Published as part of ELTeC
HEART AND CROSS.
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT.
AUTHOR OF “MARGARET MAITLAND,” “ADAM GRAEME,” “THE LAST OF THE MORTIMERS,” “THE LAIRD OF MORLAW,” ETC., ETC.
IN ONE VOLUME.
NEW YORK: JAMES G. GREGORY. 1863.
I know no reason why I should begin my story of the fortunes of the Harleys by a
description of my own son. Perhaps it is just because there is no reason whatever that I feel
so much disposed to do it—also because the appearance of that son is the only difference that
has come to my own life since last my unknown friends heard of me, and because there is quite
an exhilaration in thinking that here is a new audience to whom I am at liberty to introduce
the second Derwent Crofton. This story is not in the least about my boy, and, in consequence,
it is quite an unusual delight to be able to drag him in head and shoulders. Women are not
logical, as everybody knows.
My son, then, is, at the present writing, exactly
Little Derwent, however, has none of the sentimental qualities, which might be expected from
an only child. He has indemnified himself in the oddest fashion for the want of those nursery
friendships which sweeten the beginning of life. In the oddest fashion! I am almost ashamed to
confess—I admit it with natural blushes and hesitation—that this little boy of ours is the most
inveterate gossip that ever was born! Yes, there is no use disguising the fact, gossiping,
plain, naked, and unsophisticated, is the special faculty
And only to imagine the difference which that pair of blue eyes has wrought in our great
house and our calm life! My husband and I were, to be sure, “very happy,” as people say,
before; as happy as two people can make each other, by a hearty and sincere love and cordial
union; the climax of happiness we would have thought it, each in our separate thoughts, when we lived
By dint of perpetual pin-pricks and unceasing agitation, I had managed to drive Derwent into
Parliament, where he somewhat solaced me by his intense affliction and sufferings during the
season of Parliamentary martyrdom, and was himself happier during the rest of the year in the
relief of escaping that treadmill; but the content that had fluttered off from my heart, when I
had only my husband and myself to think of, came with a flash of magic in the train of the
little heir. All life glowed and brightened up with a different interest—there were no longer
only ourselves who had attained all that was attainable in our own mature and settled
existence; but this new living, loving creature, with all the possibilities of life burning
upon his fresh horizon. The picture changed as if by enchantment; the
he should
influence—to the former age, which had hailed our entrance as we hailed his.
One cannot be content with the foot-breadth of human soil that supports one’s own weight—one
must thrust out one’s hands before and behind. I felt that we fell into our due place in the
world’s generations, and laid hold upon the lineal chain of humanity when little Derwent went
forth before us, trusted to our guidance—the next generation—the Future to us, as to the world.
“I suppose, Clare,” said Mr. Crofton to me one morning at breakfast, “that Alice
Harley has made up her mind, like somebody I once knew, to live for other people, and on no
account to permit herself to be married—is it so?”
“I really cannot undertake to say whether she is like that person you once knew,” said I,
somewhat demurely. I had some hopes that she was—I was much inclined to imagine that it was a
youthful prepossession, of which, perhaps, she herself was unaware, that kept Alice Harley an
unmarried woman; but of course I was not going to say so even to Derwent, who, with all his
good qualities, was after all only a man. An unmarried woman!—that I should call my pretty
Alice by that harsh, mature, common-place name! But I am sorry to say the appellation was quite
a just one. She was nearer eight and twenty than eighteen, now-a-days; she had no love, no
engagement, no sentimental gossip at all to be made about her. I will not undertake to say
“Because,” said Derwent, with the old affectionate laugh, and glance of old love-triumph over his old wife, which he never outgrew or exhausted, “there is that very good fellow, our new Rector, would give his ears for such a wife—and from all I can see, would suit her famously; which, by the way, Clare, now that her mother is so dependent on her, is not what every man would. You should say a good word for Reredos—it is your duty to look after your protégée’s establishment in life.”
I confess when Derwent said these words a great temptation came to me. It suddenly flashed
upon my mind that Alice in the Rectory would be my nearest neighbor, and the most pleasant of
possible companions. At the same moment, and in the light of that momentary selfish
illumination, it also became suddenly visible to me that my dear girl had a great many notions
which I rather disapproved of, and was rapidly confirming herself in that rôle of
unmarried woman, which, having once rather taken to
“Mamma,” said little Derwent, who heard everything without listening, “the housekeeper at the
Rectory has a son in the Guards—like the men in the steel-coats that you showed me when we went
to London; the other sons are all comfortable, she says; but this one, when she speaks of
him, she puts up her apron to her eyes. Mamma, I want to know if it is wicked to go
for a soldier—Sally Yeoman’s son ’listed last year, and she puts up her apron to her
eyes. Now, my cousin Bertie is in India—was it wicked in him to go for a soldier?—or what’s the
good of people being sad when people ’list?—eh, mamma?”
“Did you ever see anybody sad about your cousin Bertie?” said I, with a sudden revulsion of feeling and the profoundest interest.
“N—no,” said little Derwent. He applied himself after that devoutly to his bread and
jam—there was something not altogether assured in
“I should like to know,” said Derwent the elder, laughing, “why Mr. Reredos’s housekeeper’s son in the Guards has been dragged headlong into this consultation. Suppose you go for a soldier yourself, Derwie. There’s your drum in the corner. I have something to say to mamma.”
Little Derwent marched off, obedient, if not very willing. His inquisitive tendencies did not carry him beyond that rule of obedience which was the only restraint I put upon the boy. Derwent, elder, followed him with happy looks. He only came back to his subject after an interval of pleased and silent observation when there suddenly fell into the stillness of our cheerful breakfast-room the first thunder of Derwie’s drum.
“What an inquisitive little imp it is!” said Derwent; “but in spite of the housekeeper’s son in the Guards, I don’t think you could do a more charitable action, Clare, than to support Reredos’s suit to Alice Harley. Such a famous thing for both—and such an excellent neighbor for yourself.”
“That is very true,” said I; “but still I cannot help building something upon that son in the Guards.”
Mr. Crofton looked up somewhat puzzled, with a smile upon his lips. I daresay he asked, “What on earth do you mean?” somewhat exasperated at the repetition; but Derwie’s drum filled all the apartment at the moment, and of course I could not hear, much less answer him. We had some further talk on the subject later, when Derwent called me into the library to read over that speech of his, which he made a few evenings before at Simonborough, and which the Editor of the Simonborough Chronicle had sent over in proof to ask if my husband would kindly glance over it and see if it was correct. Mr. Reredos was coming to dinner to meet the Harleys, among other people—and Mr. Crofton, always good-humored, and disposed to aid and abet all honest love affairs, could not sufficiently point out the advantages of such a connection to me.
And I said no more to perplex him, of the son in the Guards; but for myself remembered that
mythical personage, whatever was said to me on the subject; and appreciated with the highest
admiration that singularly delicate line of association which suggested the reference to little
Derwie’s mind and thoughts. Yes, to be sure! the old women will put up their aprons to their
eyes when they talk about the son who has ’listed;
Now I have to confess that many years before this I had formed my own plans for Alice—had
quite made up my mind, indeed, to a secret scheme of match-making in which at the moment I had
been grievously disappointed. At that time, when little Derwie was undreampt of, and I had
prematurely made up my mind to a childless life, I had settled my inheritance of Estcourt upon
my young cousin Bertie Nugent, with a strong hope that the boy, who had known her for so many
years, would naturally prefer my pretty Alice to all strangers, when his good fortune and
affectionate heart put marriage into his head. This did not turn out the case, however. Bertie
made his choice otherwise, was
While on the other hand Mr. Reredos was actually present on the scene, in a pretty Rectory
just half a mile from my own house, and not a dozen miles from Mrs. Harley’s cottage. The young
clergyman lost no opportunity of doing his duty towards that lady, though her dwelling was
certainly in another parish—and showed himself so far disposed towards Alice’s new-fangled
notions as to preach a sermon upon the changed position and new duties of Woman, on the
occasion of her last visit to Hilfont. I trust it edified Alice, for it had rather a contrary
effect upon myself, and filled the parishioners generally with the wildest amazement. Most
people are flattered by such an adoption of their own opinions—and a young woman aged
twenty-seven, thinking herself very old, and trying hard to make every one else believe the
same, is especially open to such a compliment. Besides, I could not say anything even to myself
against Mr. Reredos. He was well-bred, well-looking, and well-dispositioned—the match would be
particularly suitable in every way. Dr. Harley’s daughter, had her father and his fortune
survived till the present day, would still have made quite a sensible marriage in accepting the
Rector of Hilfont.
I sat in the great window of the breakfast-room, looking over half the county. If I had been
a woman of elevated mind or enlightened views, I should have been thinking of all the human
wishes and disappointments that lay beneath my eyes, each one under its own roof and its own
retirement. But, on the contrary, I observed nothing but a small figure on a small pony
ascending the road from the village. In the same way I ought to have been benevolently glad
that our excellent young Rector had inclined his eyes and heart towards my own favorite and
friend—the friend and favorite now of so many years—and that a home so suitable, at once to her
origin and her tastes, awaited the acceptance of Alice. But I was not glad—I sent my thoughts
ever so far away to Bertie’s bungalow, and felt aggrieved and disappointed for the boy who,
alas! was a boy no longer, and most likely, instead of feeling aggrieved on his own account,
would have nothing but his warmest congratulations to send when he heard of his old playmate’s
marriage. Things are very perverse and unmanageable in this world. The right people will not
draw together, let one wish it ever so strongly, whereas the wrong people are always
approaching each
“Who are we to have, Clare?—let us hear. You don’t suppose that my mind, weighed
down with the responsibilities of law-making, can remember everything, eh?—even my wife’s
guests?” said Derwent, rubbing his hands, as we sat after dinner near the fire in the warm
crimson dining-room. When we were alone I gave Mr. Crofton’s claret my benign countenance till
he was ready to go with me to the drawing-room. There were not enough of us to separate at that
genial hour, especially as little Derwent sat between us peeling his orange, and quite ready to
give his opinion on any knotty point that might occur.
“Papa, please give Willie Sedgwick the little grey pony,” said Derwie, “to ride when he’s
here; he says his papa will never let him take his horse anywhere with him—there’s such a lot
of children,” added my boy, parenthetically, with some pity and contempt. “I like little Clary
best—I like her because her name’s the same as mamma’s, and because she has blue eyes, and
because she
“How do you know about the nurse’s daughter’s fever, Derwie?” asked I.
“Mamma, they sent me to the nursery, when you were calling there,” said Derwie, with
some emphasis, “and she told me she has the scarlet fever, and Mrs. Sedgwick won’t let her
mamma go to see her, for fear of the children taking it—isn’t it a shame? Clary told me she
said her prayers for her every night, to get her well; and so,” said Derwent, coloring, and
looking up with some apparent idea that this was not perfectly right, and the most manful
intention to stand out the consequences, “and so do I.”
His father and I looked at each other, and neither of us said anything just for that moment, which silence emboldened Derwie to believe that no harm was coming of his confession, and to go on with his story.
“And Mr. Sedgwick’s man—he’s such a funny fellow. I wish you’d ask him to tell you one of his
stories, mamma,” said Derwie, “for I know he’s coming here with them. He has a brother like
Johnny Harley—just as lame—and he got cured in Wales, at St. Winifred’s Well. Why don’t you ask
Mrs. Harley to send Johnny to
Punch.”
“Don’t be personal, Derwie,” said Mr. Crofton, laughing; “we are to have Mr. Sedgwick’s Russell, and Mrs. Sedgwick’s nurse—who else?”
“The Harleys,” said I, “for we’ll postpone for a little, if you please, Derwie, your friends below-stairs; and Mr. Reredos and his sister, and Miss Polly Greenfield, and her little nieces. I fear the womankind will rather predominate in our Easter party—though Maurice Harley, to be sure”——
“Yes—Maurice Harley, to be sure,” said Derwent, still with a smile, “is—what should you call him now, Clare—a host in himself?”
“Fellow of Exeter College, Cambridge,” said I, demurely; “he has it on his card.”
“Mamma, is Maurice Harley a clergyman?—shouldn’t a clergyman care about people?” said
he does. He likes books.”
“And what do you mean by people?—and don’t you like books?” I asked.
“Oh! yes, sometimes,” said my son; “when there’s pictures in them. But you know what
people mean, mamma—quite well! You talk to them, you do—but Maurice Harley puts up his
shoulders like this, and looks more tired than Bob Dawkes does after his ploughing—so
tired—just as if he could drop down with tiredness. Oh!” cried Derwent, with a sudden burst of
enthusiasm, “I would not give our Johnnie for a hundred of him.”
“A hundred of him!” I confess the thought filled me with alarm. In my heart I
doubted, with a little shudder of apprehension, whether the country, not to speak of Hilfont,
could have survived the invasion of a hundred such accomplished men. “But, Derwie,” said I,
recovering from that shock, “if you do not like books except when they have pictures in them,
how do you think you are ever to learn all the things that Maurice Harley knows?”
“Mr. Sedgwick says he’s a prig,” says little Derwent, with great seriousness, “and I know
more things now than he does—I know how to make rabbits’ houses. If you were to get some
must be like, because the sun took them. Does the sun see better than
other people? That one’s like you with the paper in your hand; but Will Morris’s picture,
instead of being Susan, is anybody in a checked dress.”
“I begin to think you will turn out a great critic, Derwie,” said his admiring father, who desired no better than to spend his after-dinner hour listening to the wisdom of his son.
“What’s a critic? is it anything like a prig?” asked Derwent, who was trying hard to set up
the crooked stem of a bunch of raisins—now, alas, denuded of every vestige of its fruit—like a
tree upon his plate; the endeavor was not very successful, although when propped up on each
side by little mounds of orange-peel, the mimic tree managed to hold a very slippery and
precarious footing, and for a few minutes kept itself upright. We two sat looking at this
process in a hush of pleased and interested observation. Maurice Harley, with all his powers
and pretensions, could neither have done nor said anything
“Clare, how old is he now?” said Mr. Crofton to me.
As if he did not know! but I answered with calm pride, “Seven on Monday, Derwent—and you remember it was Easter Monday too that year—and tall for his age, certainly—but he is not so stout as Willie Sedgwick.”
“Ah, Monday’s your birthday, is it, old fellow?” said Derwent; “what should you like on your birthday, Derwie—let us hear?”
“May I have anything I like, papa?” asked the child, throwing down immediately both the raisin-stalk and the orange-skin. His father nodded in assent. I, a little in terror of what “anything I like” at seven years old might happen to be, hastened to interpose.
“Anything in reason, Derwie, dear—not the moon, you know, nor the crown, nor an impossible thing. You are a very sensible little boy when you please; think of something in papa’s power.”
“It is only little babies that cry for the moon,”
“Why on earth do you want to go to the House of Commons?” cried his father, when his laughter permitted him to speak.
“It’s in the Bible that the people used to come to tell everything to the king,” said Derwie, a little peevishly; “and isn’t the House of Commons instead of the king in this country? and doesn’t everybody go to the House of Commons when they want anything? I should like to see them all coming and telling their stories—what fun it must be! That’s why you go there, I suppose, every night? but I don’t know why you never should take mamma or me.”
“It would never do to let the ladies come in,” said Derwent, with mock seriousness; “you know they would talk so much that we could never hear what the people had to say.”
“Mamma does not talk very much,” said Derwie,
“My boy,” said Derwent, with the love and the laughter rivalling each other in his eyes, “they don’t give me any key, or you should have it—there’s a turnkey at the door, who opens it to let the poor people out and in; but some day you and mamma shall go and be shut up in a cage we have for the ladies, and hear all that’s said. I’m afraid, Derwie, when you’ve once been there you won’t want to go again.”
“Yes, I shall!” cried Derwie, all his face glowing with eagerness; when there suddenly
appeared a solemn and silent apparition at the door, namely Nurse, under whose iron rule the
young gentleman, much resisting, was still held, so far at least as his toilette was concerned.
That excellent woman said not a word. She opened the door with noiseless solemnity, came in,
and stood smoothing down her spotless apron by the wall. No need for words to announce the
presence of that messenger of fate; Derwie made some unavailing struggles with destiny, and at
The next day after, being the Saturday, our little Easter party assembled; first our
neighbors the Sedgwicks, who were a party in themselves. Ten years before, Hugh Sedgwick had
been the finest gentleman in our neighborhood, which he filled with amazement and consternation
when he chose to fall in love with and marry little Clara Harley, whom, in the most literal
sense of the word, he married out of the school-room, and who was just seventeen years old. But
now that five children had followed this marriage, nobody could have supposed or believed in
the existence of any such great original contrast between the husband and wife. Either Mr.
Sedgwick had grown younger, or Clara older, than their years. He who now called Maurice Harley
a prig, had been himself the prince of prigs—according to the estimate of the country
gentlemen, his neighbors—in his day; but that day was long departed. Hugh Sedgwick, fastidious,
dilettante fine gentleman, as he had been, was now the
carte blanche as to her milliner’s bills; and when they
entered the Hilfont drawing-room, Clara, with her pretty matronly self-possession, her graceful
little figure, round and full as one of her own babies, and her lovely little face, with all
its cloudless lilies and roses—nobody could have believed in the time when his good neighbors
shrugged their shoulders and laughed at Hugh Sedgwick’s choice. She sat down, I remember, by
Miss Polly Greenfield—dear old Miss Polly in her primeval drapery—that crimson satin gown which
I had known all my life. Such a contrast they made in the bright youth and pale age of the two
faces, which came together lovingly in a kiss of greeting! Since her brother, Sir Willoughby,
had married, Miss Polly’s habits had changed greatly. She had thrown aside her old brown
riding-dress and the stiff man’s hat she used to wear when she rode with Sir Willoughby. And
when her old horse and
After the Sedgwicks, Alice Harley, all by herself, as became one who felt herself at home,
and was all but a daughter of the house, came into the room. Alice was plain in her dress to
the extreme of plainness. That she assumed an
prononcés, Alice had not lived all these years without feeling some yearning for an
independent sway and place of her own, as one may well suppose—which tempted her into further
speculations about women’s work, and what one could do to make a place for one’s self, who had
positively determined not to be indebted for one’s position to one’s husband. Such was the
peculiar atmosphere out of which Alice Harley revealed herself to the common world. She was
deeply scornful of that talk
I do not know how it was that, while I contemplated Alice on her first appearance with a kind
of retrospective glance at her history, there suddenly appeared above her the head of Mr.
