The conversation above recorded was, it may be supposed, very far from being the last on so tempting a subject. In short, the two who had such a topic to themselves did with it what two people invariably do with a private occasion for talk,—produced it perpetually, had little snatches of discussion over it, which were broken off as soon as any stranger appeared, and gradually got into a confidential and mysterious intimacy. Kate, to do her justice, had no evil intention. None of the girls about her knew John sufficiently well to discuss him. They had seen him but for these two days, when he had been distrait, preoccupied, and suffering; and indeed her friends did not admire her choice, and Madeline Winton, who was her chief intimate, had not hesitated to say so. “Of course I don’t doubt Mr Mitford is very nice,” had been Miss Winton’s deliverance; “but if you really ask my opinion, Kate, I must say he did not captivate me.” “I did not want him to captivate you,” Kate had answered, with some heat. But nevertheless it is discouraging to have your confidences about your betrothed thus summarily checked. And on the whole, perhaps, it was more piquant to have Fred Huntley for a confidant than Madeline Winton. He never snubbed her. To be sure, with him it was not possible to indulge in very much enthusiasm over the excellences of the beloved; but that was not in any case Kate’s way; and the matter, without doubt, was full of difficulties. It was hard to know how to overcome Mr Crediton’s passive but unfaltering resistance—how to bring the father and the lover to something like an understanding of each other—how to satisfy John and smooth down his asperities and make him content with his position. “It is not that he is discontented,” Kate said, with an anxious pucker on her brow, on one of those evenings when she had stolen a moment from her cares and her guests. “It is not that he is discontented,” she repeated; “I hope he is too fond of me for that—but——”
“I don’t understand how such a word as discontent could be spoken in the same breath with his name,” said Fred—“a lucky fellow! No, surely it cannot be that.”
“I told you it was not discontent,” Kate said, almost sharply; “and as for lucky and all that, you always make me angry with your nonsense—when we are talking gravely of a subject which is of so much importance; at least it is of great importance to me.”
“I think you might know by this time,” said Fred, with soft reproach, “that everything that concerns you is important to me.”
She looked up at him with that soft glow of gratitude and thanks in her eyes which had subdued John, and half extended to him the tips of her fingers. “Yes, indeed,” she said, “you are very, very kind. I don’t know why I talk to you like this. I can’t talk so to anybody else. And I do so want some one to feel for me. Is it very selfish? I am afraid it is.”
“If it is selfish, I hope you will always be selfish,” said Fred, with a fervour which was out of place, considering all things, and yet was natural enough; and though he could not kiss the finger-tips with so many eyes looking on, he squeezed them furtively in the shadow of her dress. And then for one moment they looked at each other and felt they were going wrong. To Fred, I am afraid, the feeling was not new, nor so painful as it ought to have been; but it sent the blood pulsing suddenly with a curious thrill up to Kate’s very hair, startling her as if she had received an electric shock. And then next moment she said to herself, “Nonsense! it is only Fred; he is fond of me as if he were my brother. And how nice it would be to have a brother!” she added unconsciously, with a half-uttered sigh.
“Did you speak?” said Fred.
“No; I was only thinking how nice it would be—if you were my real brother,” said Kate. “How I wish you were my brother! You have always been so kind; and then you would settle it all for me, and everything would come right. It would have been so nice for papa too to have had a son like you. He would not have minded losing me so much; and he would have been so proud of your first class and all that. What a nice arrangement it would have been altogether!” she ran on, beginning to see a little fun in the suggestion, which even in her present anxious state was sweet to her. “I wonder, you know—- I don’t mean to be wicked, but I do wonder—why Providence shouldn’t think of such things. It would have been so very, very nice both for me and for papa!”
To this Fred made no reply: he even looked a little glum, if the truth must be told, and wondered, after all, was she laughing at him as well as at the rest of the world? and the general company, as it happened, wanted a little stirring up just at that particular moment, and Kate had darted off before he was aware, and was here and there among her guests looking as if vexation of any kind had never come near her. Fred asked himself, did she mean what she said—was she really moved by the difficulties that lay in John Mitford’s way, or did she care anything about John Mitford? and what was still more important, what did she mean about himself?—did she mean anything?—was she playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse? or was it all real for the moment—her anxieties, her friendship, all her winning ways?—for they were winning ways, though he did not feel sure what faith was to be put in them; and Fred felt a certain pleasant weakness about his heart at the very thought of her—though she was not his but another man’s Kate, and though he had no desire to be her brother. There were various men within reach with whom he could have talked pleasantly enough in other circumstances; and there were women whom he liked—Lady Winton, for instance—who was very clever, and a great friend of Fred’s. Yet instead of consoling himself with any of these resources, he sat in his corner, going over and over the foolish little conversation which had just passed, watching Kate’s movements, and wondering if she would come back. The time was—and that not so very long ago—when he would have thought Lady Winton’s company worth twenty of Kate Crediton’s; though Lady Winton was as old as his mother, and as free from any thought of flirting with her son’s friend. But something had suddenly made the very idea of Kate Crediton much more captivating than her ladyship’s wit and wisdom. What was it? Is it quite fair to Mitford? Fred even asked himself faintly, though he gave himself no answer. At the last, however, his patience was rewarded. Kate came back after a long interval, after she had suggested “a little music,” and had herself sung, and successfully started the performances of the evening. She came back to Fred, as she had never gone back to John,—partly, perhaps, because Fred was not much to her, and John was a great deal. But nevertheless, she slid into the easy-chair again, and threw herself back, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the music. “This is so sweet. Please don’t talk to me—any one,” she said, audibly. And Fred did not talk; but he sat half behind her, half concealed by her chair and dress, and felt a curious beatitude steal over him. Why? He could not tell, and he did not ask;—he felt it, that was all.
“Do you know,” Kate said, with a certain abruptness, in the middle of a bar, “that I think everything might come right, Mr Huntley, if you would really use your influence; if you would represent to papa how good he is; and if you would only be patient with him, and show him how much better things might be. You men are so queer. If it were me, I would put on any look, it would not matter. Could there be anything wrong in putting on a look just for a little while, when it might conciliate papa? Any girl would do it naturally,” Kate continued, in a slightly aggrieved tone. “I know you men are honester, and superior, and all that; but when one has not a bad motive, it can’t be any harm to make-believe a little, for so short a time.”
“I think I could make-believe as much and as long as you liked,” said Fred, “if you would condescend to ask me.”
“Everybody does it—a little—in ordinary society,” said Kate. “Of course we all smile and say things we don’t mean. And wouldn’t it be all the more innocent if one had a good motive? You men are so stiff and so strange. You can put on looks easily enough when it is for your own ends; and then, when one wants you just to be a little prudent——”
“Happy Mitford!” said Fred. “I should stand on my head, if you took the trouble to ask me.”
