Heart and Cross

“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.

CHAPTER XIV.

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 Alice’s mind was. Alice was sometimes cordial and sometimes distant to this candidate for her favor—“And I often fear that it will just be with Mr. Reredos as with the rest,” said Mrs. Harley, despondingly—“and I like him so much—he reminds me of what her dear father was once—and the connection would altogether be so eligible that I should be very sorry if it came to nothing. Do you think, dear Mrs. Crofton, that you could use your influence with her on this subject? My dear girl is so shocked and disgusted with the idea of people marrying for an establishment, that I really do not venture to say a word to her about her own establishment in life; but 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, dear Mrs. Crofton, persuade my mother not to worry me, but to believe that I know my own mind.”

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 of ecstasies and despairs, quite inconceivable to any imagination above twenty—but all enforced and explained with such perfect ingenuousness and good faith that one could have hugged the boy all the time for the exquisite and delightful folly, in which there did not mix an evil thought. Nothing could well be more remarkable than this fiery outburst of confined and restrained life from the bosom of the cripple, to whom all these active delights were impossible—it was profoundly pathetic too, to me. Poor Johnnie! with that fervid imagination in him, how was he to bear the gray life which Alice had predicted—the life which must be his, notwithstanding all his dreams and hopes? How, when it came to that, was he to undergo the downfall of his first miraculous castle in the air, his vain and violent love-passion? Poor heart, foredoomed! would he ever learn to bring the music of Patience, so lovely to those who hear, so hard to those who make it, out of those life-chords which were drawn all awry, beyond the reach of happiness? I was happy myself in those days. I had little desire to think of the marvellous life to come in which all these problems shall be made clear. I could not cast forward my mind beyond this existence—and the strange inequality between this boy’s mind and his fate vexed me at the heart.

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 thought woke me up into a restless fever of horror and anxiety, which I cannot describe. Perhaps I felt the hideous contrast more because of my own perfect safety and happiness, but I could neither sleep by night nor smile by day, for the vision of that horrible anguish which had fallen upon some, and might be—might be—for anything I knew—at any moment—ah! the thought was too much for flesh and blood. It was growing towards autumn, yet I, who hated London, was reluctant that year to leave it. We were nearer to those news which it was so sickening to hear, yet so dreadful to be out of reach of, and it seemed to me as if it would be impossible to go into those tranquil country places, where all was happy, and still, and prosperous, with such a cloud of horror, and fear, and rage about one’s heart. At that time I almost think I could have heard without any great additional pang that Bertie himself had been killed. He was a man, thank Heaven, and they could only kill him! Mere family affection was lost for the moment in the overpowering horror of the time.

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 news, mad with gasps of grief, anxiety, and thanksgiving, did not now strike such horror and chill to our blood. We went home and quieted ourselves, and grew anxious about Bertie—very anxious. Of course he was in the thick of the fight. If he had not been, could we ever have forgiven him?—but he was, and we had only to wait, and long, and tremble for news, to catch here and there a glimpse of him through obscure telegraphic reports, and slow dispatches, coming long, long, and slow, after that bewildering, tantalizing snatch of half-comprehensible tidings. Then I saw, for the first time, how thoroughly the young man, though he had been away eight years, kept his hold upon our hearts. Derwent would ride a dozen miles to the railway for a chance of hearing a little earlier than was possible at Hilfont, when the 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, though we were but indifferent friends, by a common touch of nature (for I cannot deny that she liked her nephews), consulted and argued where Bertie could be now, and wished him safe home. My little Derwent, with a flush on his childish cheeks, and tears in his eyes, cried out against her; “Do you think Bertie will come safe home when they are murdering the women and the babies?” cried Derwie, with a half-scream of childish excitement. “Bertie?—if he did, I would like to kill him; but he never, never, will till they’re all on board the ships—he had better be killed than come safe home!”

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, “I’m afraid Derwie’s right; if he die he must do his duty—there’s no talk of being safe in such times.”

“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.

CHAPTER XV.

