John’s mind was in such a whirl of confusion that he could not realise what he was about to do. If he could have thought it over calmly, and asked himself what right he had to woo a rich man’s daughter, or even to dream of bringing her to his level, probably poor John would not only have stopped short, but he might have had resolution enough to turn back and leave his father’s door, and put himself out of the reach of temptation till she was safe in her own father’s keeping. He had strength enough and resolution enough to have made such a sacrifice, had there been any time to think; but sudden passion had swept him up like a whirlwind, and conquered all his faculties. He wanted to have an answer; an answer—nothing more. He wanted to know what she meant—why it was that she was so eager with him to bring his doubtfulness to a conclusion. If he took her advice, what would follow? There was a singing in his ears, and a buzzing in his brain. He could not think, nor pause to consider which was right. There was but one thing to do—to get his answer from her; to know what she meant. And then the Deluge or Paradise—one thing or the other—would come after that, but were it Paradise, or were it the Flood, John’s anchors were pulled up, and he had left the port. All his old prospects and hopes and intentions had vanished. He could no more go back to the position in which he had stood when he first opened his heart to Kate than he could fly. Fanshawe Regis, and his parents’ hopes, and the old placid existence to which he had been trained, all melted away into thin air. He was standing on the threshold of a new world, with an unknown wind blowing in his face, and an unknown career before him. If it might be that she was about to put her little hand in his, and go with him across the wilderness! But, anyhow, it was a wilderness that had to be traversed; not those quiet waters and green pastures which had been destined for him at home.
“How late you are, John!” his mother said, meeting him on the stair. She was coming down dressed for dinner, with just a little cloud over the brightness of her eyes. “You must have stayed a long time on the river. Was that Kate that has just gone up-stairs?”
“Miss Crediton went on before me. I had to stop and speak to Huntley at the gate.”
“You should have asked him to stay dinner,” said Mrs Mitford. “My dear, I am sure you have a headache. You should not have rowed so far, under that blazing sun. But make haste now. Your papa cannot bear to be kept waiting. I will tell Jervis to give you five minutes. And, oh, make haste, my dear boy!”
“Of course I shall make haste,” said John, striding past—as if ten minutes more or less could matter to anybody under the sun!
“It is for your papa, John,” said Mrs Mitford, half apologetic, half reproachful; and she went down to the drawing-room and surreptitiously moved the fingers of the clock to gain a little time for her boy. “Jervis, you need not be in such a hurry—there are still ten minutes,” she said, arresting the man-of-all-work who was called the butler at Fanshawe, as he put his hand on the dinner-bell to ring it; and she was having a little discussion with him over their respective watches, when the Doctor approached in his fresh tie. “The drawing-room clock is never wrong,” said the deceitful woman. And no doubt that was why the trout was spoiled and the soup so cold. For Kate did not hurry with her toilette, whatever John might do; and being a little agitated and excited, her hair took one of those perverse fits peculiar to ladies’ hair, and would not permit itself to be put up properly. Kate, too, was in a wonderful commotion of mind, as well as her lover. She was tingling all over with her adventure, and the hair-breadth escape she had made. But had she escaped? There was a long evening still before her, and it was premature to believe that the danger was over. When Kate went down-stairs, she had more than one reason for being so very uncomfortable. Dr Mitford was waiting for his dinner, and John was waiting for his answer; she could not tell what might happen to her before the evening was over, and she could scarcely speak with composure because of the frightened irregular beating of her heart.
Dinner falling in a time of excitement like that which I have just described, with its suggestions of perfect calm and regularity, the unbroken routine of life, has a very curious effect upon agitated minds. John Mitford felt as if some catastrophe must have happened to him as he sat alone at his side of the table, and looked across at Kate, who was a little troubled too, and reflected how long a time he must sit there eating and drinking, or pretending to eat and drink; obliged to keep at that distance from her—to address common conversation to her—to describe the boating, and the wood, and all that had happened, as if it had been the most ordinary expedition in the world. Kate was very kind to him in this respect, though perhaps he was too far gone to think it kind. She took upon herself the weight of the conversation. She told Mrs Mitford quite fluently all about the boat and her bad steering, and all the accidents that had happened, and how John had jumped into the water. “I know you will never forgive me if he has caught cold,” Kate said, glibly, with even a mischievous look in her eye; “but I must tell. And I do hope you changed your stockings,” she said, leaning across the table to him with a smile. It was a mocking smile, full of mischief, and yet there was in it a certain softened look. It was then that poor John felt as if some explosion must take place, as he sat and restrained himself, and tried to look like a man interested in his dinner. Nobody else took any notice of his agitation, and probably even his mother did not perceive it; but Jervis the butler did, as he stood by his side, and helped Mr John to potatoes. He could not dissimulate the shaking of his hand.
“My dear, I should never blame you,” said Mrs Mitford, with a little tremor in her voice; “he is always so very rash. Of course you changed, John?”
“Oh, of course,” he said, with a laugh, which sounded cynical and Byronic to his audience. And then he made a violent effort to master himself. “Miss Crediton thought the river was rather pretty,” he added, with a hard-drawn breath of agitation, which sounded to his mother like the first appearance of the threatened cold.
“Jervis,” she said, mildly, “will you be good enough to fetch me the camphor from my cupboard, and two lumps of sugar? My dear boy, it is not nasty; it is only as a precaution. It will not interfere with your dinner, and it is sure to stop a cold.”
John gave his mother a look under which she trembled. It said as plainly as possible, you are making me ridiculous; and it was pointed by a glance at Kate, who certainly was smiling. Mrs Mitford was quick enough to understand, and she was cowed by her son’s gravity. “Perhaps, on second thoughts,” she said, faltering, “you need not mind, Jervis. It will do when Mr John goes to bed.”
“The only use of camphor is at the moment when you take a cold,” said Dr Mitford; “identify that moment, and take your dose, and you are all safe. But I have always found that the great difficulty was to identify the moment. Did you point out to Miss Crediton the curious effect the current has had upon the rocks? I am not geological myself, but still it is very interesting. The constant friction of the water has laid bare a most remarkable stratification. Ah! I see he did not point it out, from your look.”
“Indeed I don’t think Mr John showed me anything that was instructive,” said Kate, with a demure glance at him. At present she was having it all her own way.
“Ah! youth, youth,” said Dr Mitford, shaking his head. “He was much more likely to tell you about his boating exploits, I fear. If you really wish to understand the history and structure of the district, you must take me with you, Miss Crediton. Young men are so foolish as to think these things slow.”
“But then I am going away to-morrow,” said Kate, with a little pathetic inflection of her voice. “And perhaps Mrs Mitford will never ask me to come back again. And I shall have to give up the hope of knowing the district. But anybody that steers so badly as I do,”—Kate continued, with much humility, but doubtful grammar, “it is not to be wondered at if the gentleman who is rowing them should think they were too ignorant to learn.”
