Heart and Cross

Wonderful subtle intuition of the poetic soul! Who does not know that strange contrast of death and life? A week ago, and had I seen Bertie from that window, I should have hailed his appearance with the wildest amazement. But I should neither have wondered nor faltered had I seen him this day; on the contrary, would have felt in my heart that it was natural and fit he should be there.

But I did not see Bertie. I saw far off a homely country gig driving up rapidly towards the house, and strained my eyes, wondering if it could be Derwent, though he had sent me no intimation of his return. As it came closer, however, I saw that one of the figures it contained was a woman’s, and at last perceived that my visitors were no other than Alice Harley and her brother Maurice. I started nervously up, and hid away my dispatch, for I trembled to see my dear girl. What had she to do coming here?—she who could not ask after his fate with calmness, and yet to the bottom of her maiden heart felt that she had no right to be concerned.

Alice was very pale—I could see the nervous trembling over her whole frame, which she subdued painfully, and with a nervous force, as she came in. Though her voice would scarcely serve her to say the words, she made an explanation before she asked if I had any news. “My mother sent me,” said Alice, with bare childish simplicity, but with that breathless gasp in her voice which I knew so well—gasp of utter despair at the thought of enduring that suspense, and concealing it for five minutes longer—“to know if you had any further news—if you had heard,” she added, with a convulsive calmness, casting at me a fiery glance, defiant of the compassion she saw in my face. I saw she meant to say his name, to show me how firm she was, but nature was too much for Alice—she concluded hurriedly in the baldest, briefest words—“anything more?”

I shook my head, and she sank into the nearest seat—not fainting—people do not faint at such moments—kept alive and conscious by a burning force of pain.

“Only the same miserable news over again,” said I, “with the same mistake in the name; letters must come, I fear, before we can know—but I am afraid to hope.”

A little convulsive sound came from Alice’s breast—she heard it herself, and drew herself up after it to hide the wound still if she could. Maurice, too, was greatly affected, though he could scarcely be said to have known Bertie; he walked about the room in his careless man’s way, doing everything in the world without intending it, to make that composure we two women had wound ourselves up to, impossible—making his lamentations as he paced about from table to table, picking up all the books to look at them as he went and came.

“Poor Nugent!” said Maurice—“poor honest fellow!—he was not very brilliant, but people liked him all the better for that. What a bright frank face he had—what a laugh! I shall never hear anybody laugh so heartily again. And to think of a fellow like that, and hundreds more, sacrificed to these black demons! Good heavens! and we sitting here at home idling away our lives!”

“Ah, my Bertie!” cried I, out of my heart, “and no one left behind him to bear his name—nobody to mourn for him except ourselves—nobody belonging to him! If there is one thing a man has a right to in life and death, it is surely a woman’s tears.”

I did not think what I was saying. The words were scarcely out of my lips when an overpowering burst of tears broke through all the painful reserve and forced calmness of Alice. She covered her face with her hands, hid her head, drew her veil frantically over her passionate weeping. But the flood would have its way, and she could not stop it. I dried my own tears to look on almost with awe at that outburst of controlled and restrained nature. My poor Bertie! the last sad right of a man had fallen to him unawares; he had that mournful possession, all to himself, poured forth upon the grave of his youth with a fulness that knew no reserve—a woman’s tears!

Maurice stood by overwhelmed with surprise; he looked at his sister—he grew crimson up to his hair—he drew back a step as if he felt himself an intruder spying upon this unsuspected grief. Then he retired to the bookcase at the other side of the room, with an appealing glance at me. I followed him softly, Alice being far too entirely absorbed to observe us for the moment.

“What does it mean—was there anything between them?” asked Maurice, in my ear.

“They were playfellows and dear friends,” said I; “you know how Clara feels it too.”

“Not like that,” said Maurice, once more growing red, as he turned to the books in the shelves—he stood there absorbed in these books, taking out some to examine them, showing himself entirely occupied with this investigation till Alice had recovered her composure. She looked up at me with a guilty, pale face when she had wept out her tears; and I was comforted that she saw her brother coldly standing in the background with his back to us and a book in his hand. I had never been so pleased with Maurice before.

“You are not well, my dear child,” said I, “I will bring you some wine, and you must rest a little. Thank you for remembering him, Alice. Now we can give him nothing but tears.”

Alice, all pale, miserable, and abashed, gasped forth something of which I could only distinguish the words “playfellow” and “old friend.”

“I was saying so—you were like his sisters, Clara and you,” said I, out loud to reach Maurice’s ear.

Alice looked up in my face, now that she had betrayed herself. I thought she was almost jealous that I did not understand her—that I really believed these were, like Clara’s, friendly and sisterly tears.

What could I do? I hushed her, drawing her head to my breast. I could say nothing,—he was gone—he could neither learn what love was bestowed upon him nor return it. Words could no longer touch that secret matter which was made holy by Bertie’s grave.

“Look here, Mrs. Crofton,” said Maurice, turning round upon me, when he saw I had left Alice’s side, with the Army List in his hand; “it is not in Nugent’s regiment, certainly, but the 53d is in India, too—look here.”

I looked with little interest, believing it only a kind expedient to break up the trying situation in which we all stood. It was a name which Maurice pointed out, the name entirely unknown to me, of Captain Nicolas Hughes.

“What of it?” said I, almost disposed to think he was making light of our trouble.

“Captain N. Hughes—Captain N. Hugent—the mistake might be quite explainable; at least,” said Maurice, putting up the book, “at least with such a similarity we ought not yet to despair. Alice we’ll go home now. I daresay Mrs. Crofton has too many visitors just at present, and my mother will be anxious to hear. Dear Mrs. Crofton,” said the young man, in whom I could not recognize that Fellow of Exeter, grasping my hand warmly, “don’t despair.”

And Alice, with a painful blush on her cheeks, and her veil over her face, followed him out without a word. I took but faint hope from the suggestion of that name; but if it were possible—if still we might hope that Bertie was spared—never would Alice Harley forgive him for that outburst of tears.

CHAPTER XIX.