However, to be sure, we had all the elements of a very pleasant party about us—people who
belonged to us, as one may say. Derwent, who liked to see a number of cheerful faces about him,
was in the lightest spirits; he paid Clara Sedgwick compliments on her toilette, and “chaffed”
(as he called it—I am not responsible for the word) Alice, whom he had the sincerest affection
for, but loved to tease, and took Miss Polly in to dinner, while little Derwie did the honors
of the nursery to a party almost as large, and quite as various. I fear we made rather a night
of feasting than a penitential vigil of that Easter Eve.
When we returned to the drawing-room after dinner, we found, hidden in a distant
corner, with books and portfolios, and stereoscopes blocking up the table near him, Johnnie
Harley. I have said little of this boy. He was the proxy which the handsome, healthy family had
given for their singular exemption from disease and weakness—the one sufferer, among many
strong, who is so often found in households unexceptionably healthful, as if all the minor
afflictions which might have been divided among them had concentrated on one and left the rest
free. When Johnnie was a child he had only been moved in the little wheeled chair, got for him
in his father’s lifetime, when they were rich. Now he was better, and able to move about with
the help of a crutch, but even now was a hopeless cripple, with only his vigorous mind and
unconquerable spirits to maintain him through private hours of suffering. Partly from his
infirmities—partly from his natural temperament—the lad
“Look here, Mrs. Crofton,” he said, drawing me shyly aside. “I’ve put this one in a famous
I looked, of course, to please him. It was a pretty view of my own house at Estcourt, with the orphan children who lived there playing on the terrace—very pretty, and very minute—so clear that I fancied I could recognize the children. It pleased me mightily.
“You did it, Johnnie,” cried I, much gratified. “I am very much pleased; but I never
knew you were a ‘photographic artist’ before.”
“No more I was,” said Johnnie, who rather affected a little roughness of speech, “till they
got me a camera the other day. Of course I know it was Alice, and that somehow or other she’s
spared it off herself. Do you know whether there’s anything she ought to have had that she
hasn’t, Mrs. Crofton? One can never find Alice out. She doesn’t go when she’s made a sacrifice
for you and keep hinting and hinting to let you know, as some people do; but look here—isn’t it
horrible to think I’m grown up and yet have to stay at home like a girl, and can’t do anything.
Now that I’m able to do these slides, I’d give my ears if I could sell them. I’d go and stand
in the market at Simonborough. But of course it’s no use speaking. Don’t you think, Mrs.
Crofton, that there’s surely something in
“I have no doubt a dozen things,” said I, boldly; “but have a little patience, Johnnie. Maurice is ten years older than you are, and he does nothing that I can see. Besides, it is holiday time—I forbid you to think of anything but the new camera to-night. Is it a good one? What a pleasure it must be for all of you,” I continued, looking once more into the stereoscope, where, most singular of optical delusions, I certainly saw a pretty new winter bonnet, the back of which, in the wardrobe of Alice, I had already made a memorandum of, floating over the picture of my old house.
“Ah,” said Johnnie, with a sigh, “if I were a fellow like Maurice!—but here, Di, you have not seen this,” he added, transferring another slide into that wooden box. Grave little Di looked at it, and summoned her sister with a little scream of delight.
“It’s Miss Harley and Baby Sedgwick,” said Di, “and I do believe if any one was little enough they could go round behind her in the picture. Oh! let me tell Derwent and Clara, Mr. John!”
Mr. John was very graciously pleased to exhibit his handiwork to any number of spectators,
“My love,” said Miss Polly, in a mild aside, “I’d like to see you just so in a house of your own, my dear.”
Alice colored slightly; very slightly—it was against her principles to blush—and made no answer, except a slight shake of her head.
“Such a sweet baby,” said Miss Reredos, “I think one might bear anything for such a darling! Oh, don’t you think so, Miss Harley? I think it’s so unnatural for a lady not to love children. I think if dear Clement had but a family I should be so happy.”
“But, dear, shouldn’t you be happier,” said Clara, opening her bright eyes a little wider, with a laughing humor which now-a-days that young lady permitted herself to exercise pretty freely, “if you had a family of your own?”
“Oh! Mrs. Sedgwick, how can you speak so? I am so glad the gentlemen are not here,” said
“As for Alice,” said Clara, laughing, “do you know she thinks it rather improper to be married? She would not allow she cared for anybody, not for the world.”
“I think women ought to be very careful,” said Alice, responding instantly to the challenge with a little flush and start; “I think there are very few men in the world worthy of being loved. Yes, I do think so, whatever you choose to say. They’re well enough for their trades, but they’re not good enough to have a woman’s heart for a plaything. Of course there may be some—I do not deny that; but I never”——
Here Alice paused—perhaps she was going to tell a fib—perhaps conscience stopped her—I will not guess; but Clara clapped her hands in triumph.
“Ah, but if you did ever,” said Clara, laughing, “would you marry him, Alice?”
“If he asked me it is very likely I should,” said Alice, with great composure; “but not for a house of my own, as Miss Polly says—nor for fun, like some other people.”
“My love, it’s very natural to like a house of
At this address Alice blushed crimson—blushed up to the hair, and patted her foot upon the
ground in a very impatient, not to say angry, way. She cast a somewhat indignant side-look at
me, to express her conviction that I was at the bottom of this, and had suggested the mild
condemnation of Miss Polly—which, so far as agreeing thoroughly in her sentiments went, I
confess I might have done. Then Alice went off abruptly to the piano, and began playing to the
children, who gathered round her; before long her voice was pleasantly audible in one of those
immemorial songs with a fox or a robin for a hero, which always delight children; and when the
song was finished there ensued as pretty a scene as I have ever looked at. Clara gathered the
children in a ring, which danced round and round, with a dazzle of little rosebud faces, flying
white frocks and ribbons, to Alice’s accompaniment. Such
“It is strange,” said Miss Polly, “but yet I’m sure I am very glad. I thought of asking you,
Clare, whether anything had occurred to disturb that dear girl? I don’t like when I hear young
women talk like that, my dear—it looks to me as if they had something on their mind, you know.
Once I thought there might perhaps be something between Bertie Nugent and Alice—that would have
been a very nice match; but
“I suppose not, indeed,” said I, rather ruefully, looking at that prettiest spectacle before me, and recognizing, as by intuition, that Mr. Reredos had just come in, and was standing at the door in a glow of delight and approbation, looking at Alice, and deciding not to delay his proposal for an hour longer than it should be absolutely necessary to keep silent. Ah, me! there was some hope for us in Alice’s philosophical moods; but when she played to her little nieces and nephews in that shockingly happy, careless, and easy manner, I was in despair.
“It’s very sad when people won’t see what’s most for their advantage,” said Miss Polly, with
a ghost of humor in her pale old face. “I daresay, Clare, my dear, Bertie’s just as happy. I
heard from Lady Greenfield the other day—one of her letters, you know—that the dear
boy was getting on very well, but breaking his heart to get home that he might go to the Crimea
to the war.”
“So he tells me,” said I, “but I rather think I am very glad he has not the chance of dying
on that dreadful hill.”
“My dear, that’s very true,” said Miss Polly; “one faints at the thought of it, to be sure, for one’s own; but if I could be philosophical—which—dear, dear, it isn’t to be expected from an old woman! I’d say it was wrong to be sorry for the dear young creatures, God bless them! Think what they’re spared, my dear child. I don’t know but what it’s a great saving of the labor and the sorrow when they die young.”
“Miss Polly, this is not like you,” I cried in surprise.
“Perhaps it isn’t; but, dear, we’re always learning something,” said Miss Polly; “there’s
Elinor now, and poor Emmy, the unfortunate little soul! but hush, here’s your new rector
coming—I’ll tell you another time.”
“I am surprised,” said Mr. Reredos, as he drank his coffee beside me, “to hear from
Mr. Maurice Harley that he’s not in orders. I really felt so sure that he must be that I did
not think of asking. He’s had his fellowship this long time, has not he? and really a
clergyman’s son, and with the excellent connections he has—I am surprised!”
“Ah, so is everybody,” said Miss Polly, significantly. Miss Polly was an old-fashioned woman, and had little sympathy with those delicate conscientious scruples which kept our friend Maurice out of the Church.
“My dear,” continued Miss Polly, turning aside to me, with some energy, as Mr. Reredos,
always polite, took her empty cup from her, “I could believe in it if he were doing anything or
thinking of doing anything; but if you’ll believe me, Clare, it’s nothing but idleness—that’s
what it is. When a young man’s idle, if he doesn’t fall in love with the first girl he meets,
he falls
“Well,” said I, “but if the loss of his fellowship dispersed poor Maurice’s dilettante scepticism, and forced him into orders, it might be better for himself, Miss Polly, but I doubt if it would be better for the Church. When his conscience keeps him outside, we have no reason to find fault, but if he came in against his conscience——”
“Conscience! stuff!” said Miss Polly, with some heat. “Child, that’s not what I meant. I
meant—for being his father’s and mother’s son I can’t think he’s a bad boy at the bottom—I
meant a little trouble and fighting would soon put those idle vagaries out of his head. Now,
Mr. Reredos, mind you don’t go and argue with Maurice Harley. I’m an old woman, and I’ve seen
such before, many’s the time. Wait till he’s got something to do and something to bear in this
world, as he’s sure to have, sooner or later. Ah, Life’s a wonderful teacher! When a man sits
among his books, or a woman at her needle—and there isn’t such a great difference as you
“Miss Polly, you are a philosopher, and we never knew it!” said I, while Mr. Reredos stood looking on, much annoyed, and in no small degree contemptuous of the pale old woman who took upon her to direct so perfect a person as himself—for Mr. Reredos was not unlike Maurice Harley, though after his different fashion; he thought he could do a great deal with his wisdom and his words.
“I am not a philosopher; but I have been alone with the dear children since my niece Emmy left me,” said Miss Polly, “and not so able to stir about as I once was; and you know, my dear, one can’t say out everything in one’s mind to children at their age; so, somehow the thoughts come up as if I had been gathering them all my life, and never had time to look at them before.”
“I suspect that is how most of the thoughts that are worth remembering do come,” said I. Mr.
Reredos did not say anything. He stood, with a faint smile on his lip, which he did not
“This reads like a Newdigate,” said Maurice Harley. “I suppose Sedgwick brought the book to you, Clara, for a sugar-plum. Listen, how sweetly pretty! These prize poets are really too delicious for anything.”
“You had better write a poem yourself, Maurice, and show what you can do,” cried the
indignant Clara; “it is so grand to be a critic, and so easy! Nobody can write to please you,
nobody can speak to please you—I should just like to see you do something yourself, Maurice,
that we could criticise as well.”
Maurice laughed, poising in his hand the pretty new poetry-book which Mr. Sedgwick had brought down from London to his wife. He looked so superior and so triumphant, that even his grave brother-in-law was provoked.
“Maurice is not so foolish,” said Mr. Sedgwick, “as long as he doesn’t do anything
he may be a Shakespeare for anything we know. You girls may worship him as such now, if you
please—there he sits quite ready to receive your homage; but if he really ventured into print,
Maurice would be only Maurice Harley—just himself, like the rest of us—might even find a critic
in his turn, as such is the fate of mortals. No, no, you may be sure Maurice won’t commit
himself; he’s a great deal too wise for that.”
Maurice laughed a somewhat constrained laugh, and coloured slightly. Perhaps a touch of conscience made Mr. Sedgwick’s sarcasm tell—he threw down the book with a little petulance.
“Far be it from me to object to Clara’s tastes. Thanks to my sisters, I know pretty well what
young ladies like in the shape of poetry,” said Maurice; “they all admire the Newdigates. There
was a time when I found Alice in tears over one of these distinguished poems—and that not so
very many years ago.”
“Oh! don’t be so dreadfully satirical!” said Miss Reredos, who was beginning to tire of Johnnie and his stereoscope. “I am sure that year that mamma and I went to Commemoration with Clement there was the sweetest thing imaginable—and so charmingly read too—and I have a copy of it now; but, oh! I know why Mr. Harley does not like the Newdigate,” cried the Rector’s sister, clasping her soft hands, “he’s a Cambridge man!”
“Exactly,” said Maurice, recovering himself at once, for he was quite disposed to take Miss Reredos for his antagonist; “you know the jealousy which exists between us. Your brother and I preserve an outside appearance of civility, out of respect to Mrs. Crofton and the presence of the ladies, but nobody can doubt for a moment how we hate each other in our hearts.”
“I say, do you though?” cried the small voice, down at Maurice Harley’s elbow, of my son
Derwie, who was, unluckily, at that moment advancing with the rest of the little troop to say
good-night. “Do you hate the Rector, Maurice?—he’s the clergyman, you know—he can’t do anything
wrong; so he can’t hate you—why do you hate him?—is he cleverer than you are?
Stand up a moment, please—I don’t think he’s quite as tall.”
This interruption Derwent made with the most perfect sincerity and earnestness, unconsciously
guessing at the only reasons which could make a person so accomplished as Maurice Harley hate
anybody. Everybody laughed except the individual questioned, who shot a glance of wrath at my
boy, and eyed Mr. Reredos with a sort of contemptuous inquiry. Could any one, even a child,
imagine the new rector to be cleverer than the ineffable Maurice? He sank down again in the
chair from which Derwie had dragged him, laughing with a very bad grace. Then all the broken
currents of talk going on in the room, suffered a little ebb and pause. Little rosy faces
clustered close about Clara Sedgwick, about Alice and myself, and old Miss Polly, holding up
rose-lips full of kisses. Mr. Crofton shook hands with Derwie, and turned him off with an
affectionate grasp upon his shoulders, declaring, with a fondness beyond caresses, that he was
too old to be kissed. Then we all paused, looking after them as they trooped out of the room.
Miss Reredos, full of something clever to say in the way of an attack upon Maurice—Maurice
himself too self-conscious to be diverted by that pretty procession, and Johnnie, who was
hanging over his stereoscope, and following the Rector’s sister with his eyes, were the only
persons in the
And was it to be so? There was no side glance from the eyes of Alice, reciprocating those of
Mr. Reredos—no consciousness, as she stood by the table watching the children, of any future
such as that which sparkled in the young Rector’s eyes. She stood calmly watching them, nodding
and smiling to Derwent, and her little niece Clary, who, hand in hand, were the last to leave
the room—the maiden aunt, only a little more independent of the children than their
mother—almost as much beloved by them—the young, unmarried woman, gravely cogitating the
necessities of her class of age, and feeling much superior to the vanities of love-making,
without a single palpitation in her of the future bride, the possible mother. So, at least, it seemed.
That evening—it was the first of her visit to Hilfont, and a perfectly natural
thing, considering the long affection between us—I paid Alice a long visit in her own room. I
might have done so, even if I had been conscious of nothing to inquire about, nothing to
suggest. It was rather late when we all came up-stairs, and when I had seen Miss Polly safely
established in her easy chair by her fire, and eluded as well as I could the story about
Elinor’s (to wit, Lady Greenfield, Sir Willoughby’s wife, once Mrs. Herbert Nugent, my cousin,
and Bertie’s aunt) letter—I turned back to the bright chamber near my own, which was always
called Miss Harley’s room. Alice was sitting rather listlessly by the table, reading. She
looked tired, and did not seem overmuch to enjoy her book. She was very glad to see me come in,
and, I suspect, to be delivered from her own thoughts, which it was clear enough she could not
quite exorcise by means of literature; for it was not a novel,
When we had talked over indifferent matters for some time, my curiosity, which I might have dignified with the title of anxiety, too, roused me to closer inquiries than, perhaps, were quite justifiable. I knew that after Mr. Reredos had spoken—unless, indeed, he happened to be accepted—Alice’s lips were closed for ever on the subject, so I wickedly took advantage of my opportunities.
“Perhaps ere long I shall have to congratulate you,” said I, “and you may be sure it would be a great matter for me to have you so very near. We should make famous neighbors, Alice, don’t you think? I may well be anxious about your decision, my dear, for my own sake.”
“Mrs. Crofton, I do not understand you,” said Alice, in a little dismay, looking very
curiously and wistfully in my face; then, after a little pause, a deep color suffused her
cheeks, she started, and moved her hand impatiently upon the
The contrast of her tone, so suddenly chilled and formal, with the burning color and subdued agitation of her face, struck me wonderfully. “My dear child,” said I, “I have no right to ask—I don’t want to interfere—but you are sure to have this question submitted to you, Alice, and can’t be ignorant of that now, that it has come so far. Cannot you think what I mean?”
Alice paused a moment, then she cast rather a defiant glance at me, and answered, proudly: “If any one has been forming foolish plans about me, Mrs. Crofton, the responsibility is not mine—I know I am not to blame.”
“That may be very true,” said I, “but I am not speaking of responsibility. Don’t you think,
dear, that this is important enough to be taken into consideration without any impatience of
personal feeling? Deciding one’s life by the ordeal of marriage is a human necessity it
appears. You are a clergyman’s daughter—no way could you fill a better or more congenial place
than as a clergyman’s wife. If I were you I should not conclude at once, because, perhaps, in
the meantime, of your own accord, you have
“Because I am going to have ‘an offer,’ and perhaps I never may have another—because I am not
so young now as to be able to throw away my chances—and it is you who say so!” cried
Alice, throwing at me an angry, bitter, scornful glance. Perhaps, if she had yielded more to my
arguments, I might have found it harder than I did now.
