Footnotes have been collected at the end of each chapter, and are
linked for ease of reference.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text
for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered
during its preparation.
Any corrections are indicated using an underline
highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the
original text in a small popup.
Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the
reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the
note at the end of the text.
BORDERLAND
A COUNTRY-TOWN CHRONICLE
BY
JESSIE FOTHERGILL
AUTHOR OF ‘THE FIRST VIOLIN,’ ‘KITH AND KIN,’ ‘PROBATION,’
One summer, which in point of date now lies many
years behind us, four boys used to play together, and to
quarrel and make it up again with one another—to live
together through the long, golden days, that vivid, eager
life peculiar to children, in a curious, old-fashioned
garden on the bank of the river Tees, and on the Durham
side of that stream. The garden belonged to a great
house, not very old, though it was the abode of an old
family, solemn, not to say gloomy, in its dulness and
stateliness of appearance, and standing out in rather
sombre contrast to the woods which were behind it, and
the terraces which sloped down from its front to the
river-side. The name of the house was Thorsgarth;
many a spot hereabouts bore some name reminiscent of
long-past Danish occupation and Scandinavian paganism.
It was a characteristic giving a peculiar flavour to the
language and nomenclature of the whole country-side,
and one, too, which has been sweetly sung by at least
one of our English poets. With this fact, these four particular
boys were probably unacquainted, and it is more
than probable that if they had known all about it they
2would have cared less than nothing for the circumstance.
What could it matter to them that, a little farther down
the stream, that sweet spot where they loved to wade in
the shallows, and not far from which noisy Greta came
tumbling and laughing into the arms of sedater Tees—where
the numerous wasps’ nests were to be found under
the bank, to destroy which nests they had gone through
such delicious toils and perils, and where on sunny days
the trout would lurk in the pools amongst the big
boulders,—what could it matter to them that this scene
had been immortalised by both poet and painter? To
them it was all their own paradise; the presence of an
artist would have vexed and incommoded them. There
they kicked, jumped, splashed, and generally misconducted
themselves in the sweet solitude and the generous
sunshine of that far-back summer, without a thought
of its being hallowed ground. Three of them were not
of an age at which the ordinary boy is given to
appreciate poetry. As for the eldest of them, if he ever
did read it, he kept the fact to himself.
These four boys were all the sons of gentlemen, in the
conventional sense of the term—albeit their fathers were
men of widely different calibre, as regarded not only
worldly, but also mental and moral characteristics.
The eldest and the third in age were brothers, Michael
and Gilbert Langstroth. Their father’s was one of the
oldest families in the neighbourhood, and had been one
of the richest, although many people had begun to say
that not much was now practically left to him except the
old house itself, the Red Gables, which stood in genial
vicinity to many other houses, both great and small, in
the great cobble-stoned, slanting square, which formed
the west end of Bradstane town.
3Michael Langstroth at this period was twelve years
old, a noble boy to look at, tall and broad, with a dark
face, and a sweet, rather rare smile. There was a good
deal of unconscious pride in his manner and bearing.
Perhaps his piercing gray eyes, going with this dark
complexion, might really betoken that Norse descent in
which his family gloried. All his actions were, so far as
one could judge, in harmony with his outer appearance;
without fuss or ostentation, but all partaking of the
intrinsically splendid, generous, and lavish. Even at
this early time of their lives, the other boys knew that
Michael hated lies with an intensity which showed itself
more in sudden, violent action than in words. They
knew that he resented any untruth amongst them as if
it had been a personal insult. There was, indeed, no
doubt that Michael was a son in whose proud looks a
father might glory; while with all his strength and
power there were in him other and quieter charms, such
as a mother might delight in. And Mrs. Langstroth did
very greatly delight in what seemed to her her son’s
high and noble qualities, during the short time that she
was allowed to do so.
‘I fear it will never last,’ she would say to herself,
watching him with prayer and trembling, as mothers do
watch those sons who have a way of turning into something
so different from what the maternal yearnings
would shape them into if, along with the yearnings, the
power existed of fulfilling them. ‘I fear it will never
last. Contact with the world will harden him. Flattery
will make him vain. Universal homage will spoil him.’
Mrs. Langstroth was a sweet and saintly lady, and her
son Michael a brave and noble boy; but what insignificant
hen-mother exists who does not think that the
4attention to herself and her matchless offspring must of
necessity be universal?
With pathetic, devoted blindness she would have
prepared him to meet this irresistible tide of flattery and
greatness by keeping him fast at her own side, and never
loosing his leading strings. The mention of a public
school drew tears from her eyes, and set her gentle heart
beating wildly. It was written that her son Michael’s
education—every branch of it—was to be taken out of
her hands, and placed in others, firmer, harder, sterner,
and to them who can survive their roughness, kinder
hands than even those of a mother.
Gilbert, Michael’s brother, was a well-grown boy,
too, of ten, with a smaller, rounder head, a narrower
forehead, and blue-gray eyes, which had a trick of
languishing sometimes. He had an exquisitely soft and
melancholy voice, was slow of speech, and possessed a
graceful, though by no means effeminate figure. He
was always, and apparently by nature, courteous and
gentle in manner and speech, seldom indulging in the
downright unflattering candour which Michael, for
all he was so gentlemanly, frequently used towards
his companions. Gilbert never said rude things to
any one, but he was not so popular with his comrades
as Michael.
The second boy, in order of years, was swarthy Roger
Camm, the son of the curate of Bradstane. Eleven were
the years he counted in actual point of time—thirty,
perhaps, and those rough ones, in his knowledge of care
and trouble, in his painful, enforced acquaintance with
grief, with contrivances and economies, and weary
struggles to make both ends meet. For his father was
not passing rich on forty pounds a year—he was more
5than passing poor on something less than a hundred, out
of which he had dolefully to ‘keep up the appearance of
a gentleman,’ clothe and feed his son and himself, and
educate the former. His wife, poor soul, exhausted with
the endless and complicated calculations necessitated by
this ever-present problem, had some years ago thankfully
closed her eyes, and said good-bye to labour and grief.
The curate and his lad struggled on without her as best
they could. All that Roger learnt, whether of solid
instruction or flimsy accomplishment—little enough was
there of the latter to gloss his manners or appearance—he
was taught by his father, and that with fasting and
prayer. Along with his Latin and Greek declensions, he
imbibed also the more bitter lesson of declining fortunes;
for his father had married late, and was not promoted as
he grew older and more careworn. Side by side with
the first problem of Euclid, as with the last, there was
for ever present another, which it would have required
more than a mere mathematical head to answer, and
which yet imperiously demanded some sort of a solution;
it was the problem which Mrs. Camm had carried with
her to her grave, and it ran: ‘Given, not sufficient
income to buy a proper supply of butcher’s meat, cakes,
and ale, how to make water-porridge twice a day, with
skim-milk to wash it down, answer the same purpose as
the more liberal diet, save on certain rare and solemn
feast-days, not specified in the calendar.’ And along
with the invaluable rule, that prepositions govern the
objective case (for the Rev. Silas Camm held fast by the
Lindley Murray of his boyhood), Roger grasped and held
fast the axiom, so that he could and did mould his
conduct upon it, that to bear your hardships in silence
is necessary—that to utter one word of complaint, to
6look greedily at occasional dainties, or to gorge in
unseemly fashion on the abundance at other men’s
tables, no matter what the size of the internal void to be
filled; to betray by word, look, or deed that you ever
feel the pinch of hunger at home—to do this is disgrace
of the deepest dye, second only to lying and stealing.
By the time he was eleven years old, Roger had digested
these lessons thoroughly, and had, as it were, assimilated
them, so that they were in his system. Sometimes, at
the abundant ‘spreads’ on the Thorsgarth or Red
Gables boards, his sallow young face would take a faint
glow, his deep-set black eyes would grow wistfully misty,
but never a word betrayed the bareness of the board at
home, nor the fact that his father might even then be
asking a blessing upon a bowl of oatmeal-porridge, sole
reward of a hard day’s work. For the living of Bradstane,
although ancient, was not rich, and the parish
priest’s own stipend was not a fat one. Judge,
therefore, how exceeding short the curate must have
come!
Roger was on good terms with all his companions,
and if they sometimes wondered why he never used to
ask them to go and play with him, or have tea with him,
they were quite satisfied with his explanation, that there
was no garden to his father’s house, and they agreed with
him, that without a garden to play in there could be no
fun. He and Michael Langstroth, very dissimilar in
almost everything, were fast friends, while Gilbert Langstroth
and the fourth and last of this party of boys hung
together in a lukewarm manner, the older and calmer of
them often quietly instigating the mischief that the
younger one performed.
This fourth and youngest was Otho Askam, the only
7son of the master of Thorsgarth, and heir to the sombre-looking
house, and the grand old garden in which they
all disported themselves. Otho, like his friends, was tall
for his age, and well set-up. One can but guess at the
man to come, in the little father of eight years old. But
Otho gave strong signs of individuality even at this
early age. The other boys, if they had spoken their
minds, would have said that he was fitful and moody in
temper; that no one could tell what would please, what
offend him; that, when he was pleased, it was in a
saturnine, mirthless style, strange in so young a child;
that when offended, his wrath was more deep than loud,
but that his brown eyes glowed, on such occasions, with
a dull fire, and his childish face in its anger took an expression
of savage fierceness. They could also have
related, these other boys, that when angry, Otho never
rested till he had revenged himself, either by damaging
or mutilating some of their cherished ‘things,’ or by
doing them bodily harm, as grievous as his childish brain
and small hands could devise and compass. By the end
of the summer they had got used to it. They laughed
at him, and talked about his ‘little rages.’ They were
bigger and stronger than he was. The youngest of them
was two years his senior. They used to tease him sometimes,
on purpose to have the fun of seeing what shape
his vengeance would take, and would shout with laughter
at its feebleness when wreaked.
There was on record one great occasion on which
Michael Langstroth had failed to see the amusing side
of an escapade of Otho’s, and had taken upon himself to
give him a sound hiding (with due regard, that is, to the
difference in their ages and strengths). It was sound
enough, however, for Master Otho to make the welkin
8ring again with his yells; but the thrashing had been
administered in payment, with interest, if possible, of
Otho’s wanton cruelty to a wretched, half-starved cat,
which he had pursued with the vindictive determination
not so much to compass its death, as to secure to it as
long a term of torture as possible, before that death
should take place.
‘You cowardly little viper, you!’ Michael had shouted,
towering over him after the first half of the pummelling
had been administered. ‘Don’t you know that it’s
nothing but a coward, and a dirty one, that hurts things
that can’t fight back? You miserable little beggar,
you!’
‘Michael, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you! I hate you! I
wish the devil would get hold of you. I’ll kill you some
day for this. What do you hit me for? I can’t hit you
back, you great coward!’
At which there was a great laugh from the other boys,
none the less hilarious when the big lad, looking scornfully
down upon the little one, said—
‘I do it for your good, and you ought to be thankful
for it.’
Otho snuffled then, but took an early opportunity of
laying a crooked root in an unexpected and obscure spot,
over which Michael tripped ignominiously, and nearly
barked his shins, when the snuffle became a joyful
chuckle.
Later in the same afternoon, Michael Langstroth
found himself apart from the other boys, in a lonely part
of the garden, where a broad terrace ended, and rough, uncut
grass, dotted with wild plants, began—the top of the
river-bank, in fact. The lad seated himself on this bank,
under a tree, just out of the broiling sun, and a silence
9and quietness fell upon him, while he gazed before him
into the gurgling, flowing river. It was a pastime he
loved. Shadowy, half-formed thoughts passed through
his brain at such times, thoughts as vague as the murmur
of the river; intuitions, impulses stirred him, whose
nature he did not now understand, but which, for all
that, might be not the less blessed and fruitful in years
to come, when he should have forgotten these, their
first upspringings; for thus it is, as well as in other
ways, that ‘the thoughts of youth are long, long
thoughts.’
The river was the thing which Michael remembered
longer than anything else. When a babe in his nurse’s
arms he had leaped at its sudden shimmer through the
trees, and since then its presence had been ever with him,
more or less. It had been his companion and confidant
without his knowing it. He went unconsciously to its
side to think out his young thoughts, and it carried all
his vague meditations gliding down its stream as it flowed
between the two fair counties of York and Durham. Of
course, he was not conscious how potent was its presence
in his life; he would find that out only when he should
come to move in other scenes—when he should get men
for his companions instead of the stream.
Little more remains to be said of them at this time,
save that the mothers of the Langstroths and of Otho
Askam were both living then, young and beautiful
women, one of them, at least, wrapped up in her husband
and her children. Otho was the only one of the lads
who had a sister, the little Eleanor, three years of age,
and so much younger than they that she never shared
their sports; and they knew nothing of her, save when
they saw her sometimes walking on the upper terrace,
10led by her nurse or her mother, when she would
sometimes stop and look at them with a pair of great
candid eyes, and burst into a laugh at some of their
antics. A sturdy-looking, not very pretty child, with
little resemblance to Otho in either expression or
complexion.
CHAPTER I OTHO’S RETURN
11
It was a dull morning in October, with a gray sky, low-hanging
clouds, and muddy lanes. The Tees Valley
Hunt breakfasted that morning at Sir Thomas Winthrop’s,
and the brothers, Michael and Gilbert Langstroth, rode
slowly in company towards the house. Michael was now
twenty-five, and Gilbert just turned twenty-three. They
had ridden and hunted ever since they had been able to
stick on the back of a pony, and, despite their changed
fortunes—for the house of Langstroth was no more a
flourishing house—they rode and hunted still. They felt
a deeper degree of interest than usual in this particular
breakfast, for it was known to them, as to all the rest of
the neighbourhood, that the long-closed doors of Thorsgarth
had at last been thrown open; Otho Askam’s
minority was over, and he had come, or was on his way,
to take possession of the house of his fathers, and the
abundant revenues and possessions which had been
accumulating for him. It was now several months since
he had come of age, but he had not immediately repaired
to his home. Now, Otho Askam, Michael and Gilbert
Langstroth, and their friend Roger Camm, had all played
together as children in the Thorsgarth garden, had
shouted through its avenues, chased each other amongst
12its discoloured marble fauns and nymphs, and almost
succeeded, more than once, in drowning themselves in
the waters of swiftly-rushing Tees, who flowed beneath
the lowest terrace of the garden. That had been more
than ten years ago, and many changes had taken place
since then. The Askam fortunes had accumulated; the
deaths of both Mr. and Mrs. Askam had left their
children—Otho, and a girl, Eleanor, several years younger
than him—under the care of guardians, while their property
increased. The Langstroths, on the contrary, had
gone downhill to a certain extent. Poor then, they had
become poorer since, till now, Mr. Langstroth, their
father, was a hopeless, helpless invalid; Michael, the
elder, was by way of earning his living as a country
doctor, this chance having been given to him by the
kindness of the old family friend and adviser, the little
Quaker Doctor Rowntree, whose assistant Michael was
supposed to be. Gilbert stayed at home, tended his
father, and devoted his distinguished arithmetical powers
to an endeavour to extricate the family fortunes in some
degree from the confusion into which they had fallen.
As for Roger Camm, whose father had been the curate
of Bradstane-on-Tees, he had vanished for years past
from the scenes of his childhood; but he and Michael,
who had been friends in those former days, were friends
still, keeping up a close correspondence. And if Roger by
any chance imagined that Gilbert had forgotten him, he
was mistaken. Gilbert Langstroth had a long memory.
It was not only these brothers who looked forward
with interest to the possibility of young Askam’s presence
at the meet that morning. All the country-side
was more or less agog on the subject. Thorsgarth was
a very considerable house; the Askams were very considerable
13people in the neighbourhood. Every one was
excited; many fair creatures had gone so far as to say
that they were ‘dying to see him,’ dying to know what
he was like, and if he were going to be an acquisition, or
not, to their society. People began to recall things, and to
say to one another, ‘Ay, I remember how his mother used
to ride to hounds; what a woman she was! How handsome,
and what a temper!’ And then the voices would
sink a little, while for the benefit of some stranger it would
be related how the late Mrs. Askam had come to her untimely
end; how she would go out one day, despite her
husband’s expostulations; how she put her horse at a
certain fence, which he refused; how she flogged him on
till he unwillingly took the leap, and caught his legs in
the top rail, pitching his rider head foremost off him;
and how Mrs. Askam was carried home with a broken
neck.
Half-forgotten things like these were talked about.
Amongst all the wondering and speculation there was
little kindness, little personal feeling. There was no
matron who said, ‘Ah, his mother and I used to be great
friends; I know I shall like him for her sake.’ For, as
a matter of fact, this reckless young woman, who had so
untimely died, had not made many friends during the
years of her married life in Bradstane. Therefore, every
one wondered; no one really cared what sort of young
man Otho Askam might be.
Michael and Gilbert rode slowly on through the deep
lanes with their tangled hedges (for some of the folk
thereabouts were not as particular about their clipping
as they might have been) in the damp morning air, and,
emerging from the lanes, struck the stony road, with its
rough walls, over which they had to travel to arrive at
14Brigsdale Hall, Sir Thomas’s place. They were to look
at, as goodly a pair of brethren as any in whose company
they were likely that day to find themselves.
‘Is Magdalen coming to the meet?’ asked Gilbert
suddenly.
‘Yes. She’s driving Mrs. Stamer to it. She’s staying
with Miss Strangforth, and Magdalen doesn’t know what
on earth to do with her.’
‘Ah!’ said Gilbert, with his slight, careless smile.
‘A meet must be a godsend under such circumstances.’
And by and by he made some further observation, to the
effect that it was a picture of a day, and that the scent
would be grand, to which Michael assented cheerfully;
and having got that question settled, they rode up to the
hospitable door, delivered their horses over to a groom,
and were shown into the dining-room.
Sir Thomas and his son Byrom were there, and the
room was full of men, old, young, and middle-aged,
standing about, waiting till their host should give the
signal to be seated.
It was immediately on going into the room that they
saw Otho Askam—for he it must be, and no one else—leaning
his elbow on the shelf of an oak sideboard, and
listening to some remarks of a neighbouring squire. He
was at one end of the room as they entered, and they at
the other; but it so happened that there was a little lane
or vista from him to them, so that they saw him very
plainly.
They looked upon a tall young man, as big, as strong,
and as broad as themselves; and there all resemblance
ended. It would have been difficult to say whether that
face were young or old for its years. Young Askam had a
round, bullet-shaped head, a dark complexion, and one
15which was also red—a deep, but not yet a coarse red. His
forehead, though narrow, was not devoid of power. His
smooth dark hair was clipped close. He wore a slight
moustache, a mere line on his upper lip, save for which
his face was hairless, so that the full play of his lips was
seen; and there was something fierce in the expression
of those lips; indeed, the whole face was a strange and
fierce one. The dark eyes were sullen; the brows had a
trick of drawing down and together, quickly and savagely,
and then the whole face flushed, and the mouth tightened,
and the fingers closed with a suggestive grip upon whatever
might happen to be in them at the moment. It
was truly an angry-looking face, devoid of beauty; and
yet, if one came to analyse the features, it would be
found impossible to pronounce it a plain face. The voice,
the manners, were such as might be expected from the
general outward appearance; that is to say, the voice
was abrupt, the sentences curt, and the words often
chopped off short in utterance; the manners were
brusque, and had a touch of defiance in them.
At the moment when the Langstroths entered the
room, Otho had his eyes fixed upon his whip, which he
was drawing slowly through the fingers of his left hand.
He smiled, and the smile showed a set of very white
and very strong teeth; it was not a gracious or a
genial expression. Michael Langstroth, looking at him
keenly and attentively, said to himself—
‘Humph! he is a magnificent animal, at any rate.
I wonder if he is anything else. I should not like to
pronounce at a venture whether he were a gentleman or
a blackguard; perhaps a bit of both.’
At this juncture, Askam, the curious, sinister smile
still on his face, raised his eyes, and encountered those
16of Michael Langstroth fixed upon him. The smile
vanished, the frown descended, above a defiant and inquiring
stare. Evidently he said within himself, ‘Who
is that man? I ought to know him.’
‘Halloa, Michael,’ cried the master of the house, at
this point, ‘good morning to you. I’m glad to see you.
How is your father to-day?’
As he listened to this, young Askam’s frown disappeared,
and his look cleared, as if the thing that puzzled him
had been made plain. By the time that Michael had
done talking to Sir Thomas, Otho was at his side.
‘I say—I ought to remember you. You are Michael
Langstroth, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am. I was just coming to speak to you.
This is my brother Gilbert; you ought to remember him,
too, if you remember me.’
Otho shook hands with them. His countenance was
not the best suited for expressing pleasure and geniality,
but in a certain saturnine manner he seemed glad to see
them both, though he did not say he was, but showed it
by asking them many questions, with an air of interest—questions
as to what they had been doing ‘all these years.’
And he stood talking with them, and occasionally with
Byrom Winthrop, who joined them, until the voice of
Sir Thomas summoned them to the table, when, by some
means, Otho and Gilbert found themselves seated side
by side, and Michael was not very far away from them.
Otho Askam betrayed none of the awkwardness
which would have been natural to, and excusable in, a
very young man, who suddenly finds himself a person of
condition and importance amongst others, much older and
much better known than himself. At the same time his
manner was utterly destitute of anything like suavity or
17grace, or of aught that could give a clue as to his real
habits or tastes in the matter of society; none could discover
from it whether he most haunted and best loved
drawing-rooms, studies, clubs, or stables.
He appeared to be at his ease, and yet there was
nothing easy about him. He did not laugh at all.
Michael, who watched him attentively, could not detect
anything more mirthful than that peculiar smile which
had been on his face when he first saw him; and it was
a smile which might have been called sinister.
Gilbert and he seemed to keep up an animated conversation,
but Michael, though near, could not hear, for
the hum of talk around him, what they said. He could
only feel silently surprised that they had found any
subject in common, for Gilbert, when not engaged in
calculations, was something of a bookworm, and loved
the flavour of a play or an essay, and was well read in some
of our older and less known dramatists. Michael, though
still uncertain whether Otho were most like a gentleman
or a blackguard, had an inner conviction that he was
neither literary in his tastes nor yet devoted to accounts.
Suddenly, in a momentary lull in the talk around him,
he heard Otho say—
‘But Dusky Beauty was bred in these parts. I’d
take my oath of it.’
‘Of course she was,’ replied Gilbert, with animation.
‘She was bred in old Trueman’s stables, over in Friarsdale,
out of Blue Blood, by——’
Here the words were lost in the hum of renewed talk,
and Michael was no less lost in astonishment. He felt
quite feeble and bewildered with surprise. In all the
years that he had known his brother, he had never heard
him utter a word which could have led any one to
18suppose that racing or horses, beyond his own solitary
hunter and riding-horse, had the faintest or most
elementary interest for him. And yet, that was he
giving information to Otho Askam (not receiving it from
him, Michael reflected with astonishment) as to the
immediate pedigree of the winner at one of the Spring
meetings. More than once since he had finished his
studies and been settled in Bradstane, it had been made
manifest to him that Gilbert’s character contained complexities
which he had not fathomed, and here was
another instance—to him the most remarkable of all.
With a sense of bewilderment, he finished his breakfast,
and when it was over rode forth with the others.
At the end of the day, towards five in the afternoon,
it came to pass that the three former playmates and new
acquaintances rode through Bradstane town together.
‘I say,’ said Otho—it seemed to be his favourite
phrase for opening a sentence—‘I wish you two fellows
would look in upon me now and then. I dine at eight,
and I am perfectly alone just now. It would be a
charity if you would come. I can give you a glass of
sherry that isn’t so bad, and show you one or two trifles
that might interest you, at any rate,’ and he turned
pointedly to Gilbert.
They thanked him for the invitation. Gilbert promised,
unconditionally, to go, and that soon. Michael
said he would try; he would go as soon as he had time.
‘You see,’ observed Gilbert, turning to Otho, with a
worthy, benevolent air, ‘his time is not all his own.
There’s a lady in the case.’
‘Oh, indeed! You are engaged?’ asked Otho.
‘Yes,’ said Michael.
‘To some one here?’
19‘Yes. To Miss Wynter—Magdalen Wynter. She
was at the meet this morning with an elderly lady. I
was standing by their carriage for a good while.’
‘That exceedingly handsome girl, who drove those
white ponies so cleverly? She had black hair, and a
very knowing sort of fur cap,’ Otho said, looking at
Michael with interest.
Michael smiled slightly. What a curious way in
which to describe his beautiful and somewhat unapproachable
Magdalen, was the thought in his mind.
‘The same,’ he answered, ‘though it would never
have occurred to me to describe the cap as “knowing.”’
‘Oh, wasn’t it, though!’ said Otho emphatically.
‘Well, I congratulate you. She is exceedingly handsome.
There wasn’t another woman there who came anywhere
near her. It won’t do to be exacting in your case,’ he
went on, with his dubious smile; ‘but, all the same, you
will be very welcome if you come.’
‘Are you going to live alone?’ Michael asked him.
‘Doesn’t your sister stay with you?’
‘My sister—Eleanor—she is at school. I see her
sometimes,’ said Otho carelessly. ‘She told me, the
last time I called upon her, that she was going to college,
and meant to carry off honours, if I didn’t.’ He smiled
again, and added, ‘We part here, I think. Good day.