Derwent had not yet returned, and I could understand perfectly why he waited, uneasy for further news, or at least for some explanation of that which we had already heard. I waited also, spending the days sadly, but giving up hope, and consequently in a state of anxiety less painful. Sometimes, indeed, Derwie thrust me back into my fever of suspense by his oft-repeated wonder that there should be no news yet of that feat of arms which had cost Bertie his life. The child could not and would not understand how the bravest may perish by some anonymous undistinguished shot, as well as the coward; nor believe that “Bertie had died for nothing,” as he said. And sometimes that name which Maurice Harley pointed out to me wavered through my memory for hours together, and upset my calm. Captain Nicolas Hughes—who was he? I wondered, musing at the window, with still that vague thrilling thought at my heart that it would not surprise me to see Bertie coming across the lawn. Was he young, perhaps, and had mother and sisters at home breaking their hearts with an anxiety kindred to our own—or, harder still, perhaps a wife trembling to believe that her children had no father? Alas! alas! who could choose to be delivered one’s-self at the cost of another’s heartbreak? God’s will be done, whatever it was! He knew, though we did not. There was nothing else to say.

A few days after I had an unexpected, and, I am grieved to say, not very welcome visit from Mrs. Harley. I had shunned seeing her hitherto, afraid alike of her condolences over a sorrow which I had not consented to, or her weak encouragements of a hope in which I durst not believe. Had it been possible to so old a friend, I would have denied myself, when I saw the same gig in which Maurice had driven Alice—a convenient rural vehicle belonging to a farmer close by her house—driving up once more to Hilfont with Mrs. Harley; but as, in spite of thirty years’ close friendship, the good woman would still have set this down as a slight to her poverty, I did not venture to refuse her admittance. She came in with her best conventional look of sympathy, shook my hand with emphasis, and gave me a slow lingering kiss; did all those things by which our friends mark their profound consciousness of our sorrow, and readiness to receive our confidence. I, for my part, was disposed to say very little on the subject. There was no more news—nothing to say. I was afraid to speculate, or to have any speculations upon this, which none of us could elucidate. It was best to leave it in silence while we waited—time enough to speak when all was secure.

Yet when I saw that Mrs. Harley’s sympathy was the merest superficial crust overlaid upon her own perennial anxieties, I am not sure that I was pleased. One feels it impossible that one’s friends can feel for one fully; yet one is disappointed, notwithstanding, when one perceives how entirely occupied they are with the closer current of their own affairs. Mrs. Harley had no sooner expressed her feeble affliction over “the sad calamity,” than she forsook that subject for a more interesting one; and it was a little grievous to be called upon to adjudicate in favor of Alice’s lover, just after I had looked with respect and sympathy on Alice’s tears.

“My dear Mrs. Crofton, I am sure I would not for the world trouble you with my affairs, when you are in such deep affliction,” said Mrs. Harley, doing of course the very thing she deprecated; “but I am in such anxiety about Alice; and really Mr. Reredos is so very urgent that I no longer know what to say to him. I ventured to give him an intimation, a few weeks ago, that Alice was rather inclining towards him, as I thought—and of course the poor young man redoubled his attentions; and now, whether it is mere perversity or dislike, or what it is, I cannot tell, but from that time Alice has treated him with such indifference, not to say disdain, that I am at my wit’s end.”

“It would have been better to have said nothing to the Rector without Alice’s consent,” said I, languidly, yet not without a certain satisfaction in piercing my visitor with this little javelin. Mrs. Harley shook her head and wiped her eyes.

“It is so easy to say so,” said the troubled mother, “so easy to think what is best when one’s own heart is not concerned; But if I was wrong I cannot help it now—Alice is so very unreasonable. She cannot endure the very sight of Mr. Reredos now—it is extremely distressing to me.”

“I am very sorry to hear it, Mrs. Harley, but you know I cannot help you,” said I.

“Oh! my dear Clare, I beg your pardon a thousand times for troubling you when you have such distressing news, but you know quite well you are all-powerful with Alice. Then another thing, Clara tells me that dear Bertie—dear fellow!—I am sure I loved him like a child of my own—had something to do with her sister’s behavior to the Rector—not that they were in love, you know, only some old childish friendship that the dear girl remembered when he was in danger. Do you think there is anything in it, Clara? Can that be the reason? but you know of course it is quite nonsense. Why, they have not met for eight years!”

“That proves it must be nonsense, to be sure,” said I; “but excuse me, Mrs. Harley, this dear boy who is gone was very dear to me—I cannot mingle his name in any talk about other people. I beg your pardon—I can’t indeed.”

“Dear, dear, it is I who should beg your pardon,” cried Mrs. Harley, in great distress; “I am sure I did not mean to be so selfish; but you used to be very fond of Alice, Clare—fonder of her than of any one else, though I say it. Long ago you would not have turned off anything that was for the poor girl’s good.”

“You know I am as fond of Alice as ever I was—what do you want me to do?” cried I.

“Oh, nothing, Clare, dear—nothing but a little good advice,” said Mrs. Harley. “If it should happen to be dear Bertie whom she has set her thoughts upon, just because he was in danger, as girls will do, and refusing other eligible offers, and throwing away quite a satisfactory match and suitable establishment, wouldn’t you speak to her, dear Clare? Her dear papa had such confidence in you that you would always be a friend to his girls—he said so many a time, long before we knew what was going to happen. You have such influence with all my children, Mrs. Crofton—almost more than their mother has. Do represent to Alice how much she’s throwing away—and especially, alas! now.”

This emphasis was rather too much for my patience.

“You forget,” I said, “that Alice is able to judge for herself—she is not a girl now”——

“She is seven and twenty, Mrs. Crofton—do you mean to reproach her with her age?” said Mrs. Harley, with an angry color rising on her face.

“Reproach her! for what?” said I, constrained to laugh in the midst of my grief. “Why will you tease Alice, and yourself, and me? She is very well—she is,” I added, with a little gulp, swallowing my better knowledge, “quite contented and happy—why will you torture her into marrying? She is quite satisfied to be as she is.”

“Ah, Clare—but I have so many children to provide for!” cried poor Mrs. Harley, with a gush of tears.

This silenced me, and I said no more. But Mrs. Harley had not exhausted her budget of complaints.

“And Maurice,” said this unfortunate mother; “after the education he has had, and all the money and pains that have been expended on him—Maurice, I do believe, Mrs. Crofton, will do something violent one of these days; he will go into business, or,” with another outburst of tears, “set himself to learn a trade.”