“You humiliate me,” she cried again: “if I want a life of my own, I want to make it myself; a house of my own?—no I have no ambition for that.”
“But you falter a little when you say so,” said I, taking cruel advantage of her weakness.
“Now, we are not going to discuss the disabilities of women. It is just as impossible for an
unmarried man to have what I call a house of his own as it is for you; and as for the privilege
of choice—good lack, good lack! much use it seems about to be to poor Mr. Reredos! My dear
I can’t see them. But no, that’s not
the question. The Rector is a good man; he is young, he is well off; he is agreeable. Your
dearest friend could not choose a more suitable life for you than that you would have at the
Hilfont Rectory. Now, Alice, think. Are you going to make up your mind to throw away all this,
and a good man’s happiness besides?”
“Oh, Mrs. Crofton! Mrs. Crofton! and it is you who say so!” said poor Alice, with looks which certainly must have consumed me had I been of combustible material—“this is from you!”
“And why not, my dear?” said I, meekly. “Am not I next to your mother, Alice?—next oldest friend?—and next interested in your welfare?”
“If you mean that you have a right to say anything you please to me,” said Alice, seizing my
hand and kissing it in a quick revulsion of feeling, “it is true to the very farthest that you
choose to stretch it; but that is not what you mean. Oh, dear Mrs. Crofton!” said the poor
you!”
With which exclamation she suddenly cast a guilty, startled look upon me as if she had betrayed something and hid her face in her hands. How did she know what was in my heart?—how could she tell that I was arguing against my own dear and long-cherished plans, which I had made it a point of honor never to hint in the remotest manner to her? But here we approached the region where another word was impossible. She would not have uttered a syllable of explanation for her life—I dared not, if I meant to have any comfort in mine; I said nothing to her by which it was possible to infer that I understood what she meant. I absolutely slurred over the whole question—here we had reached the bound.
“Well, dear,” said I, “don’t distress yourself so very much about it—you must decide according to your own will and not to mine; only do think it over again in the fresh morning before the Rector gets an opportunity of speaking to you. Good night, Alice—don’t sit reading, but go to sleep!”
She raised her face to me, and leant her cheek a little more than was quite needful against mine
had passed between us—all the world might have
listened and been none the wiser. What had a momentary emphasis, a sudden look to do with the
matter? Alice spoke nothing but her usual sentiments, and I did not say a word inconsistent
with mine.
The next morning was Easter Sunday. I have no doubt Mr. Reredos would have been glad
enough to add a private joy of his own to the rejoicings of the festival, and might not have
thought it unsuitable to declare himself even on that morning could he have had a chance.
However, there was not very much time before Church hours, and to be sure the Rector ought to
have been thinking of something else. It was a true Easter morning, full of sunshine and that
new life of spring born out of death and darkness which to every heart must bear a certain
charm. Is it something of a compensation to the sorrowful that all the wonderful silent symbols
of Nature speak to them with a special force which does not belong to the happy? We were all
dwelling at ease, people untroubled—our hearts were glad in the sunshine, which to us looked
like a promise of permanence and peace unclouded. Only far off with an apprehension of the
thoughts, and not of the heart, did the meaning
Next day I fear Mr. Reredos ascertained beyond question what he had to expect from Alice
Harley. With a look of stormy agitation, strongly restrained, he let me know on the Monday
“Go away! Leave Hilfont!” she exclaimed with a gasp of amazement. “Why should we go away? Mrs. Crofton was good enough to ask us for a week, and I am sure you could do your duty quite as well here as at the Rectory. Oh, please, Mrs. Crofton, listen! The only sick people I know of are that old man at the turnpike, and his blind daughter—he could visit them quite as well going from Hilfont as from the Rectory. I believe this is the nearest of the two.”
“Oh, but Mr. Williams from the little chapel goes to see old Johnnie Dunn,” interrupted
little Derwie; “he was there yesterday, and Martha’s
“You’re not very complimentary, Derwie,” said the Rector, with a slight quiver of his lip, which I recognized as a sign of the passion and deep excitement in which he was. With that wild pain and mortification tugging at his heart, it would have been a relief to him to burst out in an ebulition of rage or impatience against somebody, and I instinctively put out my hand to protect my boy. “But it is sometimes my duty to go where they don’t want me,” he added, with a laugh as significant, “and with many regrets and many thanks to Mrs. Crofton we must still go back to-day. Laura, get ready, please.”
In pity for the unfortunate Rector, who, I saw, longed to escape from the room, the
inquisitive looks of Mrs. Clara, who was present, and the distinct statement from Derwie, which
I knew to be impending, to the effect, that of his own certain knowledge nobody was ill in the village,
Miss Reredos left behind, pursued, as I have said, her own sport. She was prettier than I
thought her at first—she had a little of that teasing wit which clever young ladies exercise
Meanwhile the flirtation with Maurice did not advance so satisfactorily—he was so much
accustomed to admire himself, that the habit of admiring another came slowly to him; and then,
as Miss Reredos took the initiative, and did not spare to be cleverly rude to the young man,
he, taking advantage of his privileges, was cleverly rude to her in reply, from which
fashionable mode of beginning, they advanced by degrees to closer friendship, or, at least,
familiarity of address. Alice looked on at all this with the most solemn disapproval—it was
amusing to see the dead gravity of her glances towards them, the tacit displeasure, and shame,
and resentment on account of “her sex!” Poor Alice took the responsibility
sex? If it had not been so entirely true and sincere, it would have been absurd—this
championship of Alice; only women ever dream of such an esprit de corps—but she
maintained it with such absolute good faith and solemn gravity, that while one laughed one
loved her the better. There she sat, severe in her youthful virtue, gravely believing herself
old, and past the period of youth, but in her heart as high-flying, as obstinate, as heroical
as if she were seventeen. Mrs. Clara knew nothing of that romance; perhaps there are delicate
touches of feminine character, which only show themselves to perfection in the “unmarried
woman”—the woman who has come to maturity without having the closer claims of husband and
children to charm her out of her thoughts and theories—though it is only in a very gracious
subject that such an example as Alice Harley could be produced.
“Well, really!” said little Mrs. Sedgwick, bridling with offended virtue, “I don’t
think I am very hard upon a little innocent flirting—sometimes, you know, there’s no harm in
it—and young people will amuse themselves; but really, Mrs. Crofton, that
Miss Reredos is quite ridiculous. I do wonder for my part how men can be so taken in!—and our
Maurice who is so clever!—and she is not even pretty—if she had been pretty one could have
understood.”
“My dear Clara,” said I, “perhaps it is not very complimentary to your brother, but I do think the most sensible thing Maurice could do would be to fall in love. I don’t say of course with Miss Reredos; but then, you see, we can’t choose the person. If he fell desperately in love and made a fool of himself, I am sure I should not think any worse of him, and it would do him no harm.”
Both the sisters drew up their shoulders a little, and communicated between each other a telegraphic
“Really, I cannot say I should be very grateful to Maurice for such a sister-in-law,” said Clara, with a toss of her head.
“I don’t think there is very much to fear,” said Miss Polly. “Do you know what little Derwie told me yesterday? He said a poor woman in the village had three or four children ill with the hooping-cough—at least so I understood the child from the sound he made to show me what it was. Now, I really think if I were you, Clare, I would not let that child wander so much about the village. Neither Di nor Emmy has ever had hooping-cough, and I shall be almost frightened to let them go out of doors.”
“Oh, I assure you it’s nothing, Miss Polly!” cried Clara—“mine had it two years ago—even the
baby—and took their walks just the same in all weathers; and they must have it one time or
other, you know—and such great girls as your two nieces! Our children all got over it perfectly
well. Though Hugh says I am ridiculously timid, I never was the least afraid. Their chests were
rubbed every night, and they had something which Hugh said it was polite to call
“I daresay that’s very true, my dear,” said Miss Polly, who took little Clara’s nursery instructions and assurances in very good part, “but it isn’t always so. There’s my poor little nephew, little Willoughby—dear, dear! to think what a strong man his father is, and how delicate that poor child looks! I can’t help thinking sometimes it must be his mother’s fault; though to be sure they have the best of nurses, and Lady Greenfield can’t be expected to make a slave of herself; that poor dear little soul was very ill with the hooping-cough. Clara—all children are not so fortunate as your pretty darlings; and that reminds me, Clare, that you have never seen Elinor’s letter yet; she mentions her nephew in it, as I think I told you; so, though it’s almost all about Emmy, my dear children’s mother, if you’ll wait a minute I’ll just bring it down.”
Saying which Miss Polly left the room. Alice sat rather stiffly at her work and looked very busy—so very busy that I was suspicious of some small gleam of interest on her part touching the contents of Lady Greenfield’s letter.
“Miss Polly does not love Lady Greenfield too
“Maurice has nothing but his fellowship,” said Alice.
“Well, to be sure, that is some comfort,” said Clara; “but then I daresay he might get a living if he tried, and Hugh could even”——
Here Miss Polly came in with her letter, so we did not hear at that moment what could be done by Hugh, who, in the eyes of his little wife, was happily a person all-powerful.
“My dear,” said Miss Polly, laying down the letter in her lap, and making a little
preliminary lecture in explanation, “you remember that Emmy, my niece, two years ago, married
again. Well, you know, one couldn’t well blame her. She was only one and twenty, poor little
soul, when she was left with these two children; and I was but too glad to keep the little
girls with me, so she was quite what people call without encumbrance, you see. So she married
that curate
With which, shaking off a little heat of exasperation which had gathered about her, Miss
Polly resumed her usual work and placidity. I confess it was not without a smile I read Lady
Greenfield’s letter. I fortunately was under no temptations of the kind myself. If I had been,
I daresay, I should have turned out exactly like my neighbors; but the spectators of a domestic
squabble or successful piece of neighborly oppression and tyranny always see the ludicrous
“Pray tell Clare Crofton,” wrote Lady Greenfield,
Not having taken the precaution to glance
“I wonder does Lady Greenfield mean to make me so thoroughly uncomfortable when Bertie comes home that I shall not let him come here at all,” said I; “or to terrify me out of the possibility of introducing him to anybody, lest I should be said to be influencing his choice? But indeed she need not take the trouble. I know Bertie, and Bertie knows me much too well for the success of any such attempt. I will not have my liberty infringed upon, I assure you, Miss Polly, not by half a dozen Lady Greenfields.”
“My dear, you don’t suppose me an accessory?” said Miss Polly, with a little spirit. “Did any
one ever see such a wanton mischief-maker? I think she takes quite a delight in setting people
by the ears. If Bertie ever did say such a thing, Clare,” said Miss Polly, with a little
vehemence, “about somebody in your pocket, you
By the merest inadvertence I am sure, certainly not by any evil intention, Miss Polly, as she
delivered these words, allowed her mild old glances to stray towards Alice. I at the same
moment chanced to give a furtive look in the same direction. Of course, just at the instant of
danger, Alice, who had been immovable hitherto, suddenly looked up and detected us both. I do
not know what meanings of which they were innocent her sensitive pride discovered in our eyes,
but she sprang up with an impatience and mortification quite irrestrainable, her very neck
growing crimson as she turned her head out of my sight. I understood well enough that burning
blush of shame, and indignation, and wounded pride; it was not the blush of a love-sick girl,
and my heart quaked when it occurred to me that Lady Greenfield might possibly have done a more
subtle act of mischief by her letter than even she intended. Whom was I so likely to have in my
pocket as Alice Harley? Indeed, was not she aware by intuition of some such secret desire in my
mind? And suppose Bertie were coming home with tender thoughts towards the friend of his
boyhood, and perhaps a little tender pleasant wonder, full of suggestions, why
“Why will not you come with us to London, Alice?” said I. “Mr. Crofton wishes it
almost as much as I do. Such a change would do you good, and I do not need to tell you how
pleasant it would be to me. Mrs. Harley and the young people at home can spare you. Kate, you
know, is quite old enough to help your mother. Why are you so obstinate? You have not been in
town in the season since the year after Clara’s marriage.”
“I went up to see the pictures last year,” said Alice demurely.
“Oh pray, Alice, don’t be so dreadfully proper!” cried Clara; “that’s what she’s coming to,
Mrs. Crofton. The second week in May—to see all the exhibitions and hear an Oratorio in Exeter
Hall—and make ‘mems.’ in her diary when she has got through them, like those frightful people
who have their lives written! Oh dear, dear! to think our Alice should have stiffened into such
a shocking old maid!”
“Well, Clara, dear, I am very glad you find your own lot so pleasant that you would like to
see everybody the same as yourself,” said Alice, sententiously, and with no small amount of
mild superiority; “for my part I think the rôle of old maid is quite satisfactory,
especially when one has so many nephews and nieces—and why should I go to London, Mrs. Crofton?
It is all very well for Clara—Clara is in circumstances, of course, that make it convenient and
natural—but as for me, who have nothing at all to do with your grand life, why should I go and
vex myself with my own? Perhaps I might not have strength of mind to return comfortably to the
cottage, and look after the butcher’s bills, and see that there were no cobwebs in the
corners—and though I am of very little importance elsewhere,” said Alice, coloring a little,
and with some unnecessary fervor, “I am of consequence at home.”
“But then, you see,” said I, “Mrs. Harley has four daughters—and I have not one.”
“Ah! by-and-by,” said Alice, with a smile and a sigh, “Mrs. Harley will only have one
daughter. Kate and little Mary will marry just as Clara has done. I shall be left alone with
mamma and Johnnie; that is why I don’t want to do anything which shall disgust me with my quiet
life—at least that is one reason,” added Alice, with a
“Why, Alice, you are quite a painter!” cried I, in a little surprise.
“No, indeed—I wish I were,” said Alice. “I wonder why it is that some people can do
things, and some people, with all the will in the world, can only admire them when they’re
done, and think—surely it’s my own fault—surely if I had tried I could have done as well! I
suppose it’s one of the common troubles of women. I am sure I have looked at a picture, or read
a book many a time, with the feeling that all that was in my heart if I could only have got it
out. You smile, Mrs. Crofton—perhaps it’s very absurd—I daresay a woman ought to be very
thankful when she can understand books, and has enough to live on without needing to work,”
added this feminine misanthrope
Spite and malice! I venture to use such ugly words, because it was my dear Alice, the purest, tenderest, and most lovable of women, who spoke.
“There are a great many people in this world who think it a great happiness to have enough to
live on,” said I, besides women. “I don’t know if Maurice has your ambition, Alice—but, at
least he’s a man, and has no special disadvantages; yet, begging your pardons, young ladies, I
think Alice is good for something more than he is, as the world stands.”
“Ah, but then Maurice, you know, Mrs. Crofton—Maurice has doubts,” said Clara, with a slight pique at my boldness. “Poor Maurice! he says he must follow out his inquiries wherever they lead him, and however sad the issue may be. It is very dreadful—he may not be able to believe in anything before he is done—but then, he must not trifle with his conscience. And with such very serious things to trouble him, it is too bad he should be misunderstood.”
“Don’t, Clara! hush!” whispered Alice, looking a little ashamed of this argument.
“But why should I hush? Hugh says just the same as Mrs. Crofton—it’s very provoking—but these
active people do not take into consideration
“That is very likely,” said I, with a little complacency—“but remember this is all a digression—Alice, will you come to London or will you not?”
Alice got up and made me a very pretty curtsey. “No, please, Mrs. Crofton, I will not,” said that very unmanageable young lady. She looked so provokingly pretty, piquant, and attractive at the moment that I longed to punish her. And Bertie was coming home! and her mind was irretrievably prejudiced against him; it was almost too much for human patience—but to be sure, when a woman is seven-and-twenty, she has some sort of right to know her own mind.
At that moment little Clary Sedgwick, all in a flutter of pink ribbons, came rustling into
the room, her very brief little skirt inflated with crinoline, and rustling half as much as her
mamma’s—a miniature fine lady, with perfect little gloves, a miraculous little hat, and
ineffable embroideries all over her; but with a child’s face so sweet, and a little princess’s
air so enchanting, that one could no more find fault with her splendor than one could find
fault with the still more exquisite decorations of a bird or a flower. Clary came to tell her
mamma that the carriage was
“Mamma, isn’t she grand?” said Derwie—“isn’t she pretty? I never saw her look so pretty before.”
“Oh, Derwie, for shame!” said Clary, holding down her head with a pretty little affectation of confusion wonderful to behold.
“For shame?—Why?—For you know you are pretty,” said my straightforward son, “whether
“Oh, Derwie!” cried Clary, again, but this time with unaffected horror, “I’d starve if you put me in there!”
“No, because I’d bring you something every day,” said Derwie—“all my own pudding, and every cake I got, and the poor women in the village would be so pleased to come and look at you, Clary. Tell me what’s the name of this thing; I’ll tell Susan Stubbs, the dressmaker, all about you. They like to see ladies in grand dresses, all the cottage people; so do I; but I like to see you best of all. Here, Clary, Clary! don’t go away! Look at her pink little gloves, mamma!—and I say, Clary, haven’t you got a parasol?”
“You silly boy! what do you suppose I want with a parasol when I’m going to drive with mamma?” cried Clary, with that indescribable little toss of her head.
At that interesting moment the mamma, of whom this delightful little beauty was a
reproduction, made her appearance, buttoning pink gloves like Clary’s, and rustling in her rosy,
“Johnnie, is there anything the matter. Why have you been sitting there?” cried
I.
“Oh, no, there’s nothing the matter,” said Johnnie, in such a tone as a wild beast making a snap at one might have used if it had possessed the faculty of words. “I was there because I happened to be there before you came into the room, Mrs. Crofton; I beg your pardon! I don’t mean to be rude.”
“I think it is quite necessary you should say as much,” said I. “Your sisters and I have been talking here for some time, quite unaware of your presence. That is not becoming. No one ought to do such things, especially a young man of right feeling like yourself.”
