Treherne came in, laughing violently. “Why, Doctor, did you take me for a ghost?”
“You might have been. You know what happened last week to those poor young fellows coming home from a dinner-party in a dogcart.”
“By George I do!” The thought of this accident, which had greatly shocked the whole camp, sobered him at once. “To be knocked over in action is one thing; but to die with one's head under a carriage-wheel—ugh!—Doctor, did ye really think something of the sort had befallen me? Thank you; I had no idea you cared so much for a harum-scarum fellow like me.”
He could not be left believing an untruth; so I said, my startled looks were not on his account; the fact was, I had been writing closely for some hours, and was nervous—rather.
The notion of my having “nerves,” afforded him considerable amusement. “But that is just what Dora persisted—good sort of creature, isn't she? the one you walked with from church. I told her you were as strong as iron and as hard as a rock, and she said she didn't believe it; that yours was one of the most sensitive faces she had ever seen.”
“I am very much obliged to Miss Theodora—I really was not aware of it myself.”
“Nor I either, faith! but women are so sharp-sighted. Ah, Doctor, you don't half know their ways.”
I concluded he had stayed at Rockmount; had he spent a pleasant day?
“Pleasant? ecstatic. Now, acknowledge—isn't she a glorious girl? Such a mouth—such an eye—such an arm! Altogether a magnificent creature. Don't you think so? Speak out, I shan't be jealous.”
I said, with truth, she was an extremely handsome young woman.
“Handsome? Divine. But she's as lofty as a queen—won't allow any nonsense—I didn't get a kiss the whole day. She will have it we are not even engaged till I hear from the governor; and I can't get a letter till Tuesday, at soonest. Doctor, it's maddening. If all is not settled in a week, and that angel mine within six more—as she says she will be, parents consenting—I do believe it will drive me mad.”
“Having her, or losing?”
“Either. She puts me nearly out of my senses.”
“Sit down then, and put yourself into them again. For a few minutes, at least.”
For I perceived the young fellow was warm with something besides love. He had been solacing himself with wine and cigars in the mess-room. Intemperance was not one of his failings, nor was he more than a little excited now; not by any means what men consider “overtaken,” or, to use the honester and uglier word, “drunk.” Yet, as he stood there, lolling against the door, with hot cheeks and watery eyes, talking and laughing louder than usual, and diffusing an atmosphere both nicotian and alcoholic, I thought it was as well on the whole that his divinity did not see her too human young adorer. I have often pitied women, mothers, wives, sisters. If they could see some of us men as we often see one another!
Treherne talked rapturously of the family at Rockmount—the father and the three young ladies.
I asked if there were no mother.
“No. Died, I believe, when my Lisabel was a baby. Lisabel; isn't it a pretty name? Lisabel Treherne, better still—beats Lisabel Johnston hollow.”
This seemed an opportunity for questions, which must be put; safer put them now, than when Treherne was in a soberer and more observant mood.
“Johnston is a Border name. Are they Scotch?”
“Not to my knowledge—I never inquired. Will, if you wish, doctor. You canny Scots always hang together, ha! ha!—but I say, did you ever see three nicer girls? Shouldn't you like one of them for yourself?”
I!
“Thank you—I am not a marrying man; but you will find them a pleasant family, apparently. Are there any more sisters?”
“No!—quite enough, too.”
“Nor brothers?”
“Not the ghost of one!”
“Perhaps,”—was it I, or some mocking imp speaking through my lips—“perhaps only the ghost of one. None now living, probably?”
“None at all that I ever heard of. So much the better; I shall have her more to myself. Heigho! it's an age till Tuesday.”
“You'd better go to your bed, and shorten the time, by ten hours.”
“So I will. Night, night, old fellow—as they teach little brats to say, on disappearing from dessert.'Pon my life, I see myself the venerated head of a household, and pillar of the state already. You'll be quite proud of my exceeding respectability.”
He put his head in again, two minutes after, with a nod and a wink.
“I say, think better of it. Try for Miss Dora—the second. Charteris one, me the other, and you the third. What a jolly lot of brothers-in-law. Do think better of it.”
“Hold your tongue, and go to your bed.”
It was not possible to go to mine, till I had arranged my thoughts.
What he stated must be correct. If otherwise, it is next to impossible that, in his position of intimacy, he should not have heard it. Families do not, I suppose, so easily forget one who is lost. There must have been only those three daughters.
I may lay me down in peace. Thou who seest not as man sees, wilt Thou make it peace, even for me?
CHAPTER VI. HER STORY.
“Gone to be married? gone to swear a peace?
Shall Lewis have Blanche, and Blanche these
provinces?”
Which means, “shall Treherne have Lisa, and Lisa Treherne Court?”
Yes, it is to be: I suppose it must be. Though not literally “gone to be married,” they are certainly “going.”
For seven days the balance hung doubtful. I do not know exactly what turned the scale; sometimes a strong suspicion strikes me that it was Doctor Urquhart; but I have given up cogitating on the subject. Where one is utterly powerless—a mere iota in a house—when, whatever one might desire, one's opinion has not a straw's weight with anybody, what is the good of vexing one's self in vain!
I shall content myself with giving a straightforward, succinct account of the week; this week which, I cannot deny, has made a vital difference in our family. Though outwardly all went on as usual—our quiet, monotonous life, unbroken by a single “event,”—breakfast, dinner, tea, and sleep coming round in ordinary rotation; still the change is made. What a long time it seems since Sunday week.
That day, after the tumult of Saturday, when I fairly shut myself up to escape out of the way, of both suitors, the coming and the going one, —sure that neither of my sisters would particularly want me—that Sunday was not a happy one. The only pleasant bit in it was the walk home from church; when, Penelope mounting guard over the lovers, I thought it no more than right to be civil to Dr. Urquhart. In so doing, I resolutely smothered down my annoyance at their joining us, and at the young gentleman's taking so much upon himself already, forsooth: lest Captain Treherne's friend should discover that I was not in the most amiable mood possible with regard to this marriage. And in so valorously “putting myself into my pocket,”—the had self which had been uppermost all day—somehow it slipped away as my pin-cushions and pencil-cases are wont to do—slid down to the earth and vanished.