I am glad to have renewed our acquaintance.’
They separated, going their several ways, and the
Langstroths rode on in silence for a little time.
‘Well,’ said Michael presently, ‘it cannot be said that
he has turned out an interesting character.’
‘Opinions differ,’ was Gilbert’s reply, in a tone
which, for him, might be called curt. ‘I think he is
interesting.’
20‘Do you? I should have said you were the last—— By
the way, Gilbert, you might have knocked me over
with your little finger at breakfast this morning when I
heard you talking about Dusky Beauty and her pedigree.
I didn’t know you knew one race-horse from another.’
‘Well, I am quite certain you don’t,’ said Gilbert,
with less than his usual suavity; ‘and it is my principle
not to try and entertain people by conversation about
things in which they don’t take the slightest interest.
Otho Askam, there, does know one race-horse from
another.’
‘What, is he horsey, then? Is that his little failing?’
‘He is horsey—I don’t know how much, yet,’ said
Gilbert, with his gentle gravity. ‘That’s what I have
got to find out, and it is what I mean to find out. I
shall give him the pleasure of my company on an early
day. You can please yourself when you go. Here
we are.’
After Otho Askam’s arrival, which was, as it were,
made public by this appearance amongst the gentlemen
of his county, he and his sayings and doings furnished
endless topics for the gossips of the neighbourhood. It
was, of course, only by degrees that public opinion about
him took a definite shape, but the process of collecting
data on which to form one’s opinion of a person’s character
is to many persons an even more delightful
employment, and more enjoyable, than the frequent
utterance of that opinion when found; though this, of
course, must possess the higher quality of benefiting and
instructing those who hear it.
The Bradstane neighbours—people in districts like
that are neighbours if they do not live more than ten
miles apart—abandoned themselves at first with joy and
21satisfaction, and a keenly pleasurable sense of having
found a new interest, to this first branch of the business—the
collecting of data. Women asked their men—and
declined to be put off with mere vague, general
statements in reply—what they thought of Otho Askam;
and men said things to each other about him, and
laughed, or nodded, or shrugged, as the case might be.
The first interest gradually but surely turned into
disappointment. People in general discovered, or felt
that they had discovered, that Otho Askam was a decidedlydecidedly
horsey, slangy young fellow. It was soon made
manifest that he had a powerful distaste for general
society, as found in the country, with its dinners, dances,
and lunches. Then again it was said—by whom no one
could exactly tell—that he was full of whims and
humours and oddities without end—not pleasant oddities;
was very lavish of his money on one day, and very
stingy with it on the next; had a most moody and uncertain
temper, which sometimes would run into fierce,
white-hot passions, with little or no cause for them, or,
again, into sullen silence, more difficult than the fury
to understand or combat.
There was one group of facts eagerly seized upon by
the scandalmongers, and even by those who were not
scandalmongers, of the vicinity. The matrons and the
maids around were alike grieved that a young man so
richly endowed with every external advantage should
prove so very ungentle, unpromising a character; that
he should set at nought their customs, despise their
burnt-offerings, and openly neglect their galas and
festivities. That alone would have pained the matrons
and the maids; but that was not all. There was a thorn
more galling still, which he contrived to plant in their
22sides, so as to wound them shrewdly. After he had
been at home a few months, it became universally known
that there was one house in the neighbourhood at which
he visited often, indeed, constantly, and that one the
last which would have been expected to attract him—at
Balder Hall, namely, where old Miss Strangforth
lived with her niece, who had for more than two years
been engaged to Michael Langstroth. Magdalen Wynter
had never been a favourite among the women of the
country-side; she was exceedingly beautiful, and did
nothing to conciliate them; she was penniless, and
treated them as if they were beneath her. That winter
she became less popular than ever, and the secret thought
in many a virgin bosom was, ‘Greedy wretch! Could
she not have been satisfied with one?’
This attachment to Balder Hall, and the innumerable
times that his horse and he were reported to have been
seen travelling over the road thither, was the canker
which vexed the hearts of the womankind. A good
many of the young men began presently to say that
Otho was so cross in his temper that the only way to
get on with him was to let him alone as much as possible;
and, by and by, prudent fathers, however much they
might have approved of him as a husband for one of
their spotless daughters, began to think it was as well
that their sons should not have too much to do with
him. Nothing tangible had been alleged against him
during those months; nothing actively bad; but, on
the other hand, there was nothing good. In any of the
staider pursuits of a country gentleman of his standing,
politics, county business, public affairs of any kind, he
took not the faintest or most elementary interest; nay,
he had been known, when occasion offered, to express a
23rough kind of contempt for them, and for those who
troubled themselves with them. Altogether, Otho
Askam, who had been a good deal looked forward to as
the coming man, created much disappointment now that
he had come.
The last fact which formed food for gossip and
wonderment was, that that gentlemanly, well-bred youth,
Gilbert Langstroth, against whom scandal had never
raised so much as a whisper, who was known to be good—look
at the way in which he devoted himself to his
failing father—and was said, by those who knew him,
to be as clever as he was good—this paragon amongst
sons and young men became the chosen friend and
associate of Otho Askam, almost from the day of his
arrival in Bradstane. Gossip exhausted itself in trying
to find reasons for this alliance; in discovering points
of resemblance between two such diverse characters,
points which might account for the intimacy which
had sprung up between them. Gossip spent her breath
in vain. Undisturbed, and unheeding what was said
about them, the young men remained and continued
to be friends, and friends who were almost inseparable.
The neighbourhood presently discovered that to stand
perpetually with a gape on one’s mouth is undignified,
so it ceased to gape, shrugged its shoulders, and said,
‘Well, if I were Mr. Langstroth, I should not like my
son to form such an intimacy.’
The neighbourhood could not possibly have been
more surprised than was Gilbert’s brother, Michael,
though he kept his surprise to himself, and naturally did
not hear very much of that felt by other persons. He
had often chaffed Gilbert about his having no friends;
acquaintances in plenty, but no chum, as the absent
24Roger Camm was Michael’s own chum. Gilbert had
always replied—
‘Wait a bit. Every one does not suit me for a friend.
When I do find one, I’ll stick to him.’
And then Otho Askam came. Gilbert appeared to
have found the combination of qualities he wished for
in a friend, and his words were fulfilled. He ‘stuck
to him.’
The intimacy went on for more than a year, during
which time the tranquil, gentle countenance of Gilbert
Langstroth, with its slight, tolerant smile, was to be
seen oftener than not side by side with the strange,
fierce face of Otho Askam, with its breathless expression.
‘He looks,’ said a girl to Michael once, ‘as if he were
always hunting something, and meant to kill it when he
caught it.’
It was undoubtedly a bizarre alliance, but at the end
of a year people had, in a measure, got to accept it, and
it was an understood thing that its effect upon Gilbert
was one which he was quite able to sustain with
impunity; in other words, that, whatever might be the
case with Otho Askam, Gilbert Langstroth continued to
be a respectable member of society, and was not even
thinking of going to the bad.
CHAPTER II MAGDALEN—AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
25
Otho’s arrival had been in the early part of October.
The intimacy between him and Gilbert gradually increased,
and the visits of the friends were not by any
means confined to one party of the alliance. Otho was
found as often seated in an old arm-chair in some one of
the now faded and shabby rooms of the Red Gables, as
Gilbert was in the statelier and better preserved apartments
of Thorsgarth. Gilbert and his father lived alone
together. They had so lived ever since Michael, having
finished his medical studies, had come back and been
made Dr. Rowntree’s assistant. Mr. Langstroth was one
of those men who undoubtedly exist, who, by some
means not to be accounted for by any personal charm or
fascination, always have either a devoted wife or a friend
who seems willing, nay, eager to give of his strength in
order to make up for their weaknesses. So long as his
wife had been living, Mr. Langstroth had had a prop.
After her death, her place, as prop, had been taken by
Dr. Rowntree, an old ‘friend of the family,’ whose
yellow-washed house, with its green door and brass
knocker, stood almost opposite the Red Gables, on the
other side of the broad old square which formed the
west end of Bradstane town. Dr. Rowntree had indeed
26been one of those friends who stick closer than a
brother, who get little and give much, and who seem
quite satisfied so long as they may go on giving, and
get an occasional word significative of trust or appreciation.
Sometimes it seems as if they could exist without
even so much aliment for their regard. It was at his
instigation and by his advice that Michael had adopted
the medical profession as his calling in life. Something
had to be done; their fortunes no longer permitted
idleness on the part even of the eldest son of the house.
Michael was utterly disinclined for the church, and his
father for the expense of preparing him to enter it.
For ‘doctoring,’ as they roughly and ignorantly called
the healing art, he had always shown a liking; and,
as most of his spare time had always been spent at the
little Quaker doctor’s house, it was considered that he
had had ample opportunities of judging whether this
calling would suit him or not. He had elected to follow
it, greatly to the jubilation of his old friend, and, having
finished his student life, it had been decided that it
would be to the comfort and advantage of all if he were
to take up his quarters with Dr. Rowntree, instead of
remaining at home.
‘You won’t really be separated from them, you know,’know,’
said the doctor; ‘and, being on the premises, you’ll get
so much better broken in to it.’
Mr. Langstroth agreed. In his heart he despised the
doctor’s calling, and was angry and ashamed that a son
of his should have to live by it; but, like many another
before him, he took the benefits that he hated, and was
satisfied so long as they were not put before him too
prominently. He would have been best pleased if Michael
could have followed his ‘trade,’ as the elder man contemptuously
27called it, away from Bradstane and his
nobility; but the advantages of the present arrangement
were too great and too obvious to be thrown away; there
were no premiums to pay, no struggle to make. So
Michael lived with Dr. Rowntree, and began to make
himself acquainted with the far from easy life of a country
doctor. His temper was sweet, and his spirit beyond all
idea of shame in his position, or complaint at having to
work. He said little, but went to work with a will.
Gilbert had all along, and as it were by a sort of tacit
consent of all parties, remained at home with his father,
who was now a querulous invalid with a heart-complaint.
Incidentally, too, as has been said, he devoted a good
deal of his time and mind to the contemplation and
manipulation of their affairs, family and financial. While
Michael had been studying in London, letters had now
and then come to him from Gilbert, suggesting that it was
advisable to sell this or that farm, this or that lot of
timber in the woods which still belonged to them. To
do so would lessen their debts by so much, would ease
their father’s mind, and increase their income by diminishing
the amount they annually had to pay away in interest.
To all and each of which propositions, Michael had been
in the habit of yielding unqualified assent, saying that
he thought it very good of Gilbert to sit boring his eyes
out over accounts, in the days of his youth. He might
as well have congratulated an old spider on weaving webs
so skilfully, or complimented a shark on his kindness in
following that which he best loved—prey, namely, or,
in short, have thanked any person warmly for being so
disinterested as to find pleasure in following his natural
bent. Michael was very young, and hated all such tasks
as those in which Gilbert passed his time. He might
28have had Gilbert’s office, and Gilbert his, had he so
chosen; the option had been given him; but he did
not so choose, and it always seemed to him that his best
thanks were due to his brother for industriously doing
that which he would have so hated to do himself. Interested
in his studies, and seeing a good deal of society, in
which he was popular, by reason of his good looks, good
birth, and entire absence of selfishness or self-consciousness,
Michael often thought what a good old man Gilbert
was, and what thanks he, Michael, would owe him, for
thus sacrificing the days of his youth to an invalid father
and a complicated account-book, in a quiet little country
town at the world’s end.
It certainly was a very quiet little town, as it is now,
and probably always has been.
‘Castle Bradstane,’ says an old chronicler, ‘standeth
stately upon Tese.’ At the time of which he wrote,
he probably literally meant the castle, the grim brown
pile which stood on the Durham side of the stream,
cunningly planted just at an outward sweep of one of
its many curves. Gradually it had fallen into decay;
other houses and a small town had gathered about its
feet. Ivy and other creepers and climbers now clung
about its fierce old towers. Wallflowers, ragwort, and
the ivy-leaved snapdragon peeped and nodded in at the
narrow little slits of windows; kindly Nature did all in
her power to beautify what had been so cruel and so
hideous, till now the grim old fastness sat harmless aloft,
and the river rushed and murmured far below, as of
yore.
Any one who chooses, may learn how Walter Scott,
with the seer’s eye of genius, pictured Bradstane Castle,
and the prospects which from its ‘watch-tower high
29gleamed gradual on the warder’s eye;’ and to this day,
the prospect upon which it looks is little changed. Though
the stream sweeps by beneath it, laden with the tale of
several centuries more, their woe and bloodshed, grief
and tragic story, yet the outlines of the land itself, the
woods, the hills, must be similar to what they were when
old Leland, looking upon it, recorded, ‘Castle Bradstane
standeth stately upon Tese.’ The inhabitants, who
gradually built houses, and clustered about the old pile
and beyond it, to the east, had been, taken all in all, a
wild race of people, a border race. To this day they
are bold, sturdy, and independent. Strange tales are
sometimes told of the old families of the vicinity, gentle
and simple—tales in which both gentleness and simpleness
are conspicuous by their absence. Great cities have their
great sins, their great faults, wrongs, and iniquities; and
we are very much in the habit of speaking in condemnatory
terms of them, and of lauding the beauties of the
country, and the simpleness and gentleness, and, above
all, the naturalness and absence of pretension in the
life there. And, certainly, city life, carried to excess,
has in it a morbid feverishness and unrest which is no
true life. But in country life, when it is lived in out-of-the-way
spots—moorland farms, secluded dales, places
far from railways and traffic—there is often a certain
morbidness, as well as in the life of a town. The very
solitude and loneliness tend to foster and bring out any
peculiarities, any morbid characteristics, and to confirm
and strengthen eccentricities and idiosyncrasies. One of
the good things that much-abused progress will do in
time, will be to sweep away some of these ugly old
country habits of indolence and cloddishness, and selfish,
soulless sensuality, which still exist, and that sometimes
30amidst the sweetest and most exquisite natural
surroundings.
At this later time of which I write, Bradstane was
more the abode of confirmed Philistinism than of anything
else. There were a few wealthy and well-born families,
who possessed seats in the neighbourhood—Halls, Parks,
Courts, Houses—and who shut themselves up in them,
and led their own lives, on no evil terms with the
shopkeepers and dissenters of the village itself, but quite
apart and distinct from them. The only one of these
houses which stood within the precincts of the town was
the Red Gables, Mr. Langstroth’s dwelling-place. It was
a large old house, rising straight out of the street. The
land that belonged to it consisted chiefly of farms in the
vicinity, and some woods, more distant still.
Farther out, at a fine old place higher up the river,
situated like Thorsgarth, on one of its many ‘reaches,’
and called Balder Hall, lived an old maiden lady, Miss
Martha Strangforth, at whose death, which, said wise
report, could not be very far off, seeing that she was
older than the century, and a martyr to rheumatic gout,
her estate and fortune would pass to a nephew of the
same name. Four years ago had come to live with her
an orphan grand-niece, one Magdalen Wynter by name;
a cold, handsome, self-contained girl of eighteen, who
made no friends, and was seldom seen walking outside
her aunt’s grounds, but who sometimes passed through
Bradstane town, driving in one of the Balder Hall
carriages, dressed with a perfection of simple elegance
which the Philistine inhabitants called ‘plainness,’ and
looking as if, for aught they could say to the contrary,
all the world belonged to her. Sometimes she stopped
at one of the shops, and then she was treated with respect,
31as the niece of rich old Miss Strangforth. On these
occasions, she was wont to give very clear, concise orders,
in a very clear, decided voice, low and gentle, but too
monotonous to be called musical. Her beautiful young
face was seldom, if ever, seen to smile; and yet, one
could hardly have said that she looked unhappy, though
she might have been accused of appearing indifferent.
Once, some few weeks after her arrival, stopping at
the stationer’s and bookseller’s shop kept by Mr. Dixon,
in the main street of the town, the footman opened the
door, and she got out and went into the shop. Mrs.
Dixon came forward to attend to her wants, and was
followed by a pretty little girl of some ten years old, a
child with a delicate skin, small, oval face, straight little
nose, brown hair and eyes—all very neat and clear, and
clean and pretty. She hid rather shyly behind her mother.
‘Is that your child?’ asked Miss Wynter, pointing
with her parasol at the girl.
‘Yes, miss, this is Ada, our only one.’
‘Oh, indeed! How old is she?’
‘Ten, was a month last Sunday.’
‘Ah, she is a pretty little creature. Does she go to
school?’
‘Yes, miss; but it’s her holiday-time now.’
‘I wish you’d let her come home with me, and I’ll
show her some pretty things. I am very lonely.’
The last words were spoken in the quiet, uninterested
tone in which one says, ‘What a dull day it is!’ as if
they hardly referred to herself, but to something outside
her.
‘Oh yes, miss, she may go. I’m sure it’s very good
of you. But I fear she’ll be a trouble to you.’
‘Not at all, or I should not have asked her. Would
32you like to come with me, little Ada?’ asked Miss Wynter,
turning to the child neither coldly nor unkindly, but
with no change of expression at all—no lighting up of
her soft, dark, quiet eyes; not the ghost of a smile upon
her tranquil sculptured lips.
At first, Ada hung back; and her mother began to
expostulate with her, saying how good it was of the
lady to invite her to go with her.
The lady, in the same soft and gentle tone, remarked
presently—
‘Oh, she won’t understand that, of course. If you
will come with me, Ada, I will give you a pretty necklace,
and a ribbon.’
At this prospect, all hesitation fled. Ada submitted
at once to be made ready, Mrs. Dixon remarking admiringly—
‘Eh, but you have found the right road to her heart,
miss, and that cleverly.’
‘I will sit here, and wait till she is ready. Don’t put
on her best frock, or anything of that kind, you know.
She will do just as she is.’
Miss Wynter furthermore promised to restore Ada to
her home and friends later in the evening, but Mrs.
Dixon said she had to send her servant to the Balder
Hall farm for butter, and she should call for the little
girl and bring her back. Ada was perched in the carriage
beside Miss Wynter, in which position she was seen of
sundry comrades as she drove away.
They called to her; asked her where she was going,
and cried—
‘Eh, but, Ada, what a grand lady you are, to be sure!’
Ada took no manner of notice of them, but looked
straight before her.
33‘Why do you not kiss your hand to your friends, and
say good-bye to them?’ asked Magdalen, turning indifferently,
as she lay back, also indifferently, and looked
with languid curiosity at the little flushed face and small
figure, bristling with importance, beside her.
‘’Cause I’m a young lady, and they are little common
village girls,’ was the reply, so unexpected, that even
Miss Wynter’s eyes were opened wide, and her eyebrows
were raised, as she heard it.
‘Indeed?’ she said. ‘And do you think you are
really a young lady?’
‘Not like you, yet,’ was the reply, ‘because I’m not
old enough; but I shall be some time. Mamma says I’m
so pretty I shall be sure to marry a gentleman; and I’m
going to learn French and music.’
‘Oh, indeed!’ drawled Magdalen. ‘You are going
to marry a gentleman. What is a gentleman? Did
your mother tell you that, too?’
‘She didn’t tell me, but I know,’ replied Ada.
‘Well, suppose you tell me. Then I shall know, too.’
‘A gentleman is rich, and has a large house, and——’
‘Does a gentleman keep a shop?’
‘No.’
‘Then what is your father?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’
Magdalen proceeded, in a languid, indifferent way,
to draw her out. In a very short time she had gauged
the depths, or rather the shallows, of Ada Dixon’s mind.
It contained nothing but shallows then; it was destined
never to contain anything else, henceforth and for evermore.
From that day she was more or less Miss Wynter’s protegée
and plaything. Sometimes the connection flagged;
34sometimes when the winter weather was bitter, or the
summer heats overpowering, when Miss Wynter was
indolent, and when Ada was promoted to a boarding-school,
there were gaps in the intercourse; but the acquaintance
was never broken off, and it was not without its influence
in both lives, and on more destinies than theirs alone.
The Dixons were well-to-do, prosperous, conventional
tradespeople, more retail than wholesale in every sense
of the words. He had grown fat by charging sixpence
where other people charged fivepence, by a consistent
practice of telling many lies during the week, and diligently
repenting him of his transgressions and bewailing
his sins twice every Sunday in the parish church. That
is, he bewailed his sins with his mouth, and whenever
bewailing happened to be printed in the Prayer-book;
but he knew much better than the Prayer-book what
was the way in which to get on in the world, and perhaps,
if he had spoken out his whole mind, cleanly and
honestly, would have said that since the Lord, by putting
so much competition into the world, had made it such a
hard business for folk to hold their heads above water,
He must even excuse them from doing it in the best
way they could.
Mrs. Dixon, like a faithful and loyal wife, had aided
and abetted him in his praiseworthy efforts to get on in
the world. They had succeeded in their aim, and were
respected and looked up to by all who knew them. He
was vicar’s warden, an overseer of the poor, one of the
best-known men in public and parochial affairs in all the
district. He could afford to send his daughter to school,
to keep her out of the shop; to dress her ‘stylishly,’ as
they called it; to give her a piano, and buy pieces of
music for her to play upon it; and all these things he
35did with a good grace, and looked to Ada to form an
alliance which should be to the credit of the family and
her own glory.
There were other well-to-do tradesmen in Bradstane,
and many who were but ill-to-do. There was the lawyer,
Mr. Coningsby, who lived not far away from the Langstroths;
there was Dr. Rowntree; there was the vicar,
Mr. Johnson, with Mrs. Johnson, his wife, and their
numerous progeny. They lived in an old brown house,
in a kind of close, near the church, with a walled garden
containing apricot and plum trees. Other religious bodies
were represented by two dissenting ministers and their
flocks, and by a Friends’ Meeting, the head and front of
which was Dr. Rowntree.
These denominations, of course, had churches and
chapels in which they worshipped. There were some
curious old houses in the main street, and there was a
long and unlovely thoroughfare called Bridge Street,
more like a slum than anything else, where the women
were pale, and the children stunted, and the inhabitants
of which, taken all in all, did not enjoy the best of
reputations. One side of this street was built to the
river-bank overhanging the stream; and in the spring
and autumn, or when thunderstorms prevailed, the lower
rooms of those houses would be flooded. Going along
Bridge Street, one did not guess how near the river one
was, till one came upon an opening here and there—a
gully, or a tunnel, or a narrow, dark passage—and
looking down it, one could see the rushing brown waters
flowing ceaselessly on, without haste and without rest,
from the fastnesses whence they had sprung—
‘Where Tees in tumult leaves his source,
Thundering o’er Cauldron and High Force.’
36Such was, superficially, the outward aspect of Bradstane
town, when Otho Askam and the two Langstroths
met after their many years’ separation; such it had been
for years back. It is not what is called ‘a growing
town,’ and whatever drama might be played within its
precincts, its exterior, objective side, was not likely to
change very much.
CHAPTER III LANGSTROTH’S FOLLY
37
One November evening, or rather, late in the afternoon,
Otho had dropped in at the Red Gables, where he had
found Gilbert and his father. Mr. Langstroth received
the young man with urbanity; he had all along seemed
satisfied with Gilbert’s new friend. Gilbert himself
looked up from his desk, and greeted the visitor tranquilly.
‘Sit down, and make yourself at home,’ said he,
pushing a tobacco-jar towards Askam.
But Otho did not at once sit down. ‘Will you come
home and dine with me?’ he asked, in his curt way.
‘I’m sorry I can’t,’ Gilbert said, polite as usual. ‘You
see these papers? I have more than an hour’s work
upon them yet.’
Otho never scoffed at Gilbert’s ‘business,’ though he
was ready to sneer at that of any one else. All he
uttered now was a disappointed ‘Humph!’
‘Stay and have dinner with us,’ said Gilbert. ‘How
did you come?’
‘I rode.’
‘From home? On your way anywhere?’
‘No. I’m on my way from Balder Hall,’ replied
Otho, with something like a scowl.
38Gilbert looked at him, carelessly, it seemed. Then
he said—
‘Well, send your horse round, and stay, as I said—I
want Askam to have dinner with us,’ he added, turning
to his father.
‘I wish he would. We shall be delighted, if he will
take us as we are,’ responded Mr. Langstroth.
Otho still seemed to hesitate a little, till Gilbert, with
a rather steady look at him, which was not seen by his
father, continued—
‘Look here. I’ll propose something else. I’ve been
tied down to this work all day, and I haven’t had a turn
out of doors. Dine with us, as I said, and afterwards
I’ll walk back with you to your house. I have an errand
in the town. It’ll do you no harm to travel on your
own legs for once in a way, and you can send one of
your fellows for your horse. How will that do?’
Otho’s brow cleared. ‘That will do very well,’ said
he, taking a chair. ‘It suits me down to the ground.
Get on with that work, and I’ll talk to your father.’
Gilbert, having rung and given his orders as to the
accommodation of Otho’s horse, turned his back upon
them, and did not address another word to them until
the man announced dinner, when he put his papers in a
drawer which he locked, and gave his arm to his father
to support him to the dining-room. Otho followed them.