“Oh, you think I have right feelings,” cried Johnnie, bitterly, “you think I am man enough to
know what honor means? That is something, at least. I have been well brought up, haven’t I?
Mrs. Crofton,” continued the unfortunate youth, “you were rather hard upon Maurice
Johnnie?
Why, when Kate, and even little Mary, are supposed to have homes of their own, and Maurice, of
course, to be provided for—why is there to be a special establishment, all neutral colored and
in the shade, for my mother, and Alice, and me?”
I sat gazing at the poor youth in the most profound confusion and amazement. What could I say to him? How, if he did not perceive it himself, could I explain the naturalness of poor Alice’s anticipations? I had not a word to say; his question took me entirely by surprise, and struck me dumb—it was unanswerable.
“You do not say anything,” said Johnnie, vehemently. “Why does Alice suppose she
will have to take care of me all my life through? Why should I go to contribute that
alternative of shade which makes the landscape picturesque?—picturesque!” exclaimed poor
Johnnie, breathing out the words upon a long breath of wrath and indignation; “is that all I am
good for? Do you suppose God has made me in a man’s form, with a man’s heart, only to add a subtle
“I believe in no such thing either,” said I, relieved to be able to say something; “and you forget, Johnnie, that the same life which Alice assigned to you she chose for herself. She thought, I suppose, because your health is not strong, that you would choose to live at home—she thought”——
“Mrs. Crofton,” said Johnnie, “why don’t you say it out? she thought—but why say thought—she
knew I was a cripple, and debarred from the joyous life of man; she thought that to
such as me no heavenly help could come; it did not occur to her that perhaps there might be an
angel in the spheres who would love me, succor me, give me a place among the happy—yes, even
me! You think I speak like a fool,” continued the young man, the flush of his excitement
brightening all his face, and the natural superlatives of youth, all the warmer and stronger
for the physical infirmities which seemed to shut him out from their legitimate use, pouring to
his lips, “and so I should have been, but for the divine chance that brought me here. Ah, Mrs.
Crofton, you did not know what an Easter of the soul you were asking me to! I came only
He stopped, not because his words were exhausted, but because breath failed him—he stood before me, raising himself erect out of his habitual stoop of weakness, strengthened by the inspiring force of the great delusion, which gave color to his face and nerve to his hand. Looking at him so, his words did not seem such sad, bitter, heart-breaking folly as they were. Poor boy! poor Johnnie! how would he fall prostrate upon the cold, unconsolatory earth, when this spell was broken! I could have cried over him, as he stood there defying me; he had drunk that cup of Circe—but he did not know in his momentary intoxication that it was poison to him.
“My dear Johnnie,” said I, “I am very glad of anything that makes you happy—but there is surely no occasion to speak so strongly. Alice, I must remind you again, chose exactly the same life for herself that she supposed for you”——
“Alice has had her youth and her choice,” said Johnnie, with a calmer tone, and sinking,
Johnnie—well, it is of no use speaking. A man’s
business is not to speak, but to work.”
“That is very true, certainly,” said I: “but tell me, will you—if it is not wrong to ask—what has made this great change in your ideas, all at once?”
“Ah, Mrs. Crofton, don’t you know?” cried Johnnie, blushing, a soft overpowering youthful
blush, which would have done no discredit to Clara herself; and the poor, foolish boy looked at
me with an appealing triumphant look, as if he at once entreated me to say, and defied me to
deny that she was altogether an angel, and he the very happiest of boys or men.
“My dear boy,” said I, “don’t be angry with me. I’ve known you all your life, Johnnie. I don’t mean to say a word against Miss Reredos—but tell me, has there been any explanation between her and you?”
He hesitated a moment, blushing still.
“No,” he said, after a pause; “no—I have
her, or so foolish as to
think that I will ever have anything beyond income; but when I do speak, you
understand, Mrs. Crofton, it is not for vague love-making, but to ask her to be my wife.”
He looked at me with his sudden air of manhood and independence, again somewhat defiant.
Heaven help the poor boy! I heard myself groaning aloud in the extremity of my bewilderment and
confusion; poor Johnnie, with his superb self-assumption!—he, a fortnight ago, the cheerfulest
of boy invalids, the kindest of widow’s sons!—and she, five years older than he, at the lowest
reckoning, an experienced young lady, with dreams of settlements and trousseaux occupying her
mature mind! Alack, alack! what was to come of it? I sat silent, almost gaping with wonderment
at the boy. At last I caught at the idea of asking him what his prospects or intentions
were—though without an idea that he had any prospects, or knew in the least what he was talking about.
“You spoke of income, Johnnie—may I ask what you were thinking of?”
Johnnie blushed once more, though after a different fashion; he grew confidential and eager—like himself.
“I have told no one else,” he said, “but I will tell you, Mrs. Crofton, not only because you are our oldest friend, but because I have just told you something so much more important. I—I have written something—nobody knows!”
“Oh, you poor boy!” cried I, quite thankful to be able on less delicate ground to make an outcry over him; “don’t you think half the people in the country have written something?—and are you to make an income by that?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Johnnie, with dignity, “but it’s accepted, Mrs.
Crofton—that makes all the difference. Half the country don’t have letters from the booksellers
saying that it’s very good and they’ll publish it on the usual terms. I could show you the
letter,” added my young author, blushing once more, and putting his hand to his
breast-pocket—“I have it here.”
And there it was, accordingly, to my intense wonderment—and Johnnie’s hopes had, however
small, an actual foundation. On the book about
“Now, if I had the luck to hold a confidential talk with Maurice, I should have gone
round the entire Harley family,” said I to myself the next morning, “and be in the secret of
sundry imaginations which have not seen the light of day—but Maurice, fortunately, is not
likely to make me nor any one else his confidante. I wonder if there is anything at
all concerning him which it would be worth one’s while to be curious about?”
The question was solved sooner than I thought. When everybody had left our pleasant
breakfast-room but myself, and I, with my little basket of keys in my hand, was preparing to
follow, Maurice, who had been lingering by the great window, startled me by asking for a few
minutes’ conversation, “if I was quite at leisure.” I put down my basket with the utmost
promptitude. Curiosity, if not courtesy, made me perfectly at leisure to hear anything he might
have to say.
“I have undertaken a very foolish office,” said Maurice—“I have had the supreme conceit and presumption of supposing that I could perhaps plead with you, Mrs. Crofton, the cause of a friend.”
“I trust I shall feel sufficiently flattered,” said I, assuming the same tone. “And pray who is the friend who has the advantage of your support, Maurice? and what does he want of me?”
The young man colored and looked affronted—he was highly sensitive to ridicule, like all self-regarding men.
“Nay, pray don’t convince me so distinctly of my folly before I start,” he said; “the friend is a college friend of mine, who was so absurd as to marry before he had anything to live on; a very good fellow with—oh! don’t be afraid—perfectly sound views, I assure you, Mrs. Crofton, though he is acquainted with me.”
“I should think being acquainted with you very likely to help a sensible man to sound views,” said I, with some natural spite, thankful for the opportunity of sending a private arrow into him in passing; “and what does your friend want that I can help him in?”
“The Rector of Estcourt is an old man, and very ill,” said Maurice, after a pause of offence;
“Aware that you have not the slightest title to influence me—that means, does it not, Maurice?” said I, “that you rather think you have some claim upon that Rectory at Estcourt, and that you magnanimously resign it in favor of your friend? It was your father’s—it is your mother’s desire to see you in his place—you have thought of it vaguely all your life as a kind of inheritance, which you were at liberty to accept or withdraw from; now, to be sure, we are very, very old friends—is not that plainly, and without any superfluity of words, what you mean?”
Maurice made a still longer pause—he was seized with the restlessness common to men when they are rather hard tested in conversation. He got up unawares, picked up a book off the nearest table, as if he meant to answer me by means of that, and then returned to his chair. Then, after a little further struggle, he laughed, growing very red at the same time.
“You put the case strongly, but I will not say you are wrong,” he answered; “after all, I
believe, if it must be put into words, that is about
“Exactly,” said I; “we both understand it, and it is not necessary to enter further into that part of the subject; but now, tell me, Maurice, supposing your rights of natural succession to be perfectly acknowledged, why is it that you substitute another person, and postpone your own settlement to his?”
“My dear Mrs. Crofton,” cried Maurice, restored to himself by the question, “what would not I
give to be able to accept as mine that calm, religious life?—what would not I relinquish for a
faith as entire and simple as my friend Owen’s? But that is my misfortune. I suppose my mind is
not so wholesomely constituted as other people’s. I cannot believe so and so, just because I am
told to believe it—I cannot shape my creed according to the received pattern. If I could, I
should be but too happy; but que voulez-vous? a man cannot act against his
convictions—against his nature.”
“Nay, I assure you I am a very calm spectator,” said I; “I would not have either one thing or another. I have not the least doubt that you will know better some day, and why should I concern myself about the matter?”
“Why, indeed?” echoed Maurice, faintly; but
“And how then about yourself?—what do you mean to do?” asked I; “you are getting towards the age when men begin to think of setting up houses and families for themselves. Do you mean to be a College Don all your life, Maurice? I fear that must be rather an unsatisfactory kind of existence; and one must take care, if that is the case, not to ask any young ladies again to meet you—some one might happen to be too captivating for your peace of mind—a Miss Reredos might outweigh a fellowship;—such things have been even with men of minds as original as your own.”
“Miss Reredos! ah, she amuses herself!” said Maurice, with a conscious smile.
“Yes, I think you are very well matched,” said I, calmly; “you will not do her much harm, nor she inflict a very deep wound on your heart, but it might have happened differently. People as wise as yourself, when their turn comes, are often the most foolish in these concerns.”
“Ah, you forget that I am past youth,” said
“Somebody asked me for the living of Estcourt when your father lay dying; I was younger then, as you say—I was deeply horrified,” said I. “We must wait.”
“Ah, yes; but my father was a man in the prime of life, and this is an old man, whom even his own family cannot expect to live long,” said Maurice; “but, of course, if you do not like it, I have not another word to say.”
“Ah, Maurice,” said I, forgetting for a moment the personage who sat before me, and thinking
of Dr. Harley’s death-bed, and the fatherless children there so helpless and dependent on other
people’s judgment, “your father was a good man, but he had not the heart to live after he lost
his fortune, and your mother is a good woman, but she had not the heart to bring you up poorly
and bravely in your own home. They are my dear friends, and I dare speak of them even to you.
Why did she send you to that idle uncle of yours, to be brought up in idleness?—you big,
strong, indolent man! What is
Maurice started—rose up—made a surprised exclamation of my name—and then dropped into his chair again without saying anything. He did not answer me a word. The offence melted out of his face, but he kept his eyes down and did not look at me. I could not tell whether he was angry—I had been moved by my own feelings beyond, for the moment, thinking of his.
“Ask your friend to come and see you here,” I said, after an awkward little pause; “say, Mr. Crofton and I will be glad if he will dine with us before you go—perhaps, to-morrow, Maurice, and that will leave him time to get home on Saturday—and we will think about it, should the living of Estcourt fall vacant. Forgive me,” I continued, as I rose to go away, “I said more than I ought to have said.”
He took my hand and wrung it with an emphatic pressure; what he said I made out only with difficulty, I think it was, “No more than is true.”
And I left him with somewhat uncomfortable feelings. I had not the very least right to
lecture this young man; quite the other way—for
feel
at all satisfactory. Nevertheless, I was glad to see that Maurice was magnanimous—that he was
likely to forgive me—and that possibly there were elements of better things even in his
regarding indolence. All which symptoms, though in a moral point of view highly gratifying,
made me but feel the more strongly that I had gone beyond due limits, and exceeded the margin
of truth-telling and disagreeableness which one is not allowed towards one’s guests,
and in one’s own house.
It may be allowed to me to confess that I watched during the remainder of that day
with a little natural, but extremely absurd curiosity to see “what effect” our conversation had
upon Maurice Harley. After I had got over my own unpleasant sensations, I began to flatter
myself, with natural vanity, that perhaps I might have “done him good.” I had an inkling that
it was absurd, but that made very little difference, and I acknowledge that I felt quite a new
spur and stimulus of interest in the young man. I listened to his chance observations during
the day with an attention which I had never before bestowed upon them. For the moment, instead
of simple impatience of his indolence, and virtuous, gentlemanly good-for-nothingness, I began
to sympathize somewhat in the lamenting admiration of his friends that so much talent should be
lost to the world. Altogether, in my capacity of hostess to Maurice, I was for that day a
reformed and penitent person, full of compunction for my
“Is Miss Reredos, then, to be more attractive than the fellowship?” I said, lingering a moment as I passed.
Maurice looked up at me with a certain gleam of boyish malice and temper in his eye.
“You know we are very well matched, and I cannot do her much harm,” he said, quoting
my own words.
This was the good I had done him—this, out of a conversation which ended so seriously, was
the only seed that had remained in that fertile and productive soil, the mind of Maurice
Harley, and behold already its fructifications. I went back to my seat, and sat down
speechless. I was inexpressibly angry and mortified for the moment. To be sure it was a little
private and personal vanity which made the special sting. Yet he had been unquestionably moved
by my candid opinion of him, in which very little admiration was mingled with the regret—but
had I not piqued his vanity as well?
As for Johnnie, having been taken into his confidence, I was doubly alive to the feelings
with which he watched his brother. Miss Reredos managed admirably well between the
her vanity being of course in
play even more decidedly than anybody else’s. I believe she was quite deceived by the sudden
warmth of Maurice. I believe the innocent young woman fell captive in an instant, not to his
fascinations, but to the delusion of believing that she had fascinated him, and that the name
of the Fellow of Exeter was that evening inscribed upon her long list of victims; but,
notwithstanding, she would not give up Johnnie; I suppose his youthful adoration was something
new and sweet to the experienced young lady—the absoluteness of his trust in her and admiration
of her was delicious to the pretty coquette, with whom warier men were on their guard. Over
Johnnie she was absolute, undisputed sovereign—he was ready to defy the whole world in her
behalf, and disown every friend he had at her bidding. Such homage, even from a cripple, was
too sweet to be parted with. Somehow, by means of those clever eyes of hers, even while at the
height of her flirtation with Maurice, she kept Johnnie in hand, propitiated, and calmed him. I
don’t know how it is done—I don’t think Alice knew either; but I am not sure that a certain
instinctive perception of the manner of that skilful double movement did not come natural to
Clara Sedgwick, and
As for Miss Polly, she could do nothing but talk about the advantages of useful training for girls. “If these poor children should turn out flirts, Clare!” she cried, in dismay. To be sure, Emmy, the pretty one, was only ten and a half—but still if education could hinder such a catastrophe, there was certainly no time to be lost.
Mr. Owen came to dinner next day, according to my invitation. He was a young man, younger
than Maurice, and a hundred times more agreeable. He was curate of St. Peter’s, in
Simonborough, where a curate among the multitude of divines congregated about the cathedral,
was as hard to find or make any note of as the famous needle in the bundle of hay. And it is
very probable that he was not a brilliant preacher, or noted for any gift in particular; but I
liked the honest, manful young fellow, who was not ashamed either to do his work or to talk of
it when occasion called—nor afraid to marry upon his minute income, nor to tell me with a
passing blush and a happy laugh, which became him, what a famous little housekeeper his wife
At which juncture I struck the excellent young man dumb and breathless by uttering aloud a
fervent desire and prayer that by some happy chance Maurice should fall in love.
Mr. Owen looked at me for a moment thunderstruck, the words of his own former sensible sentence hanging half-formed about his lips; then, when he had recovered himself a little, he smiled and said, “You have so much confidence in a female preacher? No doubt they are irresistible—but not in matters of doctrine, perhaps.”
“No such thing,” said I, “I have no confidence in female preachers or religious courtship; but apart from the intense satisfaction which I own I should have in seeing Maurice make, as people say, a fool of himself, that is the only means I see of bringing him back to life.”
“To life!” said my new acquaintance, with a lively look of interrogation.
“Oh, I do not mean anything grand; I mean common life, with the housekeeping to be provided for,” said I smiling, “and the daily bread, and the other mouths that have to eat it. I daresay, even you yourself, who seem to stand in no such need as Maurice, have found out something in the pleasant jingle you were talking of—of Mrs. Owen’s basket of keys.”
The young man blushed once more that slight passing color of happiness, and answered gravely,
yet with a smile, “It is true, I see what you mean—and it is very possible indeed—but,” he
I shook my head. “Nothing will come of it,” said I; “they are amusing themselves.”
Condign punishment came upon my head almost as I spoke; I had turned my head incautiously, and Johnnie and Alice had both heard me.
“Amusing themselves!” cried Johnnie, hissing the words into my ears in a whisper. “Amusing!
do you suppose that it is anything but her angel-sweetness, Mrs. Crofton, that makes her so
forbearing with Maurice—my brother? I adore her for it,” cried (but in a whisper) the
deluded boy.
“Amusing themselves!” cried Alice, raising her head, “and you can say so, Mrs.
Crofton? Oh, I am ashamed, to think a woman should forget herself so strangely; I could forgive
anything—almost anything,” said Alice, correcting herself with a blush, “which really sprang
from true strong feeling; but flirting—amusing themselves! Oh, Mrs. Crofton!”
“My dear child, it is not my fault,” said I, “I have no hand in the matter, either one way or the other.”
“Yes, that is true,” said Alice, with that lively
“Is it not dishonoring to men as well?—two are playing at it, and the other creature is accountable likewise. Are you not concerned for the credit of your sex?” said I, turning to Owen.
The young curate laughed, Alice blushed and looked deeply affronted, and Johnnie, turning all
the fury of his jealousy upon me, looked as if it would have pleased him to do me some bodily
harm. Well, well, one can bear all that—and I am happy to say that I think I accelerated
distantly and humbly by this said conversation, the coming on of Maurice Harley’s fate.
