Part 3, Chapter XVIII.
Out in the Cold.
“Boys and girls, come out to play!”
So sang Florence Venning as she danced down the empty school-room at Oxley Manor on the 3rd of August. The last young lady had driven from the door—even the French governess had gone to see her friends; and Flossy, whose devotion to the cause of education by no means precluded a thorough enjoyment of peace and liberty, sang and danced as she picked up stray school grammars and dictionaries and consigned them to a six-weeks’ imprisonment in the cupboard. Clarissa had been standing on a form to reach its top shelf; and now she sat down on the desk, with her feet on the form, and yawned.
“What are you going to do to-day?” said Flossy.
“Nothing,” replied Clarissa, with emphasis. “I shall go to sleep, or read ‘Tom Brown’—that’s all about boys—or nurse the kitten,” picking it up and kissing it, “which is babyish in a governess, you know.”
“Dear me!” said Flossy, “I shouldn’t care what it was if I liked to do it. Well, it’s nice to have some time to oneself. I shall draw hard. I shall go to the School of Art twice a-week, and see if I can’t get into the Life class; and I shall be able to help at the drawing classes they’re having down at Oxley National School. And I want to have a tea for my Sunday class—I wonder if Mary would! And I never do read anything steadily when the girls are here. Besides,” with equal vivacity, “I want a new dress, and must see about it; I think I’ll do that first.”
“Anything else in a small way?” said Clarissa.
“Oh, fifty other things if I’d time to think of them.”
“Well,” said Clarissa, in languid, sleepy tones, “I don’t want to read a novel; there would be sure to be any number of girls in it! I’d like to be a man myself for the holidays, for a change. One would take an interest in girls then, at any rate!”
“Dear me, why don’t you take an interest in them? I am sure forming the minds of others is the most interesting thing possible.”
“If one had a mind of one’s own. I haven’t.”
“Clarissa, I call that affectation. I don’t consider you at all a stupid person.”
“Thank you,” said Clarissa, again kissing the kitten.
“Only you are so lazy. Now, will you come into Oxley about my dress? You know we are to dine at Redhurst to-night.”
“Oh, Mary will go with you about your dress. Is James Crichton come home?”
“Yes, for a fortnight. I want to show him my sketches, and see those he made in Italy. Well, I’ll try and get Mary; but I think she is busy. She has been writing to Mrs Grey about a girl to come as governess-pupil.”
“That girl will be a bore,” said Clarissa. “Now, really,” cried Flossy, in tones of virtuous indignation, “I do think that’s a shame. I am very glad of the opportunity. I disapprove of all the books that are written on that subject. They put it into girls’ heads to pity themselves, even if they are true. And I intend that there shall be a tone here that will be quite different. Think what a chance it is for really helping a girl! I wish we could have two or three. I shall make a friend of her, and then see if the big girls don’t do so too. But if you go and have old-fashioned prejudices—”
“I won’t make her do my hair, if that’s what you mean,” said Clarissa, meekly. “Well, Kitty, come along,” and, with slow, lazy steps, she sought the drawing-room, where she sat in an easy-chair with the kitten in her lap and read “Punch.”
Flossy, finding that her eldest sister was not inclined to spend her first leisure hours in the hot walk to Oxley, got ready to go by herself. If Mysie Crofton’s maiden bower was ordered and coloured by the quiet completeness and tasteful arrangement that marked all her doings, Florence Venning’s afforded a proof of the variety and ambition of her aims and of the many hobbies that chased each other through her soul. With so many irons in the fire it was no marvel that some of them were apt to grow cold; that the plants and flowers, the arrangement of which she considered a form of art, and in which she took great pride, sometimes wanted water; that a chalk head was displaced, half-finished, by a water-colour landscape; and that the books in use at the moment were apt to tumble off the edges of her dressing-table, where they had sought a last refuge. Moreover, Flossy, in a severe fit of historical and artistic fever, had once painted the panels of her room with scenes from English history, set in frames of decorative flowers and scrolls. The flowers were pretty, but the historical heroes—though exceedingly creditable to Flossy’s research and, indeed, to her powers of execution—were hardly up to the mark of the cartoons; and their arms and legs, as her artistic knowledge increased, became a source of anxiety, if not of distress, though she could not resolve to have them hidden by what Miss Venning called a “nice clean tint of buff.” At present history and heroes were finding an outlet on sundry pages of foolscap; which, as Clarissa observed, took up less room; and which reflected, perhaps, better the pictures of Flossy’s imagination. With her head full of the newest and most successful, Flossy set off down the sunny road to Oxley. She walked fast, regardless that the heat deepened her pink cheeks to crimson—for Flossy had always rather more to do than her time permitted—and she walked well, with a free, bounding step, carrying her head well up in the air; with smiling eyes, satisfied with their own thoughts, yet ready for any diversion from them. The hero gave place to blue and white muslin and to a new hat. Flossy also arranged her intended drawing lessons, paid a call or two, transacted a little Sunday-school business, and came home in time to dress for the Redhurst dinner-party. She found Clarissa sighing over the family tea that was to be resigned in consequence; but sighs were of no avail in averting the evil any more than were the grumbles of Hugh over the necessity of entertaining his neighbours. Miss Venning was always a pleasant and popular person. Her fresh complexion and her blue eyes, her handsome silk, and her pleasant tongue ornamented a party; but Clarissa, though thought pretty, was regarded as more entirely the schoolmistress, and, when so regarded, had little to say for herself. Flossy was too devoid of sentiment and of vanity and too full of her own concerns to be a favourite with young men. James thought her overpowering; and though Hugh was at ease with her, no one ever having suggested that he ought to marry her—since Flossy, handsome as she was, was just the sort of girl who does not easily get credited with a lover—he rarely gave her a second thought. But she and Arthur were excellent friends, and she was much more intimate with the whole family than was Clarissa, in whose younger days no girls had existed at Redhurst to afford an excuse for intercourse.