“That is not the question,” said Kate, giving her pretty head a little toss, as if to shake off the suspicion of a blush which had come against her will; “why should I ask you to stand on your head? Now you are vexed,” she added, hastily, seeing his face cloud over. “What have I done? I am sure I did not mean to vex you. I was only thinking of—poor John.”
Fred was silent. He had almost betrayed himself, and it was hard to make any reply. He swallowed his vexation as he best could, and represented to himself that he had no right to be vexed. Of course it was John she was thinking of. That fellow! he said to himself, as Mr Crediton had done; though even in saying so he was aware that he was unjust. And, to be sure, he had known that John was more interesting to Kate than he was; yet he felt it hard. He drew back a little, and bit his lip, and twisted his thumbs, and looked black in spite of himself.
“Don’t, please!” said Kate, carried away by her desire of smoothing things down and making everybody comfortable. “I have nearly quarrelled with papa. Don’t you quarrel with me too.”
“I quarrel with you!” cried Fred, leaning forward once more, and gazing at her with eyes that made Kate quake; and then he paused and added, in restrained tones that had a thrill of passion in them, “Do anything with me you like. I will try not to shrink from anything you want me to do. But Kate, Kate, don’t forget I am a man—as well as John.”
It was a great relief to Kate that Lady Winton came up at that moment and took a seat near her, and put an effectual stop to any more whispering. Perhaps it would be nonsense to say that she was very much surprised by this little outbreak of feeling. It is common to admire and wonder at the unfathomableness of women; and, like most other common and popular ideas, it is great nonsense; for women are no more mysterious to men than men are to women, and both are equally incomprehensible. But perhaps the sentiments of a young woman in respect to the man who pays court to her, are really as curious things as are to be found within the range of humanity. The girl has no intention to be cruel—is no coquette—and would be astonished beyond measure if she could fully realise what she is herself doing. And yet there is a curiosity, an interest, in admiration for itself—in love (still more) for itself—which draw her on unawares. It requires a strong mind, or an insensible heart, not to be interested in such an investigation, and sometimes it goes to the point of cruelty. When she knows what she is about, of course a good girl will stop short, and do what she can to show the infatuated one “some discourtesy,” as Sir Lancelot was bidden do to Elaine; but there are some women, like Lancelot, who cannot be discourteous, whatever is the cost; and with a mixture of awe, and wonder, and poignant gratification which is half pain, the woman looks on while that costly offering is made to her. It is cruel, and yet it is not meant to be cruel. Such were Kate’s feelings now. Was it possible that Fred Huntley could be coming to the point of loving her—the collected, cool, composed being that he was? What kind of love would his be? How would it move him? Would it be true love, or only a pretence at it? These questions filled her with a curiosity and desire to carry on the experiment, which were too strong to be resisted. She was glad of Lady Winton’s approach, because when it comes to plain speaking, it is difficult to pursue this subtle inquiry without compromising one’s self. But she turned half round and gave him a wondering, anxious look. You poor dear fellow! what can you mean? was what the look said; and it was not the kind of glance which discourages a lover either secret or avowed. And then she turned to Lady Winton, who had established herself at Kate’s other side.
“I have scarcely seen you all day,” she said. “Madeline told me you were too tired to talk, and that it was best to leave you alone.”
“That was very true,” said Lady Winton, “but I am better now, and I have something to say to you before I go away. Mr Huntley, will you fetch me my fan, which I have left on the piano? Thanks. Now we have got rid of him, my dear, I can say what I have to say.”
“But probably he will come back,” said Kate, with a thrill of fear.
“I don’t think he will. Fred Huntley has a great deal of sense. When I send him off with a commission like that, of course he knows we don’t want him here; and I am so glad he is gone, Kate, for it was to speak of him I came.”
“To speak of—him!”
“Yes, indeed,” said Lady Winton. “Tell me frankly, Kate, as one woman to another, which is it to be?”
“Which is what to be?—I don’t understand you,” said Kate, flushing crimson; “which of which? Lady Winton, I can’t even guess what you mean.”
“Oh yes, you can,” said her new adviser. “My dear, it is not permitted by our laws to have two husbands, and that makes two lovers very dangerous—I always warn a girl against it. You think, perhaps, there is no harm, and that one of them will be wise enough not to go too far; but they will go too far, those silly men—and when they don’t, we despise them, my dear,” said the experienced woman. “A woman may shilly-shally, and hold off and on, and make an entertainment of it—but when a man is capable of that sort of thing he is not worth a thought; and so I ask, which is it to be?”
It will be seen from this that Lady Winton, like so many clever women of her age, was deeply learned in all the questions that arise between men and women. She had studied the matter at first hand of course, in her youth; and though she had never been a flirt, she had not been absolutely devoid of opportunity for study, even in her maturer years, when the faculty of observation was enlarged, and ripe judgment had come; and accordingly she spoke with authority, as one fully competent to fathom and realise the question which she thus fearlessly opened. As for Kate, she changed colour a great many times while she was being addressed, but her courage did not fail.
“Mr Huntley is my friend,” she said, facing her accuser bravely: “as for which it is to be, I introduced Mr Mitford to you, Lady Winton——”
“Yes, my dear, and that is what makes me ask; and a very nice young fellow, I am sure—a genuine reliable sort of young man, Kate——”
“Oh, isn’t he?” cried that changeable personage, with eyes glowing and sparkling; “dear Lady Winton, you always understand—that is just what he is—one could trust him with anything and he would never fail.”
“You strange girl,” said Lady Winton, “what do you mean? Why, you are in earnest! and yet you sit and talk with Fred Huntley a whole evening in a corner, and do everything you can to break the other poor fellow’s heart.”
“The other poor fellow is not here,” said Kate, with a half-alarmed glance round her. If it came to that, she felt that after all she would not have liked John to have watched her interview with her friend and his: and then she perceived that she had betrayed herself, and coloured high, recollecting that she was under keen feminine inspection which missed nothing.
“Don’t trust to that,” said Lady Winton; “you may be sure there is somebody here who will let him know. I don’t say much about Fred Huntley’s heart, for he is very well able to take care of that; but, Kate, for heaven’s sake, mind what you are about! Don’t get into the habit of encouraging one man because another is absent and will not know. Everybody knows everything, my dear; there is no such thing as a secret; you forget there are more than a dozen pairs of eyes in this very room.”
“Lady Winton,” said Kate, “I am not afraid of any one seeing what I do. I hope I have not done anything wrong; and as for Mr Mitford, I know him and he knows me.”
