He felt alone in space when his injured comrade had disappeared. His failure to discover any mite of resemblance in their view points made him more miserable than before. No one seemed to be wrestling with such a terrific personal problem. He was a mental outcast.
He went slowly to his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the side of the snoring tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country's business. He admitted that he would not be able to cope with this monster. He felt that every nerve in his body would be an ear to hear the voices, while other men would remain stolid and deaf.
And as he sweated with the pain of these thoughts, he could hear low, serene sentences. "I'll bid five." "Make it six." "Seven." "Seven goes."
He stared at the red, shivering reflection of a fire on the white wall of his tent until, exhausted and ill from the monotony of his suffering, he fell asleep.
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"id": "463"
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WHEN another night came the columns, changed to purple streaks, filed across two pontoon bridges. A glaring fire wine-tinted the waters of the river. Its rays, shining upon the moving masses of troops, brought forth here and there sudden gleams of silver or gold. Upon the other shore a dark and mysterious range of hills was curved against the sky. The insect voices of the night sang solemnly.
After this crossing the youth assured himself that at any moment they might be suddenly and fearfully assaulted from the caves of the lowering woods. He kept his eyes watchfully upon the darkness.
But his regiment went unmolested to a camping place, and its soldiers slept the brave sleep of wearied men. In the morning they were routed out with early energy, and hustled along a narrow road that led deep into the forest.
It was during this rapid march that the regiment lost many of the marks of a new command.
The men had begun to count the miles upon their fingers, and they grew tired. "Sore feet an' damned short rations, that's all," said the loud soldier. There was perspiration and grumblings. After a time they began to shed their knapsacks. Some tossed them unconcernedly down; others hid them carefully, asserting their plans to return for them at some convenient time. Men extricated themselves from thick shirts. Presently few carried anything but their necessary clothing, blankets, haversacks, canteens, and arms and ammunition. "You can now eat and shoot," said the tall soldier to the youth. "That's all you want to do."
There was sudden change from the ponderous infantry of theory to the light and speedy infantry of practice. The regiment, relieved of a burden, received a new impetus. But there was much loss of valuable knapsacks, and, on the whole, very good shirts.
But the regiment was not yet veteranlike in appearance. Veteran regiments in the army were likely to be very small aggregations of men. Once, when the command had first come to the field, some perambulating veterans, noting the length of their column, had accosted them thus: "Hey, fellers, what brigade is that?" And when the men had replied that they formed a regiment and not a brigade, the older soldiers had laughed, and said, "O Gawd!"
Also, there was too great a similarity in the hats. The hats of a regiment should properly represent the history of headgear for a period of years. And, moreover, there were no letters of faded gold speaking from the colors. They were new and beautiful, and the color bearer habitually oiled the pole.
Presently the army again sat down to think. The odor of the peaceful pines was in the men's nostrils. The sound of monotonous axe blows rang through the forest, and the insects, nodding upon their perches, crooned like old women. The youth returned to his theory of a blue demonstration.
One gray dawn, however, he was kicked in the leg by the tall soldier, and then, before he was entirely awake, he found himself running down a wood road in the midst of men who were panting from the first effects of speed. His canteen banged rhythmically upon his thigh, and his haversack bobbed softly. His musket bounced a trifle from his shoulder at each stride and made his cap feel uncertain upon his head.
He could hear the men whisper jerky sentences: "Say--what's all this--about?" "What th' thunder--we--skedaddlin' this way fer?" "Billie--keep off m' feet. Yeh run--like a cow." And the loud soldier's shrill voice could be heard: "What th' devil they in sich a hurry for?"
The youth thought the damp fog of early morning moved from the rush of a great body of troops. From the distance came a sudden spatter of firing.
He was bewildered. As he ran with his comrades he strenuously tried to think, but all he knew was that if he fell down those coming behind would tread upon him. All his faculties seemed to be needed to guide him over and past obstructions. He felt carried along by a mob.
The sun spread disclosing rays, and, one by one, regiments burst into view like armed men just born of the earth. The youth perceived that the time had come. He was about to be measured. For a moment he felt in the face of his great trial like a babe, and the flesh over his heart seemed very thin. He seized time to look about him calculatingly.
But he instantly saw that it would be impossible for him to escape from the regiment. It inclosed him. And there were iron laws of tradition and law on four sides. He was in a moving box.
As he perceived this fact it occurred to him that he had never wished to come to the war. He had not enlisted of his free will. He had been dragged by the merciless government. And now they were taking him out to be slaughtered.
The regiment slid down a bank and wallowed across a little stream. The mournful current moved slowly on, and from the water, shaded black, some white bubble eyes looked at the men.
As they climbed the hill on the farther side artillery began to boom. Here the youth forgot many things as he felt a sudden impulse of curiosity. He scrambled up the bank with a speed that could not be exceeded by a bloodthirsty man.
He expected a battle scene.
There were some little fields girted and squeezed by a forest. Spread over the grass and in among the tree trunks, he could see knots and waving lines of skirmishers who were running hither and thither and firing at the landscape. A dark battle line lay upon a sunstruck clearing that gleamed orange color. A flag fluttered.
Other regiments floundered up the bank. The brigade was formed in line of battle, and after a pause started slowly through the woods in the rear of the receding skirmishers, who were continually melting into the scene to appear again farther on. They were always busy as bees, deeply absorbed in their little combats.
The youth tried to observe everything. He did not use care to avoid trees and branches, and his forgotten feet were constantly knocking against stones or getting entangled in briers. He was aware that these battalions with their commotions were woven red and startling into the gentle fabric of softened greens and browns. It looked to be a wrong place for a battle field.
The skirmishers in advance fascinated him. Their shots into thickets and at distant and prominent trees spoke to him of tragedies--hidden, mysterious, solemn.
Once the line encountered the body of a dead soldier. He lay upon his back staring at the sky. He was dressed in an awkward suit of yellowish brown. The youth could see that the soles of his shoes had been worn to the thinness of writing paper, and from a great rent in one the dead foot projected piteously. And it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier. In death it exposed to his enemies that poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed from his friends.
The ranks opened covertly to avoid the corpse. The invulnerable dead man forced a way for himself. The youth looked keenly at the ashen face. The wind raised the tawny beard. It moved as if a hand were stroking it. He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare; the impulse of the living to try to read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.
During the march the ardor which the youth had acquired when out of view of the field rapidly faded to nothing. His curiosity was quite easily satisfied. If an intense scene had caught him with its wild swing as he came to the top of the bank, he might have gone roaring on. This advance upon Nature was too calm. He had opportunity to reflect. He had time in which to wonder about himself and to attempt to probe his sensations.
Absurd ideas took hold upon him. He thought that he did not relish the landscape. It threatened him. A coldness swept over his back, and it is true that his trousers felt to him that they were no fit for his legs at all.
A house standing placidly in distant fields had to him an ominous look. The shadows of the woods were formidable. He was certain that in this vista there lurked fierce-eyed hosts. The swift thought came to him that the generals did not know what they were about. It was all a trap. Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels. Ironlike brigades would appear in the rear. They were all going to be sacrificed. The generals were stupids. The enemy would presently swallow the whole command. He glared about him, expecting to see the stealthy approach of his death.
He thought that he must break from the ranks and harangue his comrades. They must not all be killed like pigs; and he was sure it would come to pass unless they were informed of these dangers. The generals were idiots to send them marching into a regular pen. There was but one pair of eyes in the corps. He would step forth and make a speech. Shrill and passionate words came to his lips.
The line, broken into moving fragments by the ground, went calmly on through fields and woods. The youth looked at the men nearest him, and saw, for the most part, expressions of deep interest, as if they were investigating something that had fascinated them. One or two stepped with overvaliant airs as if they were already plunged into war. Others walked as upon thin ice. The greater part of the untested men appeared quiet and absorbed. They were going to look at war, the red animal--war, the blood-swollen god. And they were deeply engrossed in this march.
As he looked the youth gripped his outcry at his throat. He saw that even if the men were tottering with fear they would laugh at his warning. They would jeer him, and, if practicable, pelt him with missiles. Admitting that he might be wrong, a frenzied declamation of the kind would turn him into a worm.
He assumed, then, the demeanor of one who knows that he is doomed alone to unwritten responsibilities. He lagged, with tragic glances at the sky.
He was surprised presently by the young lieutenant of his company, who began heartily to beat him with a sword, calling out in a loud and insolent voice: "Come, young man, get up into ranks there. No skulking'll do here." He mended his pace with suitable haste. And he hated the lieutenant, who had no appreciation of fine minds. He was a mere brute.
After a time the brigade was halted in the cathedral light of a forest. The busy skirmishers were still popping. Through the aisles of the wood could be seen the floating smoke from their rifles. Sometimes it went up in little balls, white and compact.
During this halt many men in the regiment began erecting tiny hills in front of them. They used stones, sticks, earth, and anything they thought might turn a bullet. Some built comparatively large ones, while others seemed content with little ones.
This procedure caused a discussion among the men. Some wished to fight like duelists, believing it to be correct to stand erect and be, from their feet to their foreheads, a mark. They said they scorned the devices of the cautious. But the others scoffed in reply, and pointed to the veterans on the flanks who were digging at the ground like terriers. In a short time there was quite a barricade along the regimental fronts. Directly, however, they were ordered to withdraw from that place.
This astounded the youth. He forgot his stewing over the advance movement. "Well, then, what did they march us out here for?" he demanded of the tall soldier. The latter with calm faith began a heavy explanation, although he had been compelled to leave a little protection of stones and dirt to which he had devoted much care and skill.
When the regiment was aligned in another position each man's regard for his safety caused another line of small intrenchments. They ate their noon meal behind a third one. They were moved from this one also. They were marched from place to place with apparent aimlessness.
The youth had been taught that a man became another thing in a battle. He saw his salvation in such a change. Hence this waiting was an ordeal to him. He was in a fever of impatience. He considered that there was denoted a lack of purpose on the part of the generals. He began to complain to the tall soldier. "I can't stand this much longer," he cried. "I don't see what good it does to make us wear out our legs for nothin'." He wished to return to camp, knowing that this affair was a blue demonstration; or else to go into a battle and discover that he had been a fool in his doubts, and was, in truth, a man of traditional courage. The strain of present circumstances he felt to be intolerable.
The philosophical tall soldier measured a sandwich of cracker and pork and swallowed it in a nonchalant manner. "Oh, I suppose we must go reconnoitering around the country jest to keep 'em from getting too close, or to develop 'em, or something."
"Huh!" said the loud soldier.
"Well," cried the youth, still fidgeting, "I'd rather do anything 'most than go tramping 'round the country all day doing no good to nobody and jest tiring ourselves out."
"So would I," said the loud soldier. "It ain't right. I tell you if anybody with any sense was a-runnin' this army it--" "Oh, shut up!" roared the tall private. "You little fool. You little damn' cuss. You ain't had that there coat and them pants on for six months, and yet you talk as if--" "Well, I wanta do some fighting anyway," interrupted the other. "I didn't come here to walk. I could 'ave walked to home--'round an' 'round the barn, if I jest wanted to walk."
The tall one, red-faced, swallowed another sandwich as if taking poison in despair.
But gradually, as he chewed, his face became again quiet and contented. He could not rage in fierce argument in the presence of such sandwiches. During his meals he always wore an air of blissful contemplation of the food he had swallowed. His spirit seemed then to be communing with the viands.
He accepted new environment and circumstance with great coolness, eating from his haversack at every opportunity. On the march he went along with the stride of a hunter, objecting to neither gait nor distance. And he had not raised his voice when he had been ordered away from three little protective piles of earth and stone, each of which had been an engineering feat worthy of being made sacred to the name of his grandmother.
In the afternoon the regiment went out over the same ground it had taken in the morning. The landscape then ceased to threaten the youth. He had been close to it and become familiar with it.
When, however, they began to pass into a new region, his old fears of stupidity and incompetence reassailed him, but this time he doggedly let them babble. He was occupied with his problem, and in his desperation he concluded that the stupidity did not greatly matter.
Once he thought he had concluded that it would be better to get killed directly and end his troubles. Regarding death thus out of the corner of his eye, he conceived it to be nothing but rest, and he was filled with a momentary astonishment that he should have made an extraordinary commotion over the mere matter of getting killed. He would die; he would go to some place where he would be understood. It was useless to expect appreciation of his profound and fine senses from such men as the lieutenant. He must look to the grave for comprehension.
The skirmish fire increased to a long chattering sound. With it was mingled far-away cheering. A battery spoke.
Directly the youth would see the skirmishers running. They were pursued by the sound of musketry fire. After a time the hot, dangerous flashes of the rifles were visible. Smoke clouds went slowly and insolently across the fields like observant phantoms. The din became crescendo, like the roar of an oncoming train.
A brigade ahead of them and on the right went into action with a rending roar. It was as if it had exploded. And thereafter it lay stretched in the distance behind a long gray wall, that one was obliged to look twice at to make sure that it was smoke.
The youth, forgetting his neat plan of getting killed, gazed spell bound. His eyes grew wide and busy with the action of the scene. His mouth was a little ways open.
Of a sudden he felt a heavy and sad hand laid upon his shoulder. Awakening from his trance of observation he turned and beheld the loud soldier.
"It's my first and last battle, old boy," said the latter, with intense gloom. He was quite pale and his girlish lip was trembling.
"Eh?" murmured the youth in great astonishment.
"It's my first and last battle, old boy," continued the loud soldier. "Something tells me--" "What?"
"I'm a gone coon this first time and--and I w-want you to take these here things--to--my--folks." He ended in a quavering sob of pity for himself. He handed the youth a little packet done up in a yellow envelope.
"Why, what the devil--" began the youth again.
But the other gave him a glance as from the depths of a tomb, and raised his limp hand in a prophetic manner and turned away.
|
{
"id": "463"
}
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4
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None
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The brigade was halted in the fringe of a grove. The men crouched among the trees and pointed their restless guns out at the fields. They tried to look beyond the smoke.
Out of this haze they could see running men. Some shouted information and gestured as they hurried.
The men of the new regiment watched and listened eagerly, while their tongues ran on in gossip of the battle. They mouthed rumors that had flown like birds out of the unknown.
"They say Perry has been driven in with big loss."
"Yes, Carrott went t' th' hospital. He said he was sick. That smart lieutenant is commanding 'G' Company. Th' boys say they won't be under Carrott no more if they all have t' desert. They allus knew he was a--" "Hannises' batt'ry is took."
"It ain't either. I saw Hannises' batt'ry off on th' left not more'n fifteen minutes ago."
"Well--" "Th' general, he ses he is goin' t' take th' hull cammand of th' 304th when we go inteh action, an' then he ses we'll do sech fightin' as never another one reg'ment done."
"They say we're catchin' it over on th' left. They say th' enemy driv' our line inteh a devil of a swamp an' took Hannises' batt'ry."
"No sech thing. Hannises' batt'ry was 'long here 'bout a minute ago."
"That young Hasbrouck, he makes a good off'cer. He ain't afraid 'a nothin'."
"I met one of th' 148th Maine boys an' he ses his brigade fit th' hull rebel army fer four hours over on th' turnpike road an' killed about five thousand of 'em. He ses one more sech fight as that an' th' war 'll be over."
"Bill wasn't scared either. No, sir! It wasn't that. Bill ain't a-gittin' scared easy. He was jest mad, that's what he was. When that feller trod on his hand, he up an' sed that he was willin' t' give his hand t' his country, but he be dumbed if he was goin' t' have every dumb bushwhacker in th' kentry walkin' 'round on it. Se he went t' th' hospital disregardless of th' fight. Three fingers was crunched. Th' dern doctor wanted t' amputate 'm, an' Bill, he raised a heluva row, I hear. He's a funny feller."
The din in front swelled to a tremendous chorus. The youth and his fellows were frozen to silence. They could see a flag that tossed in the smoke angrily. Near it were the blurred and agitated forms of troops. There came a turbulent stream of men across the fields. A battery changing position at a frantic gallop scattered the stragglers right and left.
A shell screaming like a storm banshee went over the huddled heads of the reserves. It landed in the grove, and exploding redly flung the brown earth. There was a little shower of pine needles.
Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees. Twigs and leaves came sailing down. It was as if a thousand axes, wee and invisible, were being wielded. Many of the men were constantly dodging and ducking their heads.
The lieutenant of the youth's company was shot in the hand. He began to swear so wondrously that a nervous laugh went along the regimental line. The officer's profanity sounded conventional. It relieved the tightened senses of the new men. It was as if he had hit his fingers with a tack hammer at home.
He held the wounded member carefully away from his side so that the blood would not drip upon his trousers.
The captain of the company, tucking his sword under his arm, produced a handkerchief and began to bind with it the lieutenant's wound. And they disputed as to how the binding should be done.
The battle flag in the distance jerked about madly. It seemed to be struggling to free itself from an agony. The billowing smoke was filled with horizontal flashes.
Men running swiftly emerged from it. They grew in numbers until it was seen that the whole command was fleeing. The flag suddenly sank down as if dying. Its motion as it fell was a gesture of despair.
Wild yells came from behind the walls of smoke. A sketch in gray and red dissolved into a moblike body of men who galloped like wild horses.
The veteran regiments on the right and left of the 304th immediately began to jeer. With the passionate song of the bullets and the banshee shrieks of shells were mingled loud catcalls and bits of facetious advice concerning places of safety.
But the new regiment was breathless with horror. "Gawd! Saunders's got crushed!" whispered the man at the youth's elbow. They shrank back and crouched as if compelled to await a flood.
The youth shot a swift glance along the blue ranks of the regiment. The profiles were motionless, carven; and afterward he remembered that the color sergeant was standing with his legs apart, as if he expected to be pushed to the ground.
The following throng went whirling around the flank. Here and there were officers carried along on the stream like exasperated chips. They were striking about them with their swords and with their left fists, punching every head they could reach. They cursed like highwaymen.
A mounted officer displayed the furious anger of a spoiled child. He raged with his head, his arms, and his legs.
Another, the commander of the brigade, was galloping about bawling. His hat was gone and his clothes were awry. He resembled a man who has come from bed to go to a fire. The hoofs of his horse often threatened the heads of the running men, but they scampered with singular fortune. In this rush they were apparently all deaf and blind. They heeded not the largest and longest of the oaths that were thrown at them from all directions.
Frequently over this tumult could be heard the grim jokes of the critical veterans; but the retreating men apparently were not even conscious of the presence of an audience.
The battle reflection that shone for an instant in the faces on the mad current made the youth feel that forceful hands from heaven would not have been able to have held him in place if he could have got intelligent control of his legs.
There was an appalling imprint upon these faces. The struggle in the smoke had pictured an exaggeration of itself on the bleached cheeks and in the eyes wild with one desire.
The sight of this stampede exerted a floodlike force that seemed able to drag sticks and stones and men from the ground. They of the reserves had to hold on. They grew pale and firm, and red and quaking.
The youth achieved one little thought in the midst of this chaos. The composite monster which had caused the other troops to flee had not then appeared. He resolved to get a view of it, and then, he thought he might very likely run better than the best of them.
|
{
"id": "463"
}
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5
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None
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There were moments of waiting. The youth thought of the village street at home before the arrival of the circus parade on a day in the spring. He remembered how he had stood, a small, thrillful boy, prepared to follow the dingy lady upon the white horse, or the band in its faded chariot. He saw the yellow road, the lines of expectant people, and the sober houses. He particularly remembered an old fellow who used to sit upon a cracker box in front of the store and feign to despise such exhibitions. A thousand details of color and form surged in his mind. The old fellow upon the cracker box appeared in middle prominence.
Some one cried, "Here they come!"
There was rustling and muttering among the men. They displayed a feverish desire to have every possible cartridge ready to their hands. The boxes were pulled around into various positions, and adjusted with great care. It was as if seven hundred new bonnets were being tried on.
The tall soldier, having prepared his rifle, produced a red handkerchief of some kind. He was engaged in knitting it about his throat with exquisite attention to its position, when the cry was repeated up and down the line in a muffled roar of sound.
"Here they come! Here they come!" Gun locks clicked.
Across the smoke-infested fields came a brown swarm of running men who were giving shrill yells. They came on, stooping and swinging their rifles at all angles. A flag, tilted forward, sped near the front.
As he caught sight of them the youth was momentarily startled by a thought that perhaps his gun was not loaded. He stood trying to rally his faltering intellect so that he might recollect the moment when he had loaded, but he could not.
A hatless general pulled his dripping horse to a stand near the colonel of the 304th. He shook his fist in the other's face. "You 've got to hold 'em back!" he shouted, savagely; "you 've got to hold 'em back!"
In his agitation the colonel began to stammer. "A-all r-right, General, all right, by Gawd! We--we'll do our--we-we'll d-d-do--do our best, General." The general made a passionate gesture and galloped away. The colonel, perchance to relieve his feelings, began to scold like a wet parrot. The youth, turning swiftly to make sure that the rear was unmolested, saw the commander regarding his men in a highly regretful manner, as if he regretted above everything his association with them.
The man at the youth's elbow was mumbling, as if to himself: "Oh, we 're in for it now! oh, we 're in for it now!"
The captain of the company had been pacing excitedly to and fro in the rear. He coaxed in schoolmistress fashion, as to a congregation of boys with primers. His talk was an endless repetition. "Reserve your fire, boys--don't shoot till I tell you--save your fire--wait till they get close up--don't be damned fools--" Perspiration streamed down the youth's face, which was soiled like that of a weeping urchin. He frequently, with a nervous movement, wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve. His mouth was still a little ways open.
He got the one glance at the foe-swarming field in front of him, and instantly ceased to debate the question of his piece being loaded. Before he was ready to begin--before he had announced to himself that he was about to fight--he threw the obedient, well-balanced rifle into position and fired a first wild shot. Directly he was working at his weapon like an automatic affair.
He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part--a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country--was in a crisis. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. For some moments he could not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a hand.
If he had thought the regiment was about to be annihilated perhaps he could have amputated himself from it. But its noise gave him assurance. The regiment was like a firework that, once ignited, proceeds superior to circumstances until its blazing vitality fades. It wheezed and banged with a mighty power. He pictured the ground before it as strewn with the discomfited.
There was a consciousness always of the presence of his comrades about him. He felt the subtle battle brotherhood more potent even than the cause for which they were fighting. It was a mysterious fraternity born of the smoke and danger of death.
He was at a task. He was like a carpenter who has made many boxes, making still another box, only there was furious haste in his movements. He, in his thought, was careering off in other places, even as the carpenter who as he works whistles and thinks of his friend or his enemy, his home or a saloon. And these jolted dreams were never perfect to him afterward, but remained a mass of blurred shapes.
Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere--a blistering sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to crack like hot stones. A burning roar filled his ears.
Following this came a red rage. He developed the acute exasperation of a pestered animal, a well-meaning cow worried by dogs. He had a mad feeling against his rifle, which could only be used against one life at a time. He wished to rush forward and strangle with his fingers. He craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture and brush all back. His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage into that of a driven beast.
Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the swirling battle phantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat. He fought frantically for respite for his senses, for air, as a babe being smothered attacks the deadly blankets.
There was a blare of heated rage mingled with a certain expression of intentness on all faces. Many of the men were making low-toned noises with their mouths, and these subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations, prayers, made a wild, barbaric song that went as an undercurrent of sound, strange and chantlike with the resounding chords of the war march. The man at the youth's elbow was babbling. In it there was something soft and tender like the monologue of a babe. The tall soldier was swearing in a loud voice. From his lips came a black procession of curious oaths. Of a sudden another broke out in a querulous way like a man who has mislaid his hat. "Well, why don't they support us? Why don't they send supports? Do they think--" The youth in his battle sleep heard this as one who dozes hears.
There was a singular absence of heroic poses. The men bending and surging in their haste and rage were in every impossible attitude. The steel ramrods clanked and clanged with incessant din as the men pounded them furiously into the hot rifle barrels. The flaps of the cartridge boxes were all unfastened, and bobbed idiotically with each movement. The rifles, once loaded, were jerked to the shoulder and fired without apparent aim into the smoke or at one of the blurred and shifting forms which upon the field before the regiment had been growing larger and larger like puppets under a magician's hand.
The officers, at their intervals, rearward, neglected to stand in picturesque attitudes. They were bobbing to and fro roaring directions and encouragements. The dimensions of their howls were extraordinary. They expended their lungs with prodigal wills. And often they nearly stood upon their heads in their anxiety to observe the enemy on the other side of the tumbling smoke.
The lieutenant of the youth's company had encountered a soldier who had fled screaming at the first volley of his comrades. Behind the lines these two were acting a little isolated scene. The man was blubbering and staring with sheeplike eyes at the lieutenant, who had seized him by the collar and was pommeling him. He drove him back into the ranks with many blows. The soldier went mechanically, dully, with his animal-like eyes upon the officer. Perhaps there was to him a divinity expressed in the voice of the other--stern, hard, with no reflection of fear in it. He tried to reload his gun, but his shaking hands prevented. The lieutenant was obliged to assist him.
The men dropped here and there like bundles. The captain of the youth's company had been killed in an early part of the action. His body lay stretched out in the position of a tired man resting, but upon his face there was an astonished and sorrowful look, as if he thought some friend had done him an ill turn. The babbling man was grazed by a shot that made the blood stream widely down his face. He clapped both hands to his head. "Oh!" he said, and ran. Another grunted suddenly as if he had been struck by a club in the stomach. He sat down and gazed ruefully. In his eyes there was mute, indefinite reproach. Farther up the line a man, standing behind a tree, had had his knee joint splintered by a ball. Immediately he had dropped his rifle and gripped the tree with both arms. And there he remained, clinging desperately and crying for assistance that he might withdraw his hold upon the tree.
At last an exultant yell went along the quivering line. The firing dwindled from an uproar to a last vindictive popping. As the smoke slowly eddied away, the youth saw that the charge had been repulsed. The enemy were scattered into reluctant groups. He saw a man climb to the top of the fence, straddle the rail, and fire a parting shot. The waves had receded, leaving bits of dark _débris_ upon the ground.
Some in the regiment began to whoop frenziedly. Many were silent. Apparently they were trying to contemplate themselves.
After the fever had left his veins, the youth thought that at last he was going to suffocate. He became aware of the foul atmosphere in which he had been struggling. He was grimy and dripping like a laborer in a foundry. He grasped his canteen and took a long swallow of the warmed water.
A sentence with variations went up and down the line. "Well, we 've helt 'em back. We 've helt 'em back; derned if we haven't." The men said it blissfully, leering at each other with dirty smiles.
The youth turned to look behind him and off to the right and off to the left. He experienced the joy of a man who at last finds leisure in which to look about him.
Under foot there were a few ghastly forms motionless. They lay twisted in fantastic contortions. Arms were bent and heads were turned in incredible ways. It seemed that the dead men must have fallen from some great height to get into such positions. They looked to be dumped out upon the ground from the sky.
From a position in the rear of the grove a battery was throwing shells over it. The flash of the guns startled the youth at first. He thought they were aimed directly at him. Through the trees he watched the black figures of the gunners as they worked swiftly and intently. Their labor seemed a complicated thing. He wondered how they could remember its formula in the midst of confusion.
The guns squatted in a row like savage chiefs. They argued with abrupt violence. It was a grim pow-wow. Their busy servants ran hither and thither.
A small procession of wounded men were going drearily toward the rear. It was a flow of blood from the torn body of the brigade.
To the right and to the left were the dark lines of other troops. Far in front he thought he could see lighter masses protruding in points from the forest. They were suggestive of unnumbered thousands.
Once he saw a tiny battery go dashing along the line of the horizon. The tiny riders were beating the tiny horses.
From a sloping hill came the sound of cheerings and clashes. Smoke welled slowly through the leaves.
Batteries were speaking with thunderous oratorical effort. Here and there were flags, the red in the stripes dominating. They splashed bits of warm color upon the dark lines of troops.
The youth felt the old thrill at the sight of the emblem. They were like beautiful birds strangely undaunted in a storm.
As he listened to the din from the hillside, to a deep pulsating thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the lesser clamors which came from many directions, it occurred to him that they were fighting, too, over there, and over there, and over there. Heretofore he had supposed that all the battle was directly under his nose.
As he gazed around him the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleamings on the trees and fields. It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment.
|
{
"id": "463"
}
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6
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None
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The youth awakened slowly. He came gradually back to a position from which he could regard himself. For moments he had been scrutinizing his person in a dazed way as if he had never before seen himself. Then he picked up his cap from the ground. He wriggled in his jacket to make a more comfortable fit, and kneeling relaced his shoe. He thoughtfully mopped his reeking features.
So it was all over at last! The supreme trial had been passed. The red, formidable difficulties of war had been vanquished.
He went into an ecstasy of self-satisfaction. He had the most delightful sensations of his life. Standing as if apart from himself, he viewed that last scene. He perceived that the man who had fought thus was magnificent.
He felt that he was a fine fellow. He saw himself even with those ideals which he had considered as far beyond him. He smiled in deep gratification.
Upon his fellows he beamed tenderness and good will. "Gee! ain't it hot, hey?" he said affably to a man who was polishing his streaming face with his coat sleeves.
"You bet!" said the other, grinning sociably. "I never seen sech dumb hotness." He sprawled out luxuriously on the ground. "Gee, yes! An' I hope we don't have no more fightin' till a week from Monday."
There were some handshakings and deep speeches with men whose features were familiar, but with whom the youth now felt the bonds of tied hearts. He helped a cursing comrade to bind up a wound of the shin.
But, of a sudden, cries of amazement broke out along the ranks of the new regiment. "Here they come ag'in! Here they come ag'in!" The man who had sprawled upon the ground started up and said, "Gosh!"
The youth turned quick eyes upon the field. He discerned forms begin to swell in masses out of a distant wood. He again saw the tilted flag speeding forward.
The shells, which had ceased to trouble the regiment for a time, came swirling again, and exploded in the grass or among the leaves of the trees. They looked to be strange war flowers bursting into fierce bloom.
The men groaned. The luster faded from their eyes. Their smudged countenances now expressed a profound dejection. They moved their stiffened bodies slowly, and watched in sullen mood the frantic approach of the enemy. The slaves toiling in the temple of this god began to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks.
They fretted and complained each to each. "Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing! Why can't somebody send us supports?"
"We ain't never goin' to stand this second banging. I didn't come here to fight the hull damn' rebel army."
There was one who raised a doleful cry. "I wish Bill Smithers had trod on my hand, insteader me treddin' on his'n." The sore joints of the regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into position to repulse.
The youth stared. Surely, he thought, this impossible thing was not about to happen. He waited as if he expected the enemy to suddenly stop, apologize, and retire bowing. It was all a mistake.
But the firing began somewhere on the regimental line and ripped along in both directions. The level sheets of flame developed great clouds of smoke that tumbled and tossed in the mild wind near the ground for a moment, and then rolled through the ranks as through a gate. The clouds were tinged an earthlike yellow in the sunrays and in the shadow were a sorry blue. The flag was sometimes eaten and lost in this mass of vapor, but more often it projected, sun-touched, resplendent.
Into the youth's eyes there came a look that one can see in the orbs of a jaded horse. His neck was quivering with nervous weakness and the muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless. His hands, too, seemed large and awkward as if he was wearing invisible mittens. And there was a great uncertainty about his knee joints.
The words that comrades had uttered previous to the firing began to recur to him. "Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing! What do they take us for--why don't they send supports? I didn't come here to fight the hull damned rebel army."
He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor of those who were coming. Himself reeling from exhaustion, he was astonished beyond measure at such persistency. They must be machines of steel. It was very gloomy struggling against such affairs, wound up perhaps to fight until sundown.
He slowly lifted his rifle and catching a glimpse of the thickspread field he blazed at a cantering cluster. He stopped then and began to peer as best he could through the smoke. He caught changing views of the ground covered with men who were all running like pursued imps, and yelling.
To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He became like the man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and green monster. He waited in a sort of a horrified, listening attitude. He seemed to shut his eyes and wait to be gobbled.
A man near him who up to this time had been working feverishly at his rifle suddenly stopped and ran with howls. A lad whose face had borne an expression of exalted courage, the majesty of he who dares give his life, was, at an instant, smitten abject. He blanched like one who has come to the edge of a cliff at midnight and is suddenly made aware. There was a revelation. He, too, threw down his gun and fled. There was no shame in his face. He ran like a rabbit.
Others began to scamper away through the smoke. The youth turned his head, shaken from his trance by this movement as if the regiment was leaving him behind. He saw the few fleeting forms.
He yelled then with fright and swung about. For a moment, in the great clamor, he was like a proverbial chicken. He lost the direction of safety. Destruction threatened him from all points.
Directly he began to speed toward the rear in great leaps. His rifle and cap were gone. His unbuttoned coat bulged in the wind. The flap of his cartridge box bobbed wildly, and his canteen, by its slender cord, swung out behind. On his face was all the horror of those things which he imagined.
The lieutenant sprang forward bawling. The youth saw his features wrathfully red, and saw him make a dab with his sword. His one thought of the incident was that the lieutenant was a peculiar creature to feel interested in such matters upon this occasion.
He ran like a blind man. Two or three times he fell down. Once he knocked his shoulder so heavily against a tree that he went headlong.
Since he had turned his back upon the fight his fears had been wondrously magnified. Death about to thrust him between the shoulder blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him between the eyes. When he thought of it later, he conceived the impression that it is better to view the appalling than to be merely within hearing. The noises of the battle were like stones; he believed himself liable to be crushed.
As he ran he mingled with others. He dimly saw men on his right and on his left, and he heard footsteps behind him. He thought that all the regiment was fleeing, pursued by these ominous crashes.
In his flight the sound of these following footsteps gave him his one meager relief. He felt vaguely that death must make a first choice of the men who were nearest; the initial morsels for the dragons would be then those who were following him. So he displayed the zeal of an insane sprinter in his purpose to keep them in the rear. There was a race.
As he, leading, went across a little field, he found himself in a region of shells. They hurtled over his head with long wild screams. As he listened he imagined them to have rows of cruel teeth that grinned at him. Once one lit before him and the livid lightning of the explosion effectually barred the way in his chosen direction. He groveled on the ground and then springing up went careering off through some bushes.
He experienced a thrill of amazement when he came within view of a battery in action. The men there seemed to be in conventional moods, altogether unaware of the impending annihilation. The battery was disputing with a distant antagonist and the gunners were wrapped in admiration of their shooting. They were continually bending in coaxing postures over the guns. They seemed to be patting them on the back and encouraging them with words. The guns, stolid and undaunted, spoke with dogged valor.
The precise gunners were coolly enthusiastic. They lifted their eyes every chance to the smoke-wreathed hillock from whence the hostile battery addressed them. The youth pitied them as he ran. Methodical idiots! Machine-like fools! The refined joy of planting shells in the midst of the other battery's formation would appear a little thing when the infantry came swooping out of the woods.
The face of a youthful rider, who was jerking his frantic horse with an abandon of temper he might display in a placid barnyard, was impressed deeply upon his mind. He knew that he looked upon a man who would presently be dead.
Too, he felt a pity for the guns, standing, six good comrades, in a bold row.
He saw a brigade going to the relief of its pestered fellows. He scrambled upon a wee hill and watched it sweeping finely, keeping formation in difficult places. The blue of the line was crusted with steel color, and the brilliant flags projected. Officers were shouting.
This sight also filled him with wonder. The brigade was hurrying briskly to be gulped into the infernal mouths of the war god. What manner of men were they, anyhow? Ah, it was some wondrous breed! Or else they didn't comprehend--the fools.
A furious order caused commotion in the artillery. An officer on a bounding horse made maniacal motions with his arms. The teams went swinging up from the rear, the guns were whirled about, and the battery scampered away. The cannon with their noses poked slantingly at the ground grunted and grumbled like stout men, brave but with objections to hurry.
The youth went on, moderating his pace since he had left the place of noises.
Later he came upon a general of division seated upon a horse that pricked its ears in an interested way at the battle. There was a great gleaming of yellow and patent leather about the saddle and bridle. The quiet man astride looked mouse-colored upon such a splendid charger.
A jingling staff was galloping hither and thither. Sometimes the general was surrounded by horsemen and at other times he was quite alone. He looked to be much harassed. He had the appearance of a business man whose market is swinging up and down.
The youth went slinking around this spot. He went as near as he dared trying to overhear words. Perhaps the general, unable to comprehend chaos, might call upon him for information. And he could tell him. He knew all concerning it. Of a surety the force was in a fix, and any fool could see that if they did not retreat while they had opportunity--why-- He felt that he would like to thrash the general, or at least approach and tell him in plain words exactly what he thought him to be. It was criminal to stay calmly in one spot and make no effort to stay destruction. He loitered in a fever of eagerness for the division commander to apply to him.
As he warily moved about, he heard the general call out irritably: "Tompkins, go over an' see Taylor, an' tell him not t' be in such an all-fired hurry; tell him t' halt his brigade in th' edge of th' woods; tell him t' detach a reg'ment--say I think th' center 'll break if we don't help it out some; tell him t' hurry up."
A slim youth on a fine chestnut horse caught these swift words from the mouth of his superior. He made his horse bound into a gallop almost from a walk in his haste to go upon his mission. There was a cloud of dust.
A moment later the youth saw the general bounce excitedly in his saddle.
"Yes, by heavens, they have!" The officer leaned forward. His face was aflame with excitement. "Yes, by heavens, they 've held 'im! They 've held 'im!"
He began to blithely roar at his staff: "We 'll wallop 'im now. We 'll wallop 'im now. We 've got 'em sure." He turned suddenly upon an aid: "Here--you--Jones--quick--ride after Tompkins--see Taylor--tell him t' go in--everlastingly--like blazes--anything."
As another officer sped his horse after the first messenger, the general beamed upon the earth like a sun. In his eyes was a desire to chant a paean. He kept repeating, "They 've held 'em, by heavens!"
His excitement made his horse plunge, and he merrily kicked and swore at it. He held a little carnival of joy on horseback.
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{
"id": "463"
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The youth cringed as if discovered in a crime. By heavens, they had won after all! The imbecile line had remained and become victors. He could hear cheering.
He lifted himself upon his toes and looked in the direction of the fight. A yellow fog lay wallowing on the treetops. From beneath it came the clatter of musketry. Hoarse cries told of an advance.
He turned away amazed and angry. He felt that he had been wronged.
He had fled, he told himself, because annihilation approached. He had done a good part in saving himself, who was a little piece of the army. He had considered the time, he said, to be one in which it was the duty of every little piece to rescue itself if possible. Later the officers could fit the little pieces together again, and make a battle front. If none of the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from the flurry of death at such a time, why, then, where would be the army? It was all plain that he had proceeded according to very correct and commendable rules. His actions had been sagacious things. They had been full of strategy. They were the work of a master's legs.
Thoughts of his comrades came to him. The brittle blue line had withstood the blows and won. He grew bitter over it. It seemed that the blind ignorance and stupidity of those little pieces had betrayed him. He had been overturned and crushed by their lack of sense in holding the position, when intelligent deliberation would have convinced them that it was impossible. He, the enlightened man who looks afar in the dark, had fled because of his superior perceptions and knowledge. He felt a great anger against his comrades. He knew it could be proved that they had been fools.
He wondered what they would remark when later he appeared in camp. His mind heard howls of derision. Their density would not enable them to understand his sharper point of view.
He began to pity himself acutely. He was ill used. He was trodden beneath the feet of an iron injustice. He had proceeded with wisdom and from the most righteous motives under heaven's blue only to be frustrated by hateful circumstances.
A dull, animal-like rebellion against his fellows, war in the abstract, and fate grew within him. He shambled along with bowed head, his brain in a tumult of agony and despair. When he looked loweringly up, quivering at each sound, his eyes had the expression of those of a criminal who thinks his guilt and his punishment great, and knows that he can find no words.
He went from the fields into a thick woods, as if resolved to bury himself. He wished to get out of hearing of the crackling shots which were to him like voices.
The ground was cluttered with vines and bushes, and the trees grew close and spread out like bouquets. He was obliged to force his way with much noise. The creepers, catching against his legs, cried out harshly as their sprays were torn from the barks of trees. The swishing saplings tried to make known his presence to the world. He could not conciliate the forest. As he made his way, it was always calling out protestations. When he separated embraces of trees and vines the disturbed foliages waved their arms and turned their face leaves toward him. He dreaded lest these noisy motions and cries should bring men to look at him. So he went far, seeking dark and intricate places.
After a time the sound of musketry grew faint and the cannon boomed in the distance. The sun, suddenly apparent, blazed among the trees. The insects were making rhythmical noises. They seemed to be grinding their teeth in unison. A woodpecker stuck his impudent head around the side of a tree. A bird flew on lighthearted wing.
Off was the rumble of death. It seemed now that Nature had no ears.
This landscape gave him assurance. A fair field holding life. It was the religion of peace. It would die if its timid eyes were compelled to see blood. He conceived Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to tragedy.
He threw a pine cone at a jovial squirrel, and he ran with chattering fear. High in a treetop he stopped, and, poking his head cautiously from behind a branch, looked down with an air of trepidation.
The youth felt triumphant at this exhibition. There was the law, he said. Nature had given him a sign. The squirrel, immediately upon recognizing danger, had taken to his legs without ado. He did not stand stolidly baring his furry belly to the missile, and die with an upward glance at the sympathetic heavens. On the contrary, he had fled as fast as his legs could carry him; and he was but an ordinary squirrel, too--doubtless no philosopher of his race. The youth wended, feeling that Nature was of his mind. She re-enforced his argument with proofs that lived where the sun shone.
Once he found himself almost into a swamp. He was obliged to walk upon bog tufts and watch his feet to keep from the oily mire. Pausing at one time to look about him he saw, out at some black water, a small animal pounce in and emerge directly with a gleaming fish.
The youth went again into the deep thickets. The brushed branches made a noise that drowned the sounds of cannon. He walked on, going from obscurity into promises of a greater obscurity.
At length he reached a place where the high, arching boughs made a chapel. He softly pushed the green doors aside and entered. Pine needles were a gentle brown carpet. There was a religious half light.
Near the threshold he stopped, horror-stricken at the sight of a thing.
He was being looked at by a dead man who was seated with his back against a columnlike tree. The corpse was dressed in a uniform that once had been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade of green. The eyes, staring at the youth, had changed to the dull hue to be seen on the side of a dead fish. The mouth was open. Its red had changed to an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of the face ran little ants. One was trundling some sort of a bundle along the upper lip.
The youth gave a shriek as he confronted the thing. He was for moments turned to stone before it. He remained staring into the liquid-looking eyes. The dead man and the living man exchanged a long look. Then the youth cautiously put one hand behind him and brought it against a tree. Leaning upon this he retreated, step by step, with his face still toward the thing. He feared that if he turned his back the body might spring up and stealthily pursue him.
The branches, pushing against him, threatened to throw him over upon it. His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles; and with it all he received a subtle suggestion to touch the corpse. As he thought of his hand upon it he shuddered profoundly.
At last he burst the bonds which had fastened him to the spot and fled, unheeding the underbrush. He was pursued by a sight of the black ants swarming greedily upon the gray face and venturing horribly near to the eyes.
After a time he paused, and, breathless and panting, listened. He imagined some strange voice would come from the dead throat and squawk after him in horrible menaces.
The trees about the portal of the chapel moved soughingly in a soft wind. A sad silence was upon the little guarding edifice.
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{
"id": "463"
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The trees began softly to sing a hymn of twilight. The sun sank until slanted bronze rays struck the forest. There was a lull in the noises of insects as if they had bowed their beaks and were making a devotional pause. There was silence save for the chanted chorus of the trees.
Then, upon this stillness, there suddenly broke a tremendous clangor of sounds. A crimson roar came from the distance.
The youth stopped. He was transfixed by this terrific medley of all noises. It was as if worlds were being rended. There was the ripping sound of musketry and the breaking crash of the artillery.
His mind flew in all directions. He conceived the two armies to be at each other panther fashion. He listened for a time. Then he began to run in the direction of the battle. He saw that it was an ironical thing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid. But he said, in substance, to himself that if the earth and the moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.
As he ran, he became aware that the forest had stopped its music, as if at last becoming capable of hearing the foreign sounds. The trees hushed and stood motionless. Everything seemed to be listening to the crackle and clatter and earshaking thunder. The chorus pealed over the still earth.
It suddenly occurred to the youth that the fight in which he had been was, after all, but perfunctory popping. In the hearing of this present din he was doubtful if he had seen real battle scenes. This uproar explained a celestial battle; it was tumbling hordes a-struggle in the air.
Reflecting, he saw a sort of a humor in the point of view of himself and his fellows during the late encounter. They had taken themselves and the enemy very seriously and had imagined that they were deciding the war. Individuals must have supposed that they were cutting the letters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of brass, or enshrining their reputations forever in the hearts of their countrymen, while, as to fact, the affair would appear in printed reports under a meek and immaterial title. But he saw that it was good, else, he said, in battle every one would surely run save forlorn hopes and their ilk.
He went rapidly on. He wished to come to the edge of the forest that he might peer out.
As he hastened, there passed through his mind pictures of stupendous conflicts. His accumulated thought upon such subjects was used to form scenes. The noise was as the voice of an eloquent being, describing.
Sometimes the brambles formed chains and tried to hold him back. Trees, confronting him, stretched out their arms and forbade him to pass. After its previous hostility this new resistance of the forest filled him with a fine bitterness. It seemed that Nature could not be quite ready to kill him.
But he obstinately took roundabout ways, and presently he was where he could see long gray walls of vapor where lay battle lines. The voices of cannon shook him. The musketry sounded in long irregular surges that played havoc with his ears. He stood regardant for a moment. His eyes had an awestruck expression. He gawked in the direction of the fight.
Presently he proceeded again on his forward way. The battle was like the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him. Its complexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him. He must go close and see it produce corpses.
He came to a fence and clambered over it. On the far side, the ground was littered with clothes and guns. A newspaper, folded up, lay in the dirt. A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm. Farther off there was a group of four or five corpses keeping mournful company. A hot sun had blazed upon the spot.
In this place the youth felt that he was an invader. This forgotten part of the battle ground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, in the vague apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise and tell him to begone.
He came finally to a road from which he could see in the distance dark and agitated bodies of troops, smoke-fringed. In the lane was a blood-stained crowd streaming to the rear. The wounded men were cursing, groaning, and wailing. In the air, always, was a mighty swell of sound that it seemed could sway the earth. With the courageous words of the artillery and the spiteful sentences of the musketry mingled red cheers. And from this region of noises came the steady current of the maimed.
One of the wounded men had a shoeful of blood. He hopped like a schoolboy in a game. He was laughing hysterically.
One was swearing that he had been shot in the arm through the commanding general's mismanagement of the army. One was marching with an air imitative of some sublime drum major. Upon his features was an unholy mixture of merriment and agony. As he marched he sang a bit of doggerel in a high and quavering voice: "Sing a song 'a vic'try, A pocketful 'a bullets, Five an' twenty dead men Baked in a--pie."
Parts of the procession limped and staggered to this tune.
Another had the gray seal of death already upon his face. His lips were curled in hard lines and his teeth were clinched. His hands were bloody from where he had pressed them upon his wound. He seemed to be awaiting the moment when he should pitch headlong. He stalked like the specter of a soldier, his eyes burning with the power of a stare into the unknown.
There were some who proceeded sullenly, full of anger at their wounds, and ready to turn upon anything as an obscure cause.
An officer was carried along by two privates. He was peevish. "Don't joggle so, Johnson, yeh fool," he cried. "Think m' leg is made of iron? If yeh can't carry me decent, put me down an' let some one else do it."
He bellowed at the tottering crowd who blocked the quick march of his bearers. "Say, make way there, can't yeh? Make way, dickens take it all."
They sulkily parted and went to the roadsides. As he was carried past they made pert remarks to him. When he raged in reply and threatened them, they told him to be damned.
The shoulder of one of the tramping bearers knocked heavily against the spectral soldier who was staring into the unknown.
The youth joined this crowd and marched along with it. The torn bodies expressed the awful machinery in which the men had been entangled.
Orderlies and couriers occasionally broke through the throng in the roadway, scattering wounded men right and left, galloping on followed by howls. The melancholy march was continually disturbed by the messengers, and sometimes by bustling batteries that came swinging and thumping down upon them, the officers shouting orders to clear the way.
There was a tattered man, fouled with dust, blood and powder stain from hair to shoes, who trudged quietly at the youth's side. He was listening with eagerness and much humility to the lurid descriptions of a bearded sergeant. His lean features wore an expression of awe and admiration. He was like a listener in a country store to wondrous tales told among the sugar barrels. He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in yokel fashion.
The sergeant, taking note of this, gave pause to his elaborate history while he administered a sardonic comment. "Be keerful, honey, you 'll be a-ketchin' flies," he said.
The tattered man shrank back abashed.
After a time he began to sidle near to the youth, and in a different way try to make him a friend. His voice was gentle as a girl's voice and his eyes were pleading. The youth saw with surprise that the soldier had two wounds, one in the head, bound with a blood-soaked rag, and the other in the arm, making that member dangle like a broken bough.
After they had walked together for some time the tattered man mustered sufficient courage to speak. "Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he timidly said. The youth, deep in thought, glanced up at the bloody and grim figure with its lamblike eyes. "What?"
"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?
"Yes," said the youth shortly. He quickened his pace.
But the other hobbled industriously after him. There was an air of apology in his manner, but he evidently thought that he needed only to talk for a time, and the youth would perceive that he was a good fellow.
"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he began in a small voice, and then he achieved the fortitude to continue. "Dern me if I ever see fellers fight so. Laws, how they did fight! I knowed th' boys 'd like when they onct got square at it. Th' boys ain't had no fair chanct up t' now, but this time they showed what they was. I knowed it 'd turn out this way. Yeh can't lick them boys. No, sir! They're fighters, they be."
He breathed a deep breath of humble admiration. He had looked at the youth for encouragement several times. He received none, but gradually he seemed to get absorbed in his subject.
"I was talkin' 'cross pickets with a boy from Georgie, onct, an' that boy, he ses, 'Your fellers 'll all run like hell when they onct hearn a gun,' he ses. 'Mebbe they will,' I ses, 'but I don't b'lieve none of it,' I ses; 'an' b'jiminey,' I ses back t' 'um, 'mebbe your fellers 'll all run like hell when they onct hearn a gun,' I ses. He larfed. Well, they didn't run t' day, did they, hey? No, sir! They fit, an' fit, an' fit."
His homely face was suffused with a light of love for the army which was to him all things beautiful and powerful.
After a time he turned to the youth. "Where yeh hit, ol' boy?" he asked in a brotherly tone.
The youth felt instant panic at this question, although at first its full import was not borne in upon him.
"What?" he asked.
"Where yeh hit?" repeated the tattered man.
"Why," began the youth, "I--I--that is--why--I--" He turned away suddenly and slid through the crowd. His brow was heavily flushed, and his fingers were picking nervously at one of his buttons. He bent his head and fastened his eyes studiously upon the button as if it were a little problem.
The tattered man looked after him in astonishment.
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{
"id": "463"
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The youth fell back in the procession until the tattered soldier was not in sight. Then he started to walk on with the others.
But he was amid wounds. The mob of men was bleeding. Because of the tattered soldier's question he now felt that his shame could be viewed. He was continually casting sidelong glances to see if the men were contemplating the letters of guilt he felt burned into his brow.
At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.
The spectral soldier was at his side like a stalking reproach. The man's eyes were still fixed in a stare into the unknown. His gray, appalling face had attracted attention in the crowd, and men, slowing to his dreary pace, were walking with him. They were discussing his plight, questioning him and giving him advice.
In a dogged way he repelled them, signing to them to go on and leave him alone. The shadows of his face were deepening and his tight lips seemed holding in check the moan of great despair. There could be seen a certain stiffness in the movements of his body, as if he were taking infinite care not to arouse the passion of his wounds. As he went on, he seemed always looking for a place, like one who goes to choose a grave.
Something in the gesture of the man as he waved the bloody and pitying soldiers away made the youth start as if bitten. He yelled in horror. Tottering forward he laid a quivering hand upon the man's arm. As the latter slowly turned his waxlike features toward him, the youth screamed: "Gawd! Jim Conklin!"
The tall soldier made a little commonplace smile. "Hello, Henry," he said.
The youth swayed on his legs and glared strangely. He stuttered and stammered. "Oh, Jim--oh, Jim--oh, Jim--" The tall soldier held out his gory hand. There was a curious red and black combination of new blood and old blood upon it. "Where yeh been, Henry?" he asked. He continued in a monotonous voice, "I thought mebbe yeh got keeled over. There 's been thunder t' pay t'-day. I was worryin' about it a good deal."
The youth still lamented. "Oh, Jim--oh, Jim--oh, Jim--" "Yeh know," said the tall soldier, "I was out there." He made a careful gesture. "An', Lord, what a circus! An', b'jiminey, I got shot--I got shot. Yes, b'jiminey, I got shot." He reiterated this fact in a bewildered way, as if he did not know how it came about.
The youth put forth anxious arms to assist him, but the tall soldier went firmly on as if propelled. Since the youth's arrival as a guardian for his friend, the other wounded men had ceased to display much interest. They occupied themselves again in dragging their own tragedies toward the rear.
Suddenly, as the two friends marched on, the tall soldier seemed to be overcome by a terror. His face turned to a semblance of gray paste. He clutched the youth's arm and looked all about him, as if dreading to be overheard. Then he began to speak in a shaking whisper: "I tell yeh what I'm 'fraid of, Henry--I 'll tell yeh what I 'm 'fraid of. I 'm 'fraid I 'll fall down--an' then yeh know--them damned artillery wagons--they like as not 'll run over me. That 's what I 'm 'fraid of--" The youth cried out to him hysterically: "I 'll take care of yeh, Jim! I'll take care of yeh! I swear t' Gawd I will!"
"Sure--will yeh, Henry?" the tall soldier beseeched.
"Yes--yes--I tell yeh--I'll take care of yeh, Jim!" protested the youth. He could not speak accurately because of the gulpings in his throat.
But the tall soldier continued to beg in a lowly way. He now hung babelike to the youth's arm. His eyes rolled in the wildness of his terror. "I was allus a good friend t' yeh, wa'n't I, Henry? I 've allus been a pretty good feller, ain't I? An' it ain't much t' ask, is it? Jest t' pull me along outer th' road? I 'd do it fer you, Wouldn't I, Henry?"
He paused in piteous anxiety to await his friend's reply.
The youth had reached an anguish where the sobs scorched him. He strove to express his loyalty, but he could only make fantastic gestures.
However, the tall soldier seemed suddenly to forget all those fears. He became again the grim, stalking specter of a soldier. He went stonily forward. The youth wished his friend to lean upon him, but the other always shook his head and strangely protested. "No--no--no--leave me be--leave me be--" His look was fixed again upon the unknown. He moved with mysterious purpose, and all of the youth's offers he brushed aside. "No--no--leave me be--leave me be--" The youth had to follow.
Presently the latter heard a voice talking softly near his shoulders. Turning he saw that it belonged to the tattered soldier. "Ye 'd better take 'im outa th' road, pardner. There 's a batt'ry comin' helitywhoop down th' road an' he 'll git runned over. He 's a goner anyhow in about five minutes--yeh kin see that. Ye 'd better take 'im outa th' road. Where th' blazes does he git his stren'th from?"
"Lord knows!" cried the youth. He was shaking his hands helplessly.
He ran forward presently and grasped the tall soldier by the arm. "Jim! Jim!" he coaxed, "come with me."
The tall soldier weakly tried to wrench himself free. "Huh," he said vacantly. He stared at the youth for a moment. At last he spoke as if dimly comprehending. "Oh! Inteh th' fields? Oh!"
He started blindly through the grass.
The youth turned once to look at the lashing riders and jouncing guns of the battery. He was startled from this view by a shrill outcry from the tattered man.
"Gawd! He's runnin'!"
Turning his head swiftly, the youth saw his friend running in a staggering and stumbling way toward a little clump of bushes. His heart seemed to wrench itself almost free from his body at this sight. He made a noise of pain. He and the tattered man began a pursuit. There was a singular race.
When he overtook the tall soldier he began to plead with all the words he could find. "Jim--Jim--what are you doing--what makes you do this way--you 'll hurt yerself."
The same purpose was in the tall soldier's face. He protested in a dulled way, keeping his eyes fastened on the mystic place of his intentions. "No--no--don't tech me--leave me be--leave me be--" The youth, aghast and filled with wonder at the tall soldier, began quaveringly to question him. "Where yeh goin', Jim? What you thinking about? Where you going? Tell me, won't you, Jim?"
The tall soldier faced about as upon relentless pursuers. In his eyes there was a great appeal. "Leave me be, can't yeh? Leave me be fer a minnit."
The youth recoiled. "Why, Jim," he said, in a dazed way, "what's the matter with you?"
The tall soldier turned and, lurching dangerously, went on. The youth and the tattered soldier followed, sneaking as if whipped, feeling unable to face the stricken man if he should again confront them. They began to have thoughts of a solemn ceremony. There was something rite-like in these movements of the doomed soldier. And there was a resemblance in him to a devotee of a mad religion, blood-sucking, muscle-wrenching, bone-crushing. They were awed and afraid. They hung back lest he have at command a dreadful weapon.
At last, they saw him stop and stand motionless. Hastening up, they perceived that his face wore an expression telling that he had at last found the place for which he had struggled. His spare figure was erect; his bloody hands were quietly at his side. He was waiting with patience for something that he had come to meet. He was at the rendezvous. They paused and stood, expectant.
There was a silence.
Finally, the chest of the doomed soldier began to heave with a strained motion. It increased in violence until it was as if an animal was within and was kicking and tumbling furiously to be free.
This spectacle of gradual strangulation made the youth writhe, and once as his friend rolled his eyes, he saw something in them that made him sink wailing to the ground. He raised his voice in a last supreme call.
"Jim--Jim--Jim--" The tall soldier opened his lips and spoke. He made a gesture. "Leave me be--don't tech me--leave me be--" There was another silence while he waited.
Suddenly, his form stiffened and straightened. Then it was shaken by a prolonged ague. He stared into space. To the two watchers there was a curious and profound dignity in the firm lines of his awful face.
He was invaded by a creeping strangeness that slowly enveloped him. For a moment the tremor of his legs caused him to dance a sort of hideous hornpipe. His arms beat wildly about his head in expression of implike enthusiasm.
His tall figure stretched itself to its full height. There was a slight rending sound. Then it began to swing forward, slow and straight, in the manner of a falling tree. A swift muscular contortion made the left shoulder strike the ground first.
The body seemed to bounce a little way from the earth. "God!" said the tattered soldier.
The youth had watched, spellbound, this ceremony at the place of meeting. His face had been twisted into an expression of every agony he had imagined for his friend.
He now sprang to his feet and, going closer, gazed upon the pastelike face. The mouth was open and the teeth showed in a laugh.
As the flap of the blue jacket fell away from the body, he could see that the side looked as if it had been chewed by wolves.
The youth turned, with sudden, livid rage, toward the battlefield. He shook his fist. He seemed about to deliver a philippic.
"Hell--" The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.
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{
"id": "463"
}
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10
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The tattered man stood musing.
"Well, he was reg'lar jim-dandy fer nerve, wa'n't he," said he finally in a little awestruck voice. "A reg'lar jim-dandy." He thoughtfully poked one of the docile hands with his foot. "I wonner where he got 'is stren'th from? I never seen a man do like that before. It was a funny thing. Well, he was a reg'lar jim-dandy."
The youth desired to screech out his grief. He was stabbed, but his tongue lay dead in the tomb of his mouth. He threw himself again upon the ground and began to brood.
The tattered man stood musing.
"Look-a-here, pardner," he said, after a time. He regarded the corpse as he spoke. "He 's up an' gone, ain't 'e, an' we might as well begin t' look out fer ol' number one. This here thing is all over. He 's up an' gone, ain't 'e? An' he 's all right here. Nobody won't bother 'im. An' I must say I ain't enjoying any great health m'self these days."
The youth, awakened by the tattered soldier's tone, looked quickly up. He saw that he was swinging uncertainly on his legs and that his face had turned to a shade of blue.
"Good Lord!" he cried, "you ain't goin' t'--not you, too."
The tattered man waved his hand. "Nary die," he said. "All I want is some pea soup an' a good bed. Some pea soup," he repeated dreamfully.
The youth arose from the ground. "I wonder where he came from. I left him over there." He pointed. "And now I find 'im here. And he was coming from over there, too." He indicated a new direction. They both turned toward the body as if to ask of it a question.
"Well," at length spoke the tattered man, "there ain't no use in our stayin' here an' tryin' t' ask him anything."
The youth nodded an assent wearily. They both turned to gaze for a moment at the corpse.
The youth murmured something.
"Well, he was a jim-dandy, wa'n't 'e?" said the tattered man as if in response.
They turned their backs upon it and started away. For a time they stole softly, treading with their toes. It remained laughing there in the grass.
"I'm commencin' t' feel pretty bad," said the tattered man, suddenly breaking one of his little silences. "I'm commencin' t' feel pretty damn' bad."
The youth groaned. "O Lord!" He wondered if he was to be the tortured witness of another grim encounter.
But his companion waved his hand reassuringly. "Oh, I'm not goin' t' die yit! There too much dependin' on me fer me t' die yit. No, sir! Nary die! I CAN'T! Ye'd oughta see th' swad a' chil'ren I've got, an' all like that."
The youth glancing at his companion could see by the shadow of a smile that he was making some kind of fun.
As they plodded on the tattered soldier continued to talk. "Besides, if I died, I wouldn't die th' way that feller did. That was th' funniest thing. I'd jest flop down, I would. I never seen a feller die th' way that feller did.
"Yeh know Tom Jamison, he lives next door t' me up home. He's a nice feller, he is, an' we was allus good friends. Smart, too. Smart as a steel trap. Well, when we was a-fightin' this atternoon, all-of-a-sudden he begin t' rip up an' cuss an' beller at me. 'Yer shot, yeh blamed infernal!' --he swear horrible--he ses t' me. I put up m' hand t' m' head an' when I looked at m' fingers, I seen, sure 'nough, I was shot. I give a holler an' begin t' run, but b'fore I could git away another one hit me in th' arm an' whirl' me clean 'round. I got skeared when they was all a-shootin' b'hind me an' I run t' beat all, but I cotch it pretty bad. I've an idee I'd a' been fightin' yit, if t'was n't fer Tom Jamison."
Then he made a calm announcement: "There's two of 'em--little ones--but they 're beginnin' t' have fun with me now. I don't b'lieve I kin walk much furder."
They went slowly on in silence. "Yeh look pretty peek-ed yerself," said the tattered man at last. "I bet yeh 've got a worser one than yeh think. Ye'd better take keer of yer hurt. It don't do t' let sech things go. It might be inside mostly, an' them plays thunder. Where is it located?" But he continued his harangue without waiting for a reply. "I see 'a feller git hit plum in th' head when my reg'ment was a-standin' at ease onct. An' everybody yelled out to 'im: Hurt, John? Are yeh hurt much? 'No,' ses he. He looked kinder surprised, an' he went on tellin' 'em how he felt. He sed he didn't feel nothin'. But, by dad, th' first thing that feller knowed he was dead. Yes, he was dead--stone dead. So, yeh wanta watch out. Yeh might have some queer kind 'a hurt yerself. Yeh can't never tell. Where is your'n located?"
The youth had been wriggling since the introduction of this topic. He now gave a cry of exasperation and made a furious motion with his hand. "Oh, don't bother me!" he said. He was enraged against the tattered man, and could have strangled him. His companions seemed ever to play intolerable parts. They were ever upraising the ghost of shame on the stick of their curiosity. He turned toward the tattered man as one at bay. "Now, don't bother me," he repeated with desperate menace.
"Well, Lord knows I don't wanta bother anybody," said the other. There was a little accent of despair in his voice as he replied, "Lord knows I 've gota 'nough m' own t' tend to."
The youth, who had been holding a bitter debate with himself and casting glances of hatred and contempt at the tattered man, here spoke in a hard voice. "Good-by," he said.
The tattered man looked at him in gaping amazement. "Why--why, pardner, where yeh goin'?" he asked unsteadily. The youth looking at him, could see that he, too, like that other one, was beginning to act dumb and animal-like. His thoughts seemed to be floundering about in his head. "Now--now--look--a--here, you Tom Jamison--now--I won't have this--this here won't do. Where--where yeh goin'?"
The youth pointed vaguely. "Over there," he replied.
"Well, now look--a--here--now," said the tattered man, rambling on in idiot fashion. His head was hanging forward and his words were slurred. "This thing won't do, now, Tom Jamison. It won't do. I know yeh, yeh pig-headed devil. Yeh wanta go trompin' off with a bad hurt. It ain't right--now--Tom Jamison--it ain't. Yeh wanta leave me take keer of yeh, Tom Jamison. It ain't--right--it ain't--fer yeh t' go--trompin' off--with a bad hurt--it ain't--ain't--ain't right--it ain't."
In reply the youth climbed a fence and started away. He could hear the tattered man bleating plaintively.
Once he faced about angrily. "What?"
"Look--a--here, now, Tom Jamison--now--it ain't--" The youth went on. Turning at a distance he saw the tattered man wandering about helplessly in the field.
He now thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he envied those men whose bodies lay strewn over the grass of the fields and on the fallen leaves of the forest.
The simple questions of the tattered man had been knife thrusts to him. They asserted a society that probes pitilessly at secrets until all is apparent. His late companion's chance persistency made him feel that he could not keep his crime concealed in his bosom. It was sure to be brought plain by one of those arrows which cloud the air and are constantly pricking, discovering, proclaiming those things which are willed to be forever hidden. He admitted that he could not defend himself against this agency. It was not within the power of vigilance.
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{
"id": "463"
}
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11
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He became aware that the furnace roar of the battle was growing louder. Great brown clouds had floated to the still heights of air before him. The noise, too, was approaching. The woods filtered men and the fields became dotted.