James had arrived the day before. He was warmly greeted by his mother; and, as he congratulated Arthur and Mysie, was informed that Hugh had gone to a magistrates’ meeting. Miss Katie Clinton, who was staying in the house, had been playing croquet in pink muslin with Frederica and the schoolboy George; and as they all sat on the terrace at tea and Hugh’s ordinary doings and sayings were mentioned, James began to feel an odd sort of discrepancy between his thoughts and the actual facts. “Hugh had been rather astonished at their news. Yes, he gave very prudent advice; but, still, he had given his consent.”
“Hugh did not want the new railway to come through Fordham: he was going to vote against it. Had he talked much about Italy? Yes, a good deal. He had described Civita Bella and the art galleries there, and the weather, and the Roman Amphitheatre.”
And presently Hugh came back, greeted Jem much in his usual way, and, sitting down, began to talk of his meeting, and how very foolish he considered his brother-magistrates’ opinion of the matter in hand. James could not help staring at him. Could this be the Hugh who had declared to him in passionate language that life would be worth nothing without Violante? Had he really lectured, advised, and reproved, and altogether taken the upper hand of the brother now sitting before him? “I could as soon call at Lambeth and lecture the Archbishop of Canterbury,” thought James. “Surely he never begged and prayed me to take his part with the Mum! Does he remember it all as well as I do? He doesn’t look altered.”
And yet James missed something that had been in his brother’s face during that brief fortnight they had spent together at Civita Bella. Lights and shadows had all been stronger then; the clear, sensible eyes had changed and softened, and the handsome lips, that Hugh would never hide by a moustache, had not been set so close together. As James turned his eyes away from this inspection they met Arthur’s, looking at him curiously.
“Well, Arty,” he said, getting up, “come and have a smoke, and let’s hear all about it.”
Jem and Arthur were much more companionable together than either of them was with Hugh, and now strolled down the garden, and after a little desultory talk Jem said:
“Well, and what did Hugh say to you?”
“I declare, Jem, I never was in such a funk in my life! Hugh said—just what he ought to have said, of course; but he wasn’t gushing.”
“No? And how has he conducted himself since?”
“Well,” said Arthur, “if it were possible that Hugh could have fallen a victim to some lovely black-eyed peasant, or—you didn’t meet any girls, did you?”
“Nonsense, Arthur! Everyone isn’t in your predicament.”
“Then the Bank must be shaky,” said Arthur coolly.
“Do you mean to say that Hugh is out of sorts?” said Jem, after a little pause.
“Well,” said Arthur, more seriously, “I shouldn’t like to think that he was put out about Mysie and me; but everything rubs him up the wrong way. To give you an instance: You know there’s to be a great gathering to open the new Town-Hall, and a concert and dinner. The Lord-Lieutenant is to bring his bride, and Hugh is on the committee. Well, I went to one of the meetings to represent the interests of Redhurst, as the villages round are to send their choirs and school-children to sing ‘God Save the Queen’ in the square outside. So I went to see that our people were provided for, and also to get good places for Aunt Lily and the girls. There were the rector, and Sir William Ribstone, and the mayor, and everyone else. You never heard anything like the way in which Hugh bothered them. Not a suggestion would he let pass without pulling it all to pieces, till they came to a perfect deadlock. Hugh was perfectly civil, but cantankerous enough to drive the old gentlemen frantic, and generally he knows exactly where to give in. I thought he was overworked, and begged him to let me begin going to the Bank; but he will say I shall not pledge myself without due consideration; which, you know, Jem, is really enough to drive a fellow wild! Consider? As if I hadn’t considered! He seems to think one can never cease to be a boy!” concluded Arthur, viciously.
James laughed. He would much have liked to confide the story to Arthur; but somehow he felt that Hugh regarded it so seriously that he could not tell it as a good joke, in which light Arthur, never having seen Violante, would be almost sure to regard it. A few hours soon showed him the truth of his cousin’s remarks. Hugh, though somewhat condescending, was generally courteous and obliging enough; but the captious way in which he complained of the approaching dinner-party, and the spiteful comments he made on Miss Clinton’s manners and looks, his scornful laugh at Arthur’s open boyish love-making, were the spray that indicated the waters of a bitter fountain. But he did not soften, even to his brother; on the contrary, with defiant bravado, he referred to the subject, asking James if he did not triumph in the result of his predictions that all would soon be as if his foolish fancy had never come to disturb him.
James was not a person to stir the waters, even with a view to their final sweetening. He disliked a fuss too much to face the matter out. He did not sympathise with the feelings which he supposed to exist in Hugh’s breast; it was better to suppose the thing a trifle, after all; so he answered:
“Oh, well, no one’s the worse for a bit of romance in their life.”
“To supply them with pleasant memories, eh? You’ve hit it exactly.”
Hugh said no more, but a sense of contempt for the brother who was his only confidant added to the loneliness that oppressed him. In this humour, to sit down to dinner with Mrs Harcourt on one side of him and Miss Clinton on the other seemed intolerable thraldom, and every subject more unprofitable than the one before it. He was so inharmonious a host that the discussion on local politics grew rather warm, though Mrs Crichton sat smiling through any amount of “gentlemen’s talk.” James wondered how anyone could excite themselves over drainage and rights of way; and Arthur strenuously entertained the neglected ladies on either side of him, glinting in between-times at Mysie as she sat far away on the other side of the table. He was the first to propose music after dinner, and Flossy was the first lady to accede to his request.