“Well, well—let us hope so,” said Lady Winton, with a prolonged shake of her head; “and I hope he is more philosophical than I gave him credit for; I should not have said it was his strong point. But, however, as you are so very sure, my dear——”
“Perfectly sure,” said Kate, with dignity; and the moment she had said it, would have liked to throw her arms round her monitor’s neck and have a good cry; but that was quite impossible in the circumstances; and Fred Huntley from afar seeing the two ladies draw imperceptibly apart, and seeing their conversation had come to an end, approached with the fan, and took up his position in front of them, and managed to bring about a general conversation. He did it very skilfully, and contrived to cover Kate’s annoyance and smooth her down, and restore her to self-command; and that night Kate was not only friendly but grateful to him, which was a further step in the downward way.
Fred Huntley was a man of considerable ingenuity as well as coolness of intellect; and it was impossible that he could remain long unconscious of what he was doing, or take any but the first steps in any path without a clear perception of whither it led. And accordingly, before he had reached this point he had become fully aware of the situation, and had contemplated it from every possible point of view. No feeling of treachery to John weighed upon him when he thought it fully over. He had not been confided in by Kate’s accepted lover, nor appealed to, nor put upon his honour in the matter; and John was not even a very intimate friend that he should give in to him; nor did it occur to him to stifle the dawning love in his own heart, and withdraw from the field, even for Kate’s sake, to leave her tranquil to the enjoyment of her first love. Such an idea was not in Fred’s way. To secure his own will and his own happiness was naturally the first thing in his estimation, and he had no compunctions about his rival. There seemed to him no possible reason why he should sacrifice himself, and leave the field clear to John. And then there were so many aspects in which to consider the matter. It would be much better for her, Fred felt, to marry himself. He could make appropriate settlements upon her; he could maintain her in that position to which she had been accustomed; he could give her everything that a rich man’s daughter or rich man’s wife could desire. His blood, perhaps, might not be so good as John Mitford’s blood, if you entered into so fine a question; but he was heir to his father’s money, if not to much that was more ethereal. And money tells with everybody, Fred thought; it would tell with Kate, though perhaps she did not think so. Of all people in the world was not she the last who could consent to come down from her luxurious state, and be the wife of a poor man, with next to no servants, no horses, no carriage, and nothing but love to make up to her for a thousand wants? Fred Huntley was in love himself, and indeed it was love that was the origin of all these deliberations; and yet he scoffed at love as a compensation. By dint of reasoning, he even got himself to believe that it was an unprincipled thing on John’s part to seek her at all, and that any man would do a good deed who should deliver her from his hands. He had reached to this point by the next evening after the one whose events we have just recorded. Kate had not ridden out that day; she had been little visible to any one, and Fred had not more than a distant glimpse of her at the breakfast-table and in the twilight over the tea, which called together most of the party. Madeline Winton and her mother had gone away that morning; and Madeline was Kate’s gossip, her confidential friend, the only one with whom she could relieve her soul. She was somewhat low-spirited in the evening. Fred looked on, and saw her languid treatment of everything, and the snubs she administered to several would-be consolers. He kept apart with conscious skill; and yet, when he happened to be thrown absolutely in her way, was very full of attention and care for her comfort. He placed her seat just as he thought she liked it, arranged her footstool for her with the most anxious devotion, and was just retiring behind her chair when she stopped him, struck by his melancholy looks. “Are you ill, Mr Huntley?” she said, with something like solicitude; and Fred shook his head, fixing his eyes on her face.
“No,” he said, “I am not ill;” and then drew a little apart, and looked down upon her with a certain pathos in his eyes.
“There is something the matter with you,” said Kate.
“Well, perhaps there is; and I should have said there was something the matter with you, Miss Crediton, which is of a great deal more importance.”
“Mine is easily explained,” said Kate; “I have lost my friend. I am always low when Madeline goes away. We have always been such friends since we were babies. There is nobody in the world I am so intimate with. And it is so nice to have some one you can talk to and say everything that comes into your head. I am always out of spirits when she goes away.”
“If the post is vacant I wish I might apply for it,” Fred said, with exaggerated humility. “I think I should make an excellent confidant. Discreet and patient and ready to sympathise, and not at all given to offering impertinent advice.”
“Ah, you!” cried Kate, with a sudden glance up at him. And then she laughed, notwithstanding her depressed condition. “I wonder what Lady Winton would say?” she added merrily, but the next moment grew very red and felt confused under his eye; for what if he should try to find out what Lady Winton had said?—which, of course, he immediately attempted to do.
“Lady Winton is a great friend of mine. She would never give her vote against me,” said Fred, cunningly disarming his adversary.
Upon which Kate indulged herself in another mischievous laugh. Did he but know! “She is not like you,” said the girl in her temerity; “she is rather fond of giving advice.”
“Yes,” said Fred, growing bold. “That was what she was doing last night. Would you like me to tell you what it was about?”
“What it was about?” cried Kate, in consternation, with a violent sudden blush; but of course it must be nonsense, she represented to herself, looking at him with a certain anxiety. “You never could guess, Mr Huntley; it was something quite between ourselves.”
“That is very possible,” he said, so gravely that her fears were quite silenced; and he added in another moment, “but I know very well what it was. It was about me.”
“About you!”
“I have known Lady Winton a great many years,” said Fred, steadily. “I understand her ways. When she comes and takes a man’s place and sends him off for something she has left behind on purpose, he must be dull indeed if he does not know what she means. She was talking to you of me.”
“It was not I that said so!” cried Kate, who was in a great turmoil, combined of fright, confusion, and amusement. It would be such fun to hear what guesses he would make, and he was so sure not to find it out! “When you assert such a thing you must prove it,” she said, her eyes dancing with fun and rash delight, and yet with a secret terror in them too.
“She was warning you,” said Fred, with a long-drawn breath, in which there was some real and a good deal of counterfeit excitement, “not to trifle with me. She was telling you, that though I did not show many signs of feeling, I was still a man like other men, and had a heart——”
“Fancy Lady Winton saying all that,” cried Kate, with a tremulous laugh of agitation. “What a lively imagination you have—and about you!”
“But she might have said it with great justice,” said Fred, very gravely and steadily, “and about me.”
Here was a situation! To have a man speaking to you in your own drawing-room in full sight of a score of people, and as good as telling you what men tell in all sorts of covert and secret places, with faltering voice and beating heart. Fred was perfectly steady and still; his voice was a trifle graver than usual—perhaps it might have been called sad; his eyes were fixed upon her with a serious, anxious look; there was no air of jest, no levity, but an aspect of fact which terrified and startled her. Kate fairly broke down under this strange and unexpected test. She gave a frightened glance at him, and put up her fan to hide her face. What was she to say?
“Please, Mr Huntley,” she faltered, “this is not the kind of subject to make jokes about.”
“Do I look like a man who is joking?” he asked. “I do not complain; I have not a word to say. I suppose I have brought it upon myself, buying the delight of your society at any price I could get it for—even the dearest. And you talk to me about another man as if I were made of stone—a man who——”
“Stop, please,” she said, faintly. “I may have been wrong. I never thought—but please don’t say anything of him, whatever you may say to me.”
“You are more afraid of a word breathed against him than of breaking my heart,” said Fred, with some real emotion; and Kate sat still, thunderstruck, taking shelter behind her fan, feeling that every one was looking at her, and that her very ears were burning and tingling. Was he making love to her? she asked herself. Had he any intention of contesting John’s supremacy? or was it a mere remonstrance, a complaint that meant nothing, an outcry of wounded pride and nothing more?
“Mr Huntley,” she said, softly, “if I have given you any pain, I am very sorry. I never meant it. You were so kind, I did not think I was doing wrong. Please forgive me; if there is any harm done it is not with my will.”
“Do you think that mends matters?” said Fred, with now a little indignation mingling in his sadness. “If you put it into plain English, this is what it means:—I was something so insignificant to you, taken up as you were with your own love, that it never occurred to you that I might suffer. You never thought of me at all. If you had said you had meant it, and had taken the trouble to make me miserable, that would have been a little better; at least it would not have been contempt.”
And he turned away from her and sat down at a little table near, and covered his face with his hand. What would everybody think? was Kate’s first thought. Did he mean to hold her up to public notice, to demonstrate that she had used him badly? She bore it for a moment or two in her bewilderment, and then stretched across and touched him lightly with her fan. “Mr Huntley, there are a great many people in the room,” she said. “If we were alone you might reproach me; but surely we need not let these people know—and papa! Mr Huntley, you know very well it was not contempt. Won’t you forgive me—when I ask your pardon with all my heart?”
“Forgive you!” cried Fred; and he raised his head and turned to her, though he did not raise his eyes. “You cannot think it is forgiveness that is wanted—that is mockery.”
“Please don’t say so! I would not mock you for all the world. Oh, Mr Huntley, if it is not forgiveness, what is it?” cried Kate.
And then he looked at her with eyes full of reproach, and a certain appeal—while she met his look with incipient tears, with her child’s gaze of wonder, and sorrow, and eloquent deprecation. “Please forgive me!” she said, in a whisper. She even advanced her hand to him by instinct, with a shy half-conscious movement, stopping short out of regard for the many pairs of eyes in the room, not for any other cause. “I am so very, very sorry,” she said, and the water shone in her blue eyes like dew on flowers. Fred, though he was not emotional, was more deeply moved than he had yet been. Throughout all this strange interview, though he meant every word he said, he had yet been more or less playing a part. But now her ingenuous look overcame him. Something of the imbecility of tenderness came into his eyes. He made a little clutch at the finger-tips which had been held out to him, and would have kissed them before everybody, had not Kate given him a warning look, and blushed, and quickly drawn the half-offered hand away. She would not have drawn it away had they been alone. Would she have heard him more patiently, given him a still kinder response? Fred could not tell, but yet he felt that his first effort had not been made in vain.
It was Mr Crediton himself who interrupted this tête-à-tête. He came up to them with a look which might have been mere curiosity, and might have been displeasure. “Kate,” he said, gravely, “it seems to me you are neglecting your guests. Instead of staying in this favourite corner of yours, suppose you go and look after these young ladies a little. Mr Huntley will excuse you, I am sure.”
“I am so lazy, I am out of spirits; and so is Mr Huntley; we have been condoling with each other,” said Kate; but she got up as she spoke, with her usual sweet alacrity, not sorry, if truth were told, to escape. “Keep my seat for me, papa, till I come back,” she said, with her soft little laugh. Mr Crediton did as he was told—he placed himself in her chair, and turned round to Fred and looked at him. While she tripped away to the other girls to resume her interrupted duties, her father and her new lover confronted each other, and cautiously investigated what the new danger was.
“My dear Huntley,” said the elder man, “I am sure your meaning is the most friendly in the world; but my daughter is very young, and she is engaged to be married; and, on the whole, I think it would be better that you did not appropriate her so much. Kate ought to know better, but she is very light-hearted, and fond of being amused.”
“I don’t think I have been very amusing to-night,” said Fred. “Thanks, sir, for your frankness; but I am going away to-morrow, and I may claim a little indulgence, perhaps, for my last night.”
“Going away to-morrow!” said Mr Crediton, with surprise.
“Yes, I have no choice. Shall I say it is sudden business—a telegram from Oxford—a summons home? or shall I tell you the real reason, Mr Crediton?” cried Fred, with emotion. “You have always been very good to me.”
Mr Crediton was startled, notwithstanding his habitual composure. He looked keenly at the young man, and saw what few people had ever seen—the signs of strong and highly-wrought feeling in Fred Huntley’s face; and the sight was a great surprise to him. He had thought the two had been amusing themselves with a flirtation, a thing he did not approve of; but this must surely have gone beyond a flirtation. “If you have anything to say to me, come to the library after they have gone to bed,” he said. Fred answered by a nod of assent, and the two separated without another word. Nor did Kate see the new claimant to her regard any more that night. He had disappeared when she had time to look round her, and recall the agitating interview which had broken the monotony of the evening. It came to her mind when she was talking, returning again and again amid the nothings of ordinary conversation. How strange it all was, how exciting! what a curious episode in the tedious evening! And what did he, what could he, mean? And what would John think? And was it possible that Fred Huntley could feel like that—Fred, that man of the world? She was confused, bewildered, flattered, pleased, and sorry. It was a new sensation, and thrilled her through and through when she was rather in want of something to rouse her up a little. And she was so sorry for him! She almost hoped he would spring up from some corner, and be chidden and comforted, and made more miserable by the soft look of compassion she would give him—the “Pardon me!” which she meant to say; but Fred made no further appearance, and the Pardon me! was not said that night.
It puzzled Kate very much next morning to find that Huntley had not reappeared. It was not in the nature of things that she could avoid thinking about him, and wondering over and over again what he could mean,—whether he was mystifying her—but that was impossible; or if it was really, actually true? And the fact was that she went down-stairs a little earlier than usual, with a great curiosity in her mind as to how Fred would look, and whether she should see any traces in his face of last night’s agitation. When she had taken this trouble, it may be supposed that it was hard upon her to find Fred absent; and she “did not like”—a new expression in Kate’s vocabulary—to ask what had become of him. She caught herself looking at the door anxiously every time it opened, but he did not come. Some one at last relieved her anxiety by asking the point-blank question, “What has become of Huntley? has he gone away?” It was an idea which never had occurred to Kate. She looked up in blank dismay at the suggestion, and met her father’s eye fully fixed upon her, and trembled, and felt that in two minutes more she must cry—not for Fred, but because he was decidedly an exciting new plaything, and he had gone away.
“Yes, he has gone away,” said Mr Crediton, “this morning, before some of us were out of bed. I have his farewells to make. He did not know it would be necessary for him to go when he left us last night.”
“I hope there is nothing the matter at Westbrook,” said one of Fred’s intimates; but Kate did not say a word. The room swam round her for one moment. Gone away! Was it so serious as that, then? The self-possessed Fred, had matters been so grave with him that flight was his only refuge? She was so startled that she did not know what to think. She was sorry, and surprised, and fluttered, and excited, all in a breath. She did not pay any attention to the conversation for some minutes, though she was sufficiently mistress of herself to take the usual part in it, and to go on dispensing cups of tea. Gone away! It was very fine, very honourable, very provoking of him. She had meant to bring him down to his level very kindly and skilfully, and cure him of all hopes, while still she kept him bound in a certain friendly chain. And now he had cut it all short, and taken the matter into his own hands. It cannot be denied that Kate was a little vexed at the moment. No doubt, if she had been left alone she would have got over it in the course of the day, and recovered her composure, and thought no more of Fred Huntley than she had done two days ago; but she was not destined to be left to herself. The first thing that happened was that Mr Crediton remained in the breakfast-room till everybody was gone, and called her to him. The most indulgent of fathers was looking somewhat stern, which was a thing of itself which utterly puzzled as well as dismayed the girl whom he had scarcely ever thwarted in the whole course of her life.
“Kate,” he said, “you took no notice when I said Fred Huntley had gone away—so I suppose he told you why it was?”
“He never said a word to me of going away, papa,” faltered Kate.
“But you know the cause? and I hope it will be a warning to you,” said Mr Crediton. “I have seen this going on for some days, and I meant to have spoken to you. A girl in your position has no right to distinguish a man as you did poor Fred.”
“But, dear papa,” cried Kate, feeling very penitent yet very much flattered—as if somebody had paid her a very nice compliment, she said afterwards—“you cannot think it was my fault; I only talked to him like the rest. If I talked to him a little more, it was about—Mr Mitford. And he knew all the time. How was I to suppose it could come to any harm?”
“Don’t let me hear of any other man being taken in by your confounded confidences—about Mr Mitford,” said her father, with an amount of rudeness and contemptuous impatience, such as perhaps had never been shown to Kate before in all her life.
“Papa!” she cried, indignant, drawing herself up; but Mr Crediton only said “Pshaw!” and went off and left her standing by herself, not knowing whether to cry or to be very angry, in the great empty room. He was wroth, and he was disposed rather to heighten than to subdue the expression of it. He wanted her to feel the full weight of his displeasure, rather a little more than less. For Fred Huntley would have suited him well enough for a son-in-law, if it was necessary to have such an article. He had distinguished himself already, and was likely still more to distinguish himself. He was thought of by the borough authorities as the new Member for Camelford. He was very well off, and could do everything that was right and meet in the way of providing for his bride. He was in her own sphere. “Confound that Mitford!” Mr Crediton said to himself as he left his daughter. It was bad enough to contemplate the possibility of ever resigning his child to John’s keeping; but to throw aside a man he liked for him, exaggerated the offence. He went out, kicking Kate’s favourite Skye terrier on his way, as angry men are apt to do. “As if it was poor Muffy that had done it!” Kate said, with the tears springing to her eyes. When she was thus left she called her injured terrier to her, and hugged it, and had a good cry. “You did not do it, did you, Muffy?” she said. “Poor dear dog! what had you to do with it? If a man chooses to be silly, are we to be kicked for it, Muffy mio? Papa is a great bear, and everybody is as unkind as they can be; and oh, I am so sorry about poor Fred!”
She got over her crying, however, and her regrets, and made herself very agreeable to a great many people for the rest of the day, and petted Muffy very much, and took no notice of her father, who, poor man, had compunctions; but by the time that evening arrived, Kate began to feel that the loss of Fred was a very serious loss indeed. He had timed his departure very cleverly. If Madeline Winton had still been there, it might have been bearable; for she would have had some one to open her heart to, notwithstanding that even to Madeline she had not been able to speak of John as she had indulged herself in doing to her “friend”—John’s friend; somehow that was not the title which she now thought of giving to Fred Huntley. He had suddenly sprung into individuality, and held a distinct place of his own in her mind. Poor Fred! could it be possible that he was so fond of her! he who was not at all a tragical sort of personage, or one likely to do anything very much out of the way for love. What could he find in her to be fond of? Kate said to herself. He was not like John, who was ignorant of society. Fred Huntley had seen heaps of other girls who were very pretty and very nice; and why was it that he had set his affections upon herself, Kate, whom he could not have? It seemed such a pity, such a waste of effort. “Madeline might have had him, perhaps,” she said to herself, reflecting pensively in her easy-chair with her fan at her lips to conceal their movement. Madeline as yet had no lover, and she was very nice, and rather pretty too. And it would have been perfectly suitable, “instead of coming making a fuss over me; and he can’t have me,” Kate added always within herself, with a sigh of suffering benevolence. It was hard he could not have her when he wanted her so very much. It was hard that everybody should not have everything they wanted. And it was odd, yet not unpleasant, that he should thus insist upon throwing away his love upon herself, who could not accept it, instead of giving it to Madeline, who might have accepted. How perverse the world was!
Thus Kate reflected as she sat and mused the evening after he had gone. She was heartily sorry to cross Fred, and felt the most affectionate sympathy for him, poor fellow! It was so nice of him to be fond of her, though she could not give him any return. And if he had stayed and talked it over, instead of running away, Kate thought of a hundred things she could have said to him, as to the unreasonableness of falling in love with herself, and the good sense of transferring his love to Madeline. Somehow she did not quite expect he would have taken her advice; but still, no doubt, she would have set it before him in a very clear light, and got him to hear reason. And then he was very pleasant to talk to, and more amusing than anybody else at Fernwood. This feeling had never crept over her in respect to John. When he went away, she was sorry because he left her half in displeasure, and “had not enjoyed himself;” but she could not persuade herself that she had missed his company, missed a hundred things he would have said to her, as she did now. She was in reality almost relieved to be quit of the passionate eyes which followed her everywhere, and the demand which he made upon her for her society, for her very inmost self. But Fred made no such claims. Fred took what he could get, and was happy in it. He spared her trouble, and watched to see what her wants were, and was always ready to talk to her or to leave her alone, as her mood varied. Poor Fred! she sighed, feeling very, very sorry for him, with a half-tenderness of pity which young women accord only to those who are their personal victims. Perhaps she exaggerated his sufferings, as it was natural to do. She sat and mused over him all that evening with her fan half concealing her face. “My dear, I am afraid you have a headache,” one of the elder ladies said to her; and Kate acquiesced with a faint little smile. “It is the weather,” she said, softly; and the old lady, taking her cue, sat down beside her, and discussed the same. “The changes are the worst,” she said—“the thermometer at sixty one day, and next day below the freezing-point. And then, in an English house, it is so difficult to keep cold out.”
