Heriot's Choice: A Tale

Mildred had been secretly reproaching herself for allowing Dr. Heriot's pleasing conversation so completely to monopolise her, and even her healthy conscience felt a pang something like remorse when, half an hour later, they came upon Olive sitting alone on a tree-trunk, having evidently stolen apart from her companions to indulge unobserved in one of her usual reveries.

She was too much absorbed to notice them till addressed by name, and then, to Mildred's surprise, she started, coloured from chin to brow, and, muttering some excuse, seemed only anxious to effect her escape.

'I hope you are not composing an Ode to Melancholy,' observed Dr. Heriot, with one of his quizzical looks. 'You look like a forsaken wood-nymph, or a disconsolate Chloe, or Jacques' sobbing deer, or any other uncomfortable image of loneliness. What an unsociable creature you are, Olive.'

'Why are you not with Chrissy and the Chestertons? I hope we have not all neglected you,' interposed Mildred in her soft voice, for she saw that Olive shrank from Dr. Heriot's good-humoured raillery. 'Are you tired, dear? Roy has not ordered the carriage for another hour, I am afraid.'

'No, I am not tired; I was only thinking. I will find Chriss,' returned Olive, stammering and blushing still more under her aunt's affectionate scrutiny. 'Don't come with me, please, Aunt Milly. I like being alone.' And before Mildred could answer, she had disappeared down a little side-walk, and was now lost to sight.

Dr. Heriot laughed at Mildred's discomposed look.

'You remind me of the hen when she hatched the duckling and found it taking kindly to the unknown element. You must get used to Olive's odd ways; she is decidedly original. I should not wonder if we disturbed her in the first volume of some wonderful scheme-book, where all the heroines are martyrs and the hero is a full-length portrait of Richard. I warn you all her dénouements will be disastrous. Olive does not believe in happiness for herself or other people.'

'How hard you are on her!' returned Mildred, finding it impossible to restrain a smile; but in reality she felt a little anxious. Olive had seemed more than usually absorbed during the last few days; there was a concentrated gravity in her manner that had struck Mildred more than once, but all questioning had been in vain. 'I am not unhappy—at least, not more than usual. I am only thinking out some troublesome thoughts,' she had said when Mildred had pressed her the previous night. 'No, you cannot do anything for me, Aunt Milly. I only want to help myself and other people to do right.' And Mildred, who was secretly weary of this endless scrupulosity, and imagined it was only a fresh attack of Olive's troublesome conscience, was fain to rest content with the answer, though she reproached herself not a little afterwards for a selfish evasion of a manifest duty.

The remainder of the day passed over pleasantly enough. Dr. Heriot had contrived to make his peace with Miss Trelawny, for she had regained her old serenity of manner when Mildred saw her again. She came just as they were starting, to beg that Mildred would spend a long day at Kirkleatham House.

'Papa is going over to Appleby, to the Sessions Court, and I shall be alone all day to-morrow. Do come, Mildred,' she pleaded. 'You do not know what a treat it will be to me.' And though Mildred hesitated, her objections were all overruled by Richard, who insisted that nobody wanted her, and that a holiday would do her good.

Richard's arguments prevailed, and Mildred thoroughly enjoyed her holiday. Some hours of unrestrained intercourse only convinced her that Ethel Trelawny's faults lay on the surface, and were the result of a defective education and disadvantageous circumstances, while the real nobility of her character revealed itself in every thought and word. She had laid aside the slight hauteur and extravagance that marred simplicity and provoked the just censure of men like Dr. Heriot; lesser natures she delighted to baffle by an eccentricity that was often ill-timed and out of place, but to-day the stilts, as Dr. Heriot termed them, were out of sight. Mildred's sincerity touched the right keynote, her brief captiousness vanished, unconsciously she showed the true side of her character. Gentle, though unsatisfied; childishly eager, and with a child's purity of purpose; full of lofty aims, unpractical, waiting breathless for mere visionary happiness for which she knew no name; a sweet, though subtle egotist, and yet tender-hearted and womanly;—no wonder Ethel Trelawny was a fascinating study to Mildred that long summer's day.

Mildred listened with unwearied sympathy while Ethel dwelt pathetically on her lonely and purposeless life, with its jarring gaieties and absence of congenial fellowship.