She stood up, erect, fair, and rosy, and began to sing, clearly and correctly, her last Italian song: “Batti, batti.”
Flossy was tolerably self-confident. She had a good voice and ear, and she sang her Italian better than is usual with young ladies, sure of applause at the end. She little knew how her first notes startled two of her audience. James gave a great jump. “Profanation!” he murmured, as he thought of the exquisite voice and accent in which he had last heard the words uttered, of the lovely scared eyes that had so belied their meaning. Jem smiled and sighed and drew nearer to listen, full of the “associations” of the song, even while he glanced round to see how his brother had taken it.
There is a vast gulf between passion and sentiment, and Hugh was too much under the dominion of the one to endure the other. He did not wait for the second line of the song, but turned and escaped from it out into the warm twilight garden, where the clear, strong notes pursued him relentlessly. He sat down on a bench and hid his face in his hands. “Violante! Violante!” he cried, half aloud. “Oh, what a fool I was not to wait one moment longer! Then I should have been sure! What is the use of it all—” And then Hugh got up and laughed, keenly conscious of the absurdity of sitting here in his dress-coat lamenting; hating himself for his folly, and yet haunted by the old, soft accents: “I was frightened, Signor Hugo.”
Suddenly the quiet garden seemed filled with chattering and laughing. All the younger ones had streamed out on to the terrace, and were wandering about in twos and threes. Arthur had Mysie to himself at last, and as they wandered past Hugh’s hiding-place, he heard her say, mischievously, something about “Katie’s charming conversation,” and Arthur retort with “That curate that was sitting by you;” and then she threw a rose at him and they both laughed, till Hugh muttered passionately to himself: “I wish I had never got to hear them play the fool and laugh again.”
Part 3, Chapter XIX.
Sunday and Monday.
“There is no time like spring,
Like spring that passes by;
There is no life like spring-life born to die.”
Hugh Crichton was at this time in the sort of humour which, dignified by the name of misanthropy, would have admirably suited, one of those interesting and uncomfortable heroes who stalk through the pages of romance with masks over their faces, under a vow to speak to no one; or who, like Lara, cloaked and with folded arms, look on at life from an altitude of melancholy and disenchantment. The world seems to have watched such vagaries in former days with much patience; but times are changed, and Hugh had far too much to do to fold his arms, and was forced to put on a frock-coat and white waistcoat on Sunday morning as usual. But an invisible and impalpable mask may be as stifling as one made of black velvet; and the mysterious silence which everyone respected was scarcely a greater effort than the silence of which no one was to suspect the necessity, or the words that seemed so trivial or so foolish. In truth, it was as much to avoid Arthur’s constant companionship as for any other reason that Hugh had so persistently refused to allow him to begin his work at the Bank. He could not stand Arthur’s bright, shrewd eyes upon him as they went to and fro, or endure his notice of the fits of idleness which alternated with the hard work to which he thus condemned himself. For after his long absence he had more on hand than usual; and Arthur, who was brisk and business-like and just then full of an energy that would have made stone-breaking light and interesting work, might have been very helpful to him. Hugh did not, perhaps, dislike the notion of being overworked; but the fact that he was so did not tend to smooth his temper or to raise his spirits. For, of course, the life of a man of business, with all the calls and occupations of a country gentleman added to it, was an exceedingly laborious one; but it was Hugh’s pride that he had never shirked any of the work to which his father had been born, and that he made the squire give way to the banker where the two clashed.
James, on growing up, had so decidedly declared in favour of a London life that all notion of his coming into the business had been abandoned; but there was more since his father’s death than Hugh could properly manage; and so his determination that no pressure should be put on Arthur if his success at Oxford induced him to wish for a more ambitious career had been a real act of kind and liberal judgment. His refusal to accept at once Arthur’s decision in his favour sprang partly from a foolish and unworthy pride, which refused to be the better for anyone’s sense or good behaviour, and, partly, as has been said, from a sort of personal distaste to his bright young cousin—a feeling which Arthur had done nothing to deserve. Nor was his brother’s presence any satisfaction to Hugh. Now that the danger was past, James was quite ready to forget all the annoyance with which he had regarded the matter, and to find the recollection of so romantic an incident rather pleasant than otherwise. “What is it to him?” thought Hugh bitterly; but it was quite true that, even had James been himself concerned and had sincerely felt the disappointment, he would have taken a certain pleasure in recalling the picturesque aspects of the affair; could have laughed at himself with a smile on his lip and a tear in his eye have made full allowance for Violante’s difficulties, and even speculated a little about her future lot, honestly wishing it to be a prosperous one. He found room for kindly sentiment in his flirtations, and would have derived amusement from the externals even of a real passion. But Hugh’s equal judgment fell before the force of personal feeling; and as he had thought of nothing at the time but Violante herself his brother’s view of the matter seemed to him utterly heartless and frivolous.
Sunday was a pleasant day to the young people of Redhurst. Mr Harcourt, the Rector, was a very old man, who had christened their mother, and to whom “Mr Spencer, of Oxley Bank,” meant their grandfather. He was still fully capable of managing his little country parish; and though they had heard his sermons very often, and had not had the satisfaction of assisting at many improvements in his church—since the work had been well done for them in a former generation, when Mr Harcourt, now so cautious, had been regarded as a dangerous innovator—they were very fond of him and of his wife; and had any one of them, in a foreign country or in future years, recalled the Sundays of their youth it would have been the unaltered and seemingly unalterable services of Redhurst Church and its white-haired Rector that would have risen before their eyes. Not but that they liked a walk to Oxley and an evening service at the new Saint Michael’s considerably better than an afternoon one at Redhurst; but, whether they deserted his second sermon or not, they rarely failed to present themselves at the Rectory after it was over for a cup of tea and a chat. Indeed, it was almost a second home to Mysie, who had grown up to be the young lady of the village—all the Miss Harcourts having married almost before she was born. Hugh was a very useful and conscientious squire; his mother, by nature and position, a Lady Bountiful: so Redhurst was a favoured spot.