“I hope your room is warm,” Kate said suddenly, remembering her hostess-ship. “You must tell me if you find it chilly. There is such a difference in some of the rooms!”
“It is according to their aspect,” said the old lady; “mine is very comfortable, I assure you. It is you young ones that expose yourselves to so many changes. If I were you, I would wrap up very warm, and keep indoors for a day or two. There is nothing like keeping in an equitable temperature. I have no confidence in anything else.”
“Thanks,” Kate said, with a feeling of dreariness. Instead of Fred’s conversation this was a poor exchange. And she grew more and more sorry for him, and more and more compassionate of herself as the evening stole on. Several of the people who interested her most had left within the last few days. There was but the moderate average of country-house visitors left; people who were not remarkable for anything—neither witty, nor pretty, nor particularly entertaining—and yet not to be complained of in any way. She did her duty to them as became Mr Crediton’s daughter, and was very solicitous to know that they were comfortable and had what they liked; but she missed Madeline, she missed Lady Winton, she missed her acrid old godfather, who was said to be fond of nobody but Kate; and, above all, she missed Fred Huntley—poor Fred!
A week had passed, somewhat weakening this impression, when Fred returned, quite as suddenly as he went away. He was seen walking up the avenue when the party were at luncheon, and Kate’s heart gave a little jump at the sight of him. “Why, there is Huntley come back again!” some one cried, but he did not make his appearance at lunch; and it was only when he came into the drawing-room before dinner that Kate had any opportunity of seeing what change had been wrought in him by the discovery of his sentiments towards herself. Fred was playing a part; but, like every other actor in life who plays his part well, had come to believe in it himself, and to feel it real. He came up to her with a certain confused but melancholy frankness. “Miss Crediton,” he said, “I am afraid you cannot like to see me, but I have come about business. I would not for the world, for any other reason, have brought what must be an annoyance upon you.” And then Kate had lifted to him a pair of very sympathetic, almost tender, eyes.
“Indeed I don’t know why I should not like to see you,” she said, quietly. “You have always been very kind to me.”
“Kind!” he had answered, turning away with a gesture of impatience, and not another word passed between them until the evening was almost over, and all opportunity past. He was so slow, indeed, to take advantage of any opportunity, that Kate felt half angry—wondering had the man quite got over it? had he ever meant anything? But at the very last, when she turned her head unthinking, all at once she found his eyes upon her, and that he was standing close by her side.
“I suppose I must not ask for my old situation,” he said, softly. “I have been a fool and forfeited all my advantages because I could not win the greatest. You used to speak to me once—of the subject most interesting to yourself.”
“I don’t think it would be in the least interesting to you now, Mr Huntley,” said Kate, not without a little pique in her voice.
“Ah, you don’t know me,” he said. “I think I could interest myself in anything that was interesting to you.”
And then there was silence, in which Kate began to feel her heart beat, and wondered if this man could be an oyster, or if he could really be so inconceivably fond of her as to be thus concerned in all that concerned her happiness. It sounded like something in a romance; and yet Kate knew enough of life and society to know that romance sometimes gave but a very colourless picture of the truth.
“I hope you have heard lately,” he went on, with a voice which was elaborately and yet not unnaturally subdued—for, as has been said, Fred had fully entered into the rôle he was playing—“and that all is going well.”
Kate blushed, perhaps, more violently than she had ever blushed in her life before. If he were making this sacrifice of his feelings for her, surely she ought to be true and sincere with him; but what she had to say was mortifying to her pride. She looked at him stooping over her, and tried to read his face, and asked herself, with a simplicity that is natural to the sophisticated, whether here, once for all, she had found the friend who is equal to utter self-abnegation, and of whom in books one sometimes reads. A more simple-minded girl, probably, would not have looked for so self-sacrificing a lover, but Kate had been brought up with a persuasion of her own power to sway everybody to her will. “Mr Huntley,” she said, hurriedly, “I don’t think I ought to speak to you on such a subject; but, indeed, I feel anxious, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Then do speak to me,” he said, bending over her. “Do you think I care what happens to myself if I can be of use to you?”
There are sentiments of this heroic description which we would see the fallacy of at once if addressed to others, which yet seem natural spoken to ourselves. And Kate had always been so important to everybody about her. She looked up at him again, she faltered, she half turned away, and then, after all, she spoke.
“I don’t know why I should tell you. I don’t know what it means. I have not heard a single word from him, Mr Huntley, since he went away.”
A sudden gleam of light came into Fred’s eyes, but he was looking down, and she only saw a ghost of it under his lowered eyelids. “That is very strange,” he said.
“Do you think he can be ill? Do you think anything can have happened?” asked Kate.
“He is not ill, he is at home at Fanshawe, and his burns are getting better. I saw him yesterday,” said Fred.
“At home! and he never told me. Oh, how unkind it is! It used to be every other day, and now it is nearly a fortnight. But why should you care?” cried Kate, really moved with sharp mortification, and not quite aware what she said.
“I care a great deal,” he said, very low, and sighed. And Kate’s heart was sore, and she was angry, and wounded, and for almost the first time in her life felt that she had a little pride in her nature. Did the other despise her to whom she had given her heart? Did he think she was not worthy even of courtesy? though other people were so far from thinking so. Kate’s impatient heart began to beat high with anger and with pain.
The first great apparent change in a life is not always its real beginning. It may be but the beginning of the beginning, as it were, the first grand crash of the ice, the opening of the fountain. There is more noise and more demonstration than when the full tide of waters begins to swell into the broader channel, but it is not the great crisis which it has the look of being. It is the commencement of a process of which it is impossible to predict the end. This had been emphatically the case with John Mitford when he was suddenly swept out of his father’s house and out of all the traditions of his youth. It seemed to him and to everybody that his life had then taken its individual shape. When he returned to Fanshawe Regis, he went about with new eyes, curiously observing everything which before he had accepted without observation. Was it that he felt the new better? Was it that he hankered after the old? These were questions which he could not answer. The only thing he was quite sure of in respect to himself was that he was uncertain about everything, and that life was no longer sweet enough to make up for the darkness and troubles in it. With this feeling in his mind he listened to his father’s sermons, seeing everything in a different light, and went with his mother on her parish work, carrying her basket, gazing wistfully in at the cottage windows, wondering what was the good of it all. He had never questioned for a moment the good of at least his mother’s ministrations until now. When she came smiling out of one of the cottages it cast a gloom upon her to find her boy, who had always been full of faith in her at least, standing unresponsive, waiting for her outside. She looked him in the eyes with her tender smile, and said, “Well, John?” as she gave back the little basket into his hand.