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 had been brought up at Estcourt deluged me with letters asking after him. I am not sure that our entire household did not feel, amid all its anxiety, a little pride in the consciousness of thus having a share in the universal national sympathy which was bestowed so warmly and freely upon all who had friends in India. As for little Derwie, he devoted himself entirely now to the business of carrying news. He knew already by heart the list of all the families—I had almost said in all the county, certainly between Hilfont and Simonborough—who had soldier-sons; and Derwie and his pony flew along all the country roads for days together when news came, the child carrying in his faithful childish memory every detail of the dispatch to the cottage women, who had no other means of hearing it. The people about—that is to say, Miss Reredos and the important people of the village—called my boy the telegraph-boy, and I am not quite sure that I was not rather proud of the name. Whether his news-carrying always did good I will not say—perhaps it was little comfort to the mother of a nameless rank-and-file man to hear that another battle had been won, or a successful march made, in which, perhaps, God knows, that undistinguished boy of hers might have fainted and fallen aside to die. But the common people—God bless them!—are more hopeful in their laborious hearts than we who have leisure to think all our anxieties out, and grow sick over them.

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 than Derwie, sat silent, fingering his buttons, and with no remarkable expression in his face; but Miss Polly’s two nieces bent down from their height of superior stature to listen, and Clara Sedgwick—lovely little coquette—stood in the middle of the room, arrested in something she had been doing, breathless, her little face burning with the strongest childish excitement. She was not now arrayed in that glorious apparel which had captivated Derwie and myself in the spring. It was only a simple gray morning frock, which was expanded upon her infantine crinoline at this moment; but her beautiful little figure, all palpitating with wonder, wrath, and excitement, was a sight to see.

“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 grief, striking its key-note upon the big impersonal calamity which raised, even in these children’s bosoms, such generous horror and indignation.

“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,” she said, in an aggrieved tone, turning away from her brother with a disgust which I slightly shared.

“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 more. But what a memory Derwie has!—and how he understands! I am sure, I hope most sincerely that Bertie, after all, will get safe home. Is there any more news?”

“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 so much better behaved than she had ever been before. Then this Indian business, you know, happened, and she was all in a craze again. She doesn’t say much, but I am quite sure it is nothing else that has upset her. Of course, looking at it in a rational way, Bertie and Alice can’t 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, you know. She’s not in love with him—if she were in love with him, I couldn’t say a word—it’s only sympathy, and friendship, and sisterhood, and all that; and because he’s in trouble she’ll forget all about herself, and send this good man, who is very fond of her, away.”

“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.

CHAPTER XVI.

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 suitor. She referred to him on all occasions, thrust his opinions into anything that was going forward, contrived means of bringing him into immediate contact with Alice, which last brought many a little sting and slight to the unfortunate and too well-befriended lover—on the whole, conducted herself as a nervous, anxious, well-meaning woman, to whom Providence has not given the gift of comprehending other people’s individualities, might be supposed likely to do. As Mrs. Harley sat in her great chair by the fire in the Waterflag drawing-room, and looked round her upon her children and descendants, I did not wonder that she was both proud and anxious. There was Maurice with a new world of troublous thoughts in his face. I could no more understand what was their cause than I could interfere with them. Was it that dread following out of his investigations into Truth, wherever she might lead him, which he had contemplated with tragical but complacent placidity six months since—or had other troubles, more material, overtaken the Fellow of Exeter? I was somewhat curious, but how could I hope to know? Then there was Johnnie, poor, happy, deluded boy! Miss Reredos was of the company—and while she still saw nobody else who was more likely game, she amused herself with Johnnie, and overwhelmed his simple soul with joy. His book and his love together had changed him much, poor fellow; he was sadly impatient of being spoken to as a youth, or almost as a child, in the old sympathetic, tender custom which all his family had fallen into. He was jealous of being distinguished in any way from other people, and took the indulgences long accorded to his ill-health and helplessness fiercely, as if they had been so many insults. Poor Johnnie! he thought himself quite lifted above the old warm family affection, which clung so close to the weakest of the flock, by this new imaginary love of his. I wonder what that syren of his imagination felt when she saw what she had done! I imagine nothing but amusement, and a little pleasurable thrill of vanity. Many men made love to Miss Reredos, or had done so during the past career of that experienced young lady; few perhaps had thrown themselves at her feet 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 with that accomplished young gentleman. They were on somewhat spiteful terms, having a little passing encounter of pique on the one side and anger on the other, whenever they chanced to come in contact. The pique was on the lady’s side; but as for Maurice, he looked as if it would have been a decided relief to his feelings to do her some small personal injury. There was a kind of snarl in his voice when he addressed her, such as I have heard men use to a woman who had somehow injured them, and whom they supposed to have taken a mean advantage of her woman’s exemption from accountability. “If you were a man I could punish you; but you are not a man, and I have to be polite to you, you cowardly female creature,” said the tone, but not the words of Maurice’s voice; and I could discover by that tone that something new must have happened which I did not know of. All the more fervently for the coolness of his mother and sisters to her, and for the constraint and gloomy looks of Maurice, did Johnnie, poor boy, hang upon the words and watch the looks of the enchantress—he saw nobody else in the room, cared for nobody else—was entirely carried beyond all other affections, beyond gratitude, beyond every sentiment but that of the exalted boyish passion which had, to his own consciousness, changed all his life and thoughts.