I enjoyed the walk. I like talking to Dr. Urquhart, for he seems honest. He makes one feel as if there were some solid good somewhere in the world, if only one could find it: instead of wandering among mere shams of it, pretences of heroism, simulations of virtue, selfish abortions of benevolence. It seems to me, at times, as if this present world were not unlike that place in Hades,—is it Dante's or Virgil's making?—where trees, beasts, ghosts, and all, are equally shadowy and unsubstantial. That Sunday morning, which happened to be a specially lovely one, was one of the few days lately, when things about me have seemed tangible and real. Including myself, who not seldom appear to myself as the biggest sham of all.
Dr. Urquhart left us at the gate: would not come in, though Penelope invited him. Indeed, he went away rather abruptly; I should say, rudely,—but that he is not the sort of man to be easily suspected of discourtesy. Captain Treherne declared his secession was not surprising, as he has a perfect horror of ladies' society. In which case, why did he not avoid mine? I am sure he need not have had it unless he chose: nor did he behave as if in a state of great martyrdom. Also, a lover of flowers is not likely to be a woman-hater, or a bad man, either: and those must be bad men who have an unqualified “horror” of women. I shall take the liberty, until further evidence, of doubting Captain Treherne—no novelty! The difficulty is to find any man in whom you can believe.
We spent Sunday afternoon chiefly in the garden, Lisabel and her lover strolling about together, as Penelope and Francis used to do. Penelope sat with me some time, on the terrace before the drawing-room windows; then bidding me stay where I was, and keep a look-out after those two, lest they should get too sentimental, she went indoors, and I saw her afterwards, through the parlour-window, writing—probably one of those long letters which Francis gets every Monday morning. What on earth can she find to say?
The lecture against sentimentalism was needless. Nothing of that in Lisabel. Her courtship will be of the most matter-of-fact kind. Every time they passed me, she was talking or laughing. Not a soft or serious look has there been on her face since Friday night; or, rather, Saturday morning, when my sobbing made her shed a few tears. She did not afterwards,—not even when she told what has occurred to papa and Penelope.
Penelope bore it well—if there was anything to bear, and perhaps there was—to her. It might be trying to have her youngest sister married first, and to a young man, but for whom Francis would himself long ago have been in a position to marry. He told us, on Saturday, the whole story: how, as a boy, he was meant for his uncle's heir, but late in life Sir William married. There was a coldness afterwards, till Mrs. Charteris died, when her brother got Francis this Government situation, from which we hoped so much, but which still continues, he says, “a mere pittance.” It is certainly rather hard for Francis. He had a long talk with papa, before he left, ending, as usual, in nothing.
After he went away, Penelope did not appear till tea-time, and was “as cross as two sticks,” to use a childish expression, all evening. If these are lover's visits, I heartily wish Francis would keep away.
She was not in much better humour on Sunday, especially when, coming hastily into the parlour with a message from Lisabel, I gave her a start—for she was sitting, not writing, but leaning over her desk, with her fingers pressed upon her eyes. It startled me, too, to see her; we have grown so used to this affair, and Penelope is so sharp-tempered, that we never seem to suspect her of feeling anything. I was foolish enough to apologise for interrupting, and to attempt to kiss her, which irritated her so that we had almost a quarrel. I left the room, put on my bonnet, and went off to evening-church—God forgive me! for no better purpose than to get rid of home.
I wonder, do sisters ever love one another? Not after our fashion, out of mere habit and long familiarity, also a certain pride, which, however we differ among ourselves, would make us, I believe, defend one another warmly against strangers—but out of voluntary sympathy and affection. Do families ever live in open-hearted union, feeling that blood is blood, closer than acquaintance, friendship, or any tie in the world, except marriage? That is, it ought to be. Perhaps it may so happen, once in a century, as true love does, or there would not be so much romancing about both.
Thus I meditated, as, rather sick and sorry at heart, I returned from church, tramping through the dark lanes after papa, who marched ahead, crunching the sand and dead leaves in his usual solid, solitary way, now and then calling out to me:—
“Keep close behind me. What a pity you came to church to-night.”
It was foolish, but I think I could have cried.
At home, we found my sisters waiting tea. Captain Treherne was gone. They never mentioned to papa that he had been at Rock-mount to-day.
On Monday, he did not make his appearance. I asked Lisabel if she had expected him?
“What for? I don't wish the young man to be always tied to my apron-strings.”
“But he might naturally want to see you.”
“Let him want then. My dear little simpleton, it will do him good. The less he has me, the more he will value me.”
I observed that that was an odd doctrine with which to begin married life, but she laughed at me, and said the cases were altogether different.
Nevertheless, when Tuesday also passed, and no word from her adorer, Lisabel looked a little less easy. Not unhappy, our Lis was never seen unhappy since she was born, but just a little what we women call “fidgety;” a state of mind, the result of which generally affects other people rather than ourselves. In short, the mood for which, as children, we are whipped and sent to bed as “naughty;” as young women, petted, and pitied for “low spirits;” as elderly people, humoured on account of “nerves.”
On Wednesday morning when the post came, and brought no letter, Lisabel declared she would stay indoors no longer, but would go out for a drive.
“To the camp, as usual?” said Penelope.
Lisa laughed, and protested she should drive wherever she liked.
“Girls, will you come or not?”
Penelope declined, shortly. I said, I would go anywhere except to the camp, which I thought decidedly objectionable under the circumstances.
“Dora, don't be silly. But do just as you like. I can call at the Cedars for Miss Emery.”
“And Colin too, who will be exceedingly happy to go with you,” suggested Penelope.
But the sneer was wasted. Lisabel laughed again, smoothed her collar at the glass, and left the parlour, looking as contented as ever.
Ere she went out, radiant in her new hat and feathers, her blue cloth jacket, and her dainty little driving-gloves (won in a bet with Captain Treherne), she put her head in at my door, where I was working at German, and trying to forget all these follies and annoyances.
“You'll not go, then?”
I shook my head, and asked when she intended to be back?
“Probably at lunch: or I may stay dinner at the Cedars. Just as it happens. Good bye.”
“Lisabel,” I cried, catching her by the shoulders, “what are you going to do?”
“I told you. Oh, take care of my feather! I shall drive over to the Cedars.”
“Any further? To the Camp?”
“It depends entirely upon circumstances.”
“Suppose you should meet him?”