'Papa is dreadfully methodical and business-like. He always finds fault with me because I am so unpractical, and will never let me help him, or talk about what interests him; and then he cares for politics. He was so disappointed because he failed in the last election. His great ambition is to be a member of parliament. I know they got him to contest the Kendal borough; but he had no chance, though he spent I am afraid to say how much money. The present member was too popular, and was returned by a large majority. He was very angry because I did not sympathise with him in his disappointment; but how could I, knowing it was for the honour of the position that he wanted it, and not for the highest motives? And then the bribery and corruption were so sickening.'

'I do not think we ought to impute any but the highest motives until we know to the contrary,' returned Mildred, mildly.

Ethel coloured. 'You think me disloyal; but papa knows my sentiments well; we shall never agree on these questions—never. I fancy men in general take a far less high standard than women.'

'You are wrong there,' returned practical Mildred, firing up at this sweeping assertion, which had a taint of heresy in her ears. 'Because men live instead of talk their opinions, you misjudge them. Do you think the single eye and the steady aim is not a necessary adjunct of all real manhood? Look at my brother, look at Dr. Heriot, for example; they are no mere worldlings, leading purposeless existences; they are both hard workers and deep thinkers.'

'We will leave Dr. Heriot out of the question; I see he has begun to be perfection in your eyes, Mildred. Nay,'—and Mildred drew herself up with a little dignity and looked annoyed,—'I meant nothing but the most platonic admiration, which I assure you he reciprocates in an equal degree. He thinks you a very superior person—so well-principled, so entirely unselfish; he is always quoting you as an example, and——'

'I agree with you that we should leave personalities in the background,' returned Mildred, hastily, and taking herself to task for feeling aggrieved at Dr. Heriot calling her a superior person. The argument waxed languid at this point; Ethel became a little lugubrious under Mildred's reproof, and relapsed into pathetic egotism again, pouring out her longings for vocation, work, sympathy, and all the disconnected iota of female oratory worked up into enthusiasm.

'I want work, Mildred.'

'And yet you dream dreams and see visions.'

'Hush! please let me finish. I do not mean make-believes, shifts to get through the day, fanciful labours befitting rank and station, but real work, that will fill one's heart and life.'

'Yours is a hungry nature. I fear the demand would double the supply. You would go starved from the very place where we poor ordinary mortals would have a full meal.'

Ethel pouted. 'I wish you would not borrow metaphors from our tiresome Mentor. I declare, Mildred, your words have always more or less a flavour of Dr. Heriot's.'

Mildred quietly took up her work. 'You know how to reduce me to silence.'

But Ethel playfully impeded the sewing by laying her crossed hands over it.

'Dr. Heriot's name seems an apple of discord between us, Mildred.'

'You are so absurd about him.'

'I am always provoked at hearing his opinions second-hand. I have less comfort in talking to him than to any one else; I always seem to be airing my own foolishness.'

'At least, I am not accountable for that,' returned Mildred, pointedly.

'No,' returned Ethel, with her charming smile, which at once disarmed Mildred's prudery. 'You wise people think and talk much alike; you are both so hard on mere visionaries. But I can bear it more patiently from you than from him.'

'I cannot solve riddles,' replied Mildred, in her old sensible manner. 'It strikes me that you have fashioned Dr. Heriot into a sort of bugbear—a bête noir to frighten naughty, prejudiced children; and yet he is truly gentle.'

'It is the sort of gentleness that rebukes one more than sternness,' returned Ethel in a low voice. 'How odd it is, Mildred, when one feels compelled to show the worst side of oneself, to the very people, too, whom one most wishes to propitiate, or, at least—but my speech threatens to be as incoherent as Olive's.'

'I know what you mean; it comes of thinking too much of a mere expression of opinion.'

'Oh no,' she returned, with a quick blush; 'it only comes from a rash impulse to dethrone Mentor altogether—the idea of moral leading reins are so derogatory after childhood has passed.'

'You must give me a hint if I begin to lecture in my turn. I shall forget sometimes you are not Olive or Chriss.'

The soft, brilliant eyes filled suddenly with tears.