As he rounded a hillock, he perceived that the roadway was now a crying mass of wagons, teams, and men. From the heaving tangle issued exhortations, commands, imprecations. Fear was sweeping it all along. The cracking whips bit and horses plunged and tugged. The white-topped wagons strained and stumbled in their exertions like fat sheep.
The youth felt comforted in a measure by this sight. They were all retreating. Perhaps, then, he was not so bad after all. He seated himself and watched the terror-stricken wagons. They fled like soft, ungainly animals. All the roarers and lashers served to help him to magnify the dangers and horrors of the engagement that he might try to prove to himself that the thing with which men could charge him was in truth a symmetrical act. There was an amount of pleasure to him in watching the wild march of this vindication.
Presently the calm head of a forward-going column of infantry appeared in the road. It came swiftly on. Avoiding the obstructions gave it the sinuous movement of a serpent. The men at the head butted mules with their musket stocks. They prodded teamsters indifferent to all howls. The men forced their way through parts of the dense mass by strength. The blunt head of the column pushed. The raving teamsters swore many strange oaths.
The commands to make way had the ring of a great importance in them. The men were going forward to the heart of the din. They were to confront the eager rush of the enemy. They felt the pride of their onward movement when the remainder of the army seemed trying to dribble down this road. They tumbled teams about with a fine feeling that it was no matter so long as their column got to the front in time. This importance made their faces grave and stern. And the backs of the officers were very rigid.
As the youth looked at them the black weight of his woe returned to him. He felt that he was regarding a procession of chosen beings. The separation was as great to him as if they had marched with weapons of flame and banners of sunlight. He could never be like them. He could have wept in his longings.
He searched about in his mind for an adequate malediction for the indefinite cause, the thing upon which men turn the words of final blame. It--whatever it was--was responsible for him, he said. There lay the fault.
The haste of the column to reach the battle seemed to the forlorn young man to be something much finer than stout fighting. Heroes, he thought, could find excuses in that long seething lane. They could retire with perfect self-respect and make excuses to the stars.
He wondered what those men had eaten that they could be in such haste to force their way to grim chances of death. As he watched his envy grew until he thought that he wished to change lives with one of them. He would have liked to have used a tremendous force, he said, throw off himself and become a better. Swift pictures of himself, apart, yet in himself, came to him--a blue desperate figure leading lurid charges with one knee forward and a broken blade high--a blue, determined figure standing before a crimson and steel assault, getting calmly killed on a high place before the eyes of all. He thought of the magnificent pathos of his dead body.
These thoughts uplifted him. He felt the quiver of war desire. In his ears, he heard the ring of victory. He knew the frenzy of a rapid successful charge. The music of the trampling feet, the sharp voices, the clanking arms of the column near him made him soar on the red wings of war. For a few moments he was sublime.
He thought that he was about to start for the front. Indeed, he saw a picture of himself, dust-stained, haggard, panting, flying to the front at the proper moment to seize and throttle the dark, leering witch of calamity.
Then the difficulties of the thing began to drag at him. He hesitated, balancing awkwardly on one foot.
He had no rifle; he could not fight with his hands, said he resentfully to his plan. Well, rifles could be had for the picking. They were extraordinarily profuse.
Also, he continued, it would be a miracle if he found his regiment. Well, he could fight with any regiment.
He started forward slowly. He stepped as if he expected to tread upon some explosive thing. Doubts and he were struggling.
He would truly be a worm if any of his comrades should see him returning thus, the marks of his flight upon him. There was a reply that the intent fighters did not care for what happened rearward saving that no hostile bayonets appeared there. In the battle-blur his face would, in a way be hidden, like the face of a cowled man.
But then he said that his tireless fate would bring forth, when the strife lulled for a moment, a man to ask of him an explanation. In imagination he felt the scrutiny of his companions as he painfully labored through some lies.
Eventually, his courage expended itself upon these objections. The debates drained him of his fire.
He was not cast down by this defeat of his plan, for, upon studying the affair carefully, he could not but admit that the objections were very formidable.
Furthermore, various ailments had begun to cry out. In their presence he could not persist in flying high with the wings of war; they rendered it almost impossible for him to see himself in a heroic light. He tumbled headlong.
He discovered that he had a scorching thirst. His face was so dry and grimy that he thought he could feel his skin crackle. Each bone of his body had an ache in it, and seemingly threatened to break with each movement. His feet were like two sores. Also, his body was calling for food. It was more powerful than a direct hunger. There was a dull, weight like feeling in his stomach, and, when he tried to walk, his head swayed and he tottered. He could not see with distinctness. Small patches of green mist floated before his vision.
While he had been tossed by many emotions, he had not been aware of ailments. Now they beset him and made clamor. As he was at last compelled to pay attention to them, his capacity for self-hate was multiplied. In despair, he declared that he was not like those others. He now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero. He was a craven loon. Those pictures of glory were piteous things. He groaned from his heart and went staggering off.
A certain mothlike quality within him kept him in the vicinity of the battle. He had a great desire to see, and to get news. He wished to know who was winning.
He told himself that, despite his unprecedented suffering, he had never lost his greed for a victory, yet, he said, in a half-apologetic manner to his conscience, he could not but know that a defeat for the army this time might mean many favorable things for him. The blows of the enemy would splinter regiments into fragments. Thus, many men of courage, he considered, would be obliged to desert the colors and scurry like chickens. He would appear as one of them. They would be sullen brothers in distress, and he could then easily believe he had not run any farther or faster than they. And if he himself could believe in his virtuous perfection, he conceived that there would be small trouble in convincing all others.
He said, as if in excuse for this hope, that previously the army had encountered great defeats and in a few months had shaken off all blood and tradition of them, emerging as bright and valiant as a new one; thrusting out of sight the memory of disaster, and appearing with the valor and confidence of unconquered legions. The shrilling voices of the people at home would pipe dismally for a time, but various generals were usually compelled to listen to these ditties. He of course felt no compunctions for proposing a general as a sacrifice. He could not tell who the chosen for the barbs might be, so he could center no direct sympathy upon him. The people were afar and he did not conceive public opinion to be accurate at long range. It was quite probable they would hit the wrong man who, after he had recovered from his amazement would perhaps spend the rest of his days in writing replies to the songs of his alleged failure. It would be very unfortunate, no doubt, but in this case a general was of no consequence to the youth.
In a defeat there would be a roundabout vindication of himself. He thought it would prove, in a manner, that he had fled early because of his superior powers of perception. A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstrate that he was indeed a seer.
A moral vindication was regarded by the youth as a very important thing. Without salve, he could not, he thought, wear the sore badge of his dishonor through life. With his heart continually assuring him that he was despicable, he could not exist without making it, through his actions, apparent to all men.
If the army had gone gloriously on he would be lost. If the din meant that now his army's flags were tilted forward he was a condemned wretch. He would be compelled to doom himself to isolation. If the men were advancing, their indifferent feet were trampling upon his chances for a successful life.
As these thoughts went rapidly through his mind, he turned upon them and tried to thrust them away. He denounced himself as a villain. He said that he was the most unutterably selfish man in existence. His mind pictured the soldiers who would place their defiant bodies before the spear of the yelling battle fiend, and as he saw their dripping corpses on an imagined field, he said that he was their murderer.
Again he thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he envied a corpse. Thinking of the slain, he achieved a great contempt for some of them, as if they were guilty for thus becoming lifeless. They might have been killed by lucky chances, he said, before they had had opportunities to flee or before they had been really tested. Yet they would receive laurels from tradition. He cried out bitterly that their crowns were stolen and their robes of glorious memories were shams. However, he still said that it was a great pity he was not as they.
A defeat of the army had suggested itself to him as a means of escape from the consequences of his fall. He considered, now, however, that it was useless to think of such a possibility. His education had been that success for that mighty blue machine was certain; that it would make victories as a contrivance turns out buttons. He presently discarded all his speculations in the other direction. He returned to the creed of soldiers.
When he perceived again that it was not possible for the army to be defeated, he tried to bethink him of a fine tale which he could take back to his regiment, and with it turn the expected shafts of derision.
But, as he mortally feared these shafts, it became impossible for him to invent a tale he felt he could trust. He experimented with many schemes, but threw them aside one by one as flimsy. He was quick to see vulnerable places in them all.
Furthermore, he was much afraid that some arrow of scorn might lay him mentally low before he could raise his protecting tale.
He imagined the whole regiment saying: "Where's Henry Fleming? He run, didn't 'e? Oh, my!" He recalled various persons who would be quite sure to leave him no peace about it. They would doubtless question him with sneers, and laugh at his stammering hesitation. In the next engagement they would try to keep watch of him to discover when he would run.
Wherever he went in camp, he would encounter insolent and lingeringly cruel stares. As he imagined himself passing near a crowd of comrades, he could hear some one say, "There he goes!"
Then, as if the heads were moved by one muscle, all the faces were turned toward him with wide, derisive grins. He seemed to hear some one make a humorous remark in a low tone. At it the others all crowed and cackled. He was a slang phrase.
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{
"id": "463"
}
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12
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None
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The column that had butted stoutly at the obstacles in the roadway was barely out of the youth's sight before he saw dark waves of men come sweeping out of the woods and down through the fields. He knew at once that the steel fibers had been washed from their hearts. They were bursting from their coats and their equipments as from entanglements. They charged down upon him like terrified buffaloes.
Behind them blue smoke curled and clouded above the treetops, and through the thickets he could sometimes see a distant pink glare. The voices of the cannon were clamoring in interminable chorus.
The youth was horrorstricken. He stared in agony and amazement. He forgot that he was engaged in combating the universe. He threw aside his mental pamphlets on the philosophy of the retreated and rules for the guidance of the damned.
The fight was lost. The dragons were coming with invincible strides. The army, helpless in the matted thickets and blinded by the overhanging night, was going to be swallowed. War, the red animal, war, the blood-swollen god, would have bloated fill.
Within him something bade to cry out. He had the impulse to make a rallying speech, to sing a battle hymn, but he could only get his tongue to call into the air: "Why--why--what--what 's th' matter?"
Soon he was in the midst of them. They were leaping and scampering all about him. Their blanched faces shone in the dusk. They seemed, for the most part, to be very burly men. The youth turned from one to another of them as they galloped along. His incoherent questions were lost. They were heedless of his appeals. They did not seem to see him.
They sometimes gabbled insanely. One huge man was asking of the sky: "Say, where de plank road? Where de plank road!" It was as if he had lost a child. He wept in his pain and dismay.
Presently, men were running hither and thither in all ways. The artillery booming, forward, rearward, and on the flanks made jumble of ideas of direction. Landmarks had vanished into the gathered gloom. The youth began to imagine that he had got into the center of the tremendous quarrel, and he could perceive no way out of it. From the mouths of the fleeing men came a thousand wild questions, but no one made answers.
The youth, after rushing about and throwing interrogations at the heedless bands of retreating infantry, finally clutched a man by the arm. They swung around face to face.
"Why--why--" stammered the youth struggling with his balking tongue.
The man screamed: "Let go me! Let go me!" His face was livid and his eyes were rolling uncontrolled. He was heaving and panting. He still grasped his rifle, perhaps having forgotten to release his hold upon it. He tugged frantically, and the youth being compelled to lean forward was dragged several paces.
"Let go me! Let go me!"
"Why--why--" stuttered the youth.
"Well, then!" bawled the man in a lurid rage. He adroitly and fiercely swung his rifle. It crushed upon the youth's head. The man ran on.
The youth's fingers had turned to paste upon the other's arm. The energy was smitten from his muscles. He saw the flaming wings of lightning flash before his vision. There was a deafening rumble of thunder within his head.
Suddenly his legs seemed to die. He sank writhing to the ground. He tried to arise. In his efforts against the numbing pain he was like a man wrestling with a creature of the air.
There was a sinister struggle.
Sometimes he would achieve a position half erect, battle with the air for a moment, and then fall again, grabbing at the grass. His face was of a clammy pallor. Deep groans were wrenched from him.
At last, with a twisting movement, he got upon his hands and knees, and from thence, like a babe trying to walk, to his feet. Pressing his hands to his temples he went lurching over the grass.
He fought an intense battle with his body. His dulled senses wished him to swoon and he opposed them stubbornly, his mind portraying unknown dangers and mutilations if he should fall upon the field. He went tall soldier fashion. He imagined secluded spots where he could fall and be unmolested. To search for one he strove against the tide of his pain.
Once he put his hand to the top of his head and timidly touched the wound. The scratching pain of the contact made him draw a long breath through his clinched teeth. His fingers were dabbled with blood. He regarded them with a fixed stare.
Around him he could hear the grumble of jolted cannon as the scurrying horses were lashed toward the front. Once, a young officer on a besplashed charger nearly ran him down. He turned and watched the mass of guns, men, and horses sweeping in a wide curve toward a gap in a fence. The officer was making excited motions with a gauntleted hand. The guns followed the teams with an air of unwillingness, of being dragged by the heels.
Some officers of the scattered infantry were cursing and railing like fishwives. Their scolding voices could be heard above the din. Into the unspeakable jumble in the roadway rode a squadron of cavalry. The faded yellow of their facings shone bravely. There was a mighty altercation.
The artillery were assembling as if for a conference.
The blue haze of evening was upon the field. The lines of forest were long purple shadows. One cloud lay along the western sky partly smothering the red.
As the youth left the scene behind him, he heard the guns suddenly roar out. He imagined them shaking in black rage. They belched and howled like brass devils guarding a gate. The soft air was filled with the tremendous remonstrance. With it came the shattering peal of opposing infantry. Turning to look behind him, he could see sheets of orange light illumine the shadowy distance. There were subtle and sudden lightnings in the far air. At times he thought he could see heaving masses of men.
He hurried on in the dusk. The day had faded until he could barely distinguish place for his feet. The purple darkness was filled with men who lectured and jabbered. Sometimes he could see them gesticulating against the blue and somber sky. There seemed to be a great ruck of men and munitions spread about in the forest and in the fields.
The little narrow roadway now lay lifeless. There were overturned wagons like sun-dried bowlders. The bed of the former torrent was choked with the bodies of horses and splintered parts of war machines.
It had come to pass that his wound pained him but little. He was afraid to move rapidly, however, for a dread of disturbing it. He held his head very still and took many precautions against stumbling. He was filled with anxiety, and his face was pinched and drawn in anticipation of the pain of any sudden mistake of his feet in the gloom.
His thoughts, as he walked, fixed intently upon his hurt. There was a cool, liquid feeling about it and he imagined blood moving slowly down under his hair. His head seemed swollen to a size that made him think his neck to be inadequate.
The new silence of his wound made much worriment. The little blistering voices of pain that had called out from his scalp were, he thought, definite in their expression of danger. By them he believed that he could measure his plight. But when they remained ominously silent he became frightened and imagined terrible fingers that clutched into his brain.
Amid it he began to reflect upon various incidents and conditions of the past. He bethought him of certain meals his mother had cooked at home, in which those dishes of which he was particularly fond had occupied prominent positions. He saw the spread table. The pine walls of the kitchen were glowing in the warm light from the stove. Too, he remembered how he and his companions used to go from the schoolhouse to the bank of a shaded pool. He saw his clothes in disorderly array upon the grass of the bank. He felt the swash of the fragrant water upon his body. The leaves of the overhanging maple rustled with melody in the wind of youthful summer.
He was overcome presently by a dragging weariness. His head hung forward and his shoulders were stooped as if he were bearing a great bundle. His feet shuffled along the ground.
He held continuous arguments as to whether he should lie down and sleep at some near spot, or force himself on until he reached a certain haven. He often tried to dismiss the question, but his body persisted in rebellion and his senses nagged at him like pampered babies.
At last he heard a cheery voice near his shoulder: "Yeh seem t' be in a pretty bad way, boy?"
The youth did not look up, but he assented with thick tongue. "Uh!"
The owner of the cheery voice took him firmly by the arm. "Well," he said, with a round laugh, "I'm goin' your way. Th' hull gang is goin' your way. An' I guess I kin give yeh a lift." They began to walk like a drunken man and his friend.
As they went along, the man questioned the youth and assisted him with the replies like one manipulating the mind of a child. Sometimes he interjected anecdotes. "What reg'ment do yeh b'long teh? Eh? What's that? Th' 304th N' York? Why, what corps is that in? Oh, it is? Why, I thought they wasn't engaged t'-day--they 're 'way over in th' center. Oh, they was, eh? Well, pretty nearly everybody got their share 'a fightin' t'-day. By dad, I give myself up fer dead any number 'a times. There was shootin' here an' shootin' there, an' hollerin' here an' hollerin' there, in th' damn' darkness, until I couldn't tell t' save m' soul which side I was on. Sometimes I thought I was sure 'nough from Ohier, an' other times I could 'a swore I was from th' bitter end of Florida. It was th' most mixed up dern thing I ever see. An' these here hull woods is a reg'lar mess. It'll be a miracle if we find our reg'ments t'-night. Pretty soon, though, we 'll meet a-plenty of guards an' provost-guards, an' one thing an' another. Ho! there they go with an off'cer, I guess. Look at his hand a-draggin'. He 's got all th' war he wants, I bet. He won't be talkin' so big about his reputation an' all when they go t' sawin' off his leg. Poor feller! My brother 's got whiskers jest like that. How did yeh git 'way over here, anyhow? Your reg'ment is a long way from here, ain't it? Well, I guess we can find it. Yeh know there was a boy killed in my comp'ny t'-day that I thought th' world an' all of. Jack was a nice feller. By ginger, it hurt like thunder t' see ol' Jack jest git knocked flat. We was a-standin' purty peaceable fer a spell, 'though there was men runnin' ev'ry way all 'round us, an' while we was a-standin' like that, 'long come a big fat feller. He began t' peck at Jack's elbow, an' he ses: 'Say, where 's th' road t' th' river?' An' Jack, he never paid no attention, an' th' feller kept on a-peckin' at his elbow an' sayin': 'Say, where 's th' road t' th' river?' Jack was a-lookin' ahead all th' time tryin' t' see th' Johnnies comin' through th' woods, an' he never paid no attention t' this big fat feller fer a long time, but at last he turned 'round an' he ses: 'Ah, go t' hell an' find th' road t' th' river!' An' jest then a shot slapped him bang on th' side th' head. He was a sergeant, too. Them was his last words. Thunder, I wish we was sure 'a findin' our reg'ments t'-night. It 's goin' t' be long huntin'. But I guess we kin do it."
In the search which followed, the man of the cheery voice seemed to the youth to possess a wand of a magic kind. He threaded the mazes of the tangled forest with a strange fortune. In encounters with guards and patrols he displayed the keenness of a detective and the valor of a gamin. Obstacles fell before him and became of assistance. The youth, with his chin still on his breast, stood woodenly by while his companion beat ways and means out of sullen things.
The forest seemed a vast hive of men buzzing about in frantic circles, but the cheery man conducted the youth without mistakes, until at last he began to chuckle with glee and self-satisfaction. "Ah, there yeh are! See that fire?"
The youth nodded stupidly.
"Well, there 's where your reg'ment is. An' now, good-by, ol' boy, good luck t' yeh."
A warm and strong hand clasped the youth's languid fingers for an instant, and then he heard a cheerful and audacious whistling as the man strode away. As he who had so befriended him was thus passing out of his life, it suddenly occurred to the youth that he had not once seen his face.
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{
"id": "463"
}
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13
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None
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The youth went slowly toward the fire indicated by his departed friend. As he reeled, he bethought him of the welcome his comrades would give him. He had a conviction that he would soon feel in his sore heart the barbed missiles of ridicule. He had no strength to invent a tale; he would be a soft target.
He made vague plans to go off into the deeper darkness and hide, but they were all destroyed by the voices of exhaustion and pain from his body. His ailments, clamoring, forced him to seek the place of food and rest, at whatever cost.
He swung unsteadily toward the fire. He could see the forms of men throwing black shadows in the red light, and as he went nearer it became known to him in some way that the ground was strewn with sleeping men.
Of a sudden he confronted a black and monstrous figure. A rifle barrel caught some glinting beams. "Halt! halt!" He was dismayed for a moment, but he presently thought that he recognized the nervous voice. As he stood tottering before the rifle barrel, he called out: "Why, hello, Wilson, you--you here?"
The rifle was lowered to a position of caution and the loud soldier came slowly forward. He peered into the youth's face. "That you, Henry?"
"Yes, it's--it's me."
"Well, well, ol' boy," said the other, "by ginger, I'm glad t' see yeh! I give yeh up fer a goner. I thought yeh was dead sure enough." There was husky emotion in his voice.
The youth found that now he could barely stand upon his feet. There was a sudden sinking of his forces. He thought he must hasten to produce his tale to protect him from the missiles already at the lips of his redoubtable comrades. So, staggering before the loud soldier, he began: "Yes, yes. I've--I've had an awful time. I've been all over. Way over on th' right. Ter'ble fightin' over there. I had an awful time. I got separated from th' reg'ment. Over on th' right, I got shot. In th' head. I never see sech fightin'. Awful time. I don't see how I could 'a got separated from th' reg'ment. I got shot, too."
His friend had stepped forward quickly. "What? Got shot? Why didn't yeh say so first? Poor ol' boy, we must--hol' on a minnit; what am I doin'. I'll call Simpson."
Another figure at that moment loomed in the gloom. They could see that it was the corporal. "Who yeh talkin' to, Wilson?" he demanded. His voice was anger-toned. "Who yeh talkin' to? Yeh th' derndest sentinel--why--hello, Henry, you here? Why, I thought you was dead four hours ago! Great Jerusalem, they keep turnin' up every ten minutes or so! We thought we'd lost forty-two men by straight count, but if they keep on a-comin' this way, we'll git th' comp'ny all back by mornin' yit. Where was yeh?"
"Over on th' right. I got separated"--began the youth with considerable glibness.
But his friend had interrupted hastily. "Yes, an' he got shot in th' head an' he's in a fix, an' we must see t' him right away." He rested his rifle in the hollow of his left arm and his right around the youth's shoulder.
"Gee, it must hurt like thunder!" he said.
The youth leaned heavily upon his friend. "Yes, it hurts--hurts a good deal," he replied. There was a faltering in his voice.
"Oh," said the corporal. He linked his arm in the youth's and drew him forward. "Come on, Henry. I'll take keer 'a yeh."
As they went on together the loud private called out after them: "Put 'im t' sleep in my blanket, Simpson. An'--hol' on a minnit--here's my canteen. It's full 'a coffee. Look at his head by th' fire an' see how it looks. Maybe it's a pretty bad un. When I git relieved in a couple 'a minnits, I'll be over an' see t' him."
The youth's senses were so deadened that his friend's voice sounded from afar and he could scarcely feel the pressure of the corporal's arm. He submitted passively to the latter's directing strength. His head was in the old manner hanging forward upon his breast. His knees wobbled.
The corporal led him into the glare of the fire. "Now, Henry," he said, "let's have look at yer ol' head."
The youth sat down obediently and the corporal, laying aside his rifle, began to fumble in the bushy hair of his comrade. He was obliged to turn the other's head so that the full flush of the fire light would beam upon it. He puckered his mouth with a critical air. He drew back his lips and whistled through his teeth when his fingers came in contact with the splashed blood and the rare wound.
"Ah, here we are!" he said. He awkwardly made further investigations. "Jest as I thought," he added, presently. "Yeh've been grazed by a ball. It's raised a queer lump jest as if some feller had lammed yeh on th' head with a club. It stopped a-bleedin' long time ago. Th' most about it is that in th' mornin' yeh'll feel that a number ten hat wouldn't fit yeh. An' your head'll be all het up an' feel as dry as burnt pork. An' yeh may git a lot 'a other sicknesses, too, by mornin'. Yeh can't never tell. Still, I don't much think so. It's jest a damn' good belt on th' head, an' nothin' more. Now, you jest sit here an' don't move, while I go rout out th' relief. Then I'll send Wilson t' take keer 'a yeh."
The corporal went away. The youth remained on the ground like a parcel. He stared with a vacant look into the fire.
After a time he aroused, for some part, and the things about him began to take form. He saw that the ground in the deep shadows was cluttered with men, sprawling in every conceivable posture. Glancing narrowly into the more distant darkness, he caught occasional glimpses of visages that loomed pallid and ghostly, lit with a phosphorescent glow. These faces expressed in their lines the deep stupor of the tired soldiers. They made them appear like men drunk with wine. This bit of forest might have appeared to an ethereal wanderer as a scene of the result of some frightful debauch.
On the other side of the fire the youth observed an officer asleep, seated bolt upright, with his back against a tree. There was something perilous in his position. Badgered by dreams, perhaps, he swayed with little bounces and starts, like an old toddy-stricken grandfather in a chimney corner. Dust and stains were upon his face. His lower jaw hung down as if lacking strength to assume its normal position. He was the picture of an exhausted soldier after a feast of war.
He had evidently gone to sleep with his sword in his arms. These two had slumbered in an embrace, but the weapon had been allowed in time to fall unheeded to the ground. The brass-mounted hilt lay in contact with some parts of the fire.
Within the gleam of rose and orange light from the burning sticks were other soldiers, snoring and heaving, or lying deathlike in slumber. A few pairs of legs were stuck forth, rigid and straight. The shoes displayed the mud or dust of marches and bits of rounded trousers, protruding from the blankets, showed rents and tears from hurried pitchings through the dense brambles.
The fire crackled musically. From it swelled light smoke. Overhead the foliage moved softly. The leaves, with their faces turned toward the blaze, were colored shifting hues of silver, often edged with red. Far off to the right, through a window in the forest could be seen a handful of stars lying, like glittering pebbles, on the black level of the night.
Occasionally, in this low-arched hall, a soldier would arouse and turn his body to a new position, the experience of his sleep having taught him of uneven and objectionable places upon the ground under him. Or, perhaps, he would lift himself to a sitting posture, blink at the fire for an unintelligent moment, throw a swift glance at his prostrate companion, and then cuddle down again with a grunt of sleepy content.
The youth sat in a forlorn heap until his friend the loud young soldier came, swinging two canteens by their light strings. "Well, now, Henry, ol' boy," said the latter, "we'll have yeh fixed up in jest about a minnit."
He had the bustling ways of an amateur nurse. He fussed around the fire and stirred the sticks to brilliant exertions. He made his patient drink largely from the canteen that contained the coffee. It was to the youth a delicious draught. He tilted his head afar back and held the canteen long to his lips. The cool mixture went caressingly down his blistered throat. Having finished, he sighed with comfortable delight.
The loud young soldier watched his comrade with an air of satisfaction. He later produced an extensive handkerchief from his pocket. He folded it into a manner of bandage and soused water from the other canteen upon the middle of it. This crude arrangement he bound over the youth's head, tying the ends in a queer knot at the back of the neck.
"There," he said, moving off and surveying his deed, "yeh look like th' devil, but I bet yeh feel better."
The youth contemplated his friend with grateful eyes. Upon his aching and swelling head the cold cloth was like a tender woman's hand.
"Yeh don't holler ner say nothin'," remarked his friend approvingly. "I know I'm a blacksmith at takin' keer 'a sick folks, an' yeh never squeaked. Yer a good un, Henry. Most 'a men would a' been in th' hospital long ago. A shot in th' head ain't foolin' business."
The youth made no reply, but began to fumble with the buttons of his jacket.
"Well, come, now," continued his friend, "come on. I must put yeh t' bed an' see that yeh git a good night's rest."
The other got carefully erect, and the loud young soldier led him among the sleeping forms lying in groups and rows. Presently he stooped and picked up his blankets. He spread the rubber one upon the ground and placed the woolen one about the youth's shoulders.
"There now," he said, "lie down an' git some sleep."
The youth, with his manner of doglike obedience, got carefully down like a crone stooping. He stretched out with a murmur of relief and comfort. The ground felt like the softest couch.
But of a sudden he ejaculated: "Hol' on a minnit! Where you goin' t' sleep?"
His friend waved his hand impatiently. "Right down there by yeh."
"Well, but hol' on a minnit," continued the youth. "What yeh goin' t' sleep in? I've got your--" The loud young soldier snarled: "Shet up an' go on t' sleep. Don't be makin' a damn' fool 'a yerself," he said severely.
After the reproof the youth said no more. An exquisite drowsiness had spread through him. The warm comfort of the blanket enveloped him and made a gentle languor. His head fell forward on his crooked arm and his weighted lids went softly down over his eyes. Hearing a splatter of musketry from the distance, he wondered indifferently if those men sometimes slept. He gave a long sigh, snuggled down into his blanket, and in a moment was like his comrades.
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{
"id": "463"
}
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14
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None
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When the youth awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep for a thousand years, and he felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an unexpected world. Gray mists were slowly shifting before the first efforts of the sun rays. An impending splendor could be seen in the eastern sky. An icy dew had chilled his face, and immediately upon arousing he curled farther down into his blanket. He stared for a while at the leaves overhead, moving in a heraldic wind of the day.
The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of fighting. There was in the sound an expression of a deadly persistency, as if it had not begun and was not to cease.
About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen the previous night. They were getting a last draught of sleep before the awakening. The gaunt, careworn features and dusty figures were made plain by this quaint light at the dawning, but it dressed the skin of the men in corpselike hues and made the tangled limbs appear pulseless and dead. The youth started up with a little cry when his eyes first swept over this motionless mass of men, thick-spread upon the ground, pallid, and in strange postures. His disordered mind interpreted the hall of the forest as a charnel place. He believed for an instant that he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move lest these corpses start up, squalling and squawking. In a second, however, he achieved his proper mind. He swore a complicated oath at himself. He saw that this somber picture was not a fact of the present, but a mere prophecy.
He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold air, and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about a small blaze. A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard the hard cracking of axe blows.
Suddenly there was a hollow rumble of drums. A distant bugle sang faintly. Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near and far over the forest. The bugles called to each other like brazen gamecocks. The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled.
The body of men in the woods rustled. There was a general uplifting of heads. A murmuring of voices broke upon the air. In it there was much bass of grumbling oaths. Strange gods were addressed in condemnation of the early hours necessary to correct war. An officer's peremptory tenor rang out and quickened the stiffened movement of the men. The tangled limbs unraveled. The corpse-hued faces were hidden behind fists that twisted slowly in the eye sockets.
The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn. "Thunder!" he remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up his hand felt carefully of the bandage over his wound. His friend, perceiving him to be awake, came from the fire. "Well, Henry, ol' man, how do yeh feel this mornin'?" he demanded.
The youth yawned again. Then he puckered his mouth to a little pucker. His head, in truth, felt precisely like a melon, and there was an unpleasant sensation at his stomach.
"Oh, Lord, I feel pretty bad," he said.
"Thunder!" exclaimed the other. "I hoped ye'd feel all right this mornin'. Let's see th' bandage--I guess it's slipped." He began to tinker at the wound in rather a clumsy way until the youth exploded.
"Gosh-dern it!" he said in sharp irritation; "you're the hangdest man I ever saw! You wear muffs on your hands. Why in good thunderation can't you be more easy? I'd rather you'd stand off an' throw guns at it. Now, go slow, an' don't act as if you was nailing down carpet."
He glared with insolent command at his friend, but the latter answered soothingly. "Well, well, come now, an' git some grub," he said. "Then, maybe, yeh'll feel better."
At the fireside the loud young soldier watched over his comrade's wants with tenderness and care. He was very busy marshaling the little black vagabonds of tin cups and pouring into them the streaming, iron colored mixture from a small and sooty tin pail. He had some fresh meat, which he roasted hurriedly upon a stick. He sat down then and contemplated the youth's appetite with glee.
The youth took note of a remarkable change in his comrade since those days of camp life upon the river bank. He seemed no more to be continually regarding the proportions of his personal prowess. He was not furious at small words that pricked his conceits. He was no more a loud young soldier. There was about him now a fine reliance. He showed a quiet belief in his purposes and his abilities. And this inward confidence evidently enabled him to be indifferent to little words of other men aimed at him.
The youth reflected. He had been used to regarding his comrade as a blatant child with an audacity grown from his inexperience, thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage. A swaggering babe accustomed to strut in his own dooryard. The youth wondered where had been born these new eyes; when his comrade had made the great discovery that there were many men who would refuse to be subjected by him. Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing. And the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his friend's neighborhood.
His comrade balanced his ebony coffee-cup on his knee. "Well, Henry," he said, "what d'yeh think th' chances are? D'yeh think we'll wallop 'em?"
The youth considered for a moment. "Day-b'fore-yesterday," he finally replied, with boldness, "you would 'a' bet you'd lick the hull kit-an'-boodle all by yourself."
His friend looked a trifle amazed. "Would I?" he asked. He pondered. "Well, perhaps I would," he decided at last. He stared humbly at the fire.
The youth was quite disconcerted at this surprising reception of his remarks. "Oh, no, you wouldn't either," he said, hastily trying to retrace.
But the other made a deprecating gesture. "Oh, yeh needn't mind, Henry," he said. "I believe I was a pretty big fool in those days." He spoke as after a lapse of years.
There was a little pause.
"All th' officers say we've got th' rebs in a pretty tight box," said the friend, clearing his throat in a commonplace way. "They all seem t' think we've got 'em jest where we want 'em."
"I don't know about that," the youth replied. "What I seen over on th' right makes me think it was th' other way about. From where I was, it looked as if we was gettin' a good poundin' yestirday."
"D'yeh think so?" inquired the friend. "I thought we handled 'em pretty rough yestirday."
"Not a bit," said the youth. "Why, lord, man, you didn't see nothing of the fight. Why!" Then a sudden thought came to him. "Oh! Jim Conklin's dead."
His friend started. "What? Is he? Jim Conklin?"
The youth spoke slowly. "Yes. He's dead. Shot in th' side."
"Yeh don't say so. Jim Conklin. . . . poor cuss!"
All about them were other small fires surrounded by men with their little black utensils. From one of these near came sudden sharp voices in a row. It appeared that two light-footed soldiers had been teasing a huge, bearded man, causing him to spill coffee upon his blue knees. The man had gone into a rage and had sworn comprehensively. Stung by his language, his tormentors had immediately bristled at him with a great show of resenting unjust oaths. Possibly there was going to be a fight.
The friend arose and went over to them, making pacific motions with his arms. "Oh, here, now, boys, what's th' use?" he said. "We'll be at th' rebs in less'n an hour. What's th' good fightin' 'mong ourselves?"
One of the light-footed soldiers turned upon him red-faced and violent. "Yeh needn't come around here with yer preachin'. I s'pose yeh don't approve 'a fightin' since Charley Morgan licked yeh; but I don't see what business this here is 'a yours or anybody else."
"Well, it ain't," said the friend mildly. "Still I hate t' see--" There was a tangled argument.
"Well, he--," said the two, indicating their opponent with accusative forefingers.
The huge soldier was quite purple with rage. He pointed at the two soldiers with his great hand, extended clawlike. "Well, they--" But during this argumentative time the desire to deal blows seemed to pass, although they said much to each other. Finally the friend returned to his old seat. In a short while the three antagonists could be seen together in an amiable bunch.
"Jimmie Rogers ses I'll have t' fight him after th' battle t'-day," announced the friend as he again seated himself. "He ses he don't allow no interferin' in his business. I hate t' see th' boys fightin' 'mong themselves."
The youth laughed. "Yer changed a good bit. Yeh ain't at all like yeh was. I remember when you an' that Irish feller--" He stopped and laughed again.
"No, I didn't use t' be that way," said his friend thoughtfully. "That's true 'nough."
"Well, I didn't mean--" began the youth.
The friend made another deprecatory gesture. "Oh, yeh needn't mind, Henry."
There was another little pause.
"Th' reg'ment lost over half th' men yestirday," remarked the friend eventually. "I thought a course they was all dead, but, laws, they kep' a-comin' back last night until it seems, after all, we didn't lose but a few. They'd been scattered all over, wanderin' around in th' woods, fightin' with other reg'ments, an' everything. Jest like you done."
"So?" said the youth.
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{
"id": "463"
}
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15
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The regiment was standing at order arms at the side of a lane, waiting for the command to march, when suddenly the youth remembered the little packet enwrapped in a faded yellow envelope which the loud young soldier with lugubrious words had intrusted to him. It made him start. He uttered an exclamation and turned toward his comrade.
"Wilson!"
"What?"
His friend, at his side in the ranks, was thoughtfully staring down the road. From some cause his expression was at that moment very meek. The youth, regarding him with sidelong glances, felt impelled to change his purpose. "Oh, nothing," he said.
His friend turned his head in some surprise, "Why, what was yeh goin' t' say?"
"Oh, nothing," repeated the youth.
He resolved not to deal the little blow. It was sufficient that the fact made him glad. It was not necessary to knock his friend on the head with the misguided packet.
He had been possessed of much fear of his friend, for he saw how easily questionings could make holes in his feelings. Lately, he had assured himself that the altered comrade would not tantalize him with a persistent curiosity, but he felt certain that during the first period of leisure his friend would ask him to relate his adventures of the previous day.
He now rejoiced in the possession of a small weapon with which he could prostrate his comrade at the first signs of a cross-examination. He was master. It would now be he who could laugh and shoot the shafts of derision.
The friend had, in a weak hour, spoken with sobs of his own death. He had delivered a melancholy oration previous to his funeral, and had doubtless in the packet of letters, presented various keepsakes to relatives. But he had not died, and thus he had delivered himself into the hands of the youth.
The latter felt immensely superior to his friend, but he inclined to condescension. He adopted toward him an air of patronizing good humor.
His self-pride was now entirely restored. In the shade of its flourishing growth he stood with braced and self-confident legs, and since nothing could now be discovered he did not shrink from an encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts of his own to keep him from an attitude of manfulness. He had performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.
Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes of yesterday, and looked at them from a distance he began to see something fine there. He had license to be pompous and veteranlike.
His panting agonies of the past he put out of his sight.
In the present, he declared to himself that it was only the doomed and the damned who roared with sincerity at circumstance. Few but they ever did it. A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows had no business to scold about anything that he might think to be wrong in the ways of the universe, or even with the ways of society. Let the unfortunates rail; the others may play marbles.
He did not give a great deal of thought to these battles that lay directly before him. It was not essential that he should plan his ways in regard to them. He had been taught that many obligations of a life were easily avoided. The lessons of yesterday had been that retribution was a laggard and blind. With these facts before him he did not deem it necessary that he should become feverish over the possibilities of the ensuing twenty-four hours. He could leave much to chance. Besides, a faith in himself had secretly blossomed. There was a little flower of confidence growing within him. He was now a man of experience. He had been out among the dragons, he said, and he assured himself that they were not so hideous as he had imagined them. Also, they were inaccurate; they did not sting with precision. A stout heart often defied, and defying, escaped.
And, furthermore, how could they kill him who was the chosen of gods and doomed to greatness?
He remembered how some of the men had run from the battle. As he recalled their terror-struck faces he felt a scorn for them. They had surely been more fleet and more wild than was absolutely necessary. They were weak mortals. As for himself, he had fled with discretion and dignity.
He was aroused from this reverie by his friend, who, having hitched about nervously and blinked at the trees for a time, suddenly coughed in an introductory way, and spoke.
"Fleming!"
"What?"
The friend put his hand up to his mouth and coughed again. He fidgeted in his jacket.
"Well," he gulped, at last, "I guess yeh might as well give me back them letters." Dark, prickling blood had flushed into his cheeks and brow.
"All right, Wilson," said the youth. He loosened two buttons of his coat, thrust in his hand, and brought forth the packet. As he extended it to his friend the latter's face was turned from him.
He had been slow in the act of producing the packet because during it he had been trying to invent a remarkable comment upon the affair. He could conjure nothing of sufficient point. He was compelled to allow his friend to escape unmolested with his packet. And for this he took unto himself considerable credit. It was a generous thing.
His friend at his side seemed suffering great shame. As he contemplated him, the youth felt his heart grow more strong and stout. He had never been compelled to blush in such manner for his acts; he was an individual of extraordinary virtues.
He reflected, with condescending pity: "Too bad! Too bad! The poor devil, it makes him feel tough!"
After this incident, and as he reviewed the battle pictures he had seen, he felt quite competent to return home and make the hearts of the people glow with stories of war. He could see himself in a room of warm tints telling tales to listeners. He could exhibit laurels. They were insignificant; still, in a district where laurels were infrequent, they might shine.
He saw his gaping audience picturing him as the central figure in blazing scenes. And he imagined the consternation and the ejaculations of his mother and the young lady at the seminary as they drank his recitals. Their vague feminine formula for beloved ones doing brave deeds on the field of battle without risk of life would be destroyed.
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{
"id": "463"
}
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16
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A sputtering of musketry was always to be heard. Later, the cannon had entered the dispute. In the fog-filled air their voices made a thudding sound. The reverberations were continued. This part of the world led a strange, battleful existence.
The youth's regiment was marched to relieve a command that had lain long in some damp trenches. The men took positions behind a curving line of rifle pits that had been turned up, like a large furrow, along the line of woods. Before them was a level stretch, peopled with short, deformed stumps. From the woods beyond came the dull popping of the skirmishers and pickets, firing in the fog. From the right came the noise of a terrific fracas.
The men cuddled behind the small embankment and sat in easy attitudes awaiting their turn. Many had their backs to the firing. The youth's friend lay down, buried his face in his arms, and almost instantly, it seemed, he was in a deep sleep.
The youth leaned his breast against the brown dirt and peered over at the woods and up and down the line. Curtains of trees interfered with his ways of vision. He could see the low line of trenches but for a short distance. A few idle flags were perched on the dirt hills. Behind them were rows of dark bodies with a few heads sticking curiously over the top.
Always the noise of skirmishers came from the woods on the front and left, and the din on the right had grown to frightful proportions. The guns were roaring without an instant's pause for breath. It seemed that the cannon had come from all parts and were engaged in a stupendous wrangle. It became impossible to make a sentence heard.
The youth wished to launch a joke--a quotation from newspapers. He desired to say, "All quiet on the Rappahannock," but the guns refused to permit even a comment upon their uproar. He never successfully concluded the sentence. But at last the guns stopped, and among the men in the rifle pits rumors again flew, like birds, but they were now for the most part black creatures who flapped their wings drearily near to the ground and refused to rise on any wings of hope. The men's faces grew doleful from the interpreting of omens. Tales of hesitation and uncertainty on the part of those high in place and responsibility came to their ears. Stories of disaster were borne into their minds with many proofs. This din of musketry on the right, growing like a released genie of sound, expressed and emphasized the army's plight.
The men were disheartened and began to mutter. They made gestures expressive of the sentence: "Ah, what more can we do?" And it could always be seen that they were bewildered by the alleged news and could not fully comprehend a defeat.
Before the gray mists had been totally obliterated by the sun rays, the regiment was marching in a spread column that was retiring carefully through the woods. The disordered, hurrying lines of the enemy could sometimes be seen down through the groves and little fields. They were yelling, shrill and exultant.
At this sight the youth forgot many personal matters and became greatly enraged. He exploded in loud sentences. "B'jiminey, we're generaled by a lot 'a lunkheads."
"More than one feller has said that t'-day," observed a man.
His friend, recently aroused, was still very drowsy. He looked behind him until his mind took in the meaning of the movement. Then he sighed. "Oh, well, I s'pose we got licked," he remarked sadly.
The youth had a thought that it would not be handsome for him to freely condemn other men. He made an attempt to restrain himself, but the words upon his tongue were too bitter. He presently began a long and intricate denunciation of the commander of the forces.
"Mebbe, it wa'n't all his fault--not all together. He did th' best he knowed. It's our luck t' git licked often," said his friend in a weary tone. He was trudging along with stooped shoulders and shifting eyes like a man who has been caned and kicked.
"Well, don't we fight like the devil? Don't we do all that men can?" demanded the youth loudly.
He was secretly dumfounded at this sentiment when it came from his lips. For a moment his face lost its valor and he looked guiltily about him. But no one questioned his right to deal in such words, and presently he recovered his air of courage. He went on to repeat a statement he had heard going from group to group at the camp that morning. "The brigadier said he never saw a new reg'ment fight the way we fought yestirday, didn't he? And we didn't do better than many another reg'ment, did we? Well, then, you can't say it's th' army's fault, can you?"
In his reply, the friend's voice was stern. " 'A course not," he said. "No man dare say we don't fight like th' devil. No man will ever dare say it. Th' boys fight like hell-roosters. But still--still, we don't have no luck."
"Well, then, if we fight like the devil an' don't ever whip, it must be the general's fault," said the youth grandly and decisively. "And I don't see any sense in fighting and fighting and fighting, yet always losing through some derned old lunkhead of a general."
A sarcastic man who was tramping at the youth's side, then spoke lazily. "Mebbe yeh think yeh fit th' hull battle yestirday, Fleming," he remarked.
The speech pierced the youth. Inwardly he was reduced to an abject pulp by these chance words. His legs quaked privately. He cast a frightened glance at the sarcastic man.
"Why, no," he hastened to say in a conciliating voice, "I don't think I fought the whole battle yesterday."
But the other seemed innocent of any deeper meaning. Apparently, he had no information. It was merely his habit. "Oh!" he replied in the same tone of calm derision.
The youth, nevertheless, felt a threat. His mind shrank from going near to the danger, and thereafter he was silent. The significance of the sarcastic man's words took from him all loud moods that would make him appear prominent. He became suddenly a modest person.
There was low-toned talk among the troops. The officers were impatient and snappy, their countenances clouded with the tales of misfortune. The troops, sifting through the forest, were sullen. In the youth's company once a man's laugh rang out. A dozen soldiers turned their faces quickly toward him and frowned with vague displeasure.
The noise of firing dogged their footsteps. Sometimes, it seemed to be driven a little way, but it always returned again with increased insolence. The men muttered and cursed, throwing black looks in its direction.
In a clear space the troops were at last halted. Regiments and brigades, broken and detached through their encounters with thickets, grew together again and lines were faced toward the pursuing bark of the enemy's infantry.
This noise, following like the yellings of eager, metallic hounds, increased to a loud and joyous burst, and then, as the sun went serenely up the sky, throwing illuminating rays into the gloomy thickets, it broke forth into prolonged pealings. The woods began to crackle as if afire.
"Whoop-a-dadee," said a man, "here we are! Everybody fightin'. Blood an' destruction."
"I was willin' t' bet they'd attack as soon as th' sun got fairly up," savagely asserted the lieutenant who commanded the youth's company. He jerked without mercy at his little mustache. He strode to and fro with dark dignity in the rear of his men, who were lying down behind whatever protection they had collected.
A battery had trundled into position in the rear and was thoughtfully shelling the distance. The regiment, unmolested as yet, awaited the moment when the gray shadows of the woods before them should be slashed by the lines of flame. There was much growling and swearing.
"Good Gawd," the youth grumbled, "we're always being chased around like rats! It makes me sick. Nobody seems to know where we go or why we go. We just get fired around from pillar to post and get licked here and get licked there, and nobody knows what it's done for. It makes a man feel like a damn' kitten in a bag. Now, I'd like to know what the eternal thunders we was marched into these woods for anyhow, unless it was to give the rebs a regular pot shot at us. We came in here and got our legs all tangled up in these cussed briers, and then we begin to fight and the rebs had an easy time of it. Don't tell me it's just luck! I know better. It's this derned old--" The friend seemed jaded, but he interrupted his comrade with a voice of calm confidence. "It'll turn out all right in th' end," he said.
"Oh, the devil it will! You always talk like a dog-hanged parson. Don't tell me! I know--" At this time there was an interposition by the savage-minded lieutenant, who was obliged to vent some of his inward dissatisfaction upon his men. "You boys shut right up! There no need 'a your wastin' your breath in long-winded arguments about this an' that an' th' other. You've been jawin' like a lot 'a old hens. All you've got t' do is to fight, an' you'll get plenty 'a that t' do in about ten minutes. Less talkin' an' more fightin' is what's best for you boys. I never saw sech gabbling jackasses."
He paused, ready to pounce upon any man who might have the temerity to reply. No words being said, he resumed his dignified pacing.
"There's too much chin music an' too little fightin' in this war, anyhow," he said to them, turning his head for a final remark.
The day had grown more white, until the sun shed his full radiance upon the thronged forest. A sort of a gust of battle came sweeping toward that part of the line where lay the youth's regiment. The front shifted a trifle to meet it squarely. There was a wait. In this part of the field there passed slowly the intense moments that precede the tempest.
A single rifle flashed in a thicket before the regiment. In an instant it was joined by many others. There was a mighty song of clashes and crashes that went sweeping through the woods. The guns in the rear, aroused and enraged by shells that had been thrown burlike at them, suddenly involved themselves in a hideous altercation with another band of guns. The battle roar settled to a rolling thunder, which was a single, long explosion.
In the regiment there was a peculiar kind of hesitation denoted in the attitudes of the men. They were worn, exhausted, having slept but little and labored much. They rolled their eyes toward the advancing battle as they stood awaiting the shock. Some shrank and flinched. They stood as men tied to stakes.
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{
"id": "463"
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This advance of the enemy had seemed to the youth like a ruthless hunting. He began to fume with rage and exasperation. He beat his foot upon the ground, and scowled with hate at the swirling smoke that was approaching like a phantom flood. There was a maddening quality in this seeming resolution of the foe to give him no rest, to give him no time to sit down and think. Yesterday he had fought and had fled rapidly. There had been many adventures. For to-day he felt that he had earned opportunities for contemplative repose. He could have enjoyed portraying to uninitiated listeners various scenes at which he had been a witness or ably discussing the processes of war with other proved men. Too it was important that he should have time for physical recuperation. He was sore and stiff from his experiences. He had received his fill of all exertions, and he wished to rest.
But those other men seemed never to grow weary; they were fighting with their old speed.
He had a wild hate for the relentless foe. Yesterday, when he had imagined the universe to be against him, he had hated it, little gods and big gods; to-day he hated the army of the foe with the same great hatred. He was not going to be badgered of his life, like a kitten chased by boys, he said. It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.
He leaned and spoke into his friend's ear. He menaced the woods with a gesture. "If they keep on chasing us, by Gawd, they'd better watch out. Can't stand TOO much."
The friend twisted his head and made a calm reply. "If they keep on a-chasin' us they'll drive us all inteh th' river."
The youth cried out savagely at this statement. He crouched behind a little tree, with his eyes burning hatefully and his teeth set in a curlike snarl. The awkward bandage was still about his head, and upon it, over his wound, there was a spot of dry blood. His hair was wondrously tousled, and some straggling, moving locks hung over the cloth of the bandage down toward his forehead. His jacket and shirt were open at the throat, and exposed his young bronzed neck. There could be seen spasmodic gulpings at his throat.
His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that it was an engine of annihilating power. He felt that he and his companions were being taunted and derided from sincere convictions that they were poor and puny. His knowledge of his inability to take vengeance for it made his rage into a dark and stormy specter, that possessed him and made him dream of abominable cruelties. The tormentors were flies sucking insolently at his blood, and he thought that he would have given his life for a revenge of seeing their faces in pitiful plights.
The winds of battle had swept all about the regiment, until the one rifle, instantly followed by others, flashed in its front. A moment later the regiment roared forth its sudden and valiant retort. A dense wall of smoke settled slowly down. It was furiously slit and slashed by the knifelike fire from the rifles.
To the youth the fighters resembled animals tossed for a death struggle into a dark pit. There was a sensation that he and his fellows, at bay, were pushing back, always pushing fierce onslaughts of creatures who were slippery. Their beams of crimson seemed to get no purchase upon the bodies of their foes; the latter seemed to evade them with ease, and come through, between, around, and about with unopposed skill.
When, in a dream, it occurred to the youth that his rifle was an impotent stick, he lost sense of everything but his hate, his desire to smash into pulp the glittering smile of victory which he could feel upon the faces of his enemies.
The blue smoke-swallowed line curled and writhed like a snake stepped upon. It swung its ends to and fro in an agony of fear and rage.
The youth was not conscious that he was erect upon his feet. He did not know the direction of the ground. Indeed, once he even lost the habit of balance and fell heavily. He was up again immediately. One thought went through the chaos of his brain at the time. He wondered if he had fallen because he had been shot. But the suspicion flew away at once. He did not think more of it.
He had taken up a first position behind the little tree, with a direct determination to hold it against the world. He had not deemed it possible that his army could that day succeed, and from this he felt the ability to fight harder. But the throng had surged in all ways, until he lost directions and locations, save that he knew where lay the enemy.
The flames bit him, and the hot smoke broiled his skin. His rifle barrel grew so hot that ordinarily he could not have borne it upon his palms; but he kept on stuffing cartridges into it, and pounding them with his clanking, bending ramrod. If he aimed at some changing form through the smoke, he pulled his trigger with a fierce grunt, as if he were dealing a blow of the fist with all his strength.
When the enemy seemed falling back before him and his fellows, he went instantly forward, like a dog who, seeing his foes lagging, turns and insists upon being pursued. And when he was compelled to retire again, he did it slowly, sullenly, taking steps of wrathful despair.
Once he, in his intent hate, was almost alone, and was firing, when all those near him had ceased. He was so engrossed in his occupation that he was not aware of a lull.
He was recalled by a hoarse laugh and a sentence that came to his ears in a voice of contempt and amazement. "Yeh infernal fool, don't yeh know enough t' quit when there ain't anything t' shoot at? Good Gawd!"
He turned then and, pausing with his rifle thrown half into position, looked at the blue line of his comrades. During this moment of leisure they seemed all to be engaged in staring with astonishment at him. They had become spectators. Turning to the front again he saw, under the lifted smoke, a deserted ground.
He looked bewildered for a moment. Then there appeared upon the glazed vacancy of his eyes a diamond point of intelligence. "Oh," he said, comprehending.
He returned to his comrades and threw himself upon the ground. He sprawled like a man who had been thrashed. His flesh seemed strangely on fire, and the sounds of the battle continued in his ears. He groped blindly for his canteen.
The lieutenant was crowing. He seemed drunk with fighting. He called out to the youth: "By heavens, if I had ten thousand wild cats like you I could tear th' stomach outa this war in less'n a week!" He puffed out his chest with large dignity as he said it.
Some of the men muttered and looked at the youth in awe-struck ways. It was plain that as he had gone on loading and firing and cursing without the proper intermission, they had found time to regard him. And they now looked upon him as a war devil.
The friend came staggering to him. There was some fright and dismay in his voice. "Are yeh all right, Fleming? Do yeh feel all right? There ain't nothin' th' matter with yeh, Henry, is there?"
"No," said the youth with difficulty. His throat seemed full of knobs and burs.
These incidents made the youth ponder. It was revealed to him that he had been a barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a pagan who defends his religion. Regarding it, he saw that it was fine, wild, and, in some ways, easy. He had been a tremendous figure, no doubt. By this struggle he had overcome obstacles which he had admitted to be mountains. They had fallen like paper peaks, and he was now what he called a hero. And he had not been aware of the process. He had slept and, awakening, found himself a knight.
He lay and basked in the occasional stares of his comrades. Their faces were varied in degrees of blackness from the burned powder. Some were utterly smudged. They were reeking with perspiration, and their breaths came hard and wheezing. And from these soiled expanses they peered at him.
"Hot work! Hot work!" cried the lieutenant deliriously. He walked up and down, restless and eager. Sometimes his voice could be heard in a wild, incomprehensible laugh.
When he had a particularly profound thought upon the science of war he always unconsciously addressed himself to the youth.
There was some grim rejoicing by the men.
"By thunder, I bet this army'll never see another new reg'ment like us!"
"You bet!"
"A dog, a woman, an' a walnut tree, Th' more yeh beat 'em, th' better they be!
That's like us."
"Lost a piler men, they did. If an' ol' woman swep' up th' woods she'd git a dustpanful."
"Yes, an' if she'll come around ag'in in 'bout an' hour she'll git a pile more."
The forest still bore its burden of clamor. From off under the trees came the rolling clatter of the musketry. Each distant thicket seemed a strange porcupine with quills of flame. A cloud of dark smoke, as from smoldering ruins, went up toward the sun now bright and gay in the blue, enameled sky.
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The ragged line had respite for some minutes, but during its pause the struggle in the forest became magnified until the trees seemed to quiver from the firing and the ground to shake from the rushing of the men. The voices of the cannon were mingled in a long and interminable row. It seemed difficult to live in such an atmosphere. The chests of the men strained for a bit of freshness, and their throats craved water.
There was one shot through the body, who raised a cry of bitter lamentation when came this lull. Perhaps he had been calling out during the fighting also, but at that time no one had heard him. But now the men turned at the woeful complaints of him upon the ground.
"Who is it? Who is it?"
"It's Jimmie Rogers. Jimmie Rogers."
When their eyes first encountered him there was a sudden halt, as if they feared to go near. He was thrashing about in the grass, twisting his shuddering body into many strange postures. He was screaming loudly. This instant's hesitation seemed to fill him with a tremendous, fantastic contempt, and he damned them in shrieked sentences.
The youth's friend had a geographical illusion concerning a stream, and he obtained permission to go for some water. Immediately canteens were showered upon him. "Fill mine, will yeh?" "Bring me some, too." "And me, too." He departed, ladened. The youth went with his friend, feeling a desire to throw his heated body onto the stream and, soaking there, drink quarts.
They made a hurried search for the supposed stream, but did not find it. "No water here," said the youth. They turned without delay and began to retrace their steps.
From their position as they again faced toward the place of the fighting, they could of course comprehend a greater amount of the battle than when their visions had been blurred by the hurling smoke of the line. They could see dark stretches winding along the land, and on one cleared space there was a row of guns making gray clouds, which were filled with large flashes of orange-colored flame. Over some foliage they could see the roof of a house. One window, glowing a deep murder red, shone squarely through the leaves. From the edifice a tall leaning tower of smoke went far into the sky.
Looking over their own troops, they saw mixed masses slowly getting into regular form. The sunlight made twinkling points of the bright steel. To the rear there was a glimpse of a distant roadway as it curved over a slope. It was crowded with retreating infantry. From all the interwoven forest arose the smoke and bluster of the battle. The air was always occupied by a blaring.
Near where they stood shells were flip-flapping and hooting. Occasional bullets buzzed in the air and spanged into tree trunks. Wounded men and other stragglers were slinking through the woods.
Looking down an aisle of the grove, the youth and his companion saw a jangling general and his staff almost ride upon a wounded man, who was crawling on his hands and knees. The general reined strongly at his charger's opened and foamy mouth and guided it with dexterous horsemanship past the man. The latter scrambled in wild and torturing haste. His strength evidently failed him as he reached a place of safety. One of his arms suddenly weakened, and he fell, sliding over upon his back. He lay stretched out, breathing gently.
A moment later the small, creaking cavalcade was directly in front of the two soldiers. Another officer, riding with the skillful abandon of a cowboy, galloped his horse to a position directly before the general. The two unnoticed foot soldiers made a little show of going on, but they lingered near in the desire to overhear the conversation. Perhaps, they thought, some great inner historical things would be said.
The general, whom the boys knew as the commander of their division, looked at the other officer and spoke coolly, as if he were criticising his clothes. "Th' enemy's formin' over there for another charge," he said. "It'll be directed against Whiterside, an' I fear they'll break through there unless we work like thunder t' stop them."
The other swore at his restive horse, and then cleared his throat. He made a gesture toward his cap. "It'll be hell t' pay stoppin' them," he said shortly.
"I presume so," remarked the general. Then he began to talk rapidly and in a lower tone. He frequently illustrated his words with a pointing finger. The two infantrymen could hear nothing until finally he asked: "What troops can you spare?"
The officer who rode like a cowboy reflected for an instant. "Well," he said, "I had to order in th' 12th to help th' 76th, an' I haven't really got any. But there's th' 304th. They fight like a lot 'a mule drivers. I can spare them best of any."
The youth and his friend exchanged glances of astonishment.
The general spoke sharply. "Get 'em ready, then. I'll watch developments from here, an' send you word when t' start them. It'll happen in five minutes."
As the other officer tossed his fingers toward his cap and wheeling his horse, started away, the general called out to him in a sober voice: "I don't believe many of your mule drivers will get back."
The other shouted something in reply. He smiled.
With scared faces, the youth and his companion hurried back to the line.
These happenings had occupied an incredibly short time, yet the youth felt that in them he had been made aged. New eyes were given to him. And the most startling thing was to learn suddenly that he was very insignificant. The officer spoke of the regiment as if he referred to a broom. Some part of the woods needed sweeping, perhaps, and he merely indicated a broom in a tone properly indifferent to its fate. It was war, no doubt, but it appeared strange.
As the two boys approached the line, the lieutenant perceived them and swelled with wrath. "Fleming--Wilson--how long does it take yeh to git water, anyhow--where yeh been to."
But his oration ceased as he saw their eyes, which were large with great tales. "We're goin' t' charge--we're goin' t' charge!" cried the youth's friend, hastening with his news.
"Charge?" said the lieutenant. "Charge? Well, b'Gawd! Now, this is real fightin'." Over his soiled countenance there went a boastful smile. "Charge? Well, b'Gawd!"
A little group of soldiers surrounded the two youths. "Are we, sure 'nough? Well, I'll be derned! Charge? What fer? What at? Wilson, you're lyin'."
"I hope to die," said the youth, pitching his tones to the key of angry remonstrance. "Sure as shooting, I tell you."
And his friend spoke in re-enforcement. "Not by a blame sight, he ain't lyin'. We heard 'em talkin'."
They caught sight of two mounted figures a short distance from them. One was the colonel of the regiment and the other was the officer who had received orders from the commander of the division. They were gesticulating at each other. The soldier, pointing at them, interpreted the scene.
One man had a final objection: "How could yeh hear 'em talkin'?" But the men, for a large part, nodded, admitting that previously the two friends had spoken truth.
They settled back into reposeful attitudes with airs of having accepted the matter. And they mused upon it, with a hundred varieties of expression. It was an engrossing thing to think about. Many tightened their belts carefully and hitched at their trousers.
A moment later the officers began to bustle among the men, pushing them into a more compact mass and into a better alignment. They chased those that straggled and fumed at a few men who seemed to show by their attitudes that they had decided to remain at that spot. They were like critical shepherds struggling with sheep.
Presently, the regiment seemed to draw itself up and heave a deep breath. None of the men's faces were mirrors of large thoughts. The soldiers were bended and stooped like sprinters before a signal. Many pairs of glinting eyes peered from the grimy faces toward the curtains of the deeper woods. They seemed to be engaged in deep calculations of time and distance.
They were surrounded by the noises of the monstrous altercation between the two armies. The world was fully interested in other matters. Apparently, the regiment had its small affair to itself.
The youth, turning, shot a quick, inquiring glance at his friend. The latter returned to him the same manner of look. They were the only ones who possessed an inner knowledge. "Mule drivers--hell t' pay--don't believe many will get back." It was an ironical secret. Still, they saw no hesitation in each other's faces, and they nodded a mute and unprotesting assent when a shaggy man near them said in a meek voice: "We'll git swallowed."
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The youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliages now seemed to veil powers and horrors. He was unaware of the machinery of orders that started the charge, although from the corners of his eyes he saw an officer, who looked like a boy a-horseback, come galloping, waving his hat. Suddenly he felt a straining and heaving among the men. The line fell slowly forward like a toppling wall, and, with a convulsive gasp that was intended for a cheer, the regiment began its journey. The youth was pushed and jostled for a moment before he understood the movement at all, but directly he lunged ahead and began to run.
He fixed his eye upon a distant and prominent clump of trees where he had concluded the enemy were to be met, and he ran toward it as toward a goal. He had believed throughout that it was a mere question of getting over an unpleasant matter as quickly as possible, and he ran desperately, as if pursued for a murder. His face was drawn hard and tight with the stress of his endeavor. His eyes were fixed in a lurid glare. And with his soiled and disordered dress, his red and inflamed features surmounted by the dingy rag with its spot of blood, his wildly swinging rifle and banging accouterments, he looked to be an insane soldier.
As the regiment swung from its position out into a cleared space the woods and thickets before it awakened. Yellow flames leaped toward it from many directions. The forest made a tremendous objection.
The line lurched straight for a moment. Then the right wing swung forward; it in turn was surpassed by the left. Afterward the center careered to the front until the regiment was a wedge-shaped mass, but an instant later the opposition of the bushes, trees, and uneven places on the ground split the command and scattered it into detached clusters.
The youth, light-footed, was unconsciously in advance. His eyes still kept note of the clump of trees. From all places near it the clannish yell of the enemy could be heard. The little flames of rifles leaped from it. The song of the bullets was in the air and shells snarled among the tree-tops. One tumbled directly into the middle of a hurrying group and exploded in crimson fury. There was an instant's spectacle of a man, almost over it, throwing up his hands to shield his eyes.
Other men, punched by bullets, fell in grotesque agonies. The regiment left a coherent trail of bodies.
They had passed into a clearer atmosphere. There was an effect like a revelation in the new appearance of the landscape. Some men working madly at a battery were plain to them, and the opposing infantry's lines were defined by the gray walls and fringes of smoke.
It seemed to the youth that he saw everything. Each blade of the green grass was bold and clear. He thought that he was aware of every change in the thin, transparent vapor that floated idly in sheets. The brown or gray trunks of the trees showed each roughness of their surfaces. And the men of the regiment, with their starting eyes and sweating faces, running madly, or falling, as if thrown headlong, to queer, heaped-up corpses--all were comprehended. His mind took a mechanical but firm impression, so that afterward everything was pictured and explained to him, save why he himself was there.
But there was a frenzy made from this furious rush. The men, pitching forward insanely, had burst into cheerings, moblike and barbaric, but tuned in strange keys that can arouse the dullard and the stoic. It made a mad enthusiasm that, it seemed, would be incapable of checking itself before granite and brass. There was the delirium that encounters despair and death, and is heedless and blind to the odds. It is a temporary but sublime absence of selfishness. And because it was of this order was the reason, perhaps, why the youth wondered, afterward, what reasons he could have had for being there.
Presently the straining pace ate up the energies of the men. As if by agreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed. The volleys directed against them had had a seeming windlike effect. The regiment snorted and blew. Among some stolid trees it began to falter and hesitate. The men, staring intently, began to wait for some of the distant walls of smoke to move and disclose to them the scene. Since much of their strength and their breath had vanished, they returned to caution. They were become men again.