Despite the poverty of the house of Langstroth, the meals
there were always rather choice, well cooked, and well
served. Mr. Langstroth, it was understood, depended
a good deal for his health of mind as well as of body
upon the due observance of such things. Soon after they
had begun, Gilbert observed carelessly that they hadn’t
seen Michael all day; he had expected him to dinner.
39‘He’s dining at Balder Hall,’ said Otho, even more
curtly than usual.
‘Ah! Had he arrived when you left?’
‘No.’
‘And how was my future sister-in-law?’
‘She said she was all right,’ was the gruff reply, as
Otho fixed his eyes for a moment upon Gilbert, a little
defiantly, one might almost have said. Nothing more
was said about any of these topics—Balder Hall, or
Michael, or Magdalen. When dinner was over, and they
had gone back to the library, Gilbert settled his father
with the greatest care, arranging with his own hands
his easy-chair, small table, reading-lamp, and all his
other requisites.
‘You won’t mind my leaving you for an hour or two?’
he asked.
‘Not at all, Gilbert. You want some air and exercise.
Go and get it.’
‘Would you like me to ask the doctor to call in?’
‘No, no,’ was the somewhat testy reply. ‘I see him
often enough, without you asking him to come.’
‘Michael is sure to look in on his way home, but I shall
most likely be back by then.—Now, Otho, if you’re ready.’
As they stepped out of the house, they became aware
that a change had fallen over the weather, which had
been cold. The sky was full of rack, driven rapidly
across it by a strong yet soft south-west wind. The
moon gleamed fitfully through the clouds, and a gush of
rain was blown against their faces.
‘Halloa! Raining!’ exclaimed Gilbert. ‘Do you mind
a drop of rain?’ he added, ‘or will you ride home?’
‘Oh, I’m not afraid of a little weather,’ replied Otho.
‘Where do you want to go?’
40‘Where you have never been yet,’ said his companion.
‘Down to the Townend, as they call it. Come along.
It isn’t much out of our way to Thorsgarth.’
Otho followed in a docile manner. Now that he had
got what he seemed to have been aiming at, his tête-à-tête
with Gilbert, all traces of sullenness and impatience had
vanished. Bulldogs, surly to all the world beside, are
tame and obedient to their masters; and there was a
good deal of the bulldog in the way in which Otho
followed Gilbert about.
When they had got through the busiest and most
inhabited part of the town, they found themselves almost
alone in a steep street, descending rapidly towards the
river. As they got farther down it, the houses gradually
became more bare and rough-looking; and, some of
them, more and more ancient in appearance. Looking
down the hill, it appeared as if the street ended in a cul
de sac, as if there were no egress that way from Bradstane
town. And the wall which appeared to shut the place
in, and block up the road at that side, consisted of the
frontage of two high factories. There was in reality a
narrow passage between them, through which access was
obtained to the river, and by means of which one arrived
at an iron footbridge, ugly, but useful. This could not be
perceived at the distance they now were from the mills.
‘What on earth do you want down here?’ growled
Otho, between two puffs at his pipe.
‘We possess a bit of property down there,’ Gilbert
answered him. ‘It is perfectly meaningless and perfectly
useless to us. It cumbers the ground, and has swallowed
up a pot of money which we ought to be enjoying the
benefit of now. I sometimes walk down to it, to look
at it, and think what a folly it was. “Langstroth’s
41Folly,” it ought to be called. Townend Mills is the name
it actually bears. There it is!’ as the moon shone out
brightly for a few minutes, and showed the dark mass
of the factories rising almost directly in front of them.
‘You’re a queer one!’ said Otho, not without a kind
of admiration in his tones. ‘Where’s the sense of fretting
yourself by coming and looking at it? It’s like trying
to heal a raw by scraping.’
‘Your simile would be just, if I did irritate myself,’
replied Gilbert, gently. ‘My dear Otho’—he spoke impressively,
and laid his hand for a moment on the other’s
arm—‘I never let anything irritate me. I make it a
rule——’
‘Never—I never say never,’ said Otho. ‘No saying
what will turn up. Leave it to chance. That’s the best
way. Besides, Mag—some one was saying to me, only
the other day, that it’s only very young people who
never do what they oughtn’t.’
It was on the tip of Gilbert’s tongue to say, ‘I know
I am young, but, then, I have taken care to be very
wise, too,’ because we are apt to blurt out the thoughts
nearest our hearts. But he said quietly—
‘Yes, I know I am young, but I have had a good deal
to do that generally falls to older people. With Michael
choosing to leave us and take his own way, I have had
a good deal to think about, and a good deal of help to
give to my poor governor in his business affairs; and I
soon found that, if you want to get on at all in business,
you must keep your temper, especially when you are a
poor man, with fallen fortunes, against the world——’
‘Be hanged if I could ever keep my temper about
business, or anything else that went wrong with me!’
‘Ah, you can afford to lose your temper,’ said Gilbert,
42in a cold voice, which caused Otho hastily to say that he
had meant no offence; and Gilbert proceeded—
‘So, as I say, I don’t let the Townend Mills irritate
me, though one might get irritated enough about them
if one would; but I come and smoke my pipe, and walk
round them now and again, and think quietly. I feel as
if I might, some time or other, have a good idea on the
subject, you know—an idea that might be worked into
something. Don’t you trouble yourself about them. I
won’t detain you long. Here we are!’
They had entered the long, narrow passage between
the mills. It was now late, getting near ten o’clock, for
they had not left the Red Gables till after nine. The
clouded sky made the night darker—a darkness which
was deepened, if anything, by the occasional gleams of
moonlight when the rack parted. At the end of the
passage there was visible a kind of gray shimmer, and in
the intervals between the gusts of wind they could hear
the rush of the river.
‘Wherever one goes, one comes upon that river,’ exclaimed
Otho, not as if he were much delighted with the fact.
‘Yes. Tees keeps us pretty well aware of his presence.
It’s as twisted and crooked a stream as any in England,
I should imagine. There are the mills, Askam. Now,
I’ll tell you my object in life, if you like.’
‘What is it?’ asked Otho, with deep and unfeigned
interest.
‘I wish—at least, I intend to overcome the obstacle
raised in my way by the idiot who built these mills. I
like overcoming obstacles. I intend, some day, either
to have them sold, and the price of them in my pocket,
or else to see them filled with machinery, and working
again at a profit.’
43‘But you don’t understand how to manage mills,’ said
Otho diffidently.
‘No, but I understand how to manage men. And I
know a fellow who understands how to manage mills—Roger
Camm. Do you remember Roger Camm? He
used to be a playfellow of ours—the curate’s son.’
‘A swarthy fellow, very big and strong, who always
looked rather hungry, and yet always said he wasn’t when
we used to go in to tea?’tea?’
‘The same. I see you have an accurate memory. I
guess he was hungry too, poor beggar. He was over
here, a year or two ago, stopping with Michael; they are
great chums. And he told me all about himself. He
cut the Church. He said his governor never got anything
out of it but water-porridge and civil contempt
from people who weren’t as good as himself. He was
rather bitter about it. Anyhow, he cut it, as I say, and
took to the intelligent working-man line. He is foreman
in a Manchester factory now, and he knows something
about it all, I can tell you. I made him promise that
when I sent for him he’d come and take the management
of this concern—“run it” for me, as they say in
America.’
‘Ah, and when will that be?’
‘When I find my purchaser or tenant,’ said Gilbert,
as suavely as ever. ‘He told me all the reasons why
these would never succeed as cotton factories—they are
the only mills in the place; the station is a mile and a
half away, and there is a steep hill, nearly half a mile
long, from here to the top of the town. Oh, I’ve mastered
the subject. Jute—that is what I shall do with
them—spin jute, and get women and girls out of Bridge
Street for hands.’
44‘Yes?’ said Otho, tentatively, really interested, and
ardently wishing that he understood a little more about
it. ‘And your father and—brother?’ Michael’s name
seemed rather to stick in his throat.
‘My father says he only wishes I could. Michael is
dead against it. Michael would like to pull the whole
place down.’
‘What for?’ asked Otho, sharply.
‘Because he’s a fool,’ was Gilbert’s reply. The intimacy
between him and Otho had, it would seem,
progressed quickly.
‘Because he’s a fool,’ repeated young Askam, leaning
his elbows on the balustrade of the bridge, to which they
had now advanced, and staring down into the rushing
brown river. The expression on the face, which the
darkness concealed, was not a pleasant one. ‘Curse
him!’ he muttered to himself, so low that even Gilbert
did not hear him; but the river carried the sound, along
with all the other messages with which it was laden,
towards the sea.
‘Come along!’ said Gilbert, after a brief, silent pause.
‘There’s no use staying here any longer.’
Otho raised himself from the bridge, and they
retraced their way through the silent passage, up the
steep street, and to where a road to the right led in the
direction of Thorsgarth. They had not spoken a word
since leaving the mills.
‘I think it’s rather late for me to be going with you,’
said Gilbert, hesitating at the corner.
‘Not a bit! What’s ten o’clock? You’ve got a key,
I suppose? You said you would come,’ said Otho, rapidly,
and almost savagely. ‘And I want to speak to you.’
‘Oh, I am willing, and—well, Michael will see my
45father again before he goes to bed—sure to. He will
be leaving Balder Hall by now, I daresay. They keep
early hours there.’
‘Where there’s an old woman like that precious Aunt
Martha, they must,’ said Otho. ‘Look here, Gilbert,
how did your brother Michael get Magdalen Wynter to
accept him?’
‘By being the only man in the world who proposed
to her, or was likely to do so,’ said Gilbert, cynically.
‘I don’t see that. She is the handsomest woman I
ever saw.’
‘She hasn’t a penny, and won’t have. She isn’t
popular—but the reverse, and no man, except Michael,
ever penetrates within those walls—oh, and you,’ he
added, with a laugh, as he turned to Otho.
‘You haven’t accounted for it yet,’ said the latter,
sullenly.
‘Well, say she was in love with him.’
‘In love with my eye!’
Gilbert laughed again. ‘I give it up,’ said he. ‘It’s
a conundrum I have often set myself, to no purpose.
Michael is ten thousand times too good for her; but
that’s nothing to the point. I don’t know why she took
him.’
‘She ordered me off this afternoon, because he was
coming to dinner,’ Otho said, in a voice of choking anger.
‘She told me my whole body wasn’t worth his little
finger. She——’
‘You might be in love with her yourself,’ suggested
Gilbert; and, indeed, a less astute observer might have
been struck with the same idea.
‘I’ll be hanged if I am—insolent minx!’ retorted
Otho, savagely. ‘No girl shall behave to me as she has
46done, with impunity. She shall pay for it. But, tell
me, how long were they in making it up?’
‘Oh, not long; about six weeks. He was home for
his holidays one summer, and we were talking together
in front of the house. Miss Strangforth’s carriage, with
her and Magdalen in it, drove by. The old lady saw us
bowing, and stopped. I introduced Michael; he fell in
love on the spot, then and there, over head and ears.
Martha asked him to drive with them, and he drove.
Drove deeper and deeper into love, I suppose; and—yes,
it was just six weeks later, they were together at a picnic
to Cauldron, and they returned engaged. My father
has never got over it.’
‘How?’ asked Otho, in the same strangled voice.
‘He thought it so idiotic and imprudent. And so it
was, and is. But Michael had become a man over the
doing of it. They stuck to it, and they have stuck to it
ever since. Some day, I suppose they will be married;
but I don’t know when.’
Otho made absolutely no reply to this prophecy.
They turned in at the Thorsgarth gates, and the subject
was dropped. But Gilbert knew now why Otho had
given them his company at dinner, and why he himself
had been so earnestly pressed to go back to Thorsgarth
after their walk.
CHAPTER IV THE FACULTY OF CLOSE OBSERVATION
47
One night, during the winter which followed the conversation
between Otho and Gilbert, a large ball was
given at a well-known house in the neighbourhood of
Bradstane, and present at it were both the Langstroth
brothers, Magdalen Wynter, and even Otho Askam,
little as he loved such entertainments. Perhaps Gilbert
had persuaded him to go.
Magdalen was chaperoned by a good-natured matron,
who had married off all her own girls with credit and
renown, and could therefore afford to witness with complacent
amusement the gaspings and stugglings of those
who were still, as Otho might elegantly have put it, ‘in
the running.’ She had not that dislike to Magdalen
which animated more interested persons; she admired
her beauty, and considered her ‘good form.’ Magdalen
herself had never looked better than she did that night,
or more haughtily and superbly independent of all outside
support. She was richly attired, for Miss Strangforth
liked her niece to dress splendidly. She danced
very seldom; it had never been her habit to do so often;
and as not even her rivals, while in possession of their
senses, would have dreamed of saying that this was
because she could not get partners, and as her sitting out
48usually involved also the sitting out of some man who
would otherwise have been free to dance with another
girl, and as the said men always looked perfectly happy
and satisfied in their inactivity at such times,—her habit
did not in any way make her more popular.
To-night it was observed that she danced twice with
her betrothed, twice with Otho Askam, and once with Gilbert.
Perhaps that might have been endured without
much adverse criticism, but it was noticed also, and bitterly
noticed, that Otho danced with no one else, though both
Michael and Gilbert did.
On the following afternoon, Gilbert, returning from a
solitary, meditative ride, far into the country—such a
ride as he loved to take, and did take, almost every day—found
himself outside the palings at one side of the Balder
Hall Park. Looking over them, he saw within the figure
of Magdalen Wynter. She was pacing quickly up and
down a sort of woodland path, which in summer must
have been almost concealed, but which was now plainly
visible between the trunks of the naked trees—visible, at
any rate, to Gilbert as he sat on horseback. There was
a broad belt of rough grass, in which grew ferns, and
from which also rose the leafless trees just spoken of.
Then came the path on which Miss Wynter was walking,
and beyond that a glade, sloping steeply down to where
Tees flowed by in one of his many curves.
Gilbert saw a dark, close cap of velvet, and a pale face
which drooped somewhat beneath it, a long, fur-bordered
mantle tightly clipped around the wearer’s form, the
bottom of a crimson kilting peeped beneath it, and a pair
of small, well-shod feet. Her back was turned to him,
and he stopped and looked over the palings till she turned,
lifted her head, and saw him. She gave a little start.
49‘Oh, Gilbert, how quietly you must have come!’
‘Not so very. The ground is hard and frosty, and
my horse’s hoofs rang. It is your deep thoughts, Magdalen,
which render you deaf to outside things.’
She had walked across the grass, which was dry and
hard, and crunched frostily under her feet, up to the
paling, and held up her hand to him. Gilbert rarely
met his future sister-in-law, and it has been seen that in
speaking of her to his friend, Otho Askam, he did not
employ terms exactly of enthusiasm; but if ever they
did encounter each other, whether by chance or design,
he was always scrupulously amiable and polite to her.
Whether this meeting had come about by chance—whether
he had intended that it should come about—this
is a thing known only to himself. As he looked
down now, into the marble paleness and wonderful beauty
of the girl’s face, he gave no sign, and she said to him—
‘Are you riding alone?’
‘Yes, just as you see me. I have been a long way—nearly
to Middleton-in-Teesdale.’
‘I have been walking for an hour, up and down this
path. I am beginning to find it rather monotonous, and
am going in for some tea. Will you come and have some,
too?’
‘With pleasure, if you can put up with such a feeble
substitute for my brother. I think the North Lodge is
just round here, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. I will meet you there. Then we can walk to
the house together.’
They did so, Gilbert dismounting at the lodge, and
leading his horse. The short winter day was closing in,
gray and cold, as they went up the avenue.
‘How did you enjoy the dance?’ he asked.
50‘Not much. I never do. Did you?’
‘I always enjoy watching other people’s little games.’
She gave a short laugh. ‘Do you mean mine?’
‘Yours—nay. How can you have any?’
‘Just what I was going to say. I mean, if you were
looking for what you call “games” with me, your trouble
must have been wasted, that’s all.’
‘Of course. No; I meant all the other girls, and their
mothers, and the men, too, for that matter.’
She laughed again, shortly and contemptuously.
‘And Otho Askam,’ he pursued tranquilly.
Magdalen looked up. ‘What? Has he got plans, or
“games,” as you call them?’
‘I was amused to see his devotion to you last night,
and what a rage those women were in about it. His
game is to avoid all the girls whom he might possibly be
supposed to be desirous of marrying. He told me so.
He is mortally afraid of being trapped. And of course,
he is even more afraid of the mothers than of the girls.
You are quite harmless, you see. You are promised to
Michael. He feels so safe and happy with you.’
‘Poor, innocent lamb!’
‘Isn’t he? It shows how blindly he trusts in your
probity, and in your devotion to Michael. He comes to
Balder Hall sometimes, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘He never asks me to go with him.’
‘No?’
‘It is so amusing, I think. What does Michael say
to it?’
‘Michael—oh, he laughs, and says it is very good of
me to let him come, and that it is a good sign for Mr.
Askam’s future career that he frequents any decent
51society at all,’ she said, with a short, dry laugh, of which
Gilbert’s answering one seemed an echo, so much were
they alike in tone.
‘How beautiful of him! When you are married to him,
Magdalen,’ he added, speaking very slowly, and openly
watching her face—‘when you are married to Michael,
and fairly established as Mrs. Langstroth, for which
consummation you have waited so faithfully and so
patiently,’—he dwelt upon all his words—‘I should say
that then Michael would find it rather a bore to have
Otho Askam coming in, and you would, too. Don’t you
think so?’
‘How can I tell? I should say that Otho Askam
would find it a bore himself, when I am married to
Michael, if ever I should be. As you say, I have waited
a long time, and I may have a longer one yet to wait,
before I am Michael’s wife.’
She spoke with a dead monotony of tone, and a no
less monotonous expression in her face. They stood
now in front of the house. Magdalen beckoned to a
gardener’s boy, and told him to send a groom for
Gilbert’s horse, after which they went into the house,
into Magdalen’s sitting-room, and she cast off her fur
cloak, and began to make tea, with the firelight shining
on her crimson gown. Gilbert sat in a low chair and
watched her, but said nothing. Only when she handed
him his cup of tea, he said softly—
‘Magdalen, I do wish you and Michael could be
married to-morrow.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Then your life would be brighter.’
‘Who told you it was dull?’
‘All your actions and words tell me so.’
52‘You and I are what they call quiet people,’ she
remarked. ‘Not impressionable, and all that kind of
thing.’
‘I believe that is the general opinion of our characters.’
‘Well, and people also seem to think that such creatures—pachydermatous,
don’t they call animals with
thick skins——’
‘Has Michael been lending you some science primers
to while away the time in the winter evenings? What
a happy thought of his!’
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘They do—pachydermatous is the word.’
‘They seem to think that, because we are not all on
fire, and jerking about, for nothing, we can do without
any excitement at all.’
‘I have observed the existence of the delusion you
speak of. Yes, thank you, I will have some more
cake.’
‘I don’t know what you think, but I feel to want
more excitement than most people, and I get less. Last
night, if I could have been sure that Michael would not
have misunderstood me, I would have danced every
dance with Otho Askam, if the result had been that not
a woman would have spoken to me at the end of the
evening. That’s the kind of feeling I have.’
‘I can quite understand it. I wish you would have
tried the experiment—say with me.’
‘That would not have been at all the same thing.
You are a very good young man, and Otho Askam is
considered rather a bad one.’
‘Michael is the best of us all.’
‘It is not that I like bad people, but I like to sing in
53a different key from that used by all the rest. I should
like to see them all looking as if the world were coming
to an end.... By the way, Gilbert, are you such a
very good young man? They say you are too great a
friend of that timid creature we have been talking about,
who only dances with engaged girls, to be very good.’
Gilbert started—within himself, not outwardly, stirred
his tea, and said carelessly—
‘Perhaps I cultivate him for reasons like your own—because
I am dull, and it makes people vexed.’
‘Perhaps. He is very rich, of course. Gilbert, you
have wished me such good wishes about Michael, it is
only fair that I should wish you well in return. I wish
Otho Askam would relieve you of those factories that I
have heard you speak of. Then there would be more
money in your coffers, and perhaps more chance of that
marriage coming off, of which you have been speaking
so kindly.’
‘You are very good,’ said Gilbert, laying down his
empty cup; ‘but gentlemen are not in the habit of
twisting their friends’ pockets inside out, for their own
advantage.’
‘Oh no! But if the friend had a leaning towards
commercial enterprise—a speculative spirit. It would
be an amusement for him.’
‘If he had. But you know as well as I do that his
tastes are not of that kind, but of the turf, turfy.’
Magdalen smiled, and said, ‘I know that his tastes
are for anything exciting, anything highly flavoured.
What will you wager that he is tired of the turf in a
year from now?’
‘Nothing at all. If I did wager on that subject, I
would wager to the contrary.’
54‘Well, I think his superfluous cash would be more
respectably employed in setting your factories going.’
Here a loud ring sounded through the house.
‘I should not wonder if that were Michael calling,’
said Magdalen, and she spoke in hurried tones. ‘Remember,
Gilbert, not a word of this. I feel better for
speaking to you; and Michael is good, oh, so much
better than any of us! And he has cares of his own.
And you will be my brother, some day. Do you understand?’
‘My dear Magdalen, of course! Do not distress
yourself, pray. There is no need,’ he assured her, as
Michael entered.
‘Why, Gilbert, that is well,’ said he, with a look of
great pleasure. ‘I have often wished that you could
spare time to ride out and have a chat with Magdalen
now and then. Where did you meet?’
Michael sat half an hour, and then the brothers rode
home in company. Magdalen, when the two young men
had left her, sat for a long time over the fire, gazing into
its glow, her elbows propped on her knees.
‘Gilbert is very observant—remarkably observant,’observant,’
she thought to herself. ‘Who would have thought that
he would see so quickly, and Michael be so blind? And
yet again, Gilbert sees, but sees only to dissect—without
any feeling, unless it be a feeling of pleasure in showing
one his power. Michael does not see, but if he did he
would sympathise. He is grand—at least, he would be
if he were awake. With all his love for me, I have not
been able to awaken him. His time is yet to come.
Sympathise—yes; but what is sympathy? He can’t
give me what I want. Here am I, beautiful, yes, very
beautiful, and very strong, and with some brains in my
55head, though they all think I have none. And I have
to live, to vegetate, that is, as if I were some worn-out
old woman, as if I were my own great-aunt. It is
horrible, horrible, and I do not know how long I shall
be able to bear it.’
A dreary blank seemed to open before her mind’s
eye, and still she sat motionless, staring into the fire.
‘Michael is my lover—he does love me, too. He is
the only friend I have, for no one is fond of me. If
they were kind to me, and really cared for me, I would
not take their Otho Askam away from them. I wonder
if they know what he is, this creature that they make
such a fuss about! Perhaps there would be no fuss if
he were dancing attendance on any one but me—fuss, of
course there would be no fuss. Gilbert and I know
what he is. He has not been able to conceal his miserableness
from us. And we know that he himself—the
man—is not worth fighting for. But I do not mean to
let them have him, all the same. It amuses me to keep
him, and to enrage them. And I shall go on amusing
myself in that way. Michael is very good, but he is not—amusing.
If I were married to him, I wonder if I
should find it as dull as I do being engaged to him.
Surely not. But——’
Here Miss Strangforth’s maid came in, and said her
mistress was awake, and was going to have a cup of tea,
and would be glad if Miss Wynter would go to her.
Magdalen went instantly, and whatever the state of her
own heart, she did not let her great-aunt feel dull while
she sat with her.
CHAPTER V GILBERT’S CAUTIOUSNESS
56
As the young men rode homewards, Michael again expressed
his pleasure at Gilbert’s visit to Balder Hall.
Gilbert, for his part, was meditative and rather silent
during the first part of their ride, but was presently
roused into animation by a remark of Michael’s. Some
days before, Gilbert had been expounding to Michael, as
he was now and then in the habit of doing, just so much
as he thought fit for him to know of his financial arrangements
and schemes for the future. He had informed
his brother that the estate was being very gradually
retrieved, that he, Gilbert, began to see daylight—a first
glimmer, through the obscurity. All his plans, he said,
were working well, except one, which, if he could only
accomplish it, would give an impetus to everything else,
and shorten his work by years; and that one was, of
course, the sale or letting of the Townend factories. He
could not sell them: he could not find any capitalist to
work them.
Gilbert had been very much in earnest when he spoke—in
his way of being in earnest, that is, not vehemently,
but gently. He spoke of the mills, even of the trouble
they gave him, with respect—a respect which he would
have accorded to no other topic or kind of topic under
57the sun. Consequently, it had jarred on his mood when
Michael, lightly flicking his boot with his riding-whip
(for he had looked in at the Red Gables on his way from
his daily round), and glancing round the room as he
spoke with an absent look, asked—
‘Then, have we no capital now?’
Gilbert looked at him, almost sharply at first, and
then with a patient expression, like that of a conscientious
teacher trying to instil some branch of knowledge
into a peculiarly dense pupil.
‘Not a quarter enough to set the mills agoing,’ he
said. ‘And if we had, it is too risky a venture for
capital like ours, that has been snatched, as it were, out
of the gulf it had been flung into.’
‘But if it is too risky for our capital, surely it is too
risky for that of a stranger.’