'I could find it in my heart to wish I were even Olive, whom you have a right to lecture. How nice it would be to belong to you really, Mildred—to have a real claim on your time and sympathy.'

'All my friends have that,' was the soft answer. 'But how dark it is growing—the longest day must have an end, you see.'

'That means—you are going,' she returned, regretfully. 'Mother Mildred is thinking of her children. I shall come down and see you and them soon, and you must promise to find me some work.'

Mildred shook her head. 'It must not be my finding if it is to satisfy your exorbitant demands.'

'We shall see; anyhow you have left me plenty to think about—you will leave a little bit of sunshine behind you in this dull, rambling house. Shall you go alone? Richard or Royal ought to have walked up to meet you.'

'Richard half promised he would, but I do not mind a lonely walk.' And Mildred nodded brightly as she turned out of the lodge gates. She looked back once; the moon was rising, a star shone on the edge of a dark cloud, the air was sweet with the breath of honeysuckles and roses, a slight breeze stirred Ethel's white dress as she leaned against the heavy swing-gate, the sound of a horse's hoofs rang out from the distance, the next moment she had disappeared into the shrubbery, and Dr. Heriot walked his horse all the way to the town by the side of Mildred.

Mildred's day had refreshed and exhilarated her; congenial society was as new as it was delightful. 'Somehow I think I feel younger instead of older,' thought the quiet woman, as she turned up the vicarage lane and entered the courtyard; 'after all, it is sweet to be appreciated.'

'Is that you, Aunt Milly? You look ghost-like in the gloaming.'

'Naughty boy, how you startled me! Why did not you or Richard walk up to Kirkleatham House?'

'We could not,' replied Roy, gravely. 'My father wanted Richard, and I—I did not feel up to it. Go in, Aunt Milly; it is very damp and chilly out here to-night.' And Roy resumed his former position of lounging against the trellis-work of the porch. There was a touch of despondency in the lad's voice and manner that struck Mildred, and she lingered for a moment in the porch.

'Are you not coming in too?'

'No, thank you, not at present,' turning away his face.

'Is there anything the matter, Roy?'

'Yes—no. One must have a fit of the dumps sometimes; life is not all syrup of roses'—rather crossly for Roy.

'Poor old Royal—what's amiss, I wonder? There, I will not tease you,' touching his shoulder caressingly, but with a half-sigh at the reticence of Betha's boys. 'Where is Richard?'

'With my father—I thought I told you;' then, mastering his irritability with an effort, 'please don't go to them, Aunt Milly, they are discussing something. Things are rather at sixes and sevens this evening, thanks to Livy's interference; she will tell you all about it. Good-night, Aunt Milly;' and as though afraid of being further questioned, Roy strode down the court, where Mildred long afterwards heard him kicking up the beck gravel, as a safe outlet and vent for pent-up irritability.

Mildred drew a long breath as she went upstairs. 'I shall pay dearly for my pleasant holiday,' she thought. She could hear low voices in earnest talk as she passed the study, but as she stole noiselessly down the lobby no sound reached her from the girls' room, and she half hoped Olive was asleep.

As she opened her own door, however, there was a slight sound as of a caught breath, and then a quick sob, and to her dismay she could just see in the faint light the line of crouching shoulders and a bent figure huddled up near the window that could belong to no other than Olive. It must be confessed that Mildred's heart shrank for a moment from the weary task that lay before her; but the next instant genuine pity and compassion banished the unworthy thought.

'My poor child, what is this?'

'Oh, Aunt Milly,' with a sort of gasp, 'I thought you would never come.'

'Never mind; I am here now. Wait a moment till I strike a light,' commenced Mildred, cheerfully; but Olive interrupted her with unusual fretfulness.

'Please don't; I can talk so much better in the dark. I came in here because Chrissy was awake, and I could not bear her talk.'

'Very well, my dear, it shall be as you wish,' returned Mildred, gently; and the soft warm hands closed over the girl's chill, nervous fingers with comforting pressure. A strong restful nature like Mildred's was the natural refuge of a timid despondent one such as Olive's. The poor girl felt a sensation something like comfort as she groped her way a little nearer to her aunt, and felt the kind arm drawing her closer.

'Now tell me all about it, my dear.'