“Well,” he said, with a sigh, “my good little mother! do you think it is worth all the trouble you are taking, and all the trouble you have taken since ever I remember?—that is what I want to know.”
“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford, “that and a great deal more. Oh, John, if I could feel that but one, only one, was brought back to God by any means!”
“I think they are all very much the same as they used to be,” said John. “I recollect when I was a small boy, there was always something to be set right there.”
“That was the father, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford. “He was very troublesome. He took more than was good for him, you know; and then he used to be very unkind to his poor wife. Ah, John, some of these poor women have a great deal to bear!”
“But the blackguard is dead now, heaven be praised!” said John.
“Oh, hush, my dear, hush, and don’t speak of an immortal soul like that! Yes indeed, John, he has gone where he will be judged with clearer sight than ours. But I wish I could hope things were really mended,” said Mrs Mitford, shaking her head. She went on shaking her head for a whole minute after she had stopped speaking, as if her hope was a very slight one indeed.
“What is the matter now?”
“The boys are very tiresome, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford, with a sigh. “Somehow it seems natural to them to take to bad ways. You can’t think how idle and lazy Jim is, though he used to be such a good boy when he was in the choir, don’t you remember? He looked a perfect little angel in his white surplice, but I fear he has been a very bad boy; and Willie and his mother never do get on together. He is the only one that can be depended upon in the least, and he talks of marrying and going away.”
“You have not much satisfaction out of them,” said John, “though I know you have always kept on doing all sorts of things for them. They ought at least to be grateful to you.”
“Well, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford, with anxious gravity, “I don’t like to blame her—but I am afraid sometimes their mother is not very judicious, poor woman. It sours one sadly to have so much misfortune. She is always contradicting and crossing them for things that don’t matter. I don’t like to blame her, she has had so much to put up with; but still, you know—and of course it is discouraging, whatever one may try to say.”
“And then there are the Littles,” said John, leading his mother on.
“Oh, the Littles, dear! I wish you would not speak of them. Every month or so I think I have just got their mind up to the point of going to church. If you but knew the number of bonnets that woman has had, and shoes for the children, and even your papa’s last old greatcoat which I got the tailor to alter for Robert. But it is never any good. And though I pay myself for the children’s schooling, they never go. It is enough to break one’s heart.”
“And Lizzie’s people are always a trouble to you,” said John.
“Ah, my dear, but then the old woman is a Dissenter,” said Mrs Mitford, with alacrity; “and in such a case what can one do?”
“But, mother dear, with all these things before you, does it sometimes strike you what a hopeless business it is?” cried John. “You have been working in the parish for twenty years——”
“Twenty-five, my dear boy—since before you were born.”
“And what is it the better?” said John; “the same evils reappear just in the same way—the same wickedness, and profanity, and indifference. For all the change one can see, mother dear, all your work and fatigue might never have been.”
“I must say so far as that goes I don’t agree with you at all, John,” cried his mother, with a certain sharp ring in her voice. The colour came to her cheeks and the water to her eyes. If it had been said to her that her life itself had been a mistake and failure, she could not have felt it more. Indeed the one implied the other; and if there was any one thing that she had built upon in all her modest existence, it was the difference in the parish. John’s words gave her such a shock that she gasped after them with a sense of partial suffocation. And then she did her best to restrain the momentary sharp thrill of resentment; for how could she be angry with her boy? “My dear,” she said, humbly, with the tears in her soft eyes, “I don’t suppose I have done half or quarter what I ought to have done; but still if you had seen the parish when we came—— If I had been a woman of more energy, and cleverer than I am——”
“You cannot think it was that I meant,” cried John. “How you mistake me, mother! It is because your work has been so perfect, so unwearied—because it ought to have wrought miracles——”
“Oh, no, no, not that,” she said, recovering her tranquillity, and smiling on her boy. “It has been very humble, my dear; but still, if you had seen the parish when we came—the alehouse was more frequented than the church a great deal—the children were not baptised—there were things going on I could not speak of even to you. That very Robert Little that we were speaking of—his father was the most inveterate poacher in the whole country, always in prison or in trouble; the eldest brother went for a soldier, and one of the girls—— Oh, John, Fanshawe Regis is not Paradise, but things are better now.”
“My dear little mother! but they are not as good as they ought to be after the work of all your life.”
“Don’t speak of me, my dear boy, as if I were everything,” said Mrs Mitford; “think of your papa—and oh, John, think of what is far beyond any of us. Think whose life it was that was given, not for the righteous, but to save sinners; think who it was that said there was joy in heaven over one that repented; and should we grudge a whole lifetime if we could but be sure that one was saved? I hope that is what I shall never, never, do.”
John drew his mother’s hand through his arm as she looked up in his face, with her soft features all quivering with emotion. What more could he say? She was not clever, nor very able to take a philosophical view of the matter. She never stopped to ask herself, as he did, whether this faulty, shifty, mean, unprofitable world was worth the expenditure of that divine life eighteen hundred years ago, and of the many lives since which have been half divine. All that;—and nothing better come of it than the vice, and the hypocrisy, and mercenary pretences at goodness, and brutal indifference to everything pure and true, which were to be found in this very village, in the depth of the rural country, in England that has been called Christian for all these hundreds of years. So much—and so little to result from it. Such were the thoughts that passed through John’s mind, mingled with many another gloomy fancy. Adding up long lines of figures was scarcely more unprofitable—could scarcely be of less use to the world. When he thought of his father’s precise little sermons, his feelings were different; for Dr Mitford spoke as a member of the Archæological Society might be supposed to speak, being compelled to do so, to a handful of bumpkins who could not, as he was well aware, understand a word he said—and was content with having thus performed the “duty” incumbent on him. That might be mended so far as it went; but who could mend the self-devotion, the unconscious gospel of a life which his mother set before the eyes of the village? They knew that her charity never failed, nor her interest in them, nor the tender service which she was ready to give to the poorest, or even to the wickedest. Twenty-five years this woman, who was as pure as the angels, had been their servant, at their call night and day. Heaven and earth could not produce a more perfect ministration, her son said to himself, as he watched her coming and going; and yet what did it all come to? Had Mrs Mitford seen the thoughts that were going on in his mind, she would have shrunk from him with a certain horror. They were hard thoughts both of God and man. What was the good of it? Nobody, it appeared to John, was the better. If Fanshawe Regis, for one place, had been left to itself, would it have made any difference? Such thoughts are hard to bear, when a man has been trained into the habit of thinking that much, almost everything, can be done for his neighbours if he will but sufficiently exert himself. Here was a tender good woman who had exerted herself all her life—and what was the end of it? Meanwhile Mrs Mitford walked on cheerfully, holding her son’s arm, with a little glow of devotion about her heart, thinking, what did it matter how much labour was spent on the work if but the one stray lamb was brought back to the fold? and pondering in the same breath a new argument by which Robert Little, in the Doctor’s greatcoat, and his wife in one of her own bonnets, could be got to come to church, and induced to send their children to school.