Very shortly after our little party separated, it was time to go back to London to
Derwent’s treadmill; our holiday was over—and as Alice had positively declined my invitation to
go with us to London, we were again for several months quite separated from our country
friends. I heard from them in the meantime various scraps of information, from which I could
gather vaguely how their individual concerns went on. Mr. Reredos was again a visitor at the
cottage, and Mrs. Harley, who was not in the secret of his previous rejection, wrote to me two
or three long, anxious, confidential letters about his evident devotion to her dear girl—and
what did I think of it? It was, the good mother said, the position of all others which she
would choose for her daughter, if it lay in her decision—a country clergyman’s wife, the same
position which she herself had held long ago, when Dr. Harley lived, and she was happy!—but she
could not make out what
you know as well as I do, dear Mrs. Crofton, that such
things must be thought of, and really this is so thoroughly eligible”——
Alice followed on the same key.
“Mamma teases me again on that everlasting subject, dear Mrs. Crofton; there is some one so
completely eligible, she says—and I quite feel it—so entirely eligible that if there was not
another in the world! Mamma is provoked, and says if somebody came who was quite the reverse of
eligible that I should answer differently—and indeed I am not sure but there is justice in what
she says. But do interfere on my behalf, please; I prefer to be always Alice Harley—do, please,
From which double correspondence I inferred that Mr. Reredos had somehow managed to resume his suit and to make a partisan of Mrs. Harley without giving a desperate and hopeless affront to the pride of Alice, which raised my opinion of his generalship so greatly that I began to imagine there might possibly be some likelihood of success for the Rector—a conclusion which I fear did not gratify me so much as Mrs. Harley had imagined it should.
Along with this information I heard of a sister of Mr. Owen’s, who was paying them a visit—of
repeated excursions into Simonborough—of Maurice’s growing relish for home, and some anxieties
on the young man’s part about his future life. And Johnnie’s book was published—a book which in
my wildest imagination I could not have supposed to be produced by the cripple boy, who, out of
the cottage, knew nothing whatever of life. Johnnie’s hero was a hero who did feats of strength
and skill unimaginable—tamed horses, knocked down bullies, fought, rode, rowed, and cricketed,
after the most approved fashion of the modern youth, heroical and muscular—and in his leisure
hours made love!—such love!—full
And so, quite quietly and gradually, the time stole on. I heard nothing more from poor Bertie Nugent, in India; he meant to come home, but he had not yet obtained his leave of absence, and it remained quite uncertain when we should see him. Everything was very quiet at home. Our fighting was over—our national pride and confidence in our own arms and soldiers, revived by actual experience; everything looking prosperous within the country, and nothing dangerous without.
It was at this time that the dreadful news of the Indian mutiny came upon the country like
the shock of an earthquake. News more frightful never startled a peaceful people. Faces paled,
and hearts sickened, even among people who had no friends in that deadly peril; and as for us,
who had relatives and connections to be anxious for, it is impossible to describe the fear that
took possession of us. I knew nobody there but Bertie, and he, thank Heaven, was but a man, and
could only be killed at the worst; but I had people belonging to me there, though I did not
know them; people whom I had heard of for years and years, though I had never seen them;
cousins, and such like—Nugents—with women among them—God help us! creatures who might have to
bear tortures more cruel than death. The
But the first miseries were over by the time we went to Hilfont—it had begun to be a fight of
man to man—that is to say, of one man to some certain number of heathen creatures, from a dozen
to a hundred—and the news, breathless
new news
came in; everybody about the house looked breathless till they heard if the Captain, as they
called him, was still safe. As for Alice Harley, I do not remember that she ever asked a
question—she went and came about the house, read all the papers, listened to all the
conversations, stood by and heard everything, while her sister Clara poured forth inquiry upon
inquiry, while the gentlemen discussed the whole matter, and decided what everybody must do;
while even Lady Greenfield, drawn towards me,
The tears were in my own eyes, so that I did not see the child very clearly as he spoke; but I saw Alice bend quickly down to kiss him, and heard in the room the sound of one sob—a sound surprised out of somebody’s heart. Not Lady Greenfield’s, who put her handkerchief to her eyes, and said that really she was only human, and might be forgiven for wishing her own relations safe. Miss Polly had come with her sister-in-law that day—she was paler than ever, the tender old lady. She cried a little as we talked, but it was not out of her calm old heart that such a sob of anguish and passion came.
“My dear,” said Miss Polly, speaking as if she addressed me, but not looking in my direction,
“It is very easy for you to speak,” said Lady Greenfield, and I believe she thought so; “but Clare and I feel differently—he is not a relation of yours.”
“I pray for the dear boy, night and morning, all the same. God bless him, at this moment, wherever he may be!” said Miss Polly. I was conscious of a quick, sudden movement as the words fell, soft and grave, from her dear old lips. It was Alice who had left the room.
She could not bear it any longer. She did not belong to him—she was not old enough
to speak like Miss Polly—she durst not flutter forth her anxiety for her old playfellow as
Clara did. Her heart was throbbing and burning in her young warm breast. She did not say a word
or ask a question; but when the tender old woman bade God bless him, Alice could stand quiet no
longer. I knew it, though she had not a word to say.
This time of anxiety was one which, in that great common interest and grief, drew
many people together who had little sympathy with each other in ordinary times. Many a close,
private, confidential talk, deluged with tears, or tremulous with hope, I had within these days
with many a troubled woman, who up to that time had been only an acquaintance, or very slightly
known to me, but who was now ready, at the touch of this magical sympathy, to take me into her
heart. Derwent’s custom of riding to the railway for the earliest perusable news, and an
occasional message by telegraph, which came to him when any important intelligence arrived,
made our house besieged by anxious people, to whom the greatest joy of their lives was to find
no mention in these breathless dispatches of the individual or the place in which they were
interested. Nugents, whom I had never heard of, started up everywhere, asking from me
information about Bertie and his family. The girls who
Derwie flew here and there on his pony, telling the news—possessed with it to the exclusion of every other thought—and I could but be thankful that he was a child, and the telegraph-boy, not a man, able to set out with a heart of flame to that desperate and furious strife.
I surprised a nursery party at this memorable period in the expression of their sentiments.
It was somebody’s birthday at Waterflag, and all the little people were collected there.
Derwent had been telling them of a feat performed in India by a Flintshire man, which all the
newspapers had celebrated, and which we were all rather proud of. Derwie, in his capacity of
newsboy, read the papers to the best of his ability, with very original readings of the Indian
names, but he was much more thoroughly informed than any of the others—by reason of his
trade—and they listened to him as to an oracle. Then came an account of the mutiny and all its
frightful consequences, as well as Derwie knew. The children listened absorbed, the girls
being, as I rather think is very common, much the most greatly excited. Willie Sedgwick, the
chubby pink and white heir, who looked so much younger
“Oh!” cried out the child, stamping her little foot, as Derwie, breathless himself, paused in his tale—“oh! if I had only a gun, I would take hold of papa’s hand and shoot them all!”
“Ah!” cried Emmy, whose thoughts had been doubtless following the same track, and to whom
this sudden sense of a want which, perhaps, she scarcely realized in ordinary times, came sharp
in sudden contrast with that exclamation of Clary’s—“Ah, Clary!” cried the poor child, with a
shrill accent in the momentary pang it gave her, “but we have no papa.” It struck me like a
sudden passionate, artless postscript of personal
“He was killed in India,” said Di, in a low tone, her womanly little face growing dark with a sudden twilight of feeling more serious than her years.
“They don’t want us to fight,” said Derwie, whom this personal digression did not
withdraw from his main interest; “you may be sure, Clary, they don’t want a little thing like
you, or me, or Willie; to be sure, if we had been older!—but never mind, there’s sure to be
somebody to fight with when we’re big enough; and then there’s such famous fellows
there—there’s Sam Rivers, I was telling you of, that Huntingdonshire man; I know his mother,
I’ll take you to see her, if you like; and there’s Bertie—there’s our Bertie, don’t you
know?—he’ll never come home till they’re all safe, or till he’s killed.”
“If he’s killed he’ll never come back,” said Willie Sedgwick.
“Oh, I wish you would go away, you horrid great boy!” cried Clary, indignantly—“Killed! when
you know mamma is so fond of Mrs. Crofton’s Bertie, and loves him as much as Uncle Maurice!—but
Willie doesn’t care for anything,”
“I could bear him to be killed,” said Derwie, who, poor child, had never seen the hero he discussed, “if he did something worth while first—like that one, you know, who blew himself up, or that one”——
“But, Derwie, what was the good of blowing himself up,” said Clary, with wondering round eyes.
“Don’t you see?” cried Derwie, impatiently; “why, to destroy the powder and things, to be sure, that they might not have it to fire at us.”
“I’d have poured water all on the powder, if it had been me, and spoiled it without hurting any one,” said the prudent Willie.
“As if he had time to think about hurting any one!” said Derwie—“as if he didn’t just
do it—the first thought that came into his head.”
“Oh, Derwent!” cried Clary again, “if they were all—every one—ten thousand thousand, standing up before one big gun, and papa would only take hold of my hand, I would fire it off!”
“Aunty says we should forgive,” said Miss Polly’s gentle Di, in a low voice; “’tis dreadful
to be killed, but it would be worse to kill somebody else.”
“I don’t think so at all,” cried Clary, “I would kill them every one if I could—every one that did such horrid, cruel, wicked things. I hope Bertie will kill ever so many—hundreds! Don’t you hope so, Derwie? I would if I were him.”
This sanguinary speech was interrupted by an arrival of nurses and attendants, and Clary, quite beautiful in her childish fury, went off to make a captivating toilette for the early childs’ dinner, where everybody was to appear in gala costume, to do honor to the birthday hero. The elder Clara, the child’s mother, had been standing with me in one end of the great nursery, listening to this discussion. She turned round with a laugh when the party had dispersed.
“What a little wretch!” said Clara; “but oh! Mrs. Crofton, isn’t it absurd what people say
about children’s gentleness and sweetness, and all that? I know there is never a story told in
my nursery of a wicked giant, or a bad uncle, or anything of that sort, but the very baby, if
he could speak, would give his vote for cutting the villain up in little pieces. There never
were such cruel imps. They quite shout with satisfaction when that poor innocent giant, who
never did any harm that I can see, tumbles down the beanstalk and gets killed—though I am sure
that impudent little thief Jack deserves it a great deal
“No more,” said I, “I have not heard from himself a long time now—and the public news only keeps us anxious. I am not quite so philosophical as Derwie—few things would make me so thankful as to hear that Bertie was on his way home.”
“Oh, I should be so glad!” said Clara, eagerly; then, after a pause and with a smile, “young
men who want their friends to get dreadfully interested about them should all go out—don’t you
think, Mrs. Crofton? There is Alice, for example. I thought everything was coming round quite
nicely, and that Alice was going to be quite rational, and settle like other people,
at last—but just when everything seemed in such excellent train, lo! here came this Indian
business, and upset the whole again.”
“Upset what? I don’t understand what you mean,” said I, with a little wonder, partly affected and partly real.
“Oh, Mrs. Crofton! you do,” cried Clara; “you know mamma and I had just been making
up our minds that Mr. Reredos was the person, and that all was to be quite pleasant
and comfortable. He was so attentive, and Alice really
really be anything to each other. But he’s far away, and he’s in danger,
and there’s quite an air of romance about him. And Alice is so ridiculous! I am quite sure in
my own mind that this is the only reason why she’s so very cool to the Rector again.”
“It is very injudicious to say so, Clara,” said I; “of course she must be interested—her old playfellow—like a brother to you both; but as for interposing between her and an eligible”——
“Now, please don’t be rational,” pleaded Clara, “I know exactly what you are going to say—but
after all she must marry somebody, you know, and where is the harm of an eligible
establishment? Perhaps it would be as well if mamma did not use the word—but still!—oh! to be
sure, dear, good, kind Bertie—the children are quite right,” said Clara, with a sweet suffusion
of kindness and good feeling over all her face—“I am sure I love him every bit as much as I
love Maurice—he was always like a brother, the dear fellow! I don’t say Alice should not be
interested in him; but only it’s all her romance,
“These young ladies, you see, Clara,” said I, “they are not at all to be depended on; they never will attend to what we experienced people say.”
“Ah, yes, that is true,” said Alice’s younger sister, with a sigh of serious acquiescence, and the simplest good faith.
Clara, with her five babies, had forgotten that she was not her sister’s senior—while Alice,
for her part, looking down from her quiet observatory in her brown silk dress upon Clara’s
wonderful toilettes and blooming beauty, felt herself a whole century older than that pretty
matron-sister, who was always so sweetly occupied with life, and had so little time for
thought. I smiled upon them both, being near twenty years their senior, and thought them a
couple of children still. So we all go on, thinking ourself the wisest always. In these days I
began to moralize a little. I have no doubt Miss Polly had similar thoughts of me.
That evening I had the satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) of beholding a very similar
condition of things to that which had occupied my attention in my own house at Easter. All the
Harleys were at Waterflag, in honor of Willie’s birthday, including the pretty little Kate,
whose first party this was, and—a more perplexing addition—their mother. Mrs. Harley was
exactly what she had always been, but age had made her uncertain mind more uncertain, while it
increased her anxiety to have her children “provided for,” as she called it. The colder Alice
was to Mr. Reredos, the more warmly and tenderly her mother conciliated and courted him. Here
was a good match, which might be lost for a caprice, one might have supposed the good woman to
be thinking; and it was her duty to prevent that consummation, if possible. Mrs. Harley quite
gave herself up to the task of soothing down the temper which Alice had ruffled, and whispering
perseverance to the discouraged
tout entier, like our poor cripple Johnnie. She felt the flattery, though she
cared little about the victim. I believe, while she foresaw quite coolly the misery she was
bringing on the boy, she yet had and would retain a certain grateful memory of him all her
life.
But it appeared that she had either tired of Maurice, or recognized as impracticable her flirtation
And there, on the other hand, was Alice, thwarting all the wishes and inclinations of her
friends. Mrs. Harley forgave Johnnie, and turned all her wrath for his foolishness upon Miss
Reredos; but she did not forgive Alice for those cold and brief answers, that unapproachable
aspect which daunted the Rector, comfortable and satisfactory as was his opinion of himself. I
could not help looking at these young people with a passing wonder in my mind over the strange
caprices and cross-purposes of their period of life. Maurice, for instance—what was it that had
set Maurice all astray from his comfortable self-complacency and dilettante leisure?
Somehow the pleasure-boat of his life had got among the rocks, and nothing but
dissatisfaction—extreme, utter, unmitigated dissatisfaction—was left to the young man, as I
could perceive, of all his accomplishments and perfections. Alice was thrusting ordinary life
away from her—thrusting aside love, and independence, and “an eligible establishment,” trying
to persuade herself that there were other pursuits more dignified than the common life of
woman—for—a caprice, Clara said. Johnnie, poor Johnnie, was happy in the merest folly of
self-deception that ever innocent
And of course our conversation during the course of the evening ran upon matters connected
with India and the last news. Derwent and Mr. Sedgwick held grave consultations on the
political aspect of the matter and the future government of India. Miss Reredos shuddered, and
put on pretty looks of earnest attention; Clara told the story of the conversation in the
nursery; while, in the mean time, Alice expressed her interest neither by look nor word—only
betrayed it by sitting stock-still, taking no part in the conversation, and restraining more
than was natural
But I confess I was surprised to hear the eager part which Maurice took in the conversation, and the heat and earnestness with which he spoke.
“If there is one man on earth whom I envy it is Bertie Nugent,” said Maurice, when Clara had ended her nursery story. “I remember him well enough, and I know the interest Mrs. Crofton takes in him. You need not make faces at me, Clara—I don’t think he’s very brilliant, and neither, I daresay, does Mrs. Crofton; but he’s in his proper place.”
“Maurice, my dear, the place Providence appoints to us is always our proper place,” said Mrs. Harley, with the true professional spirit of a clergyman’s wife.
“Oh! just so, mother,” said the Fellow of Exeter, with a momentary return of his old, superb,
superior smile, “only, you know, one differs in opinion with Providence now and then. Bertie
Nugent, however, has no doubt about it, I am certain. I envy him,” added the young man, with a
certain glance at me, as if he expected me to appreciate the change in his sentiments, and to
feel rather complimented that my poor Bertie
“I thought Mr. Maurice Harley despised soldiers,” said Miss Reredos, dropping her words slowly out of her mouth, as if with a pleasant consciousness that they contained a sting.
“On the contrary, I think soldiering the only natural profession to which we are born,” said Maurice, starting with an angry flush, and all but rudeness of tone.
“Don’t say so, please, before the children,” cried Clara. “War’s disgusting. For one thing, nobody can talk of anything else when it’s going on. And then only think what shoals of poor men it carries away, never to bring them back again. Ah, poor Bertie!” cried Clara, with a little feeling, “I wish the war were over, and he was safe home.”
“I am not sure that war is not the most wholesome of standing institutions,” said Maurice, philosophically. “Your shoals of poor men who go away, and never return, don’t matter much to general humanity. There were more went off in the Irish exodus than we shall lose in India. We can afford to lose a little blood.”
“Oh, yes, and sometimes it takes troublesome people out of the way,” said the Rector’s
sister—“one should not forget that.”
“Extremely true, and very philosophical, for a woman,” said Maurice, with a savage look. “It drains the surplus population off, and makes room for those who remain.”
Clara and her mother, both of them, rushed into the conversation with the same breath as
women rush to separate combatants. I should have been very much surprised had I been more
deeply interested. But at present I was occupied with that imperturbable, uninterfering
quietness with which Alice sat at the table, saying nothing;—how elaborately unconscious and
unconcerned she looked!—that was much more important to me than any squabble between Maurice
and the Rector’s sister—or than the Rector himself, or any one of the many and various
individual concerns which, like the different threads of a web, were woven into the quiet
household circle—giving a deep dramatic interest to the well-bred, unpicturesque pose of the
little company in that quiet English room.