“Then the gentleman who was rowing you was a stupid fellow,” said the Doctor. “I never had a more intelligent listener in my life; but, my dear young lady, you must come back when the Society is here. Their meeting is at Camelford, and they must make an excursion to the Camp.”
“And you will come and stay with us, Dr Mitford,” said Kate, coaxingly; “now, promise. It will be something to look forward to. You shall have the room next the library, that papa always keeps for his learned friends, he says. And if Mrs Mitford would be good, and let the parish take care of itself, and come too——”
“Oh hush! my dear; we must not look forward so far,” said Mrs Mitford, with a little cloud upon her face. She had found out by this time that John was in trouble, and she had no heart to enter into any discussion till she knew what it was. And then she opened out suddenly into a long account of the Fanshawe family, apropos de rien. Mrs Fanshawe had been calling that afternoon, and they had heard from their granddaughter, Cicely, who was abroad for her health—for all that family was unfortunately very delicate. And poor Cicely would have to spend the winter at Nice, the doctor said. Kate bent her head over her plate, and ate her grapes (the very first of the season, which Mr Crediton’s gardener had forced for his young mistress, and sent to Fanshawe Regis to aid her cure), and listened without paying much attention to the story of Cicely Fanshawe’s troubles. Nobody else took any further part in the conversation after Mrs Mitford had commenced that monologue, except indeed the Doctor, who now and then would ask a question. As for the two young people, they sat on either side of the table, and tried to look as if nothing had happened. And Kate, for one, succeeded very well in this laudable effort—so well that poor John, in his excitement and agitation, sank to the depths of despair as he twisted one of the great vine-leaves in his fingers, and watched her furtively through all the windings of his mother’s story. He said to himself, it is nothing to her. Her mind is quite unmoved by anything that has happened. She could not have understood him, John felt—she could not have believed him. She must have thought he was saying words which he did not mean. Perhaps that was the way among the frivolous beings to whom she was accustomed; but it was not the way with John.
While the mother was giving that account of the young Fanshawes, and the father interposing his questions about Cicely’s health, their son was working himself up into a fever of determination. He eyed Kate at the other side of the table, with a certain rage of resolution mingling with his love. She should not escape him like this. She should answer him one way or another. He could bear anything or everything from her except this silence; but that he would not bear. She should tell him face to face. He might have lost the very essence and joy of life, but still he should know downright that he had lost it. This passion was growing in him while the quiet slumberous time crept on, and all was told about Cicely Fanshawe. Poor Cicely! just Kate’s age, and sent to Nice to die; but that thought never occurred to the vehement young lover, nor did it occur to Kate, as she sat and ate her grapes, and gave little glances across the table, and divined that he was rising to a white heat. “I must run off to my own room, and say it is to do my packing,” Kate said to herself, with a little quake in her heart; and yet she would rather have liked—behind a curtain or door, out of harm’s way—to have heard him say what he had to say.
Mrs Mitford was later than usual of leaving the table—and she took Kate by the arm, being determined apparently to contrarier everybody on this special evening, and made her sit down on the sofa by her in the drawing-room. “My dear, I must have you to myself for a little while to-night,” she said, drawing the girl’s hands into her own. And then she sat and talked. It seemed to Kate that she talked of everything in heaven and earth; but the old singing had come back to her ears, and she could not pay attention. “Now he is coming,” she said to herself; “now I shall be obliged to sit still all the evening; now I shall never be able to escape from him.” By-and-by, however, Kate began to feel piqued that John should show so little eagerness to follow her. “Yes, indeed, dear Mrs Mitford, you may be sure I shall always remember your kindness,” she said, aloud. But in her heart she was saying in the same breath, “Oh, very well; if he does not care I am sure I do not care. I am only too glad to be let off so easy;” which was true, and yet quite the reverse of true.
But then Kate did not see the watcher outside the window in the darkness, who saw all that was going on, and bided his time, though he trembled with impatience and excitement. Not knowing he was there, she came to have a very disdainful feeling about him as the moments passed on. To ask such a question as that, and never to insist on an answer! Well, he might be very nice; but what should she do with a man that took so little pains to secure his object. Or was it his object at all? He might be cleverer than she had taken him for; he might be but playing with her, as she had intended to play with him. Indignant with these thoughts, she rose up when Mrs Mitford’s last words came to a conclusion, and detached herself, not without a slight coldness, from that kind embrace. “I must go and see to my things, please,” she said, raising her head like a young queen. “But, my dear, there is Parsons,” said Mrs Mitford. “Oh, but I must see after everything myself,” replied Kate, and went away, not in haste, as making her escape, but with a certain stateliness of despite. She walked out of the room in quite a leisurely way, feeling it beneath her dignity to fly from an adversary that showed no signs of pursuing; and even turned round at the door to say something with a boldness which looked almost like bravado. He will come now, no doubt, and find me gone, and I hope he will enjoy the tête-à-tête with his mother, she mused, with a certain ferocity; and so went carelessly out, with all the haughtiness of pique, and walked almost into John Mitford’s arms!
He seized her hand before she knew what had happened, and drew it through his arm, first throwing a shawl round her, which he had picked up somewhere, and which, suddenly curling round her like a lasso, was Kate’s first indication of what had befallen her. “I have been watching you till I am half wild,” he whispered in her ear. “Oh come with me to the garden, and say three words to me. I have no other chance for to-night.”
“Oh, please, let me go. I must see to my packing—indeed I must,” cried Kate, so startled and moved by the suddenness of the attack, and by his evident excitement, that she could scarcely keep from tears.
“Not now,” said John, in her ear—“not now. I must have my answer. You cannot be so cruel as to go now. Only half an hour—only ten minutes—Kate!”
“Hush! oh hush!” she cried, feeling herself conquered; and ere she knew, the night air was blowing in her face, and the dark sky, with its faint little summer stars, was shining over her, and John Mitford, holding her close, with her hand on his arm, was bending over her, a dark shadow. She could not read in his face all the passion that possessed him, but she felt it, and it made her tremble, woman of the world as she was.
“Kate,” he said, “I cannot go searching for words now. I think I will go mad if you don’t speak to me. Tell me what I am to hope for. Give me my answer. I cannot bear any more.”
His voice was hoarse; he held her hand fast on his arm, not caressing, but compelling. He was driven out of all patience; and for the first time in her life Kate’s spirit was cowed, and her wit failed to the command of the situation.
“Let me go!” she said; “oh, do let me go! you frighten me, Mr John.”
“Don’t call me Mr John. I am your slave, if you like; I will be anything you please. You said just now we belonged to each other; so we do. No, I can’t be generous; it is not the moment to be generous. I have a claim upon you—don’t call me Mr John.”