Sometimes, however, John’s strange holiday, which nobody could quite understand, was disturbed by immediate questions still more difficult. Mrs Mitford did not say much, having discovered in her son’s eye at the moment of his return that all was not well with him; but she looked wistfully at him from time to time, and surprised him in the midst of his frequent reveries with sudden glances of anxious inquiry which spoke more distinctly than words. She did not mention Kate, which was more significant than if she had spoken volumes; and when the letters came in, in the morning, she would turn her head away not to see whether her son expected anything, or if he was disappointed. A mixture of love and pride was in her self-restraint. He should not be forced to confide in her, she had resolved; she would exercise the last and hardest of all maternal duties towards him, and leave him to himself. But Dr Mitford had no such idea. He was busy at the moment with something for the 'Gentleman’s Magazine,' which kept him in his study for the first few days after John’s arrival; but as soon as his article was off his mind, he began to talk to his son of his prospects, as was natural. This happened in the library, where John was sitting, exactly as he had been sitting that first morning when Kate peeped in at the door and all the world was changed; though I cannot tell whether the young man at first remembered that. Dr Mitford was seated at the other end of the room, as he had been that day. A ray of October sunshine shone in through one light of the great Elizabethan window and fell in a long line upon the polished oak floor, on the library carpet, on Dr Mitford’s white head, and as far as the wall on the other side of him—a great broad arrow of light, with some colour in it from the shield in the centre of the glass. Behind this was the glimmer of a fire, and John, lifting his weary eyes from his book, or his eyes from his weary book, he could scarcely have told which, became suddenly aware of the absolute identity of the outside circumstances, and held his breath and asked himself, had he dreamed it, or had that interruption ever been? Was the door going to open and Kate to peep in breathless, shy, daring, full of fun and temerity? or had she done it, and turned all the world upside down? When he was asking himself this question Dr Mitford laid down his pen; then he coughed his little habitual cough, which was the well-understood sign between him and his domestic world that he might be spoken to; then he was fretted by the sunshine, and got up and drew the blind down; and then, having quite finished his article, and feeling himself in a mood for a little talk, he took a walk towards his son between the pillars that narrowed the library in the middle, and looked like a great doorway. He did not go straight to John, but paused on the way to remark upon some empty corners, and to set right some books which had dropped out of their exact places.
“I wish the doctor would return my Early English books,” he said, approaching his son; “one ought to make a resolution against lending. You might give me a day, John, just to look up what books are missing, and who has them. I think you know them better than I do. But, by the by, you have not told us how long you can stay.”
“I don’t think it matters much,” said John.
“You don’t think it matters much! but that looks as if you were not taking any great trouble to make yourself missed. I don’t like that,” said Dr Mitford, shaking his head: “depend upon it, my boy, you will never secure proper appreciation until you show the people you are among that another cannot fill your place.”
“But the fact is that a dozen others could fill my place, sir,” said John, “quite as well as—very probably much better than I.”
“What! with Mr Crediton? and his daughter?” said Dr Mitford. He thought he had made a joke, and turned away with a mild little laugh to arrange and caress his folios. Then he went on talking with his back to John—“I should be glad to know what you really think of it now that you have had time to make the experiment. I don’t understand the commercial mind myself. I don’t know that I could be brought to understand it; but the opinion of an intelligence capable of judging, and accustomed to trains of thought so different, could not but be interesting. I should like to hear what you think of it frankly. Somebody has made dog’s ears in this Shakespeare, which is unpardonable,” said the Doctor, passing his hand with sudden indignation over the folded edges. “I should like to know what your opinion is.”
“I think I can get it straight, sir,” said John, “if you will trust the book to me.”
“Thanks—and put a label on it, 'Not to be lent,'” said Dr Mitford. “It is not to be expected, you know, that the most good-natured of men should lend one of the earliest editions. What were we talking of? oh, the bank. I hope you are quite satisfied that you can do your duty as well or better in your own way than in the manner we had intended for you. Nothing but that thought would have induced me to yield. It was a disappointment, John,” said his father, turning round with a tall volume in his hand—“I cannot deny that it was a great disappointment. Do you really feel that you are able to do your duty better where you are?”
“What is my duty, father?” said John, with a hoarseness in his voice.
And then it was Dr Mitford’s turn to show consternation. “Your duty,” he faltered—“your duty? It does not say much for my teaching and your mother’s if you have to ask that question at this time of day.”
This, it will be easy to see, was a very unsatisfactory sort of answer. John got up too, feeling very heavy about the heart. “Relative duty is easy enough,” he said; “but absolute duty, what is it? is there such a thing? Is it not just as good both for myself and other people that I should live for myself as I am doing, instead of living for God and my neighbour like my mother? So far as I can see, it comes to exactly the same thing.”
Dr Mitford looked at his son with an absolute astonishment that would have been comical had John been able to see it. But then it was not so much his son’s perplexity the Doctor thought of as that curious, quite inexplicable reference. “Like your mother!” the Rector of Fanshawe Regis said, with utter amazement. It took away his breath. He could not even notice his son’s question in his consternation. “Yes,” said John, not in the least perceiving the point, “what is the good? That is what one asks one’s self; it does not seem to make any difference to the world.”
Dr Mitford turned, and put up the dog’s-eared folio on its shelf. He shook his head in his bewilderment, and gave a sigh of impatience. “You young men have a way of talking and of thinking which I don’t understand,” he said, still shaking his head. “I hope to goodness, John, that you have not been led astray by those ridiculous fallacies of Comtism. You may suppose that as you are not to be a clergyman it does not matter what your opinions are; but it always matters. A private Christian has as much need to be right as if he were an archbishop; and I confess, after your careful training, I little expected——a mere farrago of French sentiment and nonsense. Your mother! what she has to do with the question I can’t understand.”
“And I am sure neither do I, sir,” said John, moved to a laugh, “nor why you should set me down as a Comtist. I am not an anythingist, worse luck—for then, perhaps, one might see a little more plainly what to do.”