We stayed all that night at Waterflag, as we always did when we dined with the
Sedgwicks, and of course I was subjected to a long private and confidential conversation with
Mrs. Harley in my dressing-room, when we both ought to have been at rest. She poured out her
anxieties upon me as she had done many a long year ago, when all these young people were
unconscious little children, and Dr. Harley, poor good man, was newly dead. Only Time had
changed both of us since then—she had become an old woman with silver-white hair under her
snowy cap. I was old too, though my boy was but a child, and kept me nearer to youth than
belonged to my years; but Mrs. Harley was as glad of this outlet to her anxieties, and felt as
much relief in pouring these anxieties forth upon somebody else’s shoulders as ever.
“Ah, Clare!” she said, “you have only one, to be sure, and he’s nobly provided for; but we’re
never so happy, though we don’t think it,
then—but now!—dear, dear! the charge of all these grown up young
people, Clare, is far too much for a poor woman like me. I believe I shall break down all at
once, one of these days.”
“Let us take it quietly,” said I, “they are very good, sensible, well-educated young people—they know what they are doing—don’t you think you might trust them to act for themselves?”
“They will, whether I trust them or not,” sighed poor Mrs. Harley. “Ah dear! to think how one toils and denies one’s self for one’s family, and how little account they make of one’s wishes when all is done! I think mine have quite set themselves—all but Clara, dear girl, who is so perfectly satisfactory in every way—to thwart and cross me, Alice—you know how unreasonable she is—I can do nothing with her. Just the thing of all others that I could have chosen for her, and such a nice, excellent, judicious young man. You saw how she behaved to him to-night.”
“But really, Mrs. Harley, if Alice doesn’t like him”—I interposed with humility.
“Oh, nonsense—she does like him—at least, she doesn’t like anybody else that I know of—
“Why, no—except just, perhaps, that—I fear—she doesn’t,” said I, with hesitation; for I confess this superlative mother’s argument quite nonplused me. After all, why shouldn’t she like that good, young, handsome Rector? I reserved the question for private consideration, but was a little staggered by the strength of Mrs. Harley’s case.
“My opinion is that Alice thinks it rather a merit to refuse an eligible person,” said Mrs.
Harley—“like all these young people. There is Maurice, too—you will not believe it, Clare—
he might have done a
great deal better at least. But, no!—when they find somebody quite unsuitable, that
is the very thing to please young people in these days; and there is my son, Clare—my eldest
son—who was never intended for any profession but the Church—actually broaching all kinds of
wild schemes about work, and talking of going to Australia, or taking a laborer’s hod, or any
other wild thing he can think of; it is enough to break my heart!”
“Then do you mean that Maurice intends to throw up his fellowship, and marry?” said I, thinking this too good news to be true.
Mrs. Harley shook her head.
“It is all a muddle,” she said, “there is no satisfaction at all in it; she thought he
flirted with Miss Reredos, and he thought she flirted with
so ill-tempered, it is really quite dreadful. I am sure, when I
was young, I never gave my parents any uneasiness about me, yet my two eldest children seem to
think it quite an amusement to worry me out of my life.”
“Let us believe they don’t do it on purpose,” said I; “troubles never come single, you know—and I daresay this is the most critical time of their life.”
“Ah, Alice should have had all these affairs over long ago!” said Mrs. Harley, disapprovingly; “Alice is seven and twenty, Mrs. Crofton—she ought to have been settled in life years ago. I am sure, considering all the opportunities she has had, it is quite disgraceful. I can’t help feeling that people—her father’s friends, for instance—will blame me.”
I found it difficult not to smile at this refinement of maternal anxiety, but after a while
succeeded in soothing the good mother, whose mind
But who can tell what is to happen within twenty-four hours? When I left my
dressing-room next morning, I found Derwent lingering in the corridor outside, waiting for me.
He carried in his hand one of those ominous covers which thrill the hearts of private people
with fears of evil tidings. He had been half afraid to bring it into me, but he did not hide
either the startling hieroglyphics which proclaimed the nature of the dispatch, nor his own
distressed and sorrowful face.
“What is the matter?” I cried, in breathless alarm, when I saw him; “something has happened!”
“I fear so,” said Derwent; “but softly—softly, Clare; in the first place it is not absolutely his name and there are such perpetual mistakes by this confounded telegraph. Softly, softly, Clare.”
I had seized the dispatch while he was speaking—I read it without saying a word—did I not
know how it would be?—ah, that concise, dreadful,
“But, my love, it is not his name—look! it absolutely may be somebody else and not Bertie,” cried my husband.
Ah, Bertie! the sound of his dear, pleasant, homely name overcame me. There was no longer any Bertie in the world! I had borne the dreadful excitement of reading the dispatch, but I lost my self-command entirely when all the world of love and hope that had lived in him came before me in his name—it went to my heart.
Long after, Derwent returned to point out the possibilities, which I had no heart to find
out. I heard him languidly—I had made up my mind at once to the worst. One hopes least when
one’s heart is most deeply concerned; but still my mind roused to catch at the straw, such as
it was. The telegraph reported that it was Captain N. Hugent who was killed. It was a very
slight travesty to rest any confidence upon; but then Bertie was Lieutenant-Colonel, lately
breveted. I refused to listen for a long time; but at last the hope caught hold of me. Derwent
recalled to my recollection so many other errors—even in this very dispatch the name of one
place was quite unrecognizable. When I did receive
A pale afternoon—a ghostly half twilight of clouds and autumn obscurity. I went into Clara’s
favorite sitting-room, where she was by herself, to bid her good-bye, unable to bear the sight
of the whole family, especially of Mrs. Harley, and the sympathy, sincere though it was, which
she would give me. That miserable morsel of hope, which I did not believe in, yet trusted to,
in spite of myself, raised to a fever my grief and distress. The deepest calamity, which is
certain, and not to be doubted, is so far better than suspense, that it has not the burning
agitation of anxiety to augment its pangs. I went into Clara’s room with the noiseless step of
a ghost, impelled by I cannot tell what impulse of swiftness and silence. Clara was crying
abundantly for her old playfellow. Alice, as I did not observe at the time, but remembered
afterwards, was not
We hurried back to Hilfont, all very silent, little Derwie leaning back in his corner of the carriage, his eyes ablaze, and not a tear in them; the child was in the highest excitement, but not for Bertie’s life—panting to know, not that the cousin whom he had never seen was saved, but that something noble and great had been done by this hero of his childish imagination. As for my husband, I knew it was only in consideration of my weakness that he had remained all day inactive. I saw him look at his watch, and lean out to speak to the coachman. I knew that he would continue his journey to town as fast as steam could carry him. I felt certain Derwent could not rest without certain news.
When we reached home, I hastened at once, in
“I have only a minute to spare,” said Derwent, looking over the list himself, with a grave
and unsatisfied face; “of course I must go to town immediately, Clare, and see if any more
information is to be had. But look here! it is not so much the mistake of name as of rank which
weighs with me; military people, you know, are rigid in that respect. Had it been Colonel, I
should not have questioned the transposing of the initials; but see! he is registered as Major
even here.”
“Don’t say anything, Derwent,” said I; “let me make up my mind to it. Why should not we have our share of suffering as well as so many others? Do not try to soothe me with a hope which you don’t feel.”
“My dear, if I were not so anxious, I should be sure of it,” said Derwent. “I am very hopeful even now. And, Clare,” said my husband, stopping sorrowfully to look at me, “grieved as we are, think, at the most, it might have been worse still—it might have been your own son.”
I turned my head away for the moment, with something of an added pang. My boy Bertie!—he was not my son—he did not even look so very, very much younger than I, now-a-days, as he had been used to do; yet he was my boy, kindred in blood and close in heart. Little Derwent stood by, listening up to this moment in silence. Now he spoke.
“Mamma, are you sorry?” cried the child; “our Bertie would not die for nothing, if he did
die. Is it for Bertie, because he’s been a brave soldier that you cry? Then how will you do,
mamma, when I’m a man?”
How should I do? I clasped my son close in my arms and wept aloud. His father went away from
us with a trembling lip, and tears in
his duty? But some such men bear
charmed lives.
Derwent went away that day to do all that was possible towards ascertaining the truth. We
were left alone in the house, Derwie and I. My boy kept by me all day, unfolding to me the
stores of his wonderful childish information—what in my pride and admiration I had been used to
call Derwie’s gossip. He did not console, nor suggest consolation; but the heart swelled in his
child’s bosom to think of some great thing which he had yet to hear of, that Bertie had done.
He was entirely possessed with that idea; and by-and-by his enthusiasm breathed itself into his
mother also. I began to bear myself proudly in the depths of my grief. “Another for England!” I
said in my heart: Ah! more than for England, for humanity, nature, our very race and blood. If
Bertie had died to deliver the helpless from yonder torturing demons, could we grudge his life
for that cause? So I tried to stifle down my fond hopes for my chosen heir—to put Alice Harley
and Estcourt aside out of my mind, that nothing might come between me and our dearest young
hero. He
So I thought, waiting for further tidings, persuading myself that I had no other expectation than to hear that fatal dispatch confirmed—yet cherishing I cannot tell what unspoken, unpermitted secret hopes at the bottom of my heart.
Some days of extreme suspense ensued. Derwent found no satisfaction in London; but remained there in order to get the first news that came. Heavily those blank hours of uncertainty went over us. Lady Greenfield came to Hilfont, and she and I grew friends, as we mingled our tears—friends for the first time. All my other neighbors distressed me with inquiries or condolences. Some wondered I went to church on the next Sunday, and was not in mourning. Nobody would let me alone in my anxiety and grief. I had a visit almost every day from Clara Sedgwick, who came in crying, as if that would console me, and hung upon my neck. I was far too deeply excited to take any comfort out of Clara’s caresses; perhaps, if truth must be told, I was a little bored with demonstrations of affection, to which, uneasy and miserable as I was, I could make so little response.
Then came the day for news—the dread day,
“I fear—I fear, Derwie, my darling—I fear it must be true,” said I.
“But what did he do? Bertie did not die for nothing, mamma—is it not in the paper what he
did?” cried Derwie.
If it had been, perhaps one could have borne it better. If he had died relieving a distressed garrison, or freeing a band of agonized fugitives, and we had known that he did so, perhaps—perhaps—it might have been easier to bear. I sat down listlessly in the great window of the breakfast-room. Something of the maze of grief came over me. If I had seen him coming through the avenue yonder, crossing the lawn, approaching to me with his pleasant smile, I should not have wondered. Death had separated Bertie from the limits of place and country—he was mysteriously near, though what remained of him might be thousands of miles away.
Thus I sat languidly looking out, and saying over in my heart those verses which everybody
must remember who has ever been in great trouble—those verses of In Memoriam, in which
the poet sees the ship come home with its solemn, silent passenger, and yet feels that if along
with the other travellers he saw the dead man step forth—
“And strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand things of home;— “And I should tell him all my pain, And how my life had drooped of late, And he should sorrow o’er my state, And marvel what possessed my brain; “And I perceived no touch of change, No hint of death in all his frame, But found him all in all the same, I should not feel it to be strange.”
Wonderful subtle intuition of the poetic soul! Who does not know that strange contrast of death and life? A week ago, and had I seen Bertie from that window, I should have hailed his appearance with the wildest amazement. But I should neither have wondered nor faltered had I seen him this day; on the contrary, would have felt in my heart that it was natural and fit he should be there.
But I did not see Bertie. I saw far off a homely country gig driving up rapidly towards the
house, and strained my eyes, wondering if it could be Derwent, though he had sent me no
intimation of his return. As it came closer, however, I saw that one of the figures it
contained was a woman’s, and at last perceived that my visitors were no other than Alice Harley
and her brother Maurice. I started nervously up, and hid away my dispatch, for I trembled to
see my dear girl. What had she to do coming here?—she who could not ask after his fate with
calmness, and yet to the bottom of her maiden heart felt that she had no right to be
concerned.
Alice was very pale—I could see the nervous
I shook my head, and she sank into the nearest seat—not fainting—people do not faint at such moments—kept alive and conscious by a burning force of pain.
“Only the same miserable news over again,” said I, “with the same mistake in the name; letters must come, I fear, before we can know—but I am afraid to hope.”
A little convulsive sound came from Alice’s breast—she heard it herself, and drew herself up
“Poor Nugent!” said Maurice—“poor honest fellow!—he was not very brilliant, but people liked him all the better for that. What a bright frank face he had—what a laugh! I shall never hear anybody laugh so heartily again. And to think of a fellow like that, and hundreds more, sacrificed to these black demons! Good heavens! and we sitting here at home idling away our lives!”
“Ah, my Bertie!” cried I, out of my heart, “and no one left behind him to bear his
name—nobody to mourn for him except ourselves—nobody belonging to him! If there is one
thing a man has a right to in life and death, it is surely a woman’s tears.”
I did not think what I was saying. The words were scarcely out of my lips when an
overpowering burst of tears broke through all the painful reserve and forced calmness of Alice.
She covered
Maurice stood by overwhelmed with surprise; he looked at his sister—he grew crimson up to his hair—he drew back a step as if he felt himself an intruder spying upon this unsuspected grief. Then he retired to the bookcase at the other side of the room, with an appealing glance at me. I followed him softly, Alice being far too entirely absorbed to observe us for the moment.
“What does it mean—was there anything between them?” asked Maurice, in my ear.
“They were playfellows and dear friends,” said I; “you know how Clara feels it too.”
“Not like that,” said Maurice, once more growing red, as he turned to the books in
the shelves—he stood there absorbed in these books, taking out some to examine them, showing
himself entirely occupied with this investigation till Alice had recovered her composure. She
“You are not well, my dear child,” said I, “I will bring you some wine, and you must rest a little. Thank you for remembering him, Alice. Now we can give him nothing but tears.”
Alice, all pale, miserable, and abashed, gasped forth something of which I could only distinguish the words “playfellow” and “old friend.”
“I was saying so—you were like his sisters, Clara and you,” said I, out loud to reach Maurice’s ear.
Alice looked up in my face, now that she had betrayed herself. I thought she was almost jealous that I did not understand her—that I really believed these were, like Clara’s, friendly and sisterly tears.
What could I do? I hushed her, drawing her head to my breast. I could say nothing,—he was gone—he could neither learn what love was bestowed upon him nor return it. Words could no longer touch that secret matter which was made holy by Bertie’s grave.
“Look here, Mrs. Crofton,” said Maurice,
I looked with little interest, believing it only a kind expedient to break up the trying situation in which we all stood. It was a name which Maurice pointed out, the name entirely unknown to me, of Captain Nicolas Hughes.
“What of it?” said I, almost disposed to think he was making light of our trouble.
“Captain N. Hughes—Captain N. Hugent—the mistake might be quite explainable; at least,” said Maurice, putting up the book, “at least with such a similarity we ought not yet to despair. Alice we’ll go home now. I daresay Mrs. Crofton has too many visitors just at present, and my mother will be anxious to hear. Dear Mrs. Crofton,” said the young man, in whom I could not recognize that Fellow of Exeter, grasping my hand warmly, “don’t despair.”
And Alice, with a painful blush on her cheeks, and her veil over her face, followed him out
without a word. I took but faint hope from the suggestion of that name; but if it were
possible—if still we might hope that Bertie was spared—never would Alice Harley forgive him for
that outburst of tears.
Derwent had not yet returned, and I could understand perfectly why he waited, uneasy
for further news, or at least for some explanation of that which we had already heard. I waited
also, spending the days sadly, but giving up hope, and consequently in a state of anxiety less
painful. Sometimes, indeed, Derwie thrust me back into my fever of suspense by his oft-repeated
wonder that there should be no news yet of that feat of arms which had cost Bertie his life.
The child could not and would not understand how the bravest may perish by some anonymous
undistinguished shot, as well as the coward; nor believe that “Bertie had died for nothing,” as
he said. And sometimes that name which Maurice Harley pointed out to me wavered through my
memory for hours together, and upset my calm. Captain Nicolas Hughes—who was he? I wondered,
musing at the window, with still that vague thrilling thought at my heart that it would not
surprise me to see Bertie
He knew, though we did not. There was nothing else to say.
A few days after I had an unexpected, and, I am grieved to say, not very welcome visit from
Mrs. Harley. I had shunned seeing her hitherto, afraid alike of her condolences over a sorrow
which I had not consented to, or her weak encouragements of a hope in which I durst not
believe. Had it been possible to so old a friend, I would have denied myself, when I saw the
same gig in which Maurice had driven Alice—a convenient rural vehicle belonging to a farmer
close by her house—driving up once more to Hilfont with Mrs. Harley; but as, in spite of thirty
years’ close friendship, the good woman would still have set this down as a slight to her
poverty, I did not venture to refuse her admittance. She came in with her best conventional
look of sympathy, shook my hand with emphasis, and gave me a slow lingering kiss; did
Yet when I saw that Mrs. Harley’s sympathy was the merest superficial crust overlaid upon her own perennial anxieties, I am not sure that I was pleased. One feels it impossible that one’s friends can feel for one fully; yet one is disappointed, notwithstanding, when one perceives how entirely occupied they are with the closer current of their own affairs. Mrs. Harley had no sooner expressed her feeble affliction over “the sad calamity,” than she forsook that subject for a more interesting one; and it was a little grievous to be called upon to adjudicate in favor of Alice’s lover, just after I had looked with respect and sympathy on Alice’s tears.
“My dear Mrs. Crofton, I am sure I would not for the world trouble you with my affairs, when
you are in such deep affliction,” said Mrs. Harley, doing of course the very thing she
“It would have been better to have said nothing to the Rector without Alice’s consent,” said I, languidly, yet not without a certain satisfaction in piercing my visitor with this little javelin. Mrs. Harley shook her head and wiped her eyes.