The youth had a vague belief that he had run miles, and he thought, in a way, that he was now in some new and unknown land.
The moment the regiment ceased its advance the protesting splutter of musketry became a steadied roar. Long and accurate fringes of smoke spread out. From the top of a small hill came level belchings of yellow flame that caused an inhuman whistling in the air.
The men, halted, had opportunity to see some of their comrades dropping with moans and shrieks. A few lay under foot, still or wailing. And now for an instant the men stood, their rifles slack in their hands, and watched the regiment dwindle. They appeared dazed and stupid. This spectacle seemed to paralyze them, overcome them with a fatal fascination. They stared woodenly at the sights, and, lowering their eyes, looked from face to face. It was a strange pause, and a strange silence.
Then, above the sounds of the outside commotion, arose the roar of the lieutenant. He strode suddenly forth, his infantile features black with rage.
"Come on, yeh fools!" he bellowed. "Come on! Yeh can't stay here. Yeh must come on." He said more, but much of it could not be understood.
He started rapidly forward, with his head turned toward the men. "Come on," he was shouting. The men stared with blank and yokel-like eyes at him. He was obliged to halt and retrace his steps. He stood then with his back to the enemy and delivered gigantic curses into the faces of the men. His body vibrated from the weight and force of his imprecations. And he could string oaths with the facility of a maiden who strings beads.
The friend of the youth aroused. Lurching suddenly forward and dropping to his knees, he fired an angry shot at the persistent woods. This action awakened the men. They huddled no more like sheep. They seemed suddenly to bethink them of their weapons, and at once commenced firing. Belabored by their officers, they began to move forward. The regiment, involved like a cart involved in mud and muddle, started unevenly with many jolts and jerks. The men stopped now every few paces to fire and load, and in this manner moved slowly on from trees to trees.
The flaming opposition in their front grew with their advance until it seemed that all forward ways were barred by the thin leaping tongues, and off to the right an ominous demonstration could sometimes be dimly discerned. The smoke lately generated was in confusing clouds that made it difficult for the regiment to proceed with intelligence. As he passed through each curling mass the youth wondered what would confront him on the farther side.
The command went painfully forward until an open space interposed between them and the lurid lines. Here, crouching and cowering behind some trees, the men clung with desperation, as if threatened by a wave. They looked wild-eyed, and as if amazed at this furious disturbance they had stirred. In the storm there was an ironical expression of their importance. The faces of the men, too, showed a lack of a certain feeling of responsibility for being there. It was as if they had been driven. It was the dominant animal failing to remember in the supreme moments the forceful causes of various superficial qualities. The whole affair seemed incomprehensible to many of them.
As they halted thus the lieutenant again began to bellow profanely. Regardless of the vindictive threats of the bullets, he went about coaxing, berating, and bedamning. His lips, that were habitually in a soft and childlike curve, were now writhed into unholy contortions. He swore by all possible deities.
Once he grabbed the youth by the arm. "Come on, yeh lunkhead!" he roared. "Come on! We'll all git killed if we stay here. We've on'y got t' go across that lot. An' then"--the remainder of his idea disappeared in a blue haze of curses.
The youth stretched forth his arm. "Cross there?" His mouth was puckered in doubt and awe.
"Certainly. Jest 'cross th' lot! We can't stay here," screamed the lieutenant. He poked his face close to the youth and waved his bandaged hand. "Come on!" Presently he grappled with him as if for a wrestling bout. It was as if he planned to drag the youth by the ear on to the assault.
The private felt a sudden unspeakable indignation against his officer. He wrenched fiercely and shook him off.
"Come on yerself, then," he yelled. There was a bitter challenge in his voice.
They galloped together down the regimental front. The friend scrambled after them. In front of the colors the three men began to bawl: "Come on! come on!" They danced and gyrated like tortured savages.
The flag, obedient to these appeals, bended its glittering form and swept toward them. The men wavered in indecision for a moment, and then with a long, wailful cry the dilapidated regiment surged forward and began its new journey.
Over the field went the scurrying mass. It was a handful of men splattered into the faces of the enemy. Toward it instantly sprang the yellow tongues. A vast quantity of blue smoke hung before them. A mighty banging made ears valueless.
The youth ran like a madman to reach the woods before a bullet could discover him. He ducked his head low, like a football player. In his haste his eyes almost closed, and the scene was a wild blur. Pulsating saliva stood at the corners of his mouth.
Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairing fondness for this flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty and invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that bended its form with an imperious gesture to him. It was a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Because no harm could come to it he endowed it with power. He kept near, as if it could be a saver of lives, and an imploring cry went from his mind.
In the mad scramble he was aware that the color sergeant flinched suddenly, as if struck by a bludgeon. He faltered, and then became motionless, save for his quivering knees.
He made a spring and a clutch at the pole. At the same instant his friend grabbed it from the other side. They jerked at it, stout and furious, but the color sergeant was dead, and the corpse would not relinquish its trust. For a moment there was a grim encounter. The dead man, swinging with bended back, seemed to be obstinately tugging, in ludicrous and awful ways, for the possession of the flag.
It was past in an instant of time. They wrenched the flag furiously from the dead man, and, as they turned again, the corpse swayed forward with bowed head. One arm swung high, and the curved hand fell with heavy protest on the friend's unheeding shoulder.
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When the two youths turned with the flag they saw that much of the regiment had crumbled away, and the dejected remnant was coming slowly back. The men, having hurled themselves in projectile fashion, had presently expended their forces. They slowly retreated, with their faces still toward the spluttering woods, and their hot rifles still replying to the din. Several officers were giving orders, their voices keyed to screams.
"Where in hell yeh goin'?" the lieutenant was asking in a sarcastic howl. And a red-bearded officer, whose voice of triple brass could plainly be heard, was commanding: "Shoot into 'em! Shoot into 'em, Gawd damn their souls!" There was a _melée_ of screeches, in which the men were ordered to do conflicting and impossible things.
The youth and his friend had a small scuffle over the flag. "Give it t' me!" "No, let me keep it!" Each felt satisfied with the other's possession of it, but each felt bound to declare, by an offer to carry the emblem, his willingness to further risk himself. The youth roughly pushed his friend away.
The regiment fell back to the stolid trees. There it halted for a moment to blaze at some dark forms that had begun to steal upon its track. Presently it resumed its march again, curving among the tree trunks. By the time the depleted regiment had again reached the first open space they were receiving a fast and merciless fire. There seemed to be mobs all about them.
The greater part of the men, discouraged, their spirits worn by the turmoil, acted as if stunned. They accepted the pelting of the bullets with bowed and weary heads. It was of no purpose to strive against walls. It was of no use to batter themselves against granite. And from this consciousness that they had attempted to conquer an unconquerable thing there seemed to arise a feeling that they had been betrayed. They glowered with bent brows, but dangerously, upon some of the officers, more particularly upon the red-bearded one with the voice of triple brass.
However, the rear of the regiment was fringed with men, who continued to shoot irritably at the advancing foes. They seemed resolved to make every trouble. The youthful lieutenant was perhaps the last man in the disordered mass. His forgotten back was toward the enemy. He had been shot in the arm. It hung straight and rigid. Occasionally he would cease to remember it, and be about to emphasize an oath with a sweeping gesture. The multiplied pain caused him to swear with incredible power.
The youth went along with slipping, uncertain feet. He kept watchful eyes rearward. A scowl of mortification and rage was upon his face. He had thought of a fine revenge upon the officer who had referred to him and his fellows as mule drivers. But he saw that it could not come to pass. His dreams had collapsed when the mule drivers, dwindling rapidly, had wavered and hesitated on the little clearing, and then had recoiled. And now the retreat of the mule drivers was a march of shame to him.
A dagger-pointed gaze from without his blackened face was held toward the enemy, but his greater hatred was riveted upon the man, who, not knowing him, had called him a mule driver.
When he knew that he and his comrades had failed to do anything in successful ways that might bring the little pangs of a kind of remorse upon the officer, the youth allowed the rage of the baffled to possess him. This cold officer upon a monument, who dropped epithets unconcernedly down, would be finer as a dead man, he thought. So grievous did he think it that he could never possess the secret right to taunt truly in answer.
He had pictured red letters of curious revenge. "We ARE mule drivers, are we?" And now he was compelled to throw them away.
He presently wrapped his heart in the cloak of his pride and kept the flag erect. He harangued his fellows, pushing against their chests with his free hand. To those he knew well he made frantic appeals, beseeching them by name. Between him and the lieutenant, scolding and near to losing his mind with rage, there was felt a subtle fellowship and equality. They supported each other in all manner of hoarse, howling protests.
But the regiment was a machine run down. The two men babbled at a forceless thing. The soldiers who had heart to go slowly were continually shaken in their resolves by a knowledge that comrades were slipping with speed back to the lines. It was difficult to think of reputation when others were thinking of skins. Wounded men were left crying on this black journey.
The smoke fringes and flames blustered always. The youth, peering once through a sudden rift in a cloud, saw a brown mass of troops, interwoven and magnified until they appeared to be thousands. A fierce-hued flag flashed before his vision.
Immediately, as if the uplifting of the smoke had been prearranged, the discovered troops burst into a rasping yell, and a hundred flames jetted toward the retreating band. A rolling gray cloud again interposed as the regiment doggedly replied. The youth had to depend again upon his misused ears, which were trembling and buzzing from the _melée_ of musketry and yells.
The way seemed eternal. In the clouded haze men became panicstricken with the thought that the regiment had lost its path, and was proceeding in a perilous direction. Once the men who headed the wild procession turned and came pushing back against their comrades, screaming that they were being fired upon from points which they had considered to be toward their own lines. At this cry a hysterical fear and dismay beset the troops. A soldier, who heretofore had been ambitious to make the regiment into a wise little band that would proceed calmly amid the huge-appearing difficulties, suddenly sank down and buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing to a doom. From another a shrill lamentation rang out filled with profane allusions to a general. Men ran hither and thither, seeking with their eyes roads of escape. With serene regularity, as if controlled by a schedule, bullets buffed into men.
The youth walked stolidly into the midst of the mob, and with his flag in his hands took a stand as if he expected an attempt to push him to the ground. He unconsciously assumed the attitude of the color bearer in the fight of the preceding day. He passed over his brow a hand that trembled. His breath did not come freely. He was choking during this small wait for the crisis.
His friend came to him. "Well, Henry, I guess this is good-by--John."
"Oh, shut up, you damned fool!" replied the youth, and he would not look at the other.
The officers labored like politicians to beat the mass into a proper circle to face the menaces. The ground was uneven and torn. The men curled into depressions and fitted themselves snugly behind whatever would frustrate a bullet.
The youth noted with vague surprise that the lieutenant was standing mutely with his legs far apart and his sword held in the manner of a cane. The youth wondered what had happened to his vocal organs that he no more cursed.
There was something curious in this little intent pause of the lieutenant. He was like a babe which, having wept its fill, raises its eyes and fixes upon a distant toy. He was engrossed in this contemplation, and the soft under lip quivered from self-whispered words.
Some lazy and ignorant smoke curled slowly. The men, hiding from the bullets, waited anxiously for it to lift and disclose the plight of the regiment.
The silent ranks were suddenly thrilled by the eager voice of the youthful lieutenant bawling out: "Here they come! Right onto us, b'Gawd!" His further words were lost in a roar of wicked thunder from the men's rifles.
The youth's eyes had instantly turned in the direction indicated by the awakened and agitated lieutenant, and he had seen the haze of treachery disclosing a body of soldiers of the enemy. They were so near that he could see their features. There was a recognition as he looked at the types of faces. Also he perceived with dim amazement that their uniforms were rather gay in effect, being light gray, accented with a brilliant-hued facing. Too, the clothes seemed new.
These troops had apparently been going forward with caution, their rifles held in readiness, when the youthful lieutenant had discovered them and their movement had been interrupted by the volley from the blue regiment. From the moment's glimpse, it was derived that they had been unaware of the proximity of their dark-suited foes or had mistaken the direction. Almost instantly they were shut utterly from the youth's sight by the smoke from the energetic rifles of his companions. He strained his vision to learn the accomplishment of the volley, but the smoke hung before him.
The two bodies of troops exchanged blows in the manner of a pair of boxers. The fast angry firings went back and forth. The men in blue were intent with the despair of their circumstances and they seized upon the revenge to be had at close range. Their thunder swelled loud and valiant. Their curving front bristled with flashes and the place resounded with the clangor of their ramrods. The youth ducked and dodged for a time and achieved a few unsatisfactory views of the enemy. There appeared to be many of them and they were replying swiftly. They seemed moving toward the blue regiment, step by step. He seated himself gloomily on the ground with his flag between his knees.
As he noted the vicious, wolflike temper of his comrades he had a sweet thought that if the enemy was about to swallow the regimental broom as a large prisoner, it could at least have the consolation of going down with bristles forward.
But the blows of the antagonist began to grow more weak. Fewer bullets ripped the air, and finally, when the men slackened to learn of the fight, they could see only dark, floating smoke. The regiment lay still and gazed. Presently some chance whim came to the pestering blur, and it began to coil heavily away. The men saw a ground vacant of fighters. It would have been an empty stage if it were not for a few corpses that lay thrown and twisted into fantastic shapes upon the sward.
At sight of this tableau, many of the men in blue sprang from behind their covers and made an ungainly dance of joy. Their eyes burned and a hoarse cheer of elation broke from their dry lips.
It had begun to seem to them that events were trying to prove that they were impotent. These little battles had evidently endeavored to demonstrate that the men could not fight well. When on the verge of submission to these opinions, the small duel had showed them that the proportions were not impossible, and by it they had revenged themselves upon their misgivings and upon the foe.
The impetus of enthusiasm was theirs again. They gazed about them with looks of uplifted pride, feeling new trust in the grim, always confident weapons in their hands. And they were men.
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Presently they knew that no firing threatened them. All ways seemed once more opened to them. The dusty blue lines of their friends were disclosed a short distance away. In the distance there were many colossal noises, but in all this part of the field there was a sudden stillness.
They perceived that they were free. The depleted band drew a long breath of relief and gathered itself into a bunch to complete its trip.
In this last length of journey the men began to show strange emotions. They hurried with nervous fear. Some who had been dark and unfaltering in the grimmest moments now could not conceal an anxiety that made them frantic. It was perhaps that they dreaded to be killed in insignificant ways after the times for proper military deaths had passed. Or, perhaps, they thought it would be too ironical to get killed at the portals of safety. With backward looks of perturbation, they hastened.
As they approached their own lines there was some sarcasm exhibited on the part of a gaunt and bronzed regiment that lay resting in the shade of trees. Questions were wafted to them.
"Where th' hell yeh been?"
"What yeh comin' back fer?"
"Why didn't yeh stay there?"
"Was it warm out there, sonny?"
"Goin' home now, boys?"
One shouted in taunting mimicry: "Oh, mother, come quick an' look at th' sojers!"
There was no reply from the bruised and battered regiment, save that one man made broadcast challenges to fist fights and the red-bearded officer walked rather near and glared in great swashbuckler style at a tall captain in the other regiment. But the lieutenant suppressed the man who wished to fist fight, and the tall captain, flushing at the little fanfare of the red-bearded one, was obliged to look intently at some trees.
The youth's tender flesh was deeply stung by these remarks. From under his creased brows he glowered with hate at the mockers. He meditated upon a few revenges. Still, many in the regiment hung their heads in criminal fashion, so that it came to pass that the men trudged with sudden heaviness, as if they bore upon their bended shoulders the coffin of their honor. And the youthful lieutenant, recollecting himself, began to mutter softly in black curses.
They turned when they arrived at their old position to regard the ground over which they had charged.
The youth in this contemplation was smitten with a large astonishment. He discovered that the distances, as compared with the brilliant measurings of his mind, were trivial and ridiculous. The stolid trees, where much had taken place, seemed incredibly near. The time, too, now that he reflected, he saw to have been short. He wondered at the number of emotions and events that had been crowded into such little spaces. Elfin thoughts must have exaggerated and enlarged everything, he said.
It seemed, then, that there was bitter justice in the speeches of the gaunt and bronzed veterans. He veiled a glance of disdain at his fellows who strewed the ground, choking with dust, red from perspiration, misty-eyed, disheveled.
They were gulping at their canteens, fierce to wring every mite of water from them, and they polished at their swollen and watery features with coat sleeves and bunches of grass.
However, to the youth there was a considerable joy in musing upon his performances during the charge. He had had very little time previously in which to appreciate himself, so that there was now much satisfaction in quietly thinking of his actions. He recalled bits of color that in the flurry had stamped themselves unawares upon his engaged senses.
As the regiment lay heaving from its hot exertions the officer who had named them as mule drivers came galloping along the line. He had lost his cap. His tousled hair streamed wildly, and his face was dark with vexation and wrath. His temper was displayed with more clearness by the way in which he managed his horse. He jerked and wrenched savagely at his bridle, stopping the hard-breathing animal with a furious pull near the colonel of the regiment. He immediately exploded in reproaches which came unbidden to the ears of the men. They were suddenly alert, being always curious about black words between officers.
"Oh, thunder, MacChesnay, what an awful bull you made of this thing!" began the officer. He attempted low tones, but his indignation caused certain of the men to learn the sense of his words. "What an awful mess you made! Good Lord, man, you stopped about a hundred feet this side of a very pretty success! If your men had gone a hundred feet farther you would have made a great charge, but as it is--what a lot of mud diggers you've got anyway!"
The men, listening with bated breath, now turned their curious eyes upon the colonel. They had a ragamuffin interest in this affair.
The colonel was seen to straighten his form and put one hand forth in oratorical fashion. He wore an injured air; it was as if a deacon had been accused of stealing. The men were wiggling in an ecstasy of excitement.
But of a sudden the colonel's manner changed from that of a deacon to that of a Frenchman. He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well, general, we went as far as we could," he said calmly.
"As far as you could? Did you, b'Gawd?" snorted the other. "Well, that wasn't very far, was it?" he added, with a glance of cold contempt into the other's eyes. "Not very far, I think. You were intended to make a diversion in favor of Whiterside. How well you succeeded your own ears can now tell you." He wheeled his horse and rode stiffly away.
The colonel, bidden to hear the jarring noises of an engagement in the woods to the left, broke out in vague damnations.
The lieutenant, who had listened with an air of impotent rage to the interview, spoke suddenly in firm and undaunted tones. "I don't care what a man is--whether he is a general or what--if he says th' boys didn't put up a good fight out there he's a damned fool."
"Lieutenant," began the colonel, severely, "this is my own affair, and I'll trouble you--" The lieutenant made an obedient gesture. "All right, colonel, all right," he said. He sat down with an air of being content with himself.
The news that the regiment had been reproached went along the line. For a time the men were bewildered by it. "Good thunder!" they ejaculated, staring at the vanishing form of the general. They conceived it to be a huge mistake.
Presently, however, they began to believe that in truth their efforts had been called light. The youth could see this conviction weigh upon the entire regiment until the men were like cuffed and cursed animals, but withal rebellious.
The friend, with a grievance in his eye, went to the youth. "I wonder what he does want," he said. "He must think we went out there an' played marbles! I never see sech a man!"
The youth developed a tranquil philosophy for these moments of irritation. "Oh, well," he rejoined, "he probably didn't see nothing of it at all and got mad as blazes, and concluded we were a lot of sheep, just because we didn't do what he wanted done. It's a pity old Grandpa Henderson got killed yestirday--he'd have known that we did our best and fought good. It's just our awful luck, that's what."
"I should say so," replied the friend. He seemed to be deeply wounded at an injustice. "I should say we did have awful luck! There's no fun in fightin' fer people when everything yeh do--no matter what--ain't done right. I have a notion t' stay behind next time an' let 'em take their ol' charge an' go t' th' devil with it."
The youth spoke soothingly to his comrade. "Well, we both did good. I'd like to see the fool what'd say we both didn't do as good as we could!"
"Of course we did," declared the friend stoutly. "An' I'd break th' feller's neck if he was as big as a church. But we're all right, anyhow, for I heard one feller say that we two fit th' best in th' reg'ment, an' they had a great argument 'bout it. Another feller, 'a course, he had t' up an' say it was a lie--he seen all what was goin' on an' he never seen us from th' beginnin' t' th' end. An' a lot more struck in an' ses it wasn't a lie--we did fight like thunder, an' they give us quite a send-off. But this is what I can't stand--these everlastin' ol' soldiers, titterin' an' laughin', an' then that general, he's crazy."
The youth exclaimed with sudden exasperation: "He's a lunkhead! He makes me mad. I wish he'd come along next time. We'd show 'im what--" He ceased because several men had come hurrying up. Their faces expressed a bringing of great news.
"O Flem, yeh jest oughta heard!" cried one, eagerly.
"Heard what?" said the youth.
"Yeh jest oughta heard!" repeated the other, and he arranged himself to tell his tidings. The others made an excited circle. "Well, sir, th' colonel met your lieutenant right by us--it was damnedest thing I ever heard--an' he ses: 'Ahem! ahem!' he ses. 'Mr. Hasbrouck!' he ses, 'by th' way, who was that lad what carried th' flag?' he ses. There, Flemin', what d' yeh think 'a that? 'Who was th' lad what carried th' flag?' he ses, an' th' lieutenant, he speaks up right away: 'That's Flemin', an' he's a jimhickey,' he ses, right away. What? I say he did. 'A jim-hickey,' he ses--those 'r his words. He did, too. I say he did. If you kin tell this story better than I kin, go ahead an' tell it. Well, then, keep yer mouth shet. Th' lieutenant, he ses: 'He's a jimhickey,' an' th' colonel, he ses: 'Ahem! ahem! he is, indeed, a very good man t' have, ahem! He kep' th' flag 'way t' th' front. I saw 'im. He's a good un,' ses th' colonel. 'You bet,' ses th' lieutenant, 'he an' a feller named Wilson was at th' head 'a th' charge, an' howlin' like Indians all th' time,' he ses. 'Head 'a th' charge all th' time,' he ses. 'A feller named Wilson,' he ses. There, Wilson, m'boy, put that in a letter an' send it hum t' yer mother, hay? 'A feller named Wilson,' he ses. An' th' colonel, he ses: 'Were they, indeed? Ahem! ahem! My sakes!' he ses. 'At th' head 'a th' reg'ment?' he ses. 'They were,' ses th' lieutenant. 'My sakes!' ses th' colonel. He ses: 'Well, well, well,' he ses, 'those two babies?' 'They were,' ses th' lieutenant. 'Well, well,' ses th' colonel, 'they deserve t' be major generals,' he ses. 'They deserve t' be major-generals.'"
The youth and his friend had said: "Huh!" "Yer lyin', Thompson." "Oh, go t' blazes!" "He never sed it." "Oh, what a lie!" "Huh!" But despite these youthful scoffings and embarrassments, they knew that their faces were deeply flushing from thrills of pleasure. They exchanged a secret glance of joy and congratulation.
They speedily forgot many things. The past held no pictures of error and disappointment. They were very happy, and their hearts swelled with grateful affection for the colonel and the youthful lieutenant.
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When the woods again began to pour forth the dark-hued masses of the enemy the youth felt serene self-confidence. He smiled briefly when he saw men dodge and duck at the long screechings of shells that were thrown in giant handfuls over them. He stood, erect and tranquil, watching the attack begin against a part of the line that made a blue curve along the side of an adjacent hill. His vision being unmolested by smoke from the rifles of his companions, he had opportunities to see parts of the hard fight. It was a relief to perceive at last from whence came some of these noises which had been roared into his ears.
Off a short way he saw two regiments fighting a little separate battle with two other regiments. It was in a cleared space, wearing a set-apart look. They were blazing as if upon a wager, giving and taking tremendous blows. The firings were incredibly fierce and rapid. These intent regiments apparently were oblivious of all larger purposes of war, and were slugging each other as if at a matched game.
In another direction he saw a magnificent brigade going with the evident intention of driving the enemy from a wood. They passed in out of sight and presently there was a most awe-inspiring racket in the wood. The noise was unspeakable. Having stirred this prodigious uproar, and, apparently, finding it too prodigious, the brigade, after a little time, came marching airily out again with its fine formation in nowise disturbed. There were no traces of speed in its movements. The brigade was jaunty and seemed to point a proud thumb at the yelling wood.
On a slope to the left there was a long row of guns, gruff and maddened, denouncing the enemy, who, down through the woods, were forming for another attack in the pitiless monotony of conflicts. The round red discharges from the guns made a crimson flare and a high, thick smoke. Occasional glimpses could be caught of groups of the toiling artillerymen. In the rear of this row of guns stood a house, calm and white, amid bursting shells. A congregation of horses, tied to a long railing, were tugging frenziedly at their bridles. Men were running hither and thither.
The detached battle between the four regiments lasted for some time. There chanced to be no interference, and they settled their dispute by themselves. They struck savagely and powerfully at each other for a period of minutes, and then the lighter-hued regiments faltered and drew back, leaving the dark-blue lines shouting. The youth could see the two flags shaking with laughter amid the smoke remnants.
Presently there was a stillness, pregnant with meaning. The blue lines shifted and changed a trifle and stared expectantly at the silent woods and fields before them. The hush was solemn and churchlike, save for a distant battery that, evidently unable to remain quiet, sent a faint rolling thunder over the ground. It irritated, like the noises of unimpressed boys. The men imagined that it would prevent their perched ears from hearing the first words of the new battle.
Of a sudden the guns on the slope roared out a message of warning. A spluttering sound had begun in the woods. It swelled with amazing speed to a profound clamor that involved the earth in noises. The splitting crashes swept along the lines until an interminable roar was developed. To those in the midst of it it became a din fitted to the universe. It was the whirring and thumping of gigantic machinery, complications among the smaller stars. The youth's ears were filled up. They were incapable of hearing more.
On an incline over which a road wound he saw wild and desperate rushes of men perpetually backward and forward in riotous surges. These parts of the opposing armies were two long waves that pitched upon each other madly at dictated points. To and fro they swelled. Sometimes, one side by its yells and cheers would proclaim decisive blows, but a moment later the other side would be all yells and cheers. Once the youth saw a spray of light forms go in houndlike leaps toward the waving blue lines. There was much howling, and presently it went away with a vast mouthful of prisoners. Again, he saw a blue wave dash with such thunderous force against a gray obstruction that it seemed to clear the earth of it and leave nothing but trampled sod. And always in their swift and deadly rushes to and fro the men screamed and yelled like maniacs.
Particular pieces of fence or secure positions behind collections of trees were wrangled over, as gold thrones or pearl bedsteads. There were desperate lunges at these chosen spots seemingly every instant, and most of them were bandied like light toys between the contending forces. The youth could not tell from the battle flags flying like crimson foam in many directions which color of cloth was winning.
His emaciated regiment bustled forth with undiminished fierceness when its time came. When assaulted again by bullets, the men burst out in a barbaric cry of rage and pain. They bent their heads in aims of intent hatred behind the projected hammers of their guns. Their ramrods clanged loud with fury as their eager arms pounded the cartridges into the rifle barrels. The front of the regiment was a smoke-wall penetrated by the flashing points of yellow and red.
Wallowing in the fight, they were in an astonishingly short time resmudged. They surpassed in stain and dirt all their previous appearances. Moving to and fro with strained exertion, jabbering the while, they were, with their swaying bodies, black faces, and glowing eyes, like strange and ugly friends jigging heavily in the smoke.
The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a hidden receptacle of his mind new and portentous oaths suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lashlike over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in nowise impaired his resources.
The youth, still the bearer of the colors, did not feel his idleness. He was deeply absorbed as a spectator. The crash and swing of the great drama made him lean forward, intent-eyed, his face working in small contortions. Sometimes he prattled, words coming unconsciously from him in grotesque exclamations. He did not know that he breathed; that the flag hung silently over him, so absorbed was he.
A formidable line of the enemy came within dangerous range. They could be seen plainly--tall, gaunt men with excited faces running with long strides toward a wandering fence.
At sight of this danger the men suddenly ceased their cursing monotone. There was an instant of strained silence before they threw up their rifles and fired a plumping volley at the foes. There had been no order given; the men, upon recognizing the menace, had immediately let drive their flock of bullets without waiting for word of command.
But the enemy were quick to gain the protection of the wandering line of fence. They slid down behind it with remarkable celerity, and from this position they began briskly to slice up the blue men.
These latter braced their energies for a great struggle. Often, white clinched teeth shone from the dusky faces. Many heads surged to and fro, floating upon a pale sea of smoke. Those behind the fence frequently shouted and yelped in taunts and gibelike cries, but the regiment maintained a stressed silence. Perhaps, at this new assault the men recalled the fact that they had been named mud diggers, and it made their situation thrice bitter. They were breathlessly intent upon keeping the ground and thrusting away the rejoicing body of the enemy. They fought swiftly and with a despairing savageness denoted in their expressions.
The youth had resolved not to budge whatever should happen. Some arrows of scorn that had buried themselves in his heart had generated strange and unspeakable hatred. It was clear to him that his final and absolute revenge was to be achieved by his dead body lying, torn and gluttering, upon the field. This was to be a poignant retaliation upon the officer who had said "mule drivers," and later "mud diggers," for in all the wild graspings of his mind for a unit responsible for his sufferings and commotions he always seized upon the man who had dubbed him wrongly. And it was his idea, vaguely formulated, that his corpse would be for those eyes a great and salt reproach.
The regiment bled extravagantly. Grunting bundles of blue began to drop. The orderly sergeant of the youth's company was shot through the cheeks. Its supports being injured, his jaw hung afar down, disclosing in the wide cavern of his mouth a pulsing mass of blood and teeth. And with it all he made attempts to cry out. In his endeavor there was a dreadful earnestness, as if he conceived that one great shriek would make him well.
The youth saw him presently go rearward. His strength seemed in nowise impaired. He ran swiftly, casting wild glances for succor.
Others fell down about the feet of their companions. Some of the wounded crawled out and away, but many lay still, their bodies twisted into impossible shapes.
The youth looked once for his friend. He saw a vehement young man, powder-smeared and frowzled, whom he knew to be him. The lieutenant, also, was unscathed in his position at the rear. He had continued to curse, but it was now with the air of a man who was using his last box of oaths.
For the fire of the regiment had begun to wane and drip. The robust voice, that had come strangely from the thin ranks, was growing rapidly weak.
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The colonel came running along back of the line. There were other officers following him. "We must charge'm!" they shouted. "We must charge'm!" they cried with resentful voices, as if anticipating a rebellion against this plan by the men.
The youth, upon hearing the shouts, began to study the distance between him and the enemy. He made vague calculations. He saw that to be firm soldiers they must go forward. It would be death to stay in the present place, and with all the circumstances to go backward would exalt too many others. Their hope was to push the galling foes away from the fence.
He expected that his companions, weary and stiffened, would have to be driven to this assault, but as he turned toward them he perceived with a certain surprise that they were giving quick and unqualified expressions of assent. There was an ominous, clanging overture to the charge when the shafts of the bayonets rattled upon the rifle barrels. At the yelled words of command the soldiers sprang forward in eager leaps. There was new and unexpected force in the movement of the regiment. A knowledge of its faded and jaded condition made the charge appear like a paroxysm, a display of the strength that comes before a final feebleness. The men scampered in insane fever of haste, racing as if to achieve a sudden success before an exhilarating fluid should leave them. It was a blind and despairing rush by the collection of men in dusty and tattered blue, over a green sward and under a sapphire sky, toward a fence, dimly outlined in smoke, from behind which spluttered the fierce rifles of enemies.
The youth kept the bright colors to the front. He was waving his free arm in furious circles, the while shrieking mad calls and appeals, urging on those that did not need to be urged, for it seemed that the mob of blue men hurling themselves on the dangerous group of rifles were again grown suddenly wild with an enthusiasm of unselfishness. From the many firings starting toward them, it looked as if they would merely succeed in making a great sprinkling of corpses on the grass between their former position and the fence. But they were in a state of frenzy, perhaps because of forgotten vanities, and it made an exhibition of sublime recklessness. There was no obvious questioning, nor figurings, nor diagrams. There was, apparently, no considered loopholes. It appeared that the swift wings of their desires would have shattered against the iron gates of the impossible.
He himself felt the daring spirit of a savage religion mad. He was capable of profound sacrifices, a tremendous death. He had no time for dissections, but he knew that he thought of the bullets only as things that could prevent him from reaching the place of his endeavor. There were subtle flashings of joy within him that thus should be his mind.
He strained all his strength. His eyesight was shaken and dazzled by the tension of thought and muscle. He did not see anything excepting the mist of smoke gashed by the little knives of fire, but he knew that in it lay the aged fence of a vanished farmer protecting the snuggled bodies of the gray men.
As he ran a thought of the shock of contact gleamed in his mind. He expected a great concussion when the two bodies of troops crashed together. This became a part of his wild battle madness. He could feel the onward swing of the regiment about him and he conceived of a thunderous, crushing blow that would prostrate the resistance and spread consternation and amazement for miles. The flying regiment was going to have a catapultian effect. This dream made him run faster among his comrades, who were giving vent to hoarse and frantic cheers.
But presently he could see that many of the men in gray did not intend to abide the blow. The smoke, rolling, disclosed men who ran, their faces still turned. These grew to a crowd, who retired stubbornly. Individuals wheeled frequently to send a bullet at the blue wave.
But at one part of the line there was a grim and obdurate group that made no movement. They were settled firmly down behind posts and rails. A flag, ruffled and fierce, waved over them and their rifles dinned fiercely.
The blue whirl of men got very near, until it seemed that in truth there would be a close and frightful scuffle. There was an expressed disdain in the opposition of the little group, that changed the meaning of the cheers of the men in blue. They became yells of wrath, directed, personal. The cries of the two parties were now in sound an interchange of scathing insults.
They in blue showed their teeth; their eyes shone all white. They launched themselves as at the throats of those who stood resisting. The space between dwindled to an insignificant distance.
The youth had centered the gaze of his soul upon that other flag. Its possession would be high pride. It would express bloody minglings, near blows. He had a gigantic hatred for those who made great difficulties and complications. They caused it to be as a craved treasure of mythology, hung amid tasks and contrivances of danger.
He plunged like a mad horse at it. He was resolved it should not escape if wild blows and darings of blows could seize it. His own emblem, quivering and aflare, was winging toward the other. It seemed there would shortly be an encounter of strange beaks and claws, as of eagles.
The swirling body of blue men came to a sudden halt at close and disastrous range and roared a swift volley. The group in gray was split and broken by this fire, but its riddled body still fought. The men in blue yelled again and rushed in upon it.
The youth, in his leapings, saw, as through a mist, a picture of four or five men stretched upon the ground or writhing upon their knees with bowed heads as if they had been stricken by bolts from the sky. Tottering among them was the rival color bearer, whom the youth saw had been bitten vitally by the bullets of the last formidable volley. He perceived this man fighting a last struggle, the struggle of one whose legs are grasped by demons. It was a ghastly battle. Over his face was the bleach of death, but set upon it was the dark and hard lines of desperate purpose. With this terrible grin of resolution he hugged his precious flag to him and was stumbling and staggering in his design to go the way that led to safety for it.
But his wounds always made it seem that his feet were retarded, held, and he fought a grim fight, as with invisible ghouls fastened greedily upon his limbs. Those in advance of the scampering blue men, howling cheers, leaped at the fence. The despair of the lost was in his eyes as he glanced back at them.
The youth's friend went over the obstruction in a tumbling heap and sprang at the flag as a panther at prey. He pulled at it and, wrenching it free, swung up its red brilliancy with a mad cry of exultation even as the color bearer, gasping, lurched over in a final throe and, stiffening convulsively, turned his dead face to the ground. There was much blood upon the grass blades.
At the place of success there began more wild clamorings of cheers. The men gesticulated and bellowed in an ecstasy. When they spoke it was as if they considered their listener to be a mile away. What hats and caps were left to them they often slung high in the air.
At one part of the line four men had been swooped upon, and they now sat as prisoners. Some blue men were about them in an eager and curious circle. The soldiers had trapped strange birds, and there was an examination. A flurry of fast questions was in the air.
One of the prisoners was nursing a superficial wound in the foot. He cuddled it, baby-wise, but he looked up from it often to curse with an astonishing utter abandon straight at the noses of his captors. He consigned them to red regions; he called upon the pestilential wrath of strange gods. And with it all he was singularly free from recognition of the finer points of the conduct of prisoners of war. It was as if a clumsy clod had trod upon his toe and he conceived it to be his privilege, his duty, to use deep, resentful oaths.
Another, who was a boy in years, took his plight with great calmness and apparent good nature. He conversed with the men in blue, studying their faces with his bright and keen eyes. They spoke of battles and conditions. There was an acute interest in all their faces during this exchange of view points. It seemed a great satisfaction to hear voices from where all had been darkness and speculation.
The third captive sat with a morose countenance. He preserved a stoical and cold attitude. To all advances he made one reply without variation, "Ah, go t' hell!"
The last of the four was always silent and, for the most part, kept his face turned in unmolested directions. From the views the youth received he seemed to be in a state of absolute dejection. Shame was upon him, and with it profound regret that he was, perhaps, no more to be counted in the ranks of his fellows. The youth could detect no expression that would allow him to believe that the other was giving a thought to his narrowed future, the pictured dungeons, perhaps, and starvations and brutalities, liable to the imagination. All to be seen was shame for captivity and regret for the right to antagonize.
After the men had celebrated sufficiently they settled down behind the old rail fence, on the opposite side to the one from which their foes had been driven. A few shot perfunctorily at distant marks.
There was some long grass. The youth nestled in it and rested, making a convenient rail support the flag. His friend, jubilant and glorified, holding his treasure with vanity, came to him there. They sat side by side and congratulated each other.
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{
"id": "463"
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24
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None
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The roarings that had stretched in a long line of sound across the face of the forest began to grow intermittent and weaker. The stentorian speeches of the artillery continued in some distant encounter, but the crashes of the musketry had almost ceased. The youth and his friend of a sudden looked up, feeling a deadened form of distress at the waning of these noises, which had become a part of life. They could see changes going on among the troops. There were marchings this way and that way. A battery wheeled leisurely. On the crest of a small hill was the thick gleam of many departing muskets.
The youth arose. "Well, what now, I wonder?" he said. By his tone he seemed to be preparing to resent some new monstrosity in the way of dins and smashes. He shaded his eyes with his grimy hand and gazed over the field.
His friend also arose and stared. "I bet we're goin' t' git along out of this an' back over th' river," said he.
"Well, I swan!" said the youth.
They waited, watching. Within a little while the regiment received orders to retrace its way. The men got up grunting from the grass, regretting the soft repose. They jerked their stiffened legs, and stretched their arms over their heads. One man swore as he rubbed his eyes. They all groaned "O Lord!" They had as many objections to this change as they would have had to a proposal for a new battle.
They trampled slowly back over the field across which they had run in a mad scamper.
The regiment marched until it had joined its fellows. The reformed brigade, in column, aimed through a wood at the road. Directly they were in a mass of dust-covered troops, and were trudging along in a way parallel to the enemy's lines as these had been defined by the previous turmoil.
They passed within view of a stolid white house, and saw in front of it groups of their comrades lying in wait behind a neat breastwork. A row of guns were booming at a distant enemy. Shells thrown in reply were raising clouds of dust and splinters. Horsemen dashed along the line of intrenchments.
At this point of its march the division curved away from the field and went winding off in the direction of the river. When the significance of this movement had impressed itself upon the youth he turned his head and looked over his shoulder toward the trampled and _débris_-strewed ground. He breathed a breath of new satisfaction. He finally nudged his friend. "Well, it's all over," he said to him.
His friend gazed backward. "B'Gawd, it is," he assented. They mused.
For a time the youth was obliged to reflect in a puzzled and uncertain way. His mind was undergoing a subtle change. It took moments for it to cast off its battleful ways and resume its accustomed course of thought. Gradually his brain emerged from the clogged clouds, and at last he was enabled to more closely comprehend himself and circumstance.
He understood then that the existence of shot and counter-shot was in the past. He had dwelt in a land of strange, squalling upheavals and had come forth. He had been where there was red of blood and black of passion, and he was escaped. His first thoughts were given to rejoicings at this fact.
Later he began to study his deeds, his failures, and his achievements. Thus, fresh from scenes where many of his usual machines of reflection had been idle, from where he had proceeded sheeplike, he struggled to marshal all his acts.
At last they marched before him clearly. From this present view point he was enabled to look upon them in spectator fashion and to criticise them with some correctness, for his new condition had already defeated certain sympathies.
Regarding his procession of memory he felt gleeful and unregretting, for in it his public deeds were paraded in great and shining prominence. Those performances which had been witnessed by his fellows marched now in wide purple and gold, having various deflections. They went gayly with music. It was pleasure to watch these things. He spent delightful minutes viewing the gilded images of memory.
He saw that he was good. He recalled with a thrill of joy the respectful comments of his fellows upon his conduct.
Nevertheless, the ghost of his flight from the first engagement appeared to him and danced. There were small shoutings in his brain about these matters. For a moment he blushed, and the light of his soul flickered with shame.
A specter of reproach came to him. There loomed the dogging memory of the tattered soldier--he who, gored by bullets and faint for blood, had fretted concerning an imagined wound in another; he who had loaned his last of strength and intellect for the tall soldier; he who, blind with weariness and pain, had been deserted in the field.
For an instant a wretched chill of sweat was upon him at the thought that he might be detected in the thing. As he stood persistently before his vision, he gave vent to a cry of sharp irritation and agony.
His friend turned. "What's the matter, Henry?" he demanded. The youth's reply was an outburst of crimson oaths.
As he marched along the little branch-hung roadway among his prattling companions this vision of cruelty brooded over him. It clung near him always and darkened his view of these deeds in purple and gold. Whichever way his thoughts turned they were followed by the somber phantom of the desertion in the fields. He looked stealthily at his companions, feeling sure that they must discern in his face evidences of this pursuit. But they were plodding in ragged array, discussing with quick tongues the accomplishments of the late battle.
"Oh, if a man should come up an' ask me, I'd say we got a dum good lickin'."
"Lickin'--in yer eye! We ain't licked, sonny. We're goin' down here aways, swing aroun', an' come in behint 'em."
"Oh, hush, with your comin' in behint 'em. I've seen all 'a that I wanta. Don't tell me about comin' in behint--" "Bill Smithers, he ses he'd rather been in ten hundred battles than been in that heluva hospital. He ses they got shootin' in th' night-time, an' shells dropped plum among 'em in th' hospital. He ses sech hollerin' he never see."
"Hasbrouck? He's th' best off'cer in this here reg'ment. He's a whale."
"Didn't I tell yeh we'd come aroun' in behint 'em? Didn't I tell yeh so? We--" "Oh, shet yeh mouth!"
For a time this pursuing recollection of the tattered man took all elation from the youth's veins. He saw his vivid error, and he was afraid that it would stand before him all his life. He took no share in the chatter of his comrades, nor did he look at them or know them, save when he felt sudden suspicion that they were seeing his thoughts and scrutinizing each detail of the scene with the tattered soldier.
Yet gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance. And at last his eyes seemed to open to some new ways. He found that he could look back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier gospels and see them truly. He was gleeful when he discovered that he now despised them.
With this conviction came a store of assurance. He felt a quiet manhood, nonassertive but of sturdy and strong blood. He knew that he would no more quail before his guides wherever they should point. He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He was a man.
So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of clover tranquilly, and it was as if hot plowshares were not. Scars faded as flowers.
It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks--an existence of soft and eternal peace.
Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.
[Transcriber's Note: I have tried to retain the inconsistent renderings of contractions as joined or separate, e.g., "we 'll" or "we'll."
I have made the following changes to the text: PAGE PARA. LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO 18 3 3 estabiish establish 40 3 2 skirmish skirmish- 78 4 4 a air an air 130 2 recognzied recognized 130 4 12 could a' could 'a 139 2 4 not began not begun 193 2 16 illusions to allusions to]
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{
"id": "463"
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1
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SAULT ST. PIERRE.
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I write this by desire of my brothers and sisters, that if any reports of our strange family history should come down to after generations the thing may be properly understood.
The old times at Trevorsham seem to me so remote, that I can hardly believe that we are the same who were so happy then. Nay, Jaquetta laughs, and declares that it is not possible to be happier than we have been since, and Fulk would have me remember that all was not always smooth even in those days.
Perhaps not--for him, at least, dear fellow, in those latter times; but when I think of the old home, the worst troubles that rise before me are those of the back-board and the stocks, French in the school-room, and Miss Simmonds' "Lady Ursula, think of your position!"
And as to Jaquetta, she was born under a more benignant star. Nobody could have put a back-board on her any more than on a kitten.
Our mother had died (oh! how happily for herself!) when Jaquetta was a baby, and Miss Simmonds most carefully ruled not only over us, but over Adela Brainerd, my father's ward, who was brought up with us because she had no other relation in the world.
Besides, my father wished her to marry one of my brothers. It would have done very well for either Torwood or Bertram, but unluckily, as it seemed, neither of them could take to the notion. She was a dear little thing, to be sure, and we were all very fond of her; but, as Bertram said, it would have been like marrying Jaquetta, and Torwood had other views, to which my father would not then listen.
Then Bertram's regiment was ordered to Canada, and that was the real cause of it all, though we did not know it till long after.
Bertram was starting out on a sporting expedition with a Canadian gentleman, when about ten miles from Montreal they halted at a farm with a good well-built house, named Sault St. Pierre, all looking prosperous and comfortable, and a young farmer, American in his ways--free-spoken, familiar, and blunt--but very kindly and friendly, was at work there with some French-Canadian labourers.
Bertram's friend knew him and often halted there on hunting expeditions, so they went into the house--very nicely furnished, a pretty parlour with muslin curtains, a piano, and everything pleasant; and Joel Lea called his wife, a handsome, fair young woman. Bertram says from the first she put him in mind of some one, and he was trying to make out who it could be. Then came the wife's mother, a neat little delicate, bent woman, with dark eyes, that looked, Bertram said, as if they had had some great fright and never recovered it. They called her Mrs. Dayman.
She was silent at first, and only helped her daughter and the maid to get the dinner, and an excellent dinner it was; but she kept on looking at Bertram, and she quite started when she heard him called Mr. Trevor. When they were just rising up, and going to take leave, she came up to him in a frightened agitated manner, as if she could not help it, and said-- "Sir, you are so like a gentleman I once knew. Was any relation of yours ever in Canada?"
"My father was in Canada," answered Bertram.
"Oh no," she said then, very much affected, "the Captain Trevor I knew was killed in the Lake Campaign in 1814. It must be a mistake, yet you put me in mind of him so strangely."
Then Bertram protested that she must mean my father, for that he had been a captain in the --th, and had been stationed at York (as Toronto was then called), but was badly wounded in repulsing the American attack on the Lakes in 1814.
"Not dead?" she asked, with her cheeks getting pale, and a sort of excitement about her, that made Bertram wonder, at the moment, if there could have been any old attachment between them, and he explained how my father was shipped off from England between life and death; and how, when he recovered, he found his uncle dying, and the title and property coming to him.
"And he married!" she said, with a bewildered look; and Bertram told her that he had married Lady Mary Lupton--as his uncle and father had wished--and how we four were their children. I can fancy how kindly and tenderly Bertram would speak when he saw that she was anxious and pained; and she took hold of his hand and held him, and when he said something of mentioning that he had seen her, she cried out with a sort of terror, "Oh no, no, Mr. Trevor, I beg you will not. Let him think me dead, as I thought him." And then she drew down Bertram's tall head to her, and fairly kissed his forehead, adding, "I could not help it, sir; an old woman's kiss will do you no harm!"
Then he went away. He never did tell us of the meeting till long after. He was not a great letter writer, and, besides, he thought my father might not wish to have the flirtations of his youth brought up against him. So we little knew!
But it seems that the daughter and son-in-law were just as much amazed as Bertram, and when he was gone, and the poor old lady sank into her chair and burst out crying, and as they came and asked who or what this was, she sobbed out, "Your brother Hester! Oh! so like him--my husband!" or something to that effect, as unawares. She wanted to take it back again, but of course Hester would not let her, and made her tell the whole.
It seems that her name was Faith Le Blanc; she was half English, half French-Canadian, and lived in a village in a very unsettled part, where Captain Trevor used to come to hunt, and where he made love to her, and ended by marrying her--with the knowledge of her family and his brother officers, but not of his family--just before he was ordered to the Lake frontier. The war had stirred up the Indians to acts of violence they had not committed for many years, and a tribe of them came down on the village, plundering, burning, killing, and torturing those whom they had known in friendly intercourse.
Faith Le Blanc had once given some milk to a papoose upon its mother's back, and perhaps for this reason she was spared, but everyone belonging to her was, she believed, destroyed, and she was carried away by the tribe, who wanted to make her one of themselves; and she knew that if she offended them, such horrors as she had seen practised on others would come on her.
However, they had gone to another resort of theirs, where there was a young hunter who often visited them, and was on friendly terms. When he found that there was a white woman living as a captive among them, he spared no effort to rescue her. Both he and she were often in exceeding danger; but he contrived her escape at last, and brought her through the woods to a place of safety, and there her child was born.
It was over the American frontier, and it was long before she could write to her husband. She never knew what became of her letter, but the hunter friend, Piers Dayman, showed her an American paper which mentioned Captain Trevor among the officers killed in their attack. Dayman was devoted to her, and insisted on marrying her, and bringing up her daughter as his own. I fancy she was a woman of gentle passive temper, and had been crushed and terrified by all she had gone through, so as to have little instinct left but that of clinging to the protector who had taken her up when she had lost everything else; and she married him. Nor did Hester guess till that very day that Piers Dayman was not her father!
There were other children, sons who have given themselves to hunting and trapping in the Hudson's Bay Company's territory; but Hester remained the only daughter, and they educated her well, sending her to a convent at Montreal, where she learnt a good many accomplishments. They were not Roman Catholics; but it was the only way of getting an education.
Dayman must have been a warm-hearted, tenderly affectionate person. Hester loved him very much. But he had lived a wild sportsman's life, and never was happy at rest. They changed home often; and at last he was snowed up and frozen to death, with one of his boys, on a bear hunting expedition.
Not very long after, Hester married this sturdy American, Joel Lea, who had bought some land on the Canadian side of the border, and her mother came home to live with them. They had been married four or five years, but none of their children had lived.
So it was when the discovery came upon poor old Mrs. Dayman (I do not know what else to call her), that Fulk Torwood Trevor, the husband of her youth, was not dead, but was Earl of Trevorsham; married, and the father of four children in England.
Poor old thing! She would have buried her secret to the last, as much in pity and love to him as in shame and grief for herself; and consideration, too, for the sons, for whom the discovery was only less bad than for us, as they had less to lose. Hester herself hardly fully understood what it all involved, and it only gradually grew on her.
That winter her mother fell ill, and Mr. Lea felt it right that the small property she had had for her life should be properly secured to her sons, according to the division their father had intended. So a lawyer was brought from Montreal and her will was made. Thus another person knew about it, and he was much struck, and explained to Hester that she was really a lady of rank, and probably the only child of her father who had any legal claim to his estates. Lea, with a good deal of the old American Republican temper, would not be stirred up. He despised lords and ladies, and would none of it; but the lawyer held that it would be doing wrong not to preserve the record. Hester had grown excited, and seconded him; and one day, when Lea was out, the lawyer brought a magistrate to take Mrs. Dayman's affidavit as to all her past history--marriage witnesses and all. She was a good deal overcome and agitated, and quite implored Hester never to use the knowledge against her father; but she must have been always a passive, docile being, and they made her tell all that was wanted, and sign her deposition, as she had signed her will, as Faith Trevor, commonly known as Faith Dayman.
She did not live many days after. It was on the 3rd of February, 1836, that she died; and in the course of the summer Hester had a son, who throve as none of her babies had done.
Then she lay and brooded over him and the rights she fancied he was deprived of, till she worked herself up to a strong and fixed purpose, and insisted upon making all known to her father. Now that her mother was gone she persuaded herself that he had been a cruel, faithless tyrant, who had wilfully deserted his young wife.
Joel Lea would not listen to her. Why should she wish to make his son a good-for-nothing English lord? That was his view. Nothing but misery, distress, and temptation could come of not letting things alone. He held to that, and there were no means forthcoming either of coming to England to present herself. The family were well to do, but had no ready money to lay out on a passage across the Atlantic. Nor would Hester wait. She had persuaded herself that a letter would be suppressed, even if she had known how to address it; but to claim her son's rights, and make an earl of him, had become her fixed idea, and she began laying aside every farthing in her power.
In this she was encouraged, not by the lawyer who had made the will--and who, considering that poor Faith's witnesses had been destroyed, and her certificate and her wedding ring taken from her by the Indians, thought that the marriage could not be substantiated--but by a clever young clerk, who had managed to find out the state of things; a man named Perrault, who used to come to the farm, always when Lea was out, and talk her into a further state of excitement about her child's expectations, and the injuries she was suffering. It was her one idea. She says she really believes she should have gone mad if the saving had not occupied her; and a very dreary life poor Joel must have had whilst she was scraping together the passage-money. He still steadily and sternly disapproved the whole, and when at two years' end she had put together enough to bring her and her boy home, and maintain them there for a few weeks, he still refused to go with her. The last thing he said was, "Remember, Hester, what was the price of all the kingdoms of the world! Thou wilt have it, then! Would that I could say, my blessing go with thee." And he took his child, and held him long in his arms, and never spoke one word over him but, "My poor boy!"
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{
"id": "4659"
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2
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TREVORSHAM
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I suppose I had better tell what we had been doing all this time. Adela and I had come out, and had a season or two in London, and my father had enjoyed our pleasure in it, and paid a good deal of court to our pretty Adela, because there was no driving Torwood into anything warmer than easy brotherly companionship.
In fact, Torwood had never cared for anyone but little Emily Deerhurst. Once he had come to her rescue, when she was only nine or ten years old, and her schoolboy cousins were teasing her, and at every Twelfth-day party since she and he had come together as by right. There was something irresistible in her great soft plaintive brown eyes, though she was scarcely pretty otherwise, and we used to call her the White Doe of Rylstone. Torwood was six or seven years older, and no one supposed that he seriously cared for her, till she was sixteen. Then, when my father spoke point blank to him about Adela, he was driven into owning what he wished.
My father thought it utter absurdity. The connection was not pleasant to him; Mrs. Deerhurst was always looked on as a designing widow, who managed to marry off her daughters cleverly, and he could believe no good of Emily.
Now Adela always had more power with papa than any of us. She had a coaxing way, which his stately old-school courtesy never could resist. She used when we were children to beg for holidays, and get treats for us; and even now, many a request which we should never have dared to utter, she could, with her droll arch way, make him think the most sensible thing in the world.
What odd things people can do who have lived together like brothers and sisters! I can hardly help laughing when I think of Torwood coming disconsolately up from the library, and replying, in answer to our vigorous demands, that his lordship had some besotted notion past all reason.
Then we pressed him harder--Adela with indignation, and I with sympathy--till we forced out of him that he had been forbidden ever to think or speak again of Emily, and all his faith in her laughed to scorn, as delusions induced by Mrs. Deerhurst.
"I'm sure I hope you'll take Ormerod, Adela," I remember he ended; "then at least you would be out of the way."
For Sir John Ormerod's courtship was an evident fact to all the family, as, indeed, Adela was heiress enough to be a good deal troubled with suitors, though she had hitherto managed to make them all keep their distance.
Adela laughed at him for his kind wishes, but I could see she meant to plead for him. She had her chance, for Sir John Ormerod brought matters to a crisis at the next ball; and though she thought, as she said, "she had settled him," he followed it up with her guardian, and Adela was invited to a conference in the library.
It happened that as she ran upstairs, all in a glow, she came on Torwood at the landing. She couldn't help saying in her odd half-laughing, half-crying voice-- "It will come right, Torwood; I've made terms, I'm out of your way."
"Not Ormerod!" he exclaimed.
"Oh! no, no!" I can hear her dash of scorn now, for I was just behind my brother, but she went on out of breath-- "You may go on seeing her, provided you don't say a word--till--till she's been out two years."
"Adela! you queen of girls, how have you done it?" he began, but she thrust him aside and flew up into my arms; and when I had her in her own room it came out, I hardly know how, that she had so shown that she cared for no one she had ever seen except my father, that they found they _did_ love each other; and--and--in short they were going to be married.
Really it seemed much less wonderful then than it does in thinking of it afterwards. My father was much handsomer than any young man I ever saw, with a hawk nose, a clear rosy skin, pure pink and white like a boy's, curly little rings of white hair, blue eyes clear and bright as the sky, a tall upright soldierly figure, and a magnificent stately bearing, courteous and grand to all, but sweetly tender to a very few, and to her above all. It always had been so ever since he had brought her home an orphan of six years old from her mother's death-bed at Nice. And he was youthful, could ride or hunt all day without so much fatigue as either of his sons, and was as fresh and eager in all his ways as a lad.
And she, our pretty darling! I don't think Torwood and I in the least felt the incongruity of her becoming our step-mother, only that papa was making her more entirely his own.
I am glad we did not mar the sunshine. It did not last long. She came home thoroughly unwell from their journey to Switzerland, and never got better. By the time the spring had come round again, she was lying in the vault at Trevorsham, and we were trying to keep poor little Alured alive and help my poor father to bear it.
He was stricken to the very heart, and never was the same man again. His age seemed to come upon him all at once; and whereas at sixty-five he had been like a man ten years younger, he suddenly became like one ten years older; and though he never was actually ill, he failed from month to month.
He could not bear the sight or sound of the poor baby. Poor Adela had scarcely lived to hear it was a boy, and all she had said about it was, "Ursula, you'll be his mother." And, oh! I have tried. If love would do it, I think he could not be more even to dear Adela!
What a frail little life it was! What nights and days we had with him; doctors saying that skill could not do it, but care might; and nurses knowing how to be more effective than I could be; yet while I durst not touch him I could not bear not to see him. And I do think I was the first person he began to know.
Meantime, there was a great difference in Torwood. He had been very much of a big boy hitherto. No one but myself could have guessed that he cared for much besides a lazy kind of enjoyment of all the best and nicest things in this world. He did what he was told, but in an uninterested sort of way, just as if politics and county business, and work at the estate, were just as much tasks thrust on him as Virgil and Homer had been; and put his spirit into sporting, &c.
But when he was allowed to think hopefully of Emily, it seemed to make a man of him, and he took up all that he had to do, as if it really concerned him, and was not only a burden laid on him by his father.
And, as my father became less able to exert himself, Torwood came forward more, and was something substantial to lean upon. Dear fellow! I am sure he did well earn the consent he gained at last, though not with much satisfaction, from papa.
Emily had grown into great sweetness and grace, and Mrs. Deerhurst had gone on very well. Of course, people were unkind enough to say, it was only because she had such prey in view as Lord Torwood; but, whatever withheld her, it is certain that Emily only had the most suitable and reasonable pleasures for a young lady, and was altogether as nice, and gentle, and sensible, as could be desired. There never was a bit of acting in her, she was only allowed to grow in what seemed natural to her. She was just one of the nice simple girls of that day, doing her quiet bit of solid reading, and her practice, and her neat little smooth pencil drawing from a print, as a kind of duty to her accomplishments every day; and filling books with neat up-and-down MS. copies of all the poetry that pleased her. Dainty in all her ways, timid, submissive, and as it seemed to me, colourless.
But Fulk taught her Wordsworth, who was his great passion then, and found her a perfect listener to all his Tory hopes, fears, and usages.
Papa could not help liking her when she came to stay with us, after they were engaged, at the end of two years. He allowed that, away from her mother and all her belongings, she would do very well; and she was so pretty and sweet in her respectful fear of him--I might almost say awe--that his graceful, chivalrous courtesy woke up again; and he was beginning absolutely to enjoy her, as she became a little more confident and understood him better.
How well I remember that last evening! I was happier than I had been for weeks about little Alured: the convulsions had quite gone off, the teeth that had caused them were through, and he had been laughing and playing on my lap quite brightly--cooing to his mother's miniature in my locket. He was such an intelligent little fellow for eighteen months! I came down so glad, and it was so pleasant to see Emily, in her white dress, leaning over my father while he had gone so happily into his old delight of showing his prints and engravings; and Torwood, standing by the fire, watching them with the look of a conqueror, and Jaquetta--like the absurd child she loved to be--teasing them with ridiculous questions about their housekeeping.
They were to have Spinney Lawn bought for them, just a mile away, and the business was in hand. Jacquey was enquiring whether there was a parlour for The Cid, Torwood's hunter, whom she declared was as dear to him as Emily herself. Indeed, Emily did go out every morning after breakfast to feed him with bread. I can see her now on Torwood's arm, with big Rollo and little Malta rolling over one another after them.
Then came an afternoon when we had all walked to Spinney Lawn, laid out the gardens together, and wandered about the empty rooms, planning for them. The birds were singing in the March sunshine, and the tomtits were calling "peter" in the trees, and Jaquetta went racing about after the dogs, like a thing of seven years old, instead of seventeen. And Torwood was cutting out a root of primroses, leaves and all, for Emily, when we saw a fly go along the lane, and wondered, with a sort of idle wonder. We supposed it must be visitors for the parsonage, and so we strolled home, looking for violets by the way, and Jaquetta getting shiny studs of celandine. Ah! I remember those glistening stars were all closed before we came back.
Well, it must come, so it is silly to linger! There stood the fly at the hall-door, and the butler met us, saying-- "There's a person with his lordship, my lord. She would not wait till you came in, though I told her he saw no one on business without you--" Torwood hastened on before this, expecting to see some importunate person bothering my father with a petition. What he did see was my father leaning back in his chair, with a white, confounded, bewildered look, and a woman, with a child on her lap, opposite. Her back was to the door, and Torwood's first impression was that she was a well-dressed impostor threatening him; so he came quickly to my father's side, and said-- "What is it father? I'm here."
My poor father put out his hand feebly to him, and said-- "It is all true, Torwood. God forgive me; I did not know it!"
"Know what?" he asked anxiously. "What is it that distresses you, father? Let me speak to this person--" Then she broke out--not loud, not coarsely, but very determinately--"No, sir; you would be very glad to suppress me, and my child, and my evidence, no doubt; but the Earl of Trevorsham has acknowledged the truth of my claim, and I will not leave this spot till he has acknowledged my mother as his only lawful wife, and my child, Trevor Lea, as his only lawful heir!"
Torwood thought her insane and only said quietly, as he offered my father his arm, "I will talk it over with you presently; Lord Trevorsham is not equal to discuss it now."
"I see what you mean!" she said quickly. "You would like to make me out crazy, but Lord Trevorsham knows better. Do not you, my father?" she said, with a strong emphasis, the more marked, because it was concentrated, not loud.
My poor father was shuddering all over with involuntary trembling; but he put Torwood's hand away from him, and looked up piteously, as if his heart was breaking (as it was); but he spoke steadily. "It is true. It is true, Torwood. I was married to poor Faith, when I was a young man, in Canada. They sent me proofs that all had perished when the Indians attacked the village; but--" and then he put his hands over his face. It must have been dreadful to see; but Hester Lea was too much bent on her rights to feel a moment's pity; and she spoke on in a hard tone, with her eyes fixed on my brother's face.
"But you failed to discover that she was rescued from the Indians; gave birth to me, your daughter, Hester; and only died two years ago."
"You hear! My boy, my poor boy, forgive me; don't leave me to her," was what my poor father had said--he who had been so strong.
My brother saw what it all meant now. "Never fear that, sir," he said; "I am your son still, any way, you know."
"You will do justice to me," she began, in her fierce tone; but my brother met it calmly with, "Certainly, we will do our best that justice should be done. You have brought proof?"
His quietness overawed her, and she pointed to the papers on the table. They were her mother's attested narrative, and the certificate of her burial.
My brother read aloud, "The 3rd of February, 1836," then he turned to my father and said, "You observe, father, the difference this may make, if true, is that of putting little Alured into the place I have held. My father's last marriage was on the 15th of April, 1836," he added to her. He says she quite glared at him with mortification, as if he had invented poor little Alured on purpose to baffle her; but my father breathed more freely.
"And is nothing--nothing to be done for my child, your own grandson?" exclaimed she, "after these years."
Torwood silenced her by one of his looks. "We only wish to do justice," he said. "If it be as you say, you will have a right to a great deal, and it will not be disputed; but you must be aware that a claim made in this manner requires investigation, and you can see that my father is not in a state for an exciting discussion." " _Your_ father!" she said, with a bitter tone of scorn; but he took it firmly, though the blood seemed to come boiling to his temples.
"Yes," he said, "my father! and if you are indeed his daughter, you should show some pity and filial duty, by not forcing the discussion on him while he can so little bear it."
That staggered her a little, but she said, "I do not wish to do him any harm, but I have my child's interests to think of. How do I know what advantage may be taken against him?"
Torwood saw my father lying back in the chair, trembling, and he dreaded a fit every moment.
"I give you my word," he said, "that no injustice shall be done you;" and as she looked keenly at him, as if she distrusted him, he said, "Yes, you may trust me. I was bred an English gentleman, whatever I was born, and I promise you never to come between you and your rights, when your identity as Lord Trevorsham's daughter is fully established. Meantime, do you not see that your presence is killing him? Tell me where you may be heard of?"
"I shall stay at the Shinglebay Hotel till I am secure of the justice I claim," she said. "Come, my boy, since your own grandfather will not so much as look at you."
Torwood walked her across the hall. He was a little touched by those last words, and felt that she might have looked for a daughter's reception, so he said in the hall-- "You must remember this is a very sudden shock to us all. When my father has grown accustomed to the idea, no doubt he will wish to see you again; but in his present state of health, he must be our first consideration. And unprepared as my sisters are, it would be impossible to ask you to stay in the house."
She was always a little subdued by my brother's manner; I think its courtesy and polish almost frightened her, high-spirited, resolute woman as she was.
"I understand," she said, with a stiff, cold tone. Jaquetta heard the echo of it, and wondered.