“So you come and eat my apricots, young people, and run away from my sermons?” said Mr Harcourt, as he picked out a specially-perfect specimen of the fruit in question and offered it to Mysie, who, with her smiling face peeping out from a sky-blue bonnet, looked much like a bright-eyed forget-me-not.
“I’ve been to church and to school, too, this afternoon,” said Mysie, with a deprecating look.
“Ah, you are always a good girl. Why didn’t you bring Arthur with you?”
“She wouldn’t let me come to the Sunday-school,” said Arthur. “She says the girls laugh at her. So you see, sir, I can’t be useful if I would.”
“For shame, Arthur! Mr Harcourt, he did not want to be of any use, only to walk down with me.”
“Well, my dear, in my young days we liked a walk with our sweethearts on Sundays.”
“And I am going to walk with him to Oxley,” said Mysie, slipping her little hand into the old Rector’s arm and very little discomposed by his joke.
“Ay, ay, walk away, and come back and tell me what fine things they’re doing at Saint Michael’s. There is Hugh has never told me a word about Italy. When young men made the grand tour formerly their conversation was quite an enlightenment to their friends.”
“Weren’t they rather a bore, sir?” said Arthur.
“We weren’t so easily bored in those days, my dear boy, by useful information.”
“No,” said James, “those were the days to live, when each event had time to round into its proper proportion—the days of taste and leisure, when people were simple enough to be excited by a Christmas party or by the coming in of a coach.”
“But don’t you think, Jem,” said Mysie, “that they must have been rather dull to care about the coach coming. I’ve heard Arthur say he used to go at school on a wet half-holiday and watch the trains. I’m sure he wouldn’t have done it if he had had anything else to amuse him.”
“Very true,” said Arthur.
“Well,” said Mrs Harcourt, “when I was a girl I used to read Sir Charles Grandison, but I took it down the other day and found it very lengthy.”
“Such a prig as Sir Charles Grandison never can have really existed,” said Hugh.
“Well, Hugh,” said the Rector, with a humorous twinkle, “we none of us know what we might come to under favourable circumstances. But, now, what day do you think to-morrow is?”
“Your wedding-day, Mr Harcourt,” said Mysie, after a moment’s pause. “I remember it was on Sunday last year, and you gave Mrs Harcourt an apricot.”
“Ah, you’re the little girl for a good memory. Our golden wedding. Yes, it’s fifty years ago that I married Mrs Harcourt, and she wore a dark green riding-habit for the occasion. Fifty years to be thankful for!”
“Fifty years ago!” said Mysie, rather awestruck.
“Yes,” said the Rector’s wife, “and we have asked the school-children to come up after school and drink our health; but not having such a good memory as Mysie I have forgotten some of them. If you could ask the little Woods, my dear, and the Masons to-morrow I should be glad.”
Mysie promised to do so, and distant chimes sounding on their ears reminded them that it was time to start for Oxley. Hugh and his mother went home, the old couple went slowly up their sunny garden-path together, while the young pair, lingering a little behind their companions, looked back and smiled.
“There’s our model, Mysie,” said Arthur, as he drew her hand through his arm. “In fifty years’ time—”
“Oh, don’t, Arthur!”
“Why not?”
“It frightens me to think of fifty years,” said Mysie, with quivering lips. Then suddenly she said, “I wonder which are the happiest, they or we!”
“Let us go to-morrow and ask them,” said Arthur, more lightly, perhaps, than he felt.
“Oh, yes! Let us go the first thing to-morrow and take them some flowers ready for their breakfast—they always breakfast at eight.”
“Very well,” said Arthur, “and they will give us some breakfast. I promised George to take him out shooting to-morrow—the rabbits are really getting intolerable. I want Hugh to come home early and join us.”
They soon reached Saint Michael’s and dispersed in search of places, for the church was crowded. Arthur and Mysie had the good luck to find them side by side. Mysie’s feelings had been somewhat disturbed by what had passed, and she was glad of the quiet and of the service, which took her out of herself. The sermons at Saint Michael’s were considered striking, and this one was about thankfulness. “He giveth us all things richly to enjoy.” Mysie listened, and thought that she had more to be thankful for than anyone in the world; and she turned her listening into a prayer that she might never forget it. Arthur listened too, but his thoughts were less defined and were pervaded by a certain sense of the prettiness of Mysie’s face in its blue setting.
And then they stood up and sang—
“Brief life is here our portion,
Brief sorrow, short-lived care;
The life that knows no ending,
The tearless life, is there.”
Brief? And yet they might keep their golden wedding after those long fifty years!
Fifty years of going to church together, of sorrows shared and joys doubled! And as Mysie’s heart went forward to what those joys and sorrows might be it was no wonder that she walked home hushed and silent, though there never came to her a moment’s doubt of how she might regard her young lover after the fifty years were past.
The morning light brought the golden wedding before her in a more cheerful aspect, and she had gathered most of her flowers and was arranging them in a large basket before Arthur joined her, accusing her of being unnecessarily early.
“Oh, I wanted to gather plenty. Look. I have put the hothouse flowers in the centre, and then the outdoor ones, and ferns round the edge.”
“And what’s that?”