Olive began, but it was difficult for Mildred to follow the long rambling confession; with all her love for truth, Olive's morbid sensitiveness tinged most things with exaggeration. Mildred hardly knew if her timidity and incoherence were not jumbling facts and suppositions together with a great deal of intuitive wisdom and perception. There was a sad amount of guess-work and unreality, but after a few leading questions, and by dint of allowing Olive to tell her story in her own way, she contrived to get tolerably near the true state of the case.

It appeared that Olive had for a long time been seriously unhappy about her brothers. Truthful and uncompromising herself, there had seemed to her a want of integrity and a blamable lack of openness in their dealings with their father. With the best intentions, they were absolutely deceiving him by leaving him in such complete, ignorance of their wishes and intentions. Royal especially was making shipwreck of his father's hopes concerning him, devoting most of his time and energies to a secret pursuit; while his careless preparation for his tutor was practical, if not actual, dishonesty.

'At least Cardie works hard enough,' interrupted Mildred at this point.

'Yes, because it will serve either purpose; but, Aunt Milly, he ought to tell papa how he dreads the idea of being ordained; it is not right; he is unfit for it; it is worse than wrong—absolute sacrilege;' and Olive poured out tremblingly into her aunt's shocked ear that she knew Cardie had doubts, that he was unhappy about himself. No—no one had told her, but she knew it; she had watched him, and heard him talk, and she burst into tears as she told Mildred that once he absolutely sneered at something in his father's sermon which he declared obsolete, and not a matter of faith at all.

'But, my dear,' interrupted the elder woman, anxiously, 'my brother ought to know. I—some one—must speak to Richard.'

'Oh, Aunt Milly, you will hear—it is I—who have done the mischief; but you told me there were no such things as conflicting duties; and what is the use of a conscience if it be not to guide and make us do unpleasant things?'

'You mean you spoke to Richard?'

'I have often tried to speak to him, but he was always angry, and muttered something about my interference; he could not bear me to read him so truly. I know it was all Mr. Macdonald. Papa had him to stay here for a month, and he did Cardie so much harm.'

'Who is he—I never heard of him?' And Olive explained, in her rambling way, that he was an old college friend of her father's and a very clever barrister, and he had come to them to recruit after a long illness. According to her accounts, his was just the sort of character to attract a nature like Richard's. His brilliant and subtle reasoning, his long and interesting disquisitions on all manner of subjects, his sceptical hints, conveying the notion of danger, and yet never exactly touching on forbidden ground, though they involved a perilous breadth of views, all made him a very unsafe companion for Richard's clever, inquisitive mind. Olive guessed, rather than knew, that things were freely canvassed in those long country walks that would have shocked her father; though, to his credit be it said, Henry Macdonald had no idea of the mischievous seed he had scattered in the ardent soil of a young and undeveloped nature.

Mildred was very greatly dismayed too when she heard that Richard had read books against which he had been warned, and which must have further unsettled his views. 'I think mamma guessed he had something on his mind, for she was always trying to make him talk to papa, and telling him papa could help him; but I heard him say to her once that he could not bear to disappoint him so, that he must have time, and battle through it alone. I know mamma could not endure Mr. Macdonald; and when papa wanted to have him again, she said, once quite decidedly, "No, she did not like him, and he was not good for Richard." I noticed papa seemed quite surprised and taken aback.'

'Well, go on, my dear;' for Olive sighed afresh at this point, as though it were difficult to proceed.

'Of course you will think me wrong, Aunt Milly. I do myself now; but if you knew how I thought about it, till my head ached and I was half stupid!—but I worked myself up to believe that I ought to speak to papa.'

'Ah!' Mildred checked the exclamation that rose to her lips, fearing lest a weary argument should break the thread of Olive's narrative, which now showed signs of flowing smoothly.

'I half made up my mind to ask your advice, Aunt Milly, on the rush-bearing day, but you were tired, and Polly was with you, and——'

'Have I ever been too tired to help you, Olive?' asked Mildred, reproachfully; all the more that an uncomfortable sensation crossed her at the remembrance that she had noticed a wistful anxiety in Olive's eyes the previous night, but had nevertheless dismissed her on the plea of weariness, feeling herself unequal to one of the girl's endless discussions. 'I am sorry—nay, heartily grieved—if I have ever repelled your confidence.'

