Henry Northcote

On the following morning Northcote was late for breakfast. When the old charwoman shook his curtains at a quarter to eight, a sleepy voice murmured: “I may be a bit late. I will cook the bacon myself and make the tea. Lay a knife and fork for two and don’t stay.”

It was between ten and eleven o’clock by the time he had completed his toilet. And it befell that at that hour the kettle was singing on the fire, and he himself was kneeling before it, toasting pieces of bacon upon a fork, when there came a knock on the door of his room.

“Come in,” he called cheerfully.

He expected to see an attorney’s clerk with further business for his attention.

Instead, two persons entered whose appearance caused him to drop the fork and the bacon among the ashes.

A moment ensued in which he had to fight with all his resolution to regain his self-possession. The first to enter the room was his mother, and immediately behind her was the young girl whom he was under a pledge to marry.

Mrs. Northcote was a tall, strong woman, past fifty, with assured movements and a resolute-looking face. It was large and rather square. Her cheeks were red with country life; her hair had streaks of white in it; her eyes were bluish gray. Her clothes, severe in outline, fitted close to her broad and powerful frame. They helped to sustain a somewhat rural appearance, which was not altogether unprepossessing and had a sort of education in it. Her speech was decisive, while the voice was somewhat harsh, and left an impression that it would be easy for it to domineer.

The young girl who accompanied her was not moulded in these Amazonian lines. She was straight and slender, only a little above the medium height, neat of hand, delicate of foot. Her complexion could only have been produced by generations of country air. It was perfectly clear, and of an exquisite tawny pinkish whiteness. Her eyes were large, soft, and long-lashed, and although as clear and bright as a pair of crystals, as meaningless as those of a dumb animal. Her simple straw hat and thick gray coat and skirt were in themselves innocent of coquetry, but their inhabitant was in her kind a sweetly beautiful thing—half-child and half-woman—therefore these articles, rough and primitive as they were, had significance in every crease and fold.

The moment Northcote had managed to strangle the first pangs of his stupefaction, he rose from his knees and ran forward to greet them. He kissed his mother on both cheeks, and seized both of the young girl’s hands in his own.

“I could not believe my own eyes,” were the first words he spoke to his mother. “You should have given me warning that you were coming up to London, my dearest. It is the merest chance you have caught me at home.”

“It was not until last evening that we decided to come,” said Mrs. Northcote. “Margaret had happened to see the advertisement of an excursion, only eight shillings here and back.”

“Why not telegraph, my dear?” Northcote expostulated gently. “I would then have met you at St. Pancras.”

“It would have cost sixpence,” said his mother. “Besides it was too late last night.”

“Always the woman of action,” said her son, with a hollow laugh. “Always an arbitrary and drastic old woman in the execution of her ideas.”

Northcote kissed his mother again with the pride and affection which for the moment overlay this wound.

“I wonder,” said she, with an air of one who has come upon something profound, “why men have such a dislike to being taken by surprise. Your father was the same, Henry. He could not bear to be taken by surprise in anything. And I think you are wonderfully like your father in some things.”

“What is your opinion of this room of mine?” said her son abruptly.

“I don’t think I like it,” she said decisively, after making a catalogue of everything with an immensely critical glance. “It has a dismal look. And a hole in the roof, I declare! You must have it mended at once; it might help you to catch a cold. And you are right up at the top just under the tiles; I should think you must get frozen in winter. And it must be extremely draughty with those cracks in the door. And, my dear boy, I must say it looks very bare and untidy with not even a piece of carpet to the floor. I have meant for years to come and see you; and when I received that money you so kindly sent me, I thought now or never is the time. How I wish I could have come before, to have made you a little more comfortable!”

“How I wish you could, old woman!” said Northcote gently, taking both her hands.

“I think this room is rather sweet myself,” said the girl, who also had been examining it very critically. “Somehow every room looks sweet with a nice fire and a lot of books.”

“That unnecessarily large grate takes all the heat up the chimney,” said Mrs. Northcote, “and moreover is very wasteful of the coal. And what have you got behind the curtain, Henry?”

“That is where I sleep.”

“Well, that is sensible, my boy; a saving of money.”

“What a large room this must be altogether!” said the girl, with a sudden growth of her curiosity.

“I can see neither of you will rest until you have penetrated into the heart of all my mysteries,” said Northcote, laughing loudly, as he interposed himself between the entrance to his chamber and his mother, who, full of inquiry, was plucking at the curtain.

“Why, Henry,” cried the girl, with a thrill of consternation in her voice, “you have not had your breakfast!”

“Why should I? This is not Chittingdon, you know. Eleven o’clock is the fashionable hour in town. It wants ten minutes yet.”