“That is a note from Aunt Lily to ask them to come up to dinner to-night. It is all ready now.”
Arthur took up the basket, and they went down the garden, out at a side-gate, and across the road into the almost adjoining garden of the Rectory. This was small, but within walls, and so gay with flowers as to seem to render Mysie’s gift unnecessary. Arthur gave her one side of the basket, and they came across the lawn in the bright morning sunshine up to the open French window of the dining-room, where Mr and Mrs Harcourt had already perceived them.
“Here comes the young couple to see the old one!”
“We have brought you some flowers.”
“We have come to wish you many happy returns of the day,” said both at once.
Mrs Harcourt took the flowers, and her husband, kissing Mysie, held out his hand to Arthur.
“God bless you, my dear children, and give you fifty such happy years as He has given to my wife and me!”
“Amen!” said Arthur, and he turned, and, drawing Mysie towards him, he kissed her, as if the blessing had been the seal of their betrothal. The tears came into her eyes, and she was glad to turn to the old lady to be praised and thanked for her beautiful flowers.
“Now, then, of course you are come to breakfast? Arthur, when you were a little boy you always liked my pine-apple preserve; so I shall get you some.”
“At his present stage of existence, my dear, I should think he would rather begin upon eggs and bacon.”
“But don’t forget the jam for a finish, Mrs Harcourt,” said Arthur.
So they sat down and had a merry breakfast, lingering over it till Arthur jumped up, saying:
“I must go home to catch Hugh before he goes to Oxley, to ask him where we shall shoot.”
“But you are not going to carry away Mysie?”
“Oh, no,” said Mysie. “I don’t like the neighbourhood of guns at all, and I must stay to put my flowers in water.”
“Very well, then, I’ll leave you. Mr Harcourt, we shall see you to-night.”
Mysie stayed behind, and arranged her flowers and renovated Mrs Harcourt’s dinner-cap, by which time the morning was so far advanced that she was persuaded to stay to lunch, before going to give the forgotten invitations. Meanwhile Mrs Harcourt entertained her with much pleasant gossip about the days of her courtship and the wedding that had followed it.
“Did not fifty years seem a long time to you then?” asked Mysie.
“Well, my dear, I don’t think I looked forward to any special time, or to any end at all in those days. And I don’t now, Mysie—I don’t now, in another sense, for fifty years is a very little bit of eternity.”
The old lady spoke rather to herself than to the girl; but the words chimed in with Mysie’s previous thoughts.
“I think,” she said, dreamily, “you are the happiest. If Mr Harcourt were to die you would have such a little while to wait; but if Arthur— It’s almost all life, if it is but a little bit of eternity.”
“Die, my dear? What has put such sad thoughts into your head this bright morning?”
“I don’t know. But I shall remember this morning as long as I live.” Then, shaking off her sadness, she started up, and, kissing the old lady, went off rather hastily on her errands.
The everyday occupation soon chased away the solemn thoughts that had oppressed her, and having disposed of her other business she went down to the canal, along the bank, and across the gates of the lock—the unrailed condition of which was one of those grievances which are always talked of and never remedied—to the lock-keeper’s cottage, where she gave her message about the health-drinking; and sent two little girls, who were at home from school, off in a great hurry to join their companions. These children were motherless, and Mysie took great interest in the pretty sister Alice, who had charge of them.
The youngest boy was ill, and Mr Dickenson, the Oxley doctor—who was most favoured at Redhurst—was paying him a visit. Mysie heard his opinion, and promised sundry delicacies to assist the child’s recovery.
“Then you will send the children down to the Rectory, Alice?” she said.
“Yes, Miss Mysie. I can’t come with them, because of Freddy.”
“No, of course not. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, miss.”
Mysie tripped out into the sunshine, and on to the gates of the lock, Alice thinking how pretty her white dress and muslin-covered hat looked on this hot August day. “She always wears her prettiest things now Mr Arthur’s here,” she thought, when the sudden loud report of a gun sounded from the copse close at hand. Alice gave a little scream and start. Mysie, half-way across, started violently also, and, either losing her balance or catching her foot on the rough surface, slipped and fell, out of the sunshine, out of the light, down into the cold, dark water below.
End of the First Volume.
Part 3, Chapter XX.
The Golden Wedding.
“Tina died.”
Mr Gilfil’s Love Story.
Arthur went away from the Rectory whistling gaily, and succeeded in catching Hugh before he started for Oxley. Hugh was a good but not a very keen sportsman, and the rabbits were rather a sore subject; and he replied to Arthur’s representations that, as they had been left entirely for the delectation of himself and George, it was his own fault if they were too numerous. Arthur answered that he knew Hugh had asked two friends next week, and had supposed he would want something for them to shoot.
“The Molyneuxes, do you mean? They’re not sportsmen. Never take out a gun.”
“So you said yesterday, and if you have no objection George and I will polish a few off to-day. And if you will just come out early and meet us in the plantations down by the canal, you’ll see if I’m not right.” Hugh never liked to appear indifferent about sporting matters, so he agreed to the proposal, though not very willingly, and they appointed a place and time of meeting in the afternoon. Meanwhile, Arthur, who enjoyed most things that fell to his lot, and George, who lived for the pursuit of rats and rabbits, spent a pleasant and successful morning, and when Hugh joined them could display a sufficient number of rabbits to presuppose either considerable skill on their parts or the existence of plenty of food for powder. Hugh, at Arthur’s suggestion, despatched George with three couple of rabbits to the tenant-farmer on whose land they had been shooting, and sent the keeper for some more cartridges, as their supply seemed likely to run short. Hugh and Arthur, thus left together, went on through the copses, now in the full weight and depth of their summer foliage, before the first tints of autumn varied them. It was, perhaps, the time when the woods were least attractive, since they were powerless and almost silent. Hugh was unsuccessful, and not particularly pleased thereat.