'Please don't talk so, Aunt Milly; of course it was my fault, but' (timidly) 'I am afraid sometimes I shall tire even you;' and Mildred's pangs of conscience were so intense that she dared not answer; she knew too well that Olive had of late tired her, though she had no idea the girl's sensitiveness had been wounded. A kind of impatience seized her as Olive talked on; she felt the sort of revolt and want of realization that borders the pity of one in perfect health walking for the first time through the wards of a hospital, and met on all sides by the spectacle of mutilated and suffering humanity.

'How shall I ever deal with all these moods of mind?' she thought hopelessly, as she composed herself to listen.

'So you spoke to your father, Olive? Go on; I will tell you afterwards what I think.'

There was a little sternness in the low tones, from which the girl shrank. Of course Aunt Milly thought her wrong and interfering. Well, she had been wrong, and she went on still more humbly:

'I thought it was my duty; it made me miserable to do it, because I knew Cardie would be angry, though I never knew how angry; but I got it into my head that I ought to help him, in spite of himself, and because Rex was so weak. You have no idea how weak and vacillating Rex is when it comes to disappointing people, Aunt Milly.'

'Yes, I know; go on,' was all the answer Mildred vouchsafed to this.

'I brooded over it all St. Peter's day, and at night I could not sleep. I thought of that verse about cutting off the right hand and plucking out the right eye; it seemed to me it lay between Cardie and speaking the truth, and that no pain ought to hinder me; and I determined to speak to papa the first opportunity; and it came to-day. Cardie and Rex were both out, and papa asked me to walk with him to Winton, and then he got tired, and we sat down half-way on a fallen tree, and then I told him.'

'About Richard's views?'

'About everything. I began with Rex; I told papa how his very sweetness and amiability made him weak in things; he so hated disappointing people, that he could not bring himself to say what he wished; and just now, after his illness and trouble, it seemed doubly hard to do it.'

'And what did he say to that?'

'He looked grieved; yes, I am sure he was grieved. He does not believe that Roy knows his own mind, or will ever do much good as an artist; but all he said was, "I understand—my own boy—afraid of disappointing his father. Well, well, the lad knows best what will make him happy."'

'And then you told him about Richard?'

'Yes,' catching her breath as though with a painful thought; 'when I got to Cardie, somehow the words seemed to come of themselves, and it was such a relief telling papa all I thought. It has been such a burden all this time, for I am sure no one but mamma ever guessed how unhappy Cardie really was.'

'You, who know him so well, could inflict this mortification on him—no, I did not mean to say that, you have suffered enough, my child; but did it not occur to you that you were betraying a sacred confidence?'

'Confidence, Aunt Milly!'

'Yes, Olive; your deep insight into your brother's character, and your very real affection for him, ought to have guarded you from this mistake. If you had read him so truly as to discover all this for yourself, you should not have imparted this knowledge without warning, knowing how much it would wound his jealous reticence. If you had waited, doubtless Richard's good sense would have induced him at last to confide in his father.'

'Not until it was too late—until he had worn himself out. He gets more jaded and weary every day, Aunt Milly.'

Mildred shook her head.

'The golden rule holds good even here, "To do unto others as we would they should do unto us." How would you like Richard to retail your opinions and feelings, under the impression he owed you a duty?'

'Aunt Milly, indeed I thought I was acting for the best.'

'I do not doubt it, my child; the love that guided you was clearer than the wisdom; but what did Arnold—what did your father say?'

'Oh, Aunt Milly, he looked almost heart-broken; he covered his face with his hands, and I think he was praying; and yet he seemed almost as though he were talking to mamma. I am sure he had forgotten I was there. I heard him say something about having been selfish in his great grief; that he must have neglected his boy, or been hard and cruel to him, or he would never have so repelled his confidence. "Betha's boy, her darling," he kept saying to himself; "my poor Cardie, my poor lad," over and over again, till I spoke to him to rouse him; and then he said,'—here Olive faltered,—'"that I had been a good girl—a faithful little sister,—and that I must try and take her place, and remind them how good and loving she was." And then he broke down. Oh, Aunt Milly, it was so dreadful; and then I made him come back.'

'My poor brother! I knew he would take it to heart.'

