Demain nous aurons du pain noir:
Anne woke up this heavenly morning saying these words to herself. It had rained half the night through, and the morning had risen pale, exhausted as with all this weeping: but after awhile had thought better of it, and sworn to have, ere summer ended, one other resplendent day. Then the sun had got up to his work like a bridegroom, eternal image, in a flush of sacred pride and joy. People said to each other ‘What a lovely day!’ Though it had been a fine summer, and the harvest had been got in with the help of many a lusty morning and blazing afternoon, yet there was something in this that touched the general heart; perhaps because it was after the rain, perhaps because something in the air told that it was the last, that Nature had surpassed herself, and after this was capable of nothing further. As a matter of fact, nobody could do anything for the delight of the exquisite morning. First one girl stole out, and then another, through the garden, upon which the morning sun was shining; then Mrs. Mountford sailed forth under the shelter of her parasol. Even she, though she was half ashamed of herself, being plump, had put on, dazzled by the morning, a white gown. ‘Though I am too old for white,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Not too old, but a little too stout, ‘m,’ said Mrs. Worth, with that ferocious frankness which we have all to submit to from our maids. None of the three reappeared again till the luncheon-bell rang, so demoralised were they. Anne, if truth must be told, went towards the Beeches: ‘Il nous reste un gâteau de fête,’ she sang to herself under her breath, ‘Demain nous aurons du pain noir.’
The same thing happened at the Rectory: even the rector himself came out, wandering, by way of excusing himself for the idleness, about the flowerbeds. ‘The bedding-out plants have done very well this year,’ he said; but he was not thinking of the bedding-out plants any more than the young men were thinking of their cigars. In their minds there was that same sense of the one bit of cake remaining to eat which was in Anne’s song. Charley, who had not the cake, but was only to stand by and assist while his friend ate it, was sympathetically excited, yet felt a little forlorn satisfaction in the approaching resumption of the pain noir. He was never to get anything better, it appeared; but it would be pleasanter fare when the munching of the gâteau was over. And Douglas stole off to consume that last morsel when the curate, reluctantly, out of the sweetness of the morning, went off to his schools. Under the Beeches the day was like a fresh bit out of Paradise. If Adam and Eve are only a fable, as the scientific gentlemen say, what a poet Moses was! Eden has never gone out of fashion to this day. The two under the trees, but for her muslin and his tweed, were, over again, the primæval pair—and perhaps the serpent was about too: but neither Eve had seen it, nor Adam prepared that everlasting plea of self-defence which has been handed down through all his sons. This was how the charmed hours stole on, and the perfection of summer passed through the perfection of noon; so many perfections touching each other! a perfect orb of loveliness and happiness, with that added grace which makes perfection more perfect, the sense of incompleteness—the human crown of hope. All the time they were thinking of the something better, something sweeter, that was to come. ‘Will there ever be such another perfect day?’ she said, in a wonder at the new discovered bliss with which she was surrounded. ‘Yes, the next,’ he said, ‘on which we shall not have to part.’ To be sure: there was the parting; without that conclusion, perhaps, this hour would not have been so exquisite: but it was still some hours off, thank heaven!
After luncheon the chairs were carried out to the green terrace where the shadow of the limes fell. The limes got in the way of the sun almost as soon as he began to descend, and threw the most delicious dancing shadow over the grass—a shadow that was quite effectual, and kept the lawn as cool as in the middle of a forest, but which was in itself a lovely living thing, in soft perpetual motion, every little twig and green silken leaf contributing its particular canopy, and flinging down a succession of little bobs and curtseys with every breath of air that blew. ‘Everybody will be out to-day, and I daresay we shall have a great many visitors. Tell Saymore he may bring out the big table,’ said Mrs. Mountford. She liked to feel that her house was the chief house in the neighbourhood, the place to which everybody came. Mrs. Mountford had regretfully relinquished by this time her white gown. We all cling to our white gowns, but when you are stout, it must be acknowledged the experiment is rash. She had not been able to get Mrs. Worth’s candid criticism out of her mind all the morning. ‘Do I look very stout, Rose?’ she had said, in an unconsciously ingratiating tone. And Rose was still more entirely impartial than Worth. She threw a careless glance at her mother. ‘You do look fat, mamma!’ she said. It was hard upon the poor lady; she changed it, with a sigh, for her darkest silk. ‘Not black, Worth,’ she said faintly. ‘If I had my way, ‘m,’ said Worth, ‘I’d dress you always in black. There is nothing like it when one gets to a certain time of life.’ It was under the influence of this sobering douche that Mrs. Mountford came out again, accompanied by Saymore with her workbasket. It was put down upon the table, a dazzling bit of colour. ‘But I really don’t feel inclined to work. It is too fine to work,’ Mrs. Mountford said. ‘What is that you are singing for ever, Anne? I have heard you at it all day.’
Demain nous aurons du pain noir.
Anne sang without changing colour, though her heart was beating; she had become too breathless for conversation. When would he come for the farewell, and what would her father say? Would he hear of it and come out? What was to happen? She sat very still in her basket-chair, with all the lime leaves waving over her, letting in stray gleams of sunshine that ornamented her as with lines of jewels here and there.
Then, after an interval, two dark figures were seen upon the whiteness and unsheltered light of the road through the park. ‘There are the Ashley boys,’ said Rose. ‘Anne, you will be obliged to play to-day.’
‘The Ashley boys! Now that Charley is ordained, you should speak with more respect,’ said Mrs. Mountford. Anne looked up, and her heart seemed to stand still—only two of them! But she soon satisfied herself that it was not Cosmo that was the defaulter; she sat, not saying anything, scarcely daring to breathe. The moment had come.
Willie Ashley had not regarded with much satisfaction the reconciliation which he found to his great amazement had taken place while he was out in the rain. Indeed the attitude of his mind had been nothing less than one of disgust, and when he found next day that Douglas was setting out arm-in-arm with the curate, and almost more confidential than before, to walk to Mount, his impatience rose to such a point that he flung off altogether. ‘Two may be company, but three is none,’ he said to his brother. ‘I thought you had a little more spirit; I’m not going to Mount: if you can see yourself cut out like that, I can’t. I’ll walk up as far as the Woodheads’; I daresay they’ll be very glad to get up a game there.’ This was how there were only two figures on the road. They were very confidential, and perhaps the curate was supported more than he himself was aware by the certainty that his friend was going away that night. Henceforward the field would be clear. It was not that he had any hope of supplanting Cosmo in his turn, as he had been supplanted; but still to have him away would be something. The black bread is wholesome fare enough when there is not some insolent happiness in the foreground insisting upon devouring before you its bunches of cake.
‘I declare,’ said Mrs. Mountford, ‘there is that Mr. Douglas with Charley Ashley! What am I to do? I am sure it is not Willie—he is taller and bigger, and has a different appearance altogether. You cannot expect me, Anne, to meet anyone whom papa disapproves. What shall I do? Run, Rose, and tell Saymore; but of course Charley will not knock at the door like an ordinary visitor—he will come straight here. I have always thought these familiarities should not have been permitted. They will come straight here, though they know he has been sent away and forbidden the house.’
‘He has never been forbidden the house,’ cried Anne indignantly. ‘I hope, mamma, you will not be so uncivil as to refuse to say good-bye to Mr. Douglas. He is going away.’
‘Forbidden the house!’ cried Rose, her eyes opening up like two great O’s. ‘Then it is true!’
‘You had better go away at least, if I must stay,’ said Mrs. Mountford in despair. ‘Rosie, run indoors and stay in the drawing-room till he is gone. It would be in far better taste, Anne, and more dutiful, if you were to go too.’
Anne did not say a word, partly, no doubt, in determined resistance, but partly because just then her voice had failed her, the light was swimming in her eyes, and the air seemed to be full of pairs of dark figures approaching from every different way.
‘Run indoors! why should I?’ said Rose. ‘He can’t do any harm to me; besides, I like Mr. Douglas. Why shouldn’t he come and say good-bye? It would be very uncivil of him if he didn’t, after being so much here.’
‘That is just what I am always saying; you have them constantly here, and then you are surprised when things happen,’ cried Mrs. Mountford, wringing her hands. ‘Anne, if you have any feeling you ought to take your sister away.’
Rose’s eyes grew rounder and rounder. ‘Was it me he was in love with, then?’ she asked, not without reason. But by this time it was too late for anyone to run away, as the young men were already making their way across the flower-garden, and could see every movement the ladies made.
‘Sit down, sit down, if it must be so,’ said Mrs. Mountford, ‘and for heaven’s sake let us have no scene; look at least as if it were a common call and meant nothing—that is the only thing to do now.’ ‘How d’ye do, how d’ye do, Charley,’ she said, waving her hand in friendly salutation: ‘was there ever such a lovely day? Come and sit down; it is too fine for a game. Is that Mr. Douglas you have with you? I was quite blinded with the sun this morning, I can’t get it out of my eyes. How do you do?—you will excuse my looking surprised; I thought I heard that you had gone away.’
‘Not yet,’ he said; ‘I hope you did not think me so little grateful for all your kindness as not to make my acknowledgments before leaving the parish. I have lingered longer than I ought to have done, but every happiness must come to an end, and I am bound for Beedon this afternoon to catch the Scotch mail to-night.’
Mrs. Mountford made him a little bow, by way of showing that her interest in this was no more than politeness demanded, and returned to the curate, to whom she was not generally so gracious. ‘I hope your father is well,’ she said; ‘and Willie, where is Willie? It is not often he fails. When we saw you crossing the park just now I made sure it was Willie that was with you. I suppose we shall not have him much longer. He should not disappoint his friends like this.’
‘I fear,’ said Douglas (‘thrusting himself in again; so ill-bred, when he could see I meant to snub him,’ Mrs. Mountford said), ‘that Willie’s absence is my fault. He likes to have his brother to himself, and I don’t blame him. However, I am so soon to leave the coast clear! If anything could have made it more hard to turn one’s back upon Mount it would be leaving it on such a day. Fancy going from this paradise of warmth and sunshine to the cold North!’
‘To Scotland?’ cried Rose; ‘that’s just what I should like to do. You may call this paradise if you like, but it’s dull. Paradise would be dull always, don’t you think, with nothing happening. To be sure, there’s Lady Meadowlands’ fête; but one knows exactly what that will be—at least, almost exactly,’ Rose added, brightening a little, and feeling that a little opening was left for fate.
‘Let us hope it will be as different as possible from what you expect. I have known garden-parties turn out so that one was not in the least like another,’ said Douglas smilingly, accepting the transfer to Rose which Mrs. Mountford’s too apparent snub made necessary. Anne, for her part, did not say a word; she sat quite still in the low basket-chair, scarcely venturing to look up, listening to the tones of his voice and the smile which seemed to pervade his words with that strange half-stunned, half-happy sensation which precedes a parting. Yes, it was happiness still to feel him there, and recognise every distinctive sound of the voice which had awoke her heart. Was there no way of stopping this flying moment, arresting it, so that it should last, or coming to an end in it, which is the suggested sentiment of all perfection? She sat as in a dream, longing to make it last, yet impatient that it should be over; wondering how it was to end, and whether any words more important than these might pass between them still. They had taken farewell of each other under the Beeches. This postscript was almost more than could be borne—intolerable, yet sweet. The voices went on, while the scene turned round and round with Anne, the background of the flowers confusing her eyes, and the excitement mounting to her head. At last, before they had been a moment there, she thought—though it was half an hour—the dark figures had risen up again and hands were being held out. Then she felt her dress twitched, and ‘Let us walk to the end of the garden with them,’ said Rose. This made a little commotion, and Anne in her dream felt Mrs. Mountford’s expostulation—‘Girls!’ in a horrified undertone, ‘what can you be thinking of? Rosie, are you crazy? Anne!’
This last was almost in a shriek of excitement. But Rose was far too much used to her own way to pay any attention. ‘Come along,’ she said, linking her fingers in her sister’s. Anne, who was the leader in everything, followed for the first time in her life.
The garden was sweet with all manner of autumn flowers, banks of mignonette and heliotrope perfuming the air, and red geraniums blazing in the sunshine—all artificial in their formal beds, just as this intercourse was artificial, restrained by the presence of spectators and the character of the scene. By-and-by, however, Rose untwined her hand from her sister’s. ‘There is no room to walk so many abreast; go on with Mr. Douglas, Anne; I have something to say to Charley,’ the girl cried. She was curious, tingling to her fingers’ ends with a desire to know all about it. She turned her round eyes upon Charley with an exciting look of interrogation as soon as the other pair had gone on before. Poor Ashley had drooped his big head; he would have turned his back if he could to give them the benefit of this last moment, but he felt that he could not be expected not to feel it. And as for satisfying the curiosity of this inquisitive imp, whose eyes grew bigger and bigger every moment! he dropped his nice brown beard upon his bosom, and sighed, and slightly shook his head. ‘Tell me what it means, or I’ll tell mamma you’re helping them,’ whispered Rose.
‘Can’t you see what it means?’ said the curate, with a glance, she thought, of contempt. What did she know about it? A blush of humiliation at her own ignorance flew over Rose.
‘I owe your little sister something for this,’ said Douglas, under his breath. ‘Once more we two against the world, Anne!’
‘Not against the world: everything helps us, Cosmo. I did not think I could even venture to look at you, and now we can say good-bye again.’
His fingers twined into hers among the folds of her gown, as Rose’s had done a minute before. They could say good-bye again, but they had no words. They moved along together slowly, not walking that they knew of, carried softly as by a wave of supreme emotion; then, after another moment, Anne felt the landscape slowly settling, the earth and the sky getting back into their places, and she herself coming down by slow gyrations to earth again. She was standing still at the corner of the garden, with once more two dark figures upon the white road, but this time not approaching—going away.
‘Tell me about it, tell me all about it, Anne. I did it on purpose; I wanted to see how you would behave. You just behaved exactly like other people, and shook hands with him the same as I did. I will stand your friend with papa and everybody if you will tell me all about it, Anne.’
Mrs. Mountford also was greatly excited; she came sailing down upon them with her parasol expanded and fanning herself as she walked. ‘I never had such a thing to do,’ she said; ‘I never had such an awkward encounter in my life. It is not that I have any dislike to the man, he has always been very civil; though I must say, Anne, that I think, instead of coming, it would have been better taste if he had sent a note to say good-bye. And if you consider that I had not an idea what to say to him! and that I was in a state of mind all the time, saying to myself, “Goodness gracious! if papa should suddenly walk round the corner, what should we all do?” I looked for papa every moment all the time. People always do come if there is any special reason for not wanting them. However, I hope it is all over now, and that you will not expose us to such risks any more.’
Anne made no reply to either of her companions. She stole away from them as soon as possible, to subdue the high beating of her own heart, and come down to the ordinary level. No, she was not likely to encounter any such risks again; the day was over and with it the last cake of the feast: the black bread of every day was all that now furnished forth the tables. A kind of dull quiet fell upon Mount and all the surrounding country. The clouds closed round and hung low. People seemed to speak in whispers. It was a quiet that whispered of fate, and in which the elements of storm might be lurking. But still it cannot be said that the calm was unhappy. The light had left the landscape, but only for the moment. The banquet was over, but there were fresh feasts to come. Everything fell back into the old conditions, but nothing was as it had been. The world was the same, yet changed in every particular. Without any convulsion, or indeed any great family disturbance, how did this happen unsuspected? Everything in heaven and earth was different, though all things were the same.
CHAPTER VII.
CROSS-EXAMINATION.
The change that is made in a quiet house in the country when the chief source of life and emotion is closed for one or other of the inhabitants is such a thing as ‘was never said in rhyme.’ There may be nothing tragical, nothing final about it, but it penetrates through every hour and every occupation. The whole scheme of living seems changed, although there may be no change in any habit. It is, indeed, the very sameness and unity of the life, the way in which every little custom survives, in which the feet follow the accustomed round, the eyes survey the same things, the very same words come to the lips that make the difference so palpable. This was what Anne Mountford felt now. To outward seeming her existence was absolutely as before. It was not an exciting life, but it had been a happy one. Her mind was active and strong, and capable of sustaining itself. Even in the warm and soft stagnation of her home, her life had been like a running stream always in movement, turning off at unexpected corners, flowing now in one direction, now another, making unexpected leaps and variations of its own. She had the wholesome love of new things and employments which keeps life fresh; and there had scarcely been a week in which she had not had some new idea or other, quickly copied and turned into matter-of-fact prose by her little sister. This had made Mount lively even when there was nothing going on. And for months together nothing did go on at Mount. It was not a great country house filled with fashionable visitors in the autumn and winter, swept clean of all its inhabitants in spring. The Mountfords stayed at home all the year round, unless it were at the fall of the leaf, when sometimes they would go to Brighton, sometimes at the very deadest season to town. They had nobody to visit them except an occasional old friend belonging to some other county family, who understood the kind of life and lived the same at home. On these occasions if the friend were a little superior they would ask Lord and Lady Meadowlands to dinner, but if not they would content themselves with the clergymen of the two neighbouring parishes, and the Woodheads, whose house was not much more than a villa. Lately, since the girls grew up, the ‘game’ in the afternoon which brought young visitors to the house in summer had added to the mild amusements of this life; but the young people who came were always the same, and so were the old people in the village, who had to be visited, and to have flannels prepared for them against Christmas, and their savings taken care of. When a young man ‘went wrong,’ or a girl got into trouble, it made the greatest excitement in the parish. ‘Did you hear that Sally Lawson came home to her mother on Saturday, sent away from her place at a moment’s notice?’ or: ‘Old Gubbins’s boy has enlisted. Did you ever hear anything so sad—the one the rector took so much pains with, and helped on so in his education?’ It was very sad for the Gubbinses and Lawsons, but it was a great godsend to the parish. And when Lady Meadowlands’ mother, old Lady Prayrey Poule, went and married, actually married at sixty, it did the very county, not to speak of those parishes which had the best right to the news, good. This was the way in which life passed at Mount. And hitherto Anne had supplemented and made it lively with a hundred pursuits of her own. Even up to the beginning of August, when Mr. Douglas, who had left various reminiscences behind him of his Christmas visit, came back—having enjoyed himself so much on the previous occasion, as he said—Anne had continued in full career of those vigorous fancies which kept her always interested. She had sketched indefatigably all the spring and early summer, growing almost fanatical about the tenderness of the shadows and the glory of the lights. Then finding the cottages, which were so picturesque, and figured in so many sketches, to be too wretched for habitation, though they were inhabited, she had rushed into building, into plans, and elevations, and measurements, which it was difficult to force Mr. Mountford’s attention to, but which were evidently a step in the right direction. But on Douglas’s second arrival these occupations had been unconsciously intermitted, they had been pushed aside by a hundred little engagements which the Ashleys had managed to make for the entertainment of their friend. There had been several pic-nics, and a party at the rectory—the first since Mrs. Ashley’s death—and a party at the Woodheads’, the only other people in the parish capable of entertaining. Then there had been an expedition to the Castle, which the Meadowlands, on being informed that Charley Ashley’s friend was anxious to see it, graciously combined with a luncheon and a ‘game’ in the afternoon. And then there was the game at Mount on all the other afternoons. Who could wonder, as Mrs. Mountford said, that something had come of it? The young men had been allowed to come continually about the house. No questions had been asked, no conditions imposed upon them. ‘Thou shalt not make love to thy entertainer’s daughter’ had not been written up, as it ought to have been, on the lodge. And now, all this was over. Like a scene at the theatre, opening up, gliding off with nothing but a little jar of the carpentry, this momentous episode was concluded and the magician gone. And Anne Mountford returned to the existence—which was exactly as it had been of old.
The other people did not see any difference in it; and to her the wonderful thing was that there was no difference in it. She had been in paradise, caught up, and had seen unspeakable things; but now that she had dropped down again, though for a moment the earth seemed to jar and tingle under her feet as they came in contact with it, there was no difference. Her plans were there just the same, and the question still to settle about how far the pigsty must be distant from the house; and old Saymore re-emerged to view making up his bouquets for the vases, and holding his head on one side as he looked at them, to see how they ‘composed;’ and Mrs. Worth, who all this time had been making dresses and trying different shades to find out what would best set off Miss Rose’s complexion. They had been going on like the figures on the barrel-organ, doing the same thing all the time—never varying or changing. Anne looked at them all with a kind of doleful amusement, gyrating just in the old way, making the same little bobs and curtseys. They had no want of interest or occupation, always moving quite contentedly to the old tunes, turning round and round. Mr. Mountford sat so many hours in his business-room, walked one day, rode the next for needful exercise, sat just so long in the drawing-room in the evening. His wife occupied herself an hour every morning with the cook, took her wool-work at eleven, and her drive at half-past two, except when the horses were wanted. Anne came back to it all, with a little giddiness from her expedition to the empyrean, and looked at the routine with a wondering amusement. She had never known before how like clockwork it was. Now her own machinery, always a little eccentric, declined to acknowledge that key: some sort of new motive power had got into her, which disturbed the action of the other. She began again with a great many jerks and jars, a great many times: and then would stop and look at all the others in their unconscious dance, moving round and round, and laugh to herself with a little awe of her discovery. Was this what the scientific people meant by the automatic theory, she wondered, being a young woman who read everything; but then in a law which permitted no exceptions, how was it that she herself had got out of gear?
Rose, who followed her sister in everything, wished very much to follow her in this too. She had always managed to find out about every new impulse before, and catch the way of it, though the impulse itself was unknown to her. She gave Anne no rest till she had ascertained about this too. ‘Tell us what it is like,’ she said, with a hundred repetitions. ‘How did you first find out that he cared for you? What put it into your head? Was it anything he said that made you think that? As it is probably something that one time or another will happen to me too, I think it is dreadful of you not to tell me. Had you never found it out till he told you? and what did he say? Did he ask you all at once if you would marry him? or did it all come on by degrees?’
‘How do you think I can tell?’ said Anne; ‘it is not a thing you can put into words. I think it all came on by degrees.’
But this, though it was her own formula, did not satisfy Rose. ‘I am sure you could tell me a great deal more if you only would,’ she cried; ‘what did he say? Now, that you can’t help remembering; you must know what he said. Did he tell you he was in love with you, or ask you straight off to marry him? You can’t have forgotten that—it is not so very long ago.’
‘But, Rosie, I could not tell you. It is not the words, it is not anything that could be repeated. A woman should hear that for the first time,’ said Anne, with shy fervour, turning away her head to hide the blush, ‘when it is said to herself.’
‘A woman! Then you call yourself a woman now? I am only a girl; is that one of the things that show?’ asked Rose, gravely, in pursuit of her inquiry. ‘Well, then, you ought surely to let me know what kind of a thing it is. Are you so very fond of him as people say in books? are you always thinking about him? Anne, it is dreadfully mean of you to keep it all to yourself. Tell me one thing: when he said it first, did he go down upon his knees?’
‘What nonsense you are talking!’ said Anne, with a burst of laughter. Then there rose before her in sweet confusion a recollection of various moments in which Rose, always matter-of-fact, might have described her lover as on his knees. ‘You don’t know anything about it,’ she said, ‘and I can’t tell you anything about it. I don’t know myself, Rosie; it was all like a dream.’
‘It is you who are talking nonsense,’ said Rose. ‘How could it be like a dream? In a dream you wake up and it is all over; but it is not a bit over with you. Well, then, after, how did it feel, Anne? Was he always telling you you were pretty? Did he call you “dear,” and “love,” and all that sort of thing? It would be so very easy to tell me—and I do so want to know.’
‘Do you remember, Rose,’ said Anne, with a little solemnity, ‘how we used to wish for a brother? We thought we could tell him everything, and ask him questions as we never could do to papa, and yet it would be quite different from telling each other. He would know better; he would be able to tell us quantities of things, and yet he would understand what we meant too.’
‘I remember you used to wish for it,’ said Rose, honestly, ‘and that it would have been such a very good thing for the entail.’
‘Then,’ said Anne, with fervour, ‘it is a little like that—like what we thought that would be. One feels that one’s heart is running over with things to say. One wants to tell him everything, what happened when one was a little girl, and all the nonsense that has ever been in one’s mind. I told him even about that time I was shut up in the blue room, and how frightened I was. Everything! it does not matter if it is a trifle. One knows he will not think it a trifle. Exactly—at least almost exactly, like what it would be to have a brother—but yet with a difference too,’ Anne added, after a pause, blushing, she could scarcely tell why.
‘Ah!’ said Rose, with great perspicacity, ‘but the difference is just what I want to know.’
The oracle, however, made no response, and in despair the pertinacious questioner changed the subject a little. ‘If you will not tell me what he said, nor what sort of a thing it is, you may at least let me know one thing—what are you going to do?’
‘Nothing,’ said Anne, softly. She stood with her hands clasped before her, looking with some wistfulness into the blueness of the distant air, as if into the future, shaking her head a little, acknowledging to herself that she could not see into it. ‘Nothing—so far as I know.’
‘Nothing! are you going to be in love, and engaged, and all that, and yet do nothing? I know papa will not consent—mamma told me. She said you would have to give up everything if you married him; and that it would be a good thing for——’
Here Rose paused, gave her head a little shake to banish the foolish words with which she had almost betrayed the confidence of her mother’s communication, and reddened with alarm to think how near she had been to letting it all out.
‘I am not going to——marry,’ said Anne, in spite of herself, a little coldly, though she scarcely knew why, ‘if that is what you want to know.’
‘Then what,’ said Rose, majestically, ‘do you mean to do?’
The elder sister laughed a little. It was at the serious pertinacity of her questioner, who would not take an answer. ‘I never knew you so curious before,’ she said. ‘One does not need to do anything all at once——’
‘But what are you going to do?’ said Rose. ‘I never knew you so dull, Anne. Dear me, there are a great many things to do besides getting married. Has he just gone away for good, and is there an end of it? Or is he coming back again, or going to write to you, or what is going to happen? I know it can’t be going to end like that; or what was the use of it at all?’ the girl said, with some indignation. It was Rose’s office to turn into prose all Anne’s romancings. She stopped short as they were walking, in the heat of indignant reason, and faced her sister, with natural eloquence, as all oratorical talkers do.
‘It is not going to end,’ said Anne, a shade of sternness coming over her face. She did not pause even for a moment, but went on softly with her abstracted look. Many a time before in the same abstraction had she escaped from her sister’s questions; but Rose had never been so persistent as now.
‘If you are not going to do anything, and it is not to end, I wonder what is going to happen,’ said Rose. ‘If it were me, I should know what I was to do.’
They were walking up and down on the green terrace where so many games had been played. It was getting almost too dark for the lime avenue when their talk had begun. The day had faded so far that the red of the geraniums had almost gone out; and light had come into the windows of the drawing-room, and appeared here and there over the house. The season had changed all in a day—a touch of autumn was in the air, and mist hung in all the hollows. The glory of the year was over; or so at least Anne thought.
‘And another thing,’ said Rose; ‘are you going to tell anybody? Mamma says I am not to tell; but do you think it is right to go to the Meadowlands’ party, and go on talking and laughing with everybody just the same, and you an engaged girl? Somebody else might fall in love with you! I don’t think it is a right thing to do.’
‘People have not been in such a hurry to fall in love with me,’ said Anne; ‘but, Rose, I don’t think this is a subject that mamma would think at all suited for you.’
‘Oh, mamma talked to me about it herself; she said she wished you would give it up, Anne. She said it never could come to anything, for papa will never consent.’
‘Papa may never consent; but yet it will come to something,’ said Anne, with a gleam in her eyes. ‘That is enough, Rose; that is enough. I am going in, whatever you may do.’
‘But, Anne! just one thing more; if papa does not consent, what can you do? Mamma says he could never afford to marry if you had nothing, and you would have nothing if papa refused. It is only your money that you would have to marry on; and if you had no money—— So what could you do?’
‘I wish, when mamma speaks of my affairs, she would speak to me,’ said Anne, with natural indignation. She was angry and indignant; and the words made, in spite of herself, a painful commotion within her. Money! what had money to do with it? She had felt the injustice, the wrong of her father’s threat; but it had not occurred to her that this could really have any effect upon her love; and though she had been annoyed to find that Cosmo would not treat the subject with seriousness, or believe in the gravity of Mr. Mountford’s menace, still she had been entirely satisfied that his apparent carelessness was the right way for him to consider it. He thought it of no importance, of course. He made jokes about it; laughed at it; beguiled her out of her gravity on the subject. Of course! what was it to him whether she was rich or poor; what did Cosmo care? So long as she loved him, was not that all he was thinking of? What would she have minded had she been told that he had nothing? Not one straw—not one farthing! But when this little prose personage, with her more practical views of the question, rubbed against Anne, there did come to her, quite suddenly, a little enlightenment. It was like one chill, but by no means depressing, ray of daylight bursting in through a crevice into the land of dreams. If he had no money, and she no money, what then? Then, notwithstanding all generosity and nobleness of affection, money certainly would have something to do with it. It would count among the things to be taken into consideration; count dolefully, in so far as it would keep them apart; yet count with stimulating force as a difficulty to be surmounted, an obstacle to be got the better of. When Mrs. Mountford put her head out of the window, and called them to come in out of the falling dews, Anne went upstairs very seriously, and shut the door of her room, and sat down in her favourite chair to think it out. Fathers and mothers are supposed to have an objection to long engagements; but girls, at all events at the outset of their career, do not entertain the same objection. Anne was still in the dreamy condition of youthful rapture, transported out of herself by the new light that had come into the world, so that the indispensable sequence of marriage did not present itself to her as it does to the practical-minded. It was a barrier of fact with which, in the meantime, she had nothing to do. She was not disappointed or depressed, because that was not the matter in question. It would come in time, no doubt, as the afternoon follows the morning, and autumn summer, but who would change the delights of the morning for the warmer, steady glory of three o’clock? though that also is very good in its way. She was quite resigned to the necessity of waiting, and not being married all at once. The contingency neither alarmed nor distressed her. Its immediate result was one which, indeed, most courses of thought produced in her mind at the present moment. If I had but thought, of that, she said to herself, before he went away! She would have liked to talk over the money question with Cosmo; to discuss it in all its bearings; to hear him say how little it mattered, and to plan how they could do without it; not absolutely without it, of course; but Anne’s active mind leaped at once at the thought of those systems of domestic economy which would be something quite new to study, which had not yet tempted her, but which would now have an interest such as no study ever had. And, on his side, there could be no doubt that the effort would be similar; in all likelihood even now (if he had thought of it) he was returning with enthusiasm to his work, saying to himself, ‘I have Anne to work for; I have my happiness to win.’ ‘He could never afford to marry if you had nothing. It is only your money that you could marry on; and if you had no money, what could you do?’ Anne smiled to herself at Rose’s wisdom; nay, laughed in the silence, in the dark, all by herself, with an outburst of private mirth. Rose—prose, she said to herself, as she had said often before. How little that little thing knew! but how could she know any better, being so young, and with no experience? The thrill of high exhilaration which had come to her own breast at the thought of this unperceived difficulty—the still higher impulse that no doubt had been given to Cosmo, putting spurs to his intellect, making impossibilities possible—a child like Rose could not understand those mysteries. By-and-by Anne reminded herself that, as the love of money was the root of all evil, so the want of it had been, not only no harm, but the greatest good. Painters, poets, people of genius of every kind had been stimulated by this wholesome prick. Had Shakespeare been rich? She threw her head aloft with a smile of conscious energy, and capacity, and power. No money! That would be the best way to make a life worth living. She faced all heroisms, all sacrifices, with a smile, and in a moment had gone through all the labours and privations of years. He, working so many hours at a stretch, bursting upon the world with the eloquence which was inspired by love and necessity; she, making a shabby room into a paradise of content, working for him with her own happy hands, carrying him through every despondency and difficulty. Good heavens! could any little idiot suppose that to settle down on a good income and never have any trouble would be half so delightful as this? Anne used strong language in the swelling of her breast.
It made her laugh with a little ridicule of herself, and a half sense that, if Rose’s tendency was prose, hers might perhaps be heroics, when it occurred to her that Cosmo, instead of rushing back to his work, had only intended to catch the Scotch mail, and that he was going to the Highlands to shoot; while she herself was expected in Mrs. Worth’s room to have her dress tried on for the Meadowlands’ party. But, after all, what did that matter? There was no hurry; it was still the Long Vacation, in which no man can work, and in the meantime there was no economy for her to begin upon.
The maid whom she and Rose shared between them, and whose name was Keziah, came to the door to call her when she had reached this point.
‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Anne,’ she said; ‘I didn’t know you had no lights.’
‘They were quite unnecessary, thank you,’ said Anne, rising up out of her meditations, calmed, yet with all the force of this new stimulus to her thoughts.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MEADOWLANDS’ PARTY.
It was a very large party—collected from all the quarters of England, or even it may be said of the globe, seeing there was a Russian princess and an American literary gentleman among the lists of the guests, as well as embracing the whole county, and everybody that had any claim to be affiliated into society there. Lady Meadowlands made a very liberal estimate of what could be called the society of the county—too liberal an estimate, many people thought. The clergy, everyone knows, must be present in force at every such function, and all their belongings, down to the youngest daughter who is out; but such a rule surely ought not to apply to country practitioners; and even to the brewer at Hunston, who, though he was rich, was nobody. Upon that point almost everybody made a stand, and it is to be feared that Mrs. and Miss Brewer did not enjoy themselves at the Castle. But these were drawbacks not fully realised till afterwards. The people who were aggrieved by the presence of the brewer’s family were those who themselves were not very sure of their standing, and who felt it was ‘no compliment’ to be asked when such persons were also acknowledged as within the mystic ring. Dr. Peacock’s wife and Miss Woodhead were the ladies who felt it most; though poor Mr. Peacock himself was considered by some to be quite as great a blot. All the roads in the neighbourhood of the Castle were as gay as if there had been a fair going on. The village turned out bodily to see the carriages and horses of the quality; though these fine people themselves were perhaps less admired by the rustics than the beautiful tall footman in powder who had come from town with Lady Prayrey Poule. But as every new arrival drove up, the excitement rose to a high pitch; even the soberest of people are moved by the sensation of multitude, the feeling of forming part of a distinguished crowd. And the day was fine, with a sunny haze hanging about the distance, reddening the sun and giving a warm indistinctness to the sky. The grounds at Meadowlands were fine, and the park very extensive. The house was a modern and handsome house, and at some distance from it stood an old castle in ruins, which was the greatest attraction of the place. Upon the lawns a great many ‘games’ were going on. I have already said that I have no certainty as to whether the games were croquet or lawn-tennis, not knowing or remembering when the one period ended and the other began. But they were enough in either case to supply lively groups of young persons in pretty dresses, and afford a little gentle amusement to the lookers-on, especially when those lookers-on were the parents or relations of the performers. The Mountford party held a half-way place in the hierarchy of Lady Meadowlands’ guests. They were, as has been said, a very old family, though their want of wealth had for some time made them less desirable neighbours than it is pleasant for members of an old family to be. And though the girls might, as was generally said, now ‘marry anybody,’ and consequently rise to any distinction, Mr. and Mrs. Mountford were not the kind of people whom it would have afforded the Princess Comatosky any pleasure to have presented to her, or who would have been looked upon as fine types of the English landed gentry by Mr. Greenwood, the American. But, on the other hand, they occupied a position very different from that of the rank and file, the people who, but for their professional position, would have had no right to appear in the heaven of county society at all. And Anne and Rose being pretty, and having the hope, one of a very good fortune, the other of a reasonable dot, were really in the first rank of young ladies without any drawbacks at all. Perhaps the reader will like to know what they wore on this interesting occasion. They were not dressed alike, as sisters so often are, without regard to individuality. After very serious thought, Mrs. Worth had decided that the roses of Rose wanted subduing, and had dressed her in Tussore silk, of the warm natural grass colour; while Anne, always much more easy to dress, as that artist said, was in an ivory-tinted cashmere, very plain and simple, which did all that was wanted for her slim and graceful figure. Rose had flouncelets and puffings beyond mortal power to record. Anne was better without the foreign aid of ornament. I don’t pretend to be so uninstructed as to require to describe a lady’s dress as only of ‘some soft white material.’ It was cashmere, and why shouldn’t one say so? For by this time a little autumn chill had set in, and even in the middle of the day it was no longer overpoweringly warm.
It is needless to say that the Ashleys were also there. These young men, though so constantly with the girls at home, had to relinquish their place a little when abroad, and especially when in more exalted company. Then it became apparent that Charley and Willie, though great friends, were not in any way of the same importance as Anne and Rose. They were not handsome, for one thing, or very clever or amusing—but only Charley and Willie Ashley, which was a title for friendship, but not for social advancement. And especially were they separated from Anne, whose climax of social advancement came when she was presented to the Princess Comatosky, who admired her eyes and her dress, the latter being a most unusual compliment. There was a fashionable party assembled in the house besides all the county people, and the Miss Mountfords were swept away into this brilliant sphere and introduced to everybody. Rose was a little abashed at first, and looked back with anxious eyes at her mother, who was seated on the edge of that higher circle, but not within it; but she soon got confidence. Anne, however, who was not so self-possessed, was excited by the fine company. Her complexion, which was generally pale, took a faint glow, her eyes became so bright that the old Russian lady grew quite enthusiastic. ‘I like a handsome girl,’ she said; ‘bring her back once more to speak to me.’ Mr. Greenwood, the American, was of the same opinion. He was not at all like the American author of twenty years ago, before we knew the species. He spoke as little through his nose as the best of us, and his manners were admirable. He was more refinedly English than an Englishman, more fastidious in his opposition to display and vulgarity, and his horror of loud tones and talk; and there was just a nuance of French politeness in his look and air. He was as exquisitely polite to the merest commoner as if he had been a crowned head, but at the same time it was one of the deepest certainties of his heart that he was only quite at home among people of title and in a noble house. Not all people of title: Mr. Greenwood had the finest discrimination and preferred at all times the best. But even he was pleased with Anne. ‘Miss Mountford is very inexperienced,’ he said, in his gentle way; ‘she does not know how to drop into a conversation or to drop out of it. Perhaps that is too fine an art to learn at twenty: but she is more like a lady than anyone else I see here.’ Lady Meadowlands, like most of the fashionable world, had a great respect for Mr. Greenwood’s opinion. ‘That is so much from you!’ she said gratefully; ‘and if you give her the advantage of seeing a little of you, it will do dear Anne the greatest good.’ Mr. Greenwood shook his head modestly, deprecating the possibility of conferring so much advantage, but he felt in his heart that it was true.
Thus Anne, for the first time in her life, had what may be called a veritable succès. We may perhaps consider the word naturalised by this time and call it a success. There was a certain expansion and brightening of all her faculties consequent upon the new step she had taken in life, of which no one had been conscious before, and the state of opposition in which she found herself to her family had given her just as much emancipation as became her, and gave force to all her attractions. She was not beautiful perhaps, nor would she have satisfied a critical examination; but both her face and figure had a certain nobility of line which impressed the spectator. Tall and light, and straight and strong, with nothing feeble or drooping about her, the girlish shyness to which she had been subject was not becoming to Anne. Rose, who was not shy, might have drooped her head as much as she pleased, but it did not suit her sister. And the fact that she had judged for herself, had chosen her own path, and made up her own mind, and more or less defied Fate and her father, had given just the inspiration it wanted to her face. She was shy still, which gave her a light and shade, an occasional gleam of timidity and alarm, which pleased the imagination. ‘I told you Anne Mountford would come out if she had the chance,’ Lady Meadowlands said to her lord. ‘What is this nonsense I hear about an engagement? Is there an engagement? What folly! before she has seen anybody or had any chance, as you say,’ said Lord Meadowlands to his lady. They were interested in Anne, and she was beyond question the girl who did them most credit of all their country neighbours, which also told for something in its way.
The Rev. Charles Ashley, in his most correct clerical coat, and a general starch of propriety about him altogether unlike the ease of his ordinary appearance, looked on from afar at this brilliant spectacle, but had not much share in it. Had there been anybody there who could have been specially of use to Charley—the new bishop for instance, who did not yet know his clergy, or the patron of a good living, or an official concerned with the Crown patronage, anyone who could have lent him a helping hand in his profession—no doubt Lady Meadowlands would have taken care to introduce the curate and speak a good word for him. But there being nobody of the kind present, Charley was left with the mob to get up a game on his own account and amuse the young ladies who were unimportant, who made up the mass of the assembly. And the young Ashleys both accepted this natural post, and paid such harmless attentions as were natural to the wives and daughters of other clergymen, and the other people whom they knew. They had no desire to be introduced to the Princess, or the other great persons who kept together, not knowing the county. But, while Willie threw himself with zeal into the amusements and the company provided, the curate kept his eyes upon the one figure, always at a distance, which was the chief point of interest for him.
‘I want to speak to Anne,’ he said to Rose, who was less inaccessible, who had not had so great a success; ‘if you see Anne, will you tell her I want to speak to her?’
‘Anne, Charley wants to speak to you,’ Rose said, as soon as she had an opportunity, in the hearing of everybody; and Anne turned and nodded with friendly assent over the chairs of the old ladies. But she did not make any haste to ask what he wanted. She took it with great ease, as not calling for any special attention. There would be abundant opportunities of hearing what Charley had to say. On the way home she could ask him what he wanted; or while they were waiting for the carriage; or even to-morrow, when he was sure to come to talk over the party, would no doubt be time enough. It would be something about the schools, or some girl or boy who wanted a place, or some old woman who was ill. ‘Anne, Charley says he must speak to you,’ said Rose again. But it was not till after she had received a third message that Anne really gave any attention to the call. ‘Cannot he tell you what he wants?—I will come as soon as I can,’ she said. Perhaps the curate was not so much distressed as he thought he was by her inattention. He watched her from a distance with his hands in his pockets. When he was accosted by other clergymen and country friends who were wandering about he replied to them, and even carried on little conversations, with his eyes upon her. Something grim and humorous, a kind of tender spitefulness, was in the look with which he regarded her. If she only knew! But it was her own fault if she did not know, not his. It gave him a kind of pleasure to see how she lingered, to perceive that her mind was fully occupied, and that she never divined the nature of his business with her. So far as his own action went he had done his duty, but he could not help a half chuckle, quickly suppressed, when he imagined within himself how Douglas would look if he saw how impossible it was to gain Anne’s attention. Did that mean, he asked in spite of himself, that after all she was not so much interested? Charley had felt sure that at the first word Anne would divine. ‘I should divine if a note of hers was on its way to me,’ he said to himself—and it pleased him that she never guessed that a letter from Cosmo was lying safe in the recesses of his pocket. When she came hastily towards him at last, a little breathless and hurried, and with only a moment to spare, there was no consciousness in Anne’s face.
‘What is it?’ she said—before the Woodheads! She would have said it before anybody, so entirely unsuspicious was she. ‘I must go back to the old lady,’ she added, with a little blush and smile, pleased in spite of herself by the distinction; ‘but, Rose told me you wanted me. Tell me what it is.’
He made elaborate signs to her with his eyebrows, and motions recommending precaution with his lips—confounding Anne completely. For poor Charley had heavy eyebrows, and thick lips, and his gestures were not graceful. She stared at him in unfeigned astonishment, and then, amused as well as bewildered, laughed. He enjoyed it all, though he pretended to be disconcerted. She looked as bright as ever, he said to himself. There was no appearance of trouble about her, or of longing uncertainty. She laughed just as of old, with that pleasant ring in the laughter which had always charmed him. The temptation crossed the curate’s mind, as she did not seem to want it, as she looked so much like her old self, as she showed no perception of what he had for her, to put the letter down a little deeper in his pocket, and not disturb her calm at all.
‘Oh yes,’ he said, as if he had suddenly recollected, ‘it was something I wanted to show you. Come down this path a little. You seem to be enjoying the party, Anne.’
‘Yes, well enough. It is pretty,’ she said, glancing over the pretty lawns covered with gaily-dressed groups. ‘Are you not enjoying yourself? I am so sorry. But you know everybody, or almost everybody here.’
‘Except your grand people,’ he said, with some malice.
‘My grand people! They are all nice whether they are grand or not, and the old lady is very funny. She has all kinds of strange old ornaments and crosses and charms mixed together. What is it, Charley? you are looking so serious, and I must go back as soon as I am able. Tell me what it is.’
‘Can’t you divine what it is?’ he said, with an air half reproachful, half triumphant.
She looked at him astonished; and then, suddenly taking fire from his look, her face kindled into colour and expectation and wondering eagerness. Poor curate! he had been pleased with her slowness to perceive, but he was not so pleased now when her whole countenance lighted under his eyes. He in his own person could never have brought any such light into her face. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then stood eager, facing him with the words arrested on her very lips.
‘Is it a message from——’ She paused, and a wave of scarlet came over her face up to her hair. Poor Charley Ashley! There was no want of the power to divine now. His little pleasant spitefulness, and his elation over what he considered her indifference, died in the twinkling of an eye.
‘It is more than a message,’ he said, thinking what an ass he was to doubt her, and what a traitor to be delighted by that doubt. ‘It is—a letter, Anne.’
She did not say anything—the colour grew deeper and deeper upon her face, the breath came quickly from her parted lips, and without a word she put out her hand.
Yes, of course, that was all—to give it her, and be done with it—what had he to do more with the incident? No honourable man would have wished to know more. To give it to her and to withdraw. It was nothing to him what was in the letter. He had no right to criticise. In the little bitterness which this feeling produced in him he wanted to say what, indeed, he had felt all along: that though he did not mind once, it would not suit his office to be the channel through which their communications were to flow. He wanted to say this now, whereas before he had only felt that he ought to say it; but in either case, under the look of Anne’s eyes, poor Charley could not say it. He put his hand in his pocket to get the letter, and of course he forgot in which pocket he had put it, and then became red and confused, as was natural. Anne for her part did not change her attitude. She stood with that look of sudden eagerness in her face—a blush that went away, leaving her quite pale, and then came back again—and her hand held out for the letter. How hot, how wretched he got, as he plunged into one pocket after another, with her eyes looking him through! ‘Anne,’ he stammered, when he found it at last, ‘I beg your pardon—I am very glad—to be of—any use. I like to do anything, anything for you! but—I am a clergyman——’
‘Oh, go away—please go away,’ said Anne. She had evidently paid no attention to what he said. She put him away even, unconsciously, with her hand. ‘Don’t let anyone come,’ she said, walking away from him round the next corner of the path. Then he heard her tear open the envelope. She had not paid any attention to his offer of service, but she had made use of it all the same, taking it for granted. The curate turned his back to her and walked a few steps in the other direction. She had told him not to let anyone come, and he would not let anyone come. He would have walked any intruders backward out of the sacred seclusion. Yet there he stood dumbfoundered, wounded, wondering why it was that Cosmo should have so much power and he so little. Cosmo got everything he wanted. To think that Anne’s face should change like that at his mere name, nay, at the merest suggestion of him!—it was wonderful. But it was hard too.
Anne’s heart was in her mouth as she read the letter. She did not take time to think about it, nor how it came there, nor of any unsuitableness in the way it reached her. It was to ask how they were to correspond, whether he was to be permitted to write to her. ‘I cannot think why we did not settle this before I left,’ Cosmo said; ‘I suppose the going away looked so like dying that nothing beyond it, except coming back again, seemed any alleviation.’ But this object of the letter did not strike Anne at first. She was unconscious of everything except the letter itself, and those words which she had never seen on paper in handwriting before. She had read something like it in books. Nothing but books could be the parallel of what was happening to her. ‘My dear and only love,’ that was in a poem somewhere Anne was certain, but Cosmo did not quote it out of any poem. It was the natural language; that was how she was to be addressed now, like Juliet. She had come to that state and dignity all at once, in a moment, without any doing of hers. She stood alone, unseen, behind the great tuft of bushes, while the curate kept watch lest anyone should come to disturb her, and all the old people sat round unseen, chatting and eating ices, while the young ones fluttered about the lawns. Nobody suspected with what a sudden, intense, and wondering perception of all the emotions she had fallen heir to, she stood under the shadow of the rhododendrons reading her letter; and nobody knew with what a sore but faithful heart the curate stood, turning his back to her, and protected her seclusion. It was a scene that was laughable, comical, pathetic, but pathetic more than all.
This incident coloured the whole scene to Anne, and gave it its character. She had almost forgotten the very existence of the old Princess when she went back. ‘Bring me that girl,’ the old lady said, in her excellent English, ‘bring me back that girl. She is the one I prefer. All the others they are demoiselles, but this is a woman.’ But when Anne was brought back at last the keen old lady saw the difference at once. ‘Something has happened,’ she said; ‘what has happened, my all-beautiful? someone has been making you a proposal of marriage. That comes of your English customs which you approve so much. To me it is intolerable; imagine a man having the permission in society to startle this child with an emotion like that.’ She pronounced emotion and all similar words as if they had been in the French language. Anne protested vainly that no such emotion had fallen to her share. Mr. Greenwood agreed with the Princess, though he did not express himself so frankly. Could it be the curate? he thought, elevating his eyebrows. He was a man of experience, and knew how the most unlikely being is sometimes gifted to produce such an emotion in the fairest bosom.
CHAPTER IX.
COSMO.
It is time to let the reader of this story know who Cosmo Douglas was, whose appearance had made so great a commotion at Mount. He was—nobody. This was a fact that Mr. Mountford had very soon elicited by his inquiries. He did not belong to any known house of Douglasses under the sun. It may be said that there was something fair in Cosmo’s frank confession on this point, put perhaps it would be more true to say that it showed the good sense which was certainly one of his characteristics; for any delusion that he might have encouraged or consented to in this respect must have been found out very shortly, and it would only have been to his discredit to claim good connections which did not belong to him. ‘Honesty is the best policy’ he had said to himself, and therefore he had been honest. Nevertheless it was a standing mystery to Cosmo that he was nobody. He could not understand it. It had been a trouble to him all his life. How was he inferior to the other people who had good connections? He had received the same kind of education, he had the same kind of habits, he was as much a ‘gentleman,’ that curious English distinction which means everything and nothing, as any of them. He did not even feel within himself the healthy thrill of opposition with which the lowly born sometimes scorn the supposed superiority of blue blood. He for his part had something in his heart which entirely coincided with that superstition. Instinctively he preferred for himself that his friends should be well born. He had as natural a predilection that way as if his shield held ever so many quarterings; and it was terrible to know that he had no right to any shield at all. In his boyhood he had accepted the crest which his father wore at his watchchain, and had stamped upon his spoons and forks, with undoubting faith, as if it had descended straight from the Crusaders; and when he had read of the ‘dark grey man’ in early Scotch history, and of that Lord James who carried Bruce’s heart to the Holy Land, there was a swell of pride within him, and he had no doubt that they were his ancestors. But as he grew older it dawned upon Cosmo that his father had assumed the bleeding heart because he found it represented in the old book of heraldry as the cognisance of the Douglasses, and not because he had any hereditary right to it—and, indeed, the fact was that good Mr. Douglas knew no better. He thought in all simplicity that his name entitled him to the symbol which was connected with the name, and that all those great people so far off from the present day were ‘no doubt’ his ancestors, though it was too far back to be able to tell.