‘That does not follow at all, as any business man could
tell you. It does not follow that because it would be
risky for our capital, it would also be the same for that
of a stranger; it would entirely depend upon who the
stranger might be, and what the extent of his possessions.’
To this Michael had made very little reply. Gilbert
imagined that he had forgotten it, but was undeceived
as they now rode together in the winter moonlight. It
was yet early, but dark, save for the clear, frosty-looking
crescent in the sky.
‘I met Sir Thomas Winthrop this afternoon,’ observed
Michael. ‘We rode together for a little while, and we
were talking about those factories. Sir Thomas says he
wonders my father does not pull them both down. The
land would sell fast enough, without them, for building,
and they are in want of cottages down there.’
There was a slight pause. Then—
58‘I daresay Sir Thomas Winthrop does wonder,’ said
Gilbert, going perfectly white with anger. ‘He would
give the world to buy the plot himself and build cottages
on it for his farm-labourers and people. Does he think
I am a fool?’
‘He never mentioned your name at all. It was my
father of whom he was speaking, to whom the property
belongs,’ said Michael, a shade of reserve in his tone, for
it was quite true, and had struck even him more than
once, that Gilbert had a way of speaking of their estate
as though it were not only managed, but owned, by
himself. Michael trusted and believed in him implicitly,
but was not prepared to be so sharply taken up.
‘He is a meddlesome old imbecile, and I would thank
him to mind his own business,’ said Gilbert, who had
somewhat recovered his composure. ‘Michael, do you
trust me, or do you not?’
As he spoke, he almost pulled up, and looked his
brother full in the face. Gilbert’s countenance, at this
period, was an older countenance than that of Michael.
His brow had already got the first coating, as it were,
of the network of little fine wrinkles which afterwards
completely covered it.
‘Trust you? why, of course,’ said Michael, almost impatiently.
‘Then, hearken to a word of advice. Do not let Sir
Thomas Winthrop, or Sir Thomas anybody, even speak
to you of our affairs. I know what I am about when
I say so. Do you think I’d discuss with any outsider
the way you treat a patient? I should know that you
knew a hundred times more about such things than I
did, even if I might not suppose you infallible. And if
you trust me to be doing the best for us all, you must
59not discuss what I am doing or not doing, with any
mortal soul.’
‘I tell you I was not discussing it,’ said Michael, his
dark brows drawing together. ‘Sir Thomas began. I
met him as I was riding from——’
‘Sir Thomas be d—d!’ said Gilbert, so heartily, and
with such intense emphasis, that Michael stared at him.
This anger, passion, and violent language, belonged to
a phase in his brother’s character of which he had
scarcely suspected the existence. This sudden display
might have put a suspicious man on the alert, but
Michael Langstroth was not suspicious; and, moreover,
he was one of those who, while they can fight the world
well enough, can oppose an iron front to their enemies,
and treat their detractors with careless scorn, are very
tender, very weak, very sensitive where their friends
and those they love are concerned. He saw only that
Gilbert was vexed, and felt only that he was sorry to
have been the one to vex him. So to change the
subject, he said—
‘Well, I should be glad enough to see the factories
working again; but I must say I wish I had a couple
of thousands to start with. I would be married to-morrow.’
Gilbert, who had other views for his thousands than,
to use his own phrase, ‘to give them to Magdalen
Wynter to buy furniture with,’ felt in his secret soul that
love must make any man small; that it might make even
a generous man selfish.
‘What interest could you pay?’ he asked.
Michael shrugged his shoulders, knowing no reply to
that question; and Gilbert, in the tone of a tutor, who
is master of his subject, haranguing a pupil who does
60not know its A B C, went on: ‘You are my brother,
and, of course, I would like to help you first, if I could;
but we cannot afford it, Michael. We must wait. It is
our only course. Marriage must wait, and prosperity
must wait. To hand you out a couple of thousands now,
would mean to throw our affairs back for years; and as
for my father and me——’
‘Oh, of course, I was joking,’ said Michael carelessly.
‘I know there is no royal road to that kind of thing,
but only hard work, and plenty of it.’
He spoke as if he considered the subject at an end,
and they rode the rest of the way in silence. Gilbert’s
mind was busy, and his indignation active in that he
had such a mean-minded brother.
‘I verily believe he would accept the situation of
overseer to the parish pump, if it should give him fifty
pounds a year, and bring him any nearer being
married to that doll,’ he thought; and this sarcasm was,
as it were, the froth or scum thrown to the surface by an
anger, a fear, and an emotion which was at that time
the deepest thing he could feel, and of which it was no
more the adequate measure than a yard-stick would be
adequate for measuring an ocean. And afterwards,
when this first ebullition of feeling was over, he fell to
brooding over the matter in a way which was inevitable
from his nature and temperament, as well as from his
upbringing, and the lines in which his life had been cast.
‘What will become of my work,’ he asked himself, as
he often had asked himself lately, ‘if my father were to
die, as he might, any day? If he were to die, and
everything were to be divided! All that I have scraped
together with such toil, for so many years. One half of
it as good as flung into the gutter. Where would my
61wages be then? Michael is not fit to have control over
money which has been earned by some one else. He
does not understand the subject, and never will. He
would take his share, marry that girl—if she would
have him—and leave me with my life to begin over
again. As for the factories, if he is fool enough to listen
to Sir Thomas Winthrop, and repeat what he says, as if
it were something worth thinking about—why, if he can
do that, he is capable of following out Sir Thomas’s ideas
too. It is enough to disgust any man, and discourage
him from anything like real work,’ Gilbert went on to
himself, ‘to think he has so precarious a hold as I have
upon things which would not be existing now, but for
his devotion. One ought to have some more secure prospect,
if only to give one a little heart in one’s exertions.’
Long after they had parted and gone their separate
ways, Gilbert was silent, revolving this problem in his
mind; and the more he thought about it, the bigger and
uglier it grew.
‘Michael cares for nothing but to gratify his own
wishes and impulses,’ Gilbert thought, darkly, feeling
that this tendency of Michael’s interfered disagreeably
with certain plans and projects of his own, which he did
not recognise as proceeding from the same source.
After that, the conversations between them on such
matters grew ever rarer and less expansive. Michael did
not dwell on the matter, and, if he had thought about it,
would have been too proud to allude to it after Gilbert
had asked him whether he trusted him; and something,
whether pride or another feeling, hindered Gilbert from
opening out. Every day he grew more sedate, and his
brow became grayer and more covered with its network
of little fine wrinkles.
CHAPTER VI GILBERT’S ‘COUP DE THEATRE’
62
Towards the end of every hunting season, those men in
Bradstane and its vicinity who belonged to the institution
known as the Tees Valley Hunt, were in the habit of
meeting at the King’s Arms in Bradstane, and there
partaking together of a luncheon, at which Sir Thomas
Winthrop, the master, presided, and after which he read
out the statistics of the past season, and laid before the
assembled company any proposed new arrangements for
the following year. Nothing was decided then; a
regular meeting was called, to be held a week later, in
which the affairs were discussed in earnest, and real
business was done. It had come to pass with the lapse
of years, that the gathering had become a very sociable
one, dear to the hearts of those who partook in it; and
they would not have given it up on any account.
This luncheon usually took place in the beginning of
March, and was often a good deal talked about before it
came off. It had been December when the meeting took
place between Magdalen and Gilbert, during which each
had silently given credit to the other for much keenness
and acuteness of observation. It had been cold and
inclement then, and a long bleak winter had followed,
during which the interview had not been repeated—at
63least, no such interview as that. It may be that Gilbert
had many a time ridden over the wild road leading from
Bradstane to Middleton-in-Teesdale, for it was his habit
daily to take a long walk or a long ride. He may have
travelled over this road, solitary and sedate, as his wont
and humour were, his lips moving now and then, when
he felt himself to be quite alone on the silent roads, as
if he whispered to himself endless calculations, but never
too absorbed to recognise an acquaintance and acknowledge
him if he met him—never too abstracted to know
his own whereabouts amidst the moors and commons, or
intricate cross country roads.
And it is more than probable that Magdalen, on her
part, had many a dozen times paced that woodland path
on which Gilbert had found her, trying, by the regular
mechanical motion which, in her own mind, she compared
with that of a treadmill, to grind down or pace
out some of the suppressed savageness and discontent
which gnawed her soul. This walking to and fro was
almost her only mode of taking outdoor exercise. With
all her veiled eagerness, her bitter sense of the consuming
dulness of her life, she never left the Balder Hall
grounds on foot, never sought any companionship with
outside things or people. For her there were no long
rambles, no casual, friendly greeting with farm or cottage
folk whom she might see on the way.
This seclusion on her part was a subject on which
she and Michael had occasional differences of opinion,
which could hardly be called disputes, since Magdalen
was in the habit of yielding the field at once to Michael
in the matter of argument, merely telling him that no
doubt he was quite right, and simply refusing to change
her ways because she did not choose to do so.
64‘It is too bad of you,’ said he, ‘when there is so much
work crying out to be done. I could find you plenty of
employment in Bridge Street, and one or two other slums.’
‘I haven’t a doubt of it. I feel not the slightest
vocation for anything of the kind.’
‘It is bad to sit aloft in meaningless exclusiveness.’
‘I daresay it is. It is the only kind of thing I care
for, here. I hate district visiting, and people who make
themselves common, too.’
‘You could not make yourself common if you tried,
and it would put more interest into your life.’
‘No, it would disgust me; that would be all. Every
night I should think of all the horrid scenes and horrid
people I had seen in the day. I should be always seeing
you mixed up with them, and I should get to think you
as horrid as they were—you need not look at me in that
way. It’s my nature.... Oh, I daresay you are quite
right, Michael—indeed, you always are—but I don’t
take any interest in those things, and I don’t want to. I
prefer to remain as I am.’
‘As I am,’ was exquisite enough in its refinement, hauteur,
and beauty. Had any one else so spoken, Michael
would clearly have discerned, and probably pointed out,
an odious spirit of pride and exclusiveness. As it was
Magdalen, he thought, certainly, that she was unreasonable,
but he found the unreasonableness agreeable; he
liked the shape which it took—that of fastidiousness—and
was not disposed to quarrel with it. The rare and
wonderful creature was his own; he had never even yet
felt as if he fairly understood that fact, or could think
enough of it. He suggested, with a smile lighting up the
dark gravity of his face, that he should drive her round
some day in his dog-cart, when he had not many places
65to call at. She slightly lifted her eyebrows, and drew
out the silk with which she was embroidering.
‘No, sir. When you have a half holiday, and wish
to devote it to me, I will drive you out, or ride with you.
At other times—I know it is not intellectual, or humane,
but it is so—I prefer the wood-walk in the park; I will
remain at home.’
She did remain at home, and took her monotonous
strolls along the woodland path, or might now and then
be seen, alone, in an open carriage, pale and tranquil and
indifferent-looking, enveloped in her dark furs and
feathers, with a huge light gray fur rug filling up the
rest of the carriage, and this even on days when the
wind was keen and the frost biting. She was well aware
that not one woman in twenty could have driven about
Bradstane in winter, in an open carriage, without her
countenance assuming rainbow hues. She could drive
thus, and return home without a red nose or blue cheeks;
and it gave her a negative, cynical pleasure to do it, and
watch other people on foot, or sealed up in stuffy
broughams with both windows shut.
The evening before the luncheon already spoken of,
Michael was with her, and she asked him if he were
going to be present at it.
‘No,’ said he; ‘I’m engaged at the time, but Gilbert
is going.’
‘Gilbert! why, he surely does not generally go.’
‘No, but he seems to take more interest in sport since
he became such a chum of Askam’s; and, of course, he
will be there.’
‘Ah, of course,’ said Magdalen.
‘Of all the queer partnerships I ever knew, that one
is the queerest,’ added Michael, reflectively.
66‘Do you think so? It seems to me the most natural
thing in the world. Would you have had Gilbert take
up with a nobody?’
‘My dear Magdalen! I was going to say, a nobody
would be better than Otho Askam; but as he’s a friend
of yours, too, I suppose there are excellences in him
which my baser vision can’t perceive. And I know what
you mean by “nobody.” That’s poor Roger Camm.
Well, I’ll leave you your friend, if you’ll leave me mine.’
‘I have not the slightest desire to know anything
about Mr. Roger Camm—certainly not to interfere with
him,’ replied Magdalen coldly. Michael merely smiled
the sweet smile which Magdalen, in her heart of hearts,
considered insipid, and the discussion ended.
At two o’clock on the following afternoon, some forty
men, young and old, sat down at the long table, in the
great room at the ‘King’s Arms.’ The so-called ‘lunch’
was, in fact, a very substantial dinner, as such luncheons
are wont to be. Sir Thomas Winthrop sat at one end of
the table, and at the other was a very young man, called
Lord Charles Startforth, representing his father. Every
family of standing in all the country-side had sent a
representative, and every man present was more or less
acquainted with every other member of the company.
At Sir Thomas’s right hand sat Otho Askam, with a
cross look in his eyes, and a more sullen expression than
usual on his brow and mouth. Sir Thomas was a very
worthy, honourable gentleman, ready to take a paternal
interest in any young man of promise; but he was not a
student of character, nor acute in reading the silent
language of expression, as seen on a human face. From
Otho’s quietness, and his monosyllabic answers to the
remarks made to him, Sir Thomas augured a milder mood
67than usual, and resolved that now or never was the time
for him to say his say; for he had on his mind ‘a few
words’ intended for Otho’s ear—words which he had
succeeded in convincing himself it was his duty to say.
On the opposite side, a little lower down, sat Gilbert
Langstroth, and next to him was Byrom Winthrop.
As the wine went round, the talk grew faster and
freer. Men saw each other to-day who had, perhaps, not
met for some time past, and these meetings called up recollections,
brought out questions, to which the expansiveness
of the moment produced confidential answers.
At the end of the table over which Lord Charles Startforth
presided, a discussion suddenly began about some
of those who sat near Sir Thomas Winthrop.
‘What a lowering face that Askam has!’ was the
observation which began the conversation.
‘His face can’t be more lowering than his temper,’ replied
some one else.
‘Hah! I see there’s his inseparable chum, not so far
off him.’
‘Gilbert Langstroth, do you mean? Oh yes! He’s
never so far away from him. I have heard that that
young man has a very long head, and would not object
to going into partnership with Otho Askam—Askam to
supply the money, and Langstroth the brains.’
The other laughed. ‘What, on Arthur Orton’s plan,
do you mean? “Some people plenty money and no
brains, and other people plenty brains and no——”’
‘Oh, come! That’s too bad. Langstroth is a gentleman.’
‘I never said he wasn’t, that I know of. Gentlemen
have got to live, like other people, though these radicals’
(with a growl) ‘seem to grudge us our very existence.’
68‘Oh, hang all radicals! You say Langstroth is a
gentleman—Gilbert, I mean. His brother is, at any rate.
I don’t know a better fellow anywhere.’
‘No, nor I.’ The assent was general. Then some one
else said—
‘He doesn’t seem to get married.’
‘No; that engagement has been hanging on far too
long.’
A slight pause, and then, leaning confidentially forward,
the first speaker said—
‘Somebody else doesn’t seem to get married, either.’
A sort of smile went round. Then Lord Charles,
with the rash candour of youth, made the remark aloud
which every one else had been making in his own mind.
‘I wonder if Michael Langstroth knows that every
one says Otho Askam is sweet upon his intended?’
One man shrugged his shoulders.
‘If he did know, what could he do, or say?’
‘I don’t know what he could say, I’m sure; but
what he could do would be to get married to her at
once.’
Here a rather timid-looking young man, who had
hitherto taken no part in the conversation, joined in,
with a slight stammer—
‘If he had to marry her like that, it would be all
spoiled for him. He t-trusts her.’
‘Ah, yes; very beautiful of him,’ said a sceptical
spirit; and then a feeling seemed to prevail that the
talk had gone far enough in that direction. Indeed, the
conversation at the other end of the table had become
somewhat loud, and the speakers with whom we have
been concerned began to look and listen what it was
all about.
69What had taken place was this. Sir Thomas Winthrop,
good gentleman, feeling his heart warmed within
him, took advantage of much loud talk around him to
address a few words to Otho Askam.
‘I’m glad to see you with us to-day, Mr. Askam.’
‘Thank you,’ said Otho, with his wooden bow.
‘I hope you found the sport to your liking,’ added
the baronet. ‘We consider it has been rather a good
season, on the whole.’
‘It has been nothing to complain of,’ was the gracious
reply.
Encouraged by this admission, Sir Thomas filled his
glass, and said—
‘I hope this will not be the last time, by many, that
we shall meet on an occasion like this.’
Again Otho bowed stiffly, drank his glass of wine,
and gave ear to Sir Thomas, as he proceeded—
‘I’m glad to see you and Gilbert Langstroth so thick.
He’s a very intelligent young man.’
‘Rather!’ observed Otho emphatically, with a nod,
and what would have been a wink, only he remembered
in time that such a testimony to Gilbert’s intelligence
might be thought rather compromising than otherwise
by his interlocutor. In his own mind, and speaking to
Gilbert in his own language, Otho called Sir Thomas ‘a
rum old party, and green as grass, you know,’ and this
private opinion, which he held very strongly, rendered it a
little difficult to him to meet the other now on equal terms.
Sir Thomas went on—
‘He has behaved in a very admirable way to his
father, and I always like to see that in a youth. He
has almost retrieved their affairs, which were in a
deplorable condition.’
70His voice took a confidentially funereal tone, and he
shook his head.
‘Yes, I know,’ said Otho, vaguely, and at this juncture
he caught Gilbert’s eye, and indulged in the luxury of
the wink, which, in regard to Sir Thomas, he had had
to suppress. Gilbert’s countenance did not alter a jot,
but he became watchful.
‘Of course,’ resumed Sir Thomas, for whom the
subject appeared to have a fatal fascination, ‘a young
man, who has had to do battle with reverses, as he has,
is apt to think his affairs are the centre of the universe,
and that every one else is as much concerned in them
as he is himself.’
To this Otho said nothing, but he regarded Sir Thomas
with a curious, bull-dog expression.
‘I’m afraid he is just a little rash in some things,’
Sir Thomas went on. ‘For instance, there’s that property
by the river—those Townend mills. I have heard
that he is bent upon setting them to work again.’ And
as Otho made no reply ‘Do you know if he has any
project of that kind?’
In the fulness of his heart and head he had not
moderated his tones sufficiently; and, as the loud conversation
about them had somewhat lulled, this question
was distinctly audible, not only to Otho, but to many
others, even so far down as where Gilbert Langstroth and
Byrom Winthrop sat. The former, though no names
had been spoken, knew with unerring certainty, that it
was himself to whom the baronet alluded; and Byrom
Winthrop said within himself, ‘If only I were near
enough to stop the governor! He’s perfectly infatuated
about those factories of Gilbert Langstroth’s, and he’ll
go and say something he ought not to.’
71Otho’s answer came quite distinctly too, in bluff,
curt tones.
‘I can’t inform you on that topic. All I know of it
was told me in confidence.’
‘Quite right, quite right!’ said Sir Thomas, with the
fatuity of an elderly gentleman, in whom a solid meal,
judiciously mingled with sound wine, has developed the
sense of benevolence to an abnormal degree. ‘That’s
only just and honourable. But listen to me. Your
father was a friend of mine; therefore, I may be allowed
to say a word to you. Don’t be incautious, my young
friend.’ Byrom Winthrop’s eyes were fixed in an agony
of apprehension upon his father, as he marked the
rubicund visage beaming with too much amiability, and
saw the finger raised; the eye, earnest, but unobservant,
fixed upon Otho; and heard these words—for the
conversation around had almost ceased—‘Don’t let
Gilbert Langstroth, or any one else, let you in for something
you don’t know the end of. Take my word for it,
Bradstane is not the site for a manufacturing town; and
gentlemen had better keep clear of factories. The best
thing to do with those mills would be to pull them down,
and build cottages where they stand; and if you sink
any money in the concern, stick to that, stick to
that!’
He leaned back in his chair with a smile, a fatuous
smile, upon his visage. It was perfectly evident to the
meanest observer, that Sir Thomas Winthrop had become—cheerful,
and that he had just said a very uncomfortable
kind of thing; not that there might not be
plenty of truth in the thing, but to have said it aloud
was truly unfortunate.
Gilbert Langstroth had started up, his face pale, and
72was leaning forward, with compressed lips, apparently
about to speak. Byrom Winthrop said in his ear—
‘Don’t make a row, Gilbert. You know the word
“manufactures” always sets him off. It means nothing.’
Then a thing happened which no one was prepared
for. Otho Askam, looking round, observed—
‘I see a lot of you have heard what Sir Thomas has
been saying. All I can say is, I did not bring on the
discussion; but now that it is on, I’d have every man
here know that Gilbert Langstroth is my friend; and
whoever says a word against him, says it against me.
The business that Sir Thomas speaks of, has been
mentioned between us. I wanted to help him with it,
and he wouldn’t let me—if you call that ‘letting me in
for something that I can’t see the end of.’ He said it
was a risky thing for my money. I say, d—n the risk!
He’s welcome to half of all that I’ve got, and if he does
not choose to take it, why, I say he does not know what
friendship is. Shake hands, Gilbert.’
Gilbert had been listening, white and breathless.
Sir Thomas, in feeble despair, was protesting, in the
futile way common to people who have stirred up a riot
without having the least idea how to quell it, that really,
it was most unfortunate. He never meant—he had no
idea; and so forth.
Gilbert suddenly turned upon him, with his blue-gray
eyes flashing from his pale face.
‘I do not know what ideas you may have had, sir,
nor what you meant, but it is not the first time you have
attacked me, and said ill things of me behind my back.
You tried to set my own brother against me on this very
subject. You will pardon my presumption in saying it,
but upon my word I cannot see what our family affairs
73are to you. I have fought my father’s battle, and that
for my brother and myself, without appealing to you for
help. But,’ he added, with a sudden change of tone
which went subtly home to his hearers, ‘you have done
me a good turn to-day, when you would have done me
an ill one. You have shown me who is my friend.’
He struck his hand into that of Otho, which was still
held out, and looked him full in the face. ‘I hear what
you say, Askam, and as long as I live I shall not forget
that you have stood by me while my father’s friend and
your father’s friend maligned me to you. I think I will
say good afternoon,’ he added, as a stinging parting
shaft to Sir Thomas. ‘It would be embarrassing for us
both to remain, and it is fitter that I should leave than
you.’
With which, and with a slight and perfectly self-possessed
bow to Sir Thomas and the assembled company,
he departed, and Otho Askam with him.
This scene, of course, made a great sensation, and
that night was reported far and wide, throughout many
miles of Yorkshire and Durham. Every man agreed in
saying that Sir Thomas Winthrop was apt to become too
expansive on these occasions, and that they hoped it
would be a lesson to him. As to Gilbert and Otho, and
their behaviour, opinions differed. Men spoke of their
parts in the fray according to their own feelings and
dispositions, some saying that it was a touching example
of faith and friendship, others leaning on the opinion
that Otho Askam, in to-morrow’s stingy fit, would repent
him of his reckless generosity to-day; while one observer
said—
‘I suppose there was something real in it. I’m sure
there was on Askam’s side, at any rate; but that Gilbert
74Langstroth is a queer fellow. I’m certain, if you could
see to the bottom of his heart, you would find gratitude
to Sir Thomas for having given him such a chance. It
was very telling, that slightly trembling voice, and that
little side stroke about having fought their battles alone,
and without asking Sir Thomas’s help. It made Sir
Thomas look confoundedly foolish, and as if he had been
doing a very mean thing.’
‘And don’t you think he had?’
‘Certainly not. He had been doing what he thought
was the very best for everybody, and in the most disinterested
way. Only, you know, he hates what he calls
tradespeople like poison; and the idea of knocking
Gilbert’s factories on the head was just too much for
him.’
‘Well, I’m much mistaken if he has not given them a
good push towards a fresh start.’
‘I quite agree with you.’ And there was a laugh at
the expense of Sir Thomas.
The poor gentleman hid his diminished head that
night, and it was not till the following morning that he
had so far revived as to be able to take a tone of dignified
bitterness, and grave satire on his own good-nature.
‘Selfishness,’ he informed Lady Winthrop, ‘was the only
policy that paid, and never again would he commit the
mistake of offering disinterested advice to young men,
even though they might be the sons of his oldest
friends.’
It never transpired what passed between Gilbert and
Otho at any private interview after this scene, but it was
not very long afterwards, that Gilbert, with a tranquil
smile on his face, sat down to his desk and wrote the
following letter:—
75‘Dear Roger,
‘Do you remember, when you were staying
with us, my taking you down to the end of the town, to
look at those two factories? And I asked you if you
would come and manage them, supposing I ever got
them to work again. You said you would, if you were
not tied down to something else, or in a much better
position. Michael tells me you are still in the same
place, and not too well satisfied with it. I am going
to claim your promise. My friend, Otho Askam, has
bought the mills; at least, an arrangement has been
made by which they will most likely become his in time,
unless they pay so well that we can afford to repay him
his advances. He entrusts the whole direction of them
to me, and I intend to spin jute in them, as I told you
before. I should like to have your aid and counsel as
soon as ever you can give them to me. I hope you have
not changed your mind, and that you will not think the
salary too small. We find that we cannot offer you
more than £120 to begin with, but it would be advanced
on the first possible opportunity; and with the increasing
prosperity of the concern the manager would get
more, and eventually have a share in the business, if it
should turn out worth anything; and I intend that it
shall so turn out. I need not say that we will guarantee
that you lose nothing in a pecuniary point of view, if
you are willing to help us to start a new thing. I
cannot say fairer than that; and in the hope that I may
very soon receive your assent to this proposition, to be
followed by your speedy arrival, I remain,
‘Yours faithfully,
‘Gilbert Langstroth.’