“You have got your hand out in Italy,” said Arthur, “and you have never given yourself a day’s shooting since you came home.”
“I am unlucky,” said Hugh, “but you know I am never a very good shot.”
“I wanted Jem to come; but he began to discuss the whole question of cruelty, etc, from beginning to end. So I made myself scarce.”
“It does seem a barbarous way for civilised gentlemen to spend their time,” said Hugh, but the appearance of a rabbit cut his remark short as he fired and missed it, with an exclamation of annoyance rather strong for a civilised gentleman with a contempt for sport.
“So that rabbit thinks,” said Arthur, laughing.
“Ah, there’s Mysie talking to the Woods,” he added, as they came across a stile into the copse by the canal and saw, through an opening, the lock and Mysie and Alice standing by it.
“Hugh, I wish you would make them put a rail on to those gates.”
“It’s not my affair,” said Hugh, “and they’re safe enough. You had better go and help her across.”
As Hugh spoke, rather irritated by Arthur’s fancifulness, as he considered it, another little brown rabbit started out of the ferns.
“I’ll have that one!” he said.
“Don’t fire,” said Arthur. “Look, you’ll startle Mysie.”
“Nonsense, it’s too far off,” answered Hugh sharply, and fired.
They saw the white figure start and reel, then vanish from their eyes. With a loud shout of horror Arthur flung aside his gun, and leapt down through the bushes on to the path, pursued, almost outstripped, by Hugh, who sprang right into the water, as Alice’s screams brought her father and the doctor both at once to the spot.
Arthur stopped short on the brink, as nothing but the blank water met his eyes.
“She fell in here!” he cried, clutching Alice’s arm.
“Oh yes, sir; yes—off the gates! Oh, where is she?”
“She must have caught her dress in the gate!” cried Wood.
“Or struck her head?” said Mr Dickenson.
“Let off the water—is there no boat-hook—nothing?”
What gave to Arthur the power of acting and judging he knew neither then nor afterwards. He turned round and said, low and clear:
“No, that will take too long. Open the gates, and she will be washed down the stream. Come out, Hugh, that is useless.”
“Yes, sir, for the Lord’s sake come out, or you’ll be drowned too,” cried the lock-keeper, as he turned to the great handles of the gates.
“Run, Alice, open the other!”
Quick as thought, Alice crossed the upper gates, and seized the handle. Arthur held out his hand, and, holding by a post, helped Hugh up the steep side, then ran down the bank, and stood some yards below the lock, waiting. Slowly the great doors groaned back and, with a swirl and a rush, out poured the muddy water, for the lock was full. Hugh would have thrown himself in again, but Wood held him back. Arthur strained his eyes as the water rushed through, saw something dim and white above him; sprang after it; dived, disappeared, then rose to the surface—empty-handed. The impetus of the water had carried her further than he had calculated on. Both Hugh and the lock-keeper had come to his help before the white dress rose again: but it was his hand that caught it—he caught her once more in his arms, gained his feet in the shallow water, and carried her to the bank.
There he laid her down with her head on Alice’s lap, and wrung the water from her soft, clinging dress. She had lost her hat; but her tightly-folded hair was still in its place, and one was left of the carnations that he had put in front of her dress in the morning.
Mr Dickenson knelt down and examined her carefully.
“It was not the length of time,” he said, after a few moments.
“Oh, sir, sir, she’s not dead, not drowned!” screamed Alice.
“She is not drowned. She struck her head and the back of her neck against the side. It was all over before she touched the bottom.”
He added a few technical words to explain his meaning, and Arthur understood and knew that it was true.
“Yes, she is dead,” he said, and the tone was as quiet, far quieter than the doctor’s own. He stood up, put Hugh aside, and took her in his arms again.
“Will you get into that boat, Alice?” he said, pointing to one moored at the side.
Awe-struck and sobbing, Alice obeyed.
“Sit down in the stern,” he said.
And then he laid Mysie down with her head once more on Alice’s lap, unmoored the boat, and, with quick, vigorous strokes, rowed down towards Redhurst; rowed past the meadows and the copses, as once before he had rowed his love in the same bright evening sunlight, under the same blue sky, and had talked of the future. Now the boat went on, the girl’s long fair hair dancing and waving, but her face all white and tear-stained; Arthur bare-headed, his eyes fixed far away and his lips set; and the white motionless figure, with Alice’s little handkerchief over the face, between them. Those who followed them on the bank said that it was the most awful sight their eyes had ever seen—all the more awful in that it was in a way picturesque and beautiful.
Arthur stopped at the landing. He fastened up the boat and once more lifted up his burden.
“Mr Arthur, you’ll want help,” cried Wood.
“No,” said Arthur, “she is very light. Go first, Mr Dickenson, and tell them.”
But, as he said “and tell them,” a sort of quiver came over his face, and he faltered for a moment.
“Keep close to him,” said the doctor, “I’ll go on. But where’s Mr Crichton?”
“He may have gone ahead, sir, to break the news first.”
This seemed very probable; but, in case it had not been so, Mr Dickenson hastened on across the meadow, up the shrubbery, and into the garden. No messenger of evil tidings could have forestalled him in his cruel task of breaking up that happy summer peace. Mr Crichton sat restfully on the terrace, watching for the arrival of Mr and Mrs Harcourt. James, on the step below her, was smoking, stroking his long, brown beard, and discoursing dreamily. Frederica, in her white muslin and red ribbons, was teasing Snap. Mysie’s doves, at a safe distance from Snap, were cooing on the grass; the great peacock strutting along in the background.