“Captain Treherne? I shall bow politely, and drive on.”
“And what if he comes here in your absence?”
“My compliments and regrets that unavoidable engagements deprived me of the pleasure of seeing him.”
“Lisabel, I don't believe you have a bit of heart in you.”
“Oh, yes, I have; quite as much as is convenient.”
Mine was full, and she saw it. She patted me on the shoulder good-naturedly.
“If there ever was a dear little dolt, its name is Theodora Johnston. Why, child, at the worst, what harm am I doing? Merely showing a young fellow, who, I must say, is behaving rather badly, that I am not breaking my heart about him, nor mean to do it.”
“But I thought you liked him?”
“So I do; but not in your sentimental sort of way. I am a practical person. I told him, exactly as papa told him, that if he came with his father's consent, I would be engaged to him at once, and marry him as soon as he liked. Otherwise, let him go! That's all. Don't fret, child, I am quite able to take care of myself.”
Truly, she was! But I thought, if I were a man, I certainly should not trouble myself to go crazy after a woman,—if men ever do such a thing.
Scarcely was my sister gone, than I had the opportunity of considering that latter possibility. I was called downstairs to Captain Treherne. Never did I see an unfortunate youth in such a state of mind.
What passed between us I cannot set down clearly; it was on his side so incoherent, on mine so awkward, and uncomfortable. I gathered that he had just had a letter from his father, refusing consent, or at least insisting on the delay of the marriage, which his friend Dr. Urquhart also advised. Exceedingly obliged to that gentleman for his polite interference in our family affairs, thought I.
The poor lover seemed so much in earnest that I pitied him. Missing Lisabel, he had asked to see me, in order to know where she was gone.
I told him, to the Cedars. He turned as white as a sheet.
“Serves me right, serves me right, for my confounded folly and cowardice. I never will take anybody's advice again. What did she think of my keeping away so long? Did she despise—hate me?”.
I said my sister had not confided to me any such opinion of him.
“She shall not meet Granton, that fool—that knave—that—— Could I overtake her before she reaches the Cedars?”
I informed him of a short cut across the moor, and he was out of the house in two minutes, before Penelope came into the drawing-room.
Penelope said I had done exceedingly wrong—that to send him after our Lisa, and allow her to be seen driving with him about the country, was the height of indecorum—that I had no sense of family dignity, or prudence, or propriety—was not a woman at all, but a mere sentimental hookworm.
I answered, I was glad of it, if to be a woman was to resemble the women I knew best.
A bitter, wicked speech, bitterly repented of when uttered. Penelope has a sharp tongue, though she does not know it; but when she rouses mine, I do know it, therefore am the more guilty. Many an unkind or sarcastic word that women drop, as carelessly as a minute seed, often fructifies into a whole garden-full of noisome weeds, sprung up,—they have forgotten how,—but the weeds are there. Yet still I cannot always command my tongue. Even, sometimes, when I do, the effort makes me think all the more angrily of Penelope.
It was not now in an angry, but a humbled spirit, that, when Penelope was gone to her district visiting—she does far more in the parish than either Lis or I—I went out alone, as usual, upon the moor.
My moorlands looked dreary; the heather is fading from purple to brown; the Autumn days are coming on fast. That afternoon they had that leaden uniformity which always weighs me down; I felt weary, hopeless—longed for some change in my dull life; wished I were a boy, a man—anything, so that I might be something—do something.
Thus thinking, so deeply that I noticed little, a person overtook, and passed me. It is so rare to meet anyone above the rank of a labourer hereabouts, that I looked round; and then saw it was Dr. Urquhart. He recognised me, apparently—mechanically I bowed, so did he, and went on.
This broke the chain of my thoughts—they wandered to my sister, Captain Treherne, and this Dr. Urquhart, with whom, now I came to think of it—I had not done so in the instant of his passing—I felt justly displeased. What right had he to meddle with my sister's affairs—to give his sage advice to his obedient young friend, who was foolish enough to ask it? Would I marry a man who went consulting his near, dear, and particular friends as to whether they were pleased to consider me a suitable wife for him? Never! Let him out of his own will love me, choose me, and win me, or leave me alone.
So, perhaps, the blame lay more at Mr. Treherne's door than his friend's—whom I could not call either a bad man or a designing man—his countenance forbade it. Surely I had been unjust to him.
He might have known this, and wished to give me a chance of penitence, for I shortly saw his figure reappearing over the slope of the road, returning towards me. Should I go back? But that would seem too pointed, and we should only exchange another formal bow.
I was mistaken. He stopped, bade me “Good morning,” made some remarks about the weather, and then abruptly told me that he had taken the liberty of turning back because he wanted to speak to me.
I thought, whatever will Penelope say! This escapade will be more “improper” than Lisabel's, though my friend is patriarchal in his age and preternatural in his gravity. But the mischievous spirit, together with a little uncomfortable surprise, went out of me when I looked at Dr. Urquhart. In spite of himself, his whole manner was so exceedingly nervous that I became quite myself, if only out of compassion.
“May I presume on our acquaintance enough to ask you a question—simple enough, but of great moment to me. Is Captain Treherne at your house?”
“No.”
“Has he been there to-day?”
“Yes.”
“I see, you think me extremely impertinent.”
“Not impertinent, but more inquisitive than I consider justifiable in a stranger. I really cannot engage to answer any more questions concerning my family or acquaintance.”
“Certainly not. I beg your pardon. I will wish you good morning.”
“Good morning.”
But he lingered.
“You are too candid yourself not to permit candour in me—may I, in excuse, state my reasons for thus interrupting you?”
I assented.
“You are aware that I know, and have known all along, the present relations of my friend Treherne with your family?”
“I had rather not discuss that subject, Doctor Urquhart.”
“No, but it will account for my asking questions about Captain Treherne. He left me this morning in a state of the greatest excitement. And at his age, with his temperament, there is no knowing to what a young man may not be driven.”
“At present, I believe, to nothing worse than the Cedars, with my sister as his charioteer.”
“You are satirical.”
“I am exceedingly obliged to you.”
Dr. Urquhart regarded me with a sort of benignant smile, as if I were a naughty child, whose naughtiness partly grieved, and partly amused him.
“If, in warrant of my age and my profession, you will allow me a few words of serious conversation with you, I, in my turn, shall be exceedingly obliged.”