“It is so easy to say so,” said the troubled mother, “so easy to think what is best when
one’s own heart is not concerned; But if I was wrong I cannot help it now—Alice is so
very unreasonable. She cannot endure the very sight of Mr. Reredos now—it is extremely
distressing to me.”
“I am very sorry to hear it, Mrs. Harley, but you know I cannot help you,” said I.
“Oh! my dear Clare, I beg your pardon a thousand times for troubling you when you have
“That proves it must be nonsense, to be sure,” said I; “but excuse me, Mrs. Harley, this dear boy who is gone was very dear to me—I cannot mingle his name in any talk about other people. I beg your pardon—I can’t indeed.”
“Dear, dear, it is I who should beg your pardon,” cried Mrs. Harley, in great distress; “I am sure I did not mean to be so selfish; but you used to be very fond of Alice, Clare—fonder of her than of any one else, though I say it. Long ago you would not have turned off anything that was for the poor girl’s good.”
“You know I am as fond of Alice as ever I was—what do you want me to do?” cried I.
“Oh, nothing, Clare, dear—nothing but a little good advice,” said Mrs. Harley. “If it
now.”
This emphasis was rather too much for my patience.
“You forget,” I said, “that Alice is able to judge for herself—she is not a girl now”——
“She is seven and twenty, Mrs. Crofton—do you mean to reproach her with her age?” said Mrs. Harley, with an angry color rising on her face.
“Reproach her! for what?” said I, constrained to laugh in the midst of my grief. “Why will
you tease Alice, and yourself, and me? She is very well—she is,” I added, with a little gulp,
swallowing my better knowledge, “quite contented and happy—why will you torture her into
marrying? She is quite satisfied to be as she is.”
“Ah, Clare—but I have so many children to provide for!” cried poor Mrs. Harley, with a gush of tears.
This silenced me, and I said no more. But Mrs. Harley had not exhausted her budget of complaints.
“And Maurice,” said this unfortunate mother; “after the education he has had, and all the money and pains that have been expended on him—Maurice, I do believe, Mrs. Crofton, will do something violent one of these days; he will go into business, or,” with another outburst of tears, “set himself to learn a trade.”
“Surely nothing quite so bad as that,” said I, with as much sympathy as I could summon up.
“Ah, you don’t know how he speaks—if you could only hear him; and the troubles in India and this last dreadful news have had such an effect upon Maurice,” said Mrs. Harley; “you would suppose, to hear him speak, that the poor soldiers had suffered all the more because he was doing nothing. Such nonsense! And instead of going into the Church in a proper and dignified manner, like his dear father, I see nothing better for it but that he’ll make a tradesman of himself.”
“But it would be satisfactory to see him doing something for himself—improving his own position;
“He has his mother’s house,” said Mrs. Harley, a little sharply, “and he has the position of a gentleman,” she added a moment after, in a faltering, apologetic tone. Good, troubled woman! She had come to that age of conflicting interests when the instincts of the heart do not always guide true. She wanted—very naturally—to see her daughter provided for; and so, if she could, would have persuaded Alice into an unwilling marriage. She could not bear to see her son derogating from the “position” which his father’s son ought to fill; and as he would not go into the Church, she would fain have condemned the young man to shrivel up into the dreary dignity of a College Don. Poor Mrs. Harley!—that was all that the philosophy of the affections instructed her to do.
She had scarcely left me half an hour when I was startled by the appearance of the Rector. He
was grave and pale, held my hand in his tight grasp, and made his professions of sympathy all
very properly and in good taste. But his looks and his tone aggravated a sick impatience
“It may seem to you a very indelicate question—I beg your pardon, Mrs. Crofton—I ask it with great diffidence—but I do not hesitate to confess to you that my own happiness is deeply concerned,” said Mr. Reredos, blushing painfully—and I knew at once, and recognized with a certain thrill of impatience and disgust, what he was going to ask; “Miss Harley and the late Captain Nugent were almost brought up together, I have heard; will you forgive me asking if there was any attachment—any engagement between them?”
“Colonel Nugent, please!” said I, I fear rather haughtily; “and it is surely
premature to say the late, as I trust in Heaven we shall yet have better news.”
“I beg your pardon,” repeated the Rector, quickly, “I—I was not aware—but might I ask an
answer to my question?”
“If there was any engagement between Alice and my dear Bertie?—none whatever!” cried I, with
all my might—“nothing of the kind! Pardon me, you have not been delicate—you have
not considered my feelings—if Alice has been unfavorable to you, it is for your own
merits, and not on his account.”
I was half sorry when I saw the grave, grieved, ashamed expression with which this other
young man turned away. He bowed and was gone almost before I knew what I had said—I fear not
without an arrow of mortification and injured pride tingling through the love in his heart.
And after all, the Rector was premature—we were all premature, lamenting for him
over whom we were so speedily to rejoice. When Derwent put the dispatch into my hand (he did
not send, but brought it, to make more sure), I could not read the words for tears. My eyes
were clear enough when I saw that terrible killed, in which we believed to read
Bertie’s fate. But the dear boy’s own message, in rapid reply to one which Derwent, out of my
knowledge, had managed to have sent to him, floated upon me in a mist of weeping. The truth
came inarticulate to my mind—I could neither see, nor scarcely hear the words in which it was
conveyed.
But, alas! alas! it was Captain Nicholas Hughes who had fallen, instead of Bertie. I
inquired all that I could learn about this unknown soldier, with a remorseful grief in the
midst of my joy, which I cannot describe. I could not join in the tumult of exultation which
rose round
“It is the fortune of war,” said Derwent, when he learned, to his profound amazement, this idea which had taken possession of me. “It is the will of God,” said Captain Hughes’s pale widow, lifting her tearful face to me, from under the heavy veil of her mourning. So it was—but sharp and poignant is the contest between grief and joy.
“See what your despised telegraph can do, after all!” cried Derwent, rejoicing with all his honest heart over the news he had brought.
“But, ah! if Bertie’s friend had been poor!” said I. “How many souls do we wring with
additional pangs, to have our anxiety dispelled the
“I believe Clare is not half-content—nobody must be killed to satisfy you women—but, unfortunately that will not do in this world,” said Derwent. “We have to be thankful for our own exemption, without entering too deeply into other people’s grief. And most of us find that philosophy easy enough.”
“Most of us are very poor creatures,” said Maurice Harley, sententiously. He came alone to
make his inquiries this time. Alice was invisible, and not to be heard of. I could not see her
even when I called at the cottage. She had taken overpowering shame to herself, and shrank from
my eyes. It was her brother who carried our news to his mother’s house—carried it, as I
discovered incidentally, with the rarest and most delicate care for her—rigidly keeping up the
fiction of supposing her not to care for it, nor to be specially interested, any more than for
her old playfellow. He was ill at ease himself, and distracted
dilettante kind. In my eyes this increased
his kindness all the more.
“Yes, we are poor creatures the most of us,” repeated Maurice, when my husband—who did not notice any particular improvement in the Fellow of Exeter, and was disposed to be contemptuous, as elder men are, of his superiority to ordinary mortals—had sauntered, half-laughing, half-disgusted, out of the room. “Something you said the other day has stuck to my memory, Mrs. Crofton—help me out with it, pray. Are we worth a woman’s tears, the greater part of us? What is the good of us? I don’t mean Bertie, who is doing something in this world, but, for example, such a fellow as me!”
“Take care, Maurice! I see hoofs and a tail upon that humility of yours,” said I. “You, who
are so wise, do you not know that women and their tears are no more superlative than men and
their doings? Did you think I meant the tender, heroical, sentimental tears of romance, for the
sake of which the sublime knight might be content to die? No such thing. I meant only that
there seems a kind of pathetic, homely justice in it, when the man who dies—especially the man
who dies untimely—has a woman belonging to him, to be his true and faithful mourner;
“Ah! that is very well,” said Maurice, who in his heart was young enough to like the superlative idea best. “I wish I had a supreme right to somebody’s tears—but why should anybody cry over me? Am not I foredoomed to shrivel up into a College Don?”
“If you please,” said I.
“And if I don’t please?” cried Maurice, starting up, and seizing, after his usual fashion, a book off the table. He made a hurried march about the room, as usual, too; throwing that down; and picking up another to look at its title, then returned, and repeated, with some emphasis—“And what if I don’t please?”
“Why then, please God, you will do something better,” said I; “I hope so sincerely—it will
give me the greatest pleasure—but you don’t make any progress by talking of it; that is our
woman’s province. Do, Maurice, do! don’t say!”
The young man flashed with an angry and
“A widow’s son should be the prince of sons,” said I. “You make me preach, you young people, though it is not my vocation. Carry a hod then, if you will, like a gentleman and a Christian, and I, for one, will bid you God speed.”
Maurice put down his book, and came forward to me, holding out his hand. I suspect he liked me, though he had no great reason, and I confess, now-a-days, that I liked him. He held out his hand to say good-bye, and in saying good-bye opened his heart.
“Mrs. Crofton, you preach very well, considering that it is not your vocation; but I begin to
think I am coming to that big preacher, Life, whom you once told me of. He is not a
college don. Do you know,” said Maurice, with a frank, confused laugh, and rising color, “I’m
in love?”
“I suspected as much,” said I. “Is all well?”
“All was ill, what with my own folly, and what with that spiteful little witch at the
Rectory,” said Maurice; “but it’s coming right again. If I were to die to-morrow—little as I
deserve them—I believe I should have these woman’s tears.”
“My dear boy, be thankful, and go home and live!” said I, with the water in my eyes. I was half inclined to kiss, and bless, and cry over him in the foolishness of my heart.
“I will,” said Maurice, in the fulness and effusion of his; and he kissed my hand with a
congenial impulse, and went away abruptly, moved beyond speaking. He left me more profoundly
and pleasantly touched than I had been for a long time. Perhaps I thought, with natural vanity,
that I had a little—just a little—share in it. Dire must be the disappointment, and heavy the
calamity, which should shrivel up Maurice Harley now into a college don.
Another long period of home quietness, but great anxiety followed this. Bertie, of
course, would not return while the crisis of affairs in India had not yet been determined; and
we were so much the more anxious about him, since he had been restored to us, as it seemed, out
of the very grave. Later he was seriously wounded, threatened with fever, and really in great
danger, but got through that as he had through all the other perils of that murderous Indian
war. He distinguished himself, too, to our great pride and delight, especially to the boundless
exultation of Derwie, and gained both credit and promotion almost beyond the hopes of so young
a man. But, in the meantime, we were both anxious and concerned, for we could not induce him to
think that he had encountered his full share of the fighting, and might now, surely, with
perfect honor and satisfaction bring his laurels home.
“If the women and the babies are all safe on board the ships,” said Derwie, who was almost
During all this time I scarcely saw Alice; she avoided coming in my way; when we met, avoided speaking to me—avoided looking in my face when that was practicable—could neither forgive herself for having betrayed her feelings, nor me for having witnessed that betrayal. Altogether her feelings towards me and in my presence were evidently so uncomfortable, that out of mere charity and consideration I no longer visited Mrs. Harley’s as I had done, nor invited them to Hilfont. They still came sometimes, but not as they had done before. I began to fear that I had lost Alice, which, to be sure, was unkind of her, considering what very old friends we were; but she could not forget nor forgive either herself or me for those tears out of which she had been cheated over that supposititious grave where Bertie Nugent was not.
So that there occurred an interregnum of information, at least, if not of interest, in
respect to the Harleys. Maurice was in London, struggling forward to find what place he could
in that perennial battle—struggling not very successfully—for, to the amazement of all, and,
above all, to his own, he was not so greatly in advance of other people, when he had done
something definite
As for Johnnie, poor boy, who had, all uneducated and without training as he was, just that
gift of putting his mind into words which his brother lacked—he had not yet come to the bitter
ending of his boyish dream. He was busy with his second book, in high hope and spirits,
thinking himself equally secure of fame and of love. The poor lad had forgotten entirely the
But it surprised me to find that he, poor fellow, was never the object of his mother’s
anxiety. She was sorry, with a sort of contempt for his “infatuation,” and could not for her
life imagine what men could see in that Miss Reredos. Mrs. Harley was a very kind and tender
mother, ready at any time to deny herself for any real gratification to her boy; but she did
not make much account of his heartbreak, of which “nothing could come.” For all practical purposes
As for Alice, she was still Mrs. Harley’s greatest grievance, though I was not trusted with
the same confidences, nor implored to use my influence, as before. Alice was more capricious,
more tantalizing, less to be reckoned on than ever. She had, I suppose, dismissed Mr. Reredos
with less courtesy than the Rector believed due to him, for he went about his duties with a
certain grim sullenness, like an injured man, and never permitted himself to mention her name.
I was in the Rector’s ill graces, as well as in those of Alice. He could not forgive me any
more than she could, for the confidence themselves had
It was thus, in our immediate surroundings, that we spent the time until Bertie’s return.
It was once more spring when Bertie returned. Spring—Easter—that resurrection time
which came to our hearts with a more touching force when we received home into our peaceful
house—so pale, so worn out, and yet so sunburnt and scarred with violent labors past—that
Bertie, who had gone from us so strong and so bold. He had been repeatedly wounded—had suffered
more than once from fever—had felt, at last, that his health was broken, and that there was
little more use in him while he remained in India, and so was persuaded to come home. Derwent,
kindest of friends, went to meet him at Southampton, and brought him home as tenderly as any
nurse, or rather far more tenderly, with a tenderness more considerate and requiring less
response than that of a woman. To see our young hero an invalid, overpowered me entirely. I
quite broke down under it, comparing him with what he was, and fearing everything from the
mortal paleness, thrown by his sunbrowned complexion
“He’s tired, Clare,” said my husband. “A bright fire, and an English bed and rest—that’s all Bertie wants to-night. He’ll answer all your questions to-morrow. Come, old fellow, you know your way to your old room.”
“I should think so, indeed—and thank God I am at home,” cried Bertie, with his familiar voice. With a thrill of anguish I restrained my salutations and followed quietly to see that all was comfortable for him. He protested that it was nonsense, that he could come downstairs perfectly well, that Mr. Crofton only wanted to humble his vanity; but at the same moment drew up his foot wearily upon the sofa, with a gesture that showed better than words his need of rest.
“Alas, Derwent, has it come to this?” said I, as we went downstairs.
Derwent turned round upon me, put his big hands upon my shoulders, and thrust me in before
him to the handiest room. “Now, Clare,” he said, with comical solemnity, “if we are going to
have any nonsense or lamentations, I’ll
“I must trust my own eyes,” said I; “but you need not fear my indiscretion. See how I have refrained from agitating him now.”
“Agitating him! Oh!” cried Derwent, with a good-humored roar. “What stuff you speak, to be sure! He is quite able to be agitated as much as you please—there is nothing in the world but wounds and fatigue the matter with Bertie. I am afraid you are only a woman after all, Clare; but you’re not to interfere with my patient. I’ve taken him in hand, and mind you, I’m to have the credit, and bring him through.”
“But, oh, Derwent,” said I, “how pale he is!”
“If I had seen as many dreadful sights as he has, I should be pale too,” said Derwent. “Seriously, he is tired and worn out, but not ill. Don’t be sorry for him, Clare—don’t put anything in his head. Talk pleasantly. I don’t forbid the subject, for example,” said my husband, looking at me with a certain affectionate cloudy mirth, as if he had known my secret all along, “of Alice Harley, if you choose.”
I put him aside a little impatiently, and he
A week after his arrival, Bertie, who hitherto had been telling me, as he could, his adventures in India—dread adventures, interwoven with all the thread of that murderous history—at last broke all at once into the full tide of home talk.
“And dear old Estcourt, Cousin Clare,” said Bertie, “stands exactly as it was, I suppose; and Miss Austin as steadfast as the lime trees—and the children to keep the old park cheerful—all as it was?”
“All as it was, Bertie; but the other house ready and waiting for you.”
I looked up with a little anxiety to see the
Bertie did not return my glance; he lay still, with a languid ease and satisfaction in his attitude which struck me for the first time—as if he was profoundly content to be there, and felt his fatigues and pains melt away in that warmth of home. As I looked at him a warmer color rose over his brown-pale face, a pleasant glimmer woke in his eye—his whole aspect warmed and brightened—a half conscious smile came playing about his parted lips. Whatever Bertie thought upon, it was neither disappointment nor broken health.
There was a long pause—the silence was pleasant—broken only by the soft domestic sounds of a
great house; brightly lay that pleasant landscape
“So Alice Harley is not married,” he said, turning on his elbow, with a pretence of carelessness, as if to get a fuller view. “How is that, Cousin Clare?”
To think that Alice Harley connected herself instinctively with the idea of Bertie’s house which was ready for him, was a pleasant thought to me; but I only answered, “There is no telling, Bertie. She might have been married two or three times had she pleased.”
“I am very glad of it,” said Bertie; “to see every pretty girl whom one used to know converted into the mother of ever so many children, makes a fellow feel old before his time. I am not so frightfully old, after all; but I fear nobody will have anything to say to a worn-out poor soldier like me.”
“Don’t be too humble, Bertie,” said I. “I
Bertie blushed and fell back to his old position. “Don’t be hard upon a fellow, Cousin Clare,” he said, with a slightly pleading tone—half afraid of ridicule—half conscious that little ridicule was to be expected from me.
“No indeed, quite the reverse—nobody will be hard upon you, my boy,” said I. “Huntingshire is quite ready to bestow anything you wish upon you, Bertie—anything from a seat in Parliament, up to the prettiest daughter it has, if you mean to set up your household gods in the Estcourt jointure-house.”
Bertie blushed once more, and coughed, and cleared his throat a little, as if he had some intentions of taking me into his confidence, when my boy Derwie suddenly made a violent diversion by rushing in all red and excited, and flinging himself against our soldier with all his might.
“Bertie!” shouted little Derwent, “is it true you’re going to have the Victoria Cross?”