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 boy practised. Alas! and that was but the threshold of hard, sober existence, and who could tell what bitter things were yet in store for them? How hard is life! Perhaps Bertie Nugent at that moment lay stark upon some Eastern field of battle; perhaps he was pledging his heart and life to some of those languid-lively Indian Englishwomen, ever so many thousand miles off—who can tell? And why, because Bertie was in danger, should Alice Harley snub that excellent young Rector, and turn from his attentions with such an air of impatience, almost of disgust? Nobody could answer me these simple questions. Indeed, to tell the truth, I did not ask anybody, but quietly pursued the elucidation of them for myself.

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 every appearance of feeling. That silence would have been enough, if there had been nothing else, to betray her to me.

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 was promoted to the envy of so exalted a personage.

“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.

CHAPTER XVII.

“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, as when they’re all children. There’s nothing but measles and such things to frighten one 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—and why shouldn’t she like him?” asked the exasperated mother. “You know, Mrs. Crofton, that my poor income dies with me—and there is Johnnie, poor child, to make some provision for, and when I die what will she do?—though to be sure,” concluded Mrs. Harley, drawing herself up a little, “I am not the sort of person to marry my daughters merely for an establishment—that never was my way. This case, you must perceive, Clare, is quite different. He is such a very nice—such an entirely satisfactory person; and the position—I was a clergyman’s wife myself, and I would choose that sphere rather than any other for Alice; and as for liking, I really cannot see a single reason why she should not like him, do you?”

“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—but Maurice has actually had the folly to fall in love with Francis Owen’s sister in Simonborough. I could not believe my ears when I heard of it first. Maurice, who has always been such a very prudent boy! She is a very nice, pretty girl, but, of course has not a penny—and Maurice has nothing but his fellowship. It is a pretty mess altogether. In the very best view of the case, if Maurice even had been content to think like other people, and had a nice living waiting for him, they might both have done better—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 some of the officers; and Miss Reredos has such a grudge at him for falling in love with anybody but herself, that she did all she could to help them to a quarrel; and a very good thing, too, for of course they never would have been so mad as to marry, and I dislike long engagements exceedingly; only since then it is really almost impossible to endure Maurice in the house. He is 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 was evidently eased by the utterance, and persuading her that everything would come right. She went away shaking her head, but smiling through her anxious looks. She laid down her burden at my door, and left it there. When she had gone I took up my portion of it with sundry compunctions. Bertie Nugent had been seven years away—when he went away Alice was scarcely twenty. They had of course been very much in each other’s society before this, but seven years is a long break, even for lovers. These two were not lovers; and was not Clara right when she stigmatized as the merest foolish romance any interest which Alice might have in her long-departed and indifferent playfellow? I began to blame myself for cherishing in my own mind the lingering hope that my wishes might still be accomplished concerning them. Perhaps that hope had, by some subtle means, betrayed itself to Alice, and had helped to strengthen her in her natural perversity and the romance of that vague visionary link which existed only in her mind and mine. I have known very similar cases more than once in my life—cases in which a childish liking, kept up only by chance inquiries or friendly messages at long intervals on one side or the other, has forestalled the imagination of the two subjects of it so completely, that both have kept from all engagements for years, until at long and last, encountering each other once again, they have discovered themselves to have loved each other all this time, and married out of hand. This vague sort of tie, which is no tie, has a more captivating hold upon the mind than a real engagement; but then it might come to nothing. And after an interval of seven years, was it not everybody’s duty to turn the dreamer away from that romantic distance to the real ground close at hand? I had considered the question many times with too strong a regard for Bertie (who, to be sure, had no particular solicitude about the matter, or he might have been home long ago) in my thoughts. Now I rather changed my point of view. If Alice liked Bertie, it was purely a love of the imagination. Why, for that Will-o’-the-wisp, was she to keep dreaming in the twilight while the broad daylight of life and all its active duties were gliding out of her reach? I resolved to bestir myself and startle Alice into common sense and ordinary prudence. Here was she, letting youth pass her, not perceiving how it went, looking so far away out of her horizon to that fantastic, unreal attraction at the other end of the world. Thinking over it I grew more and more dissatisfied. She was wrong to entertain, I was wrong to encourage, so uncomfortable a piece of self-delusion. It is true, Bertie was in danger, and surrounded with a flush of interest and anxiety which doubled his claims on everybody who knew him. Still it must not be permitted to continue—she must be roused out of this vain imaginary attachment which blinded her to the love that sought her close at hand. Why did she not like the Rector? I resolved to be at the bottom of that question, which I could not answer, before twenty-four hours were out.