“Then what shall I call you?” Kate said, with a little hysterical giggle. And all at once, at that most inappropriate moment, there flashed across her mind the first name she had recognised his identity by. My John—was that the alternative? She shrank a little and trembled, and did not know whether she should laugh or cry. Should she call him that just as an experiment, to see how he would take it?—or what else could she do to escape from him out of this dark place, all full of dew, and odours, and silence, into the light and the safety of her own room? And yet all this time she made no attempt to withdraw her hand from his arm. She wanted something to lean on at such a crisis, and he was very handy for leaning on—tall, and strong, and sturdy, and affording a very adequate support. “Oh, do let me go!” she burst out all at once. “It was only for your own good I spoke to you; I did not mean—this. Why should you do things for me? I don’t want—to make any change. I should like to have you always just as we have been—friends. Don’t say any more just yet—listen. I like you very very much for a friend. You said yourself we were like brother and sister. Oh, why should you vex me and bother me, and want to be anything different?” said Kate, in her confusion, suddenly beginning to cry without any warning. But next moment, without knowing how it was, she became aware that she was crying very comfortably on John’s shoulder. Her crying was more than he could bear. He took her into his arms to console her without any arrière pensée. “Oh, my darling, I am not worth it,” he said, stooping over her. “Is it for me—that would never let the wind blow on you? Kate! I will not trouble you any more.” And with that, before he was aware, in his compunction and sympathy, his lips somehow found themselves close to her cheek. It was all to keep her from crying—to show how sorry he was for having grieved her. His heart yearned over the soft tender creature. What did it matter what he suffered, who was only a man? But that Kate should cry!—and that it should be his fault! He felt in his simplicity that he was giving her up for ever, and his big heart almost broke, as he bent down trembling, and encountered that soft warm velvet cheek.
How it happened I cannot tell. He did not mean it, and she did not mean it. But certainly Kate committed herself hopelessly by crying there quite comfortably on his shoulder, and suffering herself to be kissed without so much as a protest. He was so frightened by his own temerity, and so surprised at it, that even had she vindicated her dignity after the first moment, and burst indignant from his arms, John would have begged her pardon with abject misery, and there would have been an end of him. But somehow Kate was bewildered, and let that moment pass; and after the surprise and shock which his own unprecedented audacity wrought in him, John grew bolder, as was natural. She was not angry; she endured it without protest. Was it possible that in her trouble she was unconscious of it? And involuntarily John came to see that boldness was now his only policy, and that it must not be possible for her to ignore the facts of the case. That was all simple enough. But as for Kate, I am utterly unable to explain her conduct. Even when she came to herself, all she did was to put up her hands to her face, and to murmur piteously, humbly, “Don’t! oh, please, don’t!” And why shouldn’t he, when that was all the resistance she made?
After this, the young man being partly delirious, as might have been expected, it was Kate who had to come to the front of affairs and take the lead. “Do, please, be rational now,” she said, shaking herself free all in a moment. “And give me your arm, you foolish John, and let us take a turn round the garden. Oh, what would your mother say if she knew how ridiculous you have been making yourself? Tell me quietly what it is you want now,” she added, in her most coaxing tone, looking up into his face.
Upon which the bewildered fellow poured forth a flood of ascriptions of praise and pæans of victory, and compared Kate, who knew she was no angel, to all the deities and excellences ever known to man. She listened to it all patiently, and then shook her head with gentle half-maternal tolerance.
“Well,” she said, “let us take all that for granted, you know. Of course I am everything that is nice. If you did not think so you would be a savage; but, John, please don’t be foolish. Tell me properly. I have gone and given in to you when I did not mean to. And now, what do you want?”
“I want you,” he said; “have you any doubt about that? And, except for your sake, I don’t care for anything else in the world.”
“Oh, but I care for a great many things,” said Kate. “And, John,” she went on, joining both her hands on his arm, and leaning her head lightly against it in her caressing way, “first of all, you have accepted my conditions, you know, and taken my advice?”
“Yes, my darling,” said John; and then somehow his eye was caught by the lights in the windows so close at hand, the one in the library, the other in the drawing-room, where sat his parents, who had the fullest confidence in him; and he gave a slight start and sigh in spite of himself.
“Perhaps you repent your bargain already,” said impetuous Kate, being instantly conscious of both start and sigh, and of the feeling which had produced them.
“Ah! how can you speak to me so,” he said, “when you know if it was life I had to pay for it I would do it joyfully? No; even if I had never seen you I could not have done what they wanted me. That is the truth. And now I have you, my sweetest——”
“Hush,” she said, softly, “we have not come to that yet. There is a great deal, such a great deal, to think about; and there is papa——”
“And I have so little to offer,” said John; “it is only now I feel how little. Ah! how five minutes change everything! It never came into my mind that I had nothing to offer you—I was so full of yourself. But now!—you who should have kingdoms laid at your feet—what right had a penniless fellow like me——”
“If you regret you can always go back,” said Kate, promptly; “though, you know, it is a kind of insinuation against me, as if I had consented far too easy. And, to tell the truth, I never did consent.”
Here poor John clutched at her hand, which seemed to be sliding from his arm, and held it fast without a word.
“No, I never did consent,” said Kate. “It was exactly like the savages that knock a poor girl down and then carry her off. You never asked me even—you took me. Well, but then the thing to be drawn from that, is not any nonsense about giving up. If you will promise to be good, and do everything I tell you, and let me manage with papa——”
“But it is my business to let him know,” said John. “No, my darling—not even for you. I could not skulk, nor do anything underhand. I must tell him, and I must tell them——”
“Then you will have your way, and we shall come to grief,” said Kate; “as if I did not know papa best. And then—I am not half nor quarter so good as you; but in some things I am cleverer than you, John.”
“In everything, dear,” he said, with one of those ecstatic smiles peculiar to his state of folly, though in the darkness Kate did not get the benefit of it. “I never have, never will compare myself to my darling. It is all your goodness letting me—all your sweetness and humility and——”
“Please don’t,” said Kate, “please stop—please don’t talk such nonsense. Oh, I hope I shall never behave so badly that you will be forced to find me out. But now about papa. It must be me to tell him; you may come in afterwards, if you like. I know what I shall do. I will drive the phaeton to the station to meet him. I will be the one to tell him first. John, I know what I am talking of, and I must have my own way.”
“Are you out there, John, in the dark? and who have you got with you?” said Mrs Mitford’s voice suddenly in their ears. It made them jump apart as if it had been the voice of a ghost. And Kate, panting, blazing with blushes in the darkness, feeling as if she never could face those soft eyes again, recoiled back into the lilies, and felt the great white paradise of dew and sweetness take her in, and busk her round with a garland of odour. Oh, what was she to do? Would he be equal to the emergency? Thus it will be seen that, though she was very fond of him, she had not yet the most perfect confidence in the reliability of her John.
“Yes, mother, I am here,” said John, with a mellow fulness in his voice which Kate could not understand, so different was it from his usual tone, “and I have Kate with me—my Kate—your Kate; or, at least, there she is among the lilies. She ought to be in your arms first, after mine.”
“After yours!” His mother gave a little scream. And Kate held up her head among the flowers, blushing, yet satisfied. It was shocking of him to tell; but yet it settled the question. She stood irresolute for a moment, breathing quick with excitement, and then she made a little run into Mrs Mitford’s arms. “He has made me be engaged to him whether I will or not,” she said, half crying on her friend’s shoulder. “He has made me. Won’t you love me too?”
“O Kate!” was all the mother could say. “O my boy! what have you done?—what have you done? John, her father is ten times as rich as we are. He will say we have abused his trust. Oh! what shall I do?”
“Abused his trust indeed!” said Kate. “John, you are not to say a word; she does not understand. Why, it was I who did it all! I gave him no peace. I kept talking to him of things I had no business with; and he is only a man—indeed he is only a boy. Mamma, won’t you kiss me, please?” said Kate, all at once sinking into the meekest of tones; upon which Mrs Mitford, quite overcome, and wanting to kiss her son first, and with a hundred questions in her mind to pour out upon him, yet submitted, and put her arm round the stranger who was clinging to her and kissed Kate—but not with her heart. She had kissed her a great deal more tenderly only yesterday, just to say good-night; and then the three stood silent in the darkness, and the scene took another shape, and John’s beatitude was past. The moment the mother joined them another world came in. The enchanted world, which held only two figures, opened up and disappeared like a scene at a theatre; and lo! there appeared all round a mass of other people to whom John’s passion was a matter of indifference or a thing to be disapproved. Suddenly the young pair felt themselves standing not only before John’s anxious mother, but before Mr Crediton, gloomy and wretched; before Dr Mitford, angry and mortified; before the whole neighbourhood, who would judge them without much consideration of mercy. John’s reflections at this moment were harder to support than those of Kate, for he knew he was giving up for her sake the vocation he had been trained to, and the awful necessity of declaring his resolution to his father and mother was before him. Whereas the worst that could be said of Kate was that she was a little flirt, and had turned John Mitford’s head—and she had heard as much before. But, notwithstanding, they were both strangely sobered all in a moment as they stood there, fallen out of their fairy sphere, by Mrs Mitford’s side.
“My dears, I must hear all about this after,” she said, with a kind of tremulous solemnity, “but in the mean time you must come in to tea. Whatever we do, we must not be late for prayers.”
The room was in its usual partially lighted state, with darkness in all the corners, half-seen furniture, and ghostly pictures on the walls. A minute ago the servants had been there in a line kneeling at prayers—dim beings, something between pictures and ghosts. And now they had just stolen out in procession, and Dr Mitford had seated himself at the table for the regulation ten minutes which he spent with his family before retiring for the night. Kate had drawn a low chair close to the table, and was looking up at him with a little quiver of anxiety about her lips and eyes. These two—the old man’s venerable white head throwing reflections from it in the soft lamplight, the young girl all radiant with beauty and feeling—were alone within the circle of light. Outside of it stood two darker shadows, John and his mother. Mrs Mitford was in a black gown, and the bright tints of her pleasant face were neutralised by the failure of light. Two in the brightness and two in the gloom—a curious symbolical arrangement. And behind them all was the great open window, full of darkness, and the garden with all its unseen sweetness outside.
Dr Mitford was the only unconscious member of this curious party. He had no suspicion and no alarm. He stretched his legs, which were not long, out comfortably before him, and leant back composedly, now on the elbows, now on the back, of his chair.
“Well, Miss Kate, and what have you been doing with yourself all the evening?” he said, in his blissful ignorance. The other three gave a simultaneous gasp. What would he think when he heard? This thought, however, pressed hardest upon John. His mind was laden with a secret which as yet nobody divined, and speech almost forsook him when he had most need of it. Neither Kate nor his mother could see how pale he grew, and even if there had been light enough, John was not a handsome pink-and-white youth upon whom a sudden pallor shows. He might have shirked it even now, or left it to his mother, or chosen a more convenient moment. But he was uncompromising in his sense of necessities, and now was the moment at which it must be done. He went round quickly to his father’s right hand—
“Father,” he said, “I have got something to tell you. I have done what perhaps was not prudent, but I trust you will not think it was not honourable. I have fallen in love with Kate.”
“God bless my soul!” said Dr Mitford, instantly abandoning his comfortable attitude, and sitting straight up in his bewilderment. He was so startled that he looked from one to another, and finally turned to his wife, as a man does who has referred every blunder and surprise of a lifetime to her for explanation. It was an appealing half-reproachful glance. Here was something which no doubt she could have prevented or staved off from him. “My dear, what is the meaning of this?” he said.
“It is I who must tell you that,” said John, firmly. “I have a great deal to tell you—a great deal to explain to my mother as well as you. But this comes first of all—I love Kate. I saved her, you know; and then it seemed so natural that she should be mine. How could she have taken any one else than me who would have died for her? And see, father, she has consented,” said the poor fellow, taking Kate’s hand, and holding it in both his. His eyes were full of tears, and there was a smile on his face. It was that mingling of pathos and of triumph which marks passion at the highest strain.
“God bless my soul!” said Dr Mitford again, and this time he rose to his feet in his amazement. “My dear, if you heard this was going on, why did not you tell me? Consented! why, she is a mere child, and her father trusted her to us. Miss Kate, you must perceive he is talking nonsense—you must have turned his head. This can’t go any further. The boy must be mad to think of such a thing.”
“Then I am mad too,” said Kate, softly. “Oh, please, do not be angry with us—we could not help it. Oh, Mrs Mitford, say a word for John!”
And then there came a strange pause. The mother said nothing. She stood in the shade holding back, insensible, as it seemed, to this appeal; and on the other side of the table were the young pair, holding each other fast. As for Dr Mitford, he came to himself slowly as Kate spoke. A ray of intelligence passed over his face. He was a sensible man, and not one to throw away the good the gods provided. Gradually it became apparent to him that there are times when youthful folly brings about results such as mature wisdom could scarcely have conceived possible. From the first stupefaction his look brightened into surprise, then into interest and half-disguised approval. He drew a long breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was wonderfully changed.
“Then you must be more to blame than he is, my dear young lady, for you have not the same temptation,” he said, with a little flurry and excitement, but not much apparent displeasure. And then he made a pause, and looked at them with his brow contracted as if they were a book. “I don’t understand all this. Do you mean to tell me you are engaged, and it is not three weeks yet——”
“It did not want three weeks,” said John, “nor three days. Father, you see it is done now; she has consented, and she ought to know best.”
“I am utterly bewildered,” said Dr Mitford, but his tone softened more and more. “My dear, have you nothing to say to this? is it as unexpected to you as it is to me? Miss Kate, you understand it is no reluctance to receive you that overwhelms me, but the surprise—and—— My dear, is it possible you have nothing to say?”
“It is her father I am thinking of,” said Mrs Mitford, suddenly, with a sharp jarring sound of emotion in her voice. And so it was; but not entirely that. She seized upon the only feasible objection that occurred to her to cover her general consternation and sense of dismay.
“Yes, to be sure,” said Dr Mitford. “John, I wish you had spoken to Mr Crediton first. I shall explain to him that I knew nothing about it—nothing at all till the last moment. I fear you have taken away from me even the power of pleading your cause; though, Miss Kate,” he said, rising, and going up to her with the urbanity which was so becoming to him, “if you had no fortune, I should take the liberty to kiss you, and tell you my son had made a charming choice.”
“Then kiss me now,” said Kate, suddenly detaching herself from John, and holding out her hands to his father. Dr Mitford gave a little irresolute glance behind him to see what his wife was thinking; and then after a moment’s hesitation, melted by the pretty face lifted to him, by the fortune which he had thus set forward as a drawback to her, and by the mingled sentiment, false and true, of the occasion, took her hands into his and bent over her and kissed her forehead.
“My dear,” he said, with effusion, “I could not have hoped for so sweet a daughter-in-law. You would be as welcome to me as the flowers in May.” And then Dr Mitford paused, and the puckers came back to his forehead, and he turned round on his heel as on a pivot, and faced his son. “But don’t for a moment suppose, John, that I can approve of you. I will not adopt your cause with Mr Crediton. Good heavens! he might think it was a scheme. He might think——”
“That he could never think,” said Mrs Mitford, not able to restrain her impatience. “He may be angry, and blame everybody, and do away with it—but he could not think that.”
“If I have done wrong, let it come upon me,” said John, hoarsely. “But, Kate, come! you have had enough to bear.” He was thinking of her only, not of what any one else had to bear; and it was hard upon Mrs Mitford. And it was hard upon her, very hard, to take the interloper into her arms again, and falter forth a blessing on her. “He is everything in the world to me,” she whispered, with her lips on Kate’s cheek. “And what should his wife be? But my heart seems dead to-night.” “Dear mamma, don’t hate me. I will not take him away from you; and I have no mother,” Kate whispered back. And Mrs Mitford held her close for a moment, and cried, and was lightened at her heart. But this little interlude was unknown to the two men who stood looking on. John led his betrothed away into the hall, where he lingered one moment before he said good-night. What he said to her, or she to him, is not much to our present purpose. They lingered and whispered, and clung to each other as most of us have done once in our lives—and could not make up their minds to separate. While this went on, Dr Mitford made a little turn about the table in his excitement, and thrust up the shade from the lamp, as if to throw more light upon the matter. He was in a fidget, and a little alarmed by what his son had done, yet prepared to feel that all was for the best.
“My dear, is it possible you knew of this?” he said, rubbing his hands. “What a very odd thing that it should have happened so! Bless my soul! she is a great heiress. Why, Mary,” giving a glance round him, and lowering his voice a little, “who could have thought that lump of a boy would have had the sense to do so well for himself?”
“Oh, Dr Mitford, for heaven’s sake don’t speak so! Whatever he intends, my boy never thought of that.”
“I don’t suppose he did,” said the father, still softly rubbing his hands; “I don’t suppose he did—but still, all the same. Why, bless my soul! Mary—— To be sure it may be unpleasant with Mr Crediton. If he could think for one moment that we had any hand in it——”
“He cannot think that,” said Mrs Mitford. A sense that there was something more to be told kept her breathless and incapable of speech. But it gave her a little consolation to be able to defy Mr Crediton’s suspicions. It was a safety-valve, so far as it went.
“I hope not—I sincerely hope not. I should tell him at once that it is—well—yes—contrary to my wishes. Of course it would be a great thing for John. He is not the sort of boy to make his way in the world, and this would give him such a start. Unless her father is very adverse, Mary, I should be inclined to think that everything is for the best.”
“You are so ready to think that, Dr Mitford,” said his wife, sitting down suddenly in her excitement, feeling that her limbs could no longer support her. “But I am afraid I am not so submissive,” she added, with a little burst of feeling, putting up her hand to her eyes.
“You don’t mean to say you don’t see the advantages of it?” said her husband; “or is it the girl you object to? She seems to me to be a very nice girl.”
“Oh, hush!” said Mrs Mitford; “do not let him hear you. Oh my boy! my boy!”
John came in with his face just settling out of the melting tenderness of his good-night into the resolution which was necessary for what was now before him. He saw that his mother, half hidden in her chair, had covered her eyes with her hand; and his father stood by the table, as if he had been arguing, or reasoning, or explaining something. It was not an attitude very unusual with Dr Mitford; but explaining things to his wife, notwithstanding her respect for him, was not an effort generally attended with much success.
“I tell you, my dear,” he said, as John approached, with the air of concluding an argument, “that if Mr Crediton does not object, I shall think John has made an excellent choice.”
“Thank you, father,” John said, and held out his hand; while the mother, whose anxieties on the subject went so much deeper, sat still on her chair and covered her face, and felt a sharp pang of irritation strike through her. She had trained the boy to be very respectful, very dutiful, to his father; but Dr Mitford spent much of his time in his study, and there could not be much sympathy between them; yet the two stood clasping hands while she was left out. It was the strangest transposition of parts. She could not understand it, and it jarred through her with sudden pain. Nor did John seek her after that, as surely, she thought, he must do. He stood between them in front of the table, and kept looking straight, not at either of them, but at the light.
“I have had something else on my mind for a long time,” he said, and his lips were parched with excitement. “Father, it is a long affair: will you sit down again and listen to what I have to say?”
“If it is about this business,” said his father, “I have told you already, John, that nothing can be done without her father’s consent; and I have not time, you know, to waste in talk. Tell your mother what it is; I shall have it all from her. I have given you my consent and approbation conditionally. Your mother, surely, can do all the rest.”
“Wait,” said John; “pray, wait a little. It is not about this. I want to tell you and my mother both together. I should not have the courage,” he added, with the excitement of self-defence, “to speak to you separately. It has nothing to do with this. It was a burden upon my mind before I ever saw Kate. And now that everything has come to a crisis, I must speak. It cannot be delayed any longer. Hear me for this once.”
Mrs Mitford gave a stifled groan. It was very low, but the room was very silent, and the sound startled all of them—even herself. It sounded somehow as if it had come in through the window out of the dark. She raised herself up suddenly and opened her eyes, and uncovered her face, and looked at them both, lest any one should say it was she. Yes, she had foreseen it all the time; she had felt it, since ever that girl came to the house—which was not, it must be admitted, entirely just.
“You have brought me up to be a clergyman,” said John, still more and more hurried, “and there was a time when I accepted the idea as a matter of course; but since I have grown older, things are different. I cannot bear to disappoint you, and overturn all your plans; but, father, think! Can I undertake to say from the altar things I cannot believe? Ought I to do that? If I were a boy, it might be different, and I might learn better; but at my age——”
“Age!” said the Doctor, impatiently, “what is all this about? Age? of course you are a boy, and nothing else. And why shouldn’t you believe? Better men than you have gone over all that ground, and settled it again and again.”
“But, father, I cannot be guided by what other people think. I must judge for myself. I cannot do it! I have tried to carry out your expectations until the struggle has been almost more than I could bear. Forgive me: it has come to be a question of possibility——”
“A question of fiddlestick!” cried the Doctor, angrily, walking about the room. “I tell you, better men than you have settled all that. Of course you think your doubts are quite original, and never were heard of before. Nonsense! I have not the slightest doubt they have been refuted a hundred times over. Stuff! Mary, is it to be expected I should give in to him?—just when it was a comfort to think he was provided for, and all that. Are you such a fool as to think you can meet Mr Crediton with this story? Is he to understand at once that you mean to live on your wife?”
“I will never live on my wife,” said John, stung in the tenderest point.
“Oh, Dr Mitford, don’t speak to him so,” said his mother, rising up and throwing herself metaphorically between the combatants. “Do you think if he had not had a very strong reason he would have said this to us, knowing how it would grieve us? Oh, let him tell us what he means!”
“I know what he means,” said Dr Mitford, “better than he does himself. He thinks it is a fine thing to be a sceptic. His father believes what he can’t believe, and that makes him out superior to his father. And then here is Kate Crediton with all her money——”
“Father!” cried John, pale with rage.
“Oh, hush, hush!” said Mrs Mitford; “that has nothing to do with it. Oh, don’t let us bring her name in to make bitterness. John, John, do not say anything hasty! We had so set our hearts upon it. And, dear, your papa might explain things to you if you would but have patience. He never knew you had any doubts before.”
“Mother,” said John, with tears in his eyes, turning to her, “it is like you to take my part.”
“But he must have a very strong reason,” she went on, without heeding him, addressing her husband, “to be able to make up his mind to disappoint us so. Don’t be hard upon our poor boy. If you were to argue with him, and explain things—I am sure my John did not mean any harm. Oh, consider, John!—Fanshawe, that you were born in—how could you bear to see it go to others? And the poor people that know you so well—— Dr Mitford, when all this is over, and—strangers gone, and we are quiet again, you will take the boy with you, and go over everything and explain——”
“The fact is,” said the Doctor, suddenly going to the side table and selecting his candle, “that I have no time to waste on such nonsense. You can have what books you want out of my library, and I hope your own sense and reflection will carry the day. Not a word more. You are excited, I hope, and that is the cause of this exhibition. No; of course I don’t accept what you have said. Speak to your mother—that is the best thing you can do. I have got my paper to finish, so good-night.”
John stood aghast, and watched his father go out at the door, impatient and contemptuous of the explanation it had cost him so much to make. And when he turned to his mother, expecting her sympathy, she was standing by him transformed, with a gleam of fire in her eyes such as he had never seen there; a flush on her face, and her hand held up with indignant, almost threatening, vehemence.
“How could you do it?” she cried—“how could you have the heart to do it? To us that have had no thought but for you! Look what sacrifices we have made all your life that you should have everything. Look how your father has worked at his papers—and all that we have done to secure your prosperity. And for the sake of a silly girl you had never seen a month ago! Oh, God forgive me! what shall I do?”
And she sank down on her chair and covered her face, and burst into angry weeping. It was not simple sorrow, but mortification, rage, disappointment—a combination of feelings which it was impossible for John to identify with his mother. She had been defending him but a moment before. It had given him a sense of the most exquisite relief to find her on his side. He had turned to her without doubt or fear, expecting that she would cry a little, perhaps, and lament over him, and be wistfully respectful of his doubts, and tender of his sufferings. And to see her confronting him, flushed, indignant, almost menacing! His consternation was too great for words. “Mother,” he said, faltering, “you are mistaken—indeed you are mistaken!” and stopped short, with mingled resentment and humiliation. Why should Kate be supposed to have anything to do with it? And yet in his heart he knew that she had a great deal to do with it. Her—but not her fortune, as his father thought. Curse her fortune! John, who had always been so gentle, walked up and down the room like a caged lion, with a hundred passions in his heart. He was wild with mortification, and with that sense of the intolerable which accompanies the first great contrariety of a life. Nothing (to speak of) had ever gone cross with him before. But now his mother herself had turned against him—could such a thing be possible?—and the solid earth had been rent away from under his feet.
Neither of them knew how long it was before anything more was said. Mrs Mitford sobbed out her passion, and dried her tears, and remained silent; and so did John, till the air seemed to stir round him with wings and rustlings as of unseen spectators. It was only when it had become unbearable that he broke the silence. “Mother,” he said, with a voice which even to his own ears sounded harsh and strange, “you have always believed me till now. When I tell you that this has been in my heart ever since I left Oxford—and while I was at Oxford—and that I have always refrained from telling you, hoping that when the time of decision came I might feel differently—will you refuse to believe me now?”
Mrs Mitford was incapable of making any reply. “Oh, John,” she said—“oh, my boy!” shaking her head mournfully, while the tears dropped from her eyes. She did not mean to imply that she would not believe him. Poor soul! she did not very well know what she meant, except utter confusion and misery; but that was the meaning which her gesture bore to him.
“I have done nothing to deserve this,” he said, with indignation. “You have a right to be as severe upon me as you like for disobeying your wishes, but you have no right to disbelieve your son.”
“Oh, John, what is the use of speaking?” said Mrs Mitford. “Disbelieve you! why should I disbelieve you? The best thing is just to say nothing more about it, but let me break my heart and take no notice. What am I that I should stand in your way? Your father will get the better of it, for he has so many things to occupy him; but I will never get the better of it. Don’t take any notice of me; the old must give up, whatever happens—I know that—and the young must have their day.”
“Yes; the young must have their day,” said John, severely; and then his heart smote him, and he came and knelt down by his mother’s side. “But why should you be in such despair?” he said. “Mother, I am not going away from you. Though I should not be curate of Fanshawe Regis, may not we all be very happy together?—as happy in a different way? Mother, dear, I thought you were the one to stand by me, whoever should be against me.”
“And so I will stand by you,” she sobbed, permitting him to take her hand and caress it. “Nobody shall say I do not stand up for my own boy. You shall have your mother for your defender, John, if it should kill me. But oh, my heart is broke!” she cried, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Now and then even a boy’s mother must think of herself. All my dreams were about you, John. I have not been so happy, not so very happy, in my life. Other women have been happier than me, and more thought of, that perhaps have done no more than I have. But I have always said to myself, I have my John. I thought you would make it up to me; I thought my happiness had all been saving up—all waiting till I was growing old, and needed it most. Don’t cry, my dear. I would not have you cry, you that are a man, as if you were a girl. Oh, if I had had a girl of my own, I think I could have borne it better. But she would have gone off and married too. There, there! I am very selfish speaking about my feelings. I will never do it again. What does anything matter to me if you are happy? My dear, go to bed now, and don’t take any more notice. It was the shock, you know. In the morning you will see I shall have come to myself.”
“But, mother, it matters most to me that you should understand me,” cried John—“you who have been everything to me. Do you think I am going to forget who has trained me, and taught me, and guided me since ever I remember? What difference will this make between you and me? Does giving up the Church mean giving up my mother? Never, never! I should give up even my own conscience, whatever it cost me, could I think that.”
“Oh, John, my dear, perhaps if things were rightly explained——?” she faltered, raising her voice with a little spring of hope, and looking anxiously in his face. But she saw no hope there, and then her voice grew tremulous and solemn. “John, do you think it will bring a blessing on you to turn back after you have put your hand to the plough, and forsake God for the world? Is that the way to get His grace?”
“Will God be better pleased with me if I stand up at the altar before Him and say a lie?” said John. “Mother, you who are so true and just, you cannot think what you say.”
“But it is truth you have to speak, and not lies,” said the unused controversialist, with a thousand wistful pleas, which were not arguments, in her eyes; and then she threw her tender arms round her son, and clasped him to her. “Oh, my boy, what can I say? It is because of the shock and my not expecting it. I think my heart is broken. But go to bed, my dear, and think no more of me for to-night.”
“I cannot bear you saying your heart is broken,” cried John. “Mother, don’t be so hard upon me. I must act according to my conscience, whatever I may have to bear.”
“Oh, John! God knows I don’t mean to be hard upon you!” cried Mrs Mitford, stung with the reproach. And then she rose up trembling, her pretty grey hair ruffled about her forehead, her eyes wet and shining with so great a strain of emotion. Thus she stood for a moment, looking at him with such a faint effort at a smile as she could accomplish. “Perhaps things will look different in the morning,” she said; softly, “if we say our prayers with all our hearts before we go to bed.”
And with that she drew her son to her, and gave him his good-night kiss, and went away quickly without turning round again. John was left master of the field. Neither father nor mother had any effectual forces to bring against him—they had both retired with a postponement of the question, which weakened their power and strengthened his. And he had attained what seemed to him the greatest happiness in life—the love of the girl whom he loved. And yet he was not happy. He walked slowly up and down the deserted room, and stood at the open window, and breathed in the breath of the lilies and the dew, and remembered that Kate was his, and yet was not happy. How incredible that was, and yet true! When he left the room he caught himself moving with stealthy footsteps, as if something lay dead in the house. And something did lie dead. The hopes that had centred in him had got their death-blow. The house had lost what had been its heart and strength. He became vaguely, sadly conscious of this, as he stole away in the silence to his own room, and shut himself up there, though it was still so early, with his heart as heavy as lead within his breast.
Next morning the household met at breakfast with that strange determination to look just as usual, and ignore all that had happened, which is so common in life. Kate, to be sure, did not know what had happened. She was aware of nothing but her own engagement which could have disturbed the family calm; and it filled her with wonder, and even irritation, to see how pale John looked, who ought to have been at the height of happiness, and how little exultation was in his voice. “He is thinking of what he is to say to papa,” was the thought that passed through her mind; and this thought fortunately checked her momentary displeasure. Mrs Mitford was paler still, and her eyes looked red, as if she had been crying; but instead of being subdued or cross, she was in unusually gay spirits, it seemed to Kate—talking a great deal more than usual, even laughing, and attempting little jokes which sat very strangely upon her. The only conclusion Kate could draw from the general aspect of affairs was that they were all extremely nervous about the meeting with Mr Crediton. And, on the whole, she was not very much surprised at this. She herself was nervous enough. His only child, for whom he might have hoped the most splendid of marriages—who was so much admired, and had so little excuse for throwing herself away—that she could engage herself thus, like any school-girl, to a clergyman’s son, with no prospects, nor money, nor position, nor anything! Kate looked at John across the table, and saw that he was very far from handsome, and owned to herself that it was next to incredible. Why had she done it? Looking at him critically, he was not even the least good-looking, nor distinguished, nor remarkable in any way. One might say he had a good expression, but that was all that could be said for him. And Kate felt that it would be incredible to her father. Dr Mitford was the only one of the party who was like himself; but then he was an old man, and naturally had not much feeling left.
“I want you to let me drive the phaeton over to the station to meet papa,” she said. “Please do, Dr Mitford. Oh, I am not in the least afraid of the pony. I have been making friends with him, and giving him lumps of sugar, and I do want to be the first to see papa.”
“My dear Miss Kate, I am so sorry the phaeton has only room for two,” said the Doctor. “If you were to go there would be no seat for your excellent father; but it is only half an hour’s drive—cannot you wait till he reaches here?”
“But, dear Dr Mitford, I always drive him from the station at home,” cried Kate.
“You are not at home now, my dear young lady,” said the Doctor, shaking his head. “We must give you back safe and sound into his hands. The groom will go. No, Miss Kate, no—we must not frighten your worthy father. You must consider what had so nearly happened a month ago. No, no; it requires a man’s hand——”
“But the pony is so gentle,” pleaded Kate.
“I know the pony better than you do,” Dr Mitford said, shaking his head, “and he wants a man’s hand. My dear, you must be content to wait your good father here.”
The Doctor was the only one who appeared unmoved. He had put on all his usual decorous solemnity along with his fresh stiff white tie, and highly-polished creaking boots. But even he made no allusion to the changed state of affairs. Sometimes Kate felt as if she must laugh, sometimes as if she must cry, sometimes disposed to be angry, sometimes wounded. She was glad to escape from the table to the garden, where John found her—glad, poor fellow, to escape too. And then, as they wandered among the rose-bushes arm-in-arm, she found out how it was.
“But they have no right to be so hard on you,” cried Kate, impetuously. “Suppose you had never seen me or thought of me—would it be right to be a clergyman, just like a trade, when you felt you could not in your heart——”
“My Kate!—you understand me at least; that is what I said.”
“And when you can do so much better for yourself,” said Kate, with emphasis. “Mrs Mitford and the Doctor should think of that. One way you never could have been anything but a clergyman; while the other way—why, you may be anything, John.”