"But," he added, "when they understand all, and when my father is equal to it, you shall be sent for."
When he went back to the library he found my poor father unconscious. It was really only fainting then, and he came round without anyone being called, and he shrank from seeing anyone but Torwood, explaining to him most earnestly how, though he was too ill himself to go to the place, his brother-officer, General Poyntz, had done so for him, and had been persuaded that the whole settlement and all the inhabitants had been swept off. It was such a shock to him that it nearly killed him. Poor father! it was grievous to hear him wish it had quite done so!
We only knew that the woman had upset my father very much, and that Torwood could not leave him. Word was sent us to sit down to dinner without them, and Torwood sent for some gravy soup and some wine for him. He went on talking--sometimes about us, but more often about poor Faith, who seemed to have come back on him in all the beauty and charm of his first love. He seemed to be talking himself feverish, and after a time Torwood thought that silence would be better for him; so he got him to go to bed, and sent good old Blake, the butler, who had been his servant in the army, to sit in the dressing-room. Blake, it turned out, had known all about the old story, so he was a safe person. Not that safety mattered much. "Lady Hester Lea"--she called herself so now, as, indeed, she had every right--was making it known at Shinglebay.
So Torwood came out. I was very anxious, of course, and had been hovering about on the nursery stairs, where I had gone to see whether baby was quietly asleep, and I overtook him as he was going down-stairs.
"How is papa?" I asked.
I shall never forget the white look of the face he raised up to mine as he said, "Poor father! Ursula, I can only call the news terrible. Will you try to stand up against it bravely?"
And then he held out his arms and gathered me into them, and I believe I said, "I can bear anything when you do that!"
I thought it could only be something about Bertram, who had rather a way of getting into scrapes, and I said his name; but just as Fulk was setting me at ease on that score, Jaquetta, who was on the watch, too, opened the door of the green drawing-room, and we were obliged to go in. Then, hardly answering her and Emily, as they asked after papa, he stood straight up in the middle of the rug and told us, beginning with--"Ursula, did you know that our father had been married as a young man in Canada?"
No. We had never guessed it.
"He was," my brother went on, "This is his daughter."
"Our sister!" Jaquetta asked. "Where has she been all this time?"
But I saw there must be more to trouble him, and then it came. "I cannot tell. My father had every reason to believe that--she--his first wife--had been killed in a massacre by the Red Indians; but if what this person says is true, she only died two years ago. But it was in all good faith that he married our mother. He had taken all means to discover--" Even then we did not perceive what this involved. I felt stunned and numbed chiefly from seeing the great shock it had been to my father and to him; but poor little Jaquetta and Emily were altogether puzzled; and Jaquetta said, "But is this sister of ours such a very disagreeable person, Torwood? Why didn't you bring her in and show her to us?"
Then he exclaimed, almost angrily at her simplicity, "Good heavens! girls, don't you see what it all means? If this is true, I am not Torwood. We are nothing--nobody--nameless."
He turned to the fire, put both elbows on the mantelshelf, and hid his face in his hands. Emily sprang up, and tried to draw down his arm; and she did, but he only used it to put her from him, hold her off at arm's length, and look at her--oh! with such a tender face of firm sorrow!
"Ah! Emily," he said; "you too! It has been all on false pretences! That will have to be all over now."
Then Emily's great brown eyes grew bigger with wonder and dismay.
"False pretences!" she cried, "what false pretences? Not that you cared for me, Torwood."
"Not that I cared for you," he said, with a suppressed tone that made his voice _so_ deep! "Not that _I_ cared, but that Lord Torwood did--Torwood is the baby upstairs."
"But it is you--you--you--Fulk!" said Emily, trying to creep and sidle up to him, white doe fashion. I believe nobody had ever called him by his Christian name before, and it made it sweeter to him, but still he did not give in.
"Ah! that's all very well," he said, and his voice was softer then, "but what would your mother say?"
"The same as I do," said Emily, undauntedly. "How should it change one's feelings one bit," and she almost cried at being held back.
He did let her nestle up to him then, but with a sad sort of smile. "My child, my darling," he said, "I ought not to allow this! It will only be the worse after!"
But just then a servant's step made them start back, and a message came and brought word that Mr. Blake would be glad if Lord Torwood would step up.
Yes, my poor father was wandering in his speech, and very feverish, mixing up Adela and Faith Le Blanc strangely together sometimes, and at others fancying he was lying ill with his wound, and sending messages to Faith.
We sent for the doctor, but he could not do anything really. It had been a death-blow, though the illness lasted a full week. He knew us generally, and liked to see us, but he always had the sense that something dreadful had happened to us; and he would stroke my hand or Jaquetta's, and pity us. He was haunted, too, by the sense that he ought to do something for us which he could not do. We thought he meant to make a will, securing us something, but he was never in a condition in which my brother would have felt justified in getting him to sign it. Indeed there was so little disease about him, and we thought he would get better, if only we could keep him free from distress and excitement; so we made his room as quiet as possible, and discouraged his talking or thinking.
Lady Hester came every day. My brother had sent for Mr. Eagles, our solicitor, to meet her the first time, and look at her papers.
He said he could not deny that it looked very bad for us. Of the original marriage there was no doubt; indeed, my father had told Torwood where to find the certificate of it, folded up in the secret drawer of his desk, with his commission in the army; and the register of Faith's burial was only too plain. The only chance there was for us was, that her identity could not be established; but Mr. Eagles did not think it would go off on this. The whole of her life seemed to be traceable; besides, there was something about Hester that forbade all suspicion of her being a conscious impostor. Whether she would be able to prove herself my father's daughter was another more doubtful point. That, however, made no difference, except as to her own rank and fortune. If the first wife were proved to have been alive till 1836, then little Alured was the only true heir to the title and estate, and, next after him, stood Hester Lea and her son.
People said she was like the family; I never could see it, and always thought the likeness due to their imagination. She took one by surprise. She was a tall, well-made woman, with a narrow waist, and a proud, peculiarly upright bearing, though quick, almost sharp in all her movements, and especially with her eyes. Those eyes, I confess, always startled me. They were clear, bright blue, well opened eyes--honest eyes one would have called them--only they appeared to be always searching about, and darting at one when one least expected it. The red and white of the face too always had a clear hard look, like the eyes; the teeth projected a little, and were so very, very white, that they always seemed to me to flash like the eyes; and if ever she smiled, it was as much as to say, "I don't believe you." Her nose had an amount of hook, too, that always gave me the feeling of having a wild hawk in the room with me. Jaquetta used to call her a panther of the wilderness, but to my mind there was none of the purring cattish tenderness of the panther. However, that might be only because she viewed us as her natural enemies, and was always on her guard against us, though I do not well know why; I am sure we only wanted to know the truth and do justice, and Fulk was so convinced that she would prove her case, and that there was no help for it, that at the end of hearing Mr. Eagles question her, he said, "Well, the matter must be tried in due time, but since we are brothers and sisters, let us be friendly," and he held out his hand to her. Mr. Eagles, who told me, said he could have beaten him for the imprudent admission, only he did look so generous and sweet and sad; and Lady Hester drew herself up doubtfully and proudly, as if she could hardly bear to own such a brother, but she did take his hand, coldly though, and saying, "Let me see my father."
He was obliged to tell her that this was impossible. I doubt whether she ever believed him--at least she used to gaze at him with her determined eyes, as if she meant to abash him out of falsehood, and she sharply questioned every one about Lord Trevorsham's state.
The determination to be friendly made my brother offer to take her to us. She consented, but not very readily, and I am afraid we were needlessly cold and dry; but we were taken by surprise when my brother brought her into the sitting-room. It was not very easy to welcome the woman who was going to turn us all out, and under such a stigma; and she--she could hardly be expected to look complacently at the interlopers who had her place, and the title she had a right to.
She put us through her hard catechism about my dear father's state, and said at last that she should like to see Lord Torwood.
Taken by surprise, we looked and signed towards him whom that name had always meant. He smiled a little and said, "Little Alured! But, remember, I am bound to concede nothing till judicial minds are convinced. The parties concerned cannot judge. Can you venture to have Baby down, Ursula?"
No, I did not venture. I thought it might have been averted; but I was only obliged to take her up to the nurseries. On the way up she asked which way my father's room lay. I answered, "Oh! across there;" I did not know if she might not make a dash at it.
I think she must have heard at Shinglebay how delicate poor little Alured was, and thence gathered hopes of the succession for her boy, for she asked her sharp questions about his health all the way up, and knew that he had had fits. I could not put her down as one generally can inquisitive people. I suppose it was because she was more sensible of the difference in our real positions than I have as yet felt.
Baby was asleep; and I think she was touched by the actual sight of him. She said he was very like her boy; and though I supposed that a mere assertion at the time, it was quite true. Alured and Trevor Lea have always been remarkably alike. However, she cross-examined Nurse about his health even more minutely, and then took her leave; but she came again every day, walking after the first, as long as my dear father lived.
And she must have talked, for there came a kind of feeling over everyone, as well as ourselves, that something was hanging over us, of which the issue would be known when my father's illness took some turn.
Mr. Decies came every day to inquire, but I could not bear a strange eye, and Hester might have been looking on. I was steeling myself against him. Was I right? --oh! was I right? I have wondered and grieved! For I knew well enough what he had been thinking of for months before; only I did not want it to come to a point. How was I to leave little Alured to Jaquetta? or disturb my father by breaking up his home? I liked him on the whole, and had come the length of thinking that if I ever married at all, it would be-- But that's all nonsense; and mine could not have been what other people's love was, or I should not have shrunk from the sight and look of him. If it had been only poverty that was coming, it would have been a different thing; but to be nameless impostors!
Mrs. Deerhurst had gone out on a round of visits, when Emily came to us, taking her younger daughter. They were not a very letter-writing family. It is odd how some people's pen is a real outlet of expression; while others seem to lack the nerve that might convey their thoughts to it, even when they live in more sympathy than Emily could well have had with her mother.
At least, so I understand, what afterwards we wondered at, that Emily never mentioned Hester; only saying, when, after some days she did write, that Lord Trevorsham was ill.
So Fulk had the one comfort of being with her when he was out of the sick room. I used to see them from the window walking up and down the terrace in the blue east wind haze of those March days, never that I could see speaking. I don't think my brother would have felt it honourable to tie one additional link between himself and her. He had not a doubt as to how her mother would act, but to be in her dear little affectionate presence was a better help than we could give him, even though nothing passed between them.
Jaquetta used to wonder at them, and then try to go on the same as usual; and would wander about the garden and park with her dogs, and bring us in little anecdotes, and do all the laughing over them herself. Poor child! she felt as if she were in a bad dream, and these were efforts to shake it off, and wake herself.
After all, nothing was ever so bad as those ten days! But, my brother always said he was thankful for the respite and time for thought which they gave him.
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{
"id": "4659"
}
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3
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THE PEERAGE CASE.
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The end came suddenly at last, when we were thinking my dear father more tranquil. He passed away in sleep late one evening, just ten days after Hester's arrival. She had gone back to her lodgings, and we did not send to tell her till the morning; but by nine o'clock she was in the house.
We had crept down to breakfast, Jaquetta and I, feeling very dreary in the half-light, and as if desolation had suddenly come on us; and when we heard her fly drive up to the door, Jaquetta cried out almost angrily, "Torwood, how could you!" and we would have run away, but he said, "Stay, dear girls; it is better to have it over."
As she came in he rang the bell as if for family prayers, and she had only asked one or two questions, which he answered shortly, when all the servants came in, some crying sadly. Fulk read a very few prayers--as much as he had voice for, and then, as all stood up, he had to clear his voice, but he spoke firmly enough.
"It is right that you all should know that a grave doubt has arisen as to my position here. Lord Trevorsham had every reason to believe his first wife had perished by the hands of the Red Indians long before he married my mother. What he did was done in entire ignorance--no breath of blame must light on him. This lady alleges that she can produce proofs that she is his daughter, and that her mother only died in February, '36. If these proofs be considered satisfactory by a committee of the House of Lords, then she and Alured Torwood Trevor will be shown to be his only legitimate children. I shall place the matter in the right hands as soon as possible--that is" (for she was glaring at him), "as soon as the funeral is over. Until that decision is made I request that no one will call me by the title of him who is gone; but I shall remain here to take care of my little brother, whose guardian my father wished me to be; and for the present, at least, I shall make no change in the establishment."
I think everyone held their breath: there was a great stillness over all--a sort of hush of awe--and then some of the maids began sobbing, and the butler tried to say something, but he quite broke down; and just then a troubled voice cried out-- "Torwood, Torwood, what is this?"
And there we saw Bertram in the midst of us, with the haggard look of a man who had travelled all night, and a dismayed air that I can never forget.
He had been quartered at Belfast, and we had written to him the day after my father's illness, to summon him home, but there were no telegraphs nor railways; and there had been some hindrance about his leave, so that it had taken all that length of time to bring him. Fulk had left all to be told on his arrival. He had come by the mail-coach, and walked up from the Trevorsham Arms, where he had been told of our father's death; and so had let himself in noiselessly, and was standing in the dining-room door, hearing all that Fulk said!
Poor fellow! Jaquetta flung herself on him, hiding her face against him, while the servants went, and before any one else could speak, Hester stood forth, and said, to our amazement-- "Captain Trevor! You know me. You can and must bear me witness, and do me justice--" "You! I have seen you before--but--where? I beg your pardon," he said, bewildered.
"You remember Sault St. Pierre farm?" she said.
"Sault St. Pierre! What? You are Mrs. Lea! Good heavens! Where is your mother?"
"My mother is dead, sir. You were the first person who made known to her that her husband, my father, was not dead, but had taken--or pretended to take--an English woman for his wife."
"Wait!" thundered Fulk, "whatever my father did was ignorantly and honourably done!"
Bertram was as pale as death, and looked from one of us to the other, and at last, he gasped out-- "And that--was what she meant?"
"There, sir," said Hester, turning to Torwood, "You see your brother cannot deny it! You will not refuse justice to me, and my son."
I fancy she expected that the house was to be given up to her, and that we were only to remain there on her sufferance, perhaps till after the funeral.
My brother spoke, "Justice will no doubt be done; but the question does not lie between you and me, but between me and Alured. It is, as I said, a peerage question--and will be decided by the peers. Incidentally, that enquiry will prove what is your position and rank, as well as what may or may not be ours. Any further points depend upon my father's will, and that will be in the hands of Mr. Eagles. I think you can see that it would be impossible, as well as unfeeling, to take any steps until after the funeral."
Whatever Hester Lea was, she was a high-spirited being, standing there, a solitary woman, a stranger, with all of us four, and one whole household, as it must have seemed, against her. I was outraged and shocked at her defiance at the time, but when, some time after, I re-read King John, I saw that there was something of Constance in her.
"That may be," she answered, "but when my child's interests are at stake, I cannot haggle over conventionalities and proprieties. I am the Earl of Trevorsham's only legitimate daughter, and I claim my right to remain in his house, and to take charge of my infant brother."
A sign from Fulk stopped me, as I was going to scream at this.
"Remember," he said, "your identity has yet to be proved."
"Your brother there must needs witness. He has done so."
"What do you witness to, Bertram?" asked Fulk.
"I do not know; I cannot understand," said Bertram. "I saw this person in a farm in Lower Canada, and there was an old lady who seemed to have known my father, and was very much amazed to find he was not killed in 1814. I did not hear her name, nor know whose mother she was, nor anything about her, nor what this dreadful business means."
"At any rate," said Fulk to her, "your claim to remain in the house must depend on the legal proof of the fact. My father's first marriage is undoubted, but absolute legal certainty that you are the child of that marriage alone can entitle you to take rank as his daughter; and, therefore, I am not compelled to admit your claim to remain here, though if you will refrain from renewing this discussion till after the funeral, I will not ask you to leave the house."
"I do not recognize your right to ask or not to ask," she said, undauntedly.
"I am either Lord Trevorsham's rightful heir--and it is not yet shown that I am not--or else I am the guardian he appointed for his son. I know this to be so, and Mr. Eagles, who will soon be here, will show it to you in the will if you wish it. Therefore, until the decision is made, when, if it goes against me, the child will no doubt be made a ward in Chancery, I am the person responsible for him and his property."
"I have no doubt you will take advantage of me and of every quibble against me;" and there at last she began to break down; "but if there is justice in heaven or earth my child shall have it, though you and all were leagued against him."
And there she began to sob. And those brothers of mine, they actually grew compassionate; they ran after wine; they called us to bring salts, and help her. Emily shuddered, and put her hands behind her; but Jaquetta actually ran up to the woman, and coaxed her and comforted her, when I had rather have coaxed a tigress.
But I had to go to the table and pour out tea and give it to her with all the rest. I don't know how we got through that breakfast. But we did, and then I made the housekeeper put her into the very best rooms. Anything if she would only stay there out of the way.
When I came back, I found Fulk explaining why he had spoken at once, and he said he felt that she would have no scruples about taking the initiative, and that everyone would be having surmises.
Poor Bertram was even more cut up than we were. It came more suddenly, and he felt as if it was all his doing. He had no hope, and he took all ours away. There had been something in the old woman that impressed him as genuine, and he had no doubt that she had known and loved our father. Nay, no one could suspect Hester of not believing in her own story; the only question was whether the links of evidence could be substantiated.
The next thing that happened--I can't tell which day it was--was Mrs. Deerhurst's coming, professing to be dreadfully shocked and overcome by my father's death, to take away Emily. She must be so much in our way. I, who saw her first, answered only by begging to keep her--our great comfort and the one thing that cheered and upheld my brother.
Mrs. Deerhurst looked keenly at me; and I began to wonder what she knew, but just then came Fulk into the room, with his calm, set, determined face. I knew he would rather speak without me, so I went away, and only knew what he could bear to tell me afterwards.
Mrs. Deerhurst had been a great deal kinder than he expected. No doubt she would not break the thing off while there was a shred of hope that he was an earl; but he could not drive her to allow, in so many words, that it must depend upon that.
He had quite made up his mind that it was not right to enjoy Emily's presence and the comfort it gave him, unless he was secure of Mrs. Deerhurst's permitting the engagement under his possible circumstances.
I believe he nattered himself she would, and let her deceive him with thinking so, instead of, as we all did, seeing that what she wanted was to secure the credit of being constant and disinterested in case he retained his position. So, although she took Emily home, she left him cheered and hopeful, admiring her, and believing that she so regarded her daughter's happiness that, if he had enough to support her, she would overlook the loss of rank and title. He went on half the evening talking about what a remarkable woman Mrs. Deerhurst was; and, at any rate, it cheered him up through those worst days.
Our Lupton uncles came, and were frightfully shocked and incredulous; at least, Uncle George was. Uncle Lupton himself remembered something of my father having told him of a former affair in America.
They would not let Jaquetta and me go to the funeral; and they were wise, for Hester thrust herself in--but it is of no use to think about that. Indeed, there is not much to tell about that time, and I need not go into the investigation. It was all taken out of our hands, as my brother had said. Perrault came over from Canada, and brought his witnesses, but not Joel Lea. He had nothing to prove, had conscientious scruples about appearing in an English court of justice, and still hoped it would all come to nothing.
We stayed on at the London house--the lawyers said we ought, and that possession was "nine-tenths," &c. Besides, we wanted advice for Baby, who had been worse of late.
The end of it was that it went against us. Faith's marriage, her identity, and Hester's, were proved beyond all doubt, and little Alured was served Earl of Trevorsham. Poor child, how ill he was just then! It was declared water on the brain! I could hardly think about anything else; but they all said it seemed like a mockery, and that he would not bear the title a week. And then Lady Hester would have been, not Countess of Trevorsham, but Viscountess Torwood, and at any rate she halved the personal property: all that had been meant for us.
For we already knew that there was nothing in the will that could do us any good. All depended on my mother's marriage settlements, and as the marriage was invalid they were so much waste paper.
My uncles, to whom my poor mother's fortune reverted, would not touch it, and gave every bit back to us; but it was only 10,000 pounds, and what was that among the four of us?
I was in a sort of maze all the time, thinking of very little beyond dear little Alured's struggle for life, and living upon his little faint smiles when he was a shade better.
Jaquetta has told me more of what passed than I heeded at the time.
Our brothers decided not to retain the Trevor name, to which we had no right; but they had both been christened Torwood; after an old family custom, and they thought it best to use this still as a surname.
Bertram felt the shame, as he would call it, the most; but Fulk held up his head more. He said where there was no sin there was no shame; and that to treat ourselves as under a blot of disgrace was insulting our parents, who had been mistaken, but not guilty.
Bertram was determined against returning to his regiment, and it would have been really too expensive. His plan was to keep together, and lay out our capital upon a piece of ground in New Zealand, which was beginning to be settled.
Jaquetta was always ready to be delighted. Dear child, her head was full of log huts and Robinson Crusoe life, and cows to milk herself; and I really think she would have liked to go ashore in the Swiss family's eight tubs!
The thorough change, after all the sorrow, seemed delicious to her! I heard her and Bertram laughing down below, and wondered if they got the length of settling what dogs they would take out!
And Fulk! He really had almost persuaded himself that Emily would go with us; or at the very worst, would wait till he had achieved prosperity and could come home and fetch her.
Mrs. Deerhurst had declared that waiting for the decision was so bad for her nerves, that she must take her to Paris; and actually our dear old stupid fellow had not perceived what that meant, for the woman had let him part tenderly with Emily in London, with promises of writing, &c., the instant the case was decided. It passed his powers to suppose she could expose her daughter's heart to such a wreck. So he held up, cheerful and hopeful, thinking what a treasure of constancy he had! And when they had built their castle in New Zealand, they sent up Jaquey to call me to share it with them. Baby was asleep, and I went down; but when I heard the plan--it was cross to be so unsympathizing, but I did feel hurt and angry at their forgetting him; and I said, "I shall never leave Alured."
"Ursula! you could not stay by yourself," said Jaquey. And Bertram, who had hardly ever seen him, and could not care for him said it was nonsense, and even if there were a chance of the child living, I could not be left behind.
I was wrought up, and broke out that he would and should live, and that I would come as a stranger, a nursery governess, and watch over him, and never abandon him to Hester.
"Never fear, Ursula," said Fulk, "if he lives, he will be in safe hands."
"Safe hands! What are safe hands for a child like that! Hester's, who only wishes him out of her way?"
"For shame!" the others said, and I answered that, of course, I did not think Hester meant ill by him, but that, where the doctors had said only love and care could save him--no care was safe where he was not loved; and I cried very, very bitterly, more than I had done even for my father, or for anything else before; and I fell into a storm of passion, at the cruelty of leaving the poor little thing, whom his dying mother had trusted to me, and declared I would never, never do it.
I was right in the main, it seems to me, but unjust and naughty in the way I did it; and when Fulk, with some hesitation, began to talk of my not being asked to go just yet--not while the child lived--I turned round in a really violent, naughty fit, with--"You too, Fulk, I thought you loved your little brother better than that? You only want to be rid of him, and leave him to Hester, and he will die in her hands."
Fulk began to say that the Court of Chancery never gave the custody to the next heir. But I rushed away again to the nursery, and sat there, devising plans of disguising myself in a close cap and blue spectacles, and coming to offer myself as Lord Trevorsham's governess.
The child had no relations whatever on his mother's side, and though, if he had been healthy, nurses and tutors might have taken care of this baby lordship, even that would have been sad enough; and for the feeble little creature, whose life hung on a thread, how was it to be thought of? I fully made up my mind to stay, even if they all went. I told Jaquetta, so--in my vehemence dashed all her bright anticipation, and sent her again in tears to bed. I wish unhappiness would not make one so naughty!
The next day poor Fulk was struck down. A letter came from Mrs. Deerhurst to break off the engagement, and a great parcel containing all the things he had given Emily. She must have packed them up before leaving England, while she was still flattering him. Not a word nor a line was there from Emily herself! --only a supplication from the mother that he would not rend her child's heart by persisting--just as if she had not encouraged him to go on all this time!
Nothing would serve him but that he must dash over to Paris, to see her and Emily.
Railroads were not, and it was a ten days' affair at the shortest; and, with all our prospects doubtful and Alured still so ill, it was very trying. How Bertram did rave at the folly and futility of the expedition! but one comfort was, that Alured was a ward of Chancery, and, in the vast kindness and commiseration everyone bestowed upon us, no one tried to hurry us or turn us out.
Hester used to come continually to inquire after her brother, and there was something in her way that always made me shudder when she asked after him. I knew she could not wish for his life, and gloated over all the reports she could collect of his weakness. I felt more and more horror of her; God forgive me for not having tried not to hate her. I sometimes doubt whether my dread and distrust were not visible, and may not have put it into her head.
And then came Mr. Decies, again and again. He was faithful--I see it now. He cared not if I had neither name nor fortune; he held fast to his proposals. And I? Oh, I was absorbed--I was universally defiant--I did not do him justice in the bitterness I did not realise. I thought he was constant only out of honour and pity, and I did not choose to open my heart to understand his pleadings or accept them as earnest--I was harsh. Oh, how little one knows what one is doing! Too proud to be grateful--that was actually my case. I was enamoured of the blue-spectacle plan; I had romances of watching Alured day and night, and pouring away dangerous draughts. The very fancy, I see now, was playing with edged tools; I feel as if my imagination had put the possibility into the very air.
Once indeed--when Jaquetta had been telling me she did not understand my unkindness; and observed that, even for Alured's sake, she could not see why I did not accept--I did begin to regard him as a possible protector for the boy. But no; the blue spectacles would be the more assiduous guardian, said my foolish fancy.
Before I had thought it over into sense or reason, Fulk came back from Paris. He had not been really crushed till now. He was white, and silent, and resolute, and very gentle; all excitement of manner gone. He did not say one word, but we knew it was all over with him, and that he could not have had one scrap of comfort or hope.
Nor had he, though even to me he told nothing, till we were together in the dark one evening, much later. He did insist upon seeing Emily; but her mother would not leave her, or take her eyes off her, and the timid thing did nothing but sob and cry, in utter helplessness and shame, and never even gave him a look.
It was not the being neglected and cast off that he felt as such a wrong, to both himself and Emily, but the being drawn on with false hopes and promises to expect that she was to belong to him, after all; and he was cruelly disappointed that Emily had not energy to cling to him--he had made so sure of her.
Bertram and Jaquetta had expected all along that he would be the more eager to be off to the Antipodes when everything was swept away from him here, and he did sit after dinner talking it over in a business-like way, while Bertram gave him all the information he had been collecting in his absence.
I would not listen. I was determined against going away from my charge; I had rather have been his housemaid than have left him to Hester, and I must have looked like a stone as I got up, and left them to their talk while I went back to the boy.
I heard Bertram say while I was lighting my candle, "Poor Ursula! she will not see it. Hart told me to-day that the child is dying--would hardly get through the night."
Now I had been thinking all the afternoon that he was better, and I had gone down to dinner cheered. I turned into the doorway, and told Fulk to come and see.
He did come. There was Alured, lying, as he had lain all day, upon his nurse's knees, with her arm under his head. He had not moaned for a long time, and I had left him in a more comfortable sleep. He opened his eyes as we came in, held out his hands more strongly than we thought he could have done, quite smiled--such an intelligent smile--and said, "Tor--Tor--," which was what he had always called his brother, making his gesture to go to him.
The tears came into Fulk's eyes, though he smiled back and spoke in his sweet, strong voice, and held out his arms, while we told him he had better sit down. Poor nurse! she must have been glad enough--she had held him all that live-long day! And he was quite eager to go to his brother, and smiled up and cooed out, "Tor--Tor," again, as he felt himself on the strong arm.
Fulk bade nurse go and lie down, and he would hold him. And so he did. I fed the child, as I had done at intervals all day; and he sometimes slept, sometimes woke and murmured or cooed a little, and Fulk scarcely spoke or stirred, hour after hour. He had been travelling day and night, but, strange to say, that enforced calm--that tender stillness and watching, was better for him than rest. He would only have tossed about awake, if he had gone to bed after a discussion with Bertram.
But in the morning Dr. Hart came, quite surprised to find the child alive; and when he looked at him and felt his pulse, he said, "You have saved him for this time, at least."
(Everybody was lavish of pronouns, and chary of proper names. Nobody knew what to call anybody.)
His little lordship was able to be laid in his cot, and Fulk, almost blind now with sheer sleep, stumbled off to his room, threw himself on his bed, and slept for seven hours in his clothes without so much as moving. He confessed that he had never had such unbroken, dreamless sleep since he had first seen Hester Lea's face.
That little murmur of "Tor--Tor" had settled all our fates. I don't think he had realised before how love was the one thing that the child's life hung upon, and that the boy himself must have that love and trust. Then, too, when he had waked and dressed and come down, the first person he met was Hester, with her hard, glittering eyes, trying to condole, and not able to hide how the exulting look went out of her face on hearing that the Earl (as she chose to term him) was better.
She supposed some arrangement would soon be made, and Fulk said he should see the lawyers at once about it, and arrange for the personal guardianship of Lord Trevorsham.
"Of course I am the only proper person while he lives, poor child," she said.
I broke in with, "The next heir is never allowed the custody."
I wish I had not. She hastily and proudly said "What do you mean?" and Fulk quickly added that "the Lord Chancellor would decide."
The next day he went out, and on returning came up to me in the nursery, and called me into the study.
"Ursula," he said, "I find that, considering the circumstances, there will be no objection made to our retaining the personal charge of our little brother. Everyone is very kind. Ours is not a common case of illegitimacy, and my father's well-known express wishes will be allowed to prevail."
"And your character," I could not help saying; and he owned that it did go for something, that he was known to everybody, and had some standing of his own, apart from the rank he had lost.
Then he went on to say that this would of course put an end to the emigration plan, so far as he was concerned. No doubt in the restless desire of change coming after such a fall and disappointment it was a great sacrifice; but as he said, "There did not seem anything left for him in life but just to try to do what seemed most like one's duty." And then he said it did not seem a worthy thing to do nothing, but just exist on a confined income, and the only thing he did know anything about, and was not too old to learn, was farming, and managing an estate.
Trevorsham would want an agent, for old Hall was so old, that my brother had really done all his work for a year or two past; and he had felt his way enough to know he could get appointed to the agency, if he chose. The house was to be let, but there was a farm to be had about two miles off, with a good house, and he thought of taking it, and stocking it, and turning regular farmer on his own account; while looking after the property, and bringing Alured up among his own people and interests.
Bertram did not like this at all. "Among all our old friends and acquaintance? Impossible! unbearable!" he said.
But Fulk's answer, was--"Better so! If we went to a strange place, and tried to conceal it, it would always be oozing out, and be supposed disgraceful. If my sisters can bear it, I had rather confront it straightforwardly--" "And be _pitied_"--said Bertram, with _such_ a contemptuous tone.
Nobody, however, thought it would be advisable for him to give up the New Zealand plan, nor did he ever mean it for a moment; indeed, he declared that he should go and prepare for us; for that we should very soon get tired of Skimping's Farm, and come out to him; meaning, of course, that our dear charge would be over.
He even wanted Jaquetta to come with him at once, and the log huts and fern trees danced before her eyes as the blue spectacles had done before mine; but she did not like to leave me, and Fulk would not encourage it, for we both thought her much too young and too tenderly brought up to be sent out to a wild settler's life alone with Bertram, and without a friend near.
To be farmers' sisters where we had been the Earl's daughters--well, I had much rather then that it had been somewhere else; but I saw it was best for Baby and still more so for Fulk, and clear little Jaquey held fast to me and to him, and so it was settled!
Our friends and relatives had much rather we had all emigrated. They did not know what to do with us, and would have been glad to have had us all out of sight for ever, "damaged goods shipped off to the colonies." We felt this and it heartened us up to stay out of the spirit of opposition.
Old Aunt Amelia, who fussed and cried over us, and our two uncles, who gave us good advice by the yard! Alas! I fear we were equally ungrateful to them, both cold and impatient. No, we did not bear it really well, though they said we did. We had plenty of pride and self-respect, and that carried us on; but there was no submission, no notion of taking it religiously. I don't mean that we did not go to church, and in the main try to do right. Any one more upright than my brother it would have been hard to find; but as to any notion that religious feeling could help us, and that our reverse might be blessed to us, that would have seemed a very strange language indeed!
And so we were hard, we would bear no sympathy but from one another, and even among ourselves we never gave way.
People admired us, I fancy, but were alienated and disappointed, and we were quite willing _then_ to have it so.
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{
"id": "4659"
}
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4
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SKIMPING'S FARM.
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Skimping's Farm was the unlucky name of the place, and Fulk would allow of no modification--his resolution was to accept it all entirely. Now I love no spot on earth so well. It was very different then.
The farm-house lay on the slope of the hill, in the parish of Trevorsham, but with the park lying between it and the main village. The ground sloped sharply down to the little river, which, about two miles lower down, blends with the Avon, being, in fact, a creek out of Shinglebay. Beneath the house the stream is clear and rocky, but then comes a flat of salt marsh, excellent for cattle; and then, again, the river becomes tidal, and reaches at high water to the steep banks, sometimes covered with wood, sometimes with pasture or corn.
Then under the little promontory comes the hamlet of fisherfolk at Quay Trevor; and then the coast sweeps away to Shinglebay town, as anyone may see by the map.
Ours is an old farm, and had an orchard of old apple-trees sloping down to the river--as also did the home field, only divided by a low stone wall from the little strip of flower-garden before the house, which in those days had nothing in it but two tamarisks, a tea-tree, and a rose with lovely buds and flowers that always had green hearts.
There was a good-sized kitchen-garden behind, and the farm-yard was at the side by the back door. The house is old and therefore was handsome outside, even then, but the chief of the lower story was comprised in one big room, a "keeping-room," as it was called, with an open chimney, screened by a settle, and with a long polished table, with a bench on either side. Into this room the front porch--a deep one, with seats--opened. At one end was a charming little sitting-room, parted off; at the other, the real kitchen for cooking, and the dairy and all the rest of the farm offices.
Up-stairs--the stairs are dark oak, and come down at one end of the big kitchen--there is one beautiful large room, made the larger by a grand oriel window under the gable, one opening out of it, and four more over the offices; then a step-ladder and a great cheese-room, and a perfect wilderness of odd nooks up in the roof.
As to furniture, Fulk had bought that with the stock and everything else belonging to the farm for a round sum; and the Chancery people told us that we might take anything for ourselves from home that had been bought by ourselves, had belonged to our mother, or been given to us individually.
So the furniture of Fulk's rooms in London--most of which he had had at Oxford--my own piano, our books, and various little worktables, chairs, pictures, and knicknacks appertained to us; also, we brought what belonged to the little one's nursery, and put him in the large room. His grand nurse--Earl though he was--could not stand the change; but old Blake, who was retiring into a public house, as he could do nothing else for us, suggested his youngest sister, who became the comfort of my life, for she was the widow of a small farmer, and could give me plenty of sound counsel as to how much pork to provide for the labourers, and how much small beer would keep them in good heart, and not make them too merry. And she had too much good sense to get into rivalry with Susan Sisson, the hind's wife, who lived in a kind of lean-to cottage opening into the farm-yard, and was the chief (real) manager of the dairy and poultry--though such was not Jaquetta's view of the case by any manner of means.
What a help it was to have one creature who did enjoy it all from the very first!
The parting with Bertram was sore, and one's heart will ache after him still at times, though he is prosperous and happy with his wife and fine family at the new Trevorsham. Fulk went through it all in a grave set way, as if he knew he never should be happy again, and accepted everything in silence, as a matter of course, not wanting to sadden us, but often grieving me more by his steady silence than if he had complained.
One thing he was resolved on, that he would be a farmer out and out--not a gentleman farmer, as he said; but though he only wore broadcloth in the evening and on Sundays, I can't say he ever succeeded in not looking more of the gentleman.
We fitted up the little parlour with our prettiest things, and it was our morning room, and we put a screen across the big keeping-room, which made it snug for a family gathering place. But those were the days when everyone was abusing the farmers for not living with their labourers in the house, and Fulk was determined to try it, at least the first year, either for the sake of consistency, or because he was resolved to keep our expenses as low as possible. "Failure would be ruin," he impressed on us, and he thought we ought to live on the profits of the farm, except what was directly spent on the boy, and to save the income of the agency. (Taking one year with another, we did so.)
So he gave up his own dear old Cid, and only used the same horses that had sufficed for our predecessor--a most real loss and deprivation--and he chose to take meals at the long table in the keeping-room with the farm servants. He said we girls might dine in our little parlour apart, but there was no bearing that, and the whole household dined and supped together. Breakfast was at such uncertain times that we left that for the back kitchen, and had our own little round table by the fire, or in the parlour, at half-past seven; and so we took care to have a good cup of coffee for Fulk when he came in about five or six; but the half-past twelve dinner and eight o'clock supper were at the long table, our three selves and Baby at the top--Baby between me and Mrs. Rowe ("Ally's Rowe," as he called her), then George and Susan Sisson opposite each other, the under nurse, the two maids, the hind, and the three lads.
I believe it was a very awful penance to them at first. We used to hear them splashing away at the pump and puffing like porpoises; and they came in with shining faces and lank hair in wet rats' tails, the foremost of which they pulled on all occasions of sitting down, getting up, or being offered food.
But they always behaved very well, and the habit of the animal at feeding-time is so silent that I believe the restraint was compensated by the honour; and it did civilise them, thanks, perhaps, to Susan's lectures on manners, which we sometimes overheard.
Fulk made spasmodic attempts to talk to Sisson; but the chief conversation was Jaquetta's. She went on merrily all dinner-time, asking about ten thousand things, and hazarding opinions that elicited amusement in spite of ourselves: as when she asked, what sheep did with their other two legs, or suggested growing canary seed, as sure to be a profitable crop. Indeed, I think she had a little speculation in it on her own account in the kitchen garden--only the sparrows were too many for her--and what they left would not ripen.
But the child was always full of some new and rare device, rattling on anyhow, not for want of sense, but just to force a smile out of Fulk and keep us all alive, as she called it. She knew every bird and beast on the farm, fed the chickens, collected the eggs, nursed tender chicks or orphan lambs and weaning calves, and was in and out with the dogs all day, really as happy as ten queens, with the freedom and homely usefulness of the life--tripping daintily about in the tall pattens of farm life in those days, and making fresh enjoyment and fun of everything.
I used to be half vexed to see her grieve so little over all we had lost; but Fulk said, "I suppose it is very hard to break down a creature at that age."
And even I was cheered by the wonderful start of health Alured took from the time Mrs. Rowe had him. He grew fat and rosy, and learnt to walk; and Dr. Hart was quite astonished at his progress, and said he was nearly safe from any more attacks of that fearful water on the brain till he was six or seven years old, and that, till that time, we must let him be as much as possible in the open air, and with the animals, and not stimulate his brain--neither teach, nor excite, nor contradict him, nor let him cry. The farm life was evidently the very thing he wanted.
What a reprieve it was, even though it should be only a reprieve!
He was already three years old, and was very clever and observant.
We were glad that he was too young to take heed of the change, or to see what was implied by his change from "baby," to "my lord," and we always called him by his Christian name. Mrs. Rowe felt far too much for us to gossip to him, and he was always with her or with me, though I do believe he liked Ben--the great, rough, hind--better than anyone else; would lead Mrs. Rowe long dances after him, to see him milk the cows, and would hold forth to him at dinner, in a way as diverting to us as it was embarrassing to poor Ben, who used to blurt out at intervals, "Yoi, my lord," and "Noa, my lord," while the two maids tried to swallow their tittering. The farmers at market used to call Fulk, "my lord," by mistake, and then colour up to their eyes through their red faces.
I believe, indeed, it was their name for him among themselves, and that they watched him with a certain contemptuous compassion, in the full belief that he would ruin himself.
And he declares he should if he had lived a bit more luxuriously, or if he had not had the agency salary to help him through the years of buying experience and the bad season with which he began.
Nor was it till he had for some years introduced that capital breed which thrives so well in the salt marshes, and twice following showed up the prize ox at the county show, that they began to believe in "Farmer Torwood," or think his "advanced opinions" in agriculture anything but a gentleman's whimsies.
As to friends and acquaintance, I am afraid we showed a great deal of pride and stiffness. They were kinder than we deserved, but we thought it prying and patronage, and would not accept what we could not return.
It is not fair to say we. It was only myself--Jaquetta never saw anything but kindness, and took it pleasantly, and Fulk was too busy and too unhappy to be concerned about our visiting matters. If I saw anyone coming to call I hid myself in the orchard, or if I was taken by surprise I was stiffness itself; and then I wrote a set of cards (Miss Torwood and Miss Jaquetta Torwood), and drove round in the queer old-fashioned gig to leave them, and there was an end of it; for I would accept no invitations, though Jaquetta looked at me wistfully. And thus I daunted all but old Miss Prior. Poor old thing! All her pleasures had oozed down from our house in old times to her; and her gratitude was indomitable, and stood all imaginable rebuffs that courtesy permitted me. I believe she only pitied and loved me the more, and persevered in the dreadful kindness that has no tact.
It did not strike me that pleasure might be good for Jaquetta, or that Fulk's stern silent sorrow might have been lightened by variety. Used as he had been to political life and London society, it was no small change to have merely the market for interest, the farm for occupation, and no society but ourselves; no newspaper but the County Chronicle once a week; no new books, for Mudie did not exist then, even if we could have afforded it. We had dropped out of the guinea country book club, and Knight's "Penny Magazine" was our only fresh literature. However, Jaquetta never was much of a reader, and was full of business--queen of the poultry, and running after the weakly ones half the day, supplementing George Sisson's very inadequate gardening--aye, and his wife's equally rough cooking. She found a receipt book, and turned out excellent dishes. She could not bear, she said, to see Fulk try to eat grease, and with an effort at concealment, assisted by the dogs, fall back upon bread and cheese.
Luckily plain work in the school-room had not gone out in our day, and I could make and mend respectably, but I had to keep a volume of Shakespeare, Scott, or Wordsworth open before me, and learn it by heart, to keep away thoughts, which might have been good for me; but no--they were working on their own bitterness.
Sunday was the hardest day of all to Fulk, for this was the only one on which he could not be busy enough to tire himself out. We were a mile from church, and when we got to the worm-eaten farm pew there was a smell, as Jaquey said, as if generations of farmers had been eating cheese there, and generations of mice eating after them; and she always longed to shut up a cat there.
The old curate was very old, and nothing seemed alive but the fiddles in the gallery--indeed, after the "Penny Magazine" had made us acquainted with the Nibelung, Jaquey took to calling Sisson, Folker the mighty fiddler, so determined were his strains.
After the great house was shut up, one service was dropped, and so the latter part of the day was spent in a visit to all the livestock, Fulk laden with Alured, and Jaquetta with tit bits for each and all.
She and Alured really enjoyed it, and we tried to think we did! And then Fulk used to stride off on a long solitary walk, or else sit in the porch with his arms across, in a dumb heavy silence, till he saw us looking at him; and then he would shake himself, and go and find Sisson, and discuss every field and beast with him.
At least we thought we should have been at peace here; but one afternoon, when Jaquetta had gone across to the village to see some purchase at the shop, she came back flushed and breathless, and said as she sat down by me, "Oh! Ursie, Ursie, I met Miss Prior; and _she_ has bought Spinney Lawn."
_She_ was Hester; it had never meant anyone else amongst us when it was said in that voice. Fulk, when we told him, had, it appeared, known it for some days past. All he said was, "Well! she has every right."
And when I exclaimed, "Just like a harpy, come to watch our poor child!" he said, "Nonsense."
But I knew I was right, and sat brooding--till presently he said, "Put that out of your head, Ursula, or you will not be able to behave properly to her."
"I don't see any good in behaving properly to her," said Jaquetta. "What business has she to come here?"
"I do not choose to regale the neighbourhood with our family jars"--said Fulk, quietly.
And then--such a ridiculous child as Jaquetta was--she burst out laughing, and cried, "What a feast they would be! Preserved crabs, I suppose;" and she brought a tiny curl into the corner of his mouth.
My pride was up, and I remember I answered, "You are right, Fulk. No one shall say we are jealous, or shrink from the sight of her!"
"When Smith told me that he had no idea who was the bidder, or he would not have suffered it," said Fulk, "I told him I could have no possible objection!"
And so we endured it in our pride and our dignity.
Lady Hester Lea was the heroine of the neighbourhood. The romance of the disowned daughter was charming; and I was far too disagreeable to excite any counterbalancing pity. She was handsome, and everybody raved about her likeness to poor papa and the family portraits; and her Montreal convent had given her manners quite distinct from English vulgarity; or, maybe, her blood told on her bearing, for she was immensely admired for her demeanour, quite as much as for her beauty.
Old Miss Prior--whom no coldness on my part could check in her assiduous kindness, and nothing would hinder from affectionately telling us whatever we did not want to hear--kept us constantly informed of the new comer's triumphs. Especially she would dwell upon the sensation that Lady Hester produced, and all that the gentlemen said of her. Her name stood as lady patroness to all the balls and fancy fairs, and archery, that Shinglebay produced; and there was no going to shop there without her barouche coming clattering down the street with the two prancing greys, and poor little Trevor inside, with a looped-up hat and ostrich feather exactly like Alured's; for by some intention she always dressed him in the exact likeness of his little uncle's. I used to think Miss Prior told her, and sedulously prevented her ever seeing his lordship out of his brown holland pinafores, but the same rule still held good.
What tender enquiries poor Miss Prior used to make after "the dear little lord," as she called him. My asseverations of his health and intelligence generally eliciting that it was current among Lady Hester's friends that he could neither stand nor speak, and was so imbecile that it was a mercy that he could not live to be eight years old.
Of course that was what Hester was waiting for. And no small pleasure was it when Alured would come pattering in with a shout of "Ursa, Ursa," and as soon as he saw a lady, would stop, and pull off his hat from his chestnut curls like the little gentleman he always was.
Spinney Lawn was bought before Joel Lea came to England. If he had seen where it was I doubt whether he would have consented to the purchase; but Perrault managed it all, and then, with what he had made out of the case, bought himself a share in Meakin's office at Shinglebay, and constituted himself Lady Hester's legal adviser.
Mr. Lea, after vainly trying to get his wife to return to Sault St. Pierre, thought it wrong to be apart from her and his son, and came to England.
Fulk went at once to call on him, expecting to be disgusted with Yankeeisms; but came home, saying he had found a more unlucky man than himself!
Fancy a great, big, plain, hard-working back-woodsman, bred only to the axe and rifle, with illimitable forests to range in, happy in toil and homely plenty, and a little king to himself, set down in an English villa, with a trim garden and paddock, and servants everywhere to deprive him of the very semblance to occupation!
Poor man! he had not even the alleviation of being proud of it, and trying to live up to it. Puritan to the bone of his broad back, he thought everything as wicked as it was wearisome and foolish; and lived like Faithful in "Vanity Fair," solely enduring it for the sake of his wife and son. I suppose he could not have carried her off, or altered her course without the strong hand; for she was a determined woman, all the more resolute because she acted for her child.
He was a staunch Dissenter, and would not go to church with Lady Hester, who did so as a needful part of the belonging of her station, or, perhaps, to watch over us, but trudged two miles every Sunday to the meeting-house at Shinglebay, where he was a great light, and spent all that she allowed him on the minister and the Sunday school.
As to society, he abhorred it on principle, and kept out of the way when his wife gave her parties. If she had an old affection for him in the depths of her heart, it was swallowed up in vexation and provocation; and no wonder, for the verdict of society, as Miss Prior reported it, was--"How sad that such a woman as Lady Hester should have been thrown away on a mere common man--not a bit better than a labourer."
I detested him like all the rest; but Fulk declared he was sublime in passive endurance, and used to make opportunities of consulting him about cattle or farming, just to interest him.
Fulk and the dissenting minister were the only friends the poor man had, and the latter Hester would not let into her house. As to Perrault, he loathed and shrank from him as the real destroyer of all his peace, and still the most dangerous influence about his wife. He never said so, but we felt it.
I think the poor man's happiest hours were spent here; and, now and then in a press of work, or to show how a thing ought to be done, he put his own hand to axe, lever, or hay-fork, and toiled with that cruelly-wasted alert strength.
Fulk always says there never was anyone who taught him so much as Joel Lea, and he means deeper things than farming.
Sometimes Mr. Lea brought his little boy. I was vexed at first; but Alured, who had hardly spoken to a child before, was in ecstasies, as if a new existence had come upon him; and Trevor Lea was really a very nice little boy. He was only half a year the elder; and they were so much alike that strangers did not know them apart, dressed alike, as they were; or they were taken for twins, and it made people laugh to find they were uncle and nephew.
And I must allow the nephew was the best behaved, though it made me savage to hear Fulk say so. But our Ally's was not real naughtiness--only the consequence of our not being able to keep up discipline, while we lived in dread of that seventh year that might rob us of our darling--always sweet and loving.
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{
"id": "4659"
}
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5
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SPINNEY LAWN.
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A change or two began to creep into our life. One afternoon, as Jaquetta, in her pretty pink gingham and white apron, with her black hair in the Grecian coil we used to wear when our heads were allowed to be of their own proper size, was gathering crimson apples from the quarrendon tree close to the river, a voice came over the water-- "Oh, my good girl, if you would but stand so a minute, and allow me to sketch you!"
Jaquetta started round and laughed. No doubt she was looking like an Arcadian; but I--as from under the trees I saw two gentlemen on the other side of the little stream, and jumped up to come to her defence--I must have looked more like a displeased if not draggle-tailed duchess, for there was an immediate disconcerted begging of our pardons, and a hasty departure.
Jaquetta made a very funny account of my spring forward in awful dignity, so horribly affronted at her being called a good girl! and she made Fulk laugh heartily. The gloom did seem to be lightening on him now.
Walking tourists, we supposed, though one we thought was a clergyman; and on Sunday we saw him in the desk and the draughtsman in the parsonage pew; and we discovered that these were the proposed new curate, Mr. Cradock, and his younger brother. Our rector was a canon who had bad health and never came near us, and the poor old curate was past work, and, indeed, died a week or two after he had given up.
I saw that younger brother colour up to the roots of his bright hair as Jaquetta walked up the aisle, in her drawn black silk bonnet with the pink lining (made by herself); and I think she coloured too, for she was rosier than usual when we faced round in the corners of our pew.
We saw no more of them for a month, and a dainty, bridal-looking little lady appeared in the parsonage seat, with white ribbons in her straw bonnet, and modest little orange flowers in the frill round her pleasant face.
Mrs. Cradock she was, we heard; and not only Miss Prior, but Fulk, wanted us to call on her.
"What's the use?" said I. "Farmers' families are not on visiting terms with the ladies of the parsonage."
Poor Jaquey uttered an "Oh dear!" but she and Fulk knew I was past moving in that mood.
However, one morning in the next week, in walked Fulk into the keeping-room, and the clergyman with him, and found Jaquey and me standing at the long table under the window, peeling and cutting up apples for apple-cheese.
"Mr. Cradock, my sister," he said, just in the old tone when he brought a friend into our St. James's-street drawing-room; and he hardly gave time for the shaking of hands before he had returned to the discussion about the change of ministry, just with the voice and animation I had not seen for two whole years.
We went on with our apples. For one thing, we were not wanted; for another, there was no fire in the little parlour, and the gentlemen both seemed to be enjoying the bright one that was burning on the hearth.
The only difficulty was that dinner time began to approach. The men could not be kept waiting; and I heard Alured awake from his sleep, pattering about and shouting; and as we began to gather up our apples one of the maids peeped in with a table-cloth over her arm.
Mr. Cradock saw, though Fulk did not, and said his wife would expect him; and then he looked most pleasantly to me, and said he was not at all wanted at home, while his wife was luxuriating in a settlement of furniture; but this was, he was assured, the last day of confusion, and to-morrow she would be quite ready for all who would be so good as to call on her.
I could only say I would do myself the pleasure; and then he still waited a moment to say that his brother Arthur could not recover from his dismay at his greeting to Miss Torwood.
"But," he said, "the boy's head was quite turned by the beauty of the country. He had been raving all day about the new poet, Alfred Tennyson, and I believe he thought he had walked into lotus-land."
"Nearer the dragon of the Hesperides, perhaps," said Fulk, laughing. "Is he with you now?"
"No; he has gone back to Oxford. He is in his second year; and whether he takes to medicine or to art is to be settled by common-sense or genius."
"Oh, but if he has genius?" began Jaquetta eagerly.
"That's the question," said Mr. Cradock, laughing. "But I am hindering you shamefully," and with that he took his leave, having quite demolished our barriers.
And his wife was of the same nature--simple, blithe, and bonny--ready to make friends in a moment; and though she must have known all about us, never seeming to remember anything but that we were her nearest lady neighbours.
Jaquetta, whose young friendships had been broken short off, because the poor girls really did not know how to correspond with her under present circumstances, took to Mrs. Cradock with eager enthusiasm, and tripped across the park to her two or three times a week, and became delightedly interested in all her doings, parochial or otherwise.
Dear Jaquey's happy nature had always been content; but when I saw how exceedingly she enjoyed the variety, liveliness, and occupations brought by the Cradocks, I felt that it had been scarcely kind to seclude her to gratify my own sole pride; but then there had been nobody like the Cradocks--to drop or be dropped.
The refreshment to Fulk was even greater. The having a man to converse with, and break his mind against, one who would argue, and who really cared for the true principles of politics, made an immense difference to him. When after tea he said he would walk to the parsonage to see how the debate had gone, and we knew we should not see him till half-past ten, we could not but be glad; it must have been so much pleasanter than playing at chess, listening to our old music, or reading even the new books they lent us.
He brightened greatly that winter, and I ceased to fear that he was getting a farmer's slouch. He looked as stately and beautiful as ever Lord Torwood had done, and the dejection had gone out of his face and bearing, when suddenly it returned again; and as Miss Prior was away from home, I never found out the cause till one day, as I was shopping at Shinglebay, and was telling the linen draper that Mr. Torwood would call for the parcel, I saw the lady at the other counter start and turn round, as if at a sudden shock.
Then I saw the white doe eyes, full of the old pleading expression, and the lips quivering wistfully, but I only said to myself, "The old arts! That is what has overthrown Fulk again;" and away I went with a rigid bow, and said nothing.
There was no exchange of calls. That was not my fault, for we could not have begun; and we heard that Mrs. Deerhurst said, "The Torwoods had shown very good taste in retiring from all society, poor things. Only it was a great mistake to remain in the neighbourhood--so awkward for everybody!"
Mrs. Cradock was much struck with Emily's sweet looks; but I believe that Jaquetta told her all about it, and we never met the Deerhursts there.
In fact they were not intimate, for there must have been a repulsion between Mrs. Deerhurst and such a woman as Mary Cradock.
The Deerhursts owned a villa on the outskirts of Shinglebay; indeed, I believe it was the difficulty in letting it that had unwillingly forced Mrs. Deerhurst home, after having married her second daughter, but not Emily. She was only a mile and a half from Spinney Lawn, and speedily became familiar there, being as entirely Hester's counsellor in etiquette as was Perrault on business. People saw a marked improvement in elegance from the time she became adviser.
That next winter poor Joel Lea died. I suppose it was merely the dulness and want of exercise that killed him, for he had lost flesh and grown languid in manner for months before a low fever set in, and he had no power to struggle with it.
He had been ill a long time, when he sent a message to beg Mr. Torwood to come and see him. Jaquetta and I persuaded ourselves that he had discovered that Perrault had suborned witnesses, or done something that would falsify the whole trial.
Jaquetta said she should be very glad for Fulk, and if it happened now little Alured would never feel it; but for her own part, she should hate to go back to be my lady again. She had never known before what happiness was.
I could not help laughing. Nobody had ever detected anything amiss with Lady Jaquetta Trevor's spirits, but that they were too high at times.
"Of course I don't mean that I was miserable!" she said; "but there's something now that does make everything so delicious."
"Could you not take that something to the park?" I asked, laughing.
"I don't know! It would not be so bad if I could run in and out at the parsonage as I do now."
And as I smiled, it smote me as I recollected that Arthur Cradock was always at the parsonage in the vacations. Jaquetta had been sketched many a time as nymph of the orchard, and many a nymph besides. And if he was yielding to his brother's wisdom in making medicine his study and art his pleasure, was not our unconscious maiden the sugar that sweetened the cup of prudence? Might not elevation be as sore a trial to her as depression had been to us?
However, our troubling ourselves was all nonsense. Good Joel Lea would never have connived at any evil doings. All he had wanted of Fulk was to be certain of his forgiveness for the injury he had suffered through his wife, and to entreat him to keep a watch over her and the boy.
"You are her brother, when all is come and gone," he said; "and I do not trust that Perrault. If ever he fails her, or turns against her, you'll stand her friend, and look to the boy?"
Fulk heartily promised, and Joel further begged him to write to her eldest brother, Francis Dayman (who was prospering immensely in the timber trade), and let him know the state of things--though he had been so angered at Hester's sacrifice of his mother's good name and his own birth, that he had broken with her entirely.
"But if anyone can get her out of Perrault's hands, it is Francis," poor Joel said; and he went on to talk of his poor boy, about whom he was very anxious, having no trust in any of Hester's intimates, and begging Fulk to throw a good word to him now and then.
"He thinks much of you," he said. "I heard him tell Miss Deerhurst that it was no use for anyone to try to be such an out-and-out gentleman as his uncle, for they couldn't do it, and he had rather be like you than anyone else. I don't care for gentlemen, and all that foolery, as you know. I wish I could leave him to my old mate, Eli Potter; but you are true and honest, Fulk Torwood, and I think not so far from the kingdom--" Then he asked Fulk to read a chapter to him. No one else would do so, except little Trevor, when now and then left alone with him; but Hester would not believe him seriously ill, and thought the Bible wearied him and made him low spirited; and as to his friend the Dissenter, she would never admit him.
Fulk was so indignant that he wanted to drive to Shinglebay and fetch Mr. Ball, but Lea thanked him and half smiled at his superstition of thinking that a minister was needed to speed his soul; but he was pleased that Fulk came to him on each of the four or five remaining days of his life, and read to him whatever he wished.
He sank suddenly at last, while Hester was at church on Sunday morning, and died when alone with Fulk.
Somehow the intense reality of that man and the true comfort his faith was to him made an immense impression on my brother, and seemed, as it were, to give the communication between his religious belief and his feelings, which had somehow not been in force before. He thought and borrowed books from Mr. Cradock, and there came a deepening and softening over him, which one saw in many ways, that made him dearer than ever. He looked more at peace, even though one felt that each passing sight of Emily was a sting.
Hester was dreadfully stricken down at first, and her anguish of lamentation and self-reproach was terrible to witness; but she would not hear of Fulk's fetching either of us--indeed, I fancy that was the fault of my dry, cold looks--nor would she allow him to do anything for her.
Mrs. Deerhurst came to be with her, and Perrault managed everything.
They had a magnificent funeral--much grander than my father's--and laid him in the family vault.
Perrault took the opportunity of insulting Fulk by pairing him with old Hall, the ex-agent; but Hall found it out in time, and refused to go, and when the moment came everybody fell back, and Fulk found himself close to poor little Trevor, who tried to get his hand out of Perrault's and cling to him; but Perrault held him tight till, at the moment when they moved to the mouth of the vault and were to go down the steps, terror completely seized the poor child, and he began to shriek so fearfully that Fulk had to snatch him up and carry him out of the church, trembling from head to foot.
It was very cruel to send a sensitive child of six years old in that way; but Hester was too much exhausted with her violent grief to go herself, and, devoted mother as she was in all else, she never perceived that poor child's instinctive shrinking from Perrault.
We tried to be kind to her, and hoped she would soften towards us; but she did not. I could see her eyes glitter with their keen, searching glance under her crape veil, as if she were measuring Alured all over when the child walked into church with me; and, indeed, when he went to the Zoological Gardens some time later, and saw the cobra di capello, he said-- "Ursa, why does that snake look at me just like Lady Hester?"
There must have been fascination in the eager mystery of the gaze, for, strangely enough, he was not afraid of her. She always made much of him if he came in her way, and he was so fond of Trevor Lea that nothing made him so eager or happy as the thought of seeing him.
The one idea that her boy was ousted by Alured, and the longing to see him the heir, seemed to drive out everything else from Hester--almost feeling for her husband.
Fulk had written to Francis Dayman, and he intended to come and see after his sister as soon as he could leave his business; but this rather precipitated matters. Hester was persuaded that Alured could not live through that eighth year of his life at the utmost, and Perrault somehow persuaded her, that only as her husband could he protect her interests and Trevor's, though what machinations she could have expected from us, I cannot guess; or how, in the case of a minor, we could have interfered with her rights. But the man had gained such an ascendancy over her, that she did not even perceive that the connection was not good for that great object of hers, her son's position in society. In fact, he persuaded her that he was of a noble old French family, and ought to be a count. How we laughed when we heard of it! She did preserve wisdom enough to insist upon having her fortune conveyed to trustees for her son, so that Perrault could only touch the income, and not the principal; and as she told everyone that he had been determined upon this being done, I suppose he saw that any demur would excite her suspicion.
They went to London, and were married there, while we were still scouting poor Miss Prior's rumours. We were very sorry when we thought of poor Joel's charge; and, besides, "the count" had an uncomfortable slippery look about him. I can't describe it otherwise. He was a slim, trim, well-dressed man, only given to elaborate jewellery and waistcoats, with polished black hair and boots, and keen French-looking eyes, well-mannered, and so versatile and polite, that he soon overcame people's prejudices; and he was thought to make a much better master of the house than poor Joel had ever done.
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{
"id": "4659"
}
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6
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THE WHITE DOE'S WARNING.
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Here was Alured's eighth birthday, and he had never been ill at all, but was as fine-looking healthy a boy as could be seen.
We took him to London, and showed him to Dr. Hart, and he said that the old tendency was entirely outgrown, and that Lord Trevorsham was as likely to live and thrive as any child of his age in England.
It really seemed the beginning of a new life, not to have that dreadful fear hanging over us any longer! We felt settled, that was one thing; not as if we should do as Bertram expected, have to come off to New Zealand.
The farm had just began to pay. Fulk's sales of cattle had been, for the first time, more than enough to clear his rent. He had a great ox in the Smithfield Cattle Show, and met our Lupton uncles there not as an unsuccessful man.
And I? I had a dim feeling that Alured would soon cease to need me, and Jaquetta would not be claimed for a long time; and if-- But in the midst of that I saw a haggard face driving in the park by the side of a little, over-dressed, faded woman.
And Aunt Amelia told me how (in the rebound from my harshness, no doubt) Mr. Decies had, as it were, dropped into the hands of a weak, extravagant girl, who had long been using all the intellect she had to attract him, and now led him a dreary life of perpetual dissipation.
I don't know how much I had been to blame. I am sure he was meant for better things. Mine could never have been real love for him, and the refusal could not have been wrong. It must have been the pride and harshness that stung him!
I was very sorry for him, though I could not think about it, of course, still less speak; but that was the beginning of my hating myself, and I have hated myself more and more ever since I have taken to write all this down, and seen how hard and foolish I was, how very much the worst of the three.
Even my care for Alured sprang out of exclusive passion, and so, though I do think that by Heaven's mercy I had a great share in cherishing him into strength and health, I had managed him badly, I had indulged him over much, and was improperly resentful of any attempt of Jaquetta, or even of Fulk, to interfere with him or restrain him.
Thus, when the anxiety was over, and he was a strong boy, full of health and activity, his will was entirely unrestrained, he had no notion of minding any of us, still less of learning. Trevor Lea could read, write, talk French, say a few Latin declensions, when Alured could not read a word of three letters, and would not try to learn.
Oh! the antics he played when I tried to teach him! Then Fulk tried, and he was tame for three days, but then came idleness, wilfulness, anger, punishment, but he laughed to scorn all that we could find in our hearts to do to him.
As to getting other help we were ashamed till he should be a little less shamefully backward. The Cradocks offered to teach him, but then, unless he was elaborately put on honour, he played truant.
He had plenty of honour, plenty of affection, but not the smallest conscience as to obedience; and Fulk would not have the other two motives worked too hard, saying the one might break, the other give way.
We had not taught obedience, so we had to take the consequences, and we were the less able to enforce it that he had come to a knowledge of our mutual relations much sooner than we intended, and in the worst manner possible.
Of course he knew himself to be Lord Trevorsham, and owner of the property; but one day, when Fulk found him galloping his pony in the field laid up for hay, and ordered him out, he retorted that "You ain't my proper brother, and you haven't any rights over me! It is my field; and I shall do as I like."
Fulk got hold of the pony's bridle, and took Alured by the shoulder without one word, then took him into the little study, and had it out with him.
It was Hester who had told him. He had been at Spinney Lawn with Trevor all one afternoon, when we had thought him out with old Sisson. He had told no falsehood indeed, but Hester and her husband had made him understand, so far as such a child could do, that there was some disgrace connected with us; that Fulk had once been in his place, and only wanted to get it back, and now had it all his own way with his young lordship's property, and that he owed us neither duty nor affection, only to his true relative, Lady Hester Perrault.
The dear boy had maintained stoutly that he did love Ursula and Jacquey, and that Hester wasn't half so nice, and that he had rather they bullied him than that she coaxed him! But there was the poison sown--to rankle and grow and burst out when he was opposed. He had full faith and trust in Fulk, and accepted his history, owning, indeed, from a boy, that he had been a horrid little wretch for saying what he did, and asking whether it had not been a great bore; indeed, he behaved all the better instead of the worse for some little time, dear fellow.
But he was too big and strong to tie to one's apron-string, and his greatest pleasure was in being with Trevor. I think Trevor's own influence never did any harm. Poor Joel Lea had trained him well, and he was a conscientious, good boy, who often hindered Alured from insubordination; but the attraction to Spinney Lawn was a mischievous thing--for there was no doubt that the heads of the family would set him against us if they could.
So Fulk thought it wiser to send him to school, since he was learning nothing properly at home, and only getting more disobedient and unruly.