'He said it was like a stab to him, for he had always been so proud of Cardie; and it was his special wish to devote his first-born to the service of the Church; and when I asked if he wished it now, he said, vehemently, "A half-hearted service, reluctantly made—God forbid a son of mine should do such wrong!" and then he was silent for a long time; and just at the beginning of the town we met Rex, and papa whispered to me to leave them together.'

'My poor Olive, I can guess what a hard day you have had,' said Mildred, caressingly, as the girl paused in her recital.

'The hardest part was to come;' and Olive shivered, as though suddenly chilled. 'I was not prepared for Rex being so angry; he is so seldom cross, but he said harder things to me than he has said in his life.'

Mildred thought of the harmless kicks on the beck gravel, and the irritability in the porch, and could not forbear a smile. She could not imagine Roy's wrath could be very alarming, especially as Olive owned her father had been very lenient to him, and had promised to give the subject his full consideration. In this case, Olive's interference had really worked good; but Roy's manhood had taken fire at the notion of being watched and talked over; his father's mild hints of moral weakness and dilatoriness had affronted him; and though secretly relieved, the difficulty of revelation had been spared him, he had held his head higher, and had crushed his sister by a tirade against feminine impertinence and interference; and, what hurt her most, had declared his intention of never confiding in such a 'meddlesome Matty again.'

Mildred was thankful the darkness hid her look of amusement at this portion of Olive's lugubrious story, though the girl herself was too weak and cowed to see the ludicrous side of anything; and her voice changed into the old hopeless key as she spoke of Richard's look of withering scorn.

'He was almost too angry to speak to me, Aunt Milly. He said he never would trust me again. I had better not know what he thought of me. I had injured him beyond reparation. I don't know what he meant by that, but Roy told me that he would not have had his father troubled for the world; he could manage his own concerns, spiritual as well as temporal, for himself. And then he sneered; but oh, Aunt Milly, he looked so white and ill. I am sure now that for some reason he did not want papa to know; perhaps things were not so bad as I thought, or he is trying to feel better about it all. Do you think I have done wrong, Aunt Milly?'

And Olive wrung her hands in genuine distress and burst into fresh tears, and sobbed out that she had done for herself now; no one would believe she had said it for the best; even Rex was angry with her—and Cardie, she was sure Cardie would never forgive her.

'Yes, when this has blown over, and he and his father have come to a full understanding. I have better faith in Cardie's good heart than that.'

But Mildred felt more uneasy than her cheerful words implied. She had seen from the first that Richard had persistently misunderstood his sister; this fresh interference on her part, as he would term it, touching on a very sore place, would gall and irritate him beyond endurance. He had no conception of the amount of unselfish affection that was already lavished upon him; in fact he thought Olive provokingly cold and undemonstrative, and chafed at her want of finer feelings. It needed some sort of shock or revelation to enable him to read his sister's character in a truer light, and any kind of one-sided reconciliation would be a very warped and patched affair.

Mildred's clear-sightedness was fully alive to these difficulties; but it was expedient to comfort Olive, who had relapsed into her former state of agitation. There was clearly no wrong in the case; want of tact and mistaken kindness were the heaviest sins to be laid to poor Olive's charge; yet Mildred now found her incoherently accusing herself of wholesale want of principle, of duty, and declaring that she was unworthy of any one's affections.

'I shall call you naughty for the first time, Olive, if I hear any more of this,' interrupted her aunt; and by infusing a little judicious firmness into her voice, and by dint of management, though not without difficulty, and representing that she herself was in need of rest, she succeeded in persuading the worn-out girl to seek some repose.

Unwilling to trust her out of her sight, she made her share her own bed; nor did she relax her vigil until the swollen eyelids had closed in refreshing sleep, and the sobbing breaths were drawn more evenly. Once, at an uneasy movement, she started from the doze into which she had fallen, and put aside the long dark hair with a fondling hand; the moon was then shining from behind the hill, and the beams shone full through the uncurtained windows; the girl's hands were crossed upon her breast, folded over the tiny silver cross she always wore, a half-smile playing on her lips—

'Cardie is always a good boy, mamma,' she muttered, drowsily, at Mildred's disturbing touch. Olive was dreaming of her mother.

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV