CHAPTER IV.
IN THE GROTTO.
JOHN TINCROFT soon got tired of the cricket ground, and retraced his steps to the now deserted lawn. The sun was near setting, but it was shining hotly nevertheless; and the poor student, wearied with his day's exertions, and somewhat perturbed in spirit as well, betook himself to a cool grotto in a remote part of the grounds, which Richard Grigson had had constructed for his own especial pleasure.
The grotto was not only cool, but secluded. It was built of rough stones, after the manner of an ancient ruin, only, unlike ruins in general, it was snugly roofed in, and was weather-tight. It consisted of two chambers, the inner one—which was accessible from the outer by a low archway—being fitted up with some regard to comfort. Among the accessories were a soft couch and a rough rustic table; also a locker, in which were the materials, if required, for the creature enjoyments of smoking and so forth.
Tincroft was not a smoker, nor did he care at that time for treating himself hospitably, though a half-emptied bottle of pale sherry end a tumbler might have tempted one who was so inclined. As it was, he merely stretched himself comfortably on his friend's couch, wondering what pleasure could be found in entertaining a parcel of rustics, and thinking that the life of a country gentleman, and a landlord to boot, was not without its drawbacks, till his memory went back to the pretty girl in pink bows and fair curls, and his own disconsolate condition.
Finally, he dropped off into a sound slumber, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot."
Was it a dream? It seemed like one; and yet, when the sleeper lazily roused himself, and half raised himself on his elbow, something like the following dialogue fell upon his ear.
It should be noted that by this time the sun had disappeared below the horizon, and the fast gathering twilight was, within the walls of the grotto or hermitage, intensified into a deeper gloom. The voices came through the low archway, and the speakers, whomsoever they might be, had evidently taken up their positions in the outer chamber.
"And now we have come together, we don't part, miss, till I have told you a bit of my mind." The voice of this speaker was firm and strong and rough, though feminine. To whom it belonged, the unintentional listener could only guess. He had heard the same voice, however, in almost equally harsh and loud tones, that same afternoon.
"It is very cruel of you, Elizabeth, to treat me so," was said in reply, by another female speaker, and, as it seemed to John, in piteous remonstrance. At any rate, the tones had a musical softness and pathos which smote upon the listener's heart.
"It isn't cruel," said the first speaker; "it is only straightforward and honest, and that is what I mean to be."
"Such friends as we used to be, Elizabeth," sobbed the second interlocutor.
"And may be again, if you will only be sensible, and give up Walter, as you ought to do."
"I won't, I won't, I won't!" cried the weaker one. "And to think of your wanting me to do this, when you were the first to—to—to make him fall in love with me."
"I didn't do anything of the sort," rejoined the other, promptly; "and if I did," she added with a little inconsistency and self-contradiction, "it was when we were both children, and I did not know any better."
"And you are grown wiser since then, cousin—do you mean to say that?" asked the harassed one, with a little more spirit than before—for which John applauded her in his heart. He understood it all now.
"Yes, I am grown wiser, miss," replied Elizabeth. "I didn't know then how your father was robbing my father and all of us."
"It isn't robbing. Father borrowed the money, and if he could pay it back, he would; and if he can't, he can't."
"And why can't he? What's he always getting drunk for? That isn't the way to get on, and to pay his debts, I reckon; is it? And your mother, too—"
"I won't hear you talk like that—I won't; no, I won't!" cried the unhappy girl, desperately. "Let me go, Elizabeth."
There seemed then, to Tincroft, as though there were a slight scuffle; but while he hesitated whether or not to make his presence known by some audible token, it ceased, and the conversation was resumed.
"There, there, I didn't mean to hurt you, Sarah," were the first words spoken, and in response, as it appeared, to the pantings and hysterical sobs of the weaker girl—"and I don't believe I have. But I have not said what I had to say to you, and I mean to say it."
"You may say what you like now, Elizabeth."
"I don't mean to say anything more about uncle Mark and aunt," the other went on; "because I know as well as you do, that you can't help that. And you and I might be as good friends as ever, Sarah, if you would only be sensible, as I said before, and see things as you ought. Now look, dear—"
(Oh, thought John Tincroft, in his concealment—dear, too! When women begin to call one another dear, it looks ominous. So I have heard. Not that I know anything about it. How should I?)
"Now, look, dear; you know you can't be Walter's wife—"
"I don't know anything of the sort," said Sarah.
"Not for a long time, not for years and years, if ever."
"I'll wait, and so will he," replied the poor baited girl, bravely; but with a perceptible tremulousness of voice, nevertheless.
"Ah, you think so now; but I know better. I won't say anything about you, dear; but I know Walter better than you do. He made up to you because you took his fancy. But such fancies don't last long. Look at Mr. Elliston, of the Mumbles; he was all hot for Miss Summerfield, as you know. But he didn't have her, not he. He saw somebody richer, and so he turned off his Laura—and glad enough she is of it now. And it will be just the same with Walter and you."
"You can go on, and say what you like," said Sarah, panting for breath.
John Tincroft began to feel more uncomfortable in being the involuntary hearer of all this family difference.
"Yes, I mean to, Sarah," continued the stronger-minded cousin. "It will be just the same with Walter, I say. Why, there's Miss Burgess, Mary Burgess he calls her, Ralph Burgess's sister, who keeps house for her brother—you should read what Walter writes about her."
"It isn't true—it isn't!" almost screamed the tortured girl. "It's all stories you are telling, you good-for-nothing thing, you!"
"And she has got money," the torturer went on, without noticing the contradiction, or caring for the agony she might possibly be inflicting; "and why shouldn't Walter have it?"
"Let him have it—let him!" cried poor Sarah.
"That's what I say, dear; let him have it. Why shouldn't he? I declare if I was in your place, I should write and tell him so at once. I think it would be very selfish in you to try to keep him dangling after you when he has the chance of bettering himself. Don't you see it in that light, dear?"
"Have you got anything more to say, Elizabeth?" asked the other, faintly.
"No, I think that's pretty much all I have to say now."
"Then please go, and let me alone. Go, go!" she added, more vehemently.
And then there was a sound of departing footsteps faintly echoing in the inner grotto, and reaching John's ears. Then followed a low wailing cry, and after that there was silence.
How long the involuntary eavesdropper remained in concealment after the conversation ended, he never exactly knew, for strange thoughts and feelings rushed unbidden into his mind and made him oblivious to the flight of time. From these meditations, whatever their import, he was presently roused by distant shouts which proclaimed that the cricket match in the meadow was concluded, and that the players, with the spectators, were returning to the lawn.
Not caring to be missed at the breaking up of the party, Tincroft roused himself from his lair and prepared to leave the grotto. And then he was surprised to find how rapidly the shades of evening had drawn on, so that even the entrance chamber, which opened upon the lawn, was in semi-darkness.
It was not so wrapped in gloom, however, but that while rapidly passing through it, his steps were suddenly arrested by what at first appeared to be a bundle of white clothes in an angle close to the doorway.
In another moment he had made a further discovery, which turned back his thoughts to the conversation he had overheard, and quickened the current of blood in his veins. In yet another moment, he was clumsily but anxiously endeavouring to raise the insensible form of the poor girl from whose lips had broken the low wail of distress which had just now fallen so sorrowfully on his ear.
Succeeding at last in his endeavours to raise the young person, and to place her in a reclining position, John looked around him for help. It was plain that she had fainted, and it was necessary that some means should be adopted for her restoration. But there was no help at hand: the grotto was, as we have said, in a distant as well as secluded part of the pleasure-grounds; and the company were, as Tincroft knew, now gathering together into the hall of the Manor House for the parting cup and their host's hearty farewell.
There was no one near the grotto, therefore, and had there been, John Tincroft would, naturally enough, considering his inbred shyness, have shrunk from exposing himself to probable jokes, if not to unjust suspicion, by his merely accidental proximity to, and discovery of, the fainting damsel.
Driven then to his own unaided resources, John bethought him of untying the bonnet strings, which evidently impeded the free circulation of blood in the swollen veins. So far, good. Then the clumsy fingers, trembling a little at their unaccustomed task, loosened a kerchief which was fastened round the unconscious girl's neck with a gaudy brooch. These operations seemed to give some little relief, for a gentle sigh was heard; still the eyes remained half closed, and there was no further sign of returning animation.
"What shall I do next?" muttered John, in perplexity. "I have heard that cutting the stay laces—but that will never do. Ah! I have it," he said, as a sudden thought seized him, and in less time than it takes to tell, he had dived under the low archway into the cool retreat, and as speedily reappeared, bearing in his hand a half-tumbler of the precious hoard from Richard Grigson's locker. Filling it up with cold water, he moistened the lips of the poor girl with the liquid, and then, by slow degrees, insinuated the edge of the tumbler between them, himself trembling the while still more violently, as though he were perpetrating an awful crime.
"If Tom or anybody were to find me at this sort of work, I should never hear the last of it," he murmured.
But for all his craven fears, he did not desist in his endeavours till a half-choking, gurgling sound in the poor girl's throat warned him that it was time to withdraw the tumbler from her lips, and to devise some other method, if he could, for calling back the lost senses. Happily for the clumsy nurse, before he could proceed to further extremities, the damsel began to breathe more freely; then the closed eyes opened, and, finally, an outbreak of hysterical cries and a flood of tears proclaimed that the long fainting fit was over.
"Oh! Where am I? What has been happening?" asked Sarah, wildly, when she found herself half-reclining against the wall of the hermitage, and half-supported by the arm of a stranger.
John Tincroft briefly explained that he had accidentally found her on the floor of the grotto, and in what state; and that he had, as far as lay in his power, enacted the part of the Good Samaritan. He did not think it necessary to add that he had heard the previous conversation of the two cousins.
It was very kind of him, then, the maiden said, and she was afraid she had given him a great deal of trouble.
"A great pleasure to be of any use to you, I am sure," stammered John, scarcely knowing what he said, and whether he ought not now to draw in the arm and shoulder against which the patient was yet leaning.
She saved him the trouble by staggering in a frightened way to her feet, and adjusting her bonnet strings, and then by making an effort to step into the outer air. It was beyond her strength, however, and she sank back on to the bench from which she had before risen, once more crying violently.
Again John was at his wits' ends; but as his remedy had previously been successful, there was nothing better to do, he thought, than to replenish the tumbler.
"You had better drink a little of this," said he, once more by her side.
The damsel obeyed.
"And then, when you are able to walk, I will—You don't live far from here, I suppose?" continued John, as he stood watching her.
By this time the restorative had produced its effect, and the rustic beauty's colour had partially returned to her cheeks.
"I live at High Beech Farm," said she; "and it is time I was there. My father and mother went home long ago, and—oh, dear!"
She was once more on her feet, and anxiously looking out at the darkening landscape.
"It is a fine evening," said John; "and I'll—yes, if you will accept my help, I'll walk home with you. You are not well enough to be by yourself. You might have another fit on the road, you know. You must take my arm, and I'll see you safe, miss."
CHAPTER V.
THE MAELSTROM.
IN some part of the world, no matter where, is said to be a terrible whirlpool, which engulfs all sea-going craft which come within its influence. At certain states of the tide, we are told, this whirlpool is no whirlpool, but a tranquil though deceitful sea. Gradually, however, as the tide changes, the waves rise high, their circular movement commences, and woe then to the stoutest ship ever built, if driven by the winds, or lucklessly steered near the outer circumference of its vortex. Once within the fatal attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried down, and beaten to pieces against the rocks below.
Something like this is sometimes known to happen in the experiences of poor humanity. Not exactly, for no man is driven by irresistible force, despite his own will, to inevitable destruction, nor even into folly. However, as neither figures, similes, nor parables ever run upon all-fours, nor ever will, it is enough to say that there is a maelstrom of the passions in human life which does often draw the unthinking or unresisting mariner out of his course, and sometimes woefully shatters his barque. Happy are they who have wisdom to avoid even the appearance of evil!
Happiest of all when they have Divine grace given them in all their ways to acknowledge Him who is the source of wisdom, and to seek His direction and pilotage.
There were no more Oriental studies for John Tincroft now, or at most they were few and far between, unless indeed, he cultivated them in his walks between the Manor House and High Beech Farm.
Of course he had walked home on the evening of the picnic with the distressed damsel whom he had taken under his protection.
"What else, as a gentleman, could I do?" said the clumsy fellow, when afterwards rallied by his host and his college friend on the adventures of that night, which he was, sorely against his will, compelled partly to recount, to account for his late return.
He did not think it necessary, however, to tell how the maiden had, innocently enough—have I not said that Sarah was not gifted with superfluous intellect and strength of mind, and was as little of a heroine as was ever to be found in a true story or out of it?—so she had innocently enough, in that slow and faltering walk to High Beech Farm, disclosed to John the immediate cause of her fainting fit. Not that John had not in part known it before; but his indignation was roused against the poor girl's persecutors (as she deemed them), all and sundry, as they reached his ear through the medium of her soft and plaintive voice. Ah! John Tincroft, you are on the margin of the maelstrom now; but you do not know it.
Of course, when they reached the farmhouse, John was hesitatingly invited to step in and rest himself, which he did not do, however, for which Sarah was thankful, perhaps, when she found her father in one of his fits of drunken ill-humour, and ready to quarrel with anybody who came in his way. After this invitation, however, it seemed the more incumbent on the awkward youth, who had the instincts of a gentleman for all that, to step over the next morning to ask after the health and welfare of his "partner."
As the fates would have it—the expression is no doubt heathenish, as there are no such things or principles as the fates—as accident, then—and this is almost as bad, but let it pass—accidentally, then, Mark Wilson was within, and (a rare thing for him) happened to be in a good humour. He made "the gentleman from college" welcome, took him over his small farm, insisted on his staying to lunch, treated him to some home-brewed, which John thought execrable, but did not say so; and, finally, invited him to come again as often as it pleased him.
After that it did please John Tincroft to repeat his visits every day. Sometimes, he found Mark in the sulks, and sometimes he did not. Occasionally, he noticed a peculiar thickness and hesitancy in the farmer's speech (which he attributed to a severe cold in his head and throat, and John believed it); and then, on the next occasion, he seemed to have recovered from the distressing complaint.
Sometimes John—the infatuated youth—found Sarah deep in domestic duties, which never, however, prevented his obtaining a glimpse of her pretty face, and her pretty hands, which, if they were floury and pasty, he admired all the more for having been usefully employed.
Sometimes, he found the maiden free, and at liberty to receive him in the little shabbily-furnished parlour, where, seated on a high-backed slippery-seated mahogany, horse-haired chair, he could equally admire those pretty fingers, armed with a darning-needle and worsted thread, working in and out, in the intricacies of a stocking-web. At these times our hero, who was as little guilty of being a hero as the silently admired one was of the slightest approach to a heroine, enacted to perfection the part of the Laird of Dumbiedykes (if my readers have ever heard of such a personage). Who can doubt, though, that the maelstrom current was getting powerful now?
"And oh, Walter," wrote Sarah Wilson to her distant cousin and lover
(I must correct the bad spelling and false English)—"oh, Walter, there
is such a funny man comes hanging about here. His name is Tincroft,
and he came to these parts with young Mr. Grigson from Oxford College,
and he is up at the Manor House for all the long holidays. That isn't
what they call it, though. I forget what the word is, but that's what
it means. And father has taken a fancy to Mr. Tincroft, and brings him
here every day, and sometimes twice a day, and more than that. And he
takes him over the farm, and brings him in to lunch very often, and tea
sometimes, and you cannot think what a stupid he is, though he is a
college gentleman; and they say he is going over to India soon to hunt
tigers. He hunts tigers, too! I should say he has never hunted a fox
yet, nor yet a rat."
"You should only see him—Mr. Tincroft, I mean—when he comes in, and
stops an hour, and sometimes more, and father isn't in the way, and
poor mother is lying down, as you know she always does in the afternoon,
and there's nobody but me to keep him company. You would laugh to see
how he sits and stares, and looks as if he couldn't say Boo to a goose,
and is ready to go into fits with our hard-bottomed chairs—I always put
the hardest, knobbiest for him, dear; but he seems as if he was stuck
to it with glue. You can't think what a donkey he is. But he is to be
a rich man some day—so father says he says—if he can get an estate as
rightfully belongs to him, only it is locked up in some London
law-courts now."
"But what does this all matter to you and me, Walter, dear? Only I
sometimes wish we had such a chance of an estate; wouldn't, we," etc.
etc. etc.
And then the letter went on in this wise: "We don't get on any better
at home, Walter. You know what father is; and poor mother gets weaker
and weaker, I think. And as to the farm, it is all going to rack and
ruin. Mr. Grigson came in the other day, and had high words with father
about it. He said he wouldn't stand having his land kept down in such a
ruination state, and that if father wouldn't farm it better, somebody
else must be got to do it. And what's worse than this, he said—the
squire, I mean—that he must and will have his rent paid up punctual, or
he shall distrain. Now I know there has been no rent paid the last year
and a half. And what is worse still, I know that father can't pay it.
And the squire says that if it isn't paid up by Christmas, there shall
be an end of it. Oh, Walter, what are we to do?"
Then the letter further went on: "I have not seen much of uncle
Matthew and aunt and cousin lately, and don't want to. I know they are
doing all they can to set you against me. And it is too bad of them,
Elizabeth and all; but they shan't do it, they shan't—"
I shall spare my readers what follows. There are hundreds of such letters written every day, and will be so long as pen, ink, and paper are to be had for love or money.
Is it travelling out of the regular course of ordinary story-telling to say that Walter Wilson was not altogether pleased with the letter I have just transcribed when he received it? Lovers are naturally suspicious; and Walter did not half like the idea of a young college man from Oxford being always dangling about, and having the range of his own special preserve, as he might have said. Perhaps he was none the less displeased with the contents of the letter for its referring, in a postscript, to a certain Mary Burgess already mentioned; and in a tone of jealousy, too, which the writer had not cared to suppress.
"Sarah knows very well that Mary Burgess is nothing to me," said he bitterly to himself. "But while she keeps house for Ralph, how can I help being sometimes in her company? It is different with her and that puppy Tincroft," he added; "and I am half a mind to write and tell her so."
It would, upon the whole, have been better for Sarah to have left out that postscript, and to have filled up her sheet of letter-paper by telling how she first became acquainted with the shy and awkward collegian. At least, as it afterwards turned out, she laid herself open to additional suspicion by this reticence. We pass this matter by for the present, however.
No doubt the other part of Sarah's letter, as I have transcribed it,—the part, I mean referring to her troubles and apprehensions,—in some degree moved her cousin's sorrow and pity. But he had heard these or similar complaints so often, and he knew so well that the inevitable end could not be very much longer staved off, that they did not produce so much effect upon him as might otherwise have been expected. If eels get so used to skinning that they do not much mind it—which possibly might be the case if the operation could be repeated on the same individual eel—it is equally certain that, after a time, we become accustomed to wails of distress from our friends when often reiterated.
To return to the main branch of our narrative. John Tincroft knew nothing of the commotion he, in his innocence, was causing, and was equally insensible to the fact that the whirlpool beneath his frail bark of human nature was increasing in velocity and deepening. He felt no alarm, therefore, but, contrariwise, rather enjoyed the new sensations springing up within him by the novel quickening of his dull capacity for pleasure, accompanied as this was by his partially laying aside his abstruse researches into Oriental literature. As to those new sensations, he could not have given them a name if he had tried.
To be sure, his friends at the Manor House had given them a name in their daily quizzical, good-natured badinage concerning John's change of habits. But then, as John remarked, it was too preposterous and absurd. As to Tom Grigson, he was always fond of his jokes; and his elder brother did not seem to be far behind him in this respect.
The matter looked more serious, though, when one day about a month after the picnic, John Tincroft, either accidentally or designedly on one part, fell in with the clergyman of whom previous mention has been made. John was returning from one of his morning walks to High Beech Farm when the rencontre took place.
"You are fond of taking exercise, Mr. Tincroft," observed the reverend gentleman.
"I don't know; not particularly, I think, Mr. Rubric," said John, with his accustomed innocent awkwardness. "At least," added he, "not till lately. I have taken more exercise of late, I think."
"And a very good thing too, if taken discreetly. You Oxford men are not always good judges, though, of how and when and where to take it. Do you think you are?"
"I beg pardon, sir," said John; "but I—I don't quite understand you."
"No! May I give you a hint, then, without offence? I am an older man than you, Mr. Tincroft," remarked Mr. Rubric, gravely but good-humouredly.
"I shall be happy, I am sure, and obliged also," answered Tincroft.
"Thank you; then I'll speak. You are coming from High Beech, I see."
"True, sir; yes, I am," said John.
"Don't you think it would be wise occasionally to vary the direction? There are more points of the compass than one."
"I have not thought about it, Mr. Rubric," said John.
"I daresay not. I thought as much, Mr. Tincroft. But will you allow me to suggest that we have some delightful scenery in quite the opposite direction. The One Tree Hill, for instance. Why, you can see seven counties from the summit of that hill—on a fine day, at least."
"Dear me! I wasn't aware of that," said John.
"And another thing," continued the parson; "I should say that High Beech is—ahem!—is, in some respects, unhealthy. I am afraid your constant excursions in that direction are not doing you any good."
"Oh!" said John, with a start, for he was rather fidgety about his health. "Do you really think so? It has never struck me in that light. I fancied I was all the better for taking more exercise. I find I can get over the ground a good deal easier than I could a month ago. And I have a better appetite too. So I am rather surprised to hear you speak of High Beech being unhealthy."
"I must speak out," thought Mr. Rubric to himself. "What a nuisance it is to have to do with men who can't understand metaphors." He did not say this, of course, but went on another tack.
"Mr. Tincroft," said he, "when I was at Oxford, and that is forty years ago, I had a young friend in the same college—I should rather say, hall. I am a Pembroke Hall man. Well, we were very close companions, and I believe we had a strong regard for each other. There came a time, however, when our friendship was to be broken in twain. It came about in this wise. We used to take long walks together, and a favourite walk of ours was to the Hinkseys. You know the Hinkseys, Mr. Tincroft?"
Yes, John knew the Hinkseys, and said so.
"There was a snug little hostelry in one of the Hinkseys, and, as was natural enough in young men in those days, though not over-wise; when we were tired, and hot with walking, we sometimes called in at this village inn for refreshment. I daresay you have done such a thing yourself, now and then, Mr. Tincroft, in your walks round Oxford?"
"I—I can't say that I have, sir," said John, hesitatingly. "Not that I should think it improper," he added, by way of salvo for the grey-headed clergyman; "but the truth is, I don't often take walks round Oxford."
"Ah! That accounts—and—but, at any rate, we did, and, as I tell you, we got too fond of the walk to the Hinkseys, and to dropping in at the little inn. At least, my friend did."
"Ah! I see," remarked John Tincroft, who thought he did see, but he didn't. "Your poor friend got to be too fond of—of what you call refreshments. I am sorry, I am sure."
Mr. Rubric smiled sadly. "That would have been sad enough," he said; "but that was not the rock on which he split. Didn't I say there was a rock? At any rate, there was a pretty innocent-looking young person at that little inn, who officiated as barmaid. There—can you not guess the rest?"
No, John couldn't guess, so he declared.
"We quarrelled about that young person. I told my friend he was going wrong; and we had high words and parted. Poor Frank! He was a high-spirited, noble fellow, and in one way, I wronged him. But he did a foolish thing, for all that. He went again and again. He meant to be honourable, he said; and so he was, to the backbone. He made love to the maiden, and after years and years of waiting, he married her. It was a love match from beginning to end."
"I daresay they were happy, though," said John, dreamily, "and if they were—"
"But they were not. They were ill-assorted, to begin with. Then all Frank's prospects for life were blasted; and, in short, the affair ended miserably. And now, Mr. Tincroft," added the rector, after a short silence, "you must excuse the freedom I have taken in mentioning this old and not very uncommon story to you."
"Oh, certainly, certainly! On the other hand, much obliged," said John; but all the time he couldn't help wondering why the rather precise old clergyman should have brought up this old story, and what in the world it had to do with the unhealthiness of High Beech. While pondering this in his slow mind, his thoughts were broken in upon with—
"If I were you, Mr. Tincroft, I wouldn't go near Beech Farm again."
"Do you really mean on account of its being—"
"Of its being an unhealthy spot for you to ruralise in," said Mr. Rubric, taking up the words. "You don't know what harm you may be doing," he added.
"Harm!"
"Yes, harm. You go there to see Miss Wilson—Sarah Wilson—do you not?"
"Dear me, sir! Not that I am aware of," replied John, aghast.
"Just so. But for all that I am afraid that young lady is the attraction. Now, listen to me. That young—young person is already engaged, as I suppose you are aware."
Yes, John was aware of the fact.
"And people about here are beginning to talk of your constant visits to the farm. You do not wish to do that young person an injury, I am sure."
"An injury to that young person! I beg your pardon, Mr. Rubric; but what could make you think of such a thing?"
"You are doing her an injury, without intending it," said the rector, gravely.
And then he went on to tell (what John already knew) of Sarah Wilson's unhappy home, of her engagement with her cousin, and of the opposition to this engagement on the part of the young man's friends. He also told (what John did not know) of the actual insolvency and prospective ruin of Mark Wilson.
"Nothing can save him," continued Mr. Rubric; "his unhappy vice has dragged him down, and will sink him still lower; and his wife too—for they are almost both alike. But the daughter may be saved, though it is the strong arm of a husband must do this. And, Mr. Tincroft, you cannot be that husband."
"No, sir; no, no, no; of course not," exclaimed John, turning hot, as the plain speaking of the rector opened a way into his dull comprehension. "Of course not," said he, nervously.
"Quite right, Mr. Tincroft; and you understand me now, I am sure," said the parson. "And now if you are coming my way, and will step in with me—"
But John had other matters to think about.
CHAPTER VI.
JOHN TINCROFT'S RESOLUTION.
JOHN TINCROFT went back to his hospitable quarters, and shut himself up in the old library. He remained there some time, even after the dinner-bell rang. But he did compel himself to move at last, and he met his friends at the dinner-table.
John Tincroft was not a bad young fellow, though he was awkward, and ungainly, and shy.
"Your heart is better than your head," he was once told by his schoolmaster, on occasion of some petty delinquency.
And though, of course, we demur to such a statement, if strictly theological grounds are to be taken, it was true enough of him in other respects and on lower grounds.
He was very dull of comprehension, was John. I have said this before, but there is no harm in repeating it. But there was this about him, that when he had grasped an idea, he did not let it go very easily.
Now Mr. Rubric had succeeded in giving a new turn to John's thoughts. It had been pleasant to him to take those walks of which I have spoken, pleasant to worship at the shrine of Sarah's loveliness, without knowing that he worshipped. The old self-accusation of being a woman-hater was fading away; or rather a new light had been cast on that subject. Of course he knew that the maiden's loveliness was nothing to him. Was not Sarah engaged to her cousin? Was not he himself engaged to his Oriental studies? In another year, or in less time than that, he would leave, or have left, England for ever, perhaps; and did not he know that, even if he had the disposition to marry, and the chance of marrying—neither of which propositions was on the carpet; but even if it had been—did he not know that he could not very well take out with him a wife?
But for all this, and perhaps because of the very absurdity of the idea of his falling in love, and the impossibility of his committing this absurdity in the instance of the fair damsel at High Beech, he had allowed himself to haunt her precincts, and to feast himself on her charms. Perhaps John thought—if he were ever guilty of thinking poetry—that "a thing of beauty is a joy for ever"; and that it would be—would be—nice is the word—nice for him, when thousands of miles away, to remember the fair vision which had broken in upon him at this time.
If in this John sinned, I am afraid many of us often sin without knowing it. Certainly, had he been asked the question, he might have replied with a clear conscience that he had not coveted his neighbour's goods, nor his prospective wife, nor anything that was his neighbour's. And yet, for all that, the maelstrom was there, and John Tincroft was whirling round its outer circles without intending it, and not even being aware of it, but at the same time enjoying its giddy motion.
Mr. Rubric, however, had, as I have said, put the matter before him in another light. He had not exactly told John that he was doing wrong to his own soul; but he had plainly indicated that he was inflicting injury on another's good name and prospects. It was already being talked about—this intimacy of his at the farm; and what if the result should be, as his mentor had hinted, the breaking off of the old engagement and the loss of a husband when a husband was so sorely needed?
Tincroft was not very well up in this kind of affair, nor of any other where common everyday life was concerned. Once, for instance, when he was fishing for gudgeons in the Cherwell—having been enticed into investing in a rod and line—he lost sight of line and float so completely as to allow a mischievous urchin, whom he had hired to attend him, slyly to fasten a red herring on to the hook. Oblivious of the trick, John presently jerked up the line, and, without any further astonishment than that he should have caught any sort of fish, captured the prize—speaking of it afterwards as a feat of skill, or of chance rather, to be proud of, not being previously aware, as he declared, that the Cherwell reckoned herrings, especially red herrings, among its finny inhabitants.
So now, innocent as he was of any, or of many, of the commoner concerns of mortal existence, John Tincroft might have gone on worshipping this new-found idol at a distance, if his dreams had not been rudely broken in upon by the warnings of his clerical friend. So rudely, indeed, that he did not half like it.
"I did not mean any harm," thought John to himself that morning, when closeted in the old library, "and I cannot see now what harm I have done. But, however, if Mr. Rubric says so, he may be right, and it will be better for me not to go near the place again."
Then it came into his dull mind that the easiest way for him to get out of the difficulty in which he so unexpectedly found himself placed, would be to quit the neighbourhood altogether.
"They cannot talk about me, then," he angrily argued; "and I—well, what does it matter if I don't see the young person again."
Yes, it would be better for him to leave the vicinity of these charms, thought John. He could go back to Oxford, and though he could not conveniently, if at all, enter upon his old rooms at Queen's till the next term had commenced, he might take lodgings. He knew a laundress, the wife or mother or aunt—he did not know which—of one of the college scouts who lived out Jericho way and let lodgings to single men, and he could go there and pursue his Oriental studies in peace.
And John could but reflect that the last month had been sorely wasted. In the lap of Delilah, figuratively speaking, of course, he had been shorn of his (figurative) locks. But he was not so far gone as that amounted to either, so he thought within himself—which proved that he was, at that crisis of his history, farther gone than he himself suspected.
And so, presently, at the sound of the bell, John bestirred himself, and went down to dinner.
Resolved to beat a retreat from the difficulty in which he was placed, another difficulty presented itself to his mind. Shy and awkward as ever, he was at a loss how to make known his purpose to his host and his college friend. He had accepted the invitation for the whole of the long vacation, which even now wanted nearly a month of its termination; and his friends would possibly take offence at his abruptly quitting them. To tell the truth, he was reluctant enough, on all grounds, to take this step; and I hope my readers—my fair readers, at all events—will give Tincroft credit for some virtue—the virtue of self-denial—in having arrived at his present determination.
In the present instance, his virtue was reinforced, and he was, moreover, strengthened in his resolution by the course of conversation after the dinner-cloth was removed.
"I have had a call from Mark Wilson this morning," said Richard Grigson.
"Drunk as usual, of course?" put in Tom, interrogatively.
"Well, reasonably so," said the elder brother, laughing lightly. "I don't think he would have faced me till he had fortified himself. But he wasn't very far gone; he knew what he was about."
"He wanted something, I suppose?" suggested Tom.
"You may be sure of that. He wanted two or three things; that is to say, he wanted to know two or three things."
"As for instance?"
"Well, for instance, he wanted to know whether I meant what I wrote to him the other day, that if he hadn't paid his arrears of rent at Christmas, I should distrain."
"And you told him, Dick?—"
"That there was no mistake about it at all," said Mr. Richard Grigson. "And I asked him a question or two. I wanted to know what he would do with a tenant who wouldn't pay his rent."
"And what did he say to that?"
"Say? Why he said it would be his duty to forgive him, and he hoped I should see it in the same light, which I said I didn't, and wasn't likely to."
"Trust you for that. It was brassy of the poor fellow, though. Well, what did he want to know next?" asked Tom.
"He wanted to know if I was serious in giving him notice to quit at Ladytide. And I told him I was never more serious in my life than when I wrote that notice."
"'And you mean to stick to it?' said he."
"And I did and do mean to stick to it, I told him."
"Yes, and then?" Tom rejoined.
"And who was to have the farm after him? This was his next inquiry."
"And you told him, I suppose?"
"Couldn't tell him what I didn't know. And so I said."
"Why, isn't his brother Matthew to have it?"
"That depends. There's nothing settled yet. However, Mark seems to have jumped at that conclusion, for he began to abuse Matthew and all his family in very low language, declaring at last, in his own peculiar style, that he would rather see his girl in her coffin than that she should marry her cousin Walter."
"He is calculating on a better match for Sarah, perhaps," said Tom, laughing, and glancing slyly across the table at John Tincroft, who, during the conversation that had passed, had been wrapped, as it seemed, in a solemn, silent muse.
"So it almost appears," rejoined the elder brother, gravely, for the next question—"I don't know that I ought to speak of it, though."
"Oh, out with it, Dick," cried the younger brother; "don't keep all the fun to yourself, brother dear."
"It concerns you, Tincroft. Will you have it?"
"Oh yes, by all means," stammered clumsy John; "though what I can have to do with it—"
"Why, aren't you a friend of the family?" Tom wanted to know.
"I don't see why you should put that name upon me," said John, rather stiffly.
"Well, you are not an enemy, at any rate; are you, now?"
"Mr. Mark Wilson is so fond of you, as a friend, that he would like to have you in closer relationship," continued Mr. Grigson, seriously, and dropping the half jocular tone in which he had previously spoken. "And, to tell the truth, my dear fellow, I think it is only an act of friendship to put you on your guard. Your visits to High Beech have been looked upon with great interest, I assure you."
"Please to explain, Mr. Grigson," said John, still more stiffly.
"Yes, I will, as you ask me in such a pleasant tone. The truth is, Mark Wilson is extremely desirous of knowing the extent of your means, and the nature of your prospects, in case, for instance, of your having a wife to support."
"You—you don't say so," exclaimed John, starting in his chair, and clutching the edge of the table in sheer astonishment. "I never heard of such impertinence in all my life," he added, vehemently.
"Ah! Well, if you come to that, I have heard worse jokes, at all events," cried Tom, highly delighted with his friend's emotion. "Especially since the cream of it is in the application," he added.
"I don't know about the joke," the elder brother went on, still gravely. "But I am inclined to hope, from your way about it, that there isn't much danger—" this to Tincroft—"I should be sorry to think there really is any. If you will take your seat again, dear fellow—" for Tincroft had continued standing, holding on to the table's edge—"I'll explain, as you have asked me to do."
John resumed his seat, and then Richard Grigson went on to say that Mark Wilson had plainly intimated that, seeing which way the wind blew, as he elegantly expressed himself, he didn't see but what he might be proud to have the college gentleman for a son-in-law, only it was a father's duty to put a few questions at starting, so us to save future troubles and disputes, because such things in families were unpleasant, as he very well knew.
"I let him go on," said Mr. Grigson, in continuation, "for I thought to myself Tincroft ought to be aware of what is thought and said and speculated about him."
"Much obliged, I am sure, sir," gasped John, breaking out into a cold perspiration.
"And then when he had said all he had got to say, and put as many questions about you as would go into a high-crowned hat, I told him he must be entirely mistaken in his conjectures, simply because you are not a marrying man. Wasn't I right there, friend?"
"Right, sir; quite right, Mr. Grigson," said John. "To think of me marrying!" added he, as though the idea was perfectly preposterous, as, under the circumstances, no doubt it was.
"And I told him, also, that let your inclinations be what they might, you were too much of a gentleman, to say nothing of a Christian, to be seriously intent on destroying the happiness of a devoted couple—such as his daughter and her cousin Walter, for instance—by doing anything—anything, I said, my dear fellow—to sever them in affection. I hope I did not put it too strong, did I, John?"
"No, no; not at all too strong," said John.
"I told him that you knew perfectly well of their long engagement; and that I could answer for you—"
"Thank you; thank you, Mr. Grigson."
"That I could answer for you that you would not go near the farm again, if such ridiculous deductions were drawn from your innocent and merely friendly visits. Was I right?"
"Yes, yes; no doubt, no doubt." But John did not utter this so readily as he had before spoken. "And what did Mr. Mark say to all this?" he asked.
"Why, to tell the truth, he did not listen to it so attentively as he should have done, I am afraid, and so my eloquence was wasted. He had got hold of the story of your walking home with his daughter that night of the picnic—you remember it, don't you, my dear John? And if that didn't mean something, he did not know what did. So he said."
"But you told him, Mr. Grigson, that it was done without intending it, that it was quite accidental, in fact, and indeed rendered necessary by circumstances?"
"Just my very words, I assure you, John; and I put it quite strongly too. And what do you think he said to that?"
John did not know, and could not guess.
"He said it was—he used a strong term, and a vulgar one, Mi. Tincroft; he said—well, I had better not repeat his words. But the long and short of it is—if you will take my advice, you will take your constitutionals, as you Oxford men call them, in another direction in future, dear friend."
"Thank ye, Mr. Grigson, thank ye. I'll think about it," said John. "No more, thank you," he added, when the decanter was pushed towards him.
John Tincroft left the dinner-table in greater confusion of mind than ever. He should have to leave the vicinity of High Beech, that was determined on; but he had not yet had courage to make his resolution known. He had been living in a fool's paradise the last month, no doubt; and the worst of it was that, when awakened out of his dream, he was unreasonably angry with those who had roused him. And yet, to show this would be to acknowledge how necessary their friendly offices had been.
Fortunately for him, the next morning's post brought a letter from a lawyer in Oxford who was engaged in his Chancery affair, which spoke of a personal consultation being desirable at some early date. And though John had an instinctive idea that the appointment could have no further result than that of extracting a few more guineas from his attenuated purse, it, at any rate, furnished him with a valid reason for an immediate return to Oxford.
"Make him wait your convenience, Tincroft," said Mr. Grigson, when John laid the letter on the breakfast-table.
"I think I had better go," said John.
"You will give us another week of your society, at least?" continued the host.
But John was firm. He must leave on the following day.
"We shall be sorry to lose you;" rejoined Grigson, "but of course—"
"Necessitas non habet legem," put in Tom, lugubriously, but glad, nevertheless, to air his classical attainments.
"Oh, bother! Keep your Latin till you get back to Oxford, Tom," exclaimed the elder brother. "We talk English down here."
"And not always that, Dick," answered the younger brother, mischievously. "But come, Tincroft, must you really go now?"
"I am afraid I must."
"Isn't it beating a rather inglorious retreat, though? What will your friends at High Beech think about it?"
"I intend to walk over there this evening and say 'Good-bye,'" said John, sullenly.
"Do you really mean that, though?" Mr. Grigson said, gravely. "I think I wouldn't if I were you, dear fellow."
John really did mean it, though; for, like a good many other dull persons, he was obstinate when put upon his mettle. He did not see why he should not go and tell Mr. Mark a bit of his mind concerning his impertinent observations and inquiries. At any rate, he was not going to have it said of him that he was ashamed to show his face anywhere he pleased because scandal had been spoken. And, in short, whether or not there were any secret and unconfessed motive hidden in his heart, he braced up his resolution, and before the day had closed in, he was on his way to the farm.
"I'll let Mr. Rubric know that I am master of my own actions," thought he to himself as he strode along; "and as to Mr. Grigson, I am much obliged to him for his hospitality, but I am a free agent, I hope, for all that."
"It's the way of the world," mused poor John Tincroft, bitterly; "let a fellow like me be under a cloud, and every favourite of fortune may give him a kick. What is it to the parson and the squire if I have chosen to take my walks in this direction? They wouldn't have thought anything about it, if I had been rich. Why did I come down here to be first patronised and then bullied? I don't want their patronage, and won't be bullied," continued he, in his unreasonable anger; and then, having let off steam, so to speak, John cooled down. "Not but what they mean well enough, I daresay; but there's no harm in seeing Miss Wilson again, and saying 'Good-bye.' I'll give her a little good advice, too; that is, I'll put her on her guard against eavesdroppers and scandal-mongers. Poor girl!"
And so "chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies," John presently found himself at the farm, as unfit as can be well imagined of any man under similar circumstances for putting good resolutions into effect; in other words, as incapable of giving good advice as he had shown himself averse from taking it.
The farmer was not at home, so John lost the opportunity of a quarrel in that quarter. Mrs. Mark was, as usual, gone to lie down—her usual practice in the afternoon—she being indisposed—as usual also.
"And Miss Sarah?"
Miss Sarah was in the garden, the maid of all work gave the querist to understand, adding with a gesture and smile, which ought to have sent John to the right-about at once, that she "dared to say Master Tincroft knew how to find her if he had a mind to. But—"
Awkward John, who had no suspicion of hidden meaning, quietly turned to the garden gate, and following his true instinct of stupidity, made his way onward to the lovers' walk.
Now I have said that this walk was a shady one: it was, in fact, a pleasant alley with high untopped and unpruned filbert trees on either hand, and terminating in a rustic summer-house, with closely trimmed holly sides, back, and roof. The filbert trees were in good bearing, the thick clusters browning in the autumn sun; and Sarah, with a basket at her feet, was employed in nutting on a somewhat large scale.
For a short space of time, Tincroft stood at a distance unobserved, while watching the "neat-handed Phillis" deftly transferring the clusters to her half-filled basket. But soon, he ventured nearer, and his approaching footsteps attracting the damsel's attention extracted from her the pretty feminine exclamation (or so John thought it)—
"Oh my, Mr. Tincroft! How did you get here?"
John pointed to the garden entrance, and explained that, having made inquiries of the servant, he had learned that Mr. Wilson was not at home, and that Mrs. Wilson was not well enough to see a friend, as also that Miss Wilson was in the garden; and so he had taken the liberty of intruding on her solitude, just to say— And here he stopped short.
"And the best thing you can do now you are here, Mr. Tincroft, will be to help me gather these stupid filberts," said Sarah, with a pretty toss of her head, and a charming frankness which quite enraptured the foolish fellow. If the filbert trees had been guarded by a dragon as fierce as that which watched over the golden apples of the Hesperides, John could not have resisted the challenge—so he thought: and, without further ado, he set about his task in solemn silence.
"You wanted to see father, didn't you, Mr. Tincroft?" said the young lady presently, during a pause in the work.
"Ah yes—that is, it does not much matter," replied John, absently. "I daresay you will give my message to him; and that will do as well."
"That depends on what it is, Mr. Tincroft," rejoined the little coquette. "If there is no harm in it, perhaps I may."
"Oh, there is no harm in it," said John. "I came over to say good-bye, that's all, or pretty nearly all. I must go back to Oxford to-morrow."
Once more the pretty, "Oh my, Mr. Tincroft!" was ejaculated. "Well, I do wonder at that," was lightly added.
"Do you, Miss Wilson?"
"Yes, to be sure, Mr. Tincroft. Didn't you tell us—father I mean—that you shouldn't be leaving these parts for another month?"
"Did I, Miss Wilson? Ah yes, I believe I may have said so; but you see we cannot always tell what may happen. I have had a letter from my lawyer this morning." John said this rather proudly, as though a lawyer for his own especial behoof was a necessary part of his bachelor condition.
Poor Tincroft! He is not the only one who has made a brag of "my lawyer."
"Oh dear! I didn't think you were going away so soon," said Sarah.
And then, this leading to nothing—for she did not evince any anxiety to know what special communication Mr. Tincroft had received from the High Court of Chancery—they recommenced operations on the filbert trees.
Presently the basket was filled.
"There, that's done, and I am tired," quoth the damsel; "and I shall leave the others till to-morrow. I am going to rest myself in the summer-house," she added.
"May I go there too?" John—stupid John—asked.
"Of course he might. Wasn't he always at home at High Beech?" the young lady wished to know. "Only I shall be busy when I am there. I brought my work out with me, and I must do it," she added.
John might have thought, though he did not say, that whatever Miss Wilson chose to do at any particular time, was the most becoming and bewitching thing she could be doing at that particular time. That is to say, he might have thought this had he been her lover; but as he was not, or was, "without intending it," as the case might be, he only followed her into the holly arbour, and seated himself at a respectful distance.
"So you are really going to run away from us, Mr. Tincroft?"
He really was; and he again said so.
"And I have to thank you, Miss Wilson," stammered out John, "for the pleasant walks I have enjoyed."
Miss Wilson was glad he had enjoyed pleasant walks; but she was not aware that she was the cause of them. This, but in other words, perhaps.
"It was not very wise of me, I daresay," continued the awkward booby, getting deeper into the mire; "because you see, Miss Wilson—I am—I am soon going to leave England for ever, most likely; and you—I am sure I wish you every happiness in the life on which you will shortly enter, I hope. Will you be good enough to repeat this to your cousin Walter? And if you could just hint to your father, Miss Wilson—that, that it is not wise or kind of him to go about saying what he is saying—"
"Sorry to disturb you, I am sure," said a strange voice outside the arbour, followed by the appearance of Miss Elizabeth. "Mr. Tincroft, your most obedient, I am; and am proud to see you so happy. My dear—" this to Sarah—"I just looked over to say how d'ye do, and being told you was in the garden, and expecting to find you alone—" (which was a fib), "just looked in. But I'm aware that two is good company, and three is none; so I will say good afternoon now, and will see you again another day. Mr. Tincroft, when you can find time to give us a look in at Low Beech, father 'll be glad to see you, I am sure; especially considering we may be near relations some of these days."
And before her cousin Sarah could frame a retort, or John could recover his senses (such as they were), Miss Elizabeth was halfway, marching with stately steps, down the filbert alley.