Immediately Trevor Lea was sent to the same school, to the boys' great delight. They cared little that Trevor was placed nearly at the top and Trevorsham at the bottom of the little preparatory school. They held together just as much, and Alured came home wonderfully improved and delightfully good, but more than ever inseparable from Trevor.
In the meantime Francis Dayman had come to pay his sister a visit. He had made some fortunate speculations, and had come on to be a merchant of considerable wealth and weight in the Hudson's Bay Company.
A handsome man of a good deal of strength and force he seemed to be, and Perrault had certainly been wise in securing his prize before Hester had such a guardian.
He was an open, straight-forward man, with a fresh breath of the forest about him; successful beyond all his hopes, and full of activity. He took to Fulk, and seemed to have a strong fellow-feeling for us.
But little had Fulk expected to be made the confidant of his vehement admiration for Emily Deerhurst. The gentle lady-like girl impressed the backwoodsman in a wondrous manner. It seemed to him, as if his wealth would have real value, if he could pour it all out on her.
And her mother encouraged him. Emily was six years older than when she had cast off Fulk, and there was a pale changed look about her; and the rich Canadian, who could buy a baronetcy, and do anything she asked, tempted Mrs. Deerhurst.
Though, as Fulk said bitterly, if the stain on his birth was all the cause of the utter withdrawal, was it not the same with Francis Dayman? Only in his case it was gilded!
Dayman knew nothing of this former affair. The world was forgetting it, and if Hester knew it, she kept it from his knowledge, so he used to consult Fulk as to what was to be done to please an English lady, and whether he was too rough for her; and Fulk stood it all. He even knew when the young lady herself was brought forward--and refused, gently, sadly, courteously, but unmistakably; and then, when driven hard by the eager wooing, owned to an old attachment, that never would permit her to marry!
What a light there was in Fulk's eyes when he whispered that into my ears! And yet he had kept his counsel, even though Mr. Dayman told him that the mother declared it to be a foolish romantic affair of very early girlhood, that no doubt his perseverance would overthrow.
"And her persecution!" muttered poor Fulk. But he did enjoy the confidences in a bitter-sweet fashion. It was justifiable to be a dog in the manger under the circumstances.
Mr. Dayman went to London, and Hester was negotiating about a house where Mrs. Deerhurst and her daughters were to stay with her for a few weeks. I fancy Mrs. Deerhurst thought that the chance of seeing Farmer Torwood ride by to market had a bad effect. It was the Easter holidays, and both boys were at home; always trying to be together, and we not finding it easy to keep Alured from Spinney Lawn, without such flat refusals as would have given his sister legitimate cause of complaint and offence.
One beautiful spring afternoon, when Alured, to my vexation and vague uneasiness, had gone over there, I was sowing annuals in the garden and watching for him at the same time, when, to my surprise, I saw, coming over the fields from the park, a lady with a quick, timid, yet wearied step. Had she lost her way, I thought? There was something of the tame fawn in her movement; and then I remembered the white doe. Yes! it was Emily!
The one haunting anxiety of my life broke out--"You haven't come to say there's anything amiss with my boy?" I cried out.
"No; oh no! I think he is safe now; but I wanted to tell you, I think you ought to be warned."
She was trembling so much that I wanted to bring her in and make her rest; but she would only sit down on the step of the stile, and there she whispered it, in this way.
"You know there's a dreadful scarlet fever at old Brown's."
"The old man that sells curiosities? No, I did not know it; I'll keep Trevorsham away," I said, wondering she had come all this way; and then asking in a fright, "Surely he has not been there?"
"No; I met him on the road with Lady Hester Perrault, and I told them. I walked back to Spinney Lawn with them. But," as I began to thank her, and her voice went lower still, "but--oh, Ursula, Lady Hester knew it!"
"Knew it!"
"Yes, knew it quite well."
"She was doing it on purpose!"
"Oh," Emily hid her face in her hands, "I pray God to forgive me if I am doing a very cruel wicked wrong; but I can't help thinking it. I had told her only yesterday how bad the fever was in that street. She said she had forgotten it, and thanked me; but she had not her own boy, Trevor, with her."
I was too much frozen with the horror of the thing to speak at first, and perhaps Emily thought I did not quite believe her, for she said, under her breath, "And I've heard her talk--talk to mamma--about her being so certain that Lord Trevorsham could not live, even when he was past seven years old. They always have said that the first illness would go to his head and carry him off. And when people do wish things very much--" And then she grew frightened at herself, and began blaming herself for the horrible fancy, but saying it haunted her every time she saw Lord Trevorsham in Lady Hester's sight. That old ballad, "The wee grovelling doo," would come into her head, and she had felt as if any harm happened to the child it would be her fault for not having spoken a word of warning, and this had determined her.
By this time I had taken it in, and then the first thing I did was to spring up and ask how she could leave the boy still in the woman's power, to which she answered that she had walked them back to Spinney Lawn--a whole mile--and that Lady Hester could not set forth again, now that Alured had heard the conversation.
He had been bent on going to buy a tame sea-gull there, as a birthday present for Trevor; and Emily had lured him off from that, by a promise of getting one from an old fisherman whom she knew. So there was not much fear of his running back into the danger, though I should not have a happy moment till he was in my sight again.
Then Emily sprang up, saying, she must go. She had walked four miles, and she must get back as fast as she could. Most likely mamma would think her at Spinney Lawn.
But what must not it have cost that timid thing to venture here with her warning!
It gave me a double sense of the reality of my boy's, peril, that she had been excited to it, and she would not hear of coming in to rest; and when I entreated her to wait till I could get the gig to drive her part of the way, she held me fast, and insisted, with all the terror of womanly shamefacedness, that, "he--that Tor--that Mr. Torwood--should not know." And she sprang up to go home instantly, before he could guess.
"Oh, Emily, that is too bad, when nothing would make him so glad."
"Oh! no, no! he has been used too ill; he can't care for me now, and as if I should--" I don't think poor Emily uttered anything half so coherent as this, at any rate I understood that she disclaimed the least possibility of his affection continuing, and felt it an outrage on herself to be where she could even suppose herself to have voluntarily put herself in his way.
I thought there was nothing for it but to let her start, hurry after her with some vehicle, and then call and bring home my boy; but in the midst of my perplexity and her struggle with her tears, who should appear on the scene but Fulk himself, driving home the spring cart wherein, everybody being busy, he had conveyed a pig to a new home.
I don't know how it was all done or said. My first notion was that he should be warned of our dear boy's danger, and rescue him before anything else. I could not get into my head that there was no present reason for dread, and yet when I had gasped out "Oh, Fulk--Alured--Fetch him home! Emily came to warn us!" the accusation began to seem so monstrous and horrible that I could not go on with it before Emily. She too, perhaps, found it harder to utter to a man than to a woman, and between the strangeness of speaking to one another again, and her shyness and his wonder and delight, it seemed to me unreasonable that poor little Alured's danger was counting for nothing between them, and I turned from the former reticence to the bereaved tigress style, and burst out, "And are we to stand talking here while our boy is in these people's power?"
Then Fulk did listen to what it was all about; but even then it seemed to me he would not think half so much of the peril as of what Emily had done. In truth, I believe all they both wanted was to get out of my way; but they pacified me by Fulk's undertaking, if Emily did not object to the cart, to drive her across the park where no one would meet her, and she could get out only a mile from home, and to call at Spinney Lawn in returning by the road and take up Alured.
What a drive that must have been! Fulk had the advantage over Emily in knowing what poor Mr. Dayman had told him, whereas she, poor child, only knew that he had been so vilely served that she thought his affection and esteem had been entirely killed.
They had it all out in that tax cart, a vehicle Fulk now regards as a heavenly chariot, and I heard it all afterwards.
Poor Emily! she had grown a great deal older in those six years. At eighteen she had implicitly believed in her mother. Mrs. Deerhurst had been so good all those years of striving not to frighten my father, that she had been perfection in her daughter's eyes. Emily had believed with all her heart in her apparent disinterestedness, and her hopes and sympathy for us were real; and so, when the crash really came, and she told the poor girl with floods of tears that it was impossible, and a thing not to be thought of, for a right-minded woman to unite herself to a man of such birth. And poor Emily, with the conscious ignorance of eighteen, believed, and was the sort of gentle creature who could easily be daunted by the terror that her generous impulses to share the shame and namelessness were unfeminine and wrong. The utter silence had been the consequence of her mother assuring her, with authority, that the true kindness was to betray no token of feeling that could cherish hope where all was hopeless, and that he would regret her less if she commanded herself and gave him no look.
It had been terrible, calm self-command, and obedience to abused filial confidence in her mother's infallibility.
And then Mrs. Deerhurst had been sinking ever since in her daughter's esteem, as Emily could not but rise higher from the conscientious struggle and self-denying submission, and besides grew older and had more experience; while Mrs. Deerhurst, no doubt, deteriorated in the foreign wandering life, and all her motives made themselves evident when she married the younger daughter.
Emily had thought for herself, and seen that advantage had been taken of her innocence, and that her betrothed had rights, which, if she had been older, she would not have been persuaded to ignore. But coming home, two years later, and meeting my cold eyes and Fulk's ceremonious bow, and hearing on all parts that he had accepted his position and had a hard struggle to maintain his two sisters; she, knowing herself to be portionless, could but suffer, and be still.
Of course every attempt of her mother's to get her to marry advantageously, and, even more, Mrs. Deerhurst's devotion to Lady Hester, tore away more and more of the veil she had tried to keep over her eyes; and as her youngest sister grew up into bloom, and into the wish for society, Emily had been allowed more and more to go her own quiet way in the religious and charitable life of Shinglebay, where she had peace, if not joy.
And then came the Dayman affair, when all the old persecution revived again, and Emily's foremost defence against him, her blushing objection to his birth, was set aside as a mere prudish fancy of a young girl.
The gentle Emily had been irate then, and all the more when her mother tried to cover her inconsistency by alleging that everybody knew of Lord Torwood's fall, whereas no one knew or cared who Francis Dayman was, or where he came from. Henceforth Emily's shame at the usage of Fulk had been double--or rather it turned into indignation. Reports that he was to marry a rich grazier's daughter had no effect in turning her in pique to Dayman. She had firmly told her mother that if it were wrong for her to take the one, it must be equally so to take the other.
This Mrs. Deerhurst had concealed from poor Mr. Dayman; nor would Emily's modesty allow her to utter the objection to the man's own face. So Mrs. Deerhurst encouraged him, and trusted to London reports of the grazier's daughter, and persevering appeals to that filial sense of duty which had been strained so much too far.
And now, how did it stand?
When I, secure in knowing that Alured was safe at home, thinking it abominable nonsense in Miss Deerhurst to have bothered about scarlet fever, Hester herself had said so. When I could hear Fulk's happiness, and try to analyse it, what did it amount to?
Why, that they knew they loved one another still, and never meant to cease. And with what hopes? Alas! the hopes were all for some time or other. Emily would do nothing in flat disobedience, and there was little or no hope of her mother's consent to her marrying Farmer Torwood. She meant to tell her mother thus much, that she had seen him, and that they loved each other as much as ever; and as Mrs. Deerhurst had waived the objection to Dayman, it could not hold in the other case. It would be, in fact, a tacit compact--scarcely an engagement--with what amount of meeting or correspondence must be left for duty and principle to decide, but the love that had existed without aliment for six years might trust now. And "hap what hap," there never was a happier man than my Fulk that evening.
He was too joyous not to be universally charitable. Nay, he called it a blessed fancy of Emily's that brought her here, as it was Emily's, and had brought him such bliss he could not quite scorn it, but he did not, _could_ not believe in it as we did. It was culpable carelessness in Hester, but colonial people had been used to such health that they did not care about infection. But it was a glorious act of Emily's! In fact the manly mind could believe nothing so horrible of any woman.
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{
"id": "4659"
}
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7
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HUNTING.
|
Emily told Mr. Dayman the whole truth. Poor fellow! he could not face Fulk again, and went back to Canada.
No doubt Emily went through a great deal, but we never exactly knew what.
Fulk wrote to Mrs. Deerhurst, stating that he hoped in four years' time to be able to purchase the farm, of which he had the lease, and without going into the past, asking her sanction to the engagement.
She sent a cold letter in answer, to desire that the impertinence should not be repeated.
And Emily wrote that her mother would not hear of the engagement, and she knew Fulk would not wish her to deceive or disobey, "And so we must trust one another still; but how sweet to do that!"
And when any of us met her there were precious little words and looks, and Fulk meant to try again after the four years. In the meantime he was much respected, and had made himself a place of his own. It chafed Hester to perceive that though she had pulled us down she could not depress us after the first. She had lowered her position, too, by her marriage. At first Perrault was on his good behaviour, and made a favourable impression among the second-rate Shinglebay society Hester got round her; but as the hopes of the title coming to her diminished, he kept less within bounds, did not treat her well at home, and took to racing and gambling.
I never could get Fulk to share my alarms about Alured, but he did not think Perrault's society fit for the boy, told Alured so, and forbade him to go to Spinney Lawn. But though Alured was much improved as to obedience, it was almost impossible to enforce this command. Hester had some strange fascination for him. She would fiercely caress him at times, and he knew she was his sister, and could not see why, when she was often alone, he should not be with her. The passion for Trevor was in full force, too, and the boys could not be content only to meet at the farm. We tried sending Alured to make visits from home in the holidays, but he did not like it, and he was not happy; his heart was with his home, and with Trevor. We tried having a tutor for the spring holidays before he went to Eton, but it did not answer. He was not a sensible man, did not like dining in the keeping-room with the household, and though he did it, he showed that he thought it a condescension.
Moreover, instead of attending to Alured, he was always trying to flirt with Jaquetta, infinitely disturbing Arthur Cradock's peace; and the end of it was, that Alured was a great deal more left to his own devices than ever he had been before, and exasperated besides.
He was in that mood, when one day, as he was riding along the lanes, he met Perrault and Trevor coming in from hunting.
Alured had a very pretty pony, but he was growing rather large for it, and Fulk had promised that, if he worked well at Eton, he should have a lovely little Arab, that was being trained by a dealer he knew; and that another year, Fulk himself would go out hunting with him.
Perrault began to pity him for having missed the run. Why did not his brother take him out? Fulk's old mare was a sort of elephant, and it was not convenient to get another horse just then. That Alured knew and explained, but he was pitied the more for being kept back, and Perrault ended by saying that if on the next hunting day he could meet them at the corner of the park, a capital mount should be there for him.
The hour was attainable if Alured made haste with his studies, and he accepted gladly, and without compunction. Fulk had never in so many words forbidden him, and besides, Fulk had delegated his authority to the hateful tutor.
But the next morning, before Alured was up Trevor was in his bedroom. "You won't go, Trevorsham?"
"Yes, I shall; I'm not such a muff as to stay for that fellow."
But I need not try to tell what passed, as of course I did not hear it; I never so much as knew of it till long after, only Trevorsham was determined, and Trevor tried all round the due arguments of principle, honour, and duty; but Alured had worked up a schoolboy self-justification on all points, and besides had the stronghold of "I will," and "I don't care."
Then Trevor told him, under his breath, he was sure it was not a safe horse. But my high-spirited boy laughed this to scorn. "And perhaps he'll play you some trick," added Trevor. But Trevorsham was still undaunted in his self-will, till Trevor resolutely announced his determination, if nothing else would stop it, of going at once to Fulk, and informing him.
The boy endured all the rage and scorn that a threat so contrary to all schoolboy codes of honour and friendship might deserve. I believe Alured struck him, but at any rate Trevor Lea gained his point, though at the cost of a desperate quarrel.
Alured held aloof and sulked at him for the remaining fortnight at home, and only vouchsafed the explanation to us that "Lea was a horrid little sneak, and he had done with him."
They did not make it up till they met in the same house at Eton, and then, though Trevor was placed far above Alured, they became as friendly as ever. In fact, I believe, Alured, having imprudently denominated himself by his full title, was having it kicked out of him, when the fortunate possessor of the monosyllabic name came and stood by him and made common cause, to the entire renewing of love.
Poor Trevor! his was a dreary home. His mother loved him passionately, but she was an anxious, worn, disappointed woman, always craving, restless and expectant of something, and Perrault was always tormenting her for money. He was deeply in debt, and though he could not touch the bulk of her fortune--neither, indeed, could she, as it was conveyed to trustees--he was always demanding money of her, and bullying her; while matters grew worse and worse, and they were in danger of having to let Spinney Lawn and go to live abroad.
As to keeping Trevor at Eton that was becoming impossible. At Christmas the tutor consulted Fulk about how he should get Lea's bills paid, and intimated that he must not return unless this were done.
And poor Trevor himself had little comfort except with us. We encouraged him to come to us, for we had all come to have a very real love for the dear lad himself, and we saw he was unhappy at home; besides that, it was the only way of keeping Alured contented.
Trevor had entirely left off inviting Alured to Spinney Lawn. Partly, he was too gentlemanly and good a boy not to be ashamed of the men who hung about the stables; and besides, we now perceive that the same awful impression that was on Emily Deerhurst was upon him, and that he had a sense that Trevorsham was regarded in a manner that made his presence there a peril.
He was but a boy, and it was an undefined horror, and he never breathed a word of it; but oh, there was a weight on that young brow, an anxious look about the face, and though now and then he would be all joy and fun, still there was the older, more sorrowful look about him.
We thought he was grieving at not going back to Eton, and Fulk was living in hopes of an answer to the letter he had written to Francis Dayman about it, but that was not all. One day--Christmas Eve it was--Mr. Cradock, on coming into the church to look at the holly wreaths, found Trevor kneeling on his father's gravestone in the pavement, sobbing as if his heart was breaking, and heard between the sobs a broken prayer about "Forgive"--"don't let them do it"--"turn mother's heart."
Then Mr. Cradock went out of hearing, but he waited for the boy outside, and asked if he could do anything for him.
"No." Trevor shook his head, thanked him, and grew reserved.
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{
"id": "4659"
}
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8
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DUCK SHOOTING.
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Alured's thirteenth birthday was on the 10th of January, and he had extracted a promise from Fulk, to take him duck-shooting to the mouth of our little river.
Nothing can be prettier than our tide river by day, with the retreating banks overhung with trees, the long-legged herons standing in the firs, looking like toys in a German box; while the breadth of blue water reflects the trees that bend down to it.
But, on a winter's night, to creep in perfect silence and lie still under an overhanging bank, not daring to make a sound, till you could get a shot at the ducks disporting themselves in the moonlight, on the frozen mud on the banks! Such an occupation could only be endurable under the name of sport.
However, Fulk and Bertram had had their time, and now Alured was having the infection in his turn; but Trevor was driven over to spend the day, much mortified that he had a bad broken chilblain, which made his boots unwearable, and it was the more disappointing, that it was a very hard frost, and there was a report that some wild swans had been seen on the river.
But in the course of the day Jaquetta routed out a pair of India rubber boots which, with worsted stockings beneath, did not press the chilblains at all, and after having spent all the day in snow-balling and building forts, Trevor declared himself far from lame, and resolved not to lose the fun. He had not come equipped, so Alured put him into an old grey coat and cap of his own, and merrily they started in the frosty moonlight, with dashes of snow lying under the hedges, and everything intensely light. Fulk grumbling in fun at being dragged away from his warm fire, and pretending to be grown old, the boys shouting to one another full of glee, all the dogs in the yard clamouring because only the wise old retriever, Captain, was allowed to be of the party; Arthur Cradock making ridiculous mistakes on purpose between the uncle and nephew, Trevorsham and Sham Trevor, as he called them.
Alas! Nay, shall I say alas, or only be thankful?
They had been gone some time when we heard a rapid tread coming towards the porch. Something in the very sound thrilled Jaquetta and me at once with dismay. We darted out, and saw Brand, the head gamekeeper in the park.
"Never fear, my lady; thank God," he said, "my lord is quite safe. It is poor Master Lea who is hurt; and Mr. Torwood sent me up for some brandy, and a mattress, and a lantern, and some cloths."
That assured us that he was alive, and we ran to fulfil the request in the utmost haste, without asking further questions, and sending off Sisson to ride for the poor mother, and to go on to Shinglebay for the doctor, though, to our comfort, we knew that Arthur had almost finished his surgical education, and was sure to know what was to be done.
"A stray shot," we said again and again to each other; and we called Nurse Rowe, and made up a bed in Alured's old nursery, and lighted a fire, and were all ready, with hearts beating heavy with suspense before the steps came back--my poor Alured first, as we held the door open. How pale his face looked! and his brows were drawn with horror, and his steps dragging, saying not a word, but trembling, as he came and held by me, with one hand on my waist, while Fulk and Sisson carried in the mattress, Arthur Cradock at the side, and Perrault, who had joined them, walking behind with the flask.
Dear Trevor lay white with sobbing breath and closed eyes, the cloths and mattress soaked through and through with blood. They put him down on the keeping-room table, and Arthur poured more brandy into his mouth.
I said something of the room being ready but Arthur said very low "He is dying--internal bleeding;" and when Jaquetta asked "Can nothing be done?" he answered, "Nothing but to leave him still."
"Trevorsham," murmured the feeble voice, and Alured was close to him; "Ally! you are all right!" and then again, as Alured assured him he would be better-- "No, I shan't; I'm so glad it wasn't you. I always thought he'd do it some day, and now you're quite safe, I want to thank God."
We did not understand those words then; we did soon.
The weak voice rambled on, "to thank God; but oh, it hurts so--I can't--I will when I get there." Then presently "Mother!"
"She'll come very soon," said Alured.
"Mother! oh, mother! Trevorsham, don't let them know. O Trev, promise, promise!"
"Promise what? I promise, whatever it is! Only tell me," entreated Alured.
"Take care of her--of mother. Don't let--" and then his eyes met Perrault's, and a shudder came all over him, which brought the end nearer; and all another spoonful of brandy could do was to enable him to say something in Alured's ear, and then a broken word or two--"forgive--glad--pray;" and when we all knelt and Fulk did say the Lord's Prayer, and a verse or two more, there was a peaceful loving look at Fulk and Jaquetta and me, and then the whisper of the Name that is above every name, as a glad brightness came over the face, and the eyes looked upwards, and so grew set in their gaze, and there was the sound one never can forget.
Nurse Rowe laid her hand on Alured's neck, as he knelt with his head close to Trevor's. Fulk and I looked at each other, and we knew that all was over.
They had tried in vain to check the bleeding. No one could have done more than Arthur had done, but a main artery had been injured, and nothing could have saved him. He had said nothing after the first cry, except when he saw Alured's grief. "Never mind; I'm glad it was not you." And once or twice, as they carried him home, he had begged to be put down, though they durst not attend to the entreaty, and Arthur did not think he had suffered much pain.
It jarred that just as we would have knelt for one silent prayer, Perrault's voice broke on us. "Ah! poor boy, it is better than if it lasted longer! I saw that half-witted fellow, Billy Blake about. So I don't wonder at anything; but of course it was a mere accident, and I shall not press it."
Scarcely hearing him, I had joined Mrs. Rowe in the endeavour to detach Alured from his dear companion, when there was poor Hester among us, with open horror-stricken eyes, and a wild, frightful shriek as she leapt forward; and no words can describe the misery of her voice as she called on her boy to look at her, and speak to her--gathering him into her bosom with a passionate, desperate clasp, that seemed almost an outrage on the calm awful stillness of the innocent child; and Alured involuntarily cried, "Oh, don't," while Fulk spoke to her kindly; but just then she saw her husband, and sprang on her feet, her eyes flashing, her hands stretched out, while she screamed out, "You here? You dare to come here? You, who killed him!" Fulk caught her arm, saying, "Hush! Hester; come away. It was a lamentable accident, but--" "Oh!" the laugh she gave was the most horrible thing I ever heard. "Accident! I tell you it has been his one thought to make accidents for Trevorsham! And he hated my child--my dear, noble, beautiful, only one! He made him miserable, and murdered him at last!"
She gave another passionate kiss to the cheeks, and then just as I hoped she was going to let us lead her away, she darted from us, rushed past Mr. Cradock who was entering the porch, and in another moment, he hurrying after her, saw her rush down the steep grassy slope, and fling herself into the swollen rapid stream.
His shout brought them all out, and Fulk found him too in the river, holding her, and struggling with the stream, which winter had made full and violent, and the black darkness of the shadows made it hard to find any landing place, and he was nearly swept away before it was possible to get them out of the river; and Fulk was as completely drenched as he was when they brought poor Hester, quite unconscious, up to the house, and brought her to the room that had been prepared for her son; and there Dr. Brown and Arthur gave us plenty to do in filling hot-water baths and warming flannels, or rubbing the icy hands and feet. Only that constant need of exertion could have borne us through the horror of it all. But it was not over yet. There was a call of "Ursula," and as I ran down, I found Fulk standing at the bottom of the stairs with Alured in his arms looking like death!
"I found him on the parlour sofa, the little window and the escritoire open!" Fulk said breathlessly, "the villain!"
"I'm not hurt," said dear Alured's voice, faintly, but reassuringly, "Oh! put me down, Fulk."
We did put him down on the floor--there was no other place--with his head on my lap, and I found strange voices asking him what Perrault had done to him. "Oh! nothing! 'twasn't that. Yes, he's gone, out by the window."
He swallowed some wine and then sat up, leaning against me as I sat at the bottom of the stairs, quite himself again, and assuring us that he was not hurt; Perrault never touched him--"Threatened you, then," said Fulk.
"No," said Alured, as if he hadn't spirit to be indignant; "I meant him to get off."
"Lord Trevorsham!" cried a voice in great displeasure, and I saw that Mr. Halsted, the nearest magistrate, was standing over us.
"He told me--Trevor did"--said Alured.
"Told you to assist the murderer to escape!" exclaimed Mr. Halsted.
Alured let his head fall back, and would not answer, and Fulk said, "There is no need for him to speak at present, is there? The constable and the rest are gone after Perrault, but I do not yet know what has directed the suspicion against him."
And then at the stair foot, for there was no other place to go to, we came to an understanding, the two gentlemen and Brand the keeper standing, and I seated on the step with my boy lying against me. I could not trust him out of my sight, nor, indeed, was he fit to be left.
It seems that Brand had been uneasy about the number of shooters whom the report of the swans had attracted; and though the bank of the river was not Trevorsham ground, he had kept along on the border of the covers higher up the hill, to guard his hares and pheasants.
Thus he had seen everything distinctly in the moonlight against the snowy bank below; and he had observed one figure in particular, moving stealthily along, in a parallel line with that which he knew our party would take, though they were in shadow, and he could not see them.
Suddenly, a chance shot fired somewhere made all the ducks fly up. A head and shoulders that Brand took for his young lord's, appeared beyond the shadow, beside Fulk's; and, at the same moment, he saw the man whom he had been watching level his gun from behind, and fire. Then came the cry, and Brand running down in horror himself, was amazed to see this person doing the same, and when they came up with the group, he recognised Perrault; and found, at the same time, that Trevor was the sufferer, and that Lord Trevorsham was safe. He then would have thought it an accident, but for Perrault's own needless wonder, whence the shot came, and that same remark, that Billy Blake, the half-witted son of a farmer, was about that night.
Brand, a shrewd fellow, restrained his reply, that Mr. Perrault knew most about it himself. He saw that the most pressing need was to obey Fulk in fetching necessaries from our house, and that Perrault meant to disarm suspicion by treating it as an accident, so he thought it best to go off to a magistrate with his story, before giving any alarm; feeling certain, as he said, that the shot had been meant for the Earl; as indeed, Perrault's first exclamation on coming up showed that he too had expected to find Trevorsham the wounded one.
Mr. Halsted had sent for the constable and came at once, though even then inclined to doubt whether Brand had not imputed accident to malice. But Perrault's flight had settled that question. During the confusion, while Hester was being carried upstairs, the miscreant had the opportunity of speaking to the child.
"Drowned! No, she is not drowned; but she may be the other thing if you don't get me off! What, don't you understand? Let the law lay a finger on me, and what is to hinder me from telling how your sweet sister has been plotting to get you--yes, you, out of the way of her darling. No, you needn't fear, there's nothing to get by it now. Lucky for you you brought the poor boy out, when I thought him safe by the fire nursing his chilblain. But mind this, if I am arrested, all the story shall come out. I'll not swing alone. If I fired, she pointed the gun! And you may judge if that was what poor Trevor meant by his mutterings to you about 'mother.'"
"But what do you want?" Alured asked. He had backed up against the wall; he was past being frightened, but he felt numb and sick with horror, and ready to do anything to get the wretch out of his sight.
"I want a clear way out of the house and all the cash you can get together. What! no more than that? I'd not be a lord to be kept so short. Find me some more."
Alured knew I should forgive him, and he took my key from my basket, unlocked the escritoire, and gave him my purse of household money, undid the shutters, and helped Perrault to squeeze himself through the little parlour window; and then, as he said, something came over him, and he just reached the sofa, and knew no more.
He did not tell all this about Hester before Mr. Halsted; only when Fulk, finding how shaken he was, had carried him upstairs, and we had taken him to his room, he asked anxiously whether anyone had heard Hester say that dreadful thing, and added, "Then if Mr. Perrault gets away no one will know--about her."
"Was that why you helped him?" we asked.
"Trevor told me to take care of her," he said; and then he told us of Perrault's arguments, but we ought not to have let him talk of them that night, for it brought back the shuddering and sobbing, and the horror seemed to come upon him, so that there was no soothing him or getting him calm till the doctor mixed an anodyne draught; and let it go as it would with Hester, I never left my boy till I had crooned him to sleep, as in the old times.
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{
"id": "4659"
}
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9
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TREVOR'S LEGACY.
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Jaquetta bore the brunt of that night, and showed the stuff she was made of, for poor Hester had only revived to fall into a most frightful state of delirium, raving and struggling so that the doctor and Arthur could hardly hold her.
So it went on for hours, Alured the only creature asleep in the house, and we not daring to send for any help from without, poor Hester's exclamations were so dreadful.
Poor Alured! his waking was sad enough! He had loved Trevor with all his heart, and the wonder that anyone could be so wicked oppressed him almost as much as the grief. The remnants of the opiate hung upon him, too, and he lay about all day, hardly rousing himself to speak or look, but giddily and drowsy.
Not till the inquest was it perceived how cleverly Perrault had taken his measures, so that had he not made the mistake between the two boys, he would scarcely have been suspected: certainly not but for Brand's having watched him.
The report of the wild swans was traced to him. No doubt it was as an excuse for a heavier charge, for poor Trevor was wounded with shot that would not have been used merely for ducks, and besides, the other shooters it attracted would be likely to make detection less easy. Indeed, Fulk had seen that there were enough men about to spoil their sport, and but for the boys' eagerness, would have turned back.
Moreover it was proved that Perrault had in the course of the morning met Billy Blake, and asked him if he meant to bag the swan--if he followed the young lord's party and fired when they did, he would be sure to bring something down. He did not know that the Blakes never let the poor fellow load his old gun with anything but powder.
Then his joining the horrified group, as if he had been merely after the ducks, and had been attracted by the cry, had entirely deceived us; and but for Hester's accusation, Brand's evidence, and his own flight, together with all the past, might have continued to do so.
He had gone to his own house, as it afterwards turned out, entered so quietly that the listening, watching servants never heard him, collected all the valuables he could easily carry away, changed his dress, and gone off before the search had followed him thither.
A verdict of wilful murder was returned against him at the inquest, but it is very doubtful whether he could have been convicted of anything but manslaughter; for even if the intention could have been proved, without his wife, whose evidence was inadmissible, the malice was not directed against his victim, but against Trevorsham. We could not but feel it a relief day by day, that nothing was heard of him; for who could tell what disclosures there might be about the poor thing who lay, delirious, needing perpetual watchfulness. Arthur devoted himself to the care of her, and never left us, or I do not see how we could have gone through it all.
Alured was well again, but inert and crushed, and heartless about doing anything, except that he walked over to Spinney Lawn, and brought home Trevor's dog, to which he gave himself up all day, and insisted on having it in his room at night.
The burial was in the vault--nobody attended but Fulk and Alured, not even Arthur, for though the poor mother was not aware of what was going on, it was such a dreadful day with her, that he durst not leave us alone to the watch. It was enough to break one's heart to stand by the window and hear her wandering on about her Trevor coming to his place, and not being kept from his position; while we watched the little coffin carried across the field by the labouring men, with those two walking after it. Our boy's first funeral was that of the friend who had died in his stead.
We were glad to send him back to Eton, out of the sound of his poor sister's voice; though he went off very mournfully, declaring that he should be even more wretched there without Trevor than he was at home; and that he never should do any good without him. But there he was wrong, I am thankful to say. Dear Trevor was more a guide to him dead than living. Trevor's chief Eton friend, young Maitland, a good, high-principled, clever boy, a little older, who had valued him for what he was, while passing Alured by as a foolish, idle little swell, took pity upon him in the grief and dejection of his loss--did for him all and more than Trevor could do, and has been the friend and blessing of his life, aiding the depth and earnestness that seemed to pass into our dear child as he hung over the dying lad. Yes, Trevor Lea and John Maitland did for our Trevorsham what all our love and care had never been able to do.
Meantime Hester's illness took its course. The chill of that icy water had done great harm, and there was much inflammation at first, leaving such oppression of breath that permanent injury to the lungs was expected, and therefore it was all the sadder to see the dumb despair with which she returned to understanding, I can hardly say to memory, for I believe she had never lost it for a moment.
Hopeless, heedless, reckless, speechless, she was a passive weight, lying or sitting, eating or drinking as she was bidden, but not making any manifestation of preference or dislike, save that she turned rigidly and sullenly away from any attempt to read prayers to her.
She asked no questions, attempted no employment, but seemed to care for nothing, and for weeks uttering nothing but a "yes," "no," or a mechanical "thank you." Jaquetta tried to caress her, by force of nursing and pity. Jaquetta really had come to a warm tender love for her, but she sullenly pushed away the sweet face, and turned aside.
We never ventured to leave her alone, and this, after a time, began to vex her. She bade us go down once or twice, and tried to send away Mrs. Rowe; and at last, when she found it was never permitted, she broke out angrily one day, "You are very absurd to take so much trouble to hinder what cannot make any difference."
It made one's blood run cold, and yet it was a relief that the silence was broken. I can't tell what I said, only I implored her not to think so, and told her that her having been rescued was a sign that Heaven would have her repent and come back, but she laughed that horrible laugh. "Do you think I repent?" she said; "No, only that I left it to that fool! I should have made no mistakes."
I was too much horrified to do anything but hide my eyes and pray. I thought I did not do so obviously, but Hester saw or guessed, stamped at me, and said, "Don't; I will not have it done. It is mockery!"
"Happily you cannot prevent our doing that, my poor Lady Hester," I said.
"All I wish you to do is, what you would do if you had a spark of natural feeling."
"What?" I asked, bewildered at this apparent accusation of unkindness.
"Leave me to myself. Send me from your door. Not oppress me with this ridiculous burthensome care and attention, all out of the family pride you still keep up in the Trevors!" she sneered.
"No, Hester. Sister Hester, will you not believe it is love?" I said, thinking that if she would believe that we loved her and forgave her, it might help her to believe that her Father above did. I had never called her by her name alone before; but I thought it might draw her nearer; but it made her only fiercer.
"Nonsense," she said, "I know better."
And then she fell into the same deadly gloom; but I think she had almost a wild animal's longing for solitude; for she made a solemn promise not to attempt her life if we would only leave her alone!
And we did, though we took care someone was within hearing; for she was still very weak, and we had not a bell in the house, except a little hand one on the table.
So the Easter holidays drew on, and she was still far too weak and unwell for any thought of moving her; so that we were in trouble about Alured's holidays, not liking him to come home to a house of illness that would renew his sorrow, and advising him to accept some invitations from his schoolfellows; but he wrote that he particularly wished to come home--he could not bear to be away, and Maitland wanted to see the place and know all about dear Lea, so might he bring him home?
We were only too glad to consent, and I had gone to sleep with Jaquetta, so as to make room--feeling very happy over the best school report of our boy we had ever had, though not the best we were to have.
He spent two or three days at Mr. Maitland's in London, and then he and his friend, John, came on here.
The railway did not come within twenty miles then, and they had to post from it in flies. How delightful it was to see the tall hat and wide white collar, as he stood up in the open fly, signalling to us, and pointing us out to his friend. Only, what must it have been to the poor sufferer in the room above?
Oh! did not one's heart go out in prayer for her!
Out jumped Alured among all of us, and all the dogs at the garden gate; and the first thing, after his kiss to us all, was to turn to the fly and take out a flower-pot with a beautiful delicate forced rose in it.
"Where's Hester?" he said.
"My dear child, she has not left her room yet."
"She is well enough for me to take this to her, I suppose?" he said. "He always did get some flower like this to bring home to her, you know, she liked them so much."
It was just his one idea that Trevor had told him to take his place to her. We looked doubtfully at each other, but Fulk quietly said, "Yes, you may go." And added, as the boy went off, "It can do no harm to her in the end, poor thing!"
"To her, no; that was not my fear."
There was Alured, almost exactly what Trevor had been when last she saw him, with his bright sweet honest face over the rose, running up the stairs, knocking, and coming in with his boyish, "Good morning, Hester, I do hope you are better;" and bending down with his fresh brotherly kiss on her poor hot forehead, "I've got this rose for you, the bud will be out in a day or two."
If ever there was a modern version of St. Dorothy's roses it was there.
That boy's kiss and his gift touched the place in her heart. She caught him passionately in her arms, and held him till he almost lost breath, and then she held him off from her as vehemently.
"Boy--Trevorsham--what do you come to me for?"
"He told me," said Alured, half dismayed. "Besides, you are my sister."
"Sister, indeed! Don't you know we would have killed you?"
"Never mind that," said Alured, with an odd sort of readiness. "You are my sister all the same, and oh--if you would let me try to be a little bit of Trevor to you, though I know I can't--" "You--who must hate me?"
"No," said he, "I always did like you, Hester; and I've been thinking about you all the half--whenever I thought of him."
And as the tears came into the boy's eyes, the blessed weeping came at last to Hester.
He thought he had done her harm, for she cried till she was absolutely spent, sick, faint and weak as a child.
But she was like a child, and when her head was on the pillow she begged for Trevorsham to wish her good-night. I think she tried to fancy his kiss was Trevor's.
Any way the bitter black despair was gone from that time. She believed in and accepted his kindness like a sort of after glow from Trevor's love. Perhaps it did her the more good that after all he was only a boy, sometimes forgot her, and sometimes hurried after his own concerns, so that there was more excitement in it than if it had been the steady certain tenderness of an older person on which she could reckon.
She certainly cared for no one like Trevorsham. She even came downstairs that she might see him more constantly, and while he was at home, she seemed to think of no one else. But she had softened to us all, and accepted us as her belongings, in a matter-of-course kind of way. Only when he was gone did she one day say in a heavy dreary tone, that she must soon be leaving us.
But I told her, as we had agreed, that she was very far from well enough to go away alone; for indeed, it was true that disease of the lungs had set in, and to send her away to languish and die alone was not to be thought of.
My answer made her look up to me, and say, "I don't see why you should all be so good to me! Do you know how I have hated you?"
I could not help smiling a little at that, it had so little to do with the matter; but I bent down and kissed her, the first time I had ever done so.
"I don't understand it," she said, and then pushing me away suddenly. "No! you cannot know, that I--I--I was the first to devise mischief against that boy. Perrault would never have thought of it, but for me! Now, you see whom you are harbouring! Perhaps, you thought it all Perrault's doing."
"No, we did not," I said.
"And you still cherish me! I--who drove you from your home and rank, and came from wishing the death of your darling, to contriving it!"
I told her we knew it. And at last, after a long, long silence, she looked up from her joined hands, and said, "If I may only see my child again, even from the other side of the great gulf, I would be ready for any torment! It would be no torment to me, so I saw him! Do you think I shall be allowed, Ursula?"
How I longed for more power, more words to tell her how infinitely more mercy there was than she thought of! I don't think she took it in then, but the beginning was made, and she turned away no more from what she looked on at first as a means of bringing her to her boy, but by-and-by became even more to her.
Gradually she told how the whole history had come about. She had thought nothing of the discovery of her birth till her boy was born, but from that time the one thought of seeing him in the rank she thought his due had eaten into her heart. She had loved her husband before, but his resistance had chafed her, and gradually she felt it an injustice and cruelty, and her love and respect withered away, till she regarded him as an obstacle. And when she had spent her labour on the voyage, and obtained recognition from her father--behold! Alured's existence deprived her of the prize almost within her grasp.
A settled desire for the poor baby's death was the consequence, kept up by the continued reports of his danger. Till that time she had prayed. Then a sense that Heaven was unjust to her and her boy filled her with grim rebellion, and she prayed no more; and Perrault, by his constant return to the subject and speculations on it, kept her mind on it far more.
But Alured lived, and every time she saw him she half hated him, half loved him; hated him as standing in her son's light, loved him because she could not help loving Trevor's shadow.
That day, when Emily met them--it had been a sudden impulse--Alured had been talking to her about his plans for Trevor's birthday; and, as he spoke of that street, the wild thought came over her how easily a fever might yet sweep him away. And yet she says, all down the street, she was trying to persuade herself to forget Emily's warning, and to disbelieve in the infection. After all, she thought, even if she had not met Emily, she should have made some excuse for turning back, such a pitiful thought came of the fair, fresh face flushing and dying.
But it was prevented, only it left fruits; for Perrault had heard what passed between her and Trevorsham. "Did you take him to the shop?" he asked. And when she mentioned Miss Deerhurst's reminder, he said, "Ah! that game wants skill and coolness to carry it out."
She says that was almost all that passed in so many words; but from that time she never doubted that Perrault would take any opportunity of occasioning danger to Trevorsham; and, strange to say, she lived in a continued agony, half of hope, half of terror and grief and pity, her longing for Trevor's promotion, balanced by the thought of the grief he would suffer for his friend. Any time those five years she told me she thought that had she seen Perrault hurting him, she should have rushed between to save him; and yet in other moods, when she planned for her son, she would herself have done anything to sweep Alured from his path.
And the frequent discussion with Perrault of plans depending on the possession of the Trevorsham property, kept the consciousness of his purpose before her, and as debt and desperation grew, she was more and more sure of it.
That last day, when Trevor had been driven away, lamenting his inability to go out duck shooting, Perrault had quietly said in the late evening, "I shall take a turn in the salt marshes to-night--opportunities may offer."
The wretch! Fulk thinks he said so to implicate her.
At any rate it left her shuddering with dread and remorse, yet half triumphant at the notion of putting an end to Fulk's power over the estate, and of installing her son as heir of Trevorsham.
She had no fears for him, she trusted to his lame foot to detain him, and said to herself that if it was to be, he would be spared the sight. She was growing jealous of his love for Alured and of us, and had a fierce glad hope of getting him more to herself.
And then! oh! poor Hester!
No wonder her desire was to be Anywhere, anywhere, Out of the world.
But out of all the anguish, the remorse, the despair, repentance grew at last. Love seemed to open the heart to it. The sense of infinite redeeming love penetrated at last, and trust in pardon, and with pardon came peace. Peace grew on her, through increasing self-condemnation, and bearing her up as the bodily powers failed more and more.
There is little more to say. She was a dear and precious charge to us, and as she grew weaker, she also became more cheerful! and even that terrible, broken-hearted sense of bereavement calmed.
She found out about Jaquetta and Arthur, and took great interest in his arrangements for getting a partnership at Shinglebay.
"And Hester," said Jaquetta, "it is so lucky for me that I came down from being a fine lady. I might never have known Arthur; and if I had, what an absurd creature I should have been as a poor man's wife!"
As to the Deerhursts, the mother sent a servant once or twice to inquire, but never came herself to see her dear friend; and Miss Prior took care to tell us that there were horrid whispers about, that Hester had known, and if not, Mrs. Deerhurst could not have on her visiting list the wife of a man with a warrant out against him! She thought it very unfeeling in us to harbour her.
But Emily came. Hester had a great longing to thank her for checking her on that walk to the scarlet-fever place, and asked Jaquetta one day to write to her and beg her to come to see a dying woman.
Emily showed the note to her mother, and did not ask leave. The white doe had become a much more valiant animal.
Hester had liked Emily even while Emily shrank from her, and she now realized what she had inflicted upon her and Fulk.
She asked Emily's pardon for it, as she had asked Fulk's, and said that when she was gone she hoped all would come right. Of course the old position could not be restored, but she knew now why Joel Lea had such an instinct against it.
"I feel," she once said, "as if Satan had offered me all this for my soul, and I had taken the bargain. Aye, and if God's providence had allowed our wicked purpose, he would have had it too. My husband! he prayed for me! and my boy did too."
She always called Joel Lea "my husband" now, and thought and talked much of their early love and his warnings. I think the way she had saddened his later years grieved her as much as anything, and all her affection seemed revived.
She lingered on, never leaving the house indeed, but not much worse, till the year had come round again, and we loved her more each day we nursed her. And when the end came suddenly at last, we mourned as for a dear sister.
Perrault wrote once--a threatening, swaggering letter from America, demanding hush-money. It did not come till she was too ill to open it--only in the last week before her death, and it was left till we settled her affairs.
Then Fulk wrote and told him of the verdict against him, and recommended him to let himself be heard of no more. And he took the advice.
We found that dear Hester had left all the fortune, 30,000 pounds, which had been settled on herself and Trevor, to be divided equally between us three. Nor had we any scruple in profiting by it.
Trevorsham had enough, and it was what my father would have given us if he could.
It was enough to make Jaquetta and her young Dr. Cradock settle down happily and prosperously on the practice they bought.
And enough too, together with Emily's strong quiet determination, to make Mrs. Deerhurst withdraw her opposition. Daughters of twenty-nine years old may get their own way.
Moreover a drawing-room and dining-room were built on to Skimping's Lawn, though Alured declares they have spoilt the place, and nothing ever was so jolly as the keeping-room.
We had a beautiful double wedding in the summer, in our old church, and since that I have come to make the old Hall homelike to my boy in the holidays.
We are very happy together when he comes home, and fills the house with his young friends; and if it feels too large and empty for me in his absence, I can always walk down for a happy afternoon with Emily, or go and make a longer visit to Jaquetta.
And I don't think, as a leader of the fashion, she would have been half so happy as the motherly, active, ready-handed doctor's wife.
But best of all to me, are those quiet moments when Alured's earnest spirit shows itself, and he talks out what is in his heart; that it is a great responsibility to stand in the place such a man as Fulk would have had--yes--and to have been saved at the cost of Trevor's life.
I believe the pure, calm remembrance of Trevor Lea's life will be his guiding star, and that he will be worthy of it.
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{
"id": "4659"
}
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1
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SUNSHINE.
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"The last day of October!" said the Sun to himself,--"the last day of my favorite month, and the birthday of my little namesake! See if I don't make the most of it!"
So the Sun called to all the winds and all the breezes, who, poor things! had but just gone to bed after a terrible night's work, ordering them to get up directly, and sweep the sky as clear as a bell; and bid all the clouds, whether big white mountains, little pinky islands, sweeping mares'-tails, or freckled mackerel-back, to put themselves out of the way, and keep out of it until November; when, as the Sun remarked with a sigh, they would have it all their own way.
"And as soon as that job's done," continued he, "you may go to bed again in the Mountains of the Moon; for you will only disturb me if you are about."
So the winds, grumbling and sighing a little, went to their work; and the Sun, after a good dip in the Atlantic Ocean, began to roll up the eastern sky, flecking the waves with diamond spray, touching up the gay-colored leaves still clinging to the forest-trees, blazing on the town and city clocks to let every one know how late it was, and finally thrusting his saucy glances into all the windows to see how many persons had needed him.
"Come, come, you city-folks!" cried the Sun. "Your neighbors in the country were up before I was, and have eaten their breakfasts, and half cleared it away by this time; and here are you just beginning to dress yourselves! Hurry up, I say! hurry up! It is the last day of October, don't you know? and to-morrow will be November.
"But, at the corner house of a handsome square, the Sun found himself better satisfied; for through the windows of the dining-room he saw a lady and gentleman seated at the table, having apparently almost finished their breakfast.
"That is better," remarked the Sun: and, thrusting one of his slender golden fingers through the window, he touched the stag's head upon the cover of the silver coffee-pot; glanced off, and sparkled in the cut glass of the goblets and egg-glasses; flickered across the white and gilt china; pierced the fiery heart of the diamond upon the first finger of the lady's left hand, and then, creeping swiftly up her white throat, played joyously in her golden curls, and even darted into her soft blue eyes, making them sparkle as brilliantly as the diamond.
"The sun shines directly in your face, Fanny," said Mr. Legrange, admiring the color in his wife's hair. "Shall I lower the shade?"
"Oh, no! thank you. I never want the sunshine shut out," replied she, moving her chair a little.
"Not to-day of all days in the year, I suppose; not on the birthday of our little Sunshine. And where is she?" asked Mr. Legrange, half turning his chair from the table to the fire, and unfolding the damp newspaper beside his plate.
"I told Susan to send her down as soon as she had done her breakfast. Hark! I hear her." And the Sun, drawing his finger across the mother's lips, helped them to so bright a smile, that her husband said,-- "I am afraid we have more than our share of Sunshine, or at least that I have, little wife."
The bright smile grew so bright as the lady bent a little toward her husband, that the Sun whispered,-- "There's no need of sun here, I plainly see," but, for all that, crept farther into the room; while the door opened, and in skipped a little girl, who might have been taken for the beautiful lady at the head of the table suddenly diminished to childish proportions, and dressed in childish costume, but with all her beauty intensified by the condensation: for the blue eyes were as large and clear, and even deeper in their tint; the clustering hair was of a brighter gold; and the fair skin pearlier in its whiteness, and richer in its rosiness; while the gay exuberance of life, glowing and sparkling from every curve and dimple of the child's face and figure, was, even in the happy mother's face, somewhat dimmed by the shadows that still must fall upon every life past its morning, be it never so happy, or never so prosperous.
"Morning, mamma and papa. It's my birthday; and I'm six years old,--six, six years old! One, two, three, four, five, six years old! Susan told them all to me, and Susan said she guessed papa didn't forgotten it. She didn't forgotten it; and see!"
The child held up a gay horn of sugar-plums fluttering with ribbons, and then, hugging it to her breast with one hand, plunged the other in, and offered a little fistful of the comfits, first to her father, and then to her mother. Both smilingly declined the treat, explaining that they had but just done breakfast: and the young lady, dropping some back into the horn, thrust the rest into her own mouth, saying, "So has I; but I like candy all the day."
"Come here, you little Sunshine," said Mr. Legrange, drawing her toward him. "So Susie thought I hadn't forgotten your birthday, eh? Well, do you know what they always do to people on their birthdays?"
"Give 'em presents," replied the child promptly, as she desperately swallowed the mouthful of candy.
"Ho, ho! that's it is it? No; but, besides that, they always pull their ears as many times as they are years old. Now, then, don't you wish I had forgotten it?"
Sunshine's eyes grew a little larger, and travelled swiftly toward her mother's face, coming back to her father's with a smile.
"I don't believe you'd hurt me much, papa," said she, nestling close to his side.
The father folded her tightly in his arms, lifting her to a seat upon his knee.
"I don't believe I would, little Sunshine. Well, then, sometimes, instead of pinches, they give little girls as many kisses as they are years old. How will that do?"
The rosy mouth, gathering for a kiss, answered without words; but Mr. Legrange, taking the dimpled face between his hands, said,-- "No, no! we must go on deliberately. One for the forehead, two for the eyes,--that makes three; one for each cheek makes five; and now the last and best for the lips makes six. Next year, there will be another for the chin, and, after that, one in each ear: won't that be nice?"
"And mamma? Hasn't Sunshine any kisses for her this morning?" asked Mrs. Legrange.
The child slid from her father's knee to the floor, and, with her arms round her mother's neck, whispered,-- "I'll give mamma all these kisses papa just gave me, and some more too."
And for a minute or two it would have been hard to say to which head the showery golden curls belonged, or which pair of lips was the kisser's, and which the kissed; while the Sun fairly danced with delight as he wrapped the two in a beautiful golden mantle woven of his choicest beams.
Mr. Legrange looked on, laughing, for a moment, and then said,-- "So Susan told you people get presents on their birthdays, did she, 'Toinette?"
"Yes, papa;" and the child, half turning from her mother, but still clinging round her neck, looked at her father roguishly.
"And I guess you knew it before, and didn't forgotten about it, did you, papa?" asked she.
"Well, yes, I believe I have heard something of the kind," said Mr. Legrange, gravely considering; "but, dear me! did you expect me to make you a present?"
'Toinette's face grew rather blank; and a sudden impulse turned down the corners of her mouth with a little tremble across the lips. But the instinct of native refinement and delicacy overcame the disappointment; and, coming to her father's side, the child put her hand in his with a brave little smile, saying,-- "It's no matter, papa dear. I've got ever so many pretty things up in the nursery; and Susan gave me the candy."
Mr. Legrange looked at his wife.
"Your own child, Fanny. O Sunshine, Sunshine! what are you coming to by and by? But bless me! what is this in the pocket of my dressing-gown? Let me take it out, lest it should hurt you when I set you in my lap again. Funny-looking little box, isn't it?"
As he spoke, Mr. Legrange laid upon the table a long, flat box of red morocco, with some gilt letters upon the top.
"Yes, papa. What's in the box?" asked 'Toinette, still with a little effort.
"What do you think, Sunshine?"
"I guess it's some cigars, papa."
"It would make a good cigar-case, to be sure; but you know I have one already, and mamma says I ought not to have any. Let us peep in, and see what else the box would be good for besides cigars."
He unfastened the little hooks holding down the cover as he spoke, and placed the casket in 'Toinette's hands. She raised the lid, and uttered a low cry; while her face flushed scarlet with surprise and pleasure.
Upon the white satin lining, lay two bracelets of coral cameos, linked with gold, and fastened by a broad golden clasp.
"Are they pretty?" asked Mr. Legrange, smiling at the eager little face upraised to his.
"Oh! they are lovely pretty. O papa! oh! is they?" -- "Yes they are yours, Sunshine. Mamma said you had been begging for some bracelets like Minnie Wall's; and so, as I had heard that people sometimes liked presents on their birthdays, and as I had not forgotten when Sunshine's came, I thought I would bring her a pair."
The excess of 'Toinette's rapture would not allow of speech; but Mrs. Legrange, peeping over her shoulder, exclaimed,-- "Why, Paul! those are not what I asked you to get. I told you common coral beads, strung on elastic, and fastened with a little snap."
"But these were so much prettier, my dear, and will be of some value when she grows up, as the others would not. At any rate, they are marked: so we must keep them now. See!"
Mr. Legrange touched a tiny spring; and the upper part of the clasp, opening upon a hinge, showed a plate beneath, engraved with the name, "Antoinette Legrange."
"Yes: they are certainly very handsome; and 'Toinette must be as careful of them as possible. They will be just right to loop up her sleeves while she is so little, and, when she is older, to wear as bracelets," said Mrs. Legrange admiringly.
"I may wear them this afternoon at my party, mayn't I, mamma?" asked 'Toinette, trying to clasp one upon her little arm.
"Oh, we are to have a party, are we!" exclaimed Mr. Legrange raising his eyebrows in dismay.
"Just half a dozen children to play with 'Toinette, and to go home after a nursery-tea," explained his wife.
"Oh, well! I shall be a little late to dinner, very likely: so it will all be over when I arrive. Shall I bring Tom Burroughs home with me to dine?"
"I want Cousin Tommy to come to my party, papa. Tell him to come, please, and Sunshine's love."
"Your party, chick? Why! he would be Gulliver among the Liliputians. He would tread on a dozen of the guests at the first step, and never know it."
"I don't think he would, papa; and he's my little wife, and I want him," persisted 'Toinette.
"No, no, dear," interposed Mrs. Legrange. "Cousin Tom wouldn't want to come, and my little girl mustn't tease."
"No, mamma; but he's my little wife," murmured 'Toinette, going back to her bracelets with a shadow of disappointment in the curve of her pretty mouth.
"If mamma is willing, I will ask Cousin Tom, and he can do as he likes about accepting," said the fond father, watching his Sunshine's face.
Mamma smiled roguishly, murmuring,--"'So long as a woman's possessed of a tear, She'll always have her own way;'" and then, added aloud,-- "Just as you like, of course, papa; but here is Susan, ready to take 'Toinette for her walk."
The dining-room door opened softly, and a fresh, pretty-looking nursery-maid stepped in, saying "Is Miss 'Toinette ready to come up stairs, ma'am?"
Yes, Susan. You may take the bracelets, pet; but, when you go out, leave them in the drawer of your bureau."
"Yes, mamma. Good-by, mamma and papa; and don't forget my little wife, papa."
"I won't forget, Sunshine," said Mr. Legrange, laughing, as he followed the child and nurse to the door, and watched them up stairs.
|
{
"id": "4676"
}
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2
|
THE LITTLE WIFE.
|
THREE o'clock came at last, although 'Toinette had become fully persuaded it never would; and the little guests arrived as punctually as juvenile guests are apt to arrive. Later on in life, people either expect less pleasure from meeting each other, or are more willing to defer securing it; or perhaps it is that they are willing to allow their friends the first chance of appropriating the happiness in store for all. If none of these, what is the reason, children, that, at grown parties, the struggle is to see who shall arrive last, while at ours it is to see who shall come first?
'Toinette was dressed, and in the drawing-room ready to receive her little friends, by half-past two; and very nice she looked in her light-blue merino frock, with its pretty embroideries, her long golden hair curled in the feathery ringlets Susan was so proud of making, her sleeves looped up with new bracelets, and a little embroidered handkerchief just peeping out of her pockets Mrs. Legrange, who sat reading by the fire, watched with some amusement and more anxiety the movements of the little beauty, who walked slowly up and down the room, twisting her head to look now at one shoulder and now at the other, now at the flow of her skirts behind, and now at the dainty fit of her bronze cloth gaiter-boots. At last, stopping before the long mirror, Miss 'Toinette began practicing the courtesy she had learned at dancing-school, finishing by throwing a kiss from the tips of her fingers to the graceful little shadow in the mirror.
"She will be spoiled, entirely spoiled, before she is a year older," thought the mother anxiously. "She is so beautiful! and every one tells her of it. What shall I do?"
But sometimes, when our task seems too difficult for us, God takes it into his own hand, and does it in his own way, though that way to us be strange and painful.
While Mrs. Legrange still hesitated whether to speak, and what to say, the doorbell rang, and 'Toinette rushed away to meet her friends, and take them to the dressing room, where they were to leave their outside garments; and the mother laid aside her book, and prepared to help in entertaining the little people.
Another ring at the bell; another troop of little feet, and peal of merry voices; another and another; and, following the last, a firmer step upon the stair, and the appearance in the drawing-room of a tall, fine-looking young man, of twenty two or three years old, who came forward, offering his hand to Mrs. Legrange.
"Why, Tom," said she, "did you really come?"
"As you see, Cousin Fanny. Paul gave me the invitation, with my little wife's love; and how could I decline?"
"I am sure it is very good of you to come and help entertain; but I am afraid it will be a sad bore. Miss Minnie Wall, the oldest of the young ladies, is but just fourteen; and Bessie Rider, the youngest, is not yet six."
"But I came to visit my little wife," persisted Mr. Burroughs, laughing gayly.
"Here she is, then, with all the rest behind her;" and, as the little hostess caught sight of her new guest, she flew toward him, crying,-- "Oh, my little wife has come! --my little, wife!"
Every one laughed, except the young man thus oddly addressed, who gravely extended his hand, saying,-- "Miss 'Toinette, allow me to wish you many happy returns of this fortunate day."
'Toinette looked at him a moment in surprise, then, glancing at the other guests, said innocently,-- "I guess you talk that way because the girls are here; but I like the way you are always, best."
This time Tom laughed as loud as the rest, and, catching the child in his arms, kissed her a dozen times, saying,-- "That is it, Sunshine. Let us be natural, and have a good time. Get the table-cloth, and make an elephant of me."
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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3
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CHERRYTOE.
|
"LET us have a dance!" exclaimed Minnie Wall, when all the games had been played, and the little people stood for a moment, wondering what they should do next.
"O Mrs. Legrange! will you play for us?"
"Certainly. What will you have, Minnie? But, in the first place, can you all dance?"
"Yes'm, every one of us. Even 'Toinette and Bessie have learned at their Kindergarten; and the rest of us all go to Mr. Papanti. O Mrs. Legrange! last Saturday, when you let Susan bring 'Toinette to dancing-school, I told Mr. Papanti what a pretty little dancer she was; and he made her stand up, and she learned the cachuca with half a dozen others of us; and he did laugh and bow so at her, you never saw; and he called her enfant Cherrytoe, or something like that"-- "Cerito," suggested Mrs. Legrange, smiling.
"Yes'm, I guess that was it; and she learned it beautifully. Have you seen her dance it?"
"Yes, the old gentleman called me Cherrytoe; and you must, mamma, and every one, because I dance so pretty, with my little toes. Will you call me Cherrytoe always, mamma?" asked 'Toinette, with such a complacent delight in her own accomplishments, that her mother's smile was sad as it was tender. But she felt that this was not the time or place to reprove the vanity so rankly springing in the child's heart; so she only said,-- "Mr. Papanti was in fun when he called you Cherrytoe, darling. She was a woman who danced better than I hope you ever will. Now, who is ready for Virginia reel?"
Tom Burroughs led Minnie Wall to the head of the set, other children rushed for places, Mrs. Legrange seated herself at the piano, and the merry dance went on; but, when it was over, Minnie Wall returned to Mrs. Legrange's side, followed by two or three more, begging her to play the cachuca, and see how nicely 'Toinette could dance it. Half unwillingly the mother complied, and found really astonished as she noticed the graceful evolutions and accurate time of the child, who went through the intricate motions of the dance without a single mistake, and, at the close, dropped her little courtesy, and kissed her little hand, with the grace and self-possession of a danseuse.
The children crowded around her with a clamor of delight and surprise; but the mother, anxiously watching her darling's flushed face and sparkling eyes, whispered to her cousin, as he playfully applauded,-- "Oh, don't, Tom! The child will be utterly ruined by so much flattery and admiration. I feel very badly about it, I assure you."
"But she is absolutely so bewitching! How can we help admiring her?" replied he, laughing.
"No: but it is wrong; it won't do," persisted Mrs. Legrange. "Just see how excited and happy she looks because they are all admiring her! You must help me to check it, Tom. Come, you are so famous for stories, tell them one about a peacock, or something,--a story with a moral about being vain, you know, only not too pointed."
"A pill with a very thick sugar-coat," suggested Mr. Burroughs, and, as his cousin nodded, continued, in a louder voice,-- "A story, ladies and gentlemen! Who will listen to the humble attempts of an unfortunate improvisator?"
"Yes, yes, a story; let us have a story!" shouted with one accord both girls and boys; and with 'Toinette perched upon his knee, and the rest grouped about him, Cousin Tom began the story of THE CHILDREN OF MERRIGOLAND.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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4
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THE CHILDREN OF MERRIGOLAND.
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ONCE upon a time, in the pleasant country of Merrigoland, all the fathers and mothers, the uncles and aunts, the grandpas and grandmas, in fact, all the grown-up people of every sort, were invited to the governor's house to spend a week; and all the cooks and chambermaids, and nurses and waiters, and coachmen and gardeners, in Merrigoland, were invited to go and wait upon them: so there was nobody left at home in any of the houses but the children; not even the babies; for their mothers had carried them in their arms to the governor's house.
"What fun!" shouted the children. "We can do every thing we have a mind to now."
"We'll eat all the cake and pies and preserves and candies in the country," said Patty Pettitoes.
"We'll swing on all the gates, and climb all the cherry-trees, and chase all the roosters, and play ball against the parlor-windows," said Tom Tearcoat.
"We'll lie down on the sofas, and read stories all day, and go to sleep before the fire at night," said Dowsabelle Dormouse.
"We'll dress up in all our mothers' clothes, and put on their rings and breastpins," said little Finnikin Fine, pushing a chair in front of the looking-glass, and climbing up to look at herself.
"We'll get our stockings dirty, and tear our frocks, and tumble our hair, and not wash our hands at dinner-time, nor put on our eating-aprons," said Georgie Tearcoat, Tom's younger sister.
"Yes, yes: we'll all do just as we like best for a whole week; for father and mother said we might!" shouted all the children in Merrigoland, and then laughed so loud, that the mice ran out of their holes to see what was the matter; and the cats never noticed them, they were so busy sticking the hair straight up on their backs, and making their tails look like chimney-brushes; while all the birds in the pleasant gardens of Merrigoland fluttered their wings, and sung,-- "Only listen to the row! What in the world's the matter now? Tweet, tweet! Can't sing a note; My heart's just jumping out of my throat. Bobolink, bobolink, What do you think? Is the world very glad, Or has it gone mad?"
So the children all did what they liked best, and frolicked in the sunshine like a swarm of butterflies, or like several hundred little kittens, until it came night; and then they went into the houses, and put themselves to bed. But some of them, I am afraid, forgot to say their prayers when their mammas were not there to remind them of it.
The next morning they all jumped up, and dressed very gayly (for children do not often lie in bed), and came down to breakfast: but, lo and behold! there was no breakfast ready, nor even any fire in the ranges and cooking-stoves, and in some houses not even any shavings and kindling wood to make a fire; and the cows, who were mostly of a Scotch breed, came to the bars, calling,-- "Moo, moo, moo! Who'll milk us noo?"
and the hens all stuck their heads through the bars of the poultry-yard fence, and cried,-- "Kah-dah-cut, kah-dah-cut! Are you having your hair cut? Can you give us some corn This beautiful morn?"
and the pigeons came flying down to the back door, murmuring,-- "Coo, coo, coo! Must we breakfast on dew?"
and all the little children began to cry as loud as they could, and call,-- "Mamma, mamma, mamma! I want you and papa!"