“Mr James Crichton!” said Mr Dickenson, stopping short of the terrace, with a glance that brought James to his side in a moment.
“What’s the matter?”
“Mr James, Miss Crofton has met with an accident. She has fallen into the water, and Mr Arthur is bringing her home. You had better get the ladies into the house.”
But, as he spoke, up from the sunny meadows came Arthur, with Mysie in his arms, closely followed by Alice Wood, now sobbing and clinging to her father’s coat. James gave one look, and saw that Mysie’s face was covered.
“Mamma! there’s an accident! Come in. Come in.” But Mrs Crichton had started up with a shriek and rushed down the path.
“What is it; what is it? The water? Has she come to herself?”
“You must let me take her in,” said Arthur, in a low, quiet voice, while James held back his mother; and Wood said, choking: “Lord have mercy on us, ma’am; she’ll never come to herself in this world!” Arthur took no notice; he went on, and they all followed indiscriminately, the servants rushing out with wild cries and questions. Arthur went up the steps, across the terrace, and through the open window, into the drawing-room, where, on the sofa, he laid his dead love down. Then he paused, hanging over her, and drew the handkerchief a little back, and put his hand softly on her wrist.
“Arthur! Arthur, my poor boy, come away,” said James, in his ear.
Arthur turned round and faced them.
“How did it happen? how did it happen?” gasped Mrs Crichton.
“The noise of the gun startled her, and she fell off the lock. She struck her head against the side, and she is dead—she is dead,” he repeated. And, in the moment’s blank pause that followed, Alice Wood’s voice rose in a wild shriek: “Dead! oh, Miss Mysie’s dead!”
“Take care of that poor little girl,” said Arthur; “she has—” but with the words his voice failed him; he staggered, and fell down in a dead faint, before James could catch him, for they had all fallen back with a sort of awe, before his collected voice and the wild stare in his eyes.
They lifted Arthur up and carried him into the house and upstairs to his own room, whither the doctor followed them. The maid-servants pressed into the drawing-room, with tears and cries of pity, till the old nurse came and put them all back. She knew what to do.
Mrs Crichton sat down again in her chair on the terrace, Frederica crouching with her head in her aunt’s lap, while Wood, whose daughter had been carried off by the maids, repeated the sad story.
It was not very easy to understand its details, told with sobs and comments innumerable; but the fact was slowly borne in on them—Mysie was dead!
Presently James returned.
“He is coming to himself,” he said. “Dickenson is going to give him some strong opiate; then he hopes that he will sleep before he knows what has happened. No one must go to him or try to rouse him now.”
“I cannot understand, now, how it happened,” said Mrs Crichton. “Where is Hugh?”
Where was Hugh? His brother’s absence struck James for the first time as extraordinary.
“Mother,” he said, “you had better let me take you into the house, and I will ask Dickenson if he knows where Hugh has gone to. Get up, Freddie, my dear girl, take care of mother. Yes, that’s right,” as Frederica, with unexpected self-command, stood up, choked back her sobs, and took her aunt by the hand. Perhaps it had hardly come yet to the time for overwhelming grief, for Mrs Crichton rose and walked into the house, unable to realise the truth of what still seemed like a frightful dream.
“What became of my brother?” he said to Wood.
“Indeed, sir, I can’t remember. I saw nothing but Mr Arthur with the dear young lady in his arms; but Mr Crichton all the time was like one demented, and would have been drowned too if Mr Arthur had not dragged him out, and I held him back from jumping into the water before the gates were fairly open. O Lord! sir, there’s the Rector coming. This news will kill the poor old gentleman, surely.”
But the ill news had flown faster than they thought for, and the office of comforter had been familiar for too many years to Mr Harcourt for him to shrink from it now; and, instead of the merry dinner-party to which he and his wife had been summoned, he had left her to realise that she had bidden little Mysie farewell for ever only a few hours before.
“Her golden wedding—her golden wedding!” he said; but with what force of allusion James hardly knew. He took the Rector, however, to his mother; and when he came out again, with a vague idea of watching for Hugh, Wood had gone to look after his daughter; and Mr Dickenson came out, reporting that Arthur, under the influence of the opiate, had fallen asleep, without rousing to the consciousness of what had happened.
“So best,” said James, with a heavy sigh; “but, Mr Dickenson, what can have become of Hugh?”
“Your brother? I never thought of him till this moment!”
“Nor I, till my mother asked for him. There—no—that’s George. What can have become of him?”
As he spoke, George, white and terrified, came panting up the path and threw himself upon James.
“Jem! Where’s Mysie; where’s Mysie?” Involuntarily James glanced back at the drawing-room, where now the window was shut and the blind drawn down behind it.
“Have you heard anything, George?” he said; “there has been a sad accident on the lock.”
“I have seen Hugh,” said George.
“Hugh! Where?”
“In the copse by the lock. Oh, Jem, he was sitting on the ground, and he had Arthur’s gun in his hand—not his own—and there was a dead rabbit. He looked—I couldn’t ask him a word. He said: ‘Go home, George, there’s no more shooting; Mysie is drowned, and—and—’”
“Steady, my boy,” said the doctor, as George paused and gasped, “take your time. What did he say?”
“He said—he said, ‘I have killed her!’”
“Nothing,” interposed Mr Dickenson, as James almost dropped into a chair with a start of horror, “Nothing that anyone says on a night like this is of the slightest consequence whatever. We don’t know what we say. What followed, George?”