76The result of this letter was, that within six weeks of
its having been written, there lounged into the library of
the Red Gables one afternoon an immensely tall, broad-shouldered
young man, with a great shock of loose black
hair; a pale, rough-hewn, plain face, clever and attractive;
and with a wonderfully delicate forehead—a young
man who was in the habit of saying the roughest kind of
things in the softest of voices. This was Roger Camm,
the former friend and playfellow of the two Langstroths
when they had all been boys together. According to
his own account, he had turned himself into a working
man in order to save his own self-respect, and because
he had no affection for the Church, which had treated
his father so scurvily. According to Michael Langstroth,
he was the best and truest friend that ever a man had.
And according to Gilbert, he was a shrewd, ‘levelheaded’
man of business, who was going to help him to
start his factories, and, incidentally, set his, Gilbert’s,
fortunes going in the right direction.
‘Here I am,’ was Roger Camm’s laconical greeting.
‘And not before you were wanted,’ replied Gilbert,
rising to meet him with outstretched hand and his
sweetest smile. ‘You are welcome as flowers in May.’
‘That shows my value to be high,’ said Roger.
‘There are not many to be found, then, in these
latitudes. Where am I to put up till I find rooms?’
‘Why, here, of course. Everything is ready for you.
But I believe Michael expects you to dine with him to-night.’
Thus Roger Camm was, as it were, inducted into his
new position. He told himself that night, before he
went to sleep, that it was odd that his life’s course
should bring him back to Bradstane, the little country
77market-town which he despised; and that his lot, at a
critical period, should again be cast in with these others
whom he had known when young, but from whom he
had believed himself to be, practically, finally severed
when he had left his native place to begin work in a
great city.
CHAPTER VII MICHAEL, ROGER, GILBERT
78
Talking with Michael one day, soon after his arrival,
on the subject of the factories, Roger discovered to his
surprise that his friend strongly disapproved of the
enterprise.
‘I am not one of the company, you may be very sure,’
he said.
‘I wish I had known. I would have taken care to
have nothing to do with it,’ cried Roger, perturbed.
‘On the contrary, I am very glad you have something
to do with it. I have more confidence in it since you
came. I daresay my reasons for disliking it may sound
quite absurd. I know they are not business-like. I
dislike Askam, and I think the friendship between him
and Gilbert is quite unnatural. The more I see of him
the more convinced I am of this. I know for a fact that
Otho Askam took the thing up out of pure speculativeness,
for an adventure, partly to please Gilbert, who has
got a wonderful influence over him, but chiefly to vex Sir
Thomas Winthrop,’ and Michael briefly recounted the
scene which had taken place at the ‘King’s Arms.’ ‘After‘After
that, nothing would satisfy Otho but to get the thing
started at once. I don’t believe in the stability of an
enterprise built upon any such foundation, though I
79have no doubt Gilbert will push it through, if it is to be
done. He says he is quite satisfied with things as they
are. Let them be! I am glad you get anything good
out of it.’
Roger said nothing to this, but he watched Michael
when he could do so unobserved, and he became very
thoughtful. He saw that his friend’s face was thinner,
and his smile less frequent than it had been. There was
a little fold between his eyebrows, telling of a mind not
always at ease. These changes had taken place in two
years, though Michael had been, in a small way, getting
on in the world.
Six busy months passed, during which Roger had
his work cut out for him, and so much of it, that he
could scarce compass each day’s task in its allotted time.
The labour was severe, the pay was not very large; the
enterprise was a risky one. But he was one of those
organisations which seem to thrive and feed on hard
work and herculean exertions as others do on meat and
recreation; he enjoyed it all, and it seemed to put new
life into him. It really looked as if Gilbert’s little boast
to Otho in past days, that if he did not know how to
manage mills, he did understand how to manage men,
were literally true, so perfectly was this new-comer of
his selection suited for the task offered to him. The
stiffer the work, the higher did his spirits rise. The
employment was varied, too. It was not as if he had
entered upon a business which was ready and in smooth
working order. The whole concern wanted ‘floating,’
in a small way, and on him fell the burden of doing it.
There was not only the new machinery to see about—which
Roger thoroughly understood, and into the details
of which he went with the zeal of an enthusiast—there
80were also the repairs necessary to the buildings themselves,
after standing so many years empty and idle; to
the boilers and the engines, all of which it took time and
money to set in order. Then there was the getting
together a sufficient number of hands, chiefly women and
girls, most of them out of Bridge Street, some from one
or two of the neighbouring villages; and again, some
skilled artisans from Barrow-in-Furness, to instruct the
novices in their work; and all this had to be done with
the utmost economy possible. It was an enormous task,
which pleased Roger greatly; and while he was working
at it, he had no time to spare, even for Michael.
When he had come to Bradstane, there had been a
question about where he was to live. This was settled
by Dr. Rowntree, who said—
‘Come to the barrack, and put up with Michael and
me.’
Roger hesitated a little at first, but there was no
mistaking the sincerity of the doctor’s wish, and the
young man was very willing to be persuaded; for, to tell
the truth, there was no one in the world in whose
proximity he loved so well to be as in that of Michael
Langstroth. He therefore soon allowed his scruples to
be overcome, and so was formed this odd triangular
household of bachelors, old and young, and hard work
was the order of the day.
While Roger was full of business, and seeming to
grow heartier and stronger the more he had to do,
Michael, he noticed, when he had time to notice him,
was a good deal quieter and staider than he once had
been; not with the dulness of discontent, it would seem,
nor of depression, but, so far as Roger could make out,
just with the quietness which comes to nearly all men,
81as life lays gradually increasing burdens upon them.
Roger sometimes wondered if his long engagement pressed
upon Michael, but at the sound of Magdalen’s name
there always crossed his face that expression which, the
first time Roger had seen it, had wrung his heart,
because it had told him that a spell stronger than
friendship had taken possession of Michael’s being.
They did not talk about such things, or ‘confide’ in
each other—such is not the way of men’s friendships,
nor, perhaps, of any deep friendships; and then,
Michael, with his outwardly urbane and gracious
manner, was deeply reserved on personal matters; and
Roger, for all his rough exterior, and oftentimes untutored
tongue, had what is called, and very generally
miscalled, ‘the tact of a woman,’ in regard to such
topics.
But Michael had on one or two occasions, when something
had stirred him more than usual, let fall a few
words as to his own inner experiences, which Roger had
treasured up, and rightly so, as evidences of more than
brotherly regard, and of an entire confidence in him on
Michael’s part.
Speaking one day about an illness of old Miss
Strangforth, which had been serious, and in which both
he and Dr. Rowntree had been attending her, there was
a shade on Michael’s brow, and a worried, worn look on
his face.
‘Is Miss Strangforth likely to die, Michael?’ asked
Roger, roused to a sudden interest in the matter.
‘Oh no! At least, I most sincerely trust not. No;
we will pull her through this time.’
‘Miss Wynter is helping to nurse her, of course?’
‘Yes, of course—like an angel.’
82‘I should be afraid it was rather close work for her.’
‘They have a trained nurse to do the hardest part of
it; and she is strong. Magdalen is very strong,’ Michael
repeated to himself in a meditative kind of way. ‘And,
of course, she does what I tell her about air and exercise,
and all that. I hope it won’t injure her.’
‘Well, she has the best of all possible safeguards in
having you there,’ said Roger, with a smile, which was,
perhaps, a little forced.
He had intended his remark to be a cheering one,
but, to his surprise, Michael’s answer was a deep sigh.
This was enough to rouse Roger’s uneasiness. Holding
his pipe suspended, he asked, anxiously, ‘Michael, what’s
up? Are you in trouble?’
‘It’s only that what you say reminds me that I am
no safeguard at all for her,’ he said, dejectedly. ‘I
sometimes think what a selfish brute I was, ever to speak
to her. If I had held my tongue and kept out of the
way, she might have been married by now, to some man
who could really have been that protector, which I can
only seem to be. After all, what can I do for her? I
cannot save her from experiences like this. I cannot
justly afford to marry, for several years to come. It
would be gross selfishness to take her away from Balder
Hall to any such place as I could give her. And yet, if
Miss Strangforth were to die—she is so old, and so feeble—if
she were to die, there would be nothing else left.’
‘And a great deal too good for her,’ was the silent
comment in Roger’s bosom. He found Michael’s remarks
very difficult to answer. He had an idea, whether right
or wrong, that Magdalen, whom he could not love, let
him strive never so loyally for his friend’s sake to do so,
was not the frail and timid creature that Michael seemed
83to imagine her. Roger felt sure that the idea as to the
impropriety of removing her from Balder Hall to a
humbler abode was hers, not Michael’s. He was certain
she did not stand in much need of guardianship, but was
well able to fight her own battles and take care of herself.
He heard all the gossip about Michael and Miss
Wynter, which, of course, never penetrated to their ears;
heard, too, Gilbert’s frequent scathing strictures on his
future sister-in-law. He knew all about Otho Askam’s
constant visits to Balder Hall. So did Michael; but
then, Roger knew what was said about those visits.
He remarked at last, with the cowardice characteristic
of us all in such cases, and, perhaps, also with a shrewd
inkling that it would not be of much use to speak
differently—
‘Of course, it is hard lines, Michael, having to wait
so long. But even if you were married to-morrow, you
can’t forbid care and trouble to come to either her or
you. There are no lives without them. But Miss
Wynter is a brick, I know’ (this with great emphasis, as
he felt anything but sure of it); ‘she ought to be proud
of waiting for you, and I expect she is.’
‘Do you know,’ said Michael, with the air of a man
who announces something which will surprise his hearer,
‘I believe that if she were not engaged to me, Otho
Askam would propose to her to-morrow.’
Roger looked at him with parted lips. Michael
evidently thought the news would be as great a discovery
to his friend as it had been to himself.
‘Well,’ observed Roger shortly, ‘you don’t mean to
say you think that would be to her advantage?’
‘Perhaps not, in some ways; but——’
‘Not in any one way,’ almost shouted Roger, bringing
84his fist on to the table with a thump. ‘That would be
Hyperion to a satyr, without the shadow of a doubt.’
‘I know nothing about that,’ said Michael, still in the
same dejected tone, ‘but I do know that she is all the
world to me, and I cannot give her up; no, by Heaven,
I cannot!’
He spoke with a flurry, an agitation, and a passion,
most unlike his usual even cheerfulness.
‘Give her up? Who wants you to?’
‘No one. It’s only my own conscience that sometimes
suggests what I ought to do.’
‘If your conscience suggests that, it is deceitful, and
a blind guide. But come, Michael, old fellow, you are
morbid to talk in this way. The idea of a man of six
and twenty looking at things so darkly! Absurd!
You have your life before you.’
He went on talking in this strain till he saw the cloud
gradually clear from Michael’s brow, and heard him admit
that he was sure he must be a fool; and so, begin
to look a little brisker.
But Roger was thoughtful as he went about his work.
‘Give her up!’ he said to himself. ‘He’ll never give
her up till she flings him off. Poor Michael! That is
the only cure for him; and perhaps it wouldn’t be one,
after all. Should I be brute enough to wish it for
him?’
And then he thought about the change in Michael’s
face, so altered from its youthful pride and carelessness;
but, as it seemed to Roger, more beautiful now, with the
graver, broader seal of manhood stamped upon it—that
seal which care never lets out of her fingers, and which
she is perpetually imprinting on every brow that carries
on it a line worth reading.
85If Roger were concerned about the change in Michael,
Michael, on his part, was much struck—concerned, is
hardly the word—by what seemed to him a great
alteration in Gilbert. It appeared as if hard work suited
Gilbert as well as it did Roger, for the more his business
grew, the livelier he became.
‘Lively?’ said Miss Wynter, to whom Michael had
one evening been speaking on the subject.
‘Yes, lively. It’s the only word I can find with
which to describe the change; and I don’t wonder that
you exclaim at it, for “lively” is hardly a word that fits
Gilbert, is it?’
‘No, indeed! Pray, what shape does the liveliness
take?’ asked Magdalen, who appeared almost interested.
‘Oh, I can hardly tell you. A quickness and alertness—I
can hardly describe it. He makes jokes sometimes,
and laughs at a mere nothing—which is not
Gilbert’s way, you know, as a rule. He talks a great
deal, too, which is also contrary to his usual habits. He
takes my arm if we meet, and altogether there is
something odd and changed in his manner.’
‘Perhaps he is in love,’ suggested Magdalen languidly.
Michael shrugged his shoulders, smiling slightly.
‘He may be, but I don’t think it.’ And so the topic
dropped, till Michael returned to the town, and during
the evening related this supposition of Magdalen’s.
‘I don’t know whether he’s in love or not,’ said the
doctor, who, for his part, was certainly not in love with
Gilbert; ‘but he was in here to-day to see you, when
you were out; and he says your father intends to make
his will, and he wants you to know about it.’
‘To make his will? I should have thought he had
made it long ago.’
86‘So he did, for I was one of the witnesses; but it has
to be altered, with all these complications about factories
and property to be sold, and such-like.’
‘Oh! well, Gilbert will see to it; he has always
managed that kind of thing,’ said Michael carelessly.
‘I don’t see what I have to do with it.’
‘I should say you had a good deal to do with it.
You certainly ought to look after it.’
‘Look after my father’s will! what for? He’s got no
one to leave anything to, except Gilbert and me. He’ll
divide between us, I suppose. I should not like to think
that Gilbert got less than me, seeing how he has slaved
all these years in order that there may be anything to
leave at all.’
Dr. Rowntree looked impatient, and, Michael having
left the room, the doctor remarked to Roger, in homely
phraseology, that he did not know whether to call
Michael a trump, or to tell him he was a born fool,
when he talked in such a way. To which Roger merely
replied that he supposed men were best left to decide
such matters for themselves.
‘I mistrust that Gilbert; he is too sly for me,’ said
the doctor.
‘He has a quiet way. I don’t think he is exactly sly,’sly,’
answered Roger, and the subject of their conversation
came in at the moment. Michael, he was told, was in
the study, and he went there and briefly told him again
what Mr. Langstroth thought of doing.
‘All right,’ said Michael, examining some substance
under his microscope with the intensest interest. ‘So
that he leaves as much to you as to me, I’m agreeable.
I hope we shan’t have to read it for a long time to come.’
Gilbert cast a look of anger, contempt, and wonder
87mixed, towards Michael, who did not even see it. There
was a short silence, till Gilbert observed, in a constrained
voice—
‘Well, remember, I am not answerable for anything
he does.’
‘Does!’ echoed Michael, his attention at last thoroughly
aroused; ‘when you say “does” in that way, you mean
“does” something wrong. What could or should he do
against his own sons? Have you any idea that he means
to do something unjust to us?’
‘No; oh no!’ A pause. ‘But it is an important
thing. He told me he meant to make this will, and I
was determined he should not do it till I had told you.
Of course, he does not dream of leaving his property
away from us. Why should he, as you say?’
Michael, still peering into his microscope, was quite
unaware that close beside him a brother man stood, who
had wrestled with spiritual agencies, and had been defeated,
during the last two minutes.
‘Our father has his faults, like most people,’ pursued
Michael reflectively; ‘but I never heard any one accuse
him of injustice or meanness. He wouldn’t be likely to
leave his property to a charitable institution, for instance?’
‘Of course not,’ said Gilbert, impatiently.
‘Well, then, I really don’t see that we need, or, indeed,
can say anything about it. In fact, I shall not,’ he
added, looking up rather suddenly at his brother, as if
he had all at once seen the thing in a new light, and
arrived at a clear decision. ‘He is my father, and I
trust him. For Heaven’s sake, Gilbert, don’t get to distrusting
people, or you may make yourself miserable for
ever. Take my advice, old fellow, and let him alone.’
88‘Yes,’ said Gilbert slowly. ‘I think that, as you say,
it will be best to leave him alone.’
He said scarcely anything more, and soon went away.
‘A pretty fool he is!’ he sneered to himself, when he
was outside, as he walked up and down the pavement
in front of their house, smoking an ante-prandial pipe.
‘Lord! what with “hearts,” and not distrusting any one,
and respecting the aged (who are usually fools), my
brother Michael is likely to lose the use of what little
reason he has, it seems to me. There never was an
elephant with a denser head than he has. He has eyes
like a hawk’s, and mine are more like those of a boiled
codfish; but I think I know which pair can see farthest
into a stone wall.’
The next morning Michael called at the Red Gables,
and found his father alone. He had been reflecting upon
Gilbert’s words, it would seem, for he presently said to
Mr. Langstroth that he had heard he intended making
a new will. His father assented, and Michael observed,
‘If Gilbert had not told me, sir, as if it had been a
thing you rather wished me to know, I should never
have mentioned it, of course. But since he did, I just
want to say one thing. Whatever prosperity we have
is due to Gilbert. He, more than I, has been the eldest
son. It is just due to circumstances, I suppose, that it
has been so; but I would not like it to be forgotten.’
‘I do not forget what Gilbert has been, and is to me,
nor the qualities he has displayed,’ was Mr. Langstroth’s
reply; and Michael went away with his mind at ease,
feeling that he had discharged his duty.
The day after that, Gilbert, who had not seen his
brother in the interim, ordered his horse early. Mr.
Langstroth asked him fretfully where he was going.
89‘Only for a little ride,’ said Gilbert; ‘and, by the way,
Coningsby is coming at eleven. You told me to tell him,
and I did.’
‘Shan’t you be here?’ asked his father, in a tone
almost of dismay.
‘Well, no, I think not,’ replied Gilbert, with his
sweetest smile. ‘It would hardly do. But if you have
not quite made up your mind, I could send him word——’
‘Oh no, no! My mind is quite made up—quite.
Let him come.’
‘I think it would be best,’ said the considerate son.
‘Good morning. I hope it won’t tire you much.’ With
which he went out.
The ‘little ride’ prolonged itself indefinitely, as it
seemed. Far along the hard, white moorland roads he
went, past Middleton-in-Teesdale, a road which seemed
to have some peculiar fascination for him, since he chose
it oftener than any other. On he went, till he got to High
Force and its solitary wayside inn. Here he dismounted,
to have his horse watered; for himself, when they asked
him what he would take, he said, ‘Nothing,’ and thanked
them. To let his horse stand awhile, he strolled down
the dark, pine-shaded path, to the grand waterfall, and
stood beside the river, watching dreamily the thundering
surf, snowy, dazzling, brilliant in the brilliant sunshine.
He stooped, took water in the hollow of his hand, and
drank it. This he did several times, but without a change
in the calm serenity of his expression; and then he returned
to the inn and again mounted his horse.
Riding on, he proceeded till nothing but pathless
moors surrounded him, stretching lonely and bewildering
in all directions. He was on the borders of Westmoreland,
and now the westering sun and the lengthening
90shadows told him that it was time to be returning.
Tranquil and quiet as ever, he did turn, and guided his
tired horse towards Bradstane. It was dark when he
got in, and he trod softly, as if he imagined there might
be some one ill or dead in the house. He only laid his
hat aside, but did not put off his riding-coat, before
he went, still in this quiet, gentle way, into the library,
where he found his father alone.
‘Where on earth have you been?’ Mr. Langstroth
said fretfully. ‘Michael has never been near all day,
and there I was, left with Coningsby, to give all my
instructions alone.’
‘Mr. Coningsby would hardly have been likely to take
his instructions from me,’ said Gilbert, with his slight
smile. ‘Then, you have got it done?’
‘Yes, it is done. Rowntree and Ransom’ (his servant)
‘witnessed it. But I want no more of such efforts. It
has worn me out.... However, it is some satisfaction
to think that things are settled as they should be.’
During this speech, Gilbert had stood with his foot
on the fender, and his hand held up as if to shield his
face from the glow of the fire. He now observed softly—
‘I will go and change my things, and be with you in
a few minutes.’
When he was alone in his bedroom, he took out his
handkerchief and passed it across his forehead.
‘Disgusting! How overheated one gets with a long
ride!’ he muttered to himself.
The hall bell sounded through the house. Self-possessed
Gilbert gave a great start, and became suddenly
paler than usual.
‘Pshaw!’ he uttered aloud, the next moment; ‘he
has his key, of course.’
91But it seemed to take him some time to change his
riding-clothes for the garments he usually wore in an
evening. Just before he went downstairs, he seated
himself on a chair at his bedside, and drew a long breath.
‘Well, it had to be,’ he whispered to himself. ‘There
was nothing else for it. And he is so dense—so dense.
One must do the best. It was for the best.’
Then, as if feeling himself guilty of some weakness,
he drew himself together with a little shake, composed
his countenance, and went downstairs. Nothing was
said by father or son relative to either the ride taken by
the one, or the business accomplished by the other.
Quite late, Otho Askam called to smoke a pipe and have
a chat about the mills and other topics. And Gilbert
slept quite soundly that night.
This was in May. During the summer Mr. Langstroth
became somewhat stronger, and things went on in their
usual course until November.
CHAPTER VIII THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE WISDOM OF GILBERT
92
One afternoon, about the middle of November, Gilbert,
looking in at the ‘barracks,’ said to Michael—
‘I wish you’d give a little particular attention to my
father. It strikes me that he is not so well as he ought
to be, or rather, that he’s worse than usual. I wonder
if Rowntree would mind looking in, as well?’
‘Of course, we will come. Now, do you mean? I’ll
go at once, and the doctor at night.’
He went across to his father’s house and saw him.
Mr. Langstroth was certainly very weak and unwell, but
not, it seemed to Michael, seriously so. He left directions
for him to be kept very quiet, and returned to his
dwelling, promising that he and Dr. Rowntree would
both look in during the evening.
As they sat at dinner, a messenger came hurriedly
from the Red Gables, summoning them to go at once to
Mr. Langstroth, who was very ill. In a very few
moments they were in the house, but only to find that
all was over, and that Gilbert, white and haggard-looking,
was standing by the chair in which their father lay, lifeless.
Gilbert said they had risen from table, and he had
supported his father to his chair, into which he had sunk,
dead. The young man’s pallor and tremulousness were
93fully accounted for to Michael, by the fact of the sudden
blank which must now come in his life, after his years of
devoted attention to his father, who had thus so suddenly
departed; and by every silent sign that he knew how to
give, he sought to assure Gilbert of the sympathy and
fellow-feeling he experienced.
There was a hush and solemnity in both the houses
during the few days which elapsed between Mr. Langstroth’s
death and his burial.
There was but a small following to attend him to his
grave. Roger Camm and Dr. Rowntree formed a part
of it, and there was Miss Strangforth’s carriage, and
several others sent by neighbours and friends, Otho
Askam’s brougham amongst them.
When it was over, the two brothers, with Dr. Rowntree
and Mr. Coningsby, returned to the Red Gables.
It was decided that it would be best to, as the doctor
said, ‘get through with the business of the will,’ then
and there, so that their minds might be free for other
things.
It was one o’clock in the afternoon of a dank, chill
November day, when they parted; and Roger Camm,
with an inclination of the head to Michael, to show that
he was with him in spirit, if not in the flesh, went to
the doctor’s house, intending there to wait lunch for
him.
He went into the study, where Michael and the doctor
kept their professional library, and where odd volumes
of Roger’s had got mixed up with treatises on medicine
and surgery. He picked up a volume at haphazard, and
gazed at the title of it. ‘Principles of Biology,’ it ran—‘Principles
of Biology’—and though he believed he
was trying to read it, he was really very busy thinking
94thoughts—thinking of Michael; wondering how far his
father’s affairs were retrieved, and if at last there were
some prospect of his happiness being accomplished.
‘Since he is so wrapped up in that insipid girl, and
since she has not done him the kindness to throw him
over before,’ Roger thought, in the pride of his own
wisdom, ‘there’s no chance of it now, since his father’s
death must make him more prosperous in a worldly point
of view. She’ll have him, sure enough. They will be
married, and he—will live to repent it.’
Insensibly, he let the book drop, and his thoughts
turned to the days of long ago; to his comrades and their
lives, and his life, and to their play in the Thorsgarth
garden, in summer sunshine.
‘Queer, very queer,’ he reflected, ‘that we two, who
were companions then, should be chums now. I wonder
what Michael will turn out; how he will win his spurs;
what will give him the stamp of finished manhood? for
he’s a dreamer yet, thoughthough he does not know it.’
Then he began to think that the doctor was long a-coming,
and that if he did not appear soon, he, Roger,
would have to eat his lunch alone, and be off to his
work.
The door opened. The doctor’s parlour-maid stood
there.
‘If you please, sir, they’ve sent from Mr. Langstroth’s.
Mr. Michael begs you will step across at once.’