“You are welcome.”
“Even if I speak about your sister and Captain Treherne?”
There he roused me.
“Doctor Urquhart, I do not see that you have the slightest right to interfere about my sister and Captain Treherne. He may choose to make you his confidant—I shall not: and I think very meanly of any man who brings a third person, either as umpire or go-between, betwixt himself and the woman he professes to love.” Doctor Urquhart looked at me again fixedly, with that curious, half-melancholy smile, before he spoke.
“At least, let me beg of you to believe one thing—I am not that go-between.”
He was so very gentle with me in my wrath, that, perforce, I could not be angry. I turned homeward, and he turned with me; but I was determined not to give him another syllable. Nevertheless, he spoke.
“Since we have said thus much, may I be allowed one word more? This matter has begun to give me extreme uneasiness. It is doing Treherne much harm. He is an only son, the son of his father's old age: on him much hope rests. He is very young—I never knew him to be serious in anything before. He is serious in his attachment—I mean in his ardent desire to marry your sister.”
“You think so? We are deeply indebted to him.”
“My dear young lady, when we are talking on a matter so important, and which concerns you so nearly, it is a pity to reply in that tone.”
To be reproved in this way by a man and a stranger! I was so astonished that it made me dumb. He continued:—
“You are aware that, for the present, Sir William's consent has been refused?”
“I am aware of it.”
“And indignant, probably. Yet there are two sides to the subject. It is rather trying to an old man, when his son writes suddenly, and insists upon bringing home a daughter-in-law, however charming, in six weeks; natural, too, that the father should urge,—'Take time to consider, my dear boy.'”
“Very natural.”
“Nay, should he go further, and wish some information respecting the lady who is to become one of his family—desire to know her family, in order to judge more of one on whom are to depend his son's happiness and his house and honour, you would not think him unjust or tyrannical?”
“Of course not. We,” I said, with some pride, alas! more pride than truth, “we should exact the same.”
“I know Sir William, well, and he trusts me. You will, perhaps, understand how this trust and the—the flexible character of his son, make me feel painfully responsible. Also, I know what youth is when thwarted. If that young fellow should go wrong, it would be to me—you cannot conceive how painful it would be to me.”
His hands nervously working one over the other, the sorrowful expression of his eyes, indicated sufficient emotion to make me extremely grieved for this good-hearted man. I am sure he is good-hearted.
I said I could not, of course, feel the same interest that he did in Captain Treherne, but that I wished the young man well.
“Can you tell me one thing; is your sister really attached to him?”
This sudden question, which I had so many times asked of myself—ought I to reply to it? Could I? Only by a prevarication.
“Mr. Treherne is the best person from whom to obtain that information.”
And I began to walk quicker, as a hint that this very odd conversation had lasted quite long enough.
“I shall not detain you two minutes,” my companion said, hastily. “It is a strange confidence to put in you, and yet I feel I may. Sir William wrote to me privately today. On my answer to his enquiries his consent will mainly depend.”
“What does he want to know? If we are respectable; if we have any money; if we have been decently educated, so that our connection shall not disgrace his family?”
“You are almost justified in being angry; but I said nothing of the kind. His questions only referred to the personal worth of the lady, and her personal attachment to his son.”
“My poor Lisa! That she should have her character asked for like a housemaid! That she should be admitted into a grand family, condescendingly, on sufferance!”
“You quite mistake,” said Doctor Urquhart, earnestly. “You are so angry, that you will not listen to what I say. Sir William is wealthy enough to be indifferent to money. Birth and position he might desire, and his son has already satisfied him upon yours; that your father is a clergyman, and that you come of an old English family.”
“We do not; we come of nothing and nobody. My grandfather was a farmer; he wrote his name Johnson, plain, plebeian Johnson. We are, by right, no Johnstons at all.”
The awful announcement had not the effect I anticipated. True, Doctor Urquhart started a little, and walked on silently for some minutes, but when he turned his face round it was quite beaming.
“If I did tell this to Sir William, he is too honourable a man not to value honour and honesty in any family, whether plebeian, as you call it, or not. Pardon me this long intrusion, with all my other offences. Will you shake hands?”
We did so—quite friendly, and parted.
I found Lisabel at home. By some chance, she had missed the Grantons, and Captain Treherne had missed her; I know not of which accident I was the most glad.
Frankly and plainly, as seemed to me best, I told her of my meeting Doctor Urquhart, and of all that had passed between us; saving only the fact of Sir William's letter to him, which, as he said it was “in confidence,” I felt I was not justified in communicating even to my sister.,
She took everything very easily—laughed at Mr. Treherne's woes, called him “poor fellow,” was sure all would come right in time, and went upstairs to dress for dinner.
On Thursday she got a letter from him which she gave me to read—very passionate, and full of nonsense. I wonder any man can write such rubbish, or any woman care to read it—still more to show it. It gave no information on facts—only implored her to see him; which, in a neat little note, also given for my perusal, Lisabel declined.
On Friday evening, just after the lamp was lit and we were all sitting round the tea-table, who should send in his card with a message begging a few minutes' conversation with Mr. Johnston, but Doctor Urquhart? “Max Urquhart, M.D.”—as his card said. How odd he should be called “Max.”
Papa, roused from his nap, desired the visitor to be shown in, and with some difficulty I made him understand that this was the gentleman Mrs. Granton had spoken of—also—as Penelope added ill-naturedly, “the particular friend of Captain Treherne.”
This—for though he has said nothing, I am sure he has understood what has been going on—made papa stand up rather frigidly when Doctor Urquhart entered the parlour. He did so, hesitatingly, as if coming out of the dark night, the blaze of our lamp confused him. I noticed he put his hand to shade his eyes.
“Doctor Urquhart, I believe Mrs. Granton's friend, and Captain Treherne's?”
“The same.”
“Will you be seated?”
He took a chair opposite; and he and papa scanned one another closely. I caught, in Dr. Urquhart's face, that peculiar uneasy expression about the mouth. What a comfort a beard must be to a nervous person!
A few commonplace remarks passed, and then our visitor asked if he might speak with papa alone. He was the bearer of a message—a letter in short—from Sir William Treherne, of Treherne Court.