“I said, ‘Oh, come now, Hugh, you had better come home. Where’s Arthur?’ And he stood up and cried out ‘Arthur! Arthur! Never—never!’ and then he rushed off out on to the heath. So,” concluded George, “I thought he was mad or something, and I ran as hard as I could to fetch someone. I never thought it was true till I saw the lock gates open and little Bessie Wood, screaming and crying, with Mysie’s wet hat; and I ran on, and there was this pink bow she wore round her neck, wet, on the path in the meadow. Oh, Jem, she’s never drowned, really—not really,” as Jem burst into tears at sight of the gay pink ribbon.
“George,” said the doctor, “you must be a man, there’s need of it. Go and fetch Mr James some wine, and drink some yourself; then come back, we shall want you. Call Wood, too.”
“I think,” said George, as he went, “someone had better look for Hugh.”
“I think so too,” said Mr Dickenson. “If Mr Crichton has any morbid ideas in his head, the sooner they are dispelled the better.”
“He could not have done it,” said James, confusedly; “she was not shot.”
“Of course not, and if she was accidentally startled by the sound of the gun no blame could attach to anyone. Here,” as George returned with the wine, “take some; we have all work before us. Wood,” he added, “do you think poor Mr Spencer right in saying Miss Crofton was startled by the sound of a gun?”
“All I know, sir, is that my daughter she screamed out, ‘The gun—the gun!’ and I ran out of the house, and Mr Arthur came tearing down from the copse without his gun. Mr Crichton he threw his away as he jumped into the water. I heard no gun in the house.”
“Neither did I,” said the doctor, “but, you see, we shall have to have their evidence to-morrow.”
“The inquest!” said James. “Ah, I never thought of that. What? Must poor Arthur?—”
“I am afraid he must; but, of course, if your brother is there to tell the story, he need say very little. But Mr Crichton must be there, you know, and we must get him home without delay.”
“I had better go and look for him,” said James, “though I hardly like to leave my mother.”
“I can stay here,” said Mr Dickenson; “and I can arrange for to-morrow better than you. Could any lady come to Mrs Crichton; and are there any relations to be sent for?”
“No,” said James, “Mysie has no near relations but my mother. But Miss Venning would come to us I am sure. George, you might go and fetch her.”
“Yes; but where’s Arthur?”
“He fainted; he is asleep. You can’t go to him now. Say nothing about Hugh. Of course, he would come back soon, but I shall go for him. Why, it is getting dusk; is it night or morning? What time can it be?”
“It is eight o’clock,” said Mr Dickenson; “or but a little after.”
James felt as if years had passed since he had seen Arthur come up the path with his sad burden, but the excitement of looking for Hugh came in almost as a relief. James was less alarmed by his absence than anyone less well acquainted with Hugh might have been. He knew the violence with which Hugh’s feelings were apt to overpower him in the first moments of a great shock, and also how completely he was soon able to govern and conceal them. James had little doubt of his speedy return; but it was less wretched to walk rapidly away with Wood, who wanted to return to his children—Alice having been left with the maids at Redhurst—than to sit at home and begin to realise what a blow had fallen on the home which had always seemed, in the few holiday weeks that he spent there, the realisation of sunshine and peace.
They came down towards the lock, which did not yet impress James with any sense of horror, so little realised was the scene connected with it.
“Why, if there ain’t the whole place turned out!” cried Wood, as they came in sight of it, and voices broke on the stillness. The banks of the canal were covered with people, gaping and staring, and surrounding the Wood children, who enjoyed the honour of having been first in the field.
“Well, here’s all Redhurst and half Oxley, and more coming along the path. Get into the house, Bessie, you little forward, unfeeling hussy, a-chattering about the poor dear young lady you saw drowned before your eyes!” cried Wood, not knowing why his real share in the sad tragedy made him so impatient of idle curiosity regarding it. Not but what there would be many genuine tears shed from many eyes for sweet Mysie Crofton; but excitement is a powerful rival at first to grief.
James stood aghast. How could he go and look for Hugh in all this confusion? How would Hugh face it?
Up stepped the inspector of police from Oxley.
“Mr James Crichton, I was fortunately on the spot first, and I have secured the gentlemen’s guns. One was found in the wood and one on the bank; also this rabbit.”
“Is Mr Spencer Crichton here?” said James.
“No, sir, I have not seen him.”
“Can’t you get all these people away?”
“Well, sir, accidents always collect a crowd.”
“My brother,” said James, “was here at the time. Perhaps, if you see him, you would tell him he is wanted at home.”
“Very well, sir,” said the inspector, with an absence of comment which was a great relief to James, who was now beset by a crowd of Redhurst folk, with questions and lamentations.
“It is all true,” James said. “We and all the place are in sad trouble. I think our friends had better go home and leave it to strangers to stare about this place.”
This produced a little effect, and Bessie, picking up the cue, hustled off the younger ones, telling them “to go in and not to be a-staring. Wasn’t Miss Mysie always telling them as little girls shouldn’t run after crowds like that of evenings?”
James ran up into the copse and out on the heath behind it; but he saw no signs of Hugh, and as the light failed he went home in despair, with the picture of his brother, as George had described him, more vividly impressed on his mind than any other of the sad events of the evening. Poor James! he did not know how to contend with the difficulties that he was left alone to bear. He was frightened to death at Hugh’s disappearance, and was almost ready to hope that Arthur might have awakened in his absence to bring his quicker powers of action to bear on the matter. For James felt that he had done just nothing.
It was some relief to find that no one could suggest any other course of action. Miss Venning had arrived and had persuaded his mother to go to bed; and James sat up, waiting and speculating on every possible and impossible cause and result of Hugh’s absence. The unalterable fact of Mysie’s death left no room for fear. Arthur was, for the moment, at rest; but what was Hugh doing?