Roger sprang to his feet with a vague wonder and
foreboding in his mind. He soon measured the distance
between the doctor’s house and the Red Gables. He
found the door open and a servant waiting.
‘This way, sir. They are in the library.’
In another moment Roger found himself in the well-known
95room, with the three familiar figures assembled
there.
Mr. Coningsby, the lawyer, who had been present,
was gone. Roger looked from one to the other of his
old friends, all so silent. It was very strange, and, as
he dimly felt, there was something potent, thrilling, and
portentous in that silence. He looked last at Michael—why,
he knew not—and when his eyes fell upon him,
he could scarcely restrain a start and an exclamation.
Michael had always been noted for being so easy-going,
so slow in judging others, so full of sweet-tempered
charity. He did not look very much at peace with himself
or the world just now. He was the first to speak.
‘I sent for you, Roger,’ he began, and his voice was
very quiet, and very incisive. Roger hardly recognised
it. ‘I want you to hear something I have to say. You
are my friend; and a friend, as we all know, sticketh
closer than a brother.’
‘Can this be Michael?’ Roger thought, in his bewilderment.
‘I fancied no one but Gilbert could sneer
in that way.’
Roger had yet to learn that there is no sneer so bitter
as that which is called forth by intense suffering, or a
very keen sense of injustice. He thought all sneers
were the products of a cynical frame of mind, or, with
some persons, constitutional. But, thinking that such a
tone was more like Gilbert than Michael, he was, as it
were, suddenly reminded of Gilbert’s existence, and he
glanced at him. He was seated in a corner of the old
sofa, which had always been his favourite position; his
arms were folded, his face pale, and apparently absolutely
devoid of expression. Dr. Rowntree, though silent, was
evidently in a state of the most cruel mental perturbation,
96and looked in a helpless way from one brother to
the other.
‘Yes, Michael,’ said Roger, at last. ‘I am ready,
either to do or to let alone, as you wish. What is it?’
‘Boys!’ exclaimed the little doctor, unable to contain
himself any longer, ‘before it goes any farther, listen to
me. Before you quarrel, before you dispute, for Heaven’s
sake consider! You may say things, brothers as you
are, which can never be unsaid.’
‘That is exactly what I mean to do, sir,’ said Michael,
turning his white face for a moment, in the doctor’s
direction. Roger, loyal to the heart, could not but think
in this moment that Michael looked almost cruel. Again
he did not understand that there is no feeling of hate or
of cruelty so strong, and so desolating, as that called
forth by spited or cheated love and trust.
‘You may trust me not to dispute,’ the young man
went on; ‘I never do. Hark to me, Roger!’ He turned
now to Roger; and to the latter it seemed as if all
Michael’s movements were stiff and mechanical, and
under restraint. ‘My father has died, as you know, and
has left a will, as you also know. He has left a good
deal more money than it was expected he would—by
me, at any rate. I am his eldest son; Gilbert his
youngest. I wish you to know how he has disposed of
his property, and to hear what course I intend to pursue,
in consequence of that disposition. Here is the will. I
won’t trouble you with much of it, but I must ask you
to listen to this passage.’
From the will, it appeared that the Langstroth estates
were now free of encumbrance. The income derived
from what remained of them was all required, and
would be for some few years, to pay off the remaining
97interest on some debts, of which the capital was already
cleared away. Over and above, there was a clear sum
of six thousand pounds, gained about a year ago by the
advantageous sale of two farms and some wood, mentioned
in the will. Of this, four thousand was left to
Gilbert, at his absolute disposal; three thousand, as the
will stated, as his just half of the property, and another
thousand as a sort of payment or indemnity for his services
in retrieving the estate, which, without his care
and diligence, would probably have been rather a debt
than an inheritance. The other two thousand were left
in trust to Gilbert, to be invested and disposed of for
Michael’s benefit, and the incomes derived therefrom
were to be paid to Michael by his brother; the testator
declaring himself to have the greatest faith and confidence
in the business abilities of his son Gilbert. The
Townend factories would pay nothing for a long time to
any one but Otho Askam, whose money had found the
means of starting them again. When they should, or if
they ever should begin to pay, their profits were to be
equally divided between Michael and Gilbert, or, failing
them, their heirs. That is, in plain terms, there was a
probability that some eight or ten years hence, Michael
might begin to receive an income from ‘Langstroth’s
Folly.’ The house called the Red Gables, situate within
the township of Bradstane-on-Tees, and all the furniture,
plate, pictures, china, ornaments, and all other household
appendages whatsoever, save such as might be personal
possessions of Gilbert, were to go to Michael absolutely,
as the eldest son.
Such was the tenor of the testament, to which Roger
listened breathlessly, as Michael read it in a low,
quick, clear voice. When he had finished, he laid the
98will on the table again, and Roger, looking intently at
his friend, saw such a look in his eyes, such agony in
the drawn lines of his mouth, that he went up to him,
and, laying his hand on his shoulder, asked in a low
voice—
‘Michael, what does it mean?’
‘It means that my brother is very clever, and I am a
great blockhead. I am fain to doff before his superior
wisdom.’
Gilbert, his arms still folded across his chest, was
looking at them, pale, calm, and seemingly self-possessed.
‘Take heed of what you say, Michael,’ he said, quietly.
‘Abuse, even from——’
‘I am going to do nothing but praise and congratulate
you on your great wisdom and astuteness,’ replied
Michael, flashing a look of such trenchant contempt
towards his brother, that Gilbert’s own eyes sank before
it. It was a new sensation for him to find himself
despised by the man for whose simplicity he had always
entertained such a finely ironical contempt.
‘Only,’ resumed Michael, speaking so clearly that not
a word could be lost of what he said, ‘it is a pity my
father did not appreciate you better. He should have
left you the other two thousand out and out. Unless
you take pity on it, it will be useless, for I shall never
touch it.’
‘Now, Michael, Michael, madman! Beware what
you say!’ cried the little doctor, stamping about, as
middle-age does when cash is blasphemed or lightly
spoken of.
Michael, having patiently waited till this apostrophe
had been contributed to the conversation, but who heeded
it not at all, suddenly bent towards Gilbert, fixed his
99burning eyes upon him, and said, in a lower voice, but
one which was still distinctly audible to them all—
‘Two thousand, Gilbert; it is an odd coincidence. Do
you remember my saying to you long ago, that if I’d two
thousand to start with I would be married to-morrow—eh?’
Gilbert neither moved nor raised his head.
‘I know you thought that a very imprudent way of
spending two thousand pounds. It seems my father
must have held the same opinion, and between you, you
have arranged that I should do nothing mischievous.’
Here he raised himself up again, and, turning to the
others, went on—
‘I want you all to understand this. That which I am
not trusted to handle for myself; that which is confided
by my father to my younger brother to take care of, lest
I should misuse it—left so by my own father, to whom
I have been a dutiful and honourable son,—I take God
to witness it;—that is not for me at all. I refuse to
touch it. You all hear what I say?’
There was a low murmur from the doctor and Roger.
Michael went on—
‘That being the case, it seems that what I have left,
to call my own, is my father’s house—the house in which
we were both born and brought up, where we lived as
brothers, without an unbrotherly thought—on my part
at least; and the house where, when I went out into the
world to relieve the burden which had fallen on our
affairs, I left you in my place, to tend my father; to
watch over all our interests; to deal justly by me as well
as by yourself——’
There was a very long pause. It seemed as if Michael,
steady though his voice had remained, were unable to
100finish the utterance of the thoughts that were in his
mind. The others were silent, and Gilbert looked
doggedly downwards.
‘That house, as I say, is now all I have, but it is my
own, and you have just given in the account of your
stewardship,’ went on Michael, his lips white and his
eyes hard, so that Roger felt a kind of fear of him.
‘There it is!’ He laid his hand upon the will. ‘To
me, it has been a fatal stewardship. It has robbed me
not only of my inheritance, but of my brother.’ And
he advanced two or three steps nearer to Gilbert.
The latter rose; perhaps he knew what was to come.
Neither of the others dared to speak. Gilbert once lifted
his head and looked at his brother, but instantly his face
sank again. He was voiceless, powerless, defenceless.
Michael stepped aside and threw the door open wide.
‘Being my house,’ he said, ‘I order you to leave it
now, this instant. Go!’
Another pause. Silence still. Michael stood waiting.
Gilbert looked around him, as if he struggled to speak,
but could not. He saw nothing to cheer him. Dr.
Rowntree with his hands clasped, his kind face looking
the picture of woe; Roger Camm frowning and silent.
Gilbert took two steps towards the door.
‘Michael,’ he said.
‘Go!’ repeated Michael, in a stony voice.
Gilbert walked slowly out at the door, into the hall,
took his hat, and left the house. They heard the hall
door close after him, and it was with two of them, at
least, as if the sound struck them like an actual blow.
To turn one’s brother out of doors would generally be
done figuratively—morally, perhaps. Michael had done
it literally, and with a resistless determination and
101strength of will which none of them had credited him
with. His hour had come at last, and the real stuff of
which he was made, good or bad, was beginning to show
itself.
After a moment’s silence, he turned again to the
others and said—
‘I won’t detain you any longer. I wish I could have
spared you such a scene, but as my two nearest friends,
I wished you to be under no mistake as to what I was
going to do. And now I should like to be alone for
awhile.’
Roger heaved a deep sigh, and said nothing, but
moved towards the door. The doctor, who had a tender
heart, and down whose cheeks the tears were running,
fell back into old Quaker phraseology, as he almost
sobbed out—
‘Michael, my poor, poor lad, thou’ll come and sleep
in thy own bed to-night, at my house, won’t thou?’
‘Yes, I will, doctor,’ replied Michael slowly; and
they left him alone.
CHAPTER IX THE GODDESS OF THE TENDER FEET
102
‘The goddess Calamity is delicate, and ... her feet are
tender. Her feet are soft, he says, for she treads not upon
the ground, but makes her path upon the heads of men.’
These words, or something like them, were floating
dimly in Roger Camm’s mind, as he walked with Dr.
Rowntree across the square to the house on the opposite
side. His heart was full to bursting. Loving Michael
as he did, better than any one in the world, he felt to
the full the meaning of the summons he had received, to
hear his friend’s decision. It is not for a light thing that a
man turns out of doors the brother in whom he has all
his life felt unqualified trust and confidence; it is not
a casual acquaintance whom he summons to witness the
deed, and so Roger felt. But while he quite appreciated
this accident of the thing, the thing itself bewildered him
even yet. It was one of those bizarre, jarring circumstances
which come upon one like a clap of thunder from
a cloudless sky, which one fails to take in properly on
the first blush of them. Even yet, Roger could not feel
at home with the recollection of Michael standing erect
and stiff, the spirit of anger flaming from his eyes, deaf
to every remonstrance, and casting scornful eyes upon
Gilbert’s pitiful condition.
103Neither he nor the doctor spoke till they were in the
house again. It seemed that they had been but a short
time away, for there was everything as Roger had left it,
and the luncheon table set for them. This bald reality
and commonplace of everyday life did not seem to put
things into any more comprehensible shape; if possible,
they heightened the strangeness and sadness of the
situation. But standing together there, they (to use the
vernacular) ‘found their tongues.’ Dr. Rowntree sat
down in his easy-chair, and wiped his eyes with a large
red bandana handkerchief, blew his nose violently, and
said, in a voice which was yet full of tears—
‘Who would ha’ thought it, Roger? who would ha’
thought it?’
‘Well,’ said Roger, propping his broad back against
the mantelpiece, and staring down at his boots, ‘not I, for
one, and I think there will be precious few to jerk their
heads and say, “I told you so,” this time. And yet I don’t
feel half so much surprised as enraged, now that it is all out.’
‘He should not have flung away what was left him
in that way,’ complained Dr. Rowntree. ‘He should
have been cool.’
‘Cool, doctor! Now, come! would you have been
cool? Were you cool, as it was?’
‘No, no, I know. But he ought to have kept cool.
He should have carried it before a court of justice.
They do set aside wills sometimes, that are flagrantly unjust;
and I think they would, at any rate, have handed
him over that two thousand to do as he liked with. I’m
sure they would; it stands to reason. An elder son, with
not a penny of cash left him, except, as you may say, at the
discretion of his younger brother—monstrous, monstrous!
As if he had been a spendthrift, or a ne’er-do-weel!’
104‘If it were twenty thousand, it would make no difference,’
said Roger slowly, for he had been working the
thing out in his mind. ‘I can see where it is. Do you
suppose Michael could have got beside himself in that
way, just because he was disappointed of money that he
had expected? He thinks too little of it for that. If
every penny had been left at his own disposal, I have
very little doubt he would have left it entirely in Gilbert’s
hands, for he thought all the world of his business
capacities. It is the treachery, not the money. When
I think how Gilbert has sneaked—sneaked, all through
it——’ Roger stamped his foot. ‘It shows you ought
never to trust any one, least of all your nearest relations.
Where Michael trusts, he trusts with his whole heart, just
in the same way that he loves. He trusted Gilbert and
he trusted his father, and they have cheated and duped
him like a couple of blacklegs. I hope Master Gilbert’s
greed will avenge itself on his own head, and I wish a
pest upon every penny of his ill-gotten inheritance. It
isn’t the money only that Michael has lost; it’s his faith
and his trust: it is his brother, that’s what it is. That
isn’t a loss you get over in a moment, even if your
brother dies; and Michael has lost Gilbert in a worse
way than if he had been burying him to-day beside their
father. That’s about it. He will never get over it, to
be the same again.’
‘I’m afraid not—I’m afraid not.’
‘He would not be what he is if he could,’ said Roger.
‘How can one console him?’
‘Nohow. It isn’t to be done.’
‘What can I say to him, my poor lad?’
‘Nothing, if you’ll believe me. I can tell you I shall
not speak of it. There are things no one ought to meddle
105with, unless they are opened out to one. I know why he
sent for me—it was in order that he might not have to
enter into the whole business again. He wanted it done
with, sealed up, that I might know he had no brother
any more. You can’t very well talk to a man of a
relation he hasn’t got, and I shall keep my mouth shut.’
‘I will try,’ said Dr. Rowntree; ‘but if I see him
looking very miserable, I don’t think I can keep
quiet.’
‘You won’t see Michael looking miserable, I can tell
you that. My time is up,’ added Roger, looking at his
watch. ‘I must go back to my work.’
He left the house, with the thought just come into his
mind, ‘After all, I shall have to speak to him. I don’t
see how how I can stay in this shop any longer, after
the treatment he has had.’
He turned into the office, but it was with difficulty
that he succeeded in giving any attention to his work;
for in his mind’s eye he had the image of Michael, seated
alone in his desolation in that wretched room, where the
wretched scene of the morning had taken place. It
seemed to Roger that the worst blow had befallen
Michael which by any possibility could overtake him—which
idea serves sweetly to illustrate his own extreme
ignorance of life, and of the protean forms which calamity
and misfortune can assume; also of the marvellously
elastic nature of the human creature, and of that part of
it, be it brain, or heart, or soul, or whatsoever it may in
reality be, which suffers.
Roger Camm, repeating to himself the half-forgotten
Greek of his quotation about the goddess Calamity, never
dreamed for a moment but that she had stayed her course.
Surely her feet had pressed with sufficient weight upon
106the head which she had selected as her standpoint!
Could his spiritual eye have pierced that veil, filmy, and
yet dense, which envelops us as we move to and fro on
this earth, and seen the guiding powers about Michael,
he would have perceived still hovering amongst them
a dark form with a woebegone countenance—her of the
tender feet yet.
He returned to Dr. Rowntree’s from his work, and,
having no heart to amuse himself in any way outside,
sat with a book, to which he gave but a divided attention,
wondering the while whether Michael would go
to Magdalen that night, or wait till the morrow; and
wondering likewise whether she would be of any use to
him in the crisis.
‘Gilbert would be a better spec. for her now,’ said
Roger bitterly, within himself. ‘Only, not to blacken
him more than is absolutely necessary, he never had the
faintest fancy for her. In fact, I don’t believe he would
take her with fifty thousand down.’
Towards ten o’clock Michael came in, greeted them
both with great composure, took his accustomed chair,
lighted his pipe, and made some few observations to
them before they all went to bed. He made not the
slightest allusion to what had taken place in the morning,
and Roger did not choose or wish to break upon this
reserve: the little doctor did not dare. He found, what
he had never suspected before, that his adopted son had
the power of holding him at arm’s length, and while he
could not but admire what seemed to him Michael’s
strength and self-possession, he was not quite happy at
finding it thus, as it were, used against himself. This
dry-eyed composure, this something indescribable in
voice and glance, were, thought the doctor, magnificent,
107but they did not invite to the sentimental reflections of
which he was longing to disburden himself.
They separated at their usual hour, and no one complained
the next morning of not having slept, though
under Michael’s eyes there were ominous purple rings
which told of his having enjoyed something less than
perfect repose.
Roger got a few words alone with him before breakfast.
‘Michael, I want to speak to you. After what has
happened, I don’t see how I can stay on at the factories.
I don’t fancy being mixed up with those two, when you
are my friend.’
Michael paused a moment. ‘I understand what you
mean,’ said he. ‘You are loyal, Roger, at any rate.
But there is no need for you to feel like that. It is
entirely between him and me, and not another soul in
the world, if you know what I mean. I know what you
feel, and I believe I should feel the same in your place;
but can you make a sacrifice for my sake?’
‘I daresay I could, if I knew what it was.’
‘It is, just to remain where you are. I don’t want
any one to notice it for me. I can notice things for myself—such
things as I wish noticing.’
‘Oh, that settles the matter, of course,’ said Roger.
‘I shall stay—unless they sack me.’
At that moment a note was brought to Michael. He
opened and read it very quickly, and then tossed it
across to Roger.
‘Read it,’ said he. ‘You must see me through each
stage of this, so that we need never have to mention it
to each other again.’
Roger read it. It was from Gilbert, and the paper
108on which it was written was stamped, ‘Thorsgarth,
Bradstane-upon-Tees.’
‘There are two precious rascals together under the
same roof,’ was Roger’s unspoken comment before he
began to read.
But his face changed as he perused the lines. The
note was short, but strong in its very baldness and
simplicity; as unlike Gilbert’s ordinary soft politeness
as the inflexible decisiveness of Michael in the same
matter had been unlike his usual conduct.
Gilbert asked Michael for an interview. ‘Though
you have treated me like a dog,’ he said, ‘I will show
you things so that they shall be right, if you will see
me. I can make it straight, too, though you do not
think so.’ After a few more phrases of a similar kind,
he concluded—‘Do not be hasty in your reply. Think
well before you refuse what I ask, for if you do, I shall
never ask again. I can make it right, and the whole
future of both of us may depend upon your answer.’
Roger read this twice over to himself, and looked at
Michael, who had gone to his desk and was writing
quickly. As soon as he had finished, he came again to
Roger and handed him his letter, which ran—
‘I have received your note, and decline to see you or
hold any communication with you. Your possessions
are, I believe, at the Red Gables. I shall not be there to-morrow,
and you will be at liberty to fetch away what
you choose of your belongings. After that you cfannot
be admitted there.
Michael Langstroth.’
‘Michael,’ said Roger, holding both these documents
in his hand, and speaking very earnestly, ‘forgive me
for even seeming to meddle in your affairs. Gilbert
109has a meaning under that note of his. Won’t you think
twice before you send that answer to him?’
‘I did all the thinking about him that I shall ever
give to him again, yesterday,’ said Michael, trenchantly.
‘Do you suppose I spent all yesterday shut up in that
room without coming to some definite conclusions upon
matters in general and in particular? That is the
answer I mean him to have, and that is the answer I
shall send him.’
Roger had been far more struck than he would have
cared to confess, with Gilbert’s appeal. He felt as if
confessing it would impeach his loyalty to his friend,
and he was all Michael’s—heart and soul. But he was
a man with a reasonable head too, and he could not
thrust out the feeling, though he was angry with himself
for having it, that Michael was unjust, even though
the object of his injustice were so great a sinner as
Gilbert. Yesterday, Roger had thought no punishment
could be terrible enough for Gilbert and his ‘sneaking;’
now the punishment was beginning, and he found himself
almost ready to plead for mercy for the criminal.
‘Michael,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘have you the right
to do it?’
‘Yes, I have,’ replied Michael, his face growing
terribly hard and set again. ‘Nothing that I do to him
now can be wrong.’
Roger paused, looking at his friend. In his mind
were the words, ‘until seventy times seven,’ but he had
not the courage to utter them. In the abstract, and as
a Christian precept and command, doubtless they were
right, but Michael was his friend; Michael had been so
fearfully, so stupendously wronged and cheated, and by
his own brother. Was he to plead Gilbert’s cause to
110Michael? The idea seemed monstrous. Make it right?
What could make right or alter that which he had done,
cunningly and secretly, against the brother who had
trusted him? ‘Put yourself in his place—in Michael’s
place,’ said Roger to himself. ‘Michael must be right.
And yet—what a cursed thing to have reared its head
between two brothers!’
‘You will do what you—please’ (he was going to have
said, ‘what you think right,’ but he instinctively felt
that that would not have been the true expression). ‘I
know I would give my right hand if it could be different.’
‘I know you would, but it never can and never
will,’ said Michael, folding and sealing his letter; and
within a quarter of an hour it was on its way to Thorsgarth.
‘Are you going far to-day?’ the doctor asked Michael
at breakfast. He would have given a good deal if the
young man would have professed himself unable to stir,
and so would have given him an opening for sympathy
and condolence. But the young man did nothing of the
kind.
‘Yes,’ he answered at once; ‘a good way. I shall
not be back to lunch. I shall get that at the Brydges.
Then I have to go on to Cotherstone, but I shall be back
to dinner; and then,’ he added, ‘I must really try to
get to Balder Hall. It is ages since I was there.’
CHAPTER X THE PROCESS OF ANNEALING
111
Soon after breakfast they separated as was their wont.
Roger and the doctor came and went as usual, but the
November afternoon had grown to darkness before
Michael returned, looking pale and fagged from his long
ride and hard day’s work. Taken as a whole, the
patients in and around Bradstane were not a very profitable
set. For one rich old lady like Miss Strangforth,
said Dr. Rowntree, lingering on as a chronic invalid for
years—always wanting attention, and always profoundly
grateful for all that her physicians either did or failed to
do for her, and paying her bills with a cheque by return
of post—for one treasure like this there were a dozen
farmers’ wives and daughters, or sordid, unlovely poor
in Bridge Street, calling upon the doctor with a frequency
and persistency which they would never have dreamed
of if they had possessed either the means or the intention
of paying him. Others there were, cottagers, labourers,
living at immense distances over bad roads, and expecting
a great deal of attention in return for very small
fees—anything but a profitable clientèle—and some of
these Michael had been visiting to-day.
He came in, picked up a note which lay on the hall
table waiting for him, which he looked for as if he expected
112it—his dark face lighted for a moment as he took
it, for the handwriting was that of Magdalen Wynter—put
his head in at the library door, remarking, ‘I’m wet
through—change my things—down directly,’ and ran
upstairs, shutting his bedroom door after him.
‘What a spirit!’ cried the doctor, enthusiastically.
‘What a spirit he has! He’ll get over it yet.’
‘Better than his brother will, I think,’ said Roger,
half to himself; and then, gazing into the fire, he
wondered what Gilbert was doing, and wished, as he had
caught himself wishing more than once that day, that
Michael could have seen his way to answer that note of
Gilbert’s differently.
By and by the gong sounded. Roger and the doctor
went into the dining-room. Michael was still upstairs.
The soup had been served, and he came not.
‘Go to Mr. Langstroth’s door and say everything
will be cold, and we are waiting for him,’ said Dr.
Rowntree to the serving-maid, who did as she was
told, and presently returned, speedily followed by
Michael.
Roger gave a sharp glance at him, and thought he
carried his head very high—higher than usual.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he said, with an affected,
jaunty air, not in the least like his usual manner. ‘I
quite forgot how time was going on.’
He laughed as he spoke, and said he was ravenously
hungry, but offended the doctor greatly by scarcely
touching what was set before him.
‘What do you mean by saying you are ravenous, and
then not eating anything?’ he asked, crossly.
Michael laughed a nervous, forced laugh, and replied—
‘Oh, I must have thought I was hungrier than I really
113am. I can’t eat anything now. These long rides take
it out of a fellow in such a way.’
‘Did you have lunch at the Brydges?’
‘Yes. They have quite a lot of people staying there.
That was one reason why I was so late. After lunch I
went with Tom to the stables to see his new hunter. It
is a beauty, too.’
Roger sat silent, misliking the unusual volubility of
Michael’s speech and excuses. Michael himself, in the
meantime, had gone off on a new tack, and was describing
his adventures at a farmhouse on the moors, and
the extraordinary symptoms enumerated by the mistress
of it as requiring his advice. Dr. Rowntree, pleased to
see that Michael was what he called ‘plucking up a bit,’
did not notice anything forced or unnatural in his manner.
Roger’s forebodings grew every moment darker, and he
was thankful when at last they rose from the table and
went into the library. On their way thither, however,
he happened to touch Michael’s sleeve with his hand,
and found that it was wet.