CHAPTER XVIII.

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, murderous word—killed! I knew it the moment I saw Derwent’s face.

“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 the idea into my head, I started up, crying for an Army List. Why did they not have one in Waterflag? It was afternoon then, and the day had gone past like a ghost, without a thought of our return home, or of anything but this dismal piece of news. Now I put my bonnet on hurriedly, and begged Derwent to get the carriage. We had a list at home. We could see if there was anybody else whose name might be mistaken for our dear boy’s.

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 to be seen that day, and never came to whisper a word of consolation to me, nor even to bid me good-bye. I put my veil aside for a moment to kiss Clara. “Oh, Mrs. Crofton! it will turn out to be somebody else!” cried Clara, with her unreasoning impulse of consolation. I wrung the little hand she put into mine and hurried away. Ah! God help us! if it was not Bertie it must be somebody else—if we were exempted, other hearts must break. Oh, heavy life! oh, death inexorable! some one must bear this blow, whether another household or our own.

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 advance of them all, to the library, where I knew that Army List was. I remember still how I threw the books out of my way till I found it, and how, with a haste which defeated its own object, I ruffled over the leaves with my trembling hands. I found nothing like Bertie’s name—nothing that could be changed into that Captain N. Hugent in all his regiment. I threw the book away from me and sunk upon a chair, faint and giddy. My hopes had grown as I approached to the point of resolving them; now they forsook me in a moment. Why should I quarrel with that inevitable fate? Why should we be exempted, and no other? Long and peaceful had been this interregnum. Years had passed since grief touched us—now it was over, and the age of sorrow had begun again.

“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 eyes. My heart groaned and exulted over the child, who felt himself a knight and champion born. Ah! what should I do when he was a man? What would every one do who loved Derwie, if death and danger came in the way of 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 was killed. That murderous chariot of war had gone over him, and extinguished those fair and tender prospects out of this world; but not the praise nor the love, which should last for ever.

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, when all secret hopes which might be lurking in our hearts were to receive confirmation or destruction, the last being so very much the most probable. I felt assured that if the news was favorable, Derwent would return that day, and waited with a beating heart for the dispatch, which I knew he would not delay a moment in sending me. The news came—alas! such unhappy no-news! The same perplexing, murderous information, simply repeated without a single clue to the mistake, whatever it was. I sank down in my chair, with an overpowering sickness at my heart while I read—sickness of depressed hope, of disappointment of a conviction and certainty which crushed me. The repetition somehow weighed heavily with my imagination. I could no longer either deny or doubt the truth of it. It was all over. There was no more Bertie Nugent of Estcourt now to maintain the name of my fathers; so many hopes and dreams were ended, and such a noble, fresh young life, full of all good and generous impulses, was finished for ever.

“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—