“Surely nothing quite so bad as that,” said I, with as much sympathy as I could summon up.

“Ah, you don’t know how he speaks—if you could only hear him; and the troubles in India and this last dreadful news have had such an effect upon Maurice,” said Mrs. Harley; “you would suppose, to hear him speak, that the poor soldiers had suffered all the more because he was doing nothing. Such nonsense! And instead of going into the Church in a proper and dignified manner, like his dear father, I see nothing better for it but that he’ll make a tradesman of himself.”

“But it would be satisfactory to see him doing something for himself—improving his own position; he can never settle and make a home for himself while he has only his Fellowship. Don’t you think Maurice is right?” said I, keeping up the conversation from mere politeness, and already sufficiently tired of the interruption it made.

“He has his mother’s house,” said Mrs. Harley, a little sharply, “and he has the position of a gentleman,” she added a moment after, in a faltering, apologetic tone. Good, troubled woman! She had come to that age of conflicting interests when the instincts of the heart do not always guide true. She wanted—very naturally—to see her daughter provided for; and so, if she could, would have persuaded Alice into an unwilling marriage. She could not bear to see her son derogating from the “position” which his father’s son ought to fill; and as he would not go into the Church, she would fain have condemned the young man to shrivel up into the dreary dignity of a College Don. Poor Mrs. Harley!—that was all that the philosophy of the affections instructed her to do.

She had scarcely left me half an hour when I was startled by the appearance of the Rector. He was grave and pale, held my hand in his tight grasp, and made his professions of sympathy all very properly and in good taste. But his looks and his tone aggravated a sick impatience of sympathy which began to grow about my heart. I began to comprehend how people in deep and real grief, might grow disgusted with the conventional looks expected from them, and learn an almost levity of manner, to forestall those vulgar, dreary sympathies; and this sympathy, too, covered something very different—something a great deal nearer to the Rector’s heart.

“It may seem to you a very indelicate question—I beg your pardon, Mrs. Crofton—I ask it with great diffidence—but I do not hesitate to confess to you that my own happiness is deeply concerned,” said Mr. Reredos, blushing painfully—and I knew at once, and recognized with a certain thrill of impatience and disgust, what he was going to ask; “Miss Harley and the late Captain Nugent were almost brought up together, I have heard; will you forgive me asking if there was any attachment—any engagement between them?”

“Colonel Nugent, please!” said I, I fear rather haughtily; “and it is surely premature to say the late, as I trust in Heaven we shall yet have better news.”

“I beg your pardon,” repeated the Rector, quickly, “I—I was not aware—but might I ask an answer to my question?”

“If there was any engagement between Alice and my dear Bertie?—none whatever!” cried I, with all my might—“nothing of the kind! Pardon me, you have not been delicate—you have not considered my feelings—if Alice has been unfavorable to you, it is for your own merits, and not on his account.”

I was half sorry when I saw the grave, grieved, ashamed expression with which this other young man turned away. He bowed and was gone almost before I knew what I had said—I fear not without an arrow of mortification and injured pride tingling through the love in his heart.

CHAPTER XX.

But, alas! alas! it was Captain Nicholas Hughes who had fallen, instead of Bertie. I inquired all that I could learn about this unknown soldier, with a remorseful grief in the midst of my joy, which I cannot describe. I could not join in the tumult of exultation which rose round me. I could not forget that this news, which came so welcome to us, brought desolation upon another house. I could not think of him but as Bertie’s substitute, nor help a painful, fantastical idea that it was to our prayers and our dear boy’s safety that he owed his death. I was almost glad to find that the widow whom he had left behind him had need of what kind offices we could do her for the bringing up of her children, and vowed to myself, with a compunction as deep as it was, no doubt, imaginary, that she should never want while Estcourt remained mine. Was it not their dismal loss and bereavement which had saved the heir of my father’s house?

“It is the fortune of war,” said Derwent, when he learned, to his profound amazement, this idea which had taken possession of me. “It is the will of God,” said Captain Hughes’s pale widow, lifting her tearful face to me, from under the heavy veil of her mourning. So it was—but sharp and poignant is the contest between grief and joy.

“See what your despised telegraph can do, after all!” cried Derwent, rejoicing with all his honest heart over the news he had brought.

“But, ah! if Bertie’s friend had been poor!” said I. “How many souls do we wring with additional pangs, to have our anxiety dispelled the more easily? Think of the news of a battle, with so many killed and wounded—and some dreadful fortnight, or maybe month, to live through before one knows whether one’s own is dead or alive. No, ’tis a cruel earthly Geni, and not a celestial Spirit—it does good now and then, only because it cannot help it—relieves us, Derwent, but slaughters poor Mrs. Hughes.”

“I believe Clare is not half-content—nobody must be killed to satisfy you women—but, unfortunately that will not do in this world,” said Derwent. “We have to be thankful for our own exemption, without entering too deeply into other people’s grief. And most of us find that philosophy easy enough.”

“Most of us are very poor creatures,” said Maurice Harley, sententiously. He came alone to make his inquiries this time. Alice was invisible, and not to be heard of. I could not see her even when I called at the cottage. She had taken overpowering shame to herself, and shrank from my eyes. It was her brother who carried our news to his mother’s house—carried it, as I discovered incidentally, with the rarest and most delicate care for her—rigidly keeping up the fiction of supposing her not to care for it, nor to be specially interested, any more than for her old playfellow. He was ill at ease himself, and distracted with questions no longer of a dilettante kind. In my eyes this increased his kindness all the more.

“Yes, we are poor creatures the most of us,” repeated Maurice, when my husband—who did not notice any particular improvement in the Fellow of Exeter, and was disposed to be contemptuous, as elder men are, of his superiority to ordinary mortals—had sauntered, half-laughing, half-disgusted, out of the room. “Something you said the other day has stuck to my memory, Mrs. Crofton—help me out with it, pray. Are we worth a woman’s tears, the greater part of us? What is the good of us? I don’t mean Bertie, who is doing something in this world, but, for example, such a fellow as me!”

“Take care, Maurice! I see hoofs and a tail upon that humility of yours,” said I. “You, who are so wise, do you not know that women and their tears are no more superlative than men and their doings? Did you think I meant the tender, heroical, sentimental tears of romance, for the sake of which the sublime knight might be content to die? No such thing. I meant only that there seems a kind of pathetic, homely justice in it, when the man who dies—especially the man who dies untimely—has a woman belonging to him, to be his true and faithful mourner; that is all—it is nothing superlative; the sublime men are no better loved than the homeliest ones. Alice, if you asked her, would give you the poetical youthful interpretation of it, but I mean no such thing, Maurice. We want no great deeds, we womenkind; we were born to like you, and to cry over you, troublesome creatures that you are!”

“Ah! that is very well,” said Maurice, who in his heart was young enough to like the superlative idea best. “I wish I had a supreme right to somebody’s tears—but why should anybody cry over me? Am not I foredoomed to shrivel up into a College Don?”

“If you please,” said I.

“And if I don’t please?” cried Maurice, starting up, and seizing, after his usual fashion, a book off the table. He made a hurried march about the room, as usual, too; throwing that down; and picking up another to look at its title, then returned, and repeated, with some emphasis—“And what if I don’t please?”

“Why then, please God, you will do something better,” said I; “I hope so sincerely—it will give me the greatest pleasure—but you don’t make any progress by talking of it; that is our woman’s province. Do, Maurice, do! don’t say!”

The young man flashed with an angry and abashed color. “Thank you, I will, if it were to carry a hod. I have not forgotten,” he said, with a little bitter meaning, “that I am a widow’s son.”

“A widow’s son should be the prince of sons,” said I. “You make me preach, you young people, though it is not my vocation. Carry a hod then, if you will, like a gentleman and a Christian, and I, for one, will bid you God speed.”

Maurice put down his book, and came forward to me, holding out his hand. I suspect he liked me, though he had no great reason, and I confess, now-a-days, that I liked him. He held out his hand to say good-bye, and in saying good-bye opened his heart.

“Mrs. Crofton, you preach very well, considering that it is not your vocation; but I begin to think I am coming to that big preacher, Life, whom you once told me of. He is not a college don. Do you know,” said Maurice, with a frank, confused laugh, and rising color, “I’m in love?”

“I suspected as much,” said I. “Is all well?”

“All was ill, what with my own folly, and what with that spiteful little witch at the Rectory,” said Maurice; “but it’s coming right again. If I were to die to-morrow—little as I deserve them—I believe I should have these woman’s tears.”

“My dear boy, be thankful, and go home and live!” said I, with the water in my eyes. I was half inclined to kiss, and bless, and cry over him in the foolishness of my heart.

“I will,” said Maurice, in the fulness and effusion of his; and he kissed my hand with a congenial impulse, and went away abruptly, moved beyond speaking. He left me more profoundly and pleasantly touched than I had been for a long time. Perhaps I thought, with natural vanity, that I had a little—just a little—share in it. Dire must be the disappointment, and heavy the calamity, which should shrivel up Maurice Harley now into a college don.

CHAPTER XXI.

“If the women and the babies are all safe on board the ships,” said Derwie, who was almost as reluctant to consent to Bertie’s return before the fighting was over as Bertie himself.

During all this time I scarcely saw Alice; she avoided coming in my way; when we met, avoided speaking to me—avoided looking in my face when that was practicable—could neither forgive herself for having betrayed her feelings, nor me for having witnessed that betrayal. Altogether her feelings towards me and in my presence were evidently so uncomfortable, that out of mere charity and consideration I no longer visited Mrs. Harley’s as I had done, nor invited them to Hilfont. They still came sometimes, but not as they had done before. I began to fear that I had lost Alice, which, to be sure, was unkind of her, considering what very old friends we were; but she could not forget nor forgive either herself or me for those tears out of which she had been cheated over that supposititious grave where Bertie Nugent was not.

So that there occurred an interregnum of information, at least, if not of interest, in respect to the Harleys. Maurice was in London, struggling forward to find what place he could in that perennial battle—struggling not very successfully—for, to the amazement of all, and, above all, to his own, he was not so greatly in advance of other people, when he had done something definite to be judged by, as the Fellow of Exeter had supposed himself. Providence, in quaint, poetic justice, had deprived Maurice, for example, of that faculty of writing which he had, maybe, esteemed too highly. His admirers had prophesied great triumphs for him in the field of literature before he had tried his pen there; but it turned out that Maurice could not write, and the discovery was rather humiliating to the young man. I have no doubt he made an infinitude of other discoveries equally unpleasant. His Fellowship kept him from starving, but it aggravated his failures and the pain of them, and held up more conspicuously than might have been desired, the unexpected imperfections of “Harley of Exeter,” in whom his contemporaries had been disposed to put a great deal of faith. Nevertheless, Maurice held on bravely. I liked him better and better as he found himself out. And he bore the discovery like a man.

As for Johnnie, poor boy, who had, all uneducated and without training as he was, just that gift of putting his mind into words which his brother lacked—he had not yet come to the bitter ending of his boyish dream. He was busy with his second book, in high hope and spirits, thinking himself equally secure of fame and of love. The poor lad had forgotten entirely the difference between the present time and that past age in which literature, fresh and novel, took its most sovereign place. He thought how Fanny Burney was fêted and applauded for her early novel; he thought of Scott’s unrivalled influence and honor; and he forgot that a hundred people write books, and especially write stories, now-a-days, for one who wrote then—and that he himself was only the unconsidered member of a multitudinous tribe, over whose heads Fame soared far away. It was not wonderful—he was scarcely one and twenty yet, though he was an author, and Miss Reredos’s slave. He meant to make the lady of his love “glorious with his pen,” as Montrose did, and expected to find an equal monarchy in her heart. Poor cripple Johnnie! a sadder or more grievous folly never was.

But it surprised me to find that he, poor fellow, was never the object of his mother’s anxiety. She was sorry, with a sort of contempt for his “infatuation,” and could not for her life imagine what men could see in that Miss Reredos. Mrs. Harley was a very kind and tender mother, ready at any time to deny herself for any real gratification to her boy; but she did not make much account of his heartbreak, of which “nothing could come.” For all practical purposes Johnnie’s love-tale was but a fable—nothing could ever come of it. Anything so unlikely as that Miss Reredos would marry the cripple never entered anybody’s mind but his own. And Mrs. Harley accordingly took it calmly, save for a momentary outburst of words now and then against the cause of Johnnie’s delusion—that was all. Nothing save the bitter disappointment, the violent mortification, the youthful despair, all augmented and made doubly poignant by the ill health and infirmities of this unfortunate boy, could result from his unlucky love-fever. So his mother was calm, and made no account of that among her may troubled and anxious concerns.

As for Alice, she was still Mrs. Harley’s greatest grievance, though I was not trusted with the same confidences, nor implored to use my influence, as before. Alice was more capricious, more tantalizing, less to be reckoned on than ever. She had, I suppose, dismissed Mr. Reredos with less courtesy than the Rector believed due to him, for he went about his duties with a certain grim sullenness, like an injured man, and never permitted himself to mention her name. I was in the Rector’s ill graces, as well as in those of Alice. He could not forgive me any more than she could, for the confidence themselves had bestowed. It was rather hard upon me to be thus excommunicated for no ill-doings of my own; but I bore it as best I could, sorry for Mr. Reredos, and not doubting that, some time or other, Alice would come to herself.

It was thus, in our immediate surroundings, that we spent the time until Bertie’s return.

CHAPTER XXII.

It was once more spring when Bertie returned. Spring—Easter—that resurrection time which came to our hearts with a more touching force when we received home into our peaceful house—so pale, so worn out, and yet so sunburnt and scarred with violent labors past—that Bertie, who had gone from us so strong and so bold. He had been repeatedly wounded—had suffered more than once from fever—had felt, at last, that his health was broken, and that there was little more use in him while he remained in India, and so was persuaded to come home. Derwent, kindest of friends, went to meet him at Southampton, and brought him home as tenderly as any nurse, or rather far more tenderly, with a tenderness more considerate and requiring less response than that of a woman. To see our young hero an invalid, overpowered me entirely. I quite broke down under it, comparing him with what he was, and fearing everything from the mortal paleness, thrown by his sunbrowned complexion into a ghastly yellow, which sometimes overspread his face. Derwent judged more justly—he held up his finger to me when he saw the exclamation of dismay and grief that trembled on my lips.

“He’s tired, Clare,” said my husband. “A bright fire, and an English bed and rest—that’s all Bertie wants to-night. He’ll answer all your questions to-morrow. Come, old fellow, you know your way to your old room.”

“I should think so, indeed—and thank God I am at home,” cried Bertie, with his familiar voice. With a thrill of anguish I restrained my salutations and followed quietly to see that all was comfortable for him. He protested that it was nonsense, that he could come downstairs perfectly well, that Mr. Crofton only wanted to humble his vanity; but at the same moment drew up his foot wearily upon the sofa, with a gesture that showed better than words his need of rest.

“Alas, Derwent, has it come to this?” said I, as we went downstairs.

Derwent turned round upon me, put his big hands upon my shoulders, and thrust me in before him to the handiest room. “Now, Clare,” he said, with comical solemnity, “if we are going to have any nonsense or lamentations, I’ll shut you up here till my patient’s better. The boy is as sound as I am, and would be able to ride to cover in a fortnight, if any such chances were going. Now don’t say a word—I am speaking simple truth.”

“I must trust my own eyes,” said I; “but you need not fear my indiscretion. See how I have refrained from agitating him now.”

“Agitating him! Oh!” cried Derwent, with a good-humored roar. “What stuff you speak, to be sure! He is quite able to be agitated as much as you please—there is nothing in the world but wounds and fatigue the matter with Bertie. I am afraid you are only a woman after all, Clare; but you’re not to interfere with my patient. I’ve taken him in hand, and mind you, I’m to have the credit, and bring him through.”

“But, oh, Derwent,” said I, “how pale he is!”

“If I had seen as many dreadful sights as he has, I should be pale too,” said Derwent. “Seriously, he is tired and worn out, but not ill. Don’t be sorry for him, Clare—don’t put anything in his head. Talk pleasantly. I don’t forbid the subject, for example,” said my husband, looking at me with a certain affectionate cloudy mirth, as if he had known my secret all along, “of Alice Harley, if you choose.”

I put him aside a little impatiently, and he followed me into the very late dinner, which had been deferred for the arrival of the travellers, and where Bertie’s empty chair struck me again with a little terror. But I was wise for once, and yielded to Derwent’s more cheerful opinion. On the next morning Bertie was better—he went on getting better day by day. Derwent took care of him, and attended him in a way which took me by surprise; never teasing him with questions—never gazing at him with his heart in his eyes, as we womanish creatures do, to mar the work we would give our lives to accomplish; but with his eyes always open, and his attention really missing nothing that happened, and taking account of all.

A week after his arrival, Bertie, who hitherto had been telling me, as he could, his adventures in India—dread adventures, interwoven with all the thread of that murderous history—at last broke all at once into the full tide of home talk.

“And dear old Estcourt, Cousin Clare,” said Bertie, “stands exactly as it was, I suppose; and Miss Austin as steadfast as the lime trees—and the children to keep the old park cheerful—all as it was?”

“All as it was, Bertie; but the other house ready and waiting for you.”

I looked up with a little anxiety to see the effect of what I said. Distracted with a disappointed love, Bertie had left us—ill and languid he had returned. I thought my words might recall to his mind at once his old dreams and his present weakness; and with some terror I glanced at his face. He was lying on the sofa in that bright morning room with the great bow window, from which, shining afar like a great picture, he could see all the peaceful slope of our low-country, with the river glistening in links and bends, and the cathedral towers far off, lending a graceful centre and conclusion to the scene.

Bertie did not return my glance; he lay still, with a languid ease and satisfaction in his attitude which struck me for the first time—as if he was profoundly content to be there, and felt his fatigues and pains melt away in that warmth of home. As I looked at him a warmer color rose over his brown-pale face, a pleasant glimmer woke in his eye—his whole aspect warmed and brightened—a half conscious smile came playing about his parted lips. Whatever Bertie thought upon, it was neither disappointment nor broken health.

There was a long pause—the silence was pleasant—broken only by the soft domestic sounds of a great house; brightly lay that pleasant landscape outside the window, all soft and sweet with spring; tender and pleasant was the contrast of all the scene, the care and love surrounding the soldier now, with the burning plains and cruel contests from which he had come; and thoughts, dear, warm, and tender, arose in Bertie’s heart. He paused long, perhaps, with a simple art, to conceal from me a little the link of pleasant association which had directed his thoughts that way—then, with that wavering, conscious smile, spoke—

“So Alice Harley is not married,” he said, turning on his elbow, with a pretence of carelessness, as if to get a fuller view. “How is that, Cousin Clare?”

To think that Alice Harley connected herself instinctively with the idea of Bertie’s house which was ready for him, was a pleasant thought to me; but I only answered, “There is no telling, Bertie. She might have been married two or three times had she pleased.”

“I am very glad of it,” said Bertie; “to see every pretty girl whom one used to know converted into the mother of ever so many children, makes a fellow feel old before his time. I am not so frightfully old, after all; but I fear nobody will have anything to say to a worn-out poor soldier like me.”

“Don’t be too humble, Bertie,” said I. “I don’t think, between ourselves, that Colonel Nugent is so very diffident of his own merits. On the contrary, he knows he has made a little noise in this world, is aware that people will drink his health, and fête him when he is well enough, and that all the young ladies will smile upon the hero. Don’t you think now, honestly, that this is the real state of the case?”

Bertie blushed and fell back to his old position. “Don’t be hard upon a fellow, Cousin Clare,” he said, with a slightly pleading tone—half afraid of ridicule—half conscious that little ridicule was to be expected from me.

“No indeed, quite the reverse—nobody will be hard upon you, my boy,” said I. “Huntingshire is quite ready to bestow anything you wish upon you, Bertie—anything from a seat in Parliament, up to the prettiest daughter it has, if you mean to set up your household gods in the Estcourt jointure-house.”

Bertie blushed once more, and coughed, and cleared his throat a little, as if he had some intentions of taking me into his confidence, when my boy Derwie suddenly made a violent diversion by rushing in all red and excited, and flinging himself against our soldier with all his might.

“Bertie!” shouted little Derwent, “is it true you’re going to have the Victoria Cross?”

Bertie colored violently as he recovered from that shock. I don’t believe, if he had been suddenly charged with running away, that he would have looked half as much abashed.

“Why, you know, Derwie, we’d all like it if we could get it,” he said, faltering slightly; but I knew in a moment, by the sudden movement of his head and glance of his eye, that he really did believe it possible, and that this was the darling ambition of Bertie’s heart.

“But Bevan told me!” cried Derwie—“he told me about those gates, you know, that you and the rest blew up. Mamma, listen! There were six of them, forlorn-hope men, Bevan says”——

“Ah, Derwie, hush!—four of them sleep yonder, the brave fellows!—four privates, who could not hope for distinction like me,” cried Bertie, with that same profound awe and compunction, contrasting his own deliverance with the calamity of others, which had once stricken me.

“A private can have the Victoria Cross as well as a general,” cried Derwie, clapping his hands; “and more likely, Bevan says—for a general commands and doesn’t fight.”

“That is true—God save the Queen!” cried Bertie. “If Corporal Inglis gets it, Derwie—and he ought—we’ll illuminate.”

“If you get it,” said Derwie, “you deserve it all the same. Mamma, they blew up the gates with gunpowder; they went close—so close that”——

“Boh!” cried Bertie; “mamma read all about it in the papers. It was nothing particular—it only had to be done, that’s all. Now, Derwie, don’t you know when a thing has to be done somebody must do it?”

“Yes, I know,” said Derwie, “perfectly well. When mamma says must I always go directly—don’t I, mamma?—and if I were as big as you I wouldn’t mind being killed either. When you were killed, Bertie—that time you know when everybody thought so—oh, what a crying there was!”

“Was there?” asked Bertie, with a softened tone, putting his arm round the eager child.

But a new point of interest in those human studies which were so dear to him had suddenly seized upon Derwie’s imagination. He turned abruptly to me.

“Mamma, didn’t Alice come once and cry? I saw her go away with such red eyes; and she never came again, and never looked like her own self when she did come,” said my boy, with a courageous disregard of grammar. “What is that for? Wasn’t she glad when Bertie came alive again, and it was only poor Captain Hughes?”

“Hush, Derwie, my boy—you don’t understand these things. I was deeply grieved for that poor Captain Hughes, Bertie—I almost felt as if, in our great anxiety for you, his fall was our fault.”

But Bertie was not thinking of Captain Hughes. He was looking intently at me with that wavering color in his cheeks and an eager question in his eyes. When I spoke, my words recalled him a little, and he put on a grave look, and murmured something about the “poor fellow!” or “brave fellow!” I could not tell which—then looked at me again, eager, with a question hovering on his lips. The question of all others which I was resolute not to answer. So I gathered up my work remorselessly, put it away in my work-table, jingled my keys, told him I would see if the newspaper had come yet, and left the room without looking round. He might find that out at Alice’s own hands if he wished it—he should not receive any clandestine information from me.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The first visit which Bertie was able to make was to the cottage—to see Mrs. Harley, as he said, gravely—but I fear he did not get a very satisfactory reception. He told me he thought Alice greatly changed when he returned; but he was not communicative on the subject, and had a decided inclination to go back again. Perhaps the wavering, pleasant, half-conscious sentiment, and tender youthful reminiscence, with which Bertie came home, was the better of a little opposition to warm it into independent life; and Alice had reason enough for a double share of perversity and caprice, though Bertie knew nothing of that. She had betrayed herself to me, and, for a moment, to Maurice. She thought, no doubt, that everybody had suspected that secret of hers—and with unconscious self-importance, that it was whispered throughout the country with secret smiles over all her former unmarried-woman superiority to vulgar love-affairs. Her credit was consequently very deeply involved—she would not have smiled upon Bertie Nugent now had it been to save his life.