He shook his head over her, half sadly, half pleased. He knew his capacities were far from being beyond limit, but still that she should think so was pleasant. And then there was the sense, which was sweet, that he and she, spending the summer morning among the flowers, were a little faction in arms against the world, with a mutual grievance, mutual difficulties, a cause to maintain against everybody. Solitude à deux is sweet, and selfishness à deux has a way of looking half sublime. It was the first time either of them had experienced this infinitely seductive sentiment. They talked over the hardness of the father and mother, with a kind of delight in thus feeling all the world to be against them. “They cannot blame me, for you were thinking of that before you ever saw me,” said Kate. “Blame you! it is one thing the more I have to love you for,” said John. “I should never have been awakened to free myself but for you, my darling. I should have gone stupidly on under the sway of custom.” And for the moment he believed what he said. Oh, what a difference it made! the wide world before him where to choose, and this creature, whom he loved more than all the world, leaning on him, putting her fate in his hands; instead of the dull routine of parish duties, and the dull home life, and the stagnation around, and all his uneasy restless thoughts.
It was about twelve o’clock when Kate went up-stairs to get her hat, with the intention of setting out on foot to waylay her father. It was absolutely indispensable, she felt, that she should be the first to see him; but up to that time the two lovers had wandered about together unmolested, not caring who saw them, arm-in-arm. This was the first advantage of the engagement. Dr Mitford saw them from his library, and Mrs Mitford looked down upon them with a beating heart from her chamber-window, but neither interfered. Twenty-four hours before Mrs Mitford would have gone out herself to take care of them, or would have called Kate to her; but now that they were engaged, such precautions were vain. And other people saw them besides the father and mother. Fred Huntley, for instance, who reined in his horse, and peered over the garden-wall as he passed, with a curiosity he found it difficult to account for, saw them standing by the lilies leaning on each other, and said “Oh!” to himself, and turned back and rode home again, without giving the message he had been charged with. He had come to ask the Fanshawe Regis people to a garden-party—“But what is the use?” Fred had said to himself; and had turned, not his own head, but his horse’s, and gone back again. Parsons, too, saw the pair from Kate’s window, where she was finishing her packing. “Master will soon put a stop to that,” was Parsons’ decision. But everybody perceived at once that a new relationship had been established between the two, and that everything was changed.
When Kate ran up-stairs to put on her hat, it was after two hours of this consultation and mutual confidence. It was true she had not taken much advice from him. She had closed his lips on that subject, telling him frankly that she knew her papa a great deal better than he did, and that she should take her own way; but she had given a great deal of counsel, on the other hand. He had found it impossible to do more than make a succession of little fond replies, so full had she been of advice and wisdom. “You must be, oh, so kind and gentle and nice to her,” Kate had said. “I will never forgive you if you are in the least cross or disagreeable to mamma. Yes; I like to say mamma. I never had any mother of my own, and she has been so good to me, and I love her so—not for your sake, sir, but for her own. You must never be vexed by anything she says; you must be as patient and gentle and sweet to her—but, remember, you must be firm! It will be kindest to all of us, John. If you were to appear to give in now, it would all have to be done over again; now the subject has been started, it will be much kinder to be firm.”
“You need not fear in that respect,” John replied. “I think nothing but the thought of you up-stairs, and the feeling that you understood me, would have given me courage to speak; but the moment one word had been said, all had been said. Nothing can bring things back to their old condition again.”
“I am so glad,” said Kate; “but, remember, you must be gentleness itself to her. If you were rude or undutiful or unkind, I should never, never look at you again.”
“My darling!” said John. It was so sweet of her thus to defend his mother. If Mrs Mitford had heard it, her soft heart would have been filled full of disgust and bitterness to think of this stranger taking it upon herself to plead for her, his mother, with her own son! But John only thought how sweet it was of his darling to be so anxious for his mother, and felt his heart melt over her. What was all his mother had done for him in comparison with Kate’s dominion, which was boundless, and of divine right? Thus they discussed their position, the very difficulties of which were delicious because they were mutual, and felt that the other persons connected with them, parents and suchlike, were railed off at an immense distance, and were henceforward to be struggled against and kept in subjection. It was with this resolution full in her mind, and thrilling with a new impulse of independence and activity, that Kate went up-stairs. Parsons had gone down to seek that sustenance of failing nature which the domestic mind finds necessary between its eight o’clock breakfast and its two o’clock dinner; but Lizzie, whom Kate had seen but little of lately, inspired on her side by a resolution scarcely less strong than the young lady’s, was at her bedroom door, waylaying her. Lizzie rushed in officiously to find the hat and the gloves and the parasol which Miss Crediton wanted, and then she added, humbly, “Please, miss!” and stood gaping, with her wholesome country roses growing crimson, and the creamy white of her round neck reddening all over, like sunrise upon snow.
“Well, Lizzie, what is it?—but make haste, for I am in a hurry,” said Kate. She was a young lady who was very good-natured to servants, and, as they said, not a bit proud.
“Oh, please, miss!—it’s as I can’t a-bear to see you going away.”
“Is that all? I am sure it is very kind of you, Lizzie—everybody has been so very kind to me at Fanshawe Regis that I can’t bear to go away,” said Kate; “but I daresay I shall come back again—probably very often; so you see it is not worth while to cry.”
“That’s not the reason, miss,” said Lizzie; “I’ve been thinking this long and long if I could better myself. Mother’s but poor, miss, and all them big lads to think of. And you as has so many servants, and could do such a deal—— It aint as I’m not happy with missis—but service is service, and I feel as I ought to better myself——.”
“Oh, you ungrateful thing!” cried Kate; “after Mrs Mitford has been so good to you. I would not be so ungrateful for all the world. Better yourself indeed! I can tell you, you are a great deal more likely to injure yourself. Oh, Lizzie, I should not have thought it of you! You ought to be so happy here.”
“It aint as I’m not happy,” cried Lizzie, melting into tears. “Oh, miss, don’t you go and be vexed. It’s all along of what Miss Parsons says. She says in the kitchen as how she’s going to be married, and all the dresses you gives her, and all the presents, and takes her about wherever you go. Oh, miss, when Miss Parsons is married, won’t you try me? I’ll serve you night and day—I will. I don’t mind sitting up nights—not till daylight—and I’d never ask for holidays, nor followers, nor nothing. You’d have a faithful servant, though I says it as shouldn’t,” said Lizzie, with her apron at her eyes; “and mother’s prayers, and a blessin’ from the Lord—oh, miss, if you’d try me!”
“Try you in place of Parsons!” cried Kate, in consternation. “Why, Lizzie, are you mad? Can you make dresses, you foolish girl, and dress hair, and do all sorts of things, like Parsons? You are only Mrs Mitford’s housemaid. Do you mean to tell me you can do all that too?”