So, altogether, the older children were just about crazy, and felt as if they'd like to cry too. But that never would do, of course; for nobody cries when old enough to know better: so after running round to each others' houses, and talking a little, they agreed they would all work together, and that every one should do what he could do best. So Tom Tearcoat, instead of climbing trees, and smashing the furniture with his hatchet, went and split kindlings in all the wood-houses; and his sister Georgie, who never wanted to be in the house, carried them into the kitchens; and Patty Pettitoes tried her hand at cooking, instead of eating; and Dowsabelle Dormouse made the beds, and beat up the sofa-pillows; and Mattie Motherly, whose chief delight was playing at housekeeping in her baby-house, set the tables, and put the parlors to rights. But there seemed to be nothing that Finnikin Fine could do; for she had never thought of any thing but dressing, in all the gay clothes she could get, and looking into the mirror until she had worn quite a place in the carpet before it. But, at last, someone said,-- "Oh! Finnikin may dress the little children: that will suit her best."
So Finnikin tried to do that. But she spent so much time tying up the little girls' sleeves with ribbons, and parting the little boys' hair behind, that, when breakfast-time came, they were not half ready, and began to cry,-- "O Finnikin, O! Don't spend your time so, But put on our dresses, And smooth out our tresses; We don't care for curls, Either boys or girls, If we are but neat, And may sit down to eat."
So at last Finnikin followed their advice, and, when she had dressed all the children, was so tired and hungry, that she was glad to sit down and eat her breakfast without even looking in the mirror once while she was at table.
But nobody knew how to milk the cows; and, although Tom and Georgie Tearcoat tried with all their might, they could not manage to get a drop of milk from one of them, and no one else even tried. But, just as the children were all wondering what they should do, little Peter Phinn, who had been listening and looking, with his hands in the pockets of his ragged trousers, and a broad grin on his freckled face, said slowly,-- "I know how to milk."
"You do! Why didn't you say so, Peter Phinn?" cried all the children angrily.
"Oh! I didn't know as you'd want me and Merry amongst you," said Peter.
"Why not? Of course we do," said Patty Pettitoes, who was a very good-natured little girl.
"Because Finnikin Fine told Merry once she wasn't fit to play with her, when her clothes was so poor," said Peter.
"Did Finnikin say that?" asked Patty.
"Yes, she did, sure; and she called her a little Paddy, and said, if she wore such an old, mean gown and bonnet, she'd ought to keep out of the way of folks that dressed nicer, as she did."
Then all the children turned and looked at Finnikin Fine, and said,-- "Oh, shame, Finnikin! for shame to talk so to good little Merry Phinn!"
Then Finnikin hung down her head, and blushed very much, and began to cry; but Merry Phinn went close to her, and whispered,-- "Never mind them, honey. I'll forget it sooner than you will, and I'll come and help you dress the children tomorrow morning."
"And I'll give you my new pink muslin, and my white beads, and my bronze slippers with pink rosettes, and, and," began Finnikin; but Merry put her little brown hand over her mouth, and said, laughing,-- "And, if I get all these fine things, I'd be as bad as yourself, Finny darling. No: I'll wear my calico gown, and my sun-bonnet, and my strong shoes; and you'll see I can get to my work or my play without half the bother you'd make in your finery."
So Finnikin, still blushing, and crying a little, put her arm round Merry's neck, and kissed her; and then she ran and took off the rinses and pins and ribbons and flowers she had found time since breakfast to put on, and changed her blue silk dress for a neat gingham and a white apron, and put her hair into a net, instead of the wreath and curls it had cost her so much trouble to arrange. And, when she came down stairs again, all the children cried,-- "Only see how pretty Finnikin Fine is in her plain dress! She looks like a little girl now, instead of a wax doll in a toy-shop window."
"Yes," said Tom Tearcoat; "and a fellow could play with her now in some comfort. It used to be,-- "'Dear me, you rude boy! you've gone and torn my flounce!' or, 'You've spoilt my bow!' or, 'Dear me, you troublesome creature! you've made me so nervous!'"
Every one laughed to hear Tom mimic Finnikin, he did it so well; but, when they saw that the little girl herself was troubled by it, they left off directly, and began to talk of other things; and Tom came and tucked a big green apple into her pocket, and a lump of maple-sugar into her hand.
Then Peter and Merry, who had always been used to waiting upon themselves, and doing all the work they were able to do, showed the other children many things which they needed to know, and helped them in so many ways, that the troubles of the morning were soon forgotten; and when, after clearing away the dinner, the little people all came out to play upon the green, they agreed to crown Peter and Merry King, and Queen of Merrigoland from three o'clock in the afternoon until sunset, because they were the only boy and girl in all the land who knew how to do the work that must every day be done to make us all comfortable. But Peter and Merry, who were very sensible as well as very good-natured children, said,-- "No, no, no! There shall be no kings or queens in Merrigoland. We will teach you all that we know, and you shall teach us all that you know, and so we will help each other; and no one shall think himself better than any one else, or forget that none of us can do well without the help of all the rest."
So the children shouted,-- "Hurrah for Peter and Merry, and down with fine ways and fine clothes!"
And then they gave three cheers so loud, that the fathers and mothers, and grandpas and grandmas, and uncles and aunts, and brothers and sisters, heard them, as they sat at dinner in the governor's house; and all came trooping home in a great hurry to see what was the matter.
But when they heard the story, and found how well the children were going on, they said,-- "We could teach them nothing better than what they are learning for themselves. We may let them alone."
So they all went back to the governor's house, and spent the rest of the week, and"-- "Tea is ready, Mrs. Legrange," said James at the parlor-door.
|
{
"id": "4676"
}
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5
|
THE RUNAWAY.
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TEA was over, and the little guests made ready to go home. Cousin Tom, declining Mrs. Legrange's invitation to dinner on plea of another engagement, delighted Miss Minnie Wall's heart by offering to wait upon her home, but rather injured the effect of his politeness by taking Willy and Jerry Noble upon the other side, and talking pegtop with them as glibly as he talked opera with the young lady.
As for the rest, some went alone, some with their nurses, some with each other. Little Bessie Rider was the last; and, when the nurse did not come for her as had been promised, Mrs. Legrange bid Susan lead her home, leaving 'Toinette in the drawing-room till her return.
"And I must go and lie down a little before I dress for dinner," continued she to 'Toinette. "So, Sunshine, I shall leave you here alone, if you will promise not to touch anything you should not, or to go too near the fire."
The little girl promised; and, with a lingering kiss, her mother left her.
Alone in the twilight, 'Toinette sat for a while upon the rug, watching the bright coals as they tinkled through the grate, or rushed in roaring flame up the chimney.
"I wish I was a fire-fairy, and lived in that big red hole right in the middle of the fire," thought 'Toinette. "Then I would wear such a beautiful dress just like gold, and a wreath on my head all blazing with fire; and I would dance a-tiptoe away up the chimney and into the sky: and perhaps I should come to heaven; no, to the sun. I wonder if the sun is heaven for the fire-fairies, and I wonder if they dance in the sunset."
So 'Toinette jumped up, and, running to one of the long windows, put her little eager face close to the glass, and looked far away across the square, and down the long street beyond, to the beautiful western sky, all rosy and golden and purple with the sunset-clouds; while just above them a great white star stood trembling in the deep blue, as if frightened at finding itself out all alone in the night.
"No," thought 'Toinette; "I don't want to be a fire-fairy, and dance in the sunset: I want to be a--a angel, I guess, and live in that beautiful star. Then I'd have a dress all white and shining like mamma's that she wore to the ball. But mamma said the little girl in the story was naughty to like her pretty dress, and she weared a gingham one when she was good. Guess I won't be any fairy. I'll be Finnikin Fine, and wear a gingham gown and apron. I'll tell papa to carry away the bracelets too. I'm going to be good like Merry that weared a sun-bonnet."
Eager to commence the proposed reform, 'Toinette tugged at the bracelet upon her left shoulder until she broke the clasp and tore the pretty lace of her under-sleeve.
"Dear, dear, what a careless child!" exclaimed the little girl, remembering the phrase so often repeated to her. "But it ain't any matter, I guess," added she, brightening up; "for I shan't have any under-sleeve to my gingham dress. Susan's aunt doesn't."
'Toinette paused, with her hand upon the other bracelet trying to remember whether Susan, or the little girl who came to see her, was the aunt. The question was not settled, when the sound of music in the street below attracted 'Toinette's attention. Clinging to the window-ledge so as to see over the iron railing of the balcony, she peeped down, and saw a small dark man walking slowly by the house, turning the crank of a hand-organ which he carried at his side. Upon the organ was perched a monkey, dressed in a red coat with gilt buttons, a little cocked hat, and blue trousers. He was busily eating a seed-cake; pausing now and then to look about him in a sort of anxious way, chattering all the while as if he thought some one wanted to take it away from him.
'Toinette had never before seen a monkey; and she stared at this one in great surprise and delight, taking him for a little man, and his inarticulate chattering for words in some foreign language such as she had sometimes heard spoken.
The music also suited the little girl's ear better than the best strains of the Italian opera would have done; and altogether she was resolved to see and hear more both of the monkey and the music.
"Mamma's asleep, and Susan gone out; so I can't ask leave, but I'll only stay a little tiny minute, and tell the little man what is his name, and what he is saying," reasoned the pretty runaway, primly wrapping herself in her mother's breakfast-shawl left lying upon the sofa, and tying her handkerchief over her head.
"Now I's decent, and the cold won't catch me," murmured she, regarding herself in the mirror with much satisfaction, and then running softly down stairs. Susan, thinking she should be back directly, had left the catch-latch of the front-door fastened up: so 'Toinette had only to turn the great silver handle of the other latch; and this, by putting both hands to it and using all her strength, she finally succeeded in doing, although she could not close the door behind her. Leaving it ajar, 'Toinette ran down the steps, and looked eagerly along the square until she discovered the hand-organ man with his monkey just turning the corner, and flew after him as fast as her little feet would carry her. But, with all her haste, the man had already turned another corner before she overtook him, and was walking, more quickly than he had yet done, down a narrow street. He was not playing now; but the monkey, who had finished his cake, was climbing over his master's shoulders, running down his arms and back, chattering, grinning, making faces, and evidently having a little game of romps on his own account.
'Toinette, very much amused, tripped along behind, talking as fast as the monkey, and asking all manner of questions, to none of which either monkey or man made any reply; while all the time the beautiful rosy light was fading out of the west, and the streets were growing dark and crowded; and as the organ-grinder, followed by 'Toinette, turned from one into another, each was dirtier and narrower and more disagreeable than the last.
All at once, the man, after hesitating for a moment, dashed across the street, and into a narrow alley opposite. Two or three dirt-carts were passing at the same time; and 'Toinette, afraid to follow, stood upon the edge of the sidewalk, looking wistfully after him, and beginning to wonder if she ought not to be going home.
While she wondered, a number of rude boys came rushing by; and, either by accident or malice, the largest one, in passing the little girl, pushed her so roughly, that she stumbled off the sidewalk altogether, and fell into the gutter.
A little hurt, a good deal frightened, and still more indignant, 'Toinette picked herself up, and looked ruefully at the mud upon her pretty dress, but would not allow herself to cry, as she longed to do.
"If I'd got my gingham dress on, it wouldn't do so much harm," thought she, her mind returning to the story she had that afternoon heard; and then all at once an anxious longing for home and mother seized the little heart, and sent the tiny feet flying up the narrow street as fast as they could move. But, at the corner, 'Toinette, who never had seen the street before, took the wrong turn; and, although she ran as fast as she could, every step now led her farther from home, and deeper into the squalid by-streets and alleys, among which she was lost.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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6
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MOTHER WINCH.
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IN a narrow court, hardly lighted by the one gas-light flaring at its entrance, 'Toinette stopped, and, looking dismally about her, began at last to cry. At the sound, a crooked old woman, with a great bag on her back, who had been resting upon the step of a door close by, although the little girl had not noticed her, rose, and came toward her.
"What's the matter, young one?" asked the old woman harshly.
"I don't know the way home, and I'm lost!" said 'Toinette, wiping her eyes, and looking doubtfully at the old woman, who was very dark and hairy as to the face, very blinking and wicked as to the eyes, and very crooked and warped as to figure, while her dress seemed to be a mass of rags held together by dirt.
"Lost, be you?" asked this unpleasant old woman, seizing Mrs. Legrange's beautiful breakfast-shawl, and twitching it off the child's shoulders. "And where'd you git this 'ere pretty shawl?"
"It's my mamma's, and you'd better not touch it; you might soil it, you know," said 'Toinette anxiously.
"Heh! Why, I guess you're a little lady, ain't you? B'long to the big-bugs, don't you?"
"I don't know. I want to go home," stammered 'Toinette, perplexed and frightened.
"Well, you come right in here along o' me, and wait till I get my pack off; then I'll show you the way home," said the woman, as, seizing the little girl's hand, she led her to the bottom of the court, and down some steps into a foul-smelling cellar-room, perfectly dark, and very cold.
"You stop right there till I get a light," said the woman, letting go the child's hand when they reached the middle of the room. "Don't ye budge now."
Too much frightened to speak, or even cry, 'Toinette did as she was bid, and stood perfectly still until the old woman had found a match, and, drawing it across the rusty stove, lighted a tallow candle, and stuck it into the mouth of a junk-bottle. This she set upon the table; and, sinking into a chair beside it, stretched out a skinny hand, and, seizing 'Toinette by the arm, dragged her close to her.
"Yes, you kin let me have that pooty shawl, little gal, cause--Eh, what fine clo'es we've got on!" exclaimed the hag, as, pulling off the shawl 'Toinette had again wrapped about her, she examined her dress attentively for a moment, and then, fixing her eyes sternly upon the child, continued angrily,-- "Now look at here, young un. Them ain't your clo'es; you know they ain't. You stole 'em."
"Stealed my clothes!" exclaimed 'Toinette in great indignation. "Why, no, I didn't. Mamma gave them to me, and Susan sewed them."
"No sech a thing, you young liar!" returned the old woman, shaking her roughly by one arm. "You stole 'em; and I'm a-going to take 'em off, and give you back your own, or some jist like 'em. Then I'll carry these fine fixings to the one they b'long to. Come, now, no blubbering. Strip off, I tell yer."
As she spoke, she twirled the little girl round, and began to pull open the buttons of her dress. In doing this, her attention was attracted by the bracelet looping up the right sleeve; 'Toinette having, it will be remembered, pulled off the other, and left it at home.
"Hi, hi! What sort o' gimcrack you got here?" exclaimed she, pulling at it, until, as 'Toinette had done with the other, she broke the links between two of the cameos, without unclasping the bracelet.
"Hi! that's pooty! Now, what a young wretch you be for to go and say that ere's yourn!" added she severely, as she held the trinket out of reach of the little girl, who eagerly cried,-- "It is, it is mine! Papa gave me both of them, 'cause it's my birthday. They're my bracelets; only mamma said I was too little to wear them on my arms like she does, and she tied up my sleeves with them."
"Where's t'other one, then?"
"It's at home. I pulled it off 'cause I was going to be like Merry, that weared a sun-bonnet, and didn't have any bracelets."
"Sun-bonnet! What d'ye want of a sun-bonnet, weather like this? I'll give you my old hood; that's more like it, I reckon," replied the hag, amused, in spite of herself, by the prattle of the child. 'Toinette hesitated.
"No," said she at last: "I guess you'd better give me my own very clo'ses, and carry me home. Then mamma will give me a gingham dress and a sun-bonnet; and maybe she'll give you my pretty things, if you want them."
"Thanky for nothing, miss. I reckon it'll be a saving of trouble to take em now. I don't b'lieve a word about your ma'am giving 'em to you; and, more'n all, I don't b'lieve you've got no ma'am."
So saying, she rudely stripped off, first the dress, then the underclothes, and finally even the, stockings and pretty gaiter-boots; so that the poor child, frightened, ashamed, and angry, stood at last with no covering but the long ringlets of her golden hair, which, as she, sobbing, hid her face in her hands, fell about her like a veil.
Leaving her thus, the old woman rummaged for a few moments in a heap of clothes thrown into the corner of the room,--the result, apparently, of many a day's begging or theft. From them she presently produced a child's nightgown, petticoat, and woollen skirt, a pair of coarse shoes much worn, and an old plaid shawl: with these she approached 'Toinette.
"See! I've got your own clo'es here all ready for you. Ain't I good?"
"They ain't my clothes: I won't have 'em on. Go away, you naughty lady, you ain't good a bit!" screamed 'Toinette, passionately striking at the clothes and the hand that held them.
"Come, come, miss, none o' them airs! Take that, now, and mend your manners!" exclaimed the old woman with a blow upon the bare white shoulder, which left the print of all her horny fingers. It was the first time in all her life that 'Toinette had been struck; and the blood rushed to her face, and then away, leaving her as white as marble. She cried no more, but, fixing her eyes upon the face of the old woman, said solemnly,-- "Now the Lord doesn't love you. Did you know it was the bad spirits that made you strike me? Mamma said so when I struck Susan."
"Shut up! I don't want none of your preaching, miss," replied the woman angrily. "Here, put on these duds about the quickest, or I'll give you worse than that. Lor, what a mess of hair! What's the good on't? Maybe, though, they'd give some'at for it to the store."
She took a large pair of shears from the table-drawer as she spoke, and, grasping the shining, curls in her left hand, rapidly snipped them from the head, leaving it rough, tangled, and hardly to be recognized.
'Toinette no longer resisted, or even cried. The blow of that rough hand seemed to have stunned or stupefied her, and she stood perfectly quiet, her face pale, her eyes fixed, and her trembling lips a little apart; while the old woman, after laying the handful of curls carefully aside, dragged on the clothes she had selected, in place of those she was stealing, and finished by trying the plaid shawl around the child's shoulders, fastening it in a great knot behind, and placing a dirty old hood upon the shorn head.
"There, now, you'll do, I guess; and we'll go take you home: only mind you don't speak a word to man, woman, nor child, as we go; for, if you do, I'll fetch you right back here, and shut you up with Old Bogy in that closet."
So saying, she bundled up 'Toinette's own clothes, slipped the bracelet into her pocket, then, with the parcel in one hand, grasped the child's arm with the other, and led her out into the street.
"Will you really take me home?" asked 'Toinette piteously, as they climbed the broken steps leading from the cellar to the pavement.
"There, now! What did I tell yer?" exclaimed the woman angrily, and turning as if to go back. "Now come along, and I will give you to Old Bogy."
"No, no! oh, please, don't! I will be good. I won't say a word any more. I forgotten that time, I did;" and the timid child, pale and trembling, clung to the wretch beside her as if she had been her dearest friend.
"Well, then, don't go into fits, and I'll let you off this time; but see that you don't open your head agin, or it'll be all up with yer."
"Yes'm," said the poor child submissively; and, taking her once more by the hand, the old woman led her rapidly along the filthy street, now entirely dark except for the gaslights, and more strange to 'Toinette's eyes than Fairy-land would have been. As they turned the corner, a tall, broad-shouldered man, dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, and a glazed cap, who stood leaning against the wall, looked sharply at them, and called out, "Hullo, Mother Winch! What's up to-night?"
"Nothing, yer honor,--nothing at all. Me and little Biddy Mahoney's going to leave some duds at the pawnbroker's for her mother, who's most dead with the fever."
"Well, well, go along; only look out you carry no more than you honestly come by," said the policeman, walking leisurely up the street.
Mother Winch turned in the opposite direction, and, still tightly grasping 'Toinette's arm, led her through one street after another, until, tired and bewildered, the poor child clung with half-closed eyes to the filthy skirts of the old woman, and stumbled along, neither seeing nor knowing which way they went.
"Hold up, can't ye, gal!" exclaimed Mother Winch, as the child tripped, and nearly fell. "Or, if you're so tired as all that, set down on that door-stone, and wait for me a minute." Pushing her down upon the step as she spoke, Mother Winch hurried away so fast, that, before 'Toinette's tired little brain could fairly understand what was said, she found herself alone, with no creature in sight all up and down the narrow street, except a cross-looking dog walking slowly along the pavement toward her. For one moment, she sat wondering what she had better do; and then, as the cross-looking dog fixed his eyes upon her with a sullen growl, she started to her feet, and ran as fast as she could in the direction taken by Mother Winch. Just at the corner of the alley, something glittering upon the sidewalk attracted her attention; and, stooping to pick it up, she uttered a little cry of surprise and pleasure. It was her own coral bracelet, which had traveled round in Mother Winch's pocket until it came to a hole in the bottom, and quietly slipping out, and down her skirts to the pavement, lay waiting for its little mistress to pick it up.
'Toinette kissed it again and again, not because it was a bracelet but because her father had given it to her; and it seemed somehow to take her back a little way toward him and home. It must have been this she meant, in saying as she did,-- "I guess you have come after me, pretty bracelet, hasn't you? and we'll go home together."
And so, hugging the toy as close to her heart as she would have liked herself to be hugged to her mother's heart, 'Toinette wandered on and on through the dark and lonely streets, her little face growing paler and paler, her little feet more and more weary, her heart swelling fuller and fuller with fright and desolation; until at last, stopping suddenly, she looked up at the sky, all alive now with the crowding stars, and with a great sob whispered,-- "Pretty stars, please tell God I'm lost. I think he doesn't know about it, or he'd send me home."
And then, as the wild sob brought another and another, 'Toinette sank down in the doorway of a deserted house, and, covering her face with her hands, cried as she had never cried in all her little life.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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7
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TEDDY'S LITTLE SISTER.
|
"THERE, honey!" said Mrs. Ginniss, giving the last rub to the shirt-bosom she was polishing, and setting her flat-iron back on the stove with a smack,--"there, honey; and I couldn't have done better by that buzzum if ye'd been the Prisidint."
Mrs. Ginniss was alone, so that one might at first have been a little puzzled to know whom she addressed as "honey;" but as she continued to talk while unfolding another shirt, and laying it upon her ironing-board, it became evident that she was addressing the absent owner of the garments.
"And sure it's many a maner man they've made their prisidints out on, and sorra a better one they'd find betune here and Canady. It's yees that have the free hand and the kind way wid yees, for all your grand looks. The good Lord save and keep ye all the days of yer life!"
A wrinkle in the wristband here absorbed the attention of the laundress; and, while smoothing it out, she forgot to continue what she had been saying, but, as she once more ironed briskly upon the sleeve, began upon a new subject.
"And it's late ye're agin, Teddy Ginniss, bad 'cess to yees! And thin it's mesilf that should take shame for saying it; for niver a b'y of them all is so good to his ould mother, and niver a one of 'em all that his mother's got so good a right to be proud on, as Ted. But where is the cratur? His supper's cowld as charity wid stannin."
At this moment a heavy step was heard upon the stairs, as of some one climbing slowly up with a heavy burden in his arms. Mrs. Ginniss paused to listen, holding the iron suspended over the collar she had just smoothed ready for it.
"Murther an' all!" muttered she. "And what's the crather got wid him anyhow? Shure an it's him; for, if it wor Jovarny with his orgin, he'd ha' stopped below."
The heavy steps reached the top of the stairs as she spoke, and clumped along the narrow passage to the door of Mrs. Ginniss's garret. She was already holding it open.
"Teddy, b'y, an' is it yersilf?" asked she, peering out into the darkness.
"Yes, mother, its meself," panted a boy's voice, as a stout young fellow, about fifteen years old, staggered into the room, and sank upon a chair.
"Saints an' angels, child! and what have ye got there?" exclaimed his mother, bending over the something that filled Teddy's arms and lap.
"It's a little girl, mother; and I'm feared she's dead!" panted Teddy.
"A little girl, an' she's dead! Oh, wurra, wurra, Teddy Ginniss, that iver I should be own mother to a murderer! An' is it yersilf that kilt the purty darlint?"
"Meself, mother!" exclaimed the boy indignantly. "Sure and it wasn't; and I wouldn't 'a thought you'd have needed to ask. I found her on a doorstep in Tanner's Court: and first I thought she was asleep, and so I shook her to tell her to go home before the Charley got her; and then, when she wouldn't wake up, I saw she was either fainted or dead; and I fetched her home to you,--and it's you that go for to call me a murtherer! Oh, oh!"
As he uttered these last sounds, the boy's wide mouth puckered up in a comical look of distress, and he rubbed the cuff of his jacket across his blinking eyes. Mrs. Ginniss gave him a slap, on the shoulder, intended to be playful, but actually heavy enough to have thrown a slighter person out of the chair.
"Whisht, honey, whisht!" said she. "And it's an ould fool I am wid me fancies an' me frights. But let us looks at the poor little crather ye've brought home to me. Sure and it was like yees, Teddy, b'y." As she spoke, she took from Teddy's arms the little lifeless form, with its pale, still face, and laid it gently upon her own bed.
"Oh thin! an' it's a shame to see the party darlint lay like that and I'm 'feared, unless the breath's in her yet, she's dead intirely," muttered the good woman, rubbing the little hands in her own, and gently feeling for the beating of the heart.
"Maybe it's only the cold and the hunger that's ailing her, and she'll come to with the fire and vittels. She can have my supper and my breakfast too, and a welcome with it," said Teddy eagerly.
"The cowld, maybe, it is; for her clothes is nixt to nothing, an' the flesh of her's like a stone wid the freezing: but she's got enough to ate, or she never'd be so round an' plump. It's like she's the child of some beggar-woman that's fed her on broken vittels, an', whin she got tired ov trampin' wid her, jist dropped her on the doorstep where yees got her. --Howly mother! what's this?"
Mrs. Ginniss, as she spoke, had taken the little lifeless form upon her lap close to the stove, and was undressing it, when, among the folds of the old shawl crossed over the bosom, she found a bracelet of coral cameos, set in gold, and fastened with a handsome clasp.
She held it up, stared at it a moment, and then looked anxiously at Teddy.
"An' where did this splindid armlit come from, Teddy Ginniss?" asked she sharply.
"Sorra a bit of me knows, thin; an' is it a thafe ye'll be callin' me as well as a murtherer!" exclaimed the boy, falling, in his agitation, into the Irish brogue he was generally so careful to avoid.
"Whisht, ye spalpeen! an' lave it on the mantletry till we see if the breath's in her yit. Sure an' sich a little crather niver could have stole it."
Teddy, with an air of dignified resentment, took the bracelet from his mother's hand, and laid it upon the mantlepiece; while Mrs. Ginniss, with a troubled look upon her broad face, finished stripping the little form, and began rubbing it all over with her warm hands.
"Power some warm wather into the biggest wash-tub, Teddy, an' I'll thry puttin' her in it. It's what the Yankee doctor said to do wid yees, whin yees had fits; an' it niver did no harm, anyways."
"Is it a fit she's got?" asked Teddy, with a look of awe upon his face.
"The good Lord knows what's she's got, or who she is. Mabbe the good folk put her where yees got her. Niver a beggar-brat before had a skin so satin-smooth, an' hands an' feet like rose-leaves and milk. An' look how clane she is from head to heel! Niver a corpse ready for the wakin' was nater."
"The water's ready now," said Teddy, pushing the tub close to his mother's side, and then walking away to the window. For some moments, the gentle plashing of the water was the only sound he heard; but then his mother hastily exclaimed,-- "Glory be to God an' to his saints! The purty crather's alive, and lookin' at me wid the two blue eyes av her like a little angel! Han' me the big tow'l till I rub her dhry."
Teddy ran with the towel; and as his mother hastily wrapped her little charge in her apron, and reseated herself before the fire, he caught sight of two great bright eyes staring up at him, and joyfully cried,-- "She's alive, she's alive! and she'll be my little sister, and we'll keep her always, won't we, mother?"
"Wait, thin, till we see if it's here she is in the morning, said his mother mysteriously.
"And where else would she be, if not here?" asked Teddy in surprise.
"If it war the good folks, Meaning the fairies, whom the Irish people call by this name. that browt her, it's they that will fetch her away agin 'fore the daylight. Wait till mornin', Teddy darlint."
But, in spite of her suspicions, Mrs. Ginniss did all for the little stranger that she could have done for her own child, even to heating and giving to her the cupful of milk reserved for her own "tay" during the next day, and warming her in her own bosom all through the long, cold night.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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8
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THE FAYVER.
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"AND is she here, mother?" asked Teddy, rushing into his mother's room next morning as soon as there was light enough to see.
"Yis, b'y, she's here; but it's not long she'll be, savin' the mercy o' God. It's the heavy sickness that's on her the morn."
"And will she die, mother?"
"The good Lord knows, not the likes of me, Teddy darlint."
"And you'll keep her, and do for her, mother, won't you?" asked the boy anxiously.
"Sure and it wouldn't be Judy Ginniss that'd turn out a dying child, let alone sending her to the poor'us. Thim that sint her to us will sind us the manes to kape her," said the Irish woman confidently; and leaving her little moaning, feverish charge dozing uneasily, she rose, and went about the labors of the day.
"Here's the masther's shirts done, Teddy; and ye'd betther take thim to his lodgings before yees go to the office. More by token, it's him as u'd tell us what we'd ought to be doin' wid the darlint, if she lives, or if she dies. Tell the masther all ye know uv her, Teddy; an' ax him to set us sthraight."
"No, no, mother!" exclaimed Teddy eagerly; "I'll be doing no such thing: for it's ourselves wants her, and any thing the master would say would take her away from us. Sure and how often I've said I'd give all ever I had for a little sister to be my own, and love me, and go walking with me, and be took care by me; and, now one is sent, if it's the good folks or if it's the good God sent her, I'm going to keep her all myself. Sure, mother, you'll never be crossing me in this, when it's yourself never crossed me yet; and more by token, it'll keep me out of the streets, and such."
"Thrue for ye, Teddy; though it's you was alluz the good b'y to shtop at home, an' niver ax fur coompany savin' yer poor owld mother," said the washerwoman, looking fondly at her son.
"And you'll keep the child, and say nothing to nobody but she's our own; won't you, mother?" persisted Teddy.
"Yis, b'y, if it's yer heart is set on it."
"It is that, mother; and you're the good mother, and it's I always knowed, I mean knew it. And will I bring home a doctor to the little sister?"
"No, Teddy; not yit. Faix, an' it's hard enough to live when we're well; but it's too poor intirely we are to be sick. Whin the time cooms to die, it's no doctherin' 'll kape us."
Teddy looked wistfully at the little burning face upon the coarse, clean pillow: but he knew that what his mother said was true; and, without reply, he took up the parcel of clothes, and left the room.
All through the long day, Mrs. Ginniss, toiling at her wash-tubs, found a moment here and another there to sit upon the edge of the bed, and smooth her little patient's hair, or moisten her glowing lips and burning forehead, trying at intervals to induce her to speak, if even but one word, in answer to her tender inquiries; but all in vain: for the child already lay in the stupor preceding the delirium of a violent fever, and an occasional moan or sigh was the only sound that escaped her lips.
Toward night, Teddy, returning home an hour earlier than usual, came bounding up the stairs, two at a time, but, pausing at the door, entered as softly as a cat.
"How is the little sister now, mother?" asked he anxiously.
"Purty nigh as bad as bad can be, Teddy," said his mother sorrowfully, standing aside as she spoke that the boy might see the burning face, dull, half-closed eyes, and blackening lips of the sick child, and touch the little hands feebly plucking at the blanket with fingers that seemed to scorch the boy's healthy skin as he closed them in his palm.
Teddy looked long and earnestly,--looked up at his mother's sad face, and down again at the "little sister" whom he had taken to his heart when he first took her to his arms; and then, shutting his lips close together, and swallowing hard to keep down the great sob that seemed like to strangle him, he turned, and rushed out of the room. Mrs. Ginniss looked after him, and wiped her eyes.
"It's the luvin' heart he has, the crather," murmured she. "An' if the baby wor his own sisther, it's no more he could care for her. Sure an' if the Lord spares her to us, it's Teddy's sisther she shall be, forever an' aye, while me two fists hoold out to work fer 'em."
An hour later, Teddy returned, conducting a stranger. Rushing into the room before him, the boy threw his arms around his mother's neck, and whispered hastily, in his broadest brogue,-- "It's a docther; an' he'll cure the sisther; an' it's not a cint he'll be afther axin' us: but don't let on that she's not our own."
Mrs. Ginniss rose, and courtesied to the young man, who now followed Teddy into the room, saying pleasantly,-- "Good evening, ma'am. I am Dr. Wentworth; and I came to see your little girl by request of Teddy here, who said you would like a doctor if you could have one without paying him."
Mrs. Ginniss courtesied again, but with rather a wrathful look at Teddy, as she said,-- "And it's sorry I am the b'y should be afther beggin' of yees, docther. I thought he'd more sinse than to be axin' yees to give away yer time, that's as good as money to yees."
"But my time is not as good as money by any means," said Dr. Wentworth, laughing as he took off his hat and coat; "for I have very little to do except to attend patients who cannot give more than their thanks in payment. That is the way we young doctors begin."
"An' is that so indade! Sure an' 'Meriky's the place fur poor folks quite an' intirely," said Mrs. Ginniss admiringly.
"For some sorts of poor people, and not for others. Unfortunately, bakers, butchers, and tailors do not practise gratuitously; so we poor doctors, lawyers, and parsons have to play give without take," said the young man, warming his hands a moment over the cooking-stove.
"An' sure it was out of a Protistint Bible that I heard wonst, 'Him as gives to the poor linds to the Lord:' so, in the ind, it's yees that'll come in wid your pockets full, if ye belave yer own Scripter," said Mrs. Ginniss shrewdly.
The young doctor gave her a sharp glance out of his merry brown eyes, but only answered, as he walked on to the bedside,-- "You have it there, my friend."
For several moments, there was silence in the little room while Dr. Wentworth felt his patient's pulse, looked at her tongue, examined her eyes, and passed his hand over the burning skin.
"H'm! Typhoid, without doubt," said he to himself, and then to Mrs. Ginniss,-- "Can you tell the probable cause of the child's illness, ma'am? Has she been exposed to any sudden chill, or any long-continued cold or fatigue?"
Mrs. Ginniss was about to reply by telling all she knew of the little stranger; but catching Teddy's imploring look, and the gesture with which he seemed to beg her to keep the secret of his "little sister's" sudden adoption, she only answered,-- "Sure an' it's the cowld she took last night but one is workin' in her."
"She took cold night before last? How was it?" pursued the doctor.
"She was out late in the street, sure, an' the clothes she'd got wasn't warm enough," said the washwoman, her eyes still fixed on Teddy, who, from behind the doctor, was making every imploring gesture he could invent to prevent her from telling the whole truth. The doctor did not fail to notice the hesitation and embarrassment of the woman's manner, but remembering what Teddy had told him of his mother's poverty, and her own little betrayal of pride when he first entered, naturally concluded that she was annoyed at having to say that the child had been sent into the street without proper clothing, and forbore to press the question.
Ah Teddy and Teddy's mother! if you had loved the truth as well as you loved little lost 'Toinette, how much suffering, anxiety, and anguish you would have saved to her and her's!
But the doctor asked no more questions, except such as Mrs. Ginniss could answer without hesitation; and pretty soon went away, promising to come again next day, and taking Teddy with him to the infirmary where medicine is furnished without charge to those unable to pay for it.
Before the boy returned, 'Toinette had passed from the stupid to the delirious stage of her fever; and all that night, as he woke or dozed in his little closet close beside his mother's door, poor Teddy's heart ached to hear the wild tones of entreaty, of terror, or of anger, proving to his mind that the delicate child he already loved so well had suffered much and deeply, and that at no distant period.
Toward morning, he dressed, and crept into his mother's room. The washerwoman sat in the clothes she had worn at bed-time, patiently fanning her little charge, and, half asleep herself, murmuring constantly,-- "Ah thin, honey, whisht, whisht! It's nothin' shall harm ye now, darlint! Asy, now, asy, mavourneen! Whisht, honey, whisht!"
"Lie down and sleep, mother, and let me sit by her," whispered Teddy in his mother's ear; and, with a nod, the weary woman crept across the foot of the bed, and was asleep in a moment.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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9
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THE NIGHT-WATCH.
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TEDDY, waving the old palm-leaf fan up and down with as much care as if it had carried the breath of life to his poor little charge, sat for some time very quiet, listening to her wild prattle without trying to interrupt it; until, after lying still for a few moments, she suddenly fixed her eyes upon him, and said,-- "Oh! you're Peter Phinn, sister to Merry that weared a sun-bonnet, ain't you?"
The question seemed so conscious and rational, that Teddy answered eagerly,-- "No, honey; but I'm Teddy Ginniss; and I'm going to be your brother forever and always. What's your name, sissy?"
"I'm Finny; no, I'm Cherrytoe,--I'm Cherrytoe, that dances. Want to see me dance, Peter?"
As she spoke, she started up, and would have jumped out of bed; but Teddy laid his hand upon her arm, and said soothingly,-- "No, no, sissy; not now. Another day you shall dance for Teddy, when you're all well. And you mustn't call me Peter, 'cause I'm Teddy."
"Teddy, Teddy," repeated 'Toinette vaguely, and then, with a sudden shrill laugh, shouted,--"'Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief; Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef.' Guess you're Taffy, ain't you?"
"No: I'm Teddy. I'm your brother Teddy," repeated the boy patiently; and then, to change the subject, added coaxingly, "And what's the pretty name you called yourself, darlint?"
"I'm Cherrytoe,--Cherrytoe that dances so pretty. Don't you hear, you great naughty lady? --Cherrytoe, Cherrytoe, Cherrytoe!"
The wild scream in which the name was repeated woke even tired Mrs. Ginniss, who started upright, crying,-- "What's it, what's it, Teddy? Ochone! what ails the crather?"
"It's only her name she's telling, mother; and sure it's a pretty one. It's Cherrytoe."
"And what sort of a quare name is that for a christened child? Sure we'll call it Cherry; for wunst I heerd of a lady as was called that way," said Mrs. Ginniss.
"Yes, we'll call her Cherry, little sister Cherry," said Teddy, delighted with the promise implied in his mother's words of keeping the child for her own. "And, mother," added he, "mind you don't be telling the doctor nor any one that she ain't your own, or maybe they'll take her away to the 'sylum or somewheres, whether we'd like it or not: and, if they do, I'll run off to sea; I will, by ginger!"
"Whisht, thin, with your naughty words, Teddy Ginniss! Didn't I bate ye enough whin ye wor little to shtop ye from swearin'?"
"Ginger ain't swearing," replied Teddy positively. "I asked the master if it wor, and he said it worn't."
"Faith, thin, and he says it hisself, I'm thinkin'," half asked the mother, with a shrewd twinkle of her gray eyes. Teddy faltered and blushed, but answered manfully,-- "No, he don't; and he said it was low and vulgar to talk that way; and I don't, only by times."
"Well, thin, Teddy, see that yer don't, only thim times whin yer hears the masther do it forninst ye: thin it'll be time enough for ye. And don't ye be forgettin', b'y, that ye're bound to be a gintleman afore ye die. It was what yer poor daddy said when yer wor born, a twelvemonth arter we landed here. 'There, Judy,' says he, 'there's a native-born 'Merican for yees, wid as good a right to be Prisidint as the best ov 'em. Now, don't yer let him grow up a Paddy, wid no more brains nor a cow or a horse. Make a gintleman, an' a 'Merican gintleman, of the spalpeen; an' shtrike hands on it now.' " 'Troth, thin, Michael alanna, an' it's a bargain,' says I, an', wake as I wor, give him me fist out ov the bed; an' he shuk it hearty. An', though Michael died afore the year wor out, the promise I'd made him stood; an' it's more ways than iver ye'll know, Teddy Ginniss, I've turned an' twisted to kape ye dacent, an' kape ye out ov the streets, niver forgittin' for one minute that Michael had towld me there was the makin's of a gintleman in yees, an' that he'd left it to me to work it out."
To this story, familiar as it was, Teddy listened with as much attention as if he had never heard it before, and, when it was ended, said,-- "And tell about your putting me to the squire, mother."
"Yis, b'y; an' that wor the biggest bit of loock that iver I wor in yet. Two twelvemonth ago come Christmas it wor, an' iver an' always I had been thinkin' what 'ud I do wid ye nixt, when Ann Dolan towld me how her sisther's son had got a chance wid a lawyer to clane out his bit ov an office, and run wid arrants an' sich, an' wor to have fifty dollars a year, wid the chance ov larnin' what he could out ov all thim big books as does be in sich places. Thin it somehow kim inter my head so sudden like, that it's sartain sure I am it was Michael come out ov glory to whishper it in my ear: 'There's Misther Booros'll mebbe do as much for your Teddy.' I niver spoke the first word to Ann Dolan, but lapped my shawl about me, an' wint out ov her house with no more than, 'God save ye, Ann!' an' twenty minutes later I wor in Misther Booros's office. " 'Good-evenin', Mrs. Ginniss,' says he, as ginteel as yer plaze. 'An' how is yer health?' " 'Purty good, thank ye kindly, sir,' says I; 'an' its hopin' you have yours the same, I am.' " 'Thank you, I am very well; and what can I do for you this evening? Pray, be sated,' says he, laning back in his chair wid sech a rale good-natured smile on the handsome face of him, that I says to myself, 'It's the lucky woman you are, Judy Ginniss, to put yer b'y wid sech a dacent gintleman: an' I smiled to him agin, an' begun to the beginnin', and towld him the whole story,--what Michael said to me, an' what I said to Michael; an' how Mike died wid the faver; an' how I'd worked an 'saved, an' wouldn't marry Tom Murphy when he axed me, an' all so as I could kape my b'y dacent, an' sind him to the school, an' give him his books an' his joggerphy-picters"-- "Them's maps, mother," interposed Teddy.
"Niver yer mind, b'y, what they be. Yer had 'em along wid the best of yer schoolmates; an' so I towld the squire. 'An' now,' says I, 'he's owld enough to be settlin' to a thrade; an' I likes the lawyer thrade the best, an' so I've coom to git yer honor to take him 'printice.'
"At that he stared like as he'd been moonsthruck; an' thin he laughed a little to hisself; and thin he axed mighty quite like, 'How do you mane, Mrs. Ginniss?' So I towld him about Ann Dolan's sisther's son, an' what wor the chance he'd got; an' thin I made bowld to ax him would he take my b'y the same way, on'y I'd like he'd larn more, an' I wouldn't mind the fifty dollars a year, but 'ud kape him mesilf, as I had kep' him since his daddy died, if the wuth uv it might be give him in larnin'."
"And what did the master say to that, mother?" asked Teddy, with a bright look that showed he foresaw and was pleased with the answer.
"Sure and he said what a gintleman the likes uv him should say, and said with his own hearty smile that's as good as the goold dollar uv another man,-- "'My good 'oman,' says he, 'sind along your b'y as soon as you plaze; an' if he's as--as'--what's that agin, Teddy, darlint?"
"Amberitious," pronounced Teddy with a grand sort of air; "and it means, he told me, wanting to be something more than you wor by nater."
"Faith, and that's it, Teddy: that's the very moral uv what I wants to see in yees. Well, the masther said if the b'y was as amberitious an' as 'anest as his mother afore him (that's me, yer see, Teddy),"-- "Yes, yes, mother, I know. Well?"
"That he'd make a man uv him that should be a pride an' a support to the owld age uv me, an' a blissin' to the day I med up my mind to eddicate him. That wor two year ago, Teddy Ginniss; an', so far, hasn' the gintleman done by yees as niver yer own daddy could? Hasn' he put yees to the readin' an' the writin' an' the joggerphy-- picters, an' the nate figgers that yees puts on me washin'--bills, till it's proud I am to hand 'em to the gintlefolks, an' say, 'If ye plaze, the figgers is pooty plain. It's me b'y made 'em'? Now till me, Teddy, hasn' the shquire done all this by yees, an' give yees the fifty dollars by the year, all the same as if he give ye nothin' else?"
"He has so, mother."
"An' whin I wanted to wash for him widout a cint uv charge, an' towld him it was jist foon to rinshe out his bit things, bekase he is that good--natered an' quite that there's niver the fust roobin' to do to 'em, he says,-- "'An' if I let yees do 'em widout charge, I'd as lieve wear the shirt of Misther Nessus;' an' more by token, Teddy Ginniss, I told ye iver and oft to look in the big books an' see who was Misther Nessus, an' what about his shirt."
"Faith and ye did, mother; but I never could find him yet. Some day I'll ask the master," said Teddy with a puzzled look.
"An' so he pays me what I ax, an' it isn' for the likes uv him to be knowin' what the others ud charge; an', whin he gives me forty cints the dozen, he thinks, the poor innercint! that it's mooch as I would ax uv any one. Now, Teddy b'y, isn' all I've towld ye God's truth? and haven't ye heerd it as many times as yees are days owld out uv yer own moother's lips?"
"Faith and I have, mother."
"An' wud yer moother till yees a lie, or bid yees do what wasn't plazin' to God, Teddy?"
"Sure she wouldn't; and I'll lick the first fellow that'll say she would, if he was as big as Goliah in the Bible," said Teddy, doubling up his fist, and nodding fiercely.
"Thin, Teddy Ginniss, we cooms to this; an' it's not the first time, nor yet the last, we'll coom to it. If iver ye can do yer masther a service, be it big or be it little; if iver the stringth, or the coorage, or the life itself, of yees, or thim as is dear to yees, ud sarve him or plaze him,--I bid yees now to give it him free an' willin' as ye'd give it to God. An' so ye mind me, it's my blissin' an' the blissin' uv yer dead father that's iver wid ye; an' so ye fail me, it's the black curse uv disobedience, an' yer moother's brukken heart, that shall cling to yees for iver and iver, while life shall last. Do ye mind that, b'y?"
"I mind it, and I'll heed it, mother, as I've promised you before," said Teddy solemnly; and mother and son exchanged as tender and as true a kiss as young Bayard and his lady-mother could have done when she gave him to be a knight and chevalier.
All through this long conversation, which had been carried on in a low tone of voice, and frequently interrupted when it seemed to disturb her, 'Toinette had slept feverish and restlessly; but as the washwoman crept away to begin her daily labors, and Teddy lingered for a moment more to look at the poor little sister whose beauty was to him an ever-new delight, her great blue eyes suddenly opened, and fixed upon him, while with an airy little laugh she said,-- "We're King and Queen of Merrigoland, Peter; isn't we? Does you love me, Peter?"
"I couldn't tell how well I love you, Cherry dear; but it's Teddy I am, and not Peter," said the boy, bashfully kissing the little hot hand upon the outside of the bed.
To his dismay, the delirious child snatched it from him with a wild cry, and burst into a storm of tears and sobs, crying,-- "Go away, wicked lady! go away, I say! God won't love you when you strike me, you know. He won't: my mamma said so. Oh, oh, oh!"
Her cries brought Mrs. Ginniss to her side in a moment, who, tenderly soothing her, turned upon Teddy.
"Bad 'cess to yees, ye spalpeen! An' what ud ye be afther vexin' her for, an' her in a faver? What did yees say to her?"
"I said my name was Teddy, and not Peter; and then she said I was a lady, and struck her," replied the boy, bewildered, and a little indignant.
"And sure ye'r Peter or Paul, or Judas hissilf, if so be she likes to call ye so while she's this way; an', if ye shtrike her, it's the weight uv my fist ye'll feel; mind that, young man! --Whisht, thin, darlint! asy, mavourneen!"
'Toinette, hushed upon the motherly bosom of the good woman, soon ceased her cries, and presently fell again to sleep; while Teddy, with rather an injured look upon his uncouth face, and yet pleased to see the little sister in his mother's arms, crept softly from the room, with his breakfast in his hand.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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10
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THE EMPTY NEST.
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WHEN Susan returned from carrying Bessie Rider home, she was quite surprised to find the front-door ajar, as she thought she had been sure of latching it in going out; but, without stopping to make any inquiries of the other servants, she ran up the stairs, took off her shawl and hood, and then went to the drawing-room for 'Toinette. The room was empty; and Susan at once concluded that Mrs. Legrange had taken the child to her own chamber while she dressed for dinner, as 'Toinette often begged to be present at this ceremony, and was often indulged.
"I'll just ready up the nursery a bit before I fetch her," said Susan, looking round the littered room; and so it was half an hour before she knocked at Mrs. Legrange's chamber-door with, "I came for Miss 'Toinette, ma'am."
"Come in, Susan. Miss 'Toinette, did you say? She is down in the drawing-room by herself, and you had better put her to bed at once. She must be very tired."
Alas! the tender mother little guessed how tired!
Without reply, Susan closed the door, and ran down stairs; an uneasy feeling creeping over her, although she would not yet confess it even to herself.
The drawing-room was still empty; but James had lighted the gas and stirred the fire, so that every corner was as light as day. In every window-recess, under every couch and sofa, behind every large chair, even in the closet of the ‚tagŠre, Susan searched for her little charge, hoping, praying to find her asleep, or roguishly hiding, as she had known her to do before. But all in vain: no merry face, no sunny curls, no laughing eyes, peeped out from recess or corner or hiding place; and Susan's ruddy face grew pale even to the lips.
She flew to the dining-room, and searched it as narrowly as she had done the drawing-room.
No: she was not there!
The library, the bath-room, the chambers, the nursery again, the servants' chambers, the kitchen, laundry, pantries, the very cellar!
No, no, no! 'Toinette was in none of them. 'Toinette was not in any nook of the whole wide house, that, without her, seemed so empty and desolate. Standing in one of the upper entries, mute and bewildered, Susan heard a latch-key turn in the front-door lock, and presently Mr. Legrange's pleasant voice speaking in the hall. A sudden hope rushed into Susan's heart. The child might possibly have gone to meet her father, and was now returned with him. She rushed down stairs as fast as her feet could carry her; but in the hall stood only Mr. Legrange, talking to James, who had some message to deliver to him.
As Susan flew down the stairs, the master turned and looked at her in some surprise.
"Be careful, Susan: you nearly fell then. Is any thing the matter?"
"Miss 'Toinette, sir: I can't find her, high nor low!" gasped Susan.
"Can't find her! Good heavens! you don't mean to say she's lost!" exclaimed the father, turning, and staring at the nurse in dismay.
"Oh! I don't know, sir, I'm sure; but I can't find her," cried Susan, wildly bursting into tears.
"Where is her mother? Where is Mrs. Legrange, James?"
"I don't know, sir, I'm sure," said the footman blankly.
"She's in her own room, sir; and I'm afraid to go to tell her, she'll feel that bad. And indeed it wasn't any fault of mine: I only went"-- "Hush!" exclaimed Mr. Legrange, who had heard his wife close her chamber-door and begin to descend the stairs, and did not wish her to be frightened.
"Wait here a moment, Susan," added he, and, running up stairs, entered the drawing-room just after his wife, who stood before the fire, looking so pretty and so gay in her blue silk-dress, with a ribbon of the same shade twisted among her golden curls, that her husband shrunk back, dreading to ask the question that must so shock and startle her. But Mrs. Legrange had caught sight of him, and, running to the door, opened it suddenly, crying,-- "Come in, you silly boy! Are you playing bo-beep? I don't do such things since my daughter is six years old, I would have you to understand."
Mr. Legrange, forcing a laugh and a careless tone, came forward as she spoke, and, stooping to kiss her, asked,-- "And where is your daughter, my love?" " 'Toinette? Oh! I suppose she is with Susan," began Mrs. Legrange carelessly; and then, as something in her husband's voice or manner attracted her attention, she drew back, and hurriedly looked into his face, crying,-- "O Paul! what is it? What has happened? Is 'Toinette hurt? Where is she?"
"Be quiet, darling; don't be alarmed. Wait till we know more. --Susan, come up here," called Mr. Legrange; and Susan, with her face buried in her apron, and sobbing as if her heart would break, crept timidly up the stairs and into the room.
At sight of her, Mrs. Legrange turned pale, and clung to her husband for support.
"O Susan! what is it? Tell me quick!"
"She's gone, ma'am, and I don't know where!" sobbed the nurse.
"Gone! What, 'Toinette gone! Lost, do you mean?" cried the mother wildly, while her pale cheeks flushed scarlet, and her soft eyes glittered with terror.
"Oh! I don't know, ma'am; but I can't find her."
"Lost! What, 'Toinette lost!" repeated the mother in the same wild tone, and trying to tear herself away from her husband's detaining arms. But, soothing her as he would a child, Mr. Legrange, by a few calm and well-directed questions, drew from both mistress and maid all that was to be known of 'Toinette's disappearance, and, when the whole was told, said,-- "Well, Susan, you are not to blame. You merely obeyed your mistress's directions, and need not feel that this misfortune is at all your fault. No doubt 'Toinette has gone out by herself, and is, for the moment, lost, but, I trust, will soon be found. You may go at once to the houses of the neighbors whose children she has been in the habit of visiting. Be as quick as you can about it; and, if you do not find her, come directly home, and I will warn the police. Send James up to me as you go down."
"Yes, sir," said Susan, a little comforted; and, as she closed the door, Mr. Legrange returned to his wife, and, clasping her tenderly in his arms, kissed the burning cheeks and glittering eyes that frightened him, until the dangerous calm broke up in a gracious flood of tears and wild sobs of, "My child! --O my little child!"
"Hush, darling, hush! You must be calm, or I cannot leave you,--cannot go to look for her. I will not leave you so, even to search for her."
"Yes, yes, go! I will try--O Paul, Paul! do go and look for her!"
"When I see you calmer, love; not till then;" and the tender-hearted man could himself have wept to see the heroic efforts of that delicate nature to control itself and put his fears to rest. He still was soothing her, when, with a tap at the door, entered James, followed by Susan, who hurriedly announced that 'Toinette was not to be heard of at any of the neighbors, and asked where she should go next.
"Nowhere! Stay here and attend to Mrs. Legrange until I return. I shall go at once to the police-station. James, you know where Mr. Burroughs lives?"
"Yes, sir."
"Go to him. Or stay: he is dining with a friend to-day. Here is the direction. Go to this house at once; see Mr. Burroughs; tell him that 'Toinette is lost, and beg him to come up here directly. Keep your eyes open as you go: you may possibly meet her yourself. Hurry, man; hurry for your life!"
"Yes, sir," replied the man heartily; and Mr. Legrange returned to his wife, who was walking quickly up and down the room, her hands clasped tight before her, her lips rigid, and her eyes set.
"There, darling, I have sent for Tom to help us; and no one could do it better than he will. I am going to the police myself. Take courage, dearest, and hope, as I do, that, before morning, we shall have our pet back, safe and sound. But you--O Fanny! how can I leave you so? Try, try, for my sake, for 'Toinette's sake, to be calm and hopeful."
"Yes--I--will--try!" sobbed the poor mother; and Mr. Legrange, not daring to trust himself to look at her again, lest he also should break down, hastened from the room.
But morning came, and night, and yet another morning and as the father, the mother, the cousin who was almost brother to both, the assistants, and poor broken-hearted Susan, looked into each other's wan, worn faces, they found nothing there but discouragement, and almost hopeless despair.
Mrs. Legrange who had not eaten or slept since 'Toinette's disappearance, was already too ill to sit up, but insisted upon remaining dressed, and waiting in the drawing-room for the reports that some one of those engaged in the search brought almost hourly to the house. Her husband, looking like the ghost of his former self, wandered incessantly from his own home to the police-office and back again, each time through some new street, and peering curiously into the face of every child he met, that more than one of them ran frightened home to tell their mothers that they had met a crazy man, who stared at them as if he would eat them up.
And yet no clew, no faintest trace, of the little 'Toinette, who lay tossing in her fever-dreams upon good Mrs. Ginniss's humble bed, while the young doctor day by day shook his head more sadly over her, and said to his own heart that it was only by God's special mercy she could ever rise from that cruel illness.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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11
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A TRACE AND A SEARCH.
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THREE weary nights and two days had passed, when as Mr. Legrange, bending over his wife's sofa, entreated her to take the food and drink he had himself prepared for her, a sharp peal at the bell, followed by a bounding step upon the stair, startled them both.
"It is Tom, and he has news!" exclaimed Mrs. Legrange in a low voice, as she pushed away the tray and rose to her feet.
The door opened, and the young man entered, his tired face glowing with hope and satisfaction. In his hand he held a little bundle; and sitting down, with no more than word of greeting, he hastily untied it upon his knee.
"Aren't these her clothes?" asked he breathlessly, as he held up by one sleeve a little sky-blue merino-dress, with a torn lace undersleeve hanging from the shoulder, and in the other hand a pair of dainty little boots of bronze cloth.
Mrs. Legrange, with a wild cry, darted forward, and, grasping the pretty dress, buried her face in it, covering it with kisses, while she cried,-- "Yes, yes! O Tom! where is she? Tell me quick, before my poor heart breaks with joy!"
Mr. Burroughs remained silent. How could he say that he knew as little as ever how to answer this appeal?
"Where did you get them, Tom?" asked Mr. Legrange hurriedly.
"Billings found them in a pawn-broker's shop. You know we gave all the detectives a list of the clothing, and full description of the child. Billings has been all over the city, examining at every pawn-broker's shop all the children's clothes brought in since we lost her, you know"-- "Yes, yes! And when"-- "Last night he found this in a little out-of-the-way place (I didn't stop to ask where), and, thinking they looked like the right thing, brought them to me. I was asleep, and the people stupidly would not wake me: so he waited; and this morning, when I rose, there he was. I snatched the bundle, and came right along with it. Now, of course, they'll soon find who left them: only, unluckily, they weren't pawned, but sold outright; so they didn't take the name; but the man thinks it was an old woman who sold them to him. He is in custody; and we will go down and hear the examination, Paul."
"Certainly, at once." And Mr. Legrange nervously buttoned his coat, and moved toward the door.
"It is to be at ten, and it is now half-past nine. I suppose we had better go at once. Good-by, dear cousin Fanny!" said Mr. Burroughs, looking sorrowfully at the wan face upraised to his, as the poor mother replied,-- "Good-by, Tom! and oh, pray, do every thing, every thing, that can be done! I cannot tell"-- She was unable to finish, and the two men hurried away from the sight of a sorrow as yet without remedy.
The examination of the blear-eyed and stupid old pawn-broker resulted in very little satisfaction. He believed that it was a woman who had sold him the bundle of child's clothing. He was not sure if it were an old or a young woman, but rather thought it was an old woman. It might have been a week ago that he bought them; it might have been more, or it might have been less: he didn't set it down, and couldn't say.
This was all; and, as nothing could be proved or even suspected of him in connection with 'Toinette's disappearance, he was discharged from custody, although warned to hold himself in readiness to appear at any moment when he should be summoned.
He had not yet, however, left the room, when one of the audience, a policeman off duty, stepped forward, and, intimating that he had something to say, was sworn, and went on to tell how he had been leaning against a lamp-post at the extreme of his beat, just resting a bit, in the edge of evening before last, when he saw an old woman that they call Mother Winch come up the street, carrying a bundle, and leading a little girl. He knew she hadn't any child of her own; and the child was dressed very poor; and Mother Winch called her Judy or Biddy, or some Paddy-name or other; and maybe it was all right, and maybe it wasn't. It could be worked up easy enough, he supposed.
So supposed the detective in whose hands the clew was immediately placed; but when, an hour later, he descended the steps into Mother Winch's cellar, he found that a keener and a swifter messenger than himself had already called the wretched old woman to account; and she lay across the rusty old stove, quite dead, with a broken bottle of spirit upon the floor beside her, and all the front of her body shockingly burned. The coroner who was called to see her decided that she had fallen across the stove, either in a fit, or too much intoxicated to move, and had died unconscious of her situation. She was buried by public charity, and in her grave seemed hidden every hope of tracing the lost child.
"She must have been carried from the city," said the detectives; and the search was extended into the country, and to other towns and cities, although not neglected at home.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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12
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TEDDY'S TEMPTATION.
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TEDDY GINNISS sat alone in his master's office, feeling very sad and forlorn: for Dr. Wentworth had that morning said that the chance of life for his little patient was very, very small; and it seemed to Teddy heavier news than human heart had ever borne before. His morning duties over, he had seated himself at his little table, and tried to study the lesson given him by Mr. Burroughs upon the previous day; but a heavy heart makes dim eyes, and the page where Teddy's were fixed seemed to him no better than a crowd of disjointed letters swimming in a blinding mist.
A hasty step was heard upon the stair; and, passing the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes, the boy bent closer over the book as his master entered the room.
"Any one been in this morning, Teddy?" asked Mr. Burroughs, passing into the inner office.
"No, sir."
"I am going out of town for a day or two, Teddy,--going to New York; and Mr. Barlow will be here to attend to the business. You will do whatever he wishes as you would for me. You understand?"
"Yes, sir."
The good-natured young man, struck by the mournful tone of Teddy's usually hearty voice, turned and looked sharply at him.
"Aren't you well, Teddy?"
"Yes sir, thank your honor."
"Not 'your honor' until I'm a judge, Teddy. But what's amiss with you, my boy?"
"I wouldn't be troubling your--you with it, sir. It's nothing as can be helped."
"No, no; but what is it, Teddy?" insisted the lawyer, who saw that Teddy could hardly restrain his tears.
"Nothing, sir; but the little sister is mortal sick, and the doctor says he's afeard she won't stand it."
"Your little sister, Teddy?"
"Yes, sir."
"I didn't know you had one. You never spoke of her before, did you?"
"Maybe not, sir."
"What is the matter with her?"
"The faver, sir."
Mr. Burroughs knew that this phrase in an Irish mouth means but one disease, and replied, in a sympathizing voice,-- "Typhus! I'm sorry for you, Teddy, and sorry, too, for your mother, who is an excellent woman; but the little girl may yet recover: while there is life, there is hope, you know. Even if she dies, it is not so bad as--I am going to New York, Teddy, to look for a little cousin of mine whose parents do not know if she is living or dead, suffering or safe: that is worse than to have her ill, but under their care and protection, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir, perhaps. Is the little girl in New York, sir, do you think?"
"We hear of a child found astray there, who answers to the description; and I am going to see her before we mention the report to her mother. Have you never seen Mr. Legrange here, Teddy? It is his little girl. I wonder you haven't heard us talking of the matter."
"I don't mind the name, sir; and I haven't heard of the little girl before. Is she long lost?"
"Ten days yesterday. I have been busy all the week in the search for her. The clothes she had on when lost were found in a pawn-broker's shop; but we have no trace of her yet."
"What looking child was she, if you please, sir?" asked Teddy after a short pause, in which he seemed to study intently; while Mr. Burroughs went on glancing at the newspapers in his hand. " 'Toinette? Here is a description of her in 'The Journal,' and I have a photograph in my pocket-book. Here it is. It is well for you to study them both; for possibly you may discover her. I didn't think of it before; but you are just the boy to put upon the search. If you should find her, Teddy, Mr. Legrange will make your fortune. He is rich and generous, and this is his only child. Eleven o'clock. Shall be in at one."
As he spoke, Mr. Burroughs threw the paper and photograph upon Teddy's table, and hastily left the office. The boy took up "The Journal," and read the following advertisement:-- "Lost, upon the evening of Oct. 31, a little girl, six years of age, named Antoinette Legrange; of slight figure, round face, delicate color, large blue eyes, long curled hair of a bright-yellow color, small mouth, and regular teeth. She was dressed, at the time of her disappearance, in a blue frock and brown boots, with a lady's breakfast-shawl; and wore upon the sleeve of her dress a bracelet of coral cameos engraved under the clasp with her name in full. A liberal reward will be paid for information concerning her. Apply at the police-station."
When he had studied this, Teddy took up the photograph, and examined it earnestly. The dress, the long curled hair, the joyous expression, were very different from the pale face, wild eyes, and cropped head of the little sister at home; but Teddy's heart sank within him as he traced the delicate features, the curved lips, and trim little figure. He dropped the picture, and, leaning his face upon his arm, sobbed aloud.
"I'll lose her anyway, if she dies or if she lives; and it's all the little sister ever I got."
But presently another thought made Teddy lift his head, and look anxiously about him to make sure that his emotion had not been seen by any one. He was still alone; and, with a sigh of relief, he dashed away the tears from his eyes, muttering,-- "It's the big fool I am, entirely! Sure and mightn't she have picked up the bracelet in the street, where maybe the little lady they've lost dropped it? And, if she looks like the picture, so does many a one beside; and it's no call I have to be troubling the master with telling him about her anyway. She's my own little sister, and I'll keep her to myself."
A sudden sharp recollection darted through the boy's mind, and he grew a little pale as he added,-- "Leastways, I'll keep her if God will let me; and sure isn't he stronger nor me? If it isn't for me to have her, can't he take her, if it's by death, or if it's by leading them that's searching for her to where she is? And more by token, that's the way I'll try it. If God means she shall stay and be my little sister, she'll live, and I'll take her, and say nothing to nobody about it: but, if it's displasin' to him, she'll die; and then I'll tell the master all about it, and he may do what he's a mind to with me. That's the way I'll fix it."
And Teddy, well satisfied with his own bad argument, took comfort, and went back to his books.
When Mr. Burroughs returned to the office, he was accompanied by Mr. Barlow, the gentleman who was to occupy it during his absence; and he did not speak to Teddy, except to give him a few directions, and bid him a kind good-by. The paper and picture he found lying upon his desk, and hastily put in his pocket without remark or question.
For the first time in his life, Teddy avoided meeting his master's eye, but watched him furtively over the top of his book, raising it so as to screen his face whenever Mr. Burroughs looked his way, and trembling whenever he spoke to him; and, for the first time in his life, he secretly rejoiced at seeing him leave the office, knowing that he was to be gone for some time.
The long day was over at last; and, so soon as the hour for closing the office had begun to strike, Teddy locked the door, sprang down stairs, and ran like a deer towards home, feeling as if in some manner the little sister was about to be taken away from him, and he must hasten to prevent it.
At the foot of the stairs, however, he checked himself, creeping up as silently and cautiously as possible, and stopping at the head to listen for the clear voice, frightfully clear and shrill, of the delirious child, which usually met him there. No sound was to be heard except the deep voice of the Italian organ-grinder in the room below, talking to himself or his monkey as he prepared supper; and Teddy, creeping along the entry to his mother's door, softly opened it, and went in.
At one side of the bed stood Mrs. Ginniss; at the other, Dr. Wentworth: but Teddy saw only the little waxen face upon the pillow between them,--the little face so strange and lovely now; for all the fever flush had passed away, the babbling lips were folded white and still, the glittering eyes were closed, and the long dark lashes lay motionless upon the cheek,--the little face so strange and terrible in its sudden, peaceful beauty.
As Teddy softly entered, Dr. Wentworth turned and held a warning finger up; then bent again above the little child, his hand upon her heart.
The boy crept close to his mother, down whose honest face the tears ran like rain; although she heeded the earnest warning of the physician, and was almost as still as she little form she watched.
"Is she dead, mother?" whispered Teddy.
"Whisht, darlint! wait till we know," whispered she in return; and the young doctor glanced impatiently at both out of his strained and eager eyes. Had it been his own and only child, he could not have hung more earnestly about her: and here was the strange, sweet charm of this little life,--that all who came within its influence felt themselves drawn toward it, and opened wide their hearts to allow its entrance; feeling not alone that they loved the lovely child, but that she was or should be their very own, to cherish and fondle and bind to them forever.
So the coarse, hard-working woman, who two weeks before had never seen her face, now wept as true and bitter tears as she had done beside the death-bed of the child she had lost when Teddy was a baby; and the young doctor, who had watched the passage of a hundred souls from time to eternity, hung over this little dying form as if all life for him were held within it, and to lose it were to lose all. And Teddy-ah! poor Teddy; for upon his young heart lay not only the bitterness of the death busy with his "little sister's" life, but the heavy burden of wrong and deception, and the proof, as he thought, of God's displeasure in taking from him at last what he had tried so hard to keep.
He sank upon his knees beside the bed, and hid his face, whispering,-- "O God! let her live, and I will give her back to them as I kept her from."
Over and over and over again, he whispered just these words, clinching tight his boy-hands to keep down the agony of the sacrifice; while in the very centre of his heart throbbed a hard, dull pain, that seemed as if it would rend it asunder.
His face was still hidden, when, like an answer to his petition, came the softest of whispers from the doctor's lips,-- "She will live, with God's help, and the best of care from you."
"An' it's the bist uv care she'll git, I'll pass me word for that," whispered back Teddy's mother, so earnestly, that the doctor answered,-- "Hush! She is falling asleep. Do not wake her, for her life!"
He sank into a chair as he spoke. Mrs. Ginniss crept round to the stove, and, crouching beside it, covered her head with her apron, and remained motionless. As for Teddy, he never stirred or looked up, but with his face hidden upon the bed, repeated again and again those words, to him so solemn and so full of meaning, until in the silence and the waiting he fell asleep, and gradually sank upon the floor.
And so the night went on: and the careful eyes of the young physician marked how a faint tinge of color crept into the death-white cheek upon the pillow; and how the still lips lost their hard, cold line, and grew human once more, though so pale; and how the eyelids stirred, moving the heavy lashes; and a faint pulse fluttered in the slender throat.
At last, with a long, soft sigh, the lips lightly parted; the eyelids opened slowly, showing for a moment the blue eyes, dim and languid, but no longer wild with delirium; and then they slowly closed, and the breath came softly and regularly from the parted lips.
Dr. Wentworth heaved an answering sigh of mingled weariness and relief, and, rising, went to Mrs. Ginniss's side, touching her upon the shoulder, and whispering,-- "She is doing well. Keep her as quiet as possible. I will be in at nine."
Hushing the murmured blessings she would have poured upon his head, the young man stole softly from the room and down the stairs into the street, where already the first gray of dawn struggled with the flaring gas-lights.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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13
|
THE CACHUCA.
|
TEN days more, and beside the fire in Mrs. Ginniss's attic-room sat a little figure, propped in the wooden rocking-chair with pillows and comfortables; while upon a small stand close beside her were arranged a few cheap toys, a plate with some pieces of orange upon it, a sprig of geranium in a broken-nosed pitcher of water, and a cup of beef-tea.
But for none of these did the languid little invalid seem to care; and lying back in the chair, her head nestled into the pillow, her parched lips open, and her eyes half closed, she looked so little like the bright and glowing 'Toinette who had danced at her birthday-party not a month before, that it is a question if any one but her own mother would have believed her to be the same.
Mrs. Ginniss, hard at work upon the frills of a fashionable lady's skirt, paused every few moments to look over her shoulder at the little wasted face with the wistful look of some dumb creature who sees its offspring suffering, and cannot tell how to relieve it.
Suddenly setting the flat-iron she had just taken back upon the stove, the washwoman came and bent over the child, looking earnestly into her face.
"An' it's waker an' whiter she gits every day. Sure and I'm afther seeing the daylight through the little hands uv her; and her eyes is that big, they take the breath uv me whin I mate 'em. See, darlint! -see the purty skip-jack Teddy brought ye!"
She took from the table the toy she named, and, pulling the string, made the figure of the man vault over the top of the stick and back several times, crying at the same time,-- "Hi, thin! -hi, thin! See how the crather joomps, honey!"
But, although the languid eyes of the child followed her motions for a moment, no shadow of a smile stirred the parched lips; and presently the eyes closed, as if the effort were too much for them.
Mrs. Ginniss laid the toy upon the table, and took up the cup of beef-tea.
"Have a soop of yer dhrink, darlint?" said she, tenderly holding the cup to the child's lips, and raising her head with the other hand; but, with a moan of impatience or distress, the weary head turned itself upon the pillow, and the little wasted hand half rose to push away the cup.
"An' what is it I'll plaze ye wid, mavourneen? Do yees want Teddy to coom home?" asked the poor woman in despair.
A faint murmur of assent crept from between the parched lips; and the eyes, slowly opening, glanced toward the door.
"It's this minute he'll be here, thin," said the washwoman joyfully. "An' faith yees ought to love him, honey; for he'd give the two eyes out of his head to plaze yees, an' git down on his knees to thank yees for takin' 'em. Now, thin, don't ye hear his fut upon the stair?"
But the heavy steps coming up the stairs were not Teddy's, as his mother well knew; and although, when they stopped upon the landing below her own, she pretended to be much surprised, she would, in reality, have been much more so if they had not stopped.
"And it's Jovarny it wor that time, honey," said she soothingly: "but Teddy'll coom nixt; see if he doun't, Cherry darlint."
But Cherry, closing her eyes, with no effort at reply, lay as motionless upon her pillow as if she had been asleep or in a swoon.
Suddenly, from the room below, was heard a strain of plaintive music. The organ-grinder, for some reason or other, was trying his instrument in his own room; although, remembering the sick child above, he played as softly and slowly as he could. It was the first time he had done so since Cherry had been ill; and Mrs. Ginniss anxiously watched her face to see what effect the sounds would have.
The air was "Kathleen Mavourneen;" and, as one tender strain succeeded another, the watchful nurse could see a faint color stealing into the child's face, while from between the half-closed lids her eyes shone brighter than they had for many a day.
"If it plazes her, I'll pay him to grind away all day, the crather," murmured she joyfully.
The song ended, and, after a little pause, was succeeded by a lively dancing-tune.
"She'll not like that so well, thought Mrs. Ginniss; but, to her great astonishment, the child, after listening a moment, started upright in her chair, her eyes wide open and shining with excitement, her cheeks glowing, and her little hands fluttering.
"Mamma, mamma! I'm Cherritoe! and I can dance with that music, and mamma can play it more"-- The words faltered upon her lips, and she sank suddenly back upon the pillows in a death-faint. At the same moment, Teddy came bounding up the stairs and into the room.
"Go an' shtop that fool's noise if yees brain him, an' ax him what's the name o' that divil's jig he's playing!" exclaimed Mrs. Ginniss as she caught sight of the boy; and Teddy, without stopping for a question, hastily obeyed.
In a moment he was back.
"It's the cachuca, mother; but what's the matter with the little sister?"
"Whist! She's swounded wid the noise he's afther making," replied his mother angrily, as she laid the wasted little figure upon her bed, and bathed the temples with cold water.
Teddy stood anxiously looking on. Ever since the night when the little sister's fever had turned, and the doctor had promised that she should live, a struggle had been going on in the boy's heart. He could not but believe that God had given back the almost-departed life in answer to his earnest prayer and promise; and he had no intention of breaking the promise, or withholding the price he felt himself to have offered for that life. But, like many older and better taught persons, Teddy did not see clearly enough how little difference there is between doing right and failing to do right, or how much difference between promising with the lips and promising with the heart.
While his little sister, as he still called her, lay between life and death, Teddy said to himself that the excitement of seeing her friends might be fatal to her, and that, if she should die, their grief in this second loss would be greater than what they were now suffering.
When she began slowly to recover, he said that they would only be frightened at seeing her so wasted and weak, and that he would keep her until she had recovered something of her good looks; and, finally, he had begun to think that it would be no more than fair that he should repay himself for all the sorrow and anxiety her illness had given him by keeping her a little while after she was quite well and strong, and could go for a walk with him, and see the beautiful shops, with their Christmas-wares displayed.
"New Year's will be soon enough. I'll take her to the master for a New-Year's gift," Teddy had said to himself that very night as he came up the stairs; and a sort of satisfaction crept into his heart in thinking that he had at least fixed a date for fulfilling his promise.
But New-Year's Day found 'Toinette, or Cherry as we must learn to call her, more unlike her former self than she had been when he formed the resolution. The strange emotion that had overcome her in listening to the organ-grinder's music had caused a relapse into fever, followed by other troubles; and spite of Dr. Wentworth's constant care, Mrs. Ginniss's patient and tender nursing, and Teddy's devotion, the child seemed pining away without hope or remedy.
"I'll wait till the spring comes, anyway," said Teddy to himself. "Maybe the warm weather will bring her round, and I'll hear her laugh out once, and take her for just one walk on the Commons before I carry her to the master."
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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14
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GIOVANNI AND PANTALON.
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IT was April; and the bit of sky to be seen between two tall roofs, from the window of Mrs. Ginniss's attic, had suddenly grown of a deeper blue, and was sometimes crossed by a great white, glittering cloud, such as is never seen in winter; and, when the window was raised for a few moments, the air came in soft and mild, and with a fresh smell to it, as if it had blown through budding trees and over fresh-ploughed earth.
Cherry was now well enough to be dressed, and to play about the room, or sew a little, or look at pictures in the gaudily painted books Teddy anxiously saved his coppers to buy for her: but, more than once in the day, she would push a chair to the bed, and climb up to lie upon it; or would come and cling to her foster-mother, moaning,-- "I'm tired now, mammy. Hold me in your lap."
And very seldom was the petition refused, although the wash-tub or the ironing-table stood idle that it might be granted; for so well had great-hearted Mrs. Ginniss come to love the child, that she would have been as unwilling as Teddy himself to remember that she had not always been her own.
Sitting thus in her mammy's lap one day, Cherry suddenly asked,-- "Where's the music, mammy?"
"The music, darlint? And what music do ye be manin'?"
"The music I heard one day before I went to heaven. Didn't you hear it?"
"An' whin did ye go to hivin, ye quare child?"
"Oh! I don't know. When I came back, I was sick in the bed. I want the music, mammy."
"It's Jovarny she manes, the little crather," said Mrs. Ginniss, and promised, that if Cherry would lie on the bed, and let her "finish ironing the lady's clothes all so pretty," she should hear the music as soon as Teddy and the organ-grinder came home.
To this proposal, Cherry consented more willingly than her mammy had dared to expect; and when, after finishing the ironing of some intricate embroideries, the laundress turned to look, she found the child had dropped quietly asleep.
"An' all the betther fur yees, darlint," said she. "Whin ye waken, ye'll think no more uv the music that well-nigh kilt yees afore."
An hour later, Teddy's entrance aroused the sleeper, who, rolling over upon the bed with a pretty little gape, smiled upon him, saying,-- "Where's the music, Teddy? Mammy said you'd get it for me."
"It's Jovarny she's afther wantin' to hear play on his grind-orgin; an' I towld her he'd coom whin yees did," explained Mrs. Ginniss: and Teddy, delighted to be asked to do any thing for his little sister, lost no time in running down stairs, and begging the Italian, who had just returned home, to play one of the prettiest tunes in his list, but on no account to touch the one that had so strangely affected the little invalid upon a former occasion.
The Italian very willingly complied, and was already in the midst of a pretty waltz when Teddy re-appeared in his mother's room. Cherry's delight was unbounded; and when the whole list of tunes, with the exception of the cachuca, had been exhausted, she put her arms round Teddy's neck, and kissed him, saying,-- "Thank you, little brother. I'll eat my supper for you now."
And this, as Cherry had hardly been willing to eat any thing since her illness, was considered, both by Teddy and herself, as a remarkable proof of amiability and affection.
The next day, before Teddy went away in the morning, he was obliged to promise that he would bring the music at night; and, as he ran down stairs, he stopped to beg the organ-grinder to come home as early as possible, and to come prepared to play for the little sister's benefit.
"Let her come down and see the organ and Pantalon," said the Italian in his broken English; and Teddy eagerly cried,-- "Oh! may she?" and ran up stairs again with the invitation. But Mrs. Ginniss prudently declared that Cherry must not think of leaving her own room at present, while the stairs and entries were so cold; and "Thin agin," said she, "maybe the bit moonkey ud scare her back into the fayver as bad as iver."
So, for a week or two longer, Cherry was obliged to content herself with an evening-concert through the floor; and upon these concerts the whole of the day seemed to depend. Very soon the little girl began to have her favorites among the half-dozen airs she so often heard, and, little by little, learned to hum them all, giving them names of her own. "Kathleen Mavourneen" she always called "Susan," although quite unable to give any reason for so doing; and Teddy, who watched her constantly, noticed that she always remained very thoughtful, wearing a puzzled, anxious look, while hearing it. After a time, however, this dim association with the almost-forgotten past wore away; and although Cherry still called the air "Susan," and liked it better than any of the rest, it seemed to have become a thing of the present instead of the past.
At last, one warm day in April, when Giovanni had returned home earlier than usual, and Teddy again brought an invitation to the bamb¡na, as he called Cherry, to visit him, Mrs. Ginniss reluctantly consented; and the little girl, wrapped in shawls and hood, with warm stockings pulled over her shoes, was carried in Teddy's arms down the stairs as she had been brought up in them six months before. The boy himself was the first to think of it, and, as he stooped to take the little figure in his arms, said,-- "You haven't been over the stairs, sissy, since Teddy brought you up last fall."
"Teddy didn't bring me up. I never came up, 'cause I never was down," said Cherry resolutely; and the boy, who dreaded above all things to awaken in her mind any recollection of the past, said no more, but carefully wrapping the shawl about her, and promising his mother not to stay too long, carried her gently down the stairs, and to the door Giovanni opened as he heard them approach.
"Welcome, little one!" said the Italian in his own language as they entered; and Cherry smiled at the sound, and then looked troubled and thoughtful.
The truth was, that 'Toinette's father and mother had often spoken both Italian and French in her presence; and although the terrible fever had destroyed her memory of home and parents, and all that went before, the things that she had known in those forgotten days still awoke in her heart a vague sense of pain and loss,--an effort to recall something that seemed just vanishing away, as through the strings of a broken and forsaken harp will sweep some vagrant breeze, wakening the ghosts of its forgotten melodies to a brief and shadowy life, again to pass and be forgotten.
So 'Toinette, still clinging to Teddy's neck, turned, and fixed her great eyes upon the Italian's dark face so earnestly and so piteously, that he smiled, showing all his white teeth, and asked,-- "Does the little one know the language of my country?"
"No: of course she don't. I don't," said Teddy, looking a little anxiously into Cherry's face, and wondering in his own heart if she might not have known Italian in that former life, of whose loves and interests he had always been so jealous.
Giovanni looked curiously at the two children. Cherry, in recovering from her illness, was regaining the wonderful beauty, that, for a time, had seemed lost. The remnant of her golden hair spared by Mother Winch's shears had fallen off after the first attack of fever, and was now replaced by thick, short curls of a sunny brown, clustering about her white forehead with a careless grace far more bewitching than the elaborate ringlets Susan had been so proud of manufacturing; while long confinement to the house had rendered the delicate complexion so pearly in its whiteness, so exquisite in its rose-tints, that one could hardly believe it possible that flesh and blood should become so etherealized even while gaining health and strength.
The subtle eye of the Italian marked every point of this exquisite loveliness, ran admiringly over the outlines of the graceful figure, the delicate hands and little feet, the classic curve of the lips, the thin nostrils and tiny ears; then returned to the clear, full eyes, with their pencilled brows and heavy lashes, and smiled at the earnestness of the gaze that met his own. Then, from this lovely and patrician face, the Italian's eyes wandered to Teddy's coarse and unformed features, and figure of uncouth strength.
"Nightingales are not hatched from hens' eggs," muttered Giovanni in his native tongue.
"Speak that some more; I like it," said Cherry softly.
"Yes; and you are like it, and, like all that belongs to my Italian, beautiful and graceful," said Giovanni, dropping the liquid accents as lovingly from his lips as if they had been a kiss. Then, in the imperfect English he generally spoke, he asked of Teddy,-- "Where did the child come from?"
"She's my little sister," replied the boy doggedly.
The Italian shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows, muttering in his own tongue,-- "I never heard or saw any child above there in the first weeks of my living here. But what affair is it of mine? The child I have lost is safe with the Holy Mother!"
He crossed himself, and muttered a prayer; then from behind the stove, where he lay warming himself, pulled a little creature, at sight of whom Cherry uttered a scream, and clung to Teddy.
"It's the monkey, sissy; it's Jovarny's monkey; and his name is Pantaloons," explained Teddy.
"Pantalon," corrected the monkey's master; and snapping his fingers, and whistling to the monkey, he called him to his shoulder, and made him go through a number of tricks and gestures,--some of them so droll, that Cherry's terror ended in peals of laughter; and she soon left Teddy's side to run and caper about the room in imitation of the monkey's antics.
"Does she dance, the little one?" asked Giovanni, watching the child's lithe movements admiringly.
"Sure, and every step she takes is as good as dancing," said Teddy evasively.
"Let us see, then."
And the Italian, arranging the stops of his organ, played the pretty waltz Cherry had so often heard from it, and liked so well.
The child continued her frolicsome motions, unconsciously adapting them to the music, until she was moving in perfect harmony with it, although not in the step or figure of a waltz.
"She was born to dance!" exclaimed Giovanni with enthusiasm; and, moving the stops of the organ, he passed, without pause, into the gay and airy movement of the cachuca.
As the first tones struck the child's ear, she faltered; then stopped, turned pale, and listened intently.
"Whisht! That's the tune I told you not to play!" exclaimed Teddy. But Giovanni, his eyes fixed upon the child, did not hear or did not heed him, but played on; while Cherry, trembling, pale, her hands clasped, lips apart, and eyes fixed intently upon the musician, seemed shaken to the very soul by some strange and undefined emotion. Suddenly a scarlet flush mounted to the roots of her hair, her eyes grew bright, her parted lips curved to a roguish smile; and, pointing her little foot, she spun away in the graceful movements of the dance, and continued it to the close, finishing with a courtesy, and kiss of the hand, that made Giovanni drop the handle of his organ, clasp his hands, and cry in Italian,-- "Bravo, bravo, picciola! Truly you were born to dance!"
But the child, suddenly losing the life and color that had sparkled through every line of face and figure, ran with a wild cry to Teddy, and, clasping him tight round the neck, burst into a flood of tears, crying,-- "Take me home, Teddy! -quick, quick! I want mamma!"
Mrs. Ginniss had taught her to say "mammy;" and Teddy remembered with dismay that she had never used the name "mamma," except in the delirium of her fever, when she was evidently addressing some distant and beloved object. But still he chose to understand the appeal in his own way; and, hastily wrapping the shawls about the little figure, he raised it in his arms, saying soothingly,-- "Come, then; come to mammy, little sister. You didn't ought to have danced and get all tired."
"Good-by, little one," said Giovanni somewhat ruefully. The child raised her head from Teddy's shoulder, and, smiling through her tears, said sweetly,-- "Good-by, 'Varny. It wasn't you made me cry, but because"-- "'Cause you was tired, little sister," interposed Teddy hastily; and Giovanni looked at him craftily.
"I'll come and see you another day, 'Varny; but I must go lie down now," continued Cherry, anxious to remove any wound her new friend's feelings might have received. And the organ-grinder smiled until he showed all his white teeth, as he replied,--"Yes, and again and again,--as often as you will, picciola."
But Teddy, shaking his head disapprovingly, muttered, as he carried his little sister away,-- "No: it isn't good for you, sissy, to get so tired and worried."
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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15
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THE PINK-SILK DRESS.
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BUT, spite of Teddy's disapproval and his mother's doubts, neither of them could resist the earnestness of Cherry's entreaties, day after day, to be allowed to "go down and see the music in 'Varny's room;" and it finally became quite a regular thing for Teddy, upon his return home, to find his little sister ready shawled and hooded, and waiting for him to accompany her.
As the summer came on, and whole streets-full of his patrons left the city, Giovanni became less regular in his hours of leavings or returning home; often remaining in his room several hours of the day, smoking, sleeping, or training Pantalon in new accomplishments.
So sure as she knew him to be at home, Cherry gave her foster-mother no peace until she had consented to allow her to visit him; and Mrs. Ginniss said to herself, "Sure, and it's no harm the little crather can git uv man nor monkey nor music; an' what's the good uv crossin' her?"
So it finally came about that Cherry spent many more hours in the company of Giovanni, Pantalon, and the organ, than Teddy either knew, or would have liked, had his mother thought fit to tell him.
At first, the conversation between the new friends was carried on in the imperfect English used by both; but, very soon, Giovanni, noticing the facility with which the child adopted an occasional word of Italian, set himself to teach her the language, and succeeded beyond his expectations. Indeed it seemed to him that the soft and liquid accents of the beloved tongue had never sounded to him so sweet beneath Italian skies as now, when they fell from the rosy lips and pure tones of the charming child whom he, with all who approached her, was learning to love with the best love of his nature.
Besides the Italian lessons, Giovanni taught his little pupil to sing several of the popular songs of his native city of Naples, and to perform several of his national dances; watching with an ever-new delight the grace and ease of her movements, and the quickness with which she caught at his every hint and gesture.
Occasionally, Cherry insisted upon making Pantalon join in the dance; and the somewhat sombre face of the Italian would ripple all over with laughter as he watched her efforts to subdue the creature's motions to grace and harmony, and to cultivate in his bestial brain her own innate love of those divine gifts.
"You will never make him dance as if of heaven, as you do, picciola," said he one day; and Cherry suddenly stood still, and, dropping the monkey's paws, came to her teacher's side, asking eagerly,-- "Have you been to heaven too? and did you see me dance there?"
"Padre Johannes says we all came from heaven; so I suppose I did, and perhaps Pantalon also," said the Italian with a comical grimace: "but, if so, I have long forgotten what I saw there. Do you remember heaven, picciola?"
"Yes; I don't now," slowly replied the child with the weary and puzzled look she so often wore. "Sometimes I do. I used to dance; and mamma-that wasn't mammy-was there: but there was a naughty lady that slapped me; and there was a little man-why, it was Pantalon, wasn't it? Did Pantalon eat some cake that I-no, that some one gave him? Oh! I don't know; and I am so tired! I guess I'll go see mammy now, and lie down on the bed."
Giovanni did not try to detain the child, but, after closing the door behind her, remained looking at it as if he still saw the object of his thoughts, while an expression of perplexity and doubt clouded the careless good-humor of his face. Presently, however, it cleared; and, with a significant gesture of the head, he muttered,-- "What then? Is it my business or my fault? Come, Pantalon: we shall sup."
When Cherry appeared the next day in Giovanni's room, it was with as gay and untroubled a face as if no haunting memories had ever vexed her; and Giovanni, who liked her sunny mood much the best, was careful not to awaken any other. He played for her to dance; he sang with her; he told her stories of Italy, and the merry life he had lived there with his wife and child.
"And my little Julietta, like you, loved music and dancing, and sang like the angels," said he, smoothing Cherry's shining curls.
"Did she? Then she sings in heaven, and is happy: and by and by, when we go there, we'll see her; won't we?"
The Italian shook his head.
"You may, picciola; but the good God, if he takes me to heaven, must make me so changed, that Julietta could no longer know me, or I her. We men are not as little maidens."
Then, with a sudden change of mood, the Italian snatched from its case his cherished violin, and drew from it such joyous strains, that the child, clapping her hands, and skipping round the room, cried,-- "It laughs! the music laughs, and makes me laugh too! And Pantalon-see poor Pantalon try to laugh, and he can't!"
Giovanni stopped suddenly, and laid down his violin. A new thought, a sudden plan, had entered his head, and made his breath come quick, and his eyes grow bright. He looked attentively at the child for a moment, and then said,-- "Julietta used to wear such a beautiful dress, and go with me to the houses of rich people to dance; but you dance better than she did, picciola."
"Oh! let me go, and wear a beautiful dress. I don't like this dress a bit!" said Cherry, plucking nervously at the coarse and tawdry calico frock Mrs. Ginniss had thought it quite a triumph to obtain and to make up.
"I have saved two of Julietta's dresses for love of her. You shall see them," said the Italian; and from the box where he kept his clothes he presently brought a small bundle, and, unfolding it, shook out two little frocks,--one of pink silk, covered with spangles; the other a gay brocade, upon whose white ground tiny rosebuds were dotted in a graceful pattern. Some long silk stockings, and white satin boots with red heels, and blue tassels at the ankle, dropped from the bundle; and from one of the latter Giovanni drew a wreath of crushed and faded artificial roses.
"All these were given her by the beautiful march‚sa for whom she was named. Many times we have been to play and dance before her pal zzo; and she, sending for us in, has given the little one a dress or a wreath, or a handful of confetti, or a silver-piece in her hand. It was when the march‚sa died that our troubles began; and in three months more the little Julietta followed her, and Steph na (that was my wife) went from me, and--But see, picciola! is it not a pretty dress? Let us put it upon you, and it shall dance the Romaika with you as it once did with her."
Nothing loath, Cherry hastened, with the help of the Italian, to array herself in the pink-silk frock, and to exchange her coarse shoes for the silken hose and satin boots of the little lost Julietta. Although somewhat large, the clothes fitted better than those Cherry had taken off; and when, seizing the violin, Giovanni drew a long, warning note, the little dancer took her position, and pointed her tiny foot with so assured and graceful an air, that the Italian, nodding and smiling, cried with enthusiasm,-- "Ah, ah! See the little Taglioni! Why is she not upon the boards of La Sc la?"
What this might mean Cherry could not guess, nor greatly cared to know. She understood that her friend was pleased, and her little heart beat high with vanity and excitement. She danced as she had never danced before; and at the end, while Giovanni still applauded, and before she had regained her breath, the child was panting,-- "I want to go and dance for the rich ladies, like Julietta used to do, and wear her beautiful dresses, and have a wreath."
"Why not, then?" exclaimed the Italian eagerly. "Only you must never say so to the woman above there or the boy: they will not allow it."
"Won't mammy and Teddy like it? Then I can't go. Oh, dear! Why won't they like it, 'Varny?"
"Because they can't dance, and they don't want you to be different from them; and they will be afraid you will tire yourself. They don't know that it makes you well and happy to dance, and hear music, as it does me to make it. They are not like us, these people above there."
Cherry looked earnestly in his face, and her own suddenly flushed while she replied indignantly,-- "They're real good, 'Varny; and I love them same as I do you and Pantalon. Don't you love them?"
"Oh! but I adore them, picciola; and I like well that you should place me and Pantalon beside them. But surely they do not dance, or love music, as we do."
Cherry shut tight her lips, and shook her head with an uneasy expression.
"Mammy says she don't believe they dance in heaven: and Teddy says it wasn't there I used to learn; for I never went anywhere but to mammy's room since I was borned."
"But they do dance in heaven, and sing, and listen to music; and it is because you came from heaven so little while ago that you remember, and they have forgotten," said Giovanni positively. "And it is right that you should love these things; and it is right that you should go with me, and say nothing to them till we come back. I will ask the good woman that I may take you for a walk in a day or two and I will carry the pretty dress and the violin; and, when we are away from the house, you shall put it on, and we will go and dance for the rich people a little while; and some one shall give you beautiful things, and much money, as they did Julietta; and then we will come home, and bring it all to the mammy, and she will be so happy, and see that it is a good thing, after all, to dance."
"Yes, yes; that will be splendid!" cried Cherry, clapping her hands and jumping up and down. "I will save every bit of the candy, and all the beautiful dresses, and the roses, and every thing, and bring them to mammy."
"And the money, that she may buy bread and clothes and wood, and not have to work so hard for them herself," suggested Giovanni artfully.
"Yes, Teddy gives her money; and she calls him her brave, good boy. So she'll call me too, pretty soon; won't she?"
"Truly will she; but remember always, picciola, that she nor Teddy must know any thing of this, or they will prevent it all. You won't tell them?"
"No; I won't tell," said Cherry, shuttling her lips very tight, and shaking her head a great many times. "Only we must go very quick, or else I might forget; and, when I opened my mouth, it might jump out before I knew."
"We will go to-morrow if it is fine," said Giovanni, after a moment of consideration; and Cherry, after changing her clothes, returned home so full of mystery and importance, that unless Mrs. Ginniss had been more than usually busy, and Teddy obliged to hurry with his supper and go directly out again, one or the other must have suspected that something very mysterious was working in the mind of their little pet.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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16
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BEGINNING A NEW LIFE.
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As if to favor Giovanni's plot, it chanced, that, in the morning of the next day, Mrs. Ginniss received a sudden summons to the bedside of Ann Dolan, the friend whose advice had led to Teddy's being placed in his present situation.
The messenger had reported that Ann was "very bad wid her heart, an' the life was knocked out intirely, sure:" and Mrs. Ginniss felt herself bound to hasten to the help of her friend, should she still be alive; or to see that she was "waked dacent" if dead. Just as she was wondering if it was best to take Cherry with her, or to leave her locked up alone until her return, Giovanni appeared at the door, his face disposed in its most winning smile, and his manner as respectful as if he had been addressing the march‚sa who had been his own and his daughter's patron.
"Will my good neighbor allow that the little girl go for a walk with me this fine morning?" asked he. "I would like to show her the flowers and the swans in the gardens of the city."
"An' will you take the monkey an' the grind-orgin the day?" asked Mrs. Ginniss doubtfully.
"Indeed, no! I go to a walk to enjoy the fine time, and to see the flowers and the swans," explained Giovanni in his best English, and with a proportion of bows and smiles; while Cherry stood by, her little face full of surprise and mystery, not unmingled with a little shame as she felt that her good mammy was being deceived and misled by the wily Italian.
"Faith, thin, Mr. Jovarny, it's very perlite ye are iver an' always; but I don't jist feel aisy wid the child out uv my sight. Mabbe she'd better wait till night, when Teddy can take her out."
"Oh, let me go, mammy! I want to go with 'Varny, and I'll bring you"-- "Yes; we'll get the pretty flowers to bring to mammy, she would say," interrupted the Italian hastily; and Mrs. Ginniss, looking down at the little anxious face and pleading eyes, found her better judgment suddenly converted into a desire to please her little darling at any rate, and to see her smile again in her own sunny fashion.
"Sure, an' ye shall go, 'vourneen, if it's that bad ye're wantin' it," said she, stooping to take the child in her arms; and, as Cherry kissed her again and again, she added,-- "An' it's well ye don't ask the heart out uv me body; for it's inter yer hand I'd have to give it, colleen bawn."
Giovanni looked on, his half-shut, black eyes glittering, and a wily smile wrinkling his sallow cheek.
"Every one has his day," muttered he in Italian, "Your's to-day, good woman; mine to-morrow."
Half an hour later, Cherry, dressed as neatly as her foster-mother's humble means and taste would allow, and her face glowing with pleasure and excitement, skipped out of the door of the tenement-house, looking like the fairy princess in a pantomime as she suddenly emerges from the hovel where she has been hidden.
Giovanni followed, carrying a bundle, and his violin wrapped in papers. These, he explained to Mrs. Ginniss, were only some matters he had to leave with a friend as he went along; but he should not go into any house, or take the little girl anywhere but for the walk he had mentioned.
"Faix, an' it's mighty ginteel ye are, anyway, Misther Jovarny," said the Irishwoman, watching the pair from the window of her attic as they walked slowly up the street. "But I'm afther wishin' I'd said no whin I said yis. Nor yet I couldn't tell why, more than that Teddy'll be mad to hear she's been wid him. But the b'y hasn't sinse whin it's about the little sisther he's talkin'. He thinks the ground isn't good enough for her to walk on, nor goold bright enough for her to wear."
So saying, Mrs. Ginniss closed the window, and, throwing a little shawl over her head, locked the door, leaving the key underneath, and hurried away to her sick friend, with whom she staid till nearly night.
Giovanni and Cherry, meantime, walked gayly on, chatting, now of the wonderful things about them, now of the yet more wonderful scenes they were to visit. At a confectioner's shop, in a shady by-street, they stopped to rest for a while; and the Italian provided his little guest with ice-creams, cakes, and candies, to her heart's content.
"I like these better than potatoes and pork-meat. I used to eat these in heaven," said the little girl, pausing to look at a macaroon, and then finishing it with a relish.
The Italian laughed.
"Canary-birds do not feed with crows," said he. "When we are rich, picciola, you shall never eat worse than this."
"Shall we be rich soon, 'Varny?" asked the child eagerly.
"Upon the moment almost, if you will dance and laugh, and look so pretty as you can, always."
"But we needn't stop to be very rich before we go and carry some of the nice things to mammy," rejoined Cherry anxiously.
"No, no, indeed! We will but make a little turn in the country, and come back princes. But mind you this, picciola: I am to be your father now, or all the same; and I shall tell every one that you are my own little girl: so you must never say, 'Not so.'"
"But mammy said my father was dead, and Teddy said so too. He was Michael darlint."
"I doubt not that Signor Michaelli died, and has gone to glory; but I strangely doubt if he were thy father, picciola," said the Italian with a grave smile. "However that may be, forget that you have ever had other father than me, and call me so always: 'Mio padre,' you must say, and no more 'Varny. Also, too, you must speak in Italian, as I shall to you; and never, as you do now, in English."
"But mammy and Teddy don't know Italian," said Cherry, beginning to look a little troubled. " 'In Rome, do as the Romans do.' When you are again with the woman and boy, speak as they speak: with me, speak as I speak."
Giovanni said this more decidedly than he had ever spoken before, and Cherry looked quickly up at him.
"Is that the way you talk because you want to make believe you are my father?" asked she.
A sudden smile shot across the Italian's face, lighting its dark features like a gleam of sunshine sweeping across a pine-clad mountain-land.
"Shame were it to me, dear little heart, if to be thy father were to make thee less happy than thou hast been with those others," said he softly in Italian, and using the form of address, which, in almost every language but the English, marks a different and more tender relation from that indicated by the more formal plural pronoun.
"You will be happy with me if we do not soon revisit these people we leave behind?" asked he.
The child's eyes grew large and deep as she fixed them upon his face, and presently asked,-- "Are you going with me to try to find heaven again?"
"Perhaps: who knows, picciola? The heaven you miss may come to you more easily if you go to seek it. At any rate, I will carry thee no farther from it. But come: we must get to our journey."
Leaving the confectioner's shop, Giovanni lingered no longer in the gay streets, or even upon the fresh green grass of the Common, where Cherry would have staid to play all day. Hurrying across it, and through some crowded streets, the Italian entered a large station-house, where stood the train of cars, already half filled with passengers; while the engine, puffing and panting with impatience, seemed unwilling to wait a moment longer.
Leaving Cherry in the ladies' room, the Italian bought his tickets, and reclaimed from the baggage-room, where he had left it, his organ, with Pantalon chained to the top of it. Then, calling the child, he hurried with her into the cars, and selected a seat behind the door, in the evident wish of being seen as little as possible.
"Now, then, Ciriegia mia, we go to seek our fortune," said he, as the train left the station, and began to rush through the suburbs of the city, scattering little dirty children, vagrant dogs, leisurely pigs, and dawdling carriages driven by honest old ladies, from its track.
Cherry never had ridden in the cars before; and she clung tight to the sleeve of her companion, afraid to move, or even to speak, until he laughingly asked,-- "It does not fear, the poor little one, does it?"
"No, I guess not, 'Varny," replied the child doubtfully; but the Italian sharply said,-- "What is this 'Varny you say? I am mio padre."
"I forgot. Won't I tumble out of this carriage, my father, it goes so quick?"
"Fear nothing, figlia mia. You are safe with me and with Pantalon," said the Italian, drawing the little girl close to his side; while the monkey, crouching upon the organ at their feet, chattered his own promises of protection and comfort.
With 'Toinette, to live was to love and trust; and, clinging close to her new guardian's side, she laid her little shining head upon his breast, clinging with one hand to the lappet of his coat; and, laughing down at Pantalon, she fell presently asleep.
At night the Italian left the train, and took lodgings at a hotel near the centre of a large town. His little charge-tired, hungry, and sleepy-was very glad to have supper, and to be allowed to go to bed, where she slept soundly until summoned the next morning by Giovanni, who brought her some breakfast with his own hands, and, placing it upon the table, laid a bundle of clothes beside it.
"Rise and eat, carissima," said be gayly; "and then make thyself as beautiful as the morning with these fine clothes. See, here are roses from the garden for a wreath! They are better than the others. When thou art ready, come out to me."
He left the room; and 'Toinette, rising, made a hasty breakfast; and then, putting on the brocade-silk dress, and placing upon her head the wreath Giovanni had twisted of natural flowers for her, she peeped into the glass, and laughed aloud at the fanciful and beautiful image that met her eyes.
"I am glad I look so pretty," murmured she, with an innocent delight at her own beauty, that was not vanity, although, it might, if untrained, lead to it.
"Come, Ciriegia, are you never ready?" called Giovanni from the other side of the door; and Cherry, running to open it, exclaimed in Italian,-- "Oh, see, my father! am I not beautiful?"
"Truly so; but you should not say it, bamb¡na. The charm of a maiden is her modesty," said the Italian gravely.
"But, if it is true, why mustn't I say so?" asked Cherry positively.
"Many things that we know are never to be said, Ciriega. But come, now: you are to dance first for these people, and they will make no charge for our beds and the miserable provender they have given us."
As he spoke, Giovanni led the way to the lower hall of the hotel, where a number of men were lounging, smoking, or talking; while through the open doors of the parlor and office were to be seen some ladies and gentlemen, idling away the hour after breakfast, before proceeding to their business, their journey, or their amusement.
Placing himself in the centre of the hall, Giovanni, with a bow to the company, played a little prelude, and then struck into the lively strains of the cachuca.
Cherry, who had stood looking at him, her head slightly bent, her lips apart, eyes and ears alert to catch the signal to begin, pointed her little foot at the precise moment, and, holding her dress in the tips of her slender fingers, slid into the movement with a grace and accuracy never to be attained except by vigorous practice, or a temperament as sensitive to time and tune, limbs as supple, and impulses as graceful, as were those of this gifted and unfortunate child.
"See there! -the poor little thing!" exclaimed one of the ladies, who came to the door of the drawing-room to see the performance.
"How can you say poor little thing?" asked another. "Don't you see how she enjoys it herself? That smile is not the artificial grimace of a ballet-dancer; and no eyes ever sparkled so joyously to order."
"Perhaps she does enjoy it; but all the more 'Poor little thing!' say I," rejoined the first speaker, adding thoughtfully, "What sort of training for a woman is that?"
"Oh, well! but it is very pretty to see her; and she would probably be running in the streets, or doing worse, if she did not dance; and so little as she is! It is equal to the theatre."
The speaker drew out her purse as she spoke, and carelessly threw a dollar-bill towards the child, who had finished her dance, and stood looking round with an innocent smile, as if asking for applause rather than reward.
"Go and take it, carissima; and then hold your hand to the others; each will give you something," said Giovanni in a low voice.
"How much we shall have to carry to mammy!" exclaimed the child eagerly; and, as she gathered in her harvest, she chattered away, always in Italian,-- "And more, and more, and more! O my father! how many cents they give me! What nice people they are! Let me dance some more for them; and let Pantalon come down, and let them see him." " No, no, child! These are not of those who would care for Pantalon. While you rest by and by, I shall take him and the organ, and go about the streets; but your little feet are worth many Pantalons to me. Come, we will give them the tarantella as they have done so well."
Skipping to his side, with a childish grace more attractive than the studied movements of the most accomplished actress, Cherry stuffed the proceeds of her first attempt into the pocket of her guardian, and then, throwing herself into position, went through the wild and grotesque movements of the tarantella, with a life and freshness that drew from the spectators a burst of applause and surprise.
"That will do. We must not give them too much at once, lest the wonder come to an end. Make the pretty kiss of the hand, figlia mia, and run up the stairs to your own little room."
Cherry obeyed, calling back, as she disappeared, "Tell them I will dance some more for them by and by if they want me to."
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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17
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WHOLESALE MURDER.
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IN the course of that day, Giovanni and his little danseuse visited all the principal public places in the town, and also several of the best private houses; and, at all, the performances of the child called forth the surprise, delight, and admiration of those who witnessed them. Nor were more substantial proofs of their approval wanting; so that at night, when Giovanni counted up his gains, he found them so large, that he cried, while embracing poor weary little Cherry,-- "O blessed, blessed moment when thou didst cross my path, Ciriegia carissima!"
"Now can't we go home to mammy? I am so tired, and my head feels sick!" moaned the child, laying the poor aching little head upon his shoulder.
Giovanni looked down at the pale face, and, meeting the languid eyes, felt a pang of conscience and pity.
"Thou art tired, bamb¡na povera mia," said he kindly. "Another day, we will be more careful. Lie down now, and sleep for a while. We go again in the steam-carriage to-night."
Cherry climbed upon the bed without reply, and in a moment was fast asleep. The Italian drew the coverings about her, and stooped to kiss the pale cheek, where showed already a dark circle beneath the eye, and a painful contraction at the corner of the mouth.
"Poveracita!" murmured he. "But soon we will have money enough to go home to the father-land, and then all will be well with her as with me."
Three hours later, he came to arouse the child, and prepare her to renew the journey.
"Oh, I am so tired! I want to sleep some more so bad, 'Varny! -no, my father, I mean. I don't want to go somewhere," said she piteously, closing her eyes, and struggling to lay her head again upon the pillow. Giovanni hesitated for a moment; and then, never knowing that the decision was one of life and death, the question of a whole future career, he determined to pursue his plan in spite of that plaintive entreaty, and, hastily wrapping a shawl about the child, took her in his arms, and carried her down stairs. The organ and Pantalon waited in the hall below; and Giovanni, setting Cherry upon her feet, shouldered the organ and, taking the little girl by the hand, led her out into the quiet street, where lay the light of a full moon, making the night more beautiful than day. Cherry's drowsy eyes flew wide open; and, looking up in Giovanni's face with eager joy, she cried,-- "Oh! now we're going back to heaven; aren't we, my father? It was bright and still like this in heaven; and I saw a star, and-and then the naughty lady struck me"-- "Peace, little one! I know not of what you speak, nor any thing of heaven," said the Italian in a troubled voice; and the child, hurrying along at his side, raised her face silently to the summer sky, seeking there, perhaps, the answer to the questions forever stirring in her struggling soul.
A little later, and the swift train, flying through the sleeping land, bore away the travellers; while Giovanni, settling himself as easily as possible, laid the head of his little Ciriegia upon his breast, tenderly smoothed down her silky curls, and laid his hand upon the bright eyes, that frightened him with the intensity of their gaze.
"Sleep, carissima mia, sleep," murmured he soothingly; "sleep, and forget thy weariness and thy memories."
"I can't sleep now, my father. It seems to me that we are going to heaven; and I want to be awake to see-the lady"-- The words faltered, and died upon her lips. The beautiful image of her mother, fading slowly from her memory, seemed already a vision so vague, that to name it were to lose it,--an idea too precious and too impalpable to put in words. The past, with all its love and joy and beauty, was becoming for our 'Toinette what we may fancy heaven is to a little baby, whose solemn eyes and earnest gaze seem forever attempting to recall the visions of celestial beauty it has left for the pale, sad skies, and mournful sounds of earth.
On rushed the train through the quiet night, waking wild echoes in the woods, and leaving them to whisper themselves again to sleep when it had passed; lighting dark valleys that the moonlight left unlighted, with its whirling banner of flame and sparks, and its hundred blazing windows; moving across the holy calm of midnight like some strange and troubled vision, some ugly nightmare, that for the moment changes peace and rest to horror and affright, and then passes again to the dim and ghostly Dreamland, whose frontier crowds our daily life on every hand, and whence forever peep and beckon the mysteries that perplex and haunt the human mind.
On and on and on, through misty lowland and shadowy wood, and over shining rivers, and through sleeping hamlets, and winding, snake-like, between great round hills and along deep mountain-gorges, until the wild, bright eyes that watched beneath Cherry's matted curls grew soft and dim; and at last the white lids fell, and the curve of the sad lips relaxed beneath the kiss of God's mildest messenger to man,--the spirit of sleep.
As for Giovanni, he long had slumbered heavily; and even Pantalon, whose bright eyes were seldom known to close, was now curled up beneath the organ-covering, dreaming, perhaps, of the nut-groves and spice-islands where he had once known liberty and youth.
Just then it came,--a crash as if heaven and earth had met; a wild, deep cry, made up of all tones of human agony and fright; the shriek of escaping steam; the rending and splintering of wood and iron; destruction, terror, pain, and death, all mingled in one awful moment. Then those who had escaped unhurt began the sad and terrible task of withdrawing from the ruin the maimed and bleeding bodies of those who yet lived, the crushed remains and fragments of those who had been killed in the moment of the encounter: and, in all the bewildering confusion of the scene, none had eyes for the little childish figure, that, hurled from the splintered car, lay for a while stunned and shaken among the soft grass where it had fallen, and then, staggering to its feet, fled wildly away into the dim forest-land.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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18
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DORA DARLING.
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THE sun was setting upon the day succeeding that of the great railroad accident, that, for weeks, filled the whole land with horror and indignation, when a young girl, driving rapidly along a country-road at a point about five miles distant from the scene of the disaster, met a child walking slowly toward her, whose disordered dress, bare head, and wild, sweet face, attracted her attention and curiosity.
Checking her spirited horse with some difficulty, the young girl looked back, and found that the child had stopped, and stood watching her.
"See here, little girl!" called she. "Are you lost? Is any thing the matter with you?"
The child fixed her solemn eyes upon the face of the questioner, but made no answer.
"Come here, sissy! I want to talk to you; and I can't turn round to come to you. Come here!"
The little girl slowly obeyed the kind command, and stood presently beside the wagon, her pale face upraised, her startled eyes intently fixed upon the clear and honest ones bent to meet them.
"What is your name, little girl?"
"Sunshine," said the child vaguely; and her eyes dropped from the face of her questioner to fix themselves upon the far horizon, where hung already the evening-star, pale and trembling, as it had hung upon the evening of 'Toinette Legrange's birthday ten months before. Was it a sudden association with the star and the hour that had suggested to the heart of the desolate child this name, so long forgotten, once so appropriate, now so strange and sad?
"Sunshine?" replied the young girl wonderingly. "You don't look like it a bit. Where do you belong? and where are you going?"
The child's eyes travelled back from Dreamland, and rested wistfully upon the kind face above her.
"I don't know," said she sadly. "I want to go to heaven; but I've forgot the way."
"To heaven! You poor little thing, have you no home short of that?"
"I don't know. I wish I had some water."
"You had better jump into the wagon, and come home with me, Sunshine, if that is your name. Something has got to be done for you right away."
The child, still looking at her in that strange and solemn manner, asked suddenly,-- "Who are you?"
"I? Oh! I'm Dora Darling; and I live about five miles from here. Jump in quick; for it is growing dark, and we must be at home for supper."
As she spoke, she leaned down, and gave a hand to the little girl, who mechanically took it, and clambered into the carriage. Dora lifted her to the seat, and held her there, with one arm about her waist, saying kindly,-- "Hug right up to me, you poor little thing! and hold on tight. We'll be at home in half an hour, or less.-Now, Pope!"
The impatient horse, feeling the loosened rein, and hearing his own name, darted away at speed; whirling the light wagon along so rapidly, that the child clung convulsively to her new protector, murmuring,-- "I guess I shall spill out of this, and get kilt."
"Oh, no, you won't, Sunshine! I shall hold you in. You're not Irish, are you?"
"What's that?"
"Why, Irish, you know. You said 'kilt' just now, instead of 'killed,' as we do."
The child made no reply; but her head drooped upon Dora's shoulder yet more heavily, and her eyes closed.
"Are you sick, little girl? or only tired?" asked Dora, looking anxiously down into the colorless face, over which the evening breeze was gently strewing the tangled curls, as if to hide it from mortal view, while the poor, worn, spirit fled away to peace and rest.
"Sunshine!" exclaimed Dora, gently moving the heavy head that still drooped lower and lower, until now the face was hidden from view.
"She has fainted!" said Dora, looking anxiously about her. No house and no person were in sight, nor any stream or pond of water; and the young girl decided that the wisest course would be to drive home as rapidly as possible, postponing all attempt to revive her little patient until her arrival there.
Without checking the horse, she dragged from under the seat a quilted carriage-robe, and spread it in the bottom of the wagon, arranging a paper parcel as a pillow. Then, laying poor Sunshine upon this extemporized couch, she took off her own light shawl, and covered her; leaving exposed only the face, white and lovely as the marble statue recumbent upon a little maiden's tomb.
"Now, Pope!" cried Dora, with one touch of the whip upon the glossy haunch of the powerful beast, who, at sound of that clear voice, neighed reply, and darted forward at the rate of twelve good miles an hour; so that, in considerably less than the promised time, Dora skilfully turned the corner from the road into a green country lane, and, a few moments after, stopped before the door of an old-fashioned one-story farm-house, painted red, with a long roof sloping to the ground at the back, an open well with a sweep and bucket, and a diamond-paned dairy-window swinging to and fro in the faint breeze. Around the irregular door-stone, the grass grew close and green; while nodding in at the window, and waving from the low eaves, and clambering upon the roof, a tangle of white and sweet-brier roses, of woodbine and maiden's-bower, lent a rare grace to the simple home, and loaded the air with a cloud of delicate perfume.
A young man, lounging upon the doorstep, started to his feet as the wagon came dashing up the lane, and was going to open the gate of the barn-yard; but Dora stopped before the open door, and called to him,-- "Karl! Come here, please."
"Certainly. I was running out of the way for fear of being ground to powder beneath your chariot-wheels; for I said to myself, 'Surely the driving is as the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi.'"
"I shouldn't have driven so fast; but-see here!"
She pulled away the shawl as she spoke, and showed to the young man, who now stood beside the carriage, the still inanimate form of the little waif at her feet.
"Phew! What's that? and where did you get it?"
"A little girl that I met; lost, I think. I took her into the buggy, and then she fainted, and I laid her down," rapidly explained Dora; adding, as she raised the little figure in her arms,-- "Take her in, and lay her on the bed in the rosy-room."
"Poor little thing! She's not dead, is she, Dora?" asked the young man softly, as he took the child in his arms and entered the house, followed by Dora.
"Oh, no! I think not; only fainted. I suppose there's hot water, for a bath, in the kitchen."
As she spoke, they entered the sitting-room,--a cool, shady apartment, with a great beam crossing the ceilings, and deep recesses to the windows, with seats in them.
At the farther side, Dora threw open the door of a little bedroom, whose gay-papered walls and flowered chintz furniture, not to speak of a great sweet-brier bush tapping and scratching at the window, with all its thousand sharp little fingers, gave it a good right to be called the rosy-room. Dora hastily drew away the bright counterpane, and nodded to Karl, who laid the little form he carried tenderly upon the bed.
At this moment, another door into the sitting-room opened; and a girl, somewhat older than Dora, put in her head, looked about for a moment, and then came curiously toward the door of the rosy-room.
"I thought I heard you, Dora," said she. "What are you doing in here? Why! -who's that?"
"O Kitty! can you warm a little of that broth we had for dinner, to give her? She's just starved, I really believe. And is there any ammonia in the house? -smelling-salts, you know. Didn't aunt have some?" asked Dora rapidly.
"I believe so. But where did you get this child? Who is she?"
"Run, Kitty, and get the salts first. We'll tell you afterward."
"What shall I do, Dora?" interposed the young man; and Kitty ran upon her errand, while Dora promptly replied,-- "Open the window, and bring some cold water; and then a little wine or brandy, if we have any."
"Enough for this time, at any rate," said Karl, hurrying away, and returning with both water and wine just as Kitty appeared with the salts; but it was Dora who applied the remedies, and with a skill and steadiness that would have seemed absolutely marvellous to one unacquainted with the young girl's previous history and training.
"She's coming to herself. You'd better both go out of sight, and let her see only me. Kitty, will you look to the broth?" whispered Dora; and Karl, taking his sister by the sleeve, led her out, softly closing the door after them.
"Dora does like to manage, I must say. Now, do tell me at last who this child is, and where she came from, and what's going to be done with her," said Kitty as they reached the kitchen. "Why shouldn't she like to manage, when she can do it so well? I can tell you, Miss Kitty, if she hadn't man aged to some purpose on one occasion, you wouldn't have had a brother to-day to plague you."
The girl's dark eyes grew moist as she turned them upon him, saying warmly,-- "I know it, Charley; and I would love her for that, if nothing else: but I can't forget she's almost a year younger than I am, and ought not to expect to take the lead in every thing."
"Pooh, Kit-cat, don't be ridiculous! Get the soup, and put it over the fire; and I'll tell you all I know about our little guest."
"I let the fire go down when tea was ready, it is so warm to-night," said Kitty, raking away the ashes in the open fireplace, and drawing together a few coals.
"That will do. You only want a cupful or so at once, and you can warm it in a saucepan over those coals."
"Dear me! I guess I know how to do as much as that without telling. Sit down now, and let me hear about the child."
So Karl dropped into the wooden arm-chair beside the hearth, and told his story; while Kitty, bustling about, warmed the broth, moved the tea-pot and covered dish of toast nearer to the remnant of fire, waved a few flies off the neat tea-table, and drove out an intrusive chicken, who, before going to roost, was evidently determined to secure a dainty bit for supper from the saucer of bread and milk set in the corner for pussy.
"If the broth is ready, I'll take it in," said Karl, as his sister removed it from the fire.
"Well, here it is; and do tell Dora to come to supper, or at least come yourself. I want to get cleared away some time."
"I'll tell her," said Karl briefly, as he took the bowl of broth, set it in a plate, and laid a silver spoon beside it.
"How handy he is! just like a woman," said Kitty to herself as her brother left the room; and then, going out into the sink-room, she finished washing and putting away the "milk-things,"-a process interrupted by the arrival of Dora with her little charge.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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19
|
A CHAMBER OF MEMORIES.
|
"How is she now, Dora?" asked Karl, softly opening the door of the rosy-room.
"Better. You can come in if you want to. Have you got the broth?"
"Yes: here it is."
"That's nice. Now hold her up, please, this way, while I feed her. See, little Sunshine! here is some nice broth for you. Take a little, won't you?"
The pale lips slightly opened, and Dora deftly slipped the spoon between them. The effect was instantaneous; and, as the half-starved child tasted and smelled the nourishing food, she opened wide her eyes, and, fixing them upon the cup, nervously worked her lips, and half extended her poor little hands, wasted and paled by even two days of privation and fatigue.
"I tell you what, Dora, this child has had a mighty narrow chance of it," said Karl aside, as Dora patiently administered the broth, waiting a moment between each spoonful.
"Yes," replied she softly. "I am so glad I met her! it was a real providence."
"For her?"
"For me as much," returned Dora simply. "It is so pleasant to be able to do something again!"
"You miss your wounded and invalid soldiers, and find it very dull here," said Karl quickly, as he glanced sharply into the open face of the young girl.
"Hush, Karl! don't talk now: it will disturb her. Is tea ready?"
"Yes, and Kitty sent word for you to come. Run along, and I will stay with the chick till you come back."
"No: I can't leave her yet. You go to supper, and perhaps, when you are done, I will leave you with her; or Kitty can stay, and I will clear away."
"Won't you let me stay now?" asked the young man hesitatingly.
"No. Here, take the bowl, and run along." " 'Just as you say, not as I like,' I suppose," said Karl, laughing; and, taking the bowl, he went softly out.
"Now, little girl, you feel better, don't you?" asked Dora cheerily, as she laid the heavy head back upon the pillow, and tenderly smoothed away the tangled hair.
"Si, signora," murmured Giovanni's pupil.
"What's that? I don't know what you mean. Say it again, won't you?"
But the child only fixed her dreamy eyes upon the face of the questioner, with no effort at reply; and then the lids began slowly to close.
"Now, before you go to sleep, Sunshine, I am going to take you up stairs, and put you in my own bed, because I sha'n't want to leave you alone to-night; and no one sleeps here. Wait till I fold this shawl round you, and then pull your arms about my neck. There: now we'll go."
She lifted the child as she spoke, and carried her again into the front entry, and up the square staircase to a cottage-chamber with white, scoured floor, common pine furniture, the cheapest of white earthern toilet-sets, and nothing of expense or luxury to be found within its four whitewashed walls, and yet a room that gave one a feeling of satisfaction and peace not always inhabiting far wider and more costly chambers: for the little bed was artistically composed, and covered with snow-white dimity, as was the table between the windows, and the cushion of the wooden rocking-chair; while curtains of the same material, escaped from their tri-colored fastenings, floated in upon the soft breeze like great sails, or the draperies of twilight spirits departing before mortal presence.
In the fireplace stood a large pitcher, filled with common flowers, fresh and odorous; and upon the high mantle-shelf, and all around the room, was disposed a collection of the oddest ornaments that ever decked a young girl's sleeping-chamber. Among them we will but pause to mention two muskets, the one bent, the other splintered at the stock; four swords, each more or less disabled; an officer's sash; three sets of shoulder-straps; a string of army-buttons, each with a name written upon a strip of paper, and tied to the eye; two or three dozen bone rings, of more or less elaborate workmanship, disposed upon the branches of a little tree carved of pine; a large collection of crosses, hearts, clasped hands, dogs'-heads, and other trinkets, in bone, some white, and some stained black; a careful drawing of a crooked and grotesque old negro, in a frame of carved wood; and, finally, a suit of clothes hung against the wall in the position of a human figure, consisting of a jaunty scarlet cap, with a little flag of the United States fastened to the front by an army-badge; a basque, skirt, and trousers of blue cloth, with a worn and clumsy pair of boots below. From a belt fastened across the waist hung a little barrel, a flask, and by a wide ribbon of red, white and blue, a boatswain's silver whistle.
Singular ornaments, we have said, for a young girl's sleeping-room, and yet, in this case, touchingly appropriate and harmonious: for they were the keepsakes given to the daughter of the regiment by the six hundred brave men, who each loved her as his own; they were the mementoes of a year in Dora Darling's life, of such vivid experiences that it threatened to make all the years that should come after pale and vapid in comparison.
Just now, however, all the girl's strong sympathies were aroused and glowing; and as she tenderly cared for the child so strangely placed within her hands, and finally laid her to sleep in the clover-scented sheets of the fair white bed, she felt happier than she had for months before.
A light tap at the door, and Kitty entered.
"I'll stay with her while you go and eat supper. Charles said he'd come; but I'd like well enough to sit down a little while. My! -she's pretty-looking; isn't she?"
"The prettiest child I ever saw," replied Dora, with her usual decision; and then the two girls stood for a moment looking down at the delicate little face, where, since the food and broth Dora had administered, a bright color showed itself upon the cheeks and lips; while the short, thick curls, carefully brushed, clustered around the white forehead, defining its classic shape, and contrasting with its pearly tints.
"Who can she be?" asked Kitty in a whisper.
"Some sort of foreigner,--French maybe, or perhaps Italian. She has talked considerably since I gave her the broth; but I can't make out a word she says. She spoke English when I first met her; but I don't believe she knows much of it," said Dora thoughtfully.
"There is something sewed up in a little bag, and hung round her neck," added she, "just such as some of our foreign volunteers had,--a sort of charm, you know, to keep them from being struck by the evil eye. That shows that her friends must have been foreigners."
"Yes; and Catholics too, likely enough," said Kitty rather contemptuously; adding, after a pause,-- "Well, you go down, and I'll sit by her a while. If she sleeps as sound as this, I don't suppose I need stay a great while. There's the supper-dishes to do."
"I'll wash them, of course; but, if you want to come down, you might leave the door open at the head of the back stairs, and I should hear if she called or cried. And, now I think of it, I have a letter to show Karl and you. I got it at the post-office."
"From Mr. Brown?" asked Kitty quickly.
"No, from a Mr. Burroughs; a man I never heard of in my life till to-day. But come down in a few minutes, and I will read it to you."
"Well, don't read it till I come."
"No: I won't." And Dora quietly went out of the room, leaving Kitty to swing backward and forward in the white-cushioned rocking-chair, her dark eyes wandering half contemptuously, half enviously, over Dora's collection of treasures, with an occasional glance at the sleeping child.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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20
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A LETTER AND AN OFFER.
|
IN the kitchen, Dora found Karl waiting for her; and, while she eat her supper with the healthy relish of a young and vigorous creature, she gave her cousin an account of all the circumstances attending her meeting with the little girl, whom she described again as a foreigner, and probably French.
"And what's to be done with her, Dora?" asked the young man rather gravely, when she had finished.
"Why, when she is well enough to tell who she is, and where she came from,--that is, if she can talk English at all,--we can return her to her friends; or, if they are not to be discovered, I will keep her myself. That is,"-and the young girl paused suddenly, the blood rushing to her face, as she added,--" that is, if you and Kitty are willing. It is your house, not mine; though I'm afraid I am apt to forget."
Karl looked at her reproachfully.
"When I brought you here, Dora Darling, I brought you home; and when my mother died, not yet a year ago, did she not bid us live together as brother and sisters, in love and harmony?"
"Yes; but"-- "But what, Dora?"
"I am afraid sometimes I behave too much as if it were my own house," faltered Dora.
"And so it is your own house, just as it is my own and Kitty's own. Have either of us ever made you feel that there was any difference, or that you had less right here than we?"
Dora made no reply; and, while Karl still waited for one the staircase-door opened softly, and Kitty appeared.
"The child is fast asleep," said she: "so I thought I would come down and hear the letter."
"What letter?" asked Karl a little impatiently.
"Oh! I haven't told you. Here it is."
And Dora drew from her pocket, and held toward him, a large white envelope, boldly directed to "Miss DORA DARLING, care of Capt. Charles Windsor" "That's nonsense. I have beaten my sword into a ploughshare now, and am only plain mister," said Capt. Karl, glancing at the direction.
"Well, read the letter, do; I'm dying to hear it," said Kitty impatiently; and her brother, with an affectation of extreme haste, unfolded the thick, large sheet of note-paper and read aloud:-- "Having been requested to communicate with Miss Darling upon a matter of importance, Mr. Thomas Burroughs will do himself the honor of calling upon her, probably in the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 25.
"CINCINNATI, Aug. 20."
"Thursday, 25th! Why, that is to-morrow!" exclaimed Karl, as he finished reading.
"Dated Cincinnati, you see! It is some message from Mr. Brown. He lives about twenty miles from Cincinnati," said Kitty eagerly.
"I don't think so. Why should Mr. Brown send a message when he writes to me so often?" replied Dora with simplicity.
"I should think he did. I suppose you expected a letter this afternoon, and that was what made you so bent upon driving to town in all the heat."
"It wasn't very hot, and you know we needed these things from the shop."
"From the grocery-store, do you mean?" asked Kitty sharply.
"Yes."
"Why can't you talk as we do, then? You have been here long enough now, I should think."
"Because she knows how to talk better, Miss Kit," said Karl good-humoredly. "Calling a shop a store is an Americanism, like calling a station-house a d‚p“t, or trousers pants."
"Well, I thought we were Americans, Dora and all," retorted Kitty.
"Mercy, child! don't let us plunge from philology into ethnology. I prefer to speculate upon Mr. Thomas Burroughs. Who is he? and what does he want of our Dora?"
"To marry her, I suppose, or to ask her to marry Mr. Brown," snapped Kitty.
"Perhaps he wants to ask my good word toward marrying you," suggested Dora, coloring deeply.
"No such good luck as that, eh, Kitty?" said Karl with a laugh.
"Good luck! I'm sure I'm in no hurry to be married; and, though I haven't had Dora's chances of seeing all sorts of men, I dare say I shall get as good a husband in the end," replied Kitty loftily.
"But, contemplating for one moment the idea that it may not be an offer of marriage that Mr. Thomas Burroughs means by a 'matter of importance,' let us consider what else it can be," said Karl with a quizzical smile.
"Perhaps he wants your ideas upon the campaign in Western Virginia, and a report of the general's real motives and intentions," suggested Dora gayly.
"Perhaps he wants to engage his winter's butter; though I don't believe Dora is the one to ask about that," said Kitty.
"Now, Kitty! I'm sure I made up the last, and you said it was as nice as you could do yourself."
"Yes; but you turned all the buttermilk into the pig's pail instead of saving it for biscuits."
"So I did. Well, as dear old Picter used to say, 'What's the use ob libin' if you've got trew larnin'?'"
"O Dora! how can you, how can you! -you cruel, cruel girl, how can you speak of him!" cried Kitty in a passion of anger and grief; and, pushing back her chair so violently as to upset it, she rushed out of the room.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" exclaimed Dora in great distress; and would have followed her, had not Karl held her back.
"Don't go, dear; it will be of no use: she will not let you into her room. Poor Kitty! she loved her mother so passionately, and her nature is so intense! We must make great excuses, Dora, for our sister's little inequalities of temper: I think her great loss is at the bottom of all."
Dora looked thoughtful, and presently said slowly, "I know it, Karl; but it does seem to me rather unjust that she should hate poor Pic's memory so bitterly even now. He did not know any more than I that he had small-pox when he came back that time from New York; and when Kitty told him that Aunt Lucy had taken it from him, and was very sick, he felt so badly, that I think it prevented his getting well."
"O Dora, don't say that! Kitty could not have blamed him openly."
"I don't know what she said; but, from that day, he grew worse, and died without being able to bid me good-by,--Pic, who brought me away from those cruel people, and cared for me as if I had been his child. O dear, dear old Pic!"
She did not cry; she very seldom did: but she clasped her hands tightly together, and looked so white and wild, that Karl came to her, and, taking her in his arms, would have soothed and caressed her like a little child, had not she repulsed him.
"Please not, dear Karl! I must bear my griefs alone for I am alone in all the world."
It was the bitterest sentence Dora had ever spoken, and her cousin looked at her in dismay.
"If Picter could have given the disease to me instead of to aunt, and he and I could have journeyed on together into another world as we had through this, and left your mother to Kitty and you!" continued Dora; while in her eyes, and about her white lips, quivered a passion of grief far beyond any tears,--far beyond, thank God! any grief that eyes and lips so young are often called to express. And as it rose and swelled in her girl heart, and shook her strong young soul, Dora uttered in one word all the bitterness of her orphaned life.
"Mother!" cried she, and clinched her hands above the sharp pain that seemed to suffocate her, the pain we call heart-ache, and might sometimes more justly call heart-break.
Karl looked at her, and his gay young face grew strong, and full of meaning. He folded her again in his arms, and said,-- "Dora, I had not meant to speak yet; but I cannot see you so, or hear you say such words. Do not you know, cousin, that there is nothing in all the world I love like you; and that, while I live, you can never be alone; and, while I have a home, you can never want one, or be other than its head and centre? Dora, marry me, and I will make you forget all other loves in the excess of mine." Dora allowed her head to droop upon his shoulder, and a sudden sense of peace and rest fell temptingly upon her spirit.
"Dora, Dora Darling always, even when you are all my Dora!" whispered Karl; but Dora released herself from his arms, and stood upright. Her face was strong again now, although very white; and she said,-- "Thank you, cousin. You are good and kind, as you always have been, and I am glad you love me as I love you; but what else you have said we will forget. I am too young to think of such things, and you will not feel so to-morrow or next day. Be my brother, as you have been, and let me be sister to you and Kitty, as aunt told us. I wish I could make Kitty love me."
The young man would have persisted; but Dora, gravely shaking her head, said,-- "Karl dear, you only distress me, and I want to be quiet. Do not speak of this again for at least another year, and then, perhaps, you will not want to."
"But in a year I may, if I do want to?" asked Karl eagerly.
"I don't want to say that; for I don't know that I should want you to then," said Dora, with such exquisite simplicity, that the young man laughed outright, and said,-- "But you don't know that you sha'n't, do you, darling Dorelle?"
"I didn't say so."
"No; but--Well, I won't insist; only I shall put down the date. Let me see: Aug. 24, isn't it?"
He took out his note-book, wrote a few words, and, glancing at Dora with a suppressed smile, put it away again. Then, more seriously, he took her hand, saying,-- "Only remember one thing, Dora; and that is, whatever may come in the future, this house is your home as long as it is ours; and, while I live, there is always some one who loves you best of all God's creatures."
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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21
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GIOVANNI'S ROOM.
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"OCHONE! an' it's weary work climbin' thim stairs," groaned Mrs. Ginniss, pausing upon the landing outside the organ-grinder's door.
"An' mabbe she's wid him still. Anyway, I'll see, and save the coomin' down agin."
With these words, Mrs. Ginniss gave a modest rap upon the door, and, as it remained unanswered, a somewhat louder one, calling at the same time,-- "Misther Jovarny! Misther Jovarny, I say! Is it out yees still are?"
The question remaining unanswered, the good woman waited no longer, but, climbing the remaining flight of stairs took the key of her room from the shelf in Teddy's closet where it had been left, and unlocked the door.
"Cherry, darlint, be ye widin?" asked she, throwing it open; and then, recollecting herself, added,-- "An' sure how could she, be, widout she kim in trew the kayhole? But, blissid Vargin! where would they be all the day long?"
So saying, Mrs. Ginniss threw up the window, and looked anxiously down the street in the direction where Giovanni and Cherry had that morning disappeared.
Nothing was to be seen of them; but, just turning the corner, came Teddy, his straw-hat pushed back upon his forehead, and his steps slow and undecided. He was thinking wearily, as he often thought of late, that the time had come when he could no longer withhold his little sister from the friends to whom she really belonged; and it was not alone the heat of the August night that brought the great drops of perspiration to the boy's forehead, or drew the white line around his mouth.
"It's quicker nor that you'll stip, my b'y, whin you hear the little sisther's not in yit, an' it's wid Jovarny she is," muttered Mrs. Ginniss; and, half dreading the entrance of her son, she applied herself so diligently to making a fire in preparation for supper, that she did not appear to notice him.
"Good-evening, mother. Where's Cherry?" asked Teddy, throwing himself wearily into a chair just inside the door.
"An' is it yersilf, gossoon? An' it's the big hate is in it intirely."
"Yes: it's hot enough. Where's Cherry?"
"Takin' a little walk, honey. You wouldn't be shuttin' the poor child into the house this wedder, sure?"
"Taking a walk! -what, alone!" exclaimed Teddy, sitting upright very suddenly.
"Of coorse not. Misther Jovarny was perlite enough to ax her; an' she wor that wild to go, I couldn't say her no."
"I wish you had said no, mother. I hate to let her be with that fellow, anyway. I'd have taken her to walk myself, if I was twice as tired. How long have they been gone?"
And Teddy, in his turn, looked anxiously out at the window, but saw nothing more than the squalid street weltering in the last rays of the August sun; a knot of children fighting in the gutter over the body of a dead cat; an old-clothes man sauntering wearily along the pavement, and a dog, with lolling tongue and blood-shot eyes, following close at his heels.
"How long have they been out? asked Teddy again, as he drew in his head, and looked full at his mother, whose confusion struck him with a sudden dismay.
"O mother!" cried he, "what is it? There's more than you're telling me amiss. How long is she gone?"
"Sure an' I didn't mind the clock whin they wint," said Mrs. Ginniss, still struggling to avoid the shock she felt approaching.
"No, no; but you can tell! O mother! do speak out, for the love of God! I can see how scared you are, though you won't say it. Tell me right out all there is to tell."
"An' it's no great there is to till, Teddy darlint; on'y this mornin', whin I was sint for to Ann Dolan (an' she that bad it's dead we thought she wor one spell, but for Docther Wintworth), Jovarny kim up, an' axed might the child go for a walk to the Gardens wid him; an' I jist puttin' on me shawl to go out, an' not wantin' to take the little crather in wid a sick woman, nor yet to lock the door on her, an' lave her to fret. So I says she might go wid him; and, whin she coom home, I tould Jovarny to open the door wid the kay an' let her in, an' showed her the dinner on the shelf by: an' if it's harm that's coom to her, it's harder on me than on yersilf it'll fall; an' my heart is bruck, is bruck intirely."
Throwing her apron over her head, Mrs. Ginniss fell into at chair, and gave way to the agitation and alarm she had so long suppressed; but Teddy, ordinarily so kind, and tender of his mother, stared at her blankly, and repeated,-- "This morning! How early this morning?"
"I wor jist afther washin' the bit breakfast-dishes," sobbed Mrs. Ginniss.
"Twelve hours or near!" exclaimed Teddy in dismay. "And is it to the Gardens he said he'd take her?"
"Shure an' did he!"
"To the Public Gardens, the City Gardens, just by the Commons?" persisted Teddy.
"Jist the Gardens wor all he said; an' towld me the shwans that wor in it, an' the bit posies."
"Yes: there's swans there, and posies enough," muttered Teddy, and, snatching the hat he had thrown upon a chair as he entered, rushed out of the room and down the stairs at headlong speed.
But, before he could possibly have reached the Garden, the sun had set, all visitors were excluded, and the gate-keeper had gone home. Nothing daunted, Teddy scaled the high iron fence; ran rapidly through all the paths, arbors, nooks, and corners of the place; and finally returned over the fence, just in time, to be collared by a policeman, who had been watching him: but so sincere was the boy's tone and manner, as he assured the official that he was after no harm but was looking for his little sister, who had been taken away from home, and, as he feared, lost, that the guardian of the public peace not only released him, but inquired with some interest into the particulars of the case; saying that he had been likely to notice any one remaining in the Garden longer than usual.
Teddy, with anxious minuteness, described the appearance both of the lost child and the "organ-fellow," as he called Giovanni; and gave the particulars of their leaving home as his mother had given them to him. The policeman listened attentively, but shook his head at the end.
"Haven't seen any sich," said he. "Them I-talian fellers is a bad lot; and I shouldn't wonder if he'd took off the child to learn her to play a tambourine, and go round picking up croppers for him. You'd better wait till morning; and, if they don't turn up, her mother can go and tell the chief about it."
"Chief of police?" asked Teddy.
"Yes; but it ain't always he can do any thing. There was that little gal, a year ago pretty nigh, belonged to a man by the name of Legrange. She was lost, and they offered a reward of ten thousand dollars finally; but she warn't never heard from. You see, there's sich a many children all about: and come to change their clothes, and crop their hair, it's hard to tell t'other from which," said the policeman meditatively; and then, suddenly resuming his official dignity, added, "You mustn't never get over that fence again, though: mind that, young man."
"Thank you, sir," said Teddy, turning away to hide the guilty confusion of his face; and, as he hurried home, he anxiously revolved the idea of applying to the police for aid, should Cherry remain absent after the next morning. But Teddy knew something of the law, and had too often seen better hidden secrets than his own ferreted out and brought to the light by its searching finger, to wish to trust himself within its grasp; at any rate, just yet.
"If I find her, I'll give her up, and tell all, and never touch the reward; but how can I go and say she's lost again?" thought Teddy, with a sick heart. And when, running up the stairs, his quick eyes caught sight of his mother's face, his own turned so ghastly white, that she ran toward him, crying,-- "An' is it dead you've found her, Teddy?"
"Worse; for she's lost; and all that comes to her is on my shoulders," said Teddy hoarsely, as he stood just within the door, looking hungrily about the room, as if he hoped, in some forgotten corner, to light upon his lost treasure.
"Did Jovarny take his organ and the monkey?" asked he suddenly.
"Sure, and he didn't; for I mind luckin' afther him going down the street."
"Then he'll be back!" exclaimed the boy eagerly; but the next moment the new hope died out of his face, and he muttered,-- "He might have taken them before. Anyway, I'll soon see;" and, running down the stairs, Teddy applied his sturdy shoulder and knee to the rickety door of the Italian's room. Neither door nor lock was fitted to withstand much force, and, with a sharp sound of rending wood and breaking iron, they flew apart; and Teddy, stepping over the threshold, glanced eagerly around. The room was stripped of everything except the poor furniture, which Teddy knew the Italian had hired with it, and the wooden box where he had kept his clothes. Of this the key remained in the lock; and, the boy, lifting the lid, soon discovered that a few worthless rags were all that remained.
"He's gone, and she with him!" groaned Teddy, dropping the box-cover, and standing upright to look again through the deserted room. His mother stood in the doorway.
"Och, Teddy! an' it's desaved us intirely he has,--the black-hearted crather; an' may the cuss O' Crom'ell stick to him day an' night, an' turn his sleep to wakin', an' his mate to pizen, till all I wish him is wished out!"
"It's no good cursing or wishing, mother," said Teddy bitterly. "If there was, I'd curse myself the first; for it's on me it had ought to fall."
"Sorra a bit of that, thin, Teddy mavourneen; for iver an' always it was yersilf that wor tinder an' careful uv her that's gone; an' yersilf it wor that saved the life of her, the night she first come home to us; an' it's none but good that iver yees did her in all the days of yer life; an', if there's any blame to be had betwixt us, it's on yer poor owld mother it should be laid,--her that loved the purty darlint as if she'd been her own, an', if she's lost, will carry a brucken heart to her grave wid mournin' afther her. O wurra, wurra, acushla machree! Och the heavy day an' the black night that's in it! Holy Jasus, have mercy on us! Spake the good word for us, blissid Vargin! Saint Bridget (that's me own namesake), stip up an' intersade for us now, if iver; for black is the nade we have uv help."
Falling upon her knees, and pulling a rosary of wooden beads from her bosom, the Irish woman pursued her petitions, mingling them with tears and exclamations more or less pathetic and grotesque; while Teddy, seated upon the Italian's empty box, his head between his hands, his elbows upon his knees, his eyes fixed steadily upon the floor, gave up his young heart a prey to such remorse as might fitly punish even a heavier crime than that of which his conscience accused him.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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22
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THE CONFESSION.
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THE morning came, but brought no comfort. Mrs. Ginniss had crept up stairs, and, throwing herself upon the bed, had fallen asleep with the tears still trickling down her honest face; but to Teddy's haggard eyes no sleep had come, and he had only changed his position by stretching himself upon the floor beside the box, his head upon his arm, his aching eyeballs still shaping in the darkness the form and features of the little sister whom he had sullenly resolved was lost to him forever as punishment for his fault in concealing her.
"If I'd brought her back," thought he again and again, "they'd have let me get seeing her once in a while; they couldn't have refused me so much; and maybe some day I'd have been a gentleman, and could have talked with her free and equal. But now she's lost to them and to me; and, when I tell the master, he'll call me a mean thief and a liar, and a rascal every way, and he'll never look at me again; and mother"-- Then he would wander away into dreary speculation upon what his another would say when the truth was made known to her, and she found the boy on whom she had lavished her love and pride dishonored and discarded by the master to whom he owed so much, and whose patronage she had taken such pains to secure for him; and then, like the weary burden of a never-ending song, would come again the thought,-- "But if I'd brought her back at the first!"
The bitter growth of the night, however, had borne fruit in a resolution firm as it was painful; and, when Teddy came up stairs to make himself fit to go to the office, he was able to say some words of comfort to his mother, assuring her that no blame to her could come of what had happened, and that it was possible the child might yet be found, as he should warn those of her loss who could use surer means to search for her than any at their command.
"An' is it the perlice ye're manin'?" asked Mrs. Ginniss. "Sure it's little they'd heed the loss o' poor folks like us, or look for one little child that's missin', whin there's more nor enough uv 'em to the fore in ivery poor man's house. But niver a one like ours, Teddy b'y,--niver another purty darlint like her that's gone."
Teddy made no reply to this, but, hastily swallowing some food, took his hat, and left the room.
Upon the stairs he met the landlord, who, followed by a furniture-broker, entered the room of the organ-grinder. Going in after them, Teddy learned, in answer to his eager questions, that the broker had, early in the morning of the previous day, received a visit from the Italian, who, announcing that he had no further use for the furniture, paid what was owing for the rent of it, and made a bargain for a box he was about to leave behind him; but, as to his subsequent movements, the man had no information to give, nor could even judge whether he intended leaving the city, or only the house.
Thanking him or the information, Teddy went drearily on his way, more hopelessly convinced than ever that Giovanni had deliberately stolen the child, and absconded with her.
"Well," muttered he, "all I've got to do now is to tell the master, and take what I'll get. If he finds the little-no: she's none of that, nor ever was-if he finds her, and takes her home to them that lost her, I'll be content, if it's to prison, or to sweeping the streets, or to be a slave in the South, he sends me."
Arrived at the office, Teddy faithfully performed his morning duties, and then seated himself to wait for Mr. Barlow, who was again occupying Mr. Burroughs's office during that gentleman's absence in the West. While arranging upon his table some papers he was to copy, Teddy suddenly remembered that other morning, now nearly a year ago, when Mr. Burroughs had laid upon his very table the picture and advertisement of the lost child; and all the months of guilty hesitation and concealment that since had passed seemed to roll back upon the boy's heart, crushing it into the very dust. He threw down the pen he had just taken up, and laid his head upon his folded arms, groaning aloud,-- "Oh! if I had told him then! if I had just told him that morning!"
The door of the office opened quickly; and Mr. Barlow, a grave and reserved young man, who had never taken much notice of Teddy, entered, and, as he passed to the inner room, glanced with some curiosity at the boy, whose emotion was not to be quite concealed.
"If you please, sir"-- "Well, Teddy?"
"I should like to send a letter to Mr. Burroughs."
"Do you mean a letter from yourself?"
"Yes, sir."
A slight smile crossed Mr. Barlow's face, as he replied a little sneeringly,-- "I am afraid your business will have to wait till Mr. Burroughs's return, my boy."
"Don't you be sending him letters, sir?"
"I have; but, when I heard from him yesterday, he was about leaving Cincinnati, and gave me no further address. He will be at home in a day or two."
Mr. Barlow passed on, and Teddy stooped over his work, but to so little purpose, that, on submitting it for inspection, he received a sharp reproof for his negligence, and an order to do the whole afresh.
"What a Quixotism of Burroughs's to try to educate this stupid fellow!" muttered Mr. Barlow to a friend who lounged beside his table; and Teddy, hearing the criticism upon his patron, felt an added weight fall upon his own conscience.
"They laugh at him because I'm stupid, and I'm stupid because I'm thinking of what I've done. It's good that they'll soon be shut of me altogether. Maybe I can sweep the crossings, or clean the gutters," thought poor miserable Teddy, bending afresh to his task.
Mr. Burroughs did not come so soon as expected; and Mr. Barlow became quite impatient of the constant inquiry addressed to him by Teddy as to the probable movements of his master. At last, about noon of Friday, he walked into the office, looking more cheerful and like his old self than he had been since the heavy sorrow had fallen upon the household so near to his heart.
Mr. Barlow greeted him heartily, and, calling him into the inner office, closed the door; while Teddy remained without, his heart beating with a sick hard throb, a tingling pain creeping from his brain to the ends of his icy fingers, and his whole frame trembling with agitation.
It was no light task that he had set himself; and so he well knew. To stand before the man he loved and reverenced before all men and say to him that he had been for months deliberately deceiving and injuring him and his; to confess that he had not once, but persistently, refused the only chance ever offered him of repaying, in some measure, the kindness and generosity of his patron; to acknowledge grateful,--oh! it was no light task that the boy had set himself; and yet his resolution never faltered.
Great acts are only great in the light of the actor's previous history and training; and perhaps the atonement Teddy now contemplated was for him as heroic as that of the martyred bishop who held the hand that had signed the recantation steadily in the flame until it was consumed.
The door of the office opened, and the two gentlemen were passing out together, when Teddy started up,-- "If you please, sir, might I speak with you by yourself?"
"Oh, yes! Teddy has been very anxious for an interview with you all the week. I will go on, and expect you down there presently," said Mr. Barlow.
"Yes, in two minutes. Come in here, Teddy, and let us hear what you have to say."
Mr. Burroughs threw himself into the chair he had just quitted, and stirred the fire, saying good-humoredly,-- "Out with it, my boy! What's amiss?"
Teddy, standing beside the table, one clammy hand grasping the edge of it, seemed to feel the floor heave beneath his feet, and the whole room to reel and swim before his eyes. His tongue seemed paralyzed, his lips quivered, his voice came to his own ears strange and hollow; but still he struggled on, resolute to reach the worst.
"It's about the little girl that was lost, sir, your little cousin Antoinette." " 'Toinette Legrange, cried Mr. Burroughs, his face suddenly growing earnest as he turned it upon the boy, and asked,-- "What is it? Have you heard of her?"
"Yes, sir. I found her in the street the night she was lost. She was dressed in poor clothes, and her hair was cut off. I didn't know who she was; and I took her home to my mother, and asked her to keep her for my little sister, because I never got one, and always wanted her. Then she was sick; and one day you told me she was lost, and showed me the picture and the piece in the paper; and I knew it was her. Then I thought she was going to die, and I waited to know; and, when she got better, I waited a while longer; and at last she was well, and I couldn't bear to part with her"-- "But she is safe now?" interrupted Mr. Burroughs, his look of stern reproach mingling with a sudden hope.
"No, sir: she's lost!"
"What!"
Teddy's white lips tried again and again before they could form the words,-- "She's lost again, sir! She went out walking with Jovarny, that's an organ-grinder, last Monday morning; and he has taken her off."
"You miserable fellow! You had better have killed as well as stolen her!" exclaimed Mr. Burroughs.
Teddy clung to the table, and reeled as if a physical blow had fallen upon him. It was the first time in the four years they had spent together that his master had spoken to him in anger, and now,-- "Five days ago! And what have you done in that time towards looking for her?" asked Mr. Burroughs sternly.
"Nothing, sir. I wanted to write to you, but couldn't get any direction."
"And why didn't you tell Mr. Barlow, and let him set the police at work? If you had warned him as soon as you discovered the loss, this organ-grinder might have been caught. Now he is perhaps in New Orleans, perhaps halfway to Europe. Why didn't you tell Barlow, I say?"
"Please, sir, I couldn't bear telling any one but you that I done it," said Teddy in a low voice.
"Well, sir, and, now you have told me, you will please walk out of this office, and never enter it again. I did not imagine, that, in all these months, you were preparing such a pleasant surprise for me. One question, however: did your mother know who the child was?"
"No, sir: never."
"Then you may thank her that I let you off so easily; but I never desire to see either of you again after to-day. Wait here for one hour, while I go with a detective to hear your mother's story and to get a description of this organ-grinder. At two o'clock, leave the office; and take with you whatever belongs to yourself, and nothing more."
Mechanically obeying his master's gesture, Teddy staggered out of the room. Mr. Burroughs followed him, and, locking the door of the inner office, put the key in his pocket, and went out.
"He thinks I'm a thief!" was the bitter thought that darted through Teddy's mind; and then, "And how could I steal more than when I stole her? He's right to lock up from me."
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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23
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TEDDY LOSES AND FINDS HIS HOME.
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AN hour later, Teddy, leaving behind him the books, papers, pictures, every thing that Mr. Burroughs had given him, and taking only the few articles of his clothing which happened to be at the office, crept out of the door and down the stairs with the look of a veritable thief.
Choosing the least-frequented streets, and avoiding the recognition of such of his acquaintance as chanced to meet him, he slunk homeward, feeling a little less wretched, but infinitely more degraded, than he had done before his confession.
Burroughs knew, his mother knew, the police-officials knew,--how could he tell who did not know? -of his shame and guilt. Every pair of eyes seemed to accuse him; every step seemed to pursue him; every distant voice seemed to summon him to receive the punishment of his misdoing; and it was as to a refuge that he at last hurried in at the door and up the stairs of the tenement-house.
At the upper landing, however, he paused. His mother! -oh the sorrow and the shame that he had brought upon her in payment for all her love and effort, and the constant sacrifices she had made, ever since he could remember, to enable him to rise above his natural station, and to appear as well as his future associates! It came back to him now,--not a new thought, but one intensified by the more immediate suffering of the last two hours. He leaned for a moment against the wall, and wiped his clammy brow, feeling that any sudden death, any strange chance that could befall him, would be welcome, so that it swallowed up the coming moment, and spared him the sight of the misery he had wrought.
Only a moment. Then the desperate courage that had carried him through his confession to his master gave him strength to open the door and enter.
The ironing-table was spread, and upon a half-finished shirt lay a little pile of money. Teddy knew that it was the wages owing him since the last payment, and turned away his eyes with loathing.
Mrs. Ginniss was lying upon the bed, her face buried in the pillow, sobbing heavily and wearily, as if exhausted by excessive emotion.
Teddy closed the door softly, and stood looking at her, uncertain whether she had heard him enter. In the room below, the little child of the new tenants sung, at her play, an air that Cherry had often sung.
Teddy listened, and, when the little song was done, cried out,-- "O mother! haven't you a word for me? I believe I'll go mad next."
"Don't be spakin' to me, you bowld, bad b'y! It's niver a word I have for yees, or wants from yees!" sobbed Mrs. Ginniss.
Teddy looked at her drearily for a moment; then softly seated himself, his hands folded listlessly in his lap, his eyes wandering idly about the familiar room, and his mind journeying on and on in the weary, mechanical manner of a mind over-wrought and stunned by long-continued or excessive suffering.
From the street below rose the hum and bustle of city life; from the room that had been Giovanni's, the voice of the child, still singing at her play. In at the open window streamed the thick yellow sunshine of the August afternoon, and a great droning blue fly buzzed upon the pane.
Teddy noted every sound; watched the motes dancing in the sunshine, the fly bouncing up and down the little window, the movements of the cat, who, rising from her nap, stretched every limb separately, yawned, lazily lapped at her saucer of milk, and then, seating herself in the patch of lurid sunshine, with her tail curled round her fore-paws, blinked drowsily for a few minutes, and then dozed off again.
But, whether he listened or whether he looked, it was but ear and eye that noted these familiar and homely sounds or sights. The mind still journeyed on and on in that weary journey without beginning or end; that dull, heavy tramp through black night, with no hope of ever reaching morning; that vain flight from a pain not for one moment to be forgotten or left behind; that numb consciousness of an evil, that, wait as we will, must sooner or later be met and recognized.
A long hour passed, and Mrs. Ginniss suddenly arose and confronted her son.
"If iver I larnt ye any thin', ye black-hearted b'y, what wor it?"
Teddy raised his heavy eyes to his mother's face, but made no answer.
"Worn't it to search iver an' always for the chance to do a good turn to him as has done all for 'yees that yer own father could, an' more? Worn't that the lesson I've struv to larn ye this four year back, Teddy Ginniss?"
"Yes, mother," said the boy in a low voice.
"An' haven't I towld ye, that, so as ye did it, my blessin' was wid yees, an' so as ye turned yer back on it my cuss 'ud folly yees, an' the cuss uv God an' all his saints and angels?"
"Yes, mother."
"An it's yersilf that's tuck heed uv me words, an' done yer best to kape 'em; isn't it, me fine lad?" pursued the mother with bitter irony.
"I did always, mother, till"-began Teddy humbly; but his mother angrily interrupted him.
"Alluz till ye got the chance to do contrairy, an' plaze yersilf at his expense. Sure, an' it wor mighty perlite uv yees to wait that long, an' it's greatly obleeged to yees he shud be."
She waited a moment, standing before the boy, who, still seated droopingly in the chair where he had first fallen, his heavy eyes looking straight before him, offered neither reply nor remonstrance; while his mother, setting her hands upon her hips, looked scornfully at him a moment longer, and then exclaimed,-- "An' have ye niver a word to say for yersilf, ye white-livered coward? Is there niver anudder lie on yer tongue like thim ye found so handy this twelvemonth back? Git out uv me sight, ye spalpeen, and out uv me doors! Go find them as'll kape yees to stale rich folks' children, an' thin lie to the mother as bore yees, and the kind masther as tried to make a gintleman out uv a thafe. Begone, I say, Teddy Ginniss, and quit pizenin' the air of an honest woman's room wid yer prisince!"
Teddy rose, and was leaving the room without a word, but at the door turned back; looked long and wistfully at his mother, who had turned away, and affected not to see him; then slowly said,-- "Good-by, mother! It's worse nor you can I'm feeling. Good-by! If ever I come to any good, I'll let you know; and, if I don't, you're shut of me for always."
The mother made no answer; and Teddy, lingering one moment on the threshold to turn his sad eyes for the last time upon the familiar objects that had surrounded him since childhood, went out, and down the stairs.
In the street he paused a moment, looking up and down, wondering where he should first go, and how food and shelter for the coming night were to be obtained. The question yet unsolved, he was walking slowly on; when a voice far overhead called,-- "Teddy! -Teddy Ginniss! Come here, I say!"
It was his mother's voice; and, as he looked up, it was his mother's face and hand summoning him.
In the same forlorn, stunned way that he had come down, Teddy climbed the stairs again, feeling as if his feet were shod with lead, or the terrible weight at his heart was too heavy to be carried a step farther.
He pushed open the door of his mother's room, but never looked up or spoke, although he knew she stood close behind it. But, indeed, there could have been no time, had the boy wished to speak; for already his mother's arms were around his neck, and her head upon his stout shoulder, while the passionate tears fell like rain upon his hands.
"Ochone, ochone! An' it's me own an' only b'y yees are, an' must be, Teddy darlint; an' it's mesilf that 'ud be worse nor a haythin to turn yees inter the strate, so long as it's a roof an' a bit I have left for yees. An' sure, if ye've gone astray, it's the heart uv yees that's bruck wid frettin' afther it; an' there's a many as has done wuss, and niver a hape it harmed 'em here nor hereafter. An', if Michael wor here the day, it's himself 'ud say to pass it by; an' it wor little I should be plazin' his blissid sowl to turn yees off for one fault. Kiss yer owld mother, honey, an' be her own b'y again!"
"Thank you, mother," said Teddy, still in the strange, low voice he had used before; and, putting his arms round her neck, he met and returned her hearty kiss, and then, without another word, went and shut himself into the little loft he called his own, and was seen no more that night.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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24
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MR. BURROUGHS'S BUSINESS.
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It was the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 25: and Dora, sitting beside the bed where her little charge lay sleeping heavily, heard the rattle of wheels, and, peeping from the window, saw Karl jumping from the wagon, followed more slowly by a tall, handsome young gentleman, whom she concluded to be Mr. Burroughs; her cousin having gone to meet him at the railway-station, seven miles away.
"He's good-looking enough for a colonel," thought Dora, and then started back, coloring a little; for Mr. Burroughs, in entering the house, had glanced up, and caught her eye. The next minute, Kitty darted into the room from her own chamber.
"They've come! Did you see him? Isn't he a real beauty? I do love a tall man! -He's as tall as Mr. Brown, and his whiskers are ever so much prettier; but, then, Mr. Brown's a minister. My! How nice you look, Dora! Go right down, and I'll stay with little Molly."
Dora glanced involuntarily at the mirror, and caught the reflection of a bright face, surrounded by heavy chestnut curls, and lighted with clear hazel eyes, and flashing teeth, a head of queenly shape and poise, and a firm, graceful figure, well set off by its white dress, black bodice, and scarlet ribbons,--a charming picture, with the quaintly decorated chamber for background, and the heavy black frame of the old mirror for setting: and a brighter color washed into the young girl's cheek as she recognized the fact; but she only said,-- "Why do you call her Molly, Kitty?"
"Oh! just a fancy name. We must call her something, and can't find out her right name."
"She called it Sunshine," said Dora, bending to kiss the pale little face upon the pillow as she passed.
"Moonshine, more like," replied Kitty. "She didn't mean it for a name, of course. You didn't understand. But come: your beau is waiting."
"Don't, Kitty, please!"
"I might as well begin. Every man is a beau that comes near you. I never saw such luck!"
Dora opened her lips, closed them tightly, and left the room. The next moment she stood in the low doorway of the parlor, bowing gravely, but not shyly, to the stately gentleman, whose head grazed the great white beam in the ceiling as he came forward to meet her.
"Miss Darling, I presume," said he.
"Yes, sir; I am Dora Darling: and you are Mr. Burroughs; are you not?"
"At your service," said the gentleman, bowing again; and, handing Dora a chair, he took another for himself.
"Won't you have some water, or a glass of milk, after your drive, Mr. Burroughs?" asked Dora with anxious hospitality; and, as the gentleman confessed to an inclination for some water, she tripped away, and presently returned with a tumbler, which Mr. Burroughs very willingly took from her slender fingers instead of a salver.
"You know I was a vivandiŠre, sir," said Dora, smiling frankly; "and I always think of people being thirsty and tired when they come in so."
Mr. Burroughs smiled, too, as he handed back the empty glass.
"I wish we had all turned our army experiences to as good account," said he.
"Were you in the army?" asked Dora with sudden animation.
"Yes: I was lieutenant in the Massachusetts Sixth, and went through Baltimore with them," said Burroughs, tightening himself a little as the associations of military drill came back upon him.
"Oh! were you there? Wasn't it glorious to be the very first?" exclaimed Dora; and, with no further preamble, the two plunged into a series of army reminiscences and gossip, that kept them busy until Karl entered the room, saying,-- "Well, Dora, what do you think of Mr. Burroughs's news?"
"She has not heard it yet," said Mr. Burroughs, laughing a little. "We have been so busy talking over our army experiences, that we have not come to business."
"I am glad you have not; for I want to see how Dora will take it: but you will be grieved, as well as pleased, little girl."
"Yes," pursued Mr. Burroughs. "I am sorry to inform Miss Dora, that your friend Col. Blank is dead."
"Oh, Col. Blank dead!" exclaimed Dora, while a sudden shadow fell upon her bright face.
"I am very, very sorry," continued she. "Mr. Brown went to see him two months ago, and he was quite well then."
"Yes: this was rather a sudden illness; a fever, I believe. They tell me, that, since his wife died, he has never been very well, and at last was only ill three weeks."
"I am so sorry!" said Dora again. "He was very kind to me always."
"And no doubt died with feelings of affection and confidence for you, Miss, Dora; since he has made you his heir."
"Me!" exclaimed the young girl in a tone more of fright than of pleasure.
"Yes; and, although the property is not of any great available value at present, I think, if properly managed, it may, in the future, become something very handsome," said the lawyer.
"But I am so sorry Col. Blank is dead! Why, on Cheat Mountain, he seemed so strong and well! He was never tired on the marches, and hardly ever rode, but walked at the head of the column so straight and soldierly!"
The two men glanced at each other, then at her, and gravely smiled. The regret was so unaffected, so unselfish, and so unworldly, that each, after his own fashion, admired and marvelled at it. Mr. Burroughs was the first to speak; and, drawing a packet of papers from his pocket, he spread before Dora's sorrowful eyes a copy of Col. Blank's will, a plan of the estate bequeathed by it to her, and an official letter from Mr. Ferrars, the principal executor. This Mr. Ferrars, the lawyer informed his young client, was a personal friend of his own, and had placed the matter in his hands, thinking that the news might be more satisfactorily arranged by an interview than by correspondence.
"And, as I was coming East at the time, I could very conveniently call to see you on my way home," concluded Mr. Burroughs.
"Thank you, sir," said Dora meekly; and then, rather sadly, but very patiently, listened while the lawyer described the property she had inherited, and indicated the best course to pursue with regard to it.
"You will perceive, Miss Dora, that the bulk of the estate consists of this large tract of territory in Iowa, containing a great deal of valuable timber, a hundred or so common-sized farms of superb soil, and prairie-land enough to graze all the herds of the West.
"Col. Blank had just invested all his property, except the estate in Cincinnati, in the purchase of this tract, and was about to remove thither, when Mrs. Blank died; and, as I said, he never seemed quite himself after that event, and took no further steps toward emigration. The house in Cincinnati might sell, Mr. Ferrars thought, for three or four thousand dollars; enough, you see, to make a beginning at 'Outpost,' as the colonel called it."
"Did he name the Iowa farm Outpost?" asked Dora rather eagerly.
"Yes: you see the name is written on this map of the estate."
"Then we will call it so; won't we, Karl?"
"But you don't advise my cousin to emigrate to the backwoods, do you, Mr. Burroughs?" asked Karl disapprovingly.
"It is the only method of reaping any immediate benefit from her inheritance," said the lawyer. "The territory is valuable, very; but would not sell to-day for anything like the price paid by Col. Blank, who fancied its situation, and intended to live there. The only way to get back the money is to hold the land until better times, or until emigration reaches the Des Moines more freely than it has yet done."
"I shall certainly go there and live," said Dora with quiet positiveness.
"You have decided?" asked Mr. Burroughs, looking into her face, and smiling.
"Quite," said Dora.
Karl looked too, saw the firm line of the young girl's rosy lips, and slightly raised his eyebrows.
"It is settled," said he with comic resignation.
Dora returned his gaze wistfully. She could not, in presence of a stranger, say what was in her heart: but she longed to let him know that this prospect of independence, of making a home of her own, of assuming duties and pursuits of her own, was such a prospect as no friend could wish her to forego; was the full and only cure for the bitterness of heart she had been unable to conceal from him upon the previous evening,--a bitterness so foreign to the sweet and noble nature of the young girl, that it had affected her cousin's mind with a sort of terror.
Something of all she meant must have stood visibly in the clear eyes Dora now fixed upon Karl; for, in meeting that gaze, the young man changed color, and said hastily,-- "But if you will be happier, Dora; if you are not contented here-It is a humdrum sort of life, I know."
"Oh, no! not that; but I want to be doing something. I mean something almost more than I can do, not ever so much less. I like to feel as if I must use every bit of strength and courage I have, and then I always find more than I thought I had."
Mr. Burroughs looked sharply at the young girl who made this ungirlish avowal. Was this utter simplicity? or was it an ingenious affectation? Was Dora Darling one of the noblest, or one of the most crafty, of womankind?
Tom Burroughs was a man of the world and of society, and flattered himself that neither man nor woman had art deeper than his penetration; but as he rapidly scanned the broad brow, clear, level-glancing eyes, firm, sweet mouth, queenly head, and mien of innocent self-confidence, he asked himself again,-- "Is it the perfection of art, or can it be the perfection of nature?"
But Karl was saying rather gloomily,-- "And what is to become of us, Dora?"
"Kitty and you?" asked Dora, open-eyed. "Why, of course, you are to come too! Did you suppose I wanted to leave you? Of course, it is your home and mine, just as this house has been: we are all one family, you know."
"To be sure. Well, I fancy there will be something for me to do on your Outpost farm. You must make me overseer."
"No: you shall be confidential adviser; but I am going to oversee every thing myself, and you must go on with your medical studies."
"You are going to become practical farmer, then?" asked Mr. Burroughs, raising his eyebrows never so slightly.
"Yes, sir; not to really work with my own hands out of doors, you know, but to see to every thing. At first, I shan't understand much about it, I suppose; but I shall learn, and I shall be so happy!"
"And how soon will you be ready to go?" asked Mr. Burroughs.
Dora considered for a moment, "To-day is Thursday. I think we might start Monday morning; couldn't we, Karl?"
"And meantime sell this place and furniture?" asked Mr. Windsor, smiling.
"Not sell, but let the place. There is Jacob Minot would be glad to hire it, and a good tenant too. As for the furniture, we had better carry it with us. Shall we have to build a house when we get there, Mr. Burroughs?"
"Yes. Col. Blank had selected a site, and made some little beginning: I believe nothing more than having the land cleared and a cellar dug, however. You will begin with a log-cabin; shall you not?"
"Yes: I suppose so. Well, Karl, mightn't we start on Monday?"
"Not in heavy marching order, I am afraid; but very soon, if you are quite determined."
"Yes, quite; but what will Kitty think?" asked Dora suddenly.
"Oh! I think she will like it. Here she comes, and we can ask her."
The crisp rustle of muslin skirts swept down the stairs; and Mr. Burroughs, turning his head, saw standing in the doorway a tall, handsome brunette, with masses of black hair rolled away from a low forehead, glancing black eyes, and ripe lips, showing just now the sparkle of white teeth between, as the young lady half waited for an introduction before entering.
"Mr. Burroughs, Kitty; my sister, sir," said Karl, rising, and handing a chair to Kitty, who, with rather too wide a sweep of her bright muslin skirts, seated herself, and said, half laughing,-- "I suppose you are through with your secrets by this time?"
"We were just wanting to tell you the new plan, and see how you will like it," said Dora quickly; for she felt an involuntary dread lest Kitty should, in presence of this courteous stranger, say something to do herself discredit.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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25
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MAN VERSUS DOG.
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Mr. Burroughs staid to tea, and, while it was being prepared, strolled with Karl about the little farm; looked at the Alderney cow, the Suffolk pigs, the span of Morgan horses named Pope and Pagan; quietly sounded the depths of Capt. Karl's open and joyous nature, and made him talk of his cousin Dora, and reveal his love and his hopes regarding her.
"They will marry out there, and she will manage him, and make him very happy," thought Mr. Burroughs, returning toward the farmhouse, and admiring the long slope of the mossy roof, and the clinging masses of woodbine creeping to the ridge-pole.
"You won't make so picturesque a thing of your new home for several years to come, if ever, Mr. Windsor," added he aloud.
"No, I suppose not; but the genius of our people is more for beginning than ending, and this old place was built by my grandfather," said the young man.
"An excellent and most American reason for deserting it," said Mr. Burroughs gravely; "and, if you are thinking of selling, I should like the opportunity of becoming purchaser. This sort of thing is going out of the market, and I should like to secure a specimen before it is too late. It is same as a picture, except that it is stationary, and one must come to it instead of carrying it away in triumph."
"I think we may like to sell; but I must consult my sister and cousin first," said Karl rather gravely: for, after all, he did not just like the tone assumed by this fine city gentleman in speaking of the place that had been a home to Karl and his ancestors for more than a century. The quick tact of the lawyer perceived the slight wound he had given, and repaired it by carelessly saying,-- "And, besides the beauty of the place, I should be proud possessing any thing that had belonged to a grandfather. My family has been so migratory, that I can hardly say I had a grandfather or not: certainly I have not the remotest idea where he lived."
Capt. Karl laughed.
"Our family has been settled here since the days of the Pilgrims" said he; "and Kitty could show you a family chart, as large as a table-cloth, of which she is mightily proud, although I never could see any particular benefit it has been to us."
"And Miss Dora-is she fond of recalling her ancestors and their fame? or is she satisfied with her own?" asked Mr. Burroughs.
"I don't believe it ever occurred to her that either she or they deserved any," said Karl, laughing. "You never knew a creature so entirely simple and self-forgetful in your life, and yet of so wide and noble a nature. She is never so happy as in doing good to other people."
"But likes to do it in her own way?" suggested the lawyer pleasantly.
"Likes to do it in the best way, and her own way is sure to be that," replied Karl somewhat decidedly; and Mr. Burroughs smiled and bowed.
In the, doorway, under the swinging branch of the tall sweetbrier, suddenly appeared Kitty, her brown face becoming flushed, and the buttons of her under-sleeves not yet adjusted.
"Tea is ready; will you please to walk in, Mr. Burroughs?" said she: and the guest followed, well pleased, to the wide, cool kitchen, with its white, scoured floor, its vine-shaded windows and open door giving a view of broad meadow-lands, with a brook curling crisply through them, and a dark pine-wood beyond. In the centre stood the neat tea-table, with its country dainties of rich cream, yellow butter, custards, ripe peaches sliced and served with sugar, buttermilk-biscuit, and the fresh sponge-cake, on which Kitty justly prided herself.
"You see we are plain country-folks, and eat in the kitchen, Mr. Burroughs," said she, with a little laugh, as they seated themselves.
"Is this room called a kitchen? You amuse yourself by jesting with my ignorance," said Mr. Burroughs, looking about him with affected simplicity. "If ever I should live here, I would call this the refreshing-room; for I can imagine nothing more soothing to eyes weary of a summer sun than these vine-covered windows, and the cool greens of that meadow and the pine-forest beyond."
Kitty smiled a little vaguely, half inclined to insist upon the kitchen-side of the question; when Karl asked, in a disappointed tone,-- "Where is Dora? Isn't she coming?"
"Not yet. Molly waked up, and Dora is giving her some supper. She said she would come as soon as she had done. You didn't know, Mr. Burroughs, that Dora has an adopted child, did you?"
"No, indeed. She is young to undertake such responsibility," said Mr. Burroughs a little curiously.
"This is a little foreigner too, that Dora picked up in the road. No one knows who she may be, or what dreadful people may come after her any day. Dora is so queer!"
"Will you have a biscuit, Kitty? Mr. Burroughs, let me give you some of this peach? We shall be sorry to leave our peach-orchard behind in going to the West. I suppose, however, one can soon be started there."
And Karl, determined not to allow Kitty the chance of making any of her spiteful little speeches about Dora in presence of the visitor, kept the conversation upon purely impersonal topics, until they rose from table, and the two gentlemen strolled out upon the porch at the western door; while Kitty ran up to call Dora, whom she found sitting beside the bed, with Sunshine's head lying upon her arm.
"Isn't she asleep?" whispered Kitty.
The child half opened her eyes, and murmured drowsily,-- "I want to ride on the elephant. It's my little wife."
"What did she say, Dora?"
"Hush! She is out of her head, I think. She has been saying I was her little wife," whispered Dora.
"Well, that's English, anyway," replied Kitty, staring at the child. "What do you suppose she is?"
"I don't know. There, pet, there! Hus-h!" As she spoke, Dora carefully withdrew her arm from under the little head, where, in the August night, the hair clung in moist golden spirals, and a soft dew stood upon the white forehead.
"I'll stay and fan her for a while longer, she looks so warm," whispered Dora.
"No, no! come down and eat your supper, and help clear away. Charley asked Mr. Burroughs to stay all night, and I guess he will. Isn't he real splendid? Come down, and talk about him."
Sunshine slept soundly; and Dora, half reluctantly, suffered herself to be led away by her cousin, closing the door softly behind her, and leaving the little child to dreams of a home so far away, and yet so near; of a vanished past, that, even in this moment, stretched a detaining hand from out the darkness, groping for her own; of human love immortal as heaven, and yet, for the moment, less trustworthy than the instinct of the brutes: for if Mr. Thomas Burroughs, instead of being a highly cultivated and intellectual man, had been a dog of only average intelligence, 'Toinette Legrange would already have been discovered and, before another sunset, the slow agony devouring her mother's heart would have been relieved.
But to each of us our gifts; and Mr. Burroughs, never suspecting how deficient were his own, strolled with his host beneath the trees, until the appearance of the young ladies upon the porch; when he joined them, and resumed his conversation with Dora. From army matters, the talk soon wandered to the new prospects of Col. Blank's heiress; and Mr. Burroughs found himself first amused, then animated and interested, quite beyond his wont, in the young girl's plans and expectations.
It was late when the party separated; and as the guest closed the door of the rosy-room, and cast an admiring glance over its neat appointments, he muttered to himself,-- "What a bright, fresh little room! and what a brighter, fresher little girl! -as different from thy city friends, Tom Burroughs, as the cream she pours is from the chalky composition of the hotels. Thou dost half persuade me to turn Hoosier, and help thee convert the wilderness to a blooming garden, O darlingest of Darlings!"
And as the young man, with a half-smile upon his lips, set sail for the vague and beautiful shores of Dreamland, a bright, sweet face lighted by two earnest eyes, seemed to herald him the way, and join itself to all his fairest fancies.
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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26
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MRS. GINNISS HAS A VISITOR.
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HEAVILY went the days in the lowly home of Mrs. Ginniss and her son. Teddy sought early and late for employment, disdaining nothing, however humble, whereby he might earn a few cents, and working as diligently at street-sweeping, dust-gathering, errand-running, or horse-holding, as he had ever done in the way of gaining an education under the kind tuition of his late master.
Every night he brought home some small sum, and silently placed it in his mother's hand; nor, though she urged it, would he retain a penny for himself, or indulge in any of the small luxuries he had in former days enjoyed so much.
"Go buy a wather-million, honey, or get an ice-crame; sure it's nothin' at all ye're atin'," the fond mother would say: but Teddy always shook his head, or, if the matter were urged, took his cap and went out, always with the weary step that had become habitual to him, and returned no more until bedtime.
"It's frettin' himsilf to his grave the crather is," said poor Mrs. Ginniss, and tried in many a motherly way to make home pleasant to her boy, and to re-awaken the ambition that seemed quite dead in his heart. No more reading aloud now, of which he had been so fond; no more recitals of interesting or humorous scenes in office or street; no more wise opinions upon public events: all the boy's boyish conceit and self-esteem, germs in a strong character of worthy self-- respect, seemed crushed out of him. Patient, humble, silent, one could hardly recognize in this Teddy Ginniss that other Teddy, whose cheery voice, frequent laugh, positive opinions and wishes, and good-humored self-satisfaction, had been the leading features of his modest home.
Poor Mrs. Ginniss longed to be contradicted or instructed or laughed at once more, and fought against her son's submissive respect as another mother might have done against disobedience or insolence.
"Can't ye be mad nor yet be merry at nothin', Teddy?" asked she impatiently one day.
"I'm thinking I'll never be merry again, mother," said Teddy sadly, as he left the room.
It was in the afternoon of the same day, that Mrs. Ginniss, sitting at her sewing in melancholy mood enough, heard a little tap at her door, and, opening it, found upon the threshold a lady, elegant in her simple dress of gray, who asked,-- "Are you Mrs. Ginniss?"
"Yes, ma'am; I'm that same," said the laundress, staring strangely at the lovely face framed in a shower of feathery golden ringlets, and lighted by large violet eyes as sad as they were sweet.
"Will ye be plazed to walk in, ma'am?" continued she. "It's but a poor place for the likes uv yees."
The lady made no reply, but, gliding into the room, stood for a moment looking about it, and then turning to the Irish woman, who still regarded her in the same awestruck manner, said piteously,-- "I am her mother!"
"Sure an' I knowed it the minute I sot eyes on ye; for it's the same swate face, an' eyes that's worse nor cryin, ye've got; an' the same way of a born lady, so quite an' so grand. Och! it wor a purty darlint, it wor; an' it's me own heart that's sore for her the day, forbye your'n that's her borned mother; and, if it wor my own life that 'ud fetch her back to yees"-- But here the long breath on which Mrs. Ginniss had started came to an end, and with it the impulse of consolation and self-defence that had so far sustained her; and with a wild cry of "Wurra, wurra! och the black day that's in it!" she sank upon a chair, and buried her head in her apron, sobbing loudly.
The visitor, hardly regarding her, still stood in the centre of the little room, her sad eyes wandering over its humble furniture and adornments as if each one were a relic.
"Are there some little things of hers, clothes or playthings or books,--any thing she touched or loved?" asked she presently in a hushed voice.
Mrs. Ginniss, still crying, rose, and opened a drawer in the pine bureau, which, with a looking-glass and some vases of blue china upon it, stood as the ornamental piece of furniture of the place.
"Here they bees, ivery one uv 'em, and poor enough for her, an' yit the bist we could git," said she.
More as a bird, long restrained and suddenly set free, would dart toward the tree where nest and young awaited it, than in the ordinary mode of human movement, the mother, so long hungering for smallest tidings of her child, darted upon this sudden mine of wealth, and, bending low, seemed to caress each object with her eyes before touching it. Then tearing off her gloves, she laid her white fingers softly upon the coarse garments, the broken toys, the few worn books, and bits of paper covered with pencil-marks, the strip of gay patchwork with the needle still sticking in it, and the little brass thimble upon it.
At one end of the drawer stood a little pair of slippers, with some slightly soiled white stockings rolled up and laid within them. At sight of these, a low cry-it might have been of pain, it might have been of joy-crept from between the pale lips of the mother; and, reverently lifting the little shoes, she kissed them again and again, in an eager, longing fashion, as one might kiss the lips of a dying child whom human love may yet recall to human life.
"Thim's the little shlippers that Teddy saved his bit uv spinding-money till he could buy for her, bekase he said the fut uv her wor too purty to put in sich sthrong shoe's as I'd got; and thin it was mesilf that saved the white little shtockings out uv me tay an' sugar; an' it's like a little fairy (save me for spakin' the word) that she lucked in 'em."
Pressing the little shoes close to her bosom with both hands, the mother turned those mournful eyes upon the speaker, listening to every word, and, at the end, said eagerly,-- "Tell me some more! Tell me every thing she said and did! Oh! was she happy?"
The word had grown so strange upon her lips and in her heart, that, as she said it, all the tense chords, so long attuned to grief, thrilled with a sharp discord; and, turning yet paler than before, she sank upon a chair, and, leaning her forehead on the edge of the open drawer, wept such tears as, pray God, happy mothers, you and I may never weep.
"O my baby, my baby! O my little child!" moaned she again and again, until the tender heart of the Irish woman could endure no longer; and, coming to the side of her guest, she knelt beside her, and put her arms about the slender figure that shook with every sob, and drew the bright head to rest upon her own shoulder.
"O ye poor darlint! ye poor, young crather, that's got the black sorrer atin' inter yer heart, all the same as if ye wor owld an' mane an' oogly, like mesilf! -it's none but Him aboov as kin comfort yees. Blissid Vargin, as was a moother yersilf, an' knowed a moother's pains an' a moother's love, an' all the ins an' outs uv a moother's heart, luck down on this young moother an' help her, an' spake to thim as can help her betther nor yees, an' give back her child; bekase ye mind the time yer own Howly Child wor lost, an' ye sought him sorrerin'; an' ye mind the joy an' the comfort that wor in it whin he was foun'. Och Mother of Jasus! hear us this day, if niver again."
As the passionate prayer ended, the lady raised her head, and kissed the tear-stained cheek of the petitioner.
"Thank you," said she. "I know that you were good to her, and that she loved you; but, oh! did she forget me so soon?"
Alas poor human heart whose purest impulses are tinged with selfishness! You who have lost your nearest and dearest, can you say from your inmost soul that you would be content to know yourself and all of earth forgotten, or that it is sorrow to you to fancy that a lingering memory, a faint regret for the love you so lavished, stains the perfection of heavenly bliss?
Tact is not a matter of breeding; and Chesterfield or Machiavelli could have found no better answer than that of Mrs. Ginniss:-- "Sure, honey, it wor alluz she remembered yees, an' longed for yees; though the little crather wor that yoong, an' the faver had so poot her about, that she didn' know what it wor she wanted nor missed; but it wor 'mother' as wor writ in the blue eyes uv her as plain as prentin'."
"And was she very, very sick?" asked the sad voice again.
"The sickest crather that iver coom back from hivin's gate," replied the other; and then, seating herself beside her visitor, she began at the beginning, and gave a long detail of the circumstances attending Cherry's first appearance in the garret, and her subsequent illness and convalescence. Then came the story of her acquaintance with Giovanni; her passion for dancing and singing with him; and finally their flight, and the consternation and sorrow of her adopted mother.
Mrs. Legrange listened to every thing with the most profound attention, asking now and then a question, or uttering an exclamation; even smiling faintly at mention of the child's graceful dancing and sweet voice in singing.
"Yes, she had an extraordinary ear for music," murmured she; "and to think of her remembering being called Cerito!"
Nor did the mother fail to notice how the whole coarse fabric of the Irish woman's story was embroidered with a golden thread of love and admiration, and even reverence, for the exquisite little creature she had cherished and cared for so tenderly.
"Yes, you loved her; and I love you for it, and will always be your friend. But Teddy?" asked she at last; for Mrs. Ginniss, through the whole story, had carefully avoided all mention of her son, except in the most casual and general fashion. Now, however, she boldly answered,-- "An' its mesilf loved the purty crather well; but my love kim no nearer the love the b'y had for her than the light of a taller candle does to the sun in hiven. He loved her that sthrong, that it med him do a mane thing in kapin' her whin he knowed who she wor; but sure it's betther ter sin fer love than ter sin fer sin's sake."
Mrs. Legrange smiled sadly. To her it had seemed, from the first, small matter of surprise, however great of regret, that Teddy should have found 'Toinette's attractions irresistible; or that, having once appropriated her as his little sister, he should have found it almost impossible to relinquish her.
She had not, therefore, shared at all in the indignation of her cousin and husband toward the boy, and had even solicited the former to retain him in his employ. But Mr. Burroughs, kind, generous, and forbearing as he was, cherished implacable ideas of integrity and honor, and never forgave an offence against either, whether in friend or servant; so that his cousin had finally withdrawn her request, asking, instead, that he should conduct her to Mrs. Ginniss's dwelling, and leave the rest to her. This the young man had consented to do; and, as Mrs. Legrange would not allow him to wait for her, he had privately instructed James to do so, and had not left the outer door until he saw that faithful servitor upon guard.
Just what were her own intentions with regard to Teddy, or his mother, Mrs. Legrange did not herself know; and, once arrived in the room where 'Toinette had lived out the weary months since her loss, all other ideas had faded and disappeared before the memories there confronting her. Now, however, the sweet and generous nature of the woman re-asserted itself, and she kindly said,-- "Yes: I see how great Teddy's temptation was, and I cannot wonder that he yielded to it. Any one would have found it hard to part with 'Toinette; and he, poor boy! could not know how I was suffering. It would have been different if you had known who she was."
"Indade an' it would. One moother can fale fer another; but these childhren hasn't the sinse till they gits the sorrer. Small fear that Teddy'll iver go asthray agin from light-heartedness."
"Does he feel very sorry, then?" asked Mrs. Legrange timidly.
"Sorry isn't the word, ma'am. It's his own heart as he consumes day an' night," said Mrs. Ginniss gloomily.
"Because she is lost, or because he kept her in the first place?" asked the lady.
"It's hard tellin', an' he niver spakin' whin he can help it; but I belave it's all together. He wor sich a bowld b'y, an' so sthrong for risin' in the world; an' wor alluz sayin' as he'd be a gintleman afore he died, an' readin' his bit books and writins, an' tillin' me about the way the counthry wor goin'; an', right or wrong, it's he wor ready to guide the whole of 'em. An', sure, it wor wondherful to see the sinse that wor in him when he get spakin' of thim things; an' one day, whin I said to him,-- "'Sure, Teddy, an', if it's one or tither of 'em is Prisident, what differ'll it make to us?' An' he says, says he, 'Whist, moother! fer one day, mabbe, it's I'll be the Prisident mesilf; an' what way 'ud that be fer me moother to be talkin'?'
"But now it's no sich talk ye'll git out uv him, an' niver a laugh nor a joke, nor the bit bowld ways he used to have wid him. An' och, honey! if ye've lost yer purty darlint, it's I've lost me b'y that wor as mooch to me; an' it's I'm the heavy-hearted woman, this' day an' alluz."
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{
"id": "4676"
}
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27
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TEDDY FINDS A NEW PATRON.
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TEDDY, dragging his heavy feet up the stairs in the stifling September twilight, paused suddenly to listen to a murmur of voices in his mother's room.
Some one was speaking; and the pure, clear tone sent a thrill through his veins like the shock of an electric battery. No voice but one had ever sounded like that to him; and, springing up the remaining stairs, Teddy threw open the door of the chamber, and looked eagerly about it.
The one for whom he looked was not there; but, instead, a lady, whose fragile loveliness reminded him so strangely of the little sister as she had looked in her long days of convalescence, that he stood still, staring dumbly.
"An' where's yer manners, Teddy Ginniss? Couldn' ye see the lady forenenst ye, widout starin' like a stuck pig? -It's dazed he is, ma'am, wid seein' the likes uv yees in this poor place."
"Come here, Teddy; I am waiting to see you," said the lady. And again the pure, silvery tones tingled along Teddy's nerves with a sharp, sweet thrill.
"O ma'am! are you her mother?" cried he breathlessly.
"Yes, I am her mother, and have come to see you, who loved her so well, and your good mother, who cared for her when she was motherless"-- The sweet voice faltered, and Teddy broke in,-- "And you needn't be afraid to say the worst that can be said, ma'am. I've said it all before; and you can't hate me worse than I hate myself."
"Hate you, my poor boy? I only pity you; for I have heard, and can see, how much you suffer. I cannot wonder that you should love her so well; and, when you knew who she was, I dare say you were meaning to restore her, so soon as you could bring yourself to it."
"Indeed I was, ma'am. I can take God to witness that I was," said Teddy solemnly, his eyes brimming, and his face working with the strong emotion he tried so hard to subdue.
"I am sure of it; and I love you more for the love you bore her than I blame you for the fault that love led you into." She paused a moment; and then the insatiate mother pride and love burst out, demanding sympathy.
"She was a lovely child, wasn't she, Teddy?" asked she with a tremulous smile.
The boy's rough face lighted, as if by reflection from her own, as he replied,-- "O ma'am! it's so good of you to let me talk about her! There was never another like her in all the world, I believe. I used to take her walking Sundays, and look at all the children we met (some of them rich folks' children, and dressed all out in their best); but there was never one could hold a candle to my little sister. Oh! and I hope you'll forgive me that word, ma'am; for I know it's no business I had ever to call her so, or think of her so; but I was so proud of her!"
"I don't need to forgive you, Teddy. It shows how much you loved her; and that is what I like to think best."
"But if you please, ma'am, will you tell me what is doing about looking for her?" asked Teddy eagerly.
"Very little now," answered the lady sadly. "The police traced Giovanni, the Italian organ-grinder, to the station, where he took the cars for the West. At Springfield, a man answering to his description, with a little girl, staid all night; and next day the child danced-in the streets."
The mother's face grew deadly pale as she said the last words, and she paused a moment. Teddy turned away his head, and Mrs. Ginniss groaned aloud. Mrs. Legrange went on hurriedly:-- "Where they went afterwards is not yet discovered; but they are looking everywhere. It seems so strange"-- She fell into a momentary revery, thinking, as she thought so many, many times in every day, how hard and strange it seemed that no clew could be found to her lost darling beyond the terrible day that saw her dancing in the public streets,--an ignominy, that, to the lady's sensitive mind, seemed almost equivalent to death.
Perhaps it would have been kinder had her husband and cousin told her the worst they knew or suspected, and allowed her to mourn her child as dead. The acute detective in whose hands the new clew had been placed had not only traced the fugitives to Springfield, as Mrs. Legrange had said, but had ascertained at what hour they left the hotel for the railway-station. It was impossible, however, to discover for what point the Italian had purchased tickets, as the station-master had no recollection of him, and the baggage-master was sure he had seen "no sich lot" as was described to him.
And, from Springfield, a man may take passage to almost any point in the Union. One startling fact remained, and upon this fact the whole report of the detective turned.
The train leaving Springfield for Albany upon the night when Giovanni left that town, encountered, at a certain point, another train, which, by some incomprehensible stupidity, was supposed to have passed that point half an hour before.
Consequences as usual,--frightful loss of life; a game of give and take in the newspapers, as to who should bear the blame, finally resulting in a service of plate to one party, and a donation in money to the other; several lawsuits brought by enterprising widowers who demand consolation for the loss of their wives; by other men, who, having skulked the draft, now found themselves minus both legs and glory; by spinsters whose bandboxes had been crushed, and by young ladies whose beauty had suffered damage from broken noses and scattered teeth.
But, among all these sufferers, not one remembered seeing an Italian organ-grinder with a little girl until, at the very last, a small boy was found, who averred, that, on the morning after the disaster, he had seen a sort of box, with a little creature chained to the top of it, floating down the river; and that the little creature had seemed very much scared, and kept laughing, and showing all his teeth; and that they had gone on and out of sight. And that was all he knew about it.
The river! -what use to question those dark and swollen waters? what use to demand of them the bright form, that, it might be, slept beneath them? -it might be, had been washed piecemeal to the ocean?
At the brink of that river, mournful and terrible as Styx, river of the dead, ended, that night, the story of many a life; and why not that of the child so strangely lost, so nearly recovered, and now, perhaps, lost again forever?
"We have found her, I am afraid, Tom," said Mr. Legrange to his cousin, as the detective closed his report, and his two hearers looked at each other. "But," added the father, "keep on; keep every engine at work; search everywhere; spend any amount of money that is needful; leave no chance untried. Remember, the reward is always ready." And, when they were alone, he added,-- "But, Tom, don't tell her. She can't bear it as we can. Poor little Sunshine!" And, to show how well he bore it, the father hid his face, and sobbed like a woman.
"No, I won't say any thing," said Tom Burroughs in a strange, choked voice. And so we come back to Mrs. Legrange wistfully saying, "It seems so strange"-- And then, with the patience of a woman, she put aside her own great grief, and added,-- "But, Teddy, I am going to do something for you; and what shall it be? You wish to be educated; do you not?"
"O ma'am! but I've give it up now."
Mrs. Legrange smiled at the sudden enthusiasm and the sudden blank upon the boy's face, and answered, almost gayly,-- "But I have not given it up for you, Teddy.-By the way, Mrs. Ginniss, is that your son's real name? -his whole name, I mean?"
"It's short for Taodoor, I'm thinkin', ma'am; but joost Teddy we alluz calls it."
"Ah, yes! Theodore. That is a very nice name, and will sound better, when he comes to be a lawyer or doctor or minister, than Teddy. Don't you think so?"
"Ye're right, ma'am: it's a dale the dacenter name uv the two; an' Taodoor I'll call him iver an' always," said Mrs. Ginniss complacently.
"I was thinking more of what other people would call him," said Mrs. Legrange, smiling a little. "Some friends of mine are interested in a school and college at the West,--somewhere in Ohio, I believe. It is a very fine school and the West is the place for a young man who means to rise. So, Theodore, if you would like to go, I shall be very happy to see to all your expenses until you graduate, and to help you about settling in a profession, or in trade, as you like."
Teddy's healthy face turned deadly white; and, although his lips trembled violently, not a word came from between them. But Mrs. Ginniss, raising hands and eyes to heaven, called down such a shower of blessings from so many and varied sources, in such an inimitable brogue, that the pen refuses to transcribe her rhapsody, as Mrs. Legrange failed to comprehend more than the half of it.
"I am glad you are pleased; and it pleases me as much as it can you," said she, half frightened at the Celtic vehemence of the other's manner and language.
"I can't say what I want to, ma'am," spoke a low voice beside her; "but if you'll believe I'm grateful, and wait till some time when I can show it better than I can now-that time will come, if we both live. And when I'm a man, if she isn't found first, I'll go the world round but I'll find her, and Jovarny too: I'll promise that."
A wan smile played over the lovely face, as Mrs. Legrange, laying her hand upon the boy's, said kindly,-- "If she is not found before then, Teddy, I shall not be here to know it."
Then going to the drawer, still standing open, she said,-- "May I have some of these little things, Mrs. Ginniss; not all,--for I know that you love them too,--but some of them?"
So Mrs. Ginniss made a package of the relics; and Teddy asked and obtained the privilege of carrying it home for his new friend, while James stalked discontentedly behind.
Upon the way, Mrs. Legrange said quietly, "I left a little money in the drawer, Theodore. It is to buy you some new clothes, and whatever else you and your mother need most. And I have just thought of something else. How would your mother like living in the country?"
"Very much, ma'am, I think. Her father had a farm in Ireland, and she is mighty fond of telling about it."
"Well, Mr. Legrange has recently made me a present of a nice old farmhouse somewhere in the western part of the State, thinking I might like to go there for a few weeks in the summer. It is a lovely place, they say; and, if your mother would like it, she might go there and keep the house for me. A man is going to take care of the farm, and he could board with her."
"That would be first-rate, ma'am," said Teddy enthusiastically. "But you're doing too much for us entirely."
"You were kind to her, Teddy; and I cannot do too much for you," said Mrs. Legrange, lowering her veil.
|
{
"id": "4676"
}
|
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