Papa said, stiffly—he had not the honour of that gentleman's acquaintance.
“Sir William hopes, nevertheless, to have the honour of making yours.”
Lisabel pinched me under the table; Penelope gazed steadily into the tea-pot; papa rose and walked solemnly into his study—Doctor Urquhart following.
It was—as Lisa cleverly expressed it—“all right.” All parties concerned had given full consent to the marriage.
Captain Treherne came the day following to Rockmount, in a state of exuberant felicity, the overplus of which he vented in kissing Penelope and me, and requesting us to call him “Augustus.” I am afraid I could willingly have dispensed with either ceremony.
Doctor Urquhart, we have not seen again—he was not at church yesterday. Papa intends to invite him to dinner shortly. He says he likes him very much.
CHAPTER VII. HIS STORY.
Hospital-work, rather heavy this week, with other things of lesser moment, have stopped this my correspondence with an airy nothing however, the blank will not be missed—nought concerning Max Urquhart would be missed by anybody.
Pardon, fond and faithful Nobody, for whose benefit I write, and for whose good opinion I am naturally anxious. I believe two or three people would miss me, my advice and conversation, in the hospital.
By the bye, Thomas Hardman, to my extreme satisfaction, seems really reforming. His wife told me he has not taken a drop too much since he came out of hospital. She says this illness was the saving of him, since, if he had been flogged, or discharged for drunkenness, he would have been a drunkard all his days. So far, so good.
I was writing about being missed, literally, by Nobody. And, truly, this seems fair enough; for is there anybody I should miss? Have I missed, or been relieved by the lost company of my young friend who has so long haunted my hut, but who, now, at an amazing expense in carriage-hire, horse-flesh, and shoe-leather, manages to spend every available minute at a much more lively abode, as Rockmount probably is, for he seems to find a charm in the very walls which enclose his jewel.
For my part, I prefer the casket to the gem. Rockmount must be a pleasant house to live in; I thought so the first night, when, by Sir William's earnest desire, I took upon myself the part of “father” to that wilful lad, and paid the preliminary visit to the lady's father, Mr. Johnston.
Johnson it is, properly, as I learnt from that impetuous young daughter of his, when, meeting her on the moor, the idea suddenly struck me to gain from her some knowledge that might guide my conduct in the very anxious position wherein I was placed. Johnson, only Johnson. Poor child! had she known the load she lifted off me by those few impetuous words, which accident only won; for Treherne's matter, had for once driven out of my mind all other thoughts, or doubts, or fears, which may now henceforward be completely set aside.
I must, of course, take no notice of her frank communication, but continue to call them “Johnston.” Families which “come from nothing and nobody”—the foolish lassie! as if we did not all come alike from Father Adam;—are very tenacious on these points; which may have their Value—to families. Unto isolated individuals they seem ridiculous. To me, for instance, of what benefit is it to bear an ancient name, bequeathed by ancestors whom I owe nothing besides, and which I shall leave to no descendants. I, who have no abiding place on the whole earth, and to whom, as I read in a review extract yesterday, “My home is any room where I can draw a bolt across the door.”
Speaking of home, I revert to my first glimpse of the interior of Rockmount, that rainy night, when, weary with my day and night journey, and struck more than ever with the empty dreariness of Treherne Court, and the restlessness of its poor gouty old master, able to enjoy so little out of all his splendours, I suddenly entered this snug little “home.” The fire, the tea-table, the neatly-dressed daughters, looking quite different from decked-out beauties, or hospital slatterns, which are the two phases in which I most often see the sex. Certainly, to one who has been much abroad, there is a great charm in the sweet looks of a thorough English woman by her own fireside.
This picture fixed itself on my mind, distinct as a photograph; for truly it was printed in light. The warm, bright parlour, with a delicate-tinted paper, a flowered carpet, and amber curtains, which I noticed because one of the daughters was in the act of drawing them, to screen the draught from her father's arm-chair. The old man—he must be seventy, nearly—standing on the hearth-rug, met me coldly enough, which was not surprising, prior to our conversation. The three ladies I have before named.
Of these, the future Mrs. Treherne is by far the handsomest; but I still prefer the countenance of my earliest acquaintance, Miss Theodora—a pretty name. Neither she nor her sisters gave me more than a formal bow; shaking hands is evidently not their custom with strangers. I should have thought of that, two days before.
Mr. Johnston took me into his study. It is an antique room, with dogs for the fire-place, and a settle on either side the hearth; many books or papers about, and a large, neatly-arranged library on shelves.
I noticed these things, because, as I say, my long absence from England caused them to attract me more than they might have done a person accustomed to English domestic life. That old man, gliding peacefully down-hill in the arms of his three daughters, was a sight pleasant enough. There must be many compensations in old age—in such an old age as this.
Mr. Johnston—I am learning to write the name without hesitation—is not a man of many words. His character appears to me of that type which I have generally found associated with those specially delicate and regular features; shrinking from anything painful or distasteful, putting it aside, forgetting it, if possible, but anyhow trying to get rid of it. Thus, when I had delivered Sir William Treherne's most cordial and gentlemanly letter, and explained his thorough consent to the marriage, the lady's father took it much more indifferently than I had expected.
He said, “that he had never interfered with his daughters' choice in such matters, nor should he now; he had no objection to see them settled; they would have no protector when he was gone.” And here he paused.
I answered, it was a very natural parental desire, and I trusted Captain Treherne would prove a good brother to the Misses Johnston, as well as a good son to himself.
“Yes—yes,” he said, hastily, and then asked me a few questions as to Treherne's prospects, temper, and moral character, which I was glad to be able to answer as I did. “Harum-scarum” as I call him—few young men of fortune can boast a more stainless life, and so I told Mr. Johnston. He seemed satisfied, and ended our interview by saying, “that he should be happy to see the young gentleman to-morrow.”
So I departed, declining his invitation to re-enter the drawing-room, for it seemed that, at the present crisis in their family history, there was an indelicacy in any strangers breaking in upon that happy circle. Otherwise, I would have liked well another peep at the pretty home-picture, which, in walking to the camp through a pelting rain, flitted before my eyes again and again.
Treherne was waiting in my hut. He looked up, fevered with anxiety.