“Bad habits,” said Mrs. Northcote solemnly. “My dearest, eleven o’clock is wrong.”

“When one is in Rome you must do like the Romans, you know.”

“I have never agreed with that proverb,” said Mrs. Northcote. “I consider it weak. When in Rome one should make the Romans do as one does.”

“Imagine me knocking at the gates of Buckingham Palace at a quarter to seven.”

“I am quite sure, my dear boy, the royal family is addicted to good habits. I am quite sure you would not find the king having his breakfast at eleven o’clock.”

“Oh, this dear dogmatic old woman of mine,” said Northcote, tapping her cheek in tender remonstrance. “A fixed rule and a definite opinion for everything under the sun.”

“You must have fixed rules and definite opinions if you are to succeed, my dear boy. Those who have their doubts always end by failing miserably.”

“So they do, old woman, so they do!” cried Northcote fervently, in spite of being stabbed by consternation. Yet he never conversed with his mother on the most trivial topics without feeling that her simplicity rendered her invulnerable.

“I see your table is laid for two, Henry,” said the girl. “Are you expecting a friend?”

“If he comes, he comes,” said Northcote, with a clever assumption of carelessness, “and if he don’t he stops away. Do you understand, Miss Inquisitive? I generally have an extra knife and fork, you know, in case a friend should happen to drop in.”

“He will have a wretched breakfast this morning if he comes,” said the girl, taking off her gloves gaily, and fishing out the fork and the bacon from among the ashes. “I must say, Henry, whoever your friends may be, they cannot be very nice about their cookery.”

“Consecrated by the cook, don’t you see, Miss Impertinence. That bacon is toasted by mine own fair hands.”

“Really, my boy,” said his mother, “you have grown most Bohemian in your ways.”

She took off a pair of shabby and much-mended gloves with that air of resolution she imparted to her lightest action, and insisted on being allowed to make the tea. She measured two spoonfuls of tea from the caddy with great care.

“I allow myself three spoonfuls now I live in London,” said her son.

“Three is extravagance, Henry, three is not necessary,” said his mother quietly. “One for each person and one for the pot is correct.”

“Suppose a friend turns up?”

“More can be made. I fear you have formed very bad habits in London.”

“We have a surprise for you, Henry,” said the girl gaily.

She left the room to fetch a basket she had left at the top of the stairs.

“Guess what we have brought for you,” she cried as she produced it.

“Butter and eggs.”

“How awfully clever that you should have guessed them at once,” she said, with her eagerness sinking into disappointment.

“I am afraid I never had any tact worth mentioning,” said Northcote. “It was very stupid of me to have guessed butter and eggs.”

“But we have brought you some holly as well,” said Margaret, a little mollified. “Christmas will soon be here.”

“I am so glad I was not clever enough to guess holly,” said Northcote.

The contents of the basket were unpacked and laid along the books on the writing-table. He had to submit, not without a passage of arms, to having an egg cooked for his immediate delectation. His mother also insisted on being allowed to toast him a slice of bread.

“You are spoiling me completely,” said Northcote, being forced at last into making a pretence of eating after his own half-hearted offers of hospitality had been uncompromisingly repelled.

By an effort of the will that seemed superhuman to himself he forced himself to swallow a few mouthfuls, yet as he did so he followed the smallest movements of his guests. One eye never left the curtain that ran across the room. Whenever one or the other of his too curious visitors was seen to approach it incautiously he made ready to spring to his feet.

The only alleviation to the bareness of the walls was several photographic groups of football-players, over which velvet caps decorated with tassels were suspended.

“See that group in the middle?” said Northcote. “Look at it well. That is the finest pack that ever turned out for England. We walloped Wales twenty-nine points to three. Pushed ’em all over the shop. Notice that little chap sitting between my legs. He was a half if you like. Cunning as a trout and quicker than a hare.”

“I think, my dear boy, this is perfectly uninteresting,” said his mother, fixing her spectacles and examining the photograph sternly. “This is a stupid pursuit, not only a waste of time, but also a waste of money. It has been the ruin of many young men. One of these days it might even prove to be the ruin of England.”

“All work and no play, my dear,” said her son, “makes Jack a dull boy, you know. Personally I would suggest that a game like football is a rare training for the character.”

“I think football is a fine and manly game, Henry,” said the girl, with a little air of defiance. “I shall never forget seeing you come home with your twisted knee.”

“The doctor’s bill was thirty pounds,” said Mrs. Northcote simply.