Still, however, Bertie, in the pleasant leisure of his convalescence, betook himself to Mrs. Harley’s cottage; and came home talking of Johnnie and little Kate, and the letters from Maurice—but very little about Alice, save chance words now and then, which showed a singularly close observation of her habits. Sometimes he asked me puzzled questions about those opinions of hers. Bertie, though he had been cheated once, was not contemptuous of womenkind. He did not understand these new views about the vulgarity of being married, and the propriety of multiplying female occupations. I suspect he entertained the natural delusion that, while he himself stood there, most ready and anxious, to share with her the common course of life, private projects of her own, which turned her aside from that primitive and ancient occupation of wife, were a little fantastical, and extremely perplexing. But Bertie was not like Mr. Reredos—he wanted simply to be at the bottom of it, and find out what she meant. He was not the man to worry any woman into marrying him, or to lay insidious siege to her friends. Ancient kindness, a lingering recollection of her youthful sweetness and beauty, which had come softly back to Bertie after his early love-troubles, and which had been kept alive by the fascination of a secret delicious wonder, whether, perhaps, he might have anything to do with the fact of her remaining unmarried, had combined to direct Bertie’s thoughts towards Alice, and to connect her image with all the plans and intentions of his return home. In short, the feeling upon both sides was very much alike—with both it was a certain captivating imaginary link, far more subtle and sweet than an understood engagement, which warmed their hearts to each other. But for those tragical possibilities which had so deeply excited Alice, all would have gone as smoothly as possible when our hero came home. Now the obstacles on each side were great. On Alice’s, that dread idea of having betrayed a secret, unsought, unreturned affection for the distant soldier, along with the lesser but still poignant remembrance of Lady Greenfield’s malicious report that Bertie himself had expected Cousin Clare to have somebody in her pocket for him to marry. On Bertie’s part, the equally dangerous chance that, deeply mortified by finding his hope of having some share in her thoughts so entirely unfounded, as it appeared, he might turn away sorrowfully from the theories which influenced her, but which his simple intelligence did not comprehend. Never matchmaker was more perplexed than I was between these two; I dared not say a word to either—I looked on, trembling, at the untoward course of affairs. It was Bertie who disappointed me once; for all I could see, it was most likely to be Alice now.

When we began—which was not till another autumn restored us to Hilfont—to be able to give some entertainments to our country neighbors, in honor of our soldier, Alice, most cleverly and cunningly avoided coming. She had always some admirable excuse—some excuse so unquestionable that it would have been quite cruel to have grumbled at it. I do not think she had been once within our house since Bertie returned. She sent me her love, and the most dutiful messages. She was so sorry, but she was sure her dear Mrs. Crofton would not be displeased when she knew. I was displeased, however, and had hard ado with myself to keep from saying as much, and declaring my conviction that she was very unkind to Bertie. I daresay I might have done so with advantage, though prudence and the fear of something coming of it, restrained me—for the idea of being unkind to Bertie would, doubtless, have been balm to Alice’s soul.

They met, however, though she would not come to Hilfont—Clara Sedgwick, who was as bold to give Bertie welcome as she had been to weep her free sisterly tears, which there was no need to conceal, over his supposed grave, arranged one of her very largest and grandest dinner-parties for Bertie as soon as it was practicable. Everybody was there—Lady Greenfield and her husband, who had all at once grown an old man, his wife having stopped his fox-hunting long ago—and Miss Polly, and all the Croftons, far and near, and such Nugents as could be picked up handily; and finally, all the great people of the county, to glorify our hero. I cannot tell by what ingenious process of badgering Alice had been driven out of her retirement, and produced that night in the Waterflag drawing-room. I will not even guess what cruel sisterly sarcasms and suggestions of what people might say, had supplemented the sisterly coaxing which were, no doubt, ineffectual; but there Alice was—there she stood by the side of Clara’s dazzling toilette and rosy tints, pale and clouded, in her brown silk dress—her old brown silk dress, made in a fashion which “went out” at least three years ago; without a single ornament about her anywhere—her hair braided as plainly as though she had just come down-stairs to make the tea, and superintend the breakfast table—not even the pretty bouquet of delicate flowers at her breast, which made so pretty a substitute for jewels on little Kate’s white dress—not a bracelet nor a ring—nothing to diversify the entire plainness of her appearance, nor a single sparkle or gleam of reflection on neck, finger, or arm. I confess that I was both annoyed and disappointed. Instead of doing her womanly utmost to look well and young, as became her, Alice had exhausted all her perverse pains in making a dowdy of herself. I cannot say she had succeeded. It was the crisis of her life, and mind and heart were alike full of movement and agitation. She could not prevent the excitement of her circumstances from playing about her with a gleaming fitful light, which made her expressive face wonderfully attractive. She could not but betray, in despite of her cold, unadorned appearance, and the almost prim reserve which she affected, the tumult and contest within her—extreme emotion, so restrained that the effort of self-control gave a look of power and command to her face, and somehow elevated and dilated her entire figure, and so contradictory that it flashed a hundred different meanings in a moment out of those eyes which were defiant, sarcastic, tender, and proud, all in a glance. I am not sure even that her plain dress did not defeat its purpose still more palpably; it distinguished her, singularly enough, from other people—it directed everybody’s attention to her—it suggested reasons for that prim and peculiar attire—all which, if Alice had guessed them, would have thrown her into an agony of shame.

Miss Reredos was also one of Clara’s great party—much against little Mrs. Sedgwick’s will—only because it could not be helped, Mrs. Harley being still pertinacious in favor of the Rector, who had all but given up his own cause. And we were still engaged in the mysteries of dinner, and there still remained all the long evening to operate in, when I perceived that this indefatigable young lady had seriously devoted herself to the entertainment of Bertie. He was doing his best to be polite, the good fellow; but it was a long time before he could be warmed into a flirtation. At last some very decided slight from Alice irritated my poor soldier. He turned to the play beside him, and began to amuse himself with it as so many other men had done. Thanks to Miss Reredos, it speedily became a notable flirtation, witnessed and observed by all the party. Alice watched it with a gradual elevation of her head, paling of her cheeks, and look of lofty silent indignation, which was infinitely edifying to me. What had she to do with it?—she who would not bestow a single glance upon Colonel Nugent—who called him perpetually by that ceremonious name—who was blind and deaf to all his deprecating looks and allusions to youthful days. If he should flirt or even fall in love with and marry Miss Reredos, what was that to Alice? But, to be sure, most likely that indignation of hers was all for Johnnie’s sake.