“Where the devil have you been gone to, Doctor? Nobody has known anything about you for the last two days. And I wanted you to write to the governor, and—”
“I have seen the “governor,” as you will persist in calling the best of fathers—”
“Seen him!”
“And the Rockmount father too. Go in and win, my boy; the coast's all clear. Mind you ask me to the wedding.”
Truly there is a certain satisfaction in having had ar hand in making young folks happy. The sight does not happen often enough to afford my smiling even at the demonstrations of that poor lad on this memorable evening.
Since then, I have left him to his own devices, and followed mine, which have little to do with happy people. Once or twice, I have had business with Mr. Granton, who does not seem to suffer acutely at Miss Lisabel's marriage. He need not cause a care, even to that tender-hearted damsel, who besought me so pitifully to take him in hand.
And so, I trust the whole Rockmount family are happy, and fulfilling their destiny—in the which, little as I thought it, when I stood watching the solitary girl in the sofa corner, Max Urquhart has been made more an instrument than he ever dreamed of, or than they are likely ever to be aware.
The matter was beginning to fade out of my memory, as one of the many episodes which are always occurring to create passing interests in a doctor's life, when I received an invitation to dine at Rockmount.
I dislike accepting casual invitations. Primarily, on principle—the bread-and-salt doctrine of the East, which considers hospitality neither as a business nor an amusement, but as a sacred rite, entailing permanent responsibility to both host and guest. When I sit by a man's fireside, or (Treherne loquitur) “put my feet under his mahogany,” I feel bound not merely to give him back the same quantity and quality of meat and drink, but to regard myself as henceforth his friend and guest, under obligations closer and more binding than one would submit to from the world in general. It is, therefore, incumbent on me to be very choice in those with whom I put myself under such bonds and obligations.
My secondary reasons are so purely personal, that they will not bear enlarging upon. Most people of solitary life, and conscious of many peculiarities, take small pleasure in general society, otherwise to go out into the world, to rub up one's intellect, enlarge one's social sympathies, enjoy the commingling of wit, learning, beauty, and even folly, would be a pleasant thing—like sitting to watch a pyrotechnic display, knowing all the while, that when it was ended one could come back to see one's heart in the perennial warmth of one's own fireside. If not,—better stay away:—for one is inclined to turn cynical, and perceive nothing but the smell of the gunpowder, the wrecks of the catherine-wheels, and the empty shells of the Roman-candles.
The Rockmount invitation was rather friendly than formal, and it came from an old man. The feeble hand-writing, the all but illegible signature, weighed with me, in spite of myself. I had no definite reason to refuse his politeness, which is not likely to extend beyond an occasional dinner-party, of the sort given hereabouts periodically, to middle aged respectable neighbours—in which category may be supposed to come Max Urquhart, M.D. I accepted the courtesy and invitation.
Yet, let me confess to thee, compassionate unknown, the ridiculous hesitation with which I walked up to this friendly door, from which I should certainly have walked away again, but for my dislike to break any engagement, however trivial, or even a promise made only to myself. Let me own the morbid dread with which I contemplated four mortal hours to be spent in the society of a dozen friendly people, made doubly sociable by the influence of a good dinner, and the best of wines.
But the alarm was needless, as a little common sense, had I exercised it, would soon have proved.
In the drawing-room, lit with the warm duskiness of firelight, sat the three ladies. The eldest received me politely: the youngest apologetically.
“We are only ourselves, you see; we understand you dislike dinner-parties, so we invited nobody.”
“We never do give dinner-parties more than once or twice a-year.”
It was the second daughter who made that last remark. I thought whether it was for my sake or her own, that one young lady had taken the trouble to give me a false impression, and the other to remove it. And how very indifferent I was to both attempts! Surely, women hold trifles of more moment than we men can afford to do.
Curious enough to me was the thoroughly feminine atmosphere of the dainty little drawing-room, set out, not with costly splendours, like Treherne Court, but pretty home-made ornaments, and, above all, with plenty of flowers. My olfactories are acute; certain rooms always possess to me certain associated scents through which, at whatever distance of time I revisit them, the pristine impression survives; sometimes pleasant, sometimes horribly painful. That pretty parlour will, I fancy, always carry to me the scent of orange-flowers. It came through the door of a little greenhouse, from a tree there, the finest specimen I had yet seen in England, and I rose to examine it. There followed me the second daughter, Miss Theodora.
In the minute picture which I have been making of my evening at Rockmount, I ought not to omit this young girl, or young woman, for she appears both by turns; indeed, she has the most variable exterior of any person I ever met. I recall her successively; the first time of meeting, quite child-like in her looks and ways; the second, sedate and womanly, save in her little obstinacy about the blue-bells; the third, dignified, indignant, pertinaciously reserved; but this night I saw her in an entirely new character, neither childish nor woman-like, but altogether gentle and girlish—a thorough English girl.
Her dress, of some soft, dark colour, which fell in folds, and did not rustle or spread; her hair, which was twisted at the back, without any bows or laces, such as I see ladies wear, and brought down, smooth and soft over the forehead, formed a sufficient contrast to her sisters to make me notice her; besides, it was a style more according to my own taste. I hate to see a woman all flounces and filligigs, or with her hair torn up by the roots like a Chinese Mandarin. Hair, curved over the brow like a Saxon arch, under the doorway of which two modest intelligent eyes stand sentinel, vouching for the worth of' what is within—grant these, and the rest of the features may be anything you choose, if not absolutely ugly. The only peculiarity about hers was, a squareness of chin, and closeness of mouth, indicating more strength than sweetness of disposition, until the young lady smiled.
Writing this, I am smiling myself, to reflect how little people would give me credit for so much observation; but a liking to study character is, perhaps, of all others, the hobby most useful to a medical man.
I have left my object of remark all this while, standing by her orange-tree, and contemplating a large caterpillar slowly crawling over one of its leaves. I recommended her to get Treherne to smoke in her conservatory, which would remove the insects from her flowers.
“They are not mine, I rarely pay them the least attention.”
I thought she was fond of flowers.
“Yes, but wild flowers, not tame, like these of Penelope's. I only patronise those she throws away as being not 'good.' Can you imagine mother Nature making a 'bad' flower?”
I said, I concluded Miss Johnston was a scientific horticulturist.
“Indeed she is. I never knew a girl so learned about flowers, well-educated, genteel, greenhouse flowers, as our Penelope.”