Bertie colored violently as he recovered from
“Why, you know, Derwie, we’d all like it if we could get it,” he said, faltering slightly; but I knew in a moment, by the sudden movement of his head and glance of his eye, that he really did believe it possible, and that this was the darling ambition of Bertie’s heart.
“But Bevan told me!” cried Derwie—“he told me about those gates, you know, that you and the rest blew up. Mamma, listen! There were six of them, forlorn-hope men, Bevan says”——
“Ah, Derwie, hush!—four of them sleep yonder, the brave fellows!—four privates, who could not hope for distinction like me,” cried Bertie, with that same profound awe and compunction, contrasting his own deliverance with the calamity of others, which had once stricken me.
“A private can have the Victoria Cross as well as a general,” cried Derwie, clapping his hands; “and more likely, Bevan says—for a general commands and doesn’t fight.”
“That is true—God save the Queen!” cried Bertie. “If Corporal Inglis gets it, Derwie—and he ought—we’ll illuminate.”
“If you get it,” said Derwie, “you deserve it all the same. Mamma, they blew up the gates
“Boh!” cried Bertie; “mamma read all about it in the papers. It was nothing particular—it only had to be done, that’s all. Now, Derwie, don’t you know when a thing has to be done somebody must do it?”
“Yes, I know,” said Derwie, “perfectly well. When mamma says must I always go
directly—don’t I, mamma?—and if I were as big as you I wouldn’t mind being killed either. When
you were killed, Bertie—that time you know when everybody thought so—oh, what a crying there
was!”
“Was there?” asked Bertie, with a softened tone, putting his arm round the eager child.
But a new point of interest in those human studies which were so dear to him had suddenly seized upon Derwie’s imagination. He turned abruptly to me.
“Mamma, didn’t Alice come once and cry? I saw her go away with such red eyes; and she never came again, and never looked like her own self when she did come,” said my boy, with a courageous disregard of grammar. “What is that for? Wasn’t she glad when Bertie came alive again, and it was only poor Captain Hughes?”
“Hush, Derwie, my boy—you don’t understand
But Bertie was not thinking of Captain Hughes. He was looking intently at me with that
wavering color in his cheeks and an eager question in his eyes. When I spoke, my words recalled
him a little, and he put on a grave look, and murmured something about the “poor fellow!” or
“brave fellow!” I could not tell which—then looked at me again, eager, with a question hovering
on his lips. The question of all others which I was resolute not to answer. So I gathered up my
work remorselessly, put it away in my work-table, jingled my keys, told him I would see if the
newspaper had come yet, and left the room without looking round. He might find that out at
Alice’s own hands if he wished it—he should not receive any clandestine information from me.
The first visit which Bertie was able to make was to the cottage—to see Mrs. Harley,
as he said, gravely—but I fear he did not get a very satisfactory reception. He told me he
thought Alice greatly changed when he returned; but he was not communicative on the subject,
and had a decided inclination to go back again. Perhaps the wavering, pleasant, half-conscious
sentiment, and tender youthful reminiscence, with which Bertie came home, was the better of a
little opposition to warm it into independent life; and Alice had reason enough for a double
share of perversity and caprice, though Bertie knew nothing of that. She had betrayed herself
to me, and, for a moment, to Maurice. She thought, no doubt, that everybody had suspected that
secret of hers—and with unconscious self-importance, that it was whispered throughout the
country with secret smiles over all her former unmarried-woman superiority to vulgar
love-affairs. Her credit was consequently very deeply
Still, however, Bertie, in the pleasant leisure of his convalescence, betook himself to Mrs.
Harley’s cottage; and came home talking of Johnnie and little Kate, and the letters from
Maurice—but very little about Alice, save chance words now and then, which showed a singularly
close observation of her habits. Sometimes he asked me puzzled questions about those opinions
of hers. Bertie, though he had been cheated once, was not contemptuous of womenkind. He did not
understand these new views about the vulgarity of being married, and the propriety of
multiplying female occupations. I suspect he entertained the natural delusion that, while he
himself stood there, most ready and anxious, to share with her the common course of life,
private projects of her own, which turned her aside from that primitive and ancient occupation
of wife, were a little fantastical, and extremely perplexing. But Bertie was not like Mr.
Reredos—he wanted simply to be at the bottom of it, and find out what she meant. He was not the
man to worry any woman into marrying him, or to lay insidious siege to her friends. Ancient
kindness, a lingering recollection of her youthful sweetness and beauty, which had come softly
back to
he might have anything to
do with the fact of her remaining unmarried, had combined to direct Bertie’s thoughts towards
Alice, and to connect her image with all the plans and intentions of his return home. In short,
the feeling upon both sides was very much alike—with both it was a certain captivating
imaginary link, far more subtle and sweet than an understood engagement, which warmed their
hearts to each other. But for those tragical possibilities which had so deeply excited Alice,
all would have gone as smoothly as possible when our hero came home. Now the obstacles on each
side were great. On Alice’s, that dread idea of having betrayed a secret, unsought, unreturned
affection for the distant soldier, along with the lesser but still poignant remembrance of Lady
Greenfield’s malicious report that Bertie himself had expected Cousin Clare to have somebody in
her pocket for him to marry. On Bertie’s part, the equally dangerous chance that, deeply
mortified by finding his hope of having some share in her thoughts so entirely unfounded, as it
appeared, he might turn away sorrowfully from the theories which influenced her, but which his
simple intelligence did not comprehend.
When we began—which was not till another autumn restored us to Hilfont—to be able to give some entertainments to our country neighbors, in honor of our soldier, Alice, most cleverly and cunningly avoided coming. She had always some admirable excuse—some excuse so unquestionable that it would have been quite cruel to have grumbled at it. I do not think she had been once within our house since Bertie returned. She sent me her love, and the most dutiful messages. She was so sorry, but she was sure her dear Mrs. Crofton would not be displeased when she knew. I was displeased, however, and had hard ado with myself to keep from saying as much, and declaring my conviction that she was very unkind to Bertie. I daresay I might have done so with advantage, though prudence and the fear of something coming of it, restrained me—for the idea of being unkind to Bertie would, doubtless, have been balm to Alice’s soul.
They met, however, though she would not come to Hilfont—Clara Sedgwick, who was as
old brown silk dress, made in a fashion which “went out” at least three years ago;
without a single ornament about her anywhere—her hair braided as plainly as though she had just
come down-stairs to make the tea, and superintend the breakfast table—not even the pretty
bouquet of delicate flowers at her breast,
Miss Reredos was also one of Clara’s great party—much against little Mrs. Sedgwick’s
will—only because it could not be helped, Mrs. Harley being still pertinacious in favor of the
Rector, who had all but given up his own cause. And we were still engaged in the mysteries of
dinner, and there still remained all the long evening to operate in, when I perceived that this
indefatigable young lady had seriously devoted herself to the entertainment of Bertie. He was
doing his best to be polite, the good fellow; but it was a long time before he could be warmed
into a flirtation. At last some very decided slight from Alice irritated my poor soldier. He
turned to the play beside him, and began to amuse himself with it as so many other men had
done. Thanks to Miss Reredos, it speedily became a notable flirtation, witnessed and observed
by all the party. Alice watched it with a gradual elevation of her head, paling of her cheeks,
and look of lofty silent indignation, which was infinitely edifying to me. What had she to do
with it?—she who would not bestow a single glance upon Colonel
Poor Johnnie! He sat glaring at Bertie with furious eyes. Johnnie’s little bit of bookish
distinction disappeared and sank to nothing in presence of Bertie’s epaulettes. Nobody felt the
least interest to-day in Mrs. Harley’s clever cripple-boy. His Laura indeed had kept him in
life, when she first arrived, by some morsels of kindness, but Laura too had gone over to the
enemy. Laura was visibly disposed to charm into her own train that troublesome interloper, and
Johnnie, who had resented and forgiven fifty violent flirtations of his lady-love since he
himself first found new life, as he said, in her eyes, was more bitterly resentful of this
defection than he had been of any previous one. If she and the other culprit, Bertie, could
have been consumed by looks, we should have had only two little heaps of ashes to clear away
from the Sedgwicks’ dinner-table that day in place of those two unfortunate people; but Miss
Reredos was happily non-combustible. She swept away in all the fulness
The first to come upstairs was Johnnie Harley. For some time past he had rather affected, as a manly practice, the habit of sitting to the last after dinner. This day he was burning to discharge the fulness of his wrath upon Miss Reredos, so he lost no time, anxious to be beforehand with his new rival. Miss Reredos had already posed herself at a table, covered with a wealth of prints and photographs, these sentimental amusements being much in her way.
“I have come to have my turn,” said Johnnie, savagely. I was seated within hearing, and, I confess, felt no very strong inducement to withdraw from my position. Perhaps Johnnie did not see me—Miss Reredos did, and certainly did not care. “I am come to have my turn, and to tell you that I can’t be content to take turns—especially with that empty fellow Nugent, whom you seem, like all the rest, to have taken so great a fancy to.”
“Colonel Nugent is not an empty fellow—he is a very agreeable man,” said Miss Reredos, calmly.
“Oh! and I am not, I suppose?” cried the reckless and embittered boy.
“You certainly are not always agreeable,” answered poor Johnnie’s false
man at all—— We have really had
quite enough of this, thank you, Master Harley. One tires of these scenes—they don’t answer
when they are repeated every day.”
“No—not when there is better sport going!” cried poor Johnnie. “I see it all now—you have only been making game of me all the time.”
“Did you ever suppose anything else?” asked the witch coldly. I think it must have been Johnnie’s transport of passion which made the floor thrill, as I felt under my chair. I heard a furious muttered exclamation—then a long pause. The passion changed, and a great sob came out of Johnnie’s boyish heart.
“You don’t mean what you say—Laura, Laura!” groaned the poor lad. I could have—— well, to be sure I am only a vindictive woman, as women are. I don’t know what I could not have done to her, sitting calm and self-satisfied there.
“It is quite time this should be over,” said the virtuous Miss Reredos; “I was not making game of you; but I certainly was amusing myself, as I thought you were doing, also. Why, I am three or four years older than you—you silly boy!—don’t you know?”
She might have said five or six years, which would have been nearer the truth, but it
mattered nothing to Johnnie.
“I could be as good a man as him for your sake,” he cried, with a gasp. Miss Reredos
only played with the fan which dangled from her wrist.
“Say you did not mean it, Laura,” whispered the unfortunate boy again.
But Laura shook her head.
“No, no—it has gone quite far enough. Oh! I’m not angry—but, dear, dear, don’t you see it’s no use. You are a great deal—at least you are younger than I am—and we have nothing, neither of us—and besides”——
“Besides I am a cripple, and you don’t love me!” cried Johnnie, wildly.
“I can’t contradict it,” said Circe with a toss of her head.
Another fierce exclamation, a hurried dash across the room, a wondering little scream from
Clara, across whose ample skirts her brother plunged, as he rushed half frantic away, ended
this episode. Clara rose up, startled and nervous, to look after him—and I had to restrain
myself from the same impulse; but Circe sat calm among her photographs, and made no sign. After
a few moments’ interval Clara went tremulously after him. I could only settle myself on my
chair again. The poor cripple boy—tenderest and merriest of the flock—whom all the rest had
But I sat on thorns, fearing to see Bertie, when he came upstairs, resume his flirtation with “that witch from the Rectory,” whom Maurice had so truly named. He did not, to my great satisfaction—but remained very quiet, refusing, great lion as he was, to roar—and looking as plaintive and pathetic as it was possible for Bertie’s honest face, unused to simulation of any kind, to look. I fancy the poor fellow imagined—a forlorn hope of that good, simple mind of his, which certainly was not original in its expedients—that Alice might possibly be influenced more favorably by his pitiful looks.
Seeing this, I undertook a little management of that very refractory young person myself.
“Alice, you will come to Hilfont on my birthday, as you have always done—won’t you?—that will be in a fortnight,” said I.
“If you please, Mrs. Crofton,” said Alice, very demurely.
“You know I please; but I don’t please that you should promise, and then send me such a
clever, pretty, reasonable excuse when the time comes, that I cannot say a word against it, but
only feel secretly that it is very unkind.”
“Unkind! to you, Mrs. Crofton!” cried Alice, with a little blush and start.
“To me—who else?—it is for my birthday that I ask you to come,” said I, with an
artful pretense of feeling offended; “but really, if you treat me as you have done before, I
shall be disposed to believe there is some reason why you refuse so steadily to
come.”
“You may be quite sure I will not stay away,” said Alice, with great state.
She sat by me for half an hour longer, but we did not exchange a dozen words. She said
“nothing to nobody” all the remainder of the evening; she looked just a little cross as well,
if the truth must be told.
A fortnight after came my birthday, and a family festival.
Mr. Crofton was greatly given to keeping birthdays; he was not a man to be daunted by that coldest and vulgarest commonplace, which warns us with lugubrious mock solemnity that these birthdays are hastening us to the grave. The grave out of which our Lord rose was no devouring, irresponsible monster to Derwent—it was a Christian institution, blessed and hallowed by Him who triumphed over it. So he kept his birthdays with thanks and a celebration of love; and I was well content in this, as in many another kind suggestion of his genial nature, that my husband should have his way.
Bertie was to leave us shortly after, to look after the fitting up of his own house—the
Estcourt jointure-house, which he was to occupy during my lifetime. It was a very sufficient,
comfortable house, and he was to fit it up according to his own taste. But he was very slow
Johnnie Harley wandered off from Waterflag that night, after his explanation with Miss Reredos. For a week the unfortunate lad was not heard of, and the family spent that interval in the wildest anxiety, making every kind of search after him, from Maurice’s hunt through London, whither they thought it likely he would go, to fruitless dragging in the pretty Est river, which mudded its pleasant pools, but fortunately had no other result. At the end of a week he came home—where he had been he never would tell. He returned ill, remorseful, and penitent, with all his little money gone, and his watch—his father’s watch—a catastrophe which quite completed Mrs. Harley’s misery. Renewed and increased ill health followed this sad escapade of poor Johnnie; but the boy was happy in his unhappiness—nothing could part from him that all-forgiving home-love which forgot every fault of the poor cripple boy.
And in that fortnight Bertie made a brief
decoré when he returned; but no, there is no French word in existence which deserves
to be used in connection with that supremest badge of modern chivalry, which our boy, with a
modest and shame-faced delight, impossible to describe in words, received from his Queen.
Bertie wore his prize with a swelling breast, but an abashed cheek; indeed, he did not wear it at all, reserving it for his private triumph, and, as I supposed, for my birthday feast. But our hero had something else in his mind.
The day came at last, and at last, most earnestly looked for, in a carriage filled with the
Sedgwick children, and, I believe, all the flowers in Clara’s conservatory, and all that could
be come by honestly or dishonestly within ten miles of country—Alice Harley made her
appearance. To show emphatically how much I was mistaken in supposing that any reason
could keep her away from Hilfont when her dear Mrs. Crofton wished her to be there, Alice with
rash temerity had volunteered to take charge of the children, and come with them early and
alone. In the same spirit she had actually taken a little
And then Alice had a present for me. I had by me a little present to be given to her on the
same occasion—an old ornament of my own, which I thought, for that reason at least, the prim
Alice might perhaps be induced to wear. The children had gone away with their attendants, to be
extricated out of the many wrappings in which their mother’s care had enveloped them. Only
Derwie stayed with us in the breakfast-room; the child was extremely anxious about these two, I
could not tell why. Some unconscious link of association, or acute childish observation,
Alice was seated near the great window, her pretty figure visible against the light, looking fresher and more youthful than she had done for a long time, and the soft breadth of landscape without, making a pleasant background to the picture. A little more in the shade stood Bertie, and Derwie and I were opposite Alice, with a little table between us, all full in the light of the large bow-window, from which all curtains and obscuring influences—such was my husband’s cheerful pleasure—were always drawn as much back as possible. My present to Alice was a little gold chain for the neck. I like that fashion of ornament. This one was long enough to encircle that pretty throat twice, or to hang loose upon her breast if she pleased. I said it wanted a pendant, as I threw it loosely round her neck.
Alice had been a little nervous and tremulous before; this made her rather more so—she kissed
me in a trembling, breathless way. She could not help feeling conscious of that shadow behind
her, and of a certain want of air and cloud
“It should have a heart at it, mamma—like Clary’s,” said little Derwent.
“Yes,” said I, “certainly it wants a pendant—a locket—or, as Derwie says, a heart, or a cross, or——”
“For once let me supply what it wants,” said Bertie, suddenly starting forward with one of those long, noiseless steps which people only make when they are almost past speaking. He took the end of the chain from Alice’s fingers, slid his own matchless decoration on it, clasped it, let it fall. “Heart and Cross!” said Bertie, breathless with feelings he could not speak. Alice had not looked up—did not see what it was, so rapidly was all done, till it lay dark upon the white bosom of her dress, moving with the palpitations of her heart—cold, ugly, glorious—a gift far beyond all Bertie’s fortune—more precious to him than his life.
She gazed at it astonished for a moment, then glanced round at us all with an amazed, inquiring
Little Derwie and I, like sensible people, took each other’s hands, and marched away.
Alice did not wear her hero’s cross that night to her chain. He wore it himself, as was fit—but it did not much matter. She had taken the other invaluable and invisible appendage which Bertie offered with his glorious badge—had consented to be solemnly endowed with all his worldly goods, cross and heart included, and humbly put her chain round her neck without any pendant, in token of the unwilling bondage to which she had yielded at last.
So ended, after eight years of disappointment, and that early love-affair, which
Colonel Bertie had long ago forgotten, my solitary enterprise in match-making. Let nobody
despair. I am secure now that Estcourt shall have no alien mistress, and that all Huntingshire
will not hold a happier household than that of Bertie Nugent, my heir, who has already added
the highest distinction of modern chivalry to the name of his fathers and mine.