Mr. Douglas himself was a man of the highest respectability. He was the managing clerk in a solicitor’s office, with a good salary, and the entire confidence of his employers. Perhaps he might even have been a partner had he been of a bolder temper; but he was afraid of responsibility, and had no desire, he said, to assume a different position, or rise in the social scale. That would be for Cosmo, he added, within himself. He had lost his wife at a very early period, when Cosmo was still a child, and upon the boy all his father’s hopes were built. He gave him ‘every advantage.’ For himself he lived very quietly in a house with a garden out Hampstead way, a small house capable of being managed by one respectable woman-servant, who had been with him for years, and a young girl under her, or sometimes a boy, when she could be persuaded to put up with one of these more objectionable creatures. But Cosmo had everything that was supposed to be best for an English young man. He was at Westminster School, and so received into the fraternity of ‘public school men,’ which is a distinct class in England; and then he went to the University. When he took his degree he studied for the bar. Both at Oxford and Lincoln’s Inn he was ‘in for’ all his examinations in company with the son of his father’s employer; but it was Cosmo who was the most promising student always, and the most popular man. He had the air and the bearing, the ‘je ne sçais quoi’ which is supposed to indicate ‘family,’ though he was of no family. Nothing ever was more perplexing. He could not understand it himself. What was it that made this wonderful difference? When he looked at Charley Ashley a smile would sometimes steal over his countenance. In that point of view the prejudice certainly showed its full absurdity. Charley was his retainer, his faithful follower—his dog, in a way. But Mr. Mountford, though he would probably have thought Charley not a suitable match for his daughter, would not have looked upon him with the same puzzled air as on a creature of a different species, with which he regarded the suitor who was nobody. When this contrast struck him, no doubt Cosmo smiled with a little bitterness. Charley had connections among all the little squires of the district. He had an uncle here and there whose name was in some undistinguished list or other—the ‘Gentry of Great Britain’ or some other such beadroll. But Cosmo had no link at all to the classes who consider themselves the natural masters of the world.
If you will think of it, it was as troublesome and unpleasant a position as could be conceived—to have all that makes a gentleman and to be a gentleman, fully considered and received as such, yet upon close investigation to be found to be nobody, and have all your other qualities ignored in consequence. It was hard—it was a complicating, perplexing grievance, such as could only occur in the most artificial state of society. In the middle ages, if a man ‘rose,’ it was by dint of hard blows, and people were afraid of him. But ‘rising in the world’ had a very different meaning in Cosmo’s case. He had always known what it was to be carefully tended, daintily fed, clothed with the best of clothes—as well as a duke’s son need have been. He had all the books to read which any duke’s son could have set his face to; and though the Hampstead rooms were small, and might have looked poky had there been a family cooped up in them, Cosmo and his father had felt no want of space nor of comfort. Even that little Hampstead house was now a thing of the past. Mr. Douglas had died, though still not much beyond middle age, and Cosmo had his chambers, like any other young barrister, and several clubs, and all the ‘advantages’ which his father had sworn he should have. He had a little money, and a little practice, and was ‘getting on.’ If he was not in fashionable society, he was yet in an excellent ‘set’—rising barristers, literary people, all rising too, people of reputation, people who suppose themselves to sway the world, and who certainly direct a great deal of its public talk, and carry a large silent background of its population with them. He was very well thought of among this class, went out a great deal into society, knew a great many people whom it is supposed something to know—and yet he was nobody. The merest clown could have confused him at any time by asking, ‘Which is your county, Douglas?’ Poor Cosmo had no county. He took the deficiency admirably, it is needless to say, and never shirked the truth when there was any need to tell it. In the majority of cases it was not at all necessary to tell it; but yet his friends knew well enough that he had no relations to give him shooting, or ask him during the hunting season; no district had any claim upon him, nor he upon it. A man may love his home when it has never been anywhere but in Hampstead. But it makes a great difference—even when his friends make up the deficiencies of family to him, and invite him, as he had this year been invited, to share the delights of a Scotch moor—still it makes a great difference. And when it is a matter of matrimony, and of producing his proofs of gentility, and of being a fit person to marry Anne Mountford, then the difference shows most of all.
When Cosmo attained that perfect freedom from all ties, and power of roaming wherever he pleased, without any clog to draw him back, which was involved in his father’s death (though it may be said for him that this was an event which he deeply regretted) he made up his mind that he would not marry, at least until he had reached sufficient distinction in his profession to make him somebody, quite independent of connections. But then he had not seen Anne Mountford. With her, without any secondary motives, he had fallen honestly and heartily in love, a love which he would, however, have managed to quench and get the better of, had it not turned out upon inquiry that Anne was one whom it was entirely permissible to love, and who could help him, not hold him back in the career of success. He had, however, many discussions with himself before he permitted himself to indulge his inclinations. He had felt that with people like the Mountfords the fact that he was nobody would tell with double power; and, indeed, if he had ever been tempted to invent a family of Douglasses of Somewhere-or-other, it was now. He had almost been led into doing this. He had even half-prepared a little romance, which no doubt Mr. Mountford, he thought, would have swallowed, of a ruined house dwindled away to its last representative, which had lost lands and even name in one of the rebellions. He had not chosen which rebellion, but he had made up the story otherwise with great enjoyment and a fine sense of its fitness: when that modern quality which for want of a better name we call a sense of humour stopped him. For a man of his time, a man of his enlightened opinions, a member of a liberal profession, a high-bred (if not high-born) Englishman to seek importance from a silly little school-girl romance was too absurd. He could not do it. He laughed aloud at himself with a little flush of shame on his countenance, and tossed away the fiction. But what a thing it would have been for Cosmo if the tumbledown old house which he had invented and the bit of school-girl fiction had been true! They became almost such to him, so strongly did he feel that they would exactly fit his case. ‘They would have been as stupid probably as—Mr. Mountford,’ Cosmo said to himself, ‘and pig-headed into the bargain, or they never would have thrown away everything for a gingerbread adventurer like Prince Charley—rude Lowland rustics talking broad Scotch, not even endowed with the mystery of Gaelic. But to be sure I might have made them Celts, and the Lord of Mount would not have been a whit the wiser. I think I can see a snuffy old laird in a blue bonnet, and a lumbering young lout scratching his red head. And these be your gods, oh Israel! I don’t think I should have been much the better of such ancestors.’ But nevertheless he felt in his heart that he would have been much the better for them. Other men might despise them, but Cosmo would have liked to believe in those Douglasses who had never existed. However, though he had invented them, he could not make use of them. It would have been too absurd. He laughed and reddened a little, and let them drop; and with a perfectly open and composed countenance informed Mr. Mountford that he was nobody and sprang from no known Douglasses at all. It was a kind of heroism in its way, the heroism of good sense, the influence of that wholesome horror of the ridiculous which is one of the strongest agencies of modern life.