‘Why, man!’ exclaimed he, ‘you said you were wet
through, and you have got on the identical togs that you
came in with. What an ass you are, Michael!’ he added,
gently. ‘Go upstairs and change, right away, or you
won’t get to Balder Hall to-night.’
‘I’m not going to Balder Hall—I think not,’ said
Michael, wearily, as he let Roger push him towards the
stairs, up which he began slowly and aimlessly to climb.
‘There’s something wrong—something wrong—something
wrong,’ kept ringing through Roger’s mind. ‘And
something more than I know of.’
Michael’s room was over the study. Roger, listening
intently, heard him go into it, move about for a moment,
114and then all was quiet. He sat with a book in his hand,
and waited till his suspense grew almost to agony. At
last he could be quiet no longer. He went upstairs and
knocked softly at Michael’s door. There was no answer.
When he had tried once or twice again, he opened the
door and went in. The candle burned on the dressing-table.
Michael was in a large old easy-chair by the
bedside, his head sunk on his breast, his eyes closed, and
an open letter drooping from his right hand.
‘Still in those wet clothes,’ muttered Roger. ‘He’ll
kill himself.’
He went up to him, and touched him on the shoulder.
Michael awoke with a start, and looked confusedly around
him.
‘Roger!’ he said. ‘I’m so sleepy. I don’t know
what’s come over me.’ He seemed to see the letter he
held, and went on, in an absent way, ‘Wasn’t it rather
too bad of her not to wait till she had seen me? So
long—it’s three years since I began to wait for her and
work for her. But as soon as she heard the first whisper—well,
I did write and tell her what I’d done, and said
I would go up and see her to-night, you know—yes, to-night.
But she never waited. She flung me off,’ and he
threw out his arms. ‘She made haste to do it. She
must have been glad to do it! There’s something in her
letter which says so. See!’ He held it out to Roger.
‘What a lot of disagreeable things you’ve had to do for
me lately!’ he went on. ‘Good Lord! how tired I am!
I never was so tired in my life. I can’t imagine the
reason of it.’
Roger, deferring for a moment his intention of making
Michael go to bed, stopped to read the letter, which
ran:—
115‘My dear Michael,
‘I received your letter this morning, and I
am sorry to say I cannot approve of what you have done.
Even before I got it, I had been thinking for some time
about our engagement, and wondering if it had ever been a
wise one. During these three days that you have not been
here, I have had ample time to consider the subject. Even
if nothing further had happened, I should have written
as I now do; but I do not disguise from you that the
manner in which you have yourself cut off every prospect
of advancement strengthens my resolution. These things
are best done promptly. It saves pain to all concerned.
‘As there is now evidently no prospect of our being
married within any definite time, I wish our engagement
to cease. I desire this both on your account and my
own. In addition to the reasons already stated, I do not
think it would be for your happiness to continue it, and
I am quite sure it would not be for mine. I shall be
glad of a line from you when convenient, to say that you
consent to my proposal; and with every wish for your
happiness and prosperity, I remain,
‘Your sincere friend,
‘Magdalen Wynter.’
‘There’s a specimen of elegant composition!’ exclaimed
Michael, suddenly sitting upright, and laughing harshly.
‘It could not have been more proper if she had
written it at school, and the head governess had corrected
it. What a blessed thing it is when people know their
own minds, and can command plain English in which to
make them known! Only it’s a pity that they should
take three years to learn what they do want, or whom
they don’t want.’ He gave a disagreeable little laugh at
116his own pleasantrypleasantry, and then rose. ‘If you’ll go down,
Roger, I will now change these things, and join you
directly. But it’s lucky I need not go to Balder Hall,
for I feel more and more tired every minute.’
‘Take off your things, by all means,’ said Roger,
gravely; ‘but you must not come down. You must go
to bed.’
‘To bed!’ exclaimed Michael, contemptuously. ‘A
man go to bed because he’s had a long ride in the wet
and cold, and finds rather a chilly letter to greet him on
his return! I am not such an ass.’
But as he spoke, strength seemed to forsake his limbs;
he could not stand any more, but sat down again in the
chair by the bedside.
‘Perhaps Askam is sitting with her now. I suppose
they will be married,’ he said, betraying in his sudden
weakness what his secret fear had evidently been.
‘Perhaps she will keep him straight. He needs it, and
she has a spirit, though I know Gilbert and my father
never thought so; and——’
Here he began to wander in his talk; was shivering
and shaking with cold one moment, burning hot the
next. The thorough drenching which he had got after
leaving the Brydges and riding for miles in the teeth of
the bitter wind and rain; the excited condition of his
brain over Gilbert’s treachery; the receipt of Magdalen’s
letter, with its icy, unyielding egoism, showing him
that all these years her own advantage was what she had
been thinking of, and that there was not a spark of love
for him in her dull heart;—these things broke through
even his magnificent health and strength. He could not
shake off the physical chill any more than he could the
mental prostration. An attack of a tedious, wearing
117low fever reduced him to perfect physical weakness
and docility; but far worse than the fever was the
accompanying mental gloom, the result of the shock to
the nervous system. The young man, shut up in his
room, too weak in body to move and shake off his
demon visitant, went through all the horrors of a complete
nervous breakdown, and made intimate acquaintance
with all its attendant crew of ghastly shades—those
pallid ghosts which assemble and gibber and mouth at
us when we have so imposed upon our hard-worked
servants, nerves and brain, as to have rendered them
for the time powerless to answer to our imperious
demands. Exhausted, they sink down, and say to us,
‘We can no more,’ and then we are at the mercy of
every shadow, every whisper, every vain imagining and
thought of horror.
Michael Langstroth, with his superb constitution and
youth and temperance to back him, and with the devoted
nursing of two such friends as Roger and the doctor,
was in the course of a few weeks restored to comparative
strength. Gradually the shades and ghosts, the bats
and owls that haunt the dark places of the human mind,
retired before gathering physical strength. Things
were gone that could never be restored—hopes, joys,
faiths, enthusiasms; things which had once seemed all-important,
appeared now almost too insignificant for
notice. Under Roger’s eyes was the process accomplished
which in his blindness he had long ago wished
for his friend. He was made into a man: going into
the valley of the shadow a youth, for all his six and
twenty years, his bone, and his muscle, and his brain;
coming out of it alive, sane, whole, if weak, but stripped
of every superfluous hope, confidence, or youthfulness.
118It was November when he went to his room that
night; it was the very end of December when he came
out of it, a hollow-eyed spectre enough. And it was a
month later still when Dr. Rowntree carried him down
to Hastings one day, returning himself the next, and
leaving his adopted son there to recruit.
So ended Michael Langstroth’s youth, as a tale that
is told.
CHAPTER XI OTHO’S LETTER-BAG
119
A November morning, five years later. The sky gray
and brooding, the trees still and leafless. Everything
outside betokened the drear season of the year, and
even the trimly kept lawns of Thorsgarth could not give
brightness to this mood of Nature and the time o’ day.
Within, in a small room which he generally used for
breakfasting, Otho Askam stood on the hearthrug, with
his burly back turned towards a large fire. A letter
was in his hand, to which he seemed to pay more
attention than it was usually his habit to give to his
correspondence, for he turned it about, and perused it
often. What are the changes which five years may
have wrought in his traits, or how many of them have
become strengthened and accentuated during that time?
He would seem, outwardly considered, to have gained
something, both in breadth and solidity, without having
in any way weakened or deteriorated. The lines were
as sturdy, as burly as before. The expression of his
countenance was distinctly imperious, even more imperious
than of yore. As he stood there, the letter in
one hand, the other impatiently smoothing the hair on
his upper lip—a dark line only, which seemed to
accentuate the sullenness of his face, without hiding or
120softening a single harsh trait or feature—as he stood
there his countenance was a dangerous-looking one; the
expression or atmosphere which radiated from the man
was not that of sincerity. In repose he had the old
fierceness of appearance—whatever mental or moral
change might have taken place, that old look remained;
and when he raised his dark eyes and lifted his head,
there was the same breathless, hunted, or hunting look
about him, as in the days of his very young manhood
there had been.
He was alone, and had just finished breakfast. At
his feet sat a dignified Dandie Dinmont, somewhat
advanced in years, and with the self-conscious aspect of a
dog which has long been made much of by human beings,
so that at last it has come to feel convinced that all
their actions, words, and movements have some reference
to it and its doings. It gazed up into Otho’s face and
watched his gestures, and when he spoke to it, it seemed
pleased. Animals, even if they have that keen discernment
as to the virtue or vice of the beings by whom
they are surrounded, with which some persons credit
them, can conceal their likes and dislikes, for their own
purposes, quite as cleverly as the men and women they
live with—at least, sophisticated and humanised dogs,
like this highly educated Pouncer, can.
Looking out of the window, one saw the drear season
of the year plainly written upon the outward aspect of
things. November, sad November, but the November
of the country, and not of the town. In southern places,
and more favoured spots, trees might still be covered
with fiery autumn tints; but here every leaf had
dropped, and upon the black and sodden-looking boughs
and twigs hung a damp, clammy dew, and the grass
121was hoar and gray with the same. The sky was leaden;
not a branch stirred. From here one could see where
the ground sloped towards the river, but one could not
see the stream itself. The room was warm; the house
was quiet; the master was vexed—so much was plainly
to be read on his face. And so much was audible from
his lips too, as he ejaculated in a wrathful tone—
‘Beastly folly—and a beastly nuisance, too!’
And the cause of his vexation, the letter he held in
his hand? It is easy to read over his shoulder, and follow
the lines, as he peruses it a third time, with the result,
apparently, of increasing his first exasperation.
‘Brinswell, L——
’Dear Otho,
‘It is a very long time since you wrote to me,—longer
than usual. As for your ever coming to see
me, I have long ago given up that expectation as a wild
delusion. Are you “busy”? Country gentlemen usually
are, from what I hear; and from what I’ve seen I should
say they work very hard to make believe they have more
to do than they know how to manage.
‘I wonder if you have realised that I was twenty-two
on my last birthday? I don’t suppose you have ever
given a thought to the subject. At least, I missed your
usual kind remembrance of me, on the occasion.’
[‘What the dickens does she mean? I’ve never been in
the habit of sending her birthday presents!’]
‘Well, it is of no use wasting words over things. I
wish to explain my situation and intentions to you.
Since Aunt Emily’s death, six months ago, Uncle Robert
has been quite broken up, and he doesn’t seem to get
any better. It is a fearful loss to him. No one knew—of
122the world at large, I mean—how much they were
bound up in each other, and how fearfully he misses her.
After trying everything in the way of staying at home
and keeping quiet, the doctors have advised a long voyage
and a complete change. It has been decided to close
Brinswell for a year at least, and he and Paul will set
out on their travels in a week or two. I think they will
visit Australia first, as they seem to think the long voyage
will do him good, and they talk about India and America
before they return—medicine for a troubled mind. Poor
Uncle Robert! He agrees to all, and says he knows he
is morbid. It seems to be thought very morbid nowadays
if you have a grief that’s past the healing for six
months, even though it be your dearest in the whole
world that has gone from you.
‘I am not going with Uncle Robert and Paul. If it
had been a shorter journey, I might have done so. I
should have liked immensely to go to America, for
instance. But this is different. Paul, of course, goes
with him, because it would be outrageous to think of his
going alone; but the doctor, and Paul too, say he should
not be surrounded by too many of his own family, as
the object is entire change. They both think it better
for me not to go; and I shall do as they think fit. It is
very sad every way.
‘Very sad, it is—so sad that I feel myself a little
heartless, because I can’t help being rather glad that I
shall leave here, and at last make acquaintance with my
own home and my own brother. You do not know how
often I have wished to do so. I am glad I shall see my
birthplace and my north-country home; very glad I shall
see you. And will not you say you will be glad to see
me, dear Otho? It is years since I have seen you, and
123it seems unnatural that it should be so. Will you come
down and fetch me, or are you too busy? I propose to
leave here a week from to-day. Let me know about it.
‘There is one other thing that I feel I must mention
to you, which makes me very glad to be leaving here.
About six months ago, Mr. Mowbray—you know, he is
the rector of the next parish; the Hon. and Rev. Percy
Mowbray—proposed to me. Poor Aunt Emily was very
anxious for me to marry him, but it was a sheer, utter
impossibility. Poor Aunt E——! Mr. Mowbray is rich,
I believe, and of very good family, but I have never
liked him, and I could not think of it for a moment. It
was very painful to me to find how annoyed she was
with me, even to the last. And of course Mr. Mowbray
ceased to visit here, though I had to meet him sometimes.
Altogether, it will be a great relief to me in every way,
to get to Bradstane for a time. Now you are acquainted
with all my reasons for wishing to come to you, and with
my plans too, for the present. Send me a line soon, and
believe me,
‘Your affectionate sister,
‘Eleanor Askam.’
Otho flung the letter upon the table with temper.
‘Why the d—l could not she marry the fellow?’ he
muttered angrily, looking darkly at Pouncer, who slightly
moved his tail and elevated his ears with a sigh, as if he
too wondered why—why she could not have married the
fellow.
‘What could she wish for more? A girl in her position
ought to take the first opportunity that offers—good,
of course—of settling herself in life. And I’m sure old
Aunt Emily knew what she was about. No one keener
124on family and money in the world. If she wanted the
match so badly, I’ll go bail it was a good one. Of course
she must marry—girls like her always must marry—and
of course she can’t go and marry a nobody. What a
fool she must be! One would think she was not all
there. Not that I should think the parson and I should
have hit it off very well as brothers-in-law.’ He gave a
short laugh. ‘A thundering mistake, that will,’ he went on
within himself. ‘Such wills have no business to be made.’
This reflection referred to a clause in his father’s will,
providing that Otho’s sister, so long as he and she both
remained unmarried, was entitled to a home at Thorsgarth
whenever she chose to inhabit it. In the event
of his marriage, there remained for her the Dower House,
which indeed was hers for her life if she did not
marry—an old stone house in the square, not far
from the Red Gables.
‘I can’t stop it, I suppose. It is a beastly nuisance,
if ever there was one. As for going to fetch her, I shall
do no such thing. Go nearly three hundred miles to
fetch back some one I don’t want? Not I!... And
what can I do with her when I get her here? Good
Lord! why must women be so stupid? Such sentimental
nonsense! Because I am her brother—bah! There’s
that whey-faced Paul Stanley, her cousin, looking as if
butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth—she’s known him all
her life, and he has been far more of a brother to her
than I have.’
Otho felt vindictive, realising what a grievous thing
it was that he should have to be anybody’s brother.
‘The goings on in this house won’t suit her at all,’ he
reflected, getting more and more savage the longer he
thought about it. ‘It has been a bachelor’s house all
125these years, and it has come to something if I’m to turn
everything topsy-turvy for a chit of a girl like that.
Dogs and horses and men, and tobacco and wine and
cards—what will she do amidst it all? And what shall
I do with her?’
He stopped muttering from sheer blankness of mind
on the subject, still fiercely stroking his upper lip, till
after a time a look of relief, though of very ill-tempered
relief at the best, came over his face, as he thought—
‘I suppose I must go and tell Magdalen about it.
She’ll be able to suggest something. I’ll go this morning,
before I answer this confounded letter. Whew—w—w!’
He blew out a kind of ill-tempered sigh, and Pouncer
wagged his tail in visible and exceeding satisfaction.
Then Otho picked up another letter—short and, as
it would seem, sweet, to him at least, for his countenance
relaxed visibly.
‘That’s well. It will be rather a relief to have him
here if she comes. He knows what is the right thing to
do when there are petticoats on the premises. I don’t.’
Then he rang the bell, ordered the breakfast-things
to be taken away, and said he wanted his horse at
eleven.
* * * * *
Soon after twelve Otho rode up to Balder Hall, was
admitted to Miss Wynter’s boudoir, and proceeded to
unfold his troubles to her.
She had received him with the tranquillity which had
always been the chief characteristic of her demeanour,
and which seemed neither to have increased nor diminished
with years; heard all that he had to say; and
finally, when he pulled Eleanor’s letter out of his pocket,
and said, ‘See for yourself what she says,’ Magdalen
126took the letter, opened it deliberately, and as deliberately
read it. She had never heard much about Otho’s sister;
she was not a woman to talk to men about their feminine
relatives, and Otho had always been glad to ignore his
sister’s existence as much as possible. This suddenly
announced coming of Miss Askam took Magdalen by
surprise. She had no time to decide whether it would
best suit her views that they should be friends or enemies,
but the letter would possibly give her a valuable glimpse
into the writer’s mind, perhaps even into her character,
written as it was confidentially to an only brother. As
to the question whether it was honourable or not to read
such a letter, Miss Wynter was exactly the woman to
say, if any one had raised such a scruple, ‘Why, Otho
gave it me!’ Go to! she might have been credited with
saying—the keeping one’s own integrity is enough work
for any person, without telling others when they appear
to be losing theirs.
‘Ah,’ said she, when she had finished the letter, ‘it is
quite obvious why she wants to come. I did not know
your sister was twenty-two, Otho. Indeed, I hardly
realised that you had a sister.’
‘No more did I, till she went and did this,’ said Otho,
resentfully.
‘And you would rather she did not come?’
‘Much rather. But it’s no use thinking of keeping
her away. I’m not going to try. She has got the right
to come, by my father’s will, and to stay as long as she
likes, till one of us gets married. I can’t prevent it.
The thing is, I don’t know what to do with her when I
get her here.’
‘Well, if you make it very pleasant for her, of course
she’ll want to stay.’
127Otho nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘And if you upset all your habits, and make great
changes on her account, then she will think you want
her to stay, which would be quite a false impression.’
‘I never thought of that.’
‘Of course not; only it seems such a very obvious
thing. Perhaps that is why it never occurred to you.’
‘Now, come, none of your chaff. What I thought
of was, that it’s simply impossible for a girl like that to
settle down in a house full of my ways. I must do
something, and what to do I don’t know. I wanted
your advice.’
‘And pray what right have you to my advice? Why
should I interfere between you and your sister? I
might tell you it is a just retribution on you for having
alienated yourself systematically from all such ties.
You demand my advice as if you were a highwayman
requiring my watch and purse.’
Otho fidgeted and fumbled, h’mmed and ha’d.
‘I beg your pardon, Magdalen. I thought I had the
right—of having asked before, and received—advice, you
know. And you know I always do come to you when
I am in trouble.’
‘Oh yes; I know you do.’
‘Would you please tell me what I had better do?’
‘Is she good-looking?’ asked Magdalen.
‘Oh no!’ said Otho, promptly. ‘She has red hair
and freckles.’
Magdalen glanced at Otho’s own dark traits, and
said, ‘Now, Otho!’
‘Upon my soul and honour she has; and one of those
faces that flush up all over, without a minute’s warning.
I never could see the sense of those faces. She goes
128into raptures, you know, and cries and laughs about
things—at least, she did when I saw her. In fact,
though she’s been at college somewhere, and is a
complete blue—reads Homer, and all such bosh—I
thought her a regular baby. She’s got rather a dashing
figure,’ he added, musingly, ‘but I swear to you, Magdalen,
she is not good-looking.’
‘But why, then, does this clergyman want to marry
her? A man of wealth, family, and position? I know
quite well who he is. They are very first-rate people
down there.’
‘Bah! She has twelve hundred a year of her own,
to do what she likes with. Whoever heard of a parson,
rich or poor, that could rise above such a thing as that?’
said Otho, with brutality. ‘And then, all places are not
like Bradstane. They may like blues and freckles down
there.... As for his being a man of wealth, family,
and position, you might say that of me;’ and he laughed
cynically. ‘She’s as good as he is, any day.’
‘Yes,’ said Magdalen, gently. ‘She is your sister.’
She took up her work. ‘It seems to me that you are
making a great fuss about nothing. Why make any
difference at all for her? Thorsgarth is your house, not
hers, though she has the right to live there, under
present circumstances. It is large enough in all conscience.
Half a dozen families might live there, and
hardly ever meet in the passages. Give her a sitting-room
for herself, and tell her you are sorry that your
business doesn’t leave you time to see very much of her.
It will not be long before she finds out what a dull place
Bradstane is, and I do not think she will care to remain
in it very long, especially with such a sympathetic
brother.’
129‘You are a gem!’ he said, admiringly.
‘And bring her up to see me as soon as you can,
after she comes.’
‘The next afternoon, if it’s fine,’ he said, eagerly.
‘Yes, the next afternoon, if you like. It will make
no difference to me.’
Then, as if she had had enough of the subject, she
returned the letter to him, and asked, ‘Is there no meet
to-day?’
‘No. We got word last night that there wouldn’t
be. I’m going down to Bradstane just now, to the
works. By the way, I had a letter from Gilbert, too,
this morning. He’s coming down for Christmas, as
usual.’
‘Oh, he never fails you.’
‘No; he never does. I must take care not to bring
him up here while his brother is on the premises.
When does he come, now?’
‘I know nothing about it. Sometimes at one hour,
sometimes at another. And the surest way to bring
about a collision is to take so much care to avoid one.
As if there were not room for Gilbert and him in the
house without dodging in that stupid way!’
‘That’s all very fine, but accidents will happen.
Suppose they were to meet, after all, and have a shindy.’
‘A shindy! Really, Otho, you exasperate me. In
the first place, though you might, and probably would,
make a shindy under such circumstances, you ought to
know that they would never make one under any circumstances.
And if they wished to, ever so, would they
dare, before me?’
‘Whew—w!’ murmured Otho, under his breath;
and then aloud—
130‘It seems as if all I said offended you this morning,
Magdalen. However, I’ll be more good-natured than
you, and say thank you for your advice, which I shall
follow. I must be off now.’
He got up and stood before her, holding out his hand.
Magdalen surveyed him in the same cold, direct manner,
as before. It was her old calm, almost expressionless
gaze, but the eyes which had once been soft and velvety
were now hard. She said good morning to him in a
very indifferent way, and rang the bell. Otho left the
room and went downstairs.
His inventive genius was apparently not great. He
carried out her advice or instructions, whichever it might
have been, almost to the letter. Without waiting to go
to the works, he first of all called in at Thorsgarth, and
while his horse waited, sat down and wrote a short letter
to his sister, saying that he would meet her at the station
if she would let him know by what train to expect her;
that he was sorry to say he was quite too much engaged
to travel down to the New Forest to bring her to
Thorsgarth. He was afraid she would find Bradstane
insufferably dull after the social life to which she had
been accustomed. With regard to the parson, he added,
with characteristic want of finish in his style, he thought
it a pity that she had not seen her way to taking him,
as the match seemed in every way a good one, but he
could hear all about that when they met, and so he was
her affectionate brother, Otho Askam.
Then he rang the bell and desired to see the housekeeper;
and when she arrived upon the scene, he gave
his orders with the brevity and authority of a great
general, and of course Mrs. Sparkes could not know that
the said orders had originated with Magdalen Wynter.
131It was decided that some south rooms—‘the late Mrs.
Askam’s suite,’ said Mrs. Sparkes—were to be prepared
for Eleanor.
‘Yes,’ said Otho, with an uneasy feeling that, since
he proposed to leave his sister considerably to her own
society, it behoved him to look to her personal comfort
as much as possible. ‘And see that they are made nice—aired,
you know, and to look—a—bright, and all
that.’
‘Oh, sir, the rooms will not need much doing to
them. It’s not my system to be taken by surprise,’ said
Mrs. Sparkes, with a lofty smile.
‘Isn’t it?’ said Otho, with a kind of brusque facetiousness
which had its effect in making him popular
with some of his dependants. ‘I wish I knew how you
managed to avoid it. This affair—Miss Askam’s coming,
has taken me very much by surprise.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean that exactly, sir,’ said Mrs.
Sparkes, pleased at the confidence reposed in her.
‘There’s some things can’t be provided for, but I meant
things in general.’
‘Ah! well, you’ll remember what I said,’ remarked
Otho; and Mrs. Sparkes bowed herself out.
Then he called for his horse again, and set off for his
long-delayed visit to the Townend Mills. It need hardly
be said that these calls were wholly perfunctory.
Gilbert, from his London office, gave the orders, and
Roger Camm in his Bradstane one carried them out.
Otho had a pleasure in calling and looking round now
and then, because he knew how Michael and Sir Thomas
Winthrop hated the Bradstane Jute Co., Limited, and
that Roger Camm hated him, Otho, the man who had
found the money for it. The conclusion to which he
132had come by the time that he halted in the mill-yard
was that, having settled all things, he had now just one
week of liberty before him, and, putting his sister from
his mind, he resolved to think no more about her until
her arrival should force him to do so.
CHAPTER XII ELEANOR
133
Otho’s week of freedom was over. His sister had come,
and on the day following her arrival, in the afternoon,
she rode with him through Bradstane town towards
Balder Hall.
Any one who could have seen her, even in the gray
and mournful November light, would have seen a very
beautiful young woman. She was tall, and had an
admirable figure, full of grace and strength. No feeble
development here, nor niggard traits, nor look of feeble
spine or over-sensitive nerves. Whatever the intellect
within that beautiful head, its outward case was not one
to find fault with. Her features were not very regular;
harmonious, though, in their very irregularity. A soft,
ivory-white complexion, as healthy as many a ruddy
one; and with this complexion, the red-brown hair and
lambent, tawny eyes which sometimes accompany it.