“Our” Penelope. There must be a pleasure in these family possessive pronouns.
I had the honour of taking into dinner this lady, who is very sprightly, with nothing at all Odyssean about her. During a lack of conversation, for Treherne, of course, devoted himself to his ladye-love; and Mr. Johnston is the most silent of hosts, I ventured to remark that this was the first time I had ever met a lady with that old Greek name.
“Penelope!” cried Treherne. “'Pon my life I forget who was Penelope. Do tell us, Dora. That young lady knows everything, Doctor; a regular blue-stocking; at first she quite frightened me, I declare.”
Captain Treherne seems to be making himself uncommonly familiar with his future sisters-in-law. This one did not exactly relish it, to judge by her look. She has a will of her own, and a temper, too, “that young lady.” It is as well Treherne did not happen to set his affections upon her.
Poor youth! he never knows when to stop.
“Ha! I have it now, Miss Dora. Penelope was in the Odyssey—that book of engravings you were showing my cousin Charteris and me that Friday night. And how I laughed at what Charteris said—that he thought the good lady was very much over-rated, and Ulysses in the right of it to ride away again, when, coming back after ten years, he found her a prudish, psalm-singing, spinning old woman. Hollo!—have I put my foot into it, Lisabel?”
It seemed so, by the constrained silence of the whole party. Miss Johnston turned scarlet, and then white, but immediately said to me, laughing:—
“Mr. Charteris is an excellent classic; he was papa's pupil for some years. Have you ever met him?”
I had not, but I had often heard of him in certain circles of our camp society, as well as from Sir William Treherne. And I now suddenly recollected that, in talking over his son's marriage, the latter had expressed some surprise at the news Treherne had given, that this gay bachelor about town, whose society he had been always chary of cultivating for fear of harm to “the boy,” had been engaged for some time to a member of the Johnston family. This was, of course, Miss Johnston—Penelope.
I would have let the subject drop, but Miss Lisabel revived it.
“So you have heard a deal about Francis? No wonder!—-is he not a charming person?—and very much thought of in London society? Do tell us all you heard about him?” Treherne gave me a look.
“Oh! you'll never get anything out of the Doctor. He knows everybody, and everybody tells him everything, but there it ends. He is a perfect tomb—a sarcophagus of silence, as a fellow once called him.”
Miss Lisabel held up her hands, and vowed she was really afraid of me. Miss Johnston said, sharply, “She liked candid people: a sarcophagus of silence implied a 'body' inside.” At which all laughed, except the second sister, who said, with some warmth, “She thought there were few qualities more rare and valuable than the power of keeping a secret.”
“Of course, Dora thinks so. Doctor, my sister, there, is the most secretive little mouse that ever was born. Red-hot pincers could not force from her what she did not choose to tell, about herself or other people.”
I well believe that. One sometimes finds that combination of natural frankness, and exceeding reticence, when reticence is necessary.
The “mouse” had justified her name by being silent nearly all dinner-time, though it was not the silence of either sullenness or abstraction. But when she was afterwards accused of delighting in a secret, “running away with it, and hiding it in her hole, like a bit of cheese,” she looked up, and said, emphatically:—
“That is a mistake, Lisabel.”
“A fib, you mean. Augustus, do you know my sisters call me a dreadful story-teller,” smiling at him, as if she thought it the best joke in the world.
“I said, a mistake, and meant nothing more.”
“Do tell us, child, what you really meant, if it is possible to get it out of you,” observed the eldest sister; and the poor “mouse,” thus driven into a corner, looked round the table with those bright eyes of hers.
“Lisabel mistakes; I do not delight in secrets. I think people ought not to have any, but to be of one mind in a house.” (She studies her Bible, then, for the phrase came out as naturally as one quotes habitual phrases, scarcely conscious whence one has learned them). “Those who really care for one another, are much happier when they tell one another everything; there is nothing so dangerous as a secret. Better never have one, but, having it, if one ought to keep it at all, one ought to keep it to the death.”
She looked—quite accidentally, I do believe—but still she looked at me. Why is it, that this girl should be the instrument of giving me continual stabs of pain: yet there is a charm in them. They take away a little of the feeling of isolation—the contrast between the inside and outside of the sarcophagus. Many true words are spoken in jest! They dart, like a thread of light, even to “the body” within. Corruption has its laws. I marvel in what length of time might a sun-beam, penetrating there, find nothing worse than harmless dust?
But I will pass into ordinary life again. Common sense teaches a man in my circumstances that this is the best thing for him. What business has he to set himself up as a Simon Stylites on a solitary column of woe? as if misery constituted saintship? There is no arrogance like the hypocrisy of humility.
When Treherne had joined the ladies, Mr. Johnston and myself started some very interesting conversation, à propos of Mrs. Granton and her doings in the parish, when I found that he has the feeling, very rare among country gentlemen of his age and generation—an exceeding aversion for strong drinks. He discountenances Father Mathew and the pledge as popish, a crotchet not surprising in an old Tory, whose opinions, never wide, all run in one groove, as it were; but he advocates temperance, even to teetotalism.
I tried to draw the line of moderation, and argued that, because some men, determined on making beasts of themselves, required to be treated like beasts, by compulsion only; that was no reason why the remainder should not have free-will, man's glorious privilege, to prove their manhood by the choice of good or evil.
“Like Adam—and Adam fell.”
“Like a Greater than Adam; trusting in Whom, we need never fall.”
The old man did not reply, but he looked much excited. The subject seemed to rouse in him something beyond the mere disgust of an educated gentleman, at what offended his refined tastes. Had not certain other reasons made that solution improbable, I could have imagined it the shudder of one too familiar with the vice he now abhorred: that he spoke about drunkenness with the terrified fierceness of one who had himself been a drunkard.
As we sat talking across the table, philosophically, abstractedly, yet with a perceptible undertone of reserve,—I heard it in his voice; I felt it in my own,—or listening silently to the equinoctial gale, which rattled the window, made the candles flicker, almost caused the wine to shake in the untouched decanters—as I have heard table-rapping tales, of wine beginning to shake when there was “a spirit present,”—the thought struck me more than once—if either of us two men could lift the curtain from one another's past, what would be found there?