These words, spoken in a manner that was almost childlike, came upon Northcote with the force of a blow. He was perfectly accustomed to his mother’s voice and manner, that voice and manner which were so direct and so unqualified. But for the first time they had driven a deep flush of shame to his cheek. This dauntless unimaginative creature, who measured spoonfuls of tea, who counted pennies, whose staff of life was hard facts, what had she not performed at the call of her religion? What lions had she not removed from the path of this one ewe lamb of hers, in order that one day he should win his way to the kingdom she had designed for him? Night and day, year after year, had she labored with this object in view. He was her only son, and material greatness was to be his destiny. He recalled the unflinching figure of this woman tramping over the moors in the depth of winter, through rain and wind, through frost and snow, to earn a pittance by her tutelage; he recalled the resolution with which she performed the meanest household duties in order that money might be saved; he recalled her sitting beneath the insufficient light of a lamp through the midnight hours, transcribing, for the sake of a few miserable sovereigns, foreign masterpieces out of their native French, German, and Italian into trite, colorless, and rather wearisome English prose. All in an instant Northcote seemed to be fascinated, overcome, by the sudden revelation of the pathetic beauty of the commonplace.

“I won’t have you think I have become idle and extravagant,” he said, rising from the table and placing both his hands on her shoulders. “You see I have had to fight my battle, and a long, a stern, a lonely one it has been. What was I in the midst of six millions of fighters, most of them as sturdy, as fierce, and, in many cases, far better equipped than I was myself? But I must tell you, my dear, I believe I have conquered at last. I think I have got the turn of the tide. If health and strength remain to me, and never in my life have I been physically more robust than I am at present, I am about to make an income at the bar which, to frugal people like you and me, mammy, will seem fabulous wealth. For I ought to tell you I won my first big case the day before yesterday, and I think I am entitled to say I made an impression.”

“I know that you saved that poor woman, my dearest boy,” said his mother, with a tenderness that was almost grim.

“Tell me, by what means did you learn that?”

“I walked over to the Hall and borrowed the Age of Sir John.”

“The Age!” said her son, in a tone that had a thrill of horror in it. “Why walk all that distance to the Hall to get a look at the Age when Parson Nugent would have been only too pleased to lend you his Banner?”

“The reason is this, my dear boy,” said his mother impressively. “All my life I have been accustomed to look upon the Age as the first English newspaper.”

“I expect you are right, you dear old Amazon,” said her son, strangling a groan.

“No, Henry, I am not right. I am prepared to believe there was a time when the Age was the first English newspaper, but in my opinion it is so no longer. I shall never place my trust in the Age again.”

“A heavy blow for Printing Press Square,” said Northcote, laughing to restrain his tears.

“I consider that leading article it had about the trial, and the terms in which it referred to you, my boy, to be a disgrace to English journalism. In fact, I wrote to the editor to say so.”

“What did you find to say to the editor?” asked Northcote feebly.

“I said it was contemptible that a newspaper of such a widespread influence as the Age should lend itself to a faction whose aim was to suppress young men of talent.”

“And what had the editor to say to that?”

“Very wisely he did not reply. Perhaps I was somewhat severe in my letter, but I felt very strongly upon the point and I do not regret that I expressed myself at length.”

“In the name of wonder, what else did you say to the editor?”

“I said this faction of which I complained had been very mischievous in its influence in this country, but in the end it had always failed in its object, as in the end, Henry, everything that is merely negative and destructive and retardatory must fail. I cited the cases of Benjamin Disraeli and the poet Keats.”

“I suppose,” said Northcote, with a dull sense of agony overspreading his veins, “it could not occur to you, old woman, that by any possibility the Age was justified in the course it took?”

“It could not, Henry,” said his mother.

Her air of finality bewildered him. Yet involuntarily he raised his eyes to her face, and, for the first time in his life as he looked at it, he was able to penetrate through its heroic commonness. The features were harsh and aggressive and scarcely lit by the mind, but the rigidity of such a nature in the teeth of public opinion had appeared to shed over them a little of the bloom that proceeds from the elevation of the intellect. It was a kind of apotheosis of the power of faith. Her eyes were deep blue, strangely unfearing and clear, wide-lidded, steady in their gaze. It was little enough that they had the capacity to see, but whatever they lacked in range derived compensation from mere force of vision. They were inaccessible to the changes which are wrought by influences from without. Whatever they had looked on once could never be modified by external causes.

Northcote carried the toil-stained hand to his lips with a reverence that was more profound than any he had ever felt for it before.

“Every man needs to have known one truly good woman,” he said, strengthening his grasp of the roughened fingers, “before he can even begin his own education.”

It darkened his eyes to see the muscles of the harsh face relax as they yielded to the slight softness of an infrequent emotion.

“Your father was constantly making speeches like these,” she said, with that simplicity which was so formidable. “I was never able to understand them.”