Poor Johnnie! He sat glaring at Bertie with furious eyes. Johnnie’s little bit of bookish distinction disappeared and sank to nothing in presence of Bertie’s epaulettes. Nobody felt the least interest to-day in Mrs. Harley’s clever cripple-boy. His Laura indeed had kept him in life, when she first arrived, by some morsels of kindness, but Laura too had gone over to the enemy. Laura was visibly disposed to charm into her own train that troublesome interloper, and Johnnie, who had resented and forgiven fifty violent flirtations of his lady-love since he himself first found new life, as he said, in her eyes, was more bitterly resentful of this defection than he had been of any previous one. If she and the other culprit, Bertie, could have been consumed by looks, we should have had only two little heaps of ashes to clear away from the Sedgwicks’ dinner-table that day in place of those two unfortunate people; but Miss Reredos was happily non-combustible. She swept away in all the fulness of crinoline when the inevitable moment came and we womenkind were dismissed, insulting her unhappy young lover by a little nod and smile addressed to him across the table, which would have been delicious an hour ago, but was wormwood and bitterness now. Bertie, I think, at the same moment caught Alice’s lofty, offended, indignant glance, and brightened to see the quiet resentment in that perverse young woman’s face. It had all the effect of sunshine upon our soldier. At that crisis we left affairs, when we went to the drawing-room. I confess I don’t share the often-expressed sentiment about the dulness and absurdity of that little after-dinner interval. The young ladies and the young gentlemen may not like it, perhaps, but when could we maturer womenkind snatch a comfortable moment for that dear domestic talk which you superior people call gossip, if it were not in the pleasant relaxation of this interregnum, when the other creatures are comfortably disposed of downstairs? But for once in my life, being profoundly interested in the present little drama—there is always one at least going on in a great house in the country full of visitors—I did long that day for the coming of the gentlemen, or of Bertie, at least, the hero at once of the situation and of the day.

The first to come upstairs was Johnnie Harley. For some time past he had rather affected, as a manly practice, the habit of sitting to the last after dinner. This day he was burning to discharge the fulness of his wrath upon Miss Reredos, so he lost no time, anxious to be beforehand with his new rival. Miss Reredos had already posed herself at a table, covered with a wealth of prints and photographs, these sentimental amusements being much in her way.

“I have come to have my turn,” said Johnnie, savagely. I was seated within hearing, and, I confess, felt no very strong inducement to withdraw from my position. Perhaps Johnnie did not see me—Miss Reredos did, and certainly did not care. “I am come to have my turn, and to tell you that I can’t be content to take turns—especially with that empty fellow Nugent, whom you seem, like all the rest, to have taken so great a fancy to.”

“Colonel Nugent is not an empty fellow—he is a very agreeable man,” said Miss Reredos, calmly.

“Oh! and I am not, I suppose?” cried the reckless and embittered boy.

“You certainly are not always agreeable,” answered poor Johnnie’s false love, quite blandly; “and as for being a man at all—— We have really had quite enough of this, thank you, Master Harley. One tires of these scenes—they don’t answer when they are repeated every day.”

“No—not when there is better sport going!” cried poor Johnnie. “I see it all now—you have only been making game of me all the time.”

“Did you ever suppose anything else?” asked the witch coldly. I think it must have been Johnnie’s transport of passion which made the floor thrill, as I felt under my chair. I heard a furious muttered exclamation—then a long pause. The passion changed, and a great sob came out of Johnnie’s boyish heart.

“You don’t mean what you say—Laura, Laura!” groaned the poor lad. I could have—— well, to be sure I am only a vindictive woman, as women are. I don’t know what I could not have done to her, sitting calm and self-satisfied there.

“It is quite time this should be over,” said the virtuous Miss Reredos; “I was not making game of you; but I certainly was amusing myself, as I thought you were doing, also. Why, I am three or four years older than you—you silly boy!—don’t you know?”

She might have said five or six years, which would have been nearer the truth, but it mattered nothing to Johnnie.

“I could be as good a man as him for your sake,” he cried, with a gasp. Miss Reredos only played with the fan which dangled from her wrist.

“Say you did not mean it, Laura,” whispered the unfortunate boy again.

But Laura shook her head.

“No, no—it has gone quite far enough. Oh! I’m not angry—but, dear, dear, don’t you see it’s no use. You are a great deal—at least you are younger than I am—and we have nothing, neither of us—and besides”——

“Besides I am a cripple, and you don’t love me!” cried Johnnie, wildly.

“I can’t contradict it,” said Circe with a toss of her head.

Another fierce exclamation, a hurried dash across the room, a wondering little scream from Clara, across whose ample skirts her brother plunged, as he rushed half frantic away, ended this episode. Clara rose up, startled and nervous, to look after him—and I had to restrain myself from the same impulse; but Circe sat calm among her photographs, and made no sign. After a few moments’ interval Clara went tremulously after him. I could only settle myself on my chair again. The poor cripple boy—tenderest and merriest of the flock—whom all the rest had guarded so jealously!—they could do nothing for him now. He, too, like all the rest of us, had his burden to bear alone.

But I sat on thorns, fearing to see Bertie, when he came upstairs, resume his flirtation with “that witch from the Rectory,” whom Maurice had so truly named. He did not, to my great satisfaction—but remained very quiet, refusing, great lion as he was, to roar—and looking as plaintive and pathetic as it was possible for Bertie’s honest face, unused to simulation of any kind, to look. I fancy the poor fellow imagined—a forlorn hope of that good, simple mind of his, which certainly was not original in its expedients—that Alice might possibly be influenced more favorably by his pitiful looks.

Seeing this, I undertook a little management of that very refractory young person myself.

“Alice, you will come to Hilfont on my birthday, as you have always done—won’t you?—that will be in a fortnight,” said I.

“If you please, Mrs. Crofton,” said Alice, very demurely.

“You know I please; but I don’t please that you should promise, and then send me such a clever, pretty, reasonable excuse when the time comes, that I cannot say a word against it, but only feel secretly that it is very unkind.”

“Unkind! to you, Mrs. Crofton!” cried Alice, with a little blush and start.

“To me—who else?—it is for my birthday that I ask you to come,” said I, with an artful pretense of feeling offended; “but really, if you treat me as you have done before, I shall be disposed to believe there is some reason why you refuse so steadily to come.”

“You may be quite sure I will not stay away,” said Alice, with great state.

She sat by me for half an hour longer, but we did not exchange a dozen words. She said “nothing to nobody” all the remainder of the evening; she looked just a little cross as well, if the truth must be told.