He proceeded to close our conversation, by saying:—
“You will understand now, Doctor Urquhart, and I wish to name it as a sort of apology for former close questioning, my extreme horror of drunkenness, and my satisfaction at finding that Mr. Treherne has no propensity in this direction.”
I answered:—
“Certainly not; that, with all the temptations of a mess-table, to take much wine was, with him, a thing exceedingly rare.”
“Rare! I thought you said he never drank at all?”
“I said he was no drunkard, nor at all in the habit of drinking.”
“Habits grow, we know not how,” cried the old man, irritably. “Does he take it every day?”
“I suppose so. Most military men do.”
Mr. Johnston turned sharp upon me.
“I must have no modifications, Doctor Urquhart. Can you declare positively that you never saw Captain Treherne the worse for liquor?”
To answer this question directly was impossible. I tried to remove the impression I had unfortunately given, and which the old man had taken up so unexpectedly and fiercely, by enlarging on the brave manner in which Treherne had withstood many a lure to evil ways.
“You cannot deceive me, sir. I must have the truth.”
I was on the point of telling him to seek it from Treherne himself, when, remembering the irritation of the old man, and the hotheaded imprudence of the young one, I thought it would be safer to bear the brunt myself.
I informed Mr. Johnston of the two only instances when I had seen Treherne not himself. Once after twenty-four hours in the trenches, when unlimited brandy could hardly keep life in our poor fellows, and again when Miss Lisabel herself must be his excuse.
“Lisabel? Do not name her. Sir, I would rather see a daughter of mine in her grave, than the wife of a drunkard.”
“Which, allow me to assert, Captain Treherne is not, and is never likely to be.”
Mr. Johnston shook his head incredulously. I became more and more convinced about the justness of my conjecture about his past life, which delicacy forbade me to enquire into, or to use as any argument against his harshness now. I began to feel seriously uneasy.
“Mr. Johnston,” I said, “would you for this accidental error—”
I paused, seeing at the door a young lady's face, Miss Theodora's.
“Papa, tea is waiting.”
“Let it wait then: shut the door. Well, sir?”
I repeated, would he, for one accidental error, condemn the young man entirely?
“He has condemned himself; he has taken the first step, and his downward course will be swift and sudden. There is no stopping it, sir,” and he struck his hand on the table. “If I had a son, and he liked wine, as a child does, perhaps; a pretty little boy, sitting at table and drinking healths at birthdays, or a schoolboy, proud to do what he sees his father doing,—I would take his glass from him, and fill it with poison, deadly poison—that he might kill himself at once, rather than grow up to be his friends' and his own damnation—a drunkard.”
I urged, after a minute's pause, that Treherne was neither a child nor a boy; that he had passed through the early perils of youth, and succumbed to none; that there was little fear he would ever become a drunkard.
“He may.”
“Please God, he never shall! Even if he had yielded to temptation; if, even in your sense, and mine, Mr. Johnston, the young man had once been 'drunk,' should he for that be branded as a hopeless drunkard? I think not—I trust not.”
And, strongly excited myself, I pleaded for the lad as if I had been pleading for my own life,—but in vain.
It was getting late, and I was in momentary dread of another summons to the drawing-room.
In cases like these there comes a time when, be our opponents younger or older, inferior or superior to ourselves, we feel we must assert what we believe to be right, “taking the upper hand,” as it is called; that is, using the power which the few have in guiding the many. Call it influence, decision, will,—one who possesses that quality rarely gets through half a lifetime without discovering the fact, and what a weighty and solemn gift it is.
I said to Mr. Johnston, very respectfully, yet resolutely, that, in so serious a matter, of which I myself was the unhappy cause, I must request him, as a personal favour, to postpone his decision for to-night.
“And,” I continued, “forgive my urging that, both as a father and a clergyman, you are bound to be careful how you decide. By one fatal word you may destroy your daughter's happiness for life.”
I saw him start; I struck bolder.
“Also, as Captain Treherne's friend, let me remind you that he has a future, too. It is a dangerous thing for a young man's future when he is thwarted in his first love. What if he should go all wrong, and you had to answer to Sir William Treherne for the ruin of his only son?”
I was not prepared for the effect of my words.
“His only son—God forgive me! is he his only son?”
Mr. Johnston turned from me; his hands shook violently, his whole countenance changed. In it there was as much remorse and anguish as if he, in his youth, had been some old man's only and perhaps erring son.
I could pity him—if he were one of those who suffer to their life's end for the evil deeds of their youth. I abstained from any further remarks, and he made none. At last, as he expressed some wish to be left alone, I rose.
“Doctor,” he said, in a tremulous voice, “I will thank you not to name this conversation to my family. For the subject of it—we'll pass it over—this once.”
I thanked him, and earnestly begged forgiveness for any warmth I had shown in the argument.
“Oh yes, oh yes! Did I not say we would pass it over?”
He sank wearily back in his arm-chair, but I felt the point was gained.
In course of the evening, when Treherne and Miss Lisabel, in happy ignorance of all the peril their bliss had gone through, were making believe to play chess in the corner, and Miss Johnston was reading the newspaper to her father, I slipped away to the green-house, where I stood examining some orchids, and thinking how curious it was that I, a perfect stranger, should be so mixed up with the private affairs of this family.
“Doctor Urquhart.”
Soft as the whisper was, it made me start. I apologised for not having seen Miss Theodora enter, and began admiring the orchidaceous plants.
“Yes, very pretty. But I wanted to ask you, what were you and papa talking about?”
“Your father wished me not to mention it.”
“But I heard part of it, I could not help hearing,—and I guessed the rest. Tell me only one thing. Is Captain Treherne still to marry our Lisa?”
“I believe so. There was a difficulty, but Mr. Johnston said he would 'pass it over.'”
“Poor papa,” was all she replied. “Poor papa.”
I expressed my exceeding regret at what had happened.
“No, never mind, you could not help it; I understand exactly how it was. But the storm will blow over; papa is rather peculiar. Don't tell Captain Treherne.”
She stood meditative a good while, and then said:—
“I think you are right about Mr. Treherne, I begin to like him myself a little, that is—No, I will not make pretences. I did not like him at all until lately.”
I told her I knew that.
“How? Did I shew it? Do I shew what I feel?”
“Tolerably,” said I, smiling. “But you do like him now?”