Her eyebrows were much darker than either her hair or
her eyes; and she had a large mouth, but a beautiful
one—beautiful because of its smile in mirth and of its
expression in repose.
There was a vague, indefinite family likeness between
her and the fierce-looking Otho. Where it lay, in what
exactly it consisted, it would have been impossible to
134say, but it was there, though it was slight, and perhaps
more easily to be detected when they were apart than
when they were together; that is, seeing one of them
alone, an observer might have thought, ‘How like her
brother’ or ‘his sister!’ And yet, had the other one
appeared, and the faces been compared, none could have
discerned any resemblance.
During the first part of their ride they were both
somewhat silent. She was looking about her with quick,
keen glances, speaking an observant eye. Otho was
wondering what Magdalen would say to him, what he
could say to her, at a later time, when he, after his
offhand description of the other day, had to introduce to
her this beautiful creature now riding with him.
Eleanor, while making her observations on the town
and the surroundings, was also occupied in thinking
things over. It was a fact, she told herself with some
mortification, that Otho and she were strangers to each
other. It seemed that absence, and long separation, and
the influence of utterly diverse lives and habits did produce
that strangeness, even between brother and sister.
Her Aunt Emily, in some of their talks, had told her
that this would be the case, and she had said laughingly
that she would defy her brother to be a stranger to her,
or to make a stranger of her. She had felt very strong;
she felt very strong now. That was her chief feeling,
when she thought about herself at all—strength of soul
and body, and a happy confidence that truth is great
and will prevail.
Yet this had not been such a joyful home-coming as
it ought to have been. In all confidence she had set out
to find the home which she had only twice visited, each
time for a day or two, on some tour with her guardians,
135since, at six years of age, she had been brought away by
her Aunt Emily, a motherless and fatherless child.
Those visits had both been paid while she was still under
fourteen, before Otho had left college and taken possession.
Otho was six years her senior, and had pursued
his public school course and got through his college career
while she was yet in the schoolroom and in short frocks.
Occasionally, when he had been in town, or anywhere
near them, he had paid her a flying visit; had once,
when they had been in the Highlands, spent a few days
with them, to shoot grouse with his uncle and cousin
Paul. On these occasions he had told her that she grew
a fine girl (fancying it was a nice kind of thing to say
to a sister, though when he said “fine” he meant “tall,”
and had taken so little real notice of her, that he had
spoken in all good faith when describing her to Magdalen
the week before). And he had uniformly discouraged
the idea of her coming to live at Thorsgarth (it had
never been seriously broached before), saying, whenever
allusion had been made to such a thing, ‘Oh, you will
never want a home there. You will be married before
that.’
But Eleanor had not married, and she had come to
Thorsgarth to make her home there.
‘Is this all the town there is, Otho?’ she asked,
suddenly, as they emerged from the street into the open
road. ‘I’ve almost forgotten it. What an odd, little,
gray, weather-beaten place it is! Not a bit like the
south.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I feel as if I’d never been here, and I hardly ever
meet any one who has. It looks bleak here; that’s
what I mean.’
136‘Well, it is,’ said Otho, vexed with such a persistent
talk about the looks of a place. As if it mattered what
Bradstane looked like! ‘And it’s November, too. You
can’t expect roses in November.’
‘But I’ve always had them. There were Dijon roses
growing over the south walls at Brinswell when I left.
You remember Brinswell, Otho?’
‘Yes, I do; and a dull hole it was.’
‘Not any duller than Thorsgarth, I should fancy. It
was as lovely a place as ever I saw. We were more
there and less in London the last few years. Of course
I like London, but I never felt dull at Brinswell. What
fruit and flowers! Of course, things can’t grow
here as they did there. The trees look so small and
stunted.’
‘Small! Why, the Bradstane ash-trees are noted all
through the country-side.’
‘Well, yes, the ash-trees. They are fine. But, of
course, they ought to be.’ And she hummed to herself—
‘Oh, the oak, and the ash, and the bonny ivy-tree,
They grow the best at home in the north countrie.’
‘At home,’ she added, half to herself. ‘This is the
north countrie, and this is my home, after all. It’s a
shame I don’t know it better. Wherever you look,’ she
added, addressing him directly again, ‘you seem to see
a blue wall in the distance. Otho, does any one ever
get as far as those blue walls?’ And she pointed towards
the north-west, where Mickle Fell and his brethren
loomed high.
‘Blue walls!’ repeated Otho, embarrassed by the
application of such terms to the moors, which to him
represented so many acres of good shooting, and those
in another direction stabling for another hobby of his, of
137which Eleanor was as yet unaware. ‘How you talk!
Those that you are pointing to are the fells on the
Westmoreland border, and those other ones, to the
south, are the Swaledale moors.’
‘Swaledale moors? But one can get over them, I
suppose. What is there on the other side?’
‘More moors and more dales. It’s bleak enough
there, if you like. There’s some good shooting, though.’
‘I should like to see what there is at the other side,’
said Eleanor, her eyes fixed dreamily on the moors.
Then, as they turned a bend in the road, ‘Is it far to
this place you are taking me to?’
‘Only about another three-quarters of a mile.’
‘This Miss Wynter—is she a very old friend of
yours?’ asked Eleanor unconsciously. ‘I don’t ever
remember to have heard you speak of her.’
‘Oh yes, you have,’ said Otho, with effrontery; ‘but
you’ve very likely forgotten. She is my only friend—amongst
the women, that is.’
‘Ah! an elderly woman?’
‘About my own—well, she’s a year or so older than
I am.’
‘Oh! An invalid, I suppose?’
‘Why the—— What on earth makes you think she
should be an invalid?’
‘If she is neither old nor ill, I can’t understand why
I am being taken to see her. What should prevent her
from coming to call upon me, in the usual order of
things?’
Otho was embarrassed, and annoyed too. This extremely
simple question of Eleanor’s showed him, in a
sudden flash, that Magdalen’s behaviour was not exactly
courteous. Stealing a side glance at his sister, he realised
138that when she came to meet Magdalen, she might consider
the latter had been insolent in her pretensions.
Eleanor, to use his own phrase, knew what was what,
every bit as well as Magdalen did. Free and natural
though her manner was, he had known enough of his
Aunt Emily to be aware that no one brought up by her
could remain in ignorance as to any social usages. In
his haste to bring Magdalen’s influence into the field, he
had made a mistake, and she probably did not care
whether Eleanor were offended or no. All he could say
to get himself out of his difficulty was—
‘We’re a neighbourly lot here, when we do happen
to be friends. You’ll be disappointed if you expect to
find London etiquette at Bradstane.’
‘I daresay,’ said she, with a light laugh. ‘I’ve
generally found country etiquette far more burdensome
than etiquette in London. That was partly what made
me wonder. However, people do get a little rusty in
their manners, I daresay, when they live in one small
set,’ Eleanor concluded serenely; but there was a sparkle
in her eye as she spoke. Her curiosity as to this Miss
Wynter was aroused.
Otho burst into a short laugh, as he heard this speech,
thinking within himself, ‘I’ll keep that for Magdalen,
and treat her to it when she’s pulling me up, some day.
Upon my word, this girl is enough to make most others
look rusty.’
‘Miss Wynter is your only friend among the women,
you say,’ pursued Eleanor in flute-like tones. ‘How is
that? Don’t you like the ladies about here?’
Otho’s expression of countenance, on hearing this
question, was worthy of study. Eleanor saw it, and
averted her face. She had already accurately gauged
139one phase of Otho’s character. He was inwardly perturbed
just now. His troubles were beginning already.
Here was this girl evidently under the impression that
he was hand-in-glove with all the ordinary society of the
place. How was he to explain to her exactly how things
stood between him and Magdalen Wynter? He knew
he could not, in any way that should seem plausible to
one brought up like her. He was bored at having to
explain at all, and in his vexation took refuge in some
sweeping general statements.
‘Like the ladies about here? No, I don’t. And that
is one reason why I knew you would be awfully dull if
you came here. You see, it has suited my tastes not to
go much into the society here—in fact, hardly at all;
and they have just begun to understand it at last, and
to let me alone—give over inviting me, and all that.
So you won’t find it very lively. But Magdalen is
different. I’ve known her ever since I came here. We
were thick at the very first, and have stuck together
ever since, because she’s so reasonable and sensible. As
for the others’—he spoke with solemnity—‘they are
one half sharks and the other half fools. There’s no
such thing as meeting a girl, and trying to have a friendship
with her, before you go any farther. Your sex,
my dear, are incapable of friendship with a man. Either
they try to make him in love with them, and make his
existence miserable, or they fall in love with him themselves—or
think they do; it’s much of a muchness—and
if he don’t respond they say he has deceived them, or
trifled with them, or something equally absurd. Suppose
you see a nice girl, or a girl that you think looks nice.
Well, you have a head on your shoulders, and you know
she may be a shrew, for all her pleasantness, just as a
140horse may be a screw, though he looks all right. You
think it worth while to try and know her a bit better,
before you risk anything. You can’t do it. You may
not do it. It is their one object to get you to marry
them without giving you any opportunity to know anything
about them. You never get to know their real
thoughts about any one thing on earth. You must run
the gauntlet of their mothers and sisters to get even a
word with them. It isn’t fair; it’s deuced hard. Why
are you to show up everything, and be slanged if you
don’t do it all on the square, while they are not to
have any questions asked at all? The sisters are bad
enough, especially if you are sweet on a younger one,
but the mothers—oh, Lord! Those mothers! If you
do but look at one of their precious girls, they are down
upon you to know your “intentions.” I say, a man
has a right to ask questions in his turn—if their
tempers are all right, if they’re sound in wind and
limb, and so on. I bolt if I see one of those mothers
within——’
He was interrupted by a peal of laughter. Eleanor
had contained herself as long as she could, but at each
higher flight of Otho’s sombre eloquence it had been
more and more difficult to keep her gravity. Now it
was impossible. She gave free vent to her mirth, and
bent to her saddle-bow in her merriment.
‘Oh, Otho!’ she ejaculated at last, turning a face
quivering with laughter to him, and eyes dancing behind
tears of amusement. He looked at her in speechless
astonishment, and then by degrees managed to take in
the fact that she was laughing at him—at his solemn
and withering denunciation of the man-traps set for the
unwary in social life. He did not remember such a
141thing to have happened to him before, and he was
stunned by the shock.
‘Poor dear Otho!’ she said, between new bursts of
merriment. ‘What a life you must have led, with all
these women trying to entrap you! No wonder you
are reserved and sad! No wonder you have retired
into private life to avoid the dangers that beset you on
all sides! I wonder almost that you dare ride out alone.
And yet, Otho, what a great thing to be so sought after!’
Otho’s face was almost purple, partly with breathless
amazement, partly with anger. Eleanor, it seemed, did
not realise, or did not care, to what inconvenience he
was put by her presence here at all. She chaffed and
laughed at him. She now put the crowning point to
this offensive conduct by leaning over towards him, and
asking, with a pretence of looking round to see that no
one was near to look or listen—
‘Otho, did Miss Wynter warn you of the danger of
these harpies by whom you are surrounded? Women
are always quick to see through the designs of other
women. How good of her to take care of you and keep
you out of danger!’
Otho’s deep colour grew deeper still. Shrewdly had
Eleanor hit the mark. The language, the turns of expression,
were his own, native to his genius and redolent
of his mind; but the substance of his speech was the
substance of scores of conversations with Magdalen, in
which she had amused him by tearing to pieces the supposed
designs of their neighbours of the whole country-side.
‘What bosh!’ he said at last, with sovereign contempt.
‘You’ll be saying next that she had designs herself.’ A
peculiar smile hovered about his sister’s lips, but she
142said nothing. ‘No, no. It is quite different with her,
as you will see when you meet her. You can go and
have an hour’s chat with her—or two hours, if you like.
She’s always pleasant, always amusing; no father or
mother to be down on you. And she does not imagine,
even if you were to go and see her regularly twice a
week, that you’ve got “intentions;” and, what is more,
she has none herself. She can be pleasant, and free,
and agreeable, without all the time being bent upon
hooking you. Yes’—the taciturn Otho waxed enthusiastic—‘she
is my friend. I don’t care who knows it.
She’s the only woman in the neighbourhood that I call
upon.’
Had Eleanor been better acquainted with ‘the neighbourhood’
and its annals, she might better have appreciated
the honourable distinction conveyed in this
speech.
‘Dear me! She ought to be flattered, I am sure. Is
this place of hers a large one?’
‘Balder Hall, Magdalen’s? God bless you, no! I
wish it was. She’s a poor penniless niece of an old bedridden
woman, Miss Martha Strangforth, whom they call
about here “the Immortal,” for they say she will never
die. I daresay Magdalen wishes it were true, for so
long as the old woman lives the girl has a home and a
position. And old Martha’s income dies with her, and
I don’t fancy she has saved much.’
‘Girl—she must be a precocious girl,’ said Eleanor,
sweetly.
‘Oh, the malice of you women!’ said Otho, gnashing
his teeth with virtuous and masculine indignation.
‘When I say “girl,” I’m rather stretching a point. She
is a year or so older than I am—about eight and twenty.
143And it seems to me that precious few women under that
age are worth speaking to.’
‘Well, they certainly should be worth speaking to by
the time they are that age, if ever they intend to be.
But if she is poor and dependent, it seems to me men
ought to be rather careful about going to see her very
often.’
‘For fear she should set traps for them, of course,’
sneered Otho.
‘Oh, not at all. But because other people are sometimes
ill-natured, and a woman who has her way to
make, or who may have her living to earn some time,
cannot be too careful.’
‘Oh, come, Eleanor! When you see her you will
understand that one can’t speak of Magdalen Wynter in
that way. No one could imagine her in any inferior
position. It isn’t in her to take one.’
‘Isn’t it? Well, it is lucky for her if she has some
power that can defy need and want of money. I used
to help Aunt Emily with some charitable works that
she was interested in—governesses’ homes, and ladies’
work societies, and so on; and you would have been
astonished at the terrible cases one used to see, and the
deplorable condition of ladies—ladies of birth and
beauty, with the most terrible tales of the straits to
which poverty and distress had driven them. I used to
lie awake for hours sometimes, wishing I had the
courage to divide my money into a common fund, for
some of the poorest, and go and live with them on equal
terms.’
‘You’ll come to no good if you let that sort of nonsense
get into your head,’ said Otho, gruffly. ‘But it’s
useless to talk. You will understand what I mean when
144you see her,’ he added, feeling that his sister was not
altogether devoid of the obstinacy which was so salient
a feature in his own character. ‘She does not care for
the people about here, you know. In fact, she dislikes
them, and makes great fun of them. And they don’t
care about her; she’s too handsome for them.’
Eleanor made no answer to this, and they rode on in
silence for a little time. Miss Askam did not feel
‘drawn’ to Magdalen by Otho’s description of his friend.
Indeed, it had the very natural effect of putting her
mind into a defensive attitude with regard to the other
woman. Without being any stickler for forms, she
could not understand why Miss Wynter had not called
upon her, perhaps on her aunt’s behalf, or why she was
being thus hurried to see this wonderful penniless
orphan who had no designs upon men, but who disliked
and was disliked by all the other women of the neighbourhood.
‘It looks very much as if I were being taken to
her on approval, for inspection,’ said Eleanor within
herself. Her white teeth showed a little in a not altogether
amiable smile. ‘Well, let it be so. I am committed
to nothing with her. We will see what she is.
I think I can sustain her inspection.’
She also reflected that Otho’s gift of character-drawing
seemed to be in a very undeveloped condition, and she
had more than once noticed, during her short career,
that when men describe women, they very often paint
them, not as they are, but as the women have chosen
that they should find them; and this was very likely
the case with Otho and Miss Wynter.
‘Here we are,’ observed Otho, as they turned in at
the Balder Hall Lodge, rode up to the door, and found
that Miss Wynter was at home.
CHAPTER XIII TWENTY-EIGHT AND TWENTY-TWO
145
Miss Strangforth’s butler threw open the door of an
exquisite little upstairs sitting-room, and announced
Otho and Eleanor. The latter, whose whole mind had
been dwelling in anticipation on the meeting with this
woman whom she disliked in advance, got a sort of jar
through her nerves as, on walking into the room, she
confronted, not only Magdalen luxuriously stretched in
a low easy-chair by the fire, but, much more conspicuous
at the moment, the figure of a man, standing on the
hearth-rug, with his back to the fire. A slight shock
went through her as she encountered the pair of grave
and searching eyes which had been present in her mind
more than once during the last twenty-four hours. It
was Michael Langstroth who looked at her. Eleanor’s
first feeling was an unreasoning one of disappointment.
‘He comes to see her too, then.’ The next was one of
satisfaction. ‘At any rate, I shall now learn who he is.’
Then her attention was drawn to Magdalen, as the
latter rose, with a slight ‘Ah!’ and advanced, saying,
‘Well, Otho, how do you do?’
Eleanor looked at her. She had a rapid general
impression of a tall woman, beautiful both in face and
form, and arrayed in a mouse-coloured velvet gown—a
146woman whose exceedingly white and finely-shaped hands
held some brilliant scarlet wool and ivory knitting-needles;
who had eyes which for darkness and coldness
could not be surpassed, and a sweet and frigid smile.
‘Well,’ Otho retorted, not very gaily; ‘I’ve smashed
through all etiquette and ceremony, I suppose, in doing
this, and brought my sister to see you, instead of waiting
for you to come and see her. Eleanor, this is my friend,
Miss Wynter.’
He led his sister a little forward as he spoke, so that
she was fully displayed to Magdalen’s view; and Miss
Wynter’s eyes encountered a sight she did not often see—a
woman as beautiful as herself, and possessing, too,
the powerful advantage of being six years younger than
she was. Her plain dark riding dress suited to admiration
the frank and hardy youthfulness of the wearer;
for with all her softness of voice and outline, and for all
the rounded grace of her form, there was a hardiness
about Eleanor Askam which gave piquancy to her whole
aspect.
‘It was very good of you, Otho, and exceedingly
good of you, Miss Askam. I was absolutely unable to
go out this afternoon, and I wanted so much to make
your acquaintance.’ She extended her hand to Eleanor,
and smiled her usual smile; one without any flavour of
insincerity, or of sincerity either—a smile which repelled
and displeased Eleanor, she knew not why.
‘Otho seemed extremely anxious about it,’ she said,
coolly and gravely, ‘and I did what he wished me to do.’
Her voice rang out, clear and distinct—no muffled
notes, and no hesitation or pretence of being delighted
to pay the visit. Magdalen noted it all, and replied
sweetly—
147‘Yes; I am so glad you came. Take this easy-chair,
and——Oh, Michael, I beg your pardon.’ She
slurred over an almost inaudible introduction.
‘Miss Askam and I have met already,’ said Michael
with composure. ‘I think I may safely claim the
honour of having been before you in having made her
acquaintance.’
‘No—how?’ exclaimed Magdalen, arrested.
‘Yes,’ said Eleanor, looking at Michael as she seated
herself. ‘I did not know who Mr.——’
‘Langstroth,’ said Michael, speaking for himself.
‘Langstroth,’ repeated Eleanor, with a little bow,
‘was; nor he who I was.’
‘I beg your pardon. I read your name on the label
that was on your bag,’ he remarked; but he neither
bowed nor smiled, though it would have been impossible
to say that his manner was not polite. It was very
much so, but not at all cordial.
‘Mr. Langstroth saved me from getting out a station
too soon,’ she said, turning to Otho, in explanation.
She could not help seeing that his moody countenance
wore anything but one of its lighter expressions. He
stood stiffly, his hat and whip in his hand, and a fleeting
side-glance had shown her that he and the stranger (was
he any relation, she wondered, to Otho’s great friend,
Gilbert Langstroth, who was coming down for Christmas?)
had exchanged a very slight and indifferent
acknowledgment of each other’s presence.
Michael Langstroth, now standing upright, looking
on, betrayed no feeling of any kind as he heard her
remark. It was five years now since he had had a letter
from Magdalen, which had gone near to turning his
brain. Such episodes have the effect upon those who
148receive them of, to use a vulgarism, killing or curing.
Michael had been cured; hence his presence in Magdalen’s
boudoir now; hence his ability to stand by and take in
the comedy of the situation, and to feel decidedly, if a
little sardonically, amused at what was taking place.
He did not sit down again. He wished Magdalen
good afternoon; and Eleanor noticed that, although
polite—she had a strong conviction that under no
possible combination of circumstances could he be impolite—he
was not what could be called genial. He
was grave and distant, and however slight this gravity
and distance, they were present, and Eleanor, keenly
sensitive to manner and expression, noticed them
instantly. Michael said he would call again in a few
days, bowed to them all, and took his departure.
‘Now, Otho,’ said Miss Wynter, almost before Michael
had left the room, ‘I have something to tell you. I had
better do it now, before I forget. Briggs has got a very
wonderful colt to show you, and has been expressing the
most ardent longing——’
‘Briggs—a colt!’ exclaimed Otho, with unaffected
interest and animation; ‘I’ll go to him this minute. I
suppose he is at the stables?’
‘I suppose so—somewhere there,’ replied Magdalen
nonchalantly; and Otho disappeared instantly, while
Eleanor sat still, feeling intensely displeased, less at
what was actually said and done than at the tone and
the manner of it. Fine-tempered and incapable of
behaving with insolence or impertinence to any inferior,
it yet seemed to her that Magdalen was scarcely in a
position to order Otho to the stables, so that she might
be left alone with his sister; or, indeed, to call him by
his Christian name, and almost openly to hint that she
149wanted him out of the way—unless, indeed, she were
engaged to be married to him, which Eleanor, with a
sudden sense of apprehension, hoped she was not; and
recalling Otho’s dissertations on their ride hither, she
felt it was scarcely possible that he could be.
While she was thinking these thoughts, and while
the shadow of them was on her too expressive countenance,
Magdalen sank back in her chair, watching her
visitor keenly, if unobtrusively. When she addressed
her, she spoke with a smile, but her eyes, Eleanor
noticed, did not in the least partake of the smile upon
her lips. She smiled, not because she felt pleased, or
genial, or mirthful, but mechanically—because it is the
custom to smile when you receive your guests.
Eleanor, on her part, was conscious of liking less and
less the aroma, as it were, of Miss Wynter and her
surroundings; but she was aware that this was blind
prejudice, and was determined to overcome it if she
could. She was very young, and Otho had not been
wrong when he had described her as enthusiastic; but
she felt a kind of mental and moral chill, or ever she
had really entered into conversation with this woman,
who had, as it were, been so suddenly flung across her
path, and who, she began to realise, must be a powerful
influence in Otho’s life. It must be so, she reflected, or
he would not thus have been eager to bring them together,
and then as eager to leave them alone. Alone,
for what?—to discover the innate and latent points of
sympathy between them, and to rejoice in them, or to
fight out their radical differences to the bitter end?
CHAPTER XIV THRUST AND PARRY
150
‘Of course you are quite strange to Bradstane?’ began
Magdalen.
‘Yes, quite—at least, practically so. I can’t recall
much about it. In fact, I’m strange to the north altogether,
except Scotland—staying at hotels or shooting-boxes,
you know.’
‘Ah, yes. Those are luxuries for the rich,’ said
Magdalen, whose whole person, attire, and surroundings
breathed an atmosphere of more than riches, of extravagance.
‘I may say I have never been in the south, for
I haven’t, except to Bournemouth, with my aunt. Well,
I wonder how you will “like,” as they say here. The
society of Bradstane is a little peculiar. It is not intellectual—Eleanor
felt a little surprise at this; Magdalen
herself had not struck her as looking intellectual—‘and
it is not by any means lively. And I suppose you have
been accustomed to a good deal of variety in your life?’
‘Not lately. Six months ago, my aunt, Mrs. Stanley,
who has been my second mother, died very suddenly.
We have had a very quiet and a very sad house ever
since, and if Bradstane were ever so gay, I should not
be going out much now.’
‘Ah, yes, very sad—Otho mentioned your loss,’ murmured
151Magdalen, who, with the self-absorption of her
kind, had forgotten Eleanor’s account of her uncle’s
condition.
‘And then,’ added Eleanor, feeling her heart beating
just a little faster, but marching straight into the fray, ‘I
have Otho. I hope to see something of him now. He
is my only brother, and I have been much separated
from him.’
‘Ah, your brother,’ said Magdalen, all at once discarding
her purring tone, and taking up her knitting,
with the expression of one who has just come to some
mental decision. ‘He was the attraction, was he?’
‘Hateful woman!’ said Eleanor within herself. ‘She
thinks he is her property, and that I am come to dispute
him with her. So I have, and so I will.’ Then aloud,
‘Certainly, he was an attraction, if it needed a great
attraction to make me wish to visit my own home, after so
many years. Besides, who knows how long I may have
the chance to be with him, and get to know him? I am
astonished that he has not married before now.’
A slight pause. Eleanor herself was surprised to find
in what style she was talking; but something in the very
presence of the other woman seemed to arouse her pugnacity,
and to place her in an almost aggressive attitude.
‘At any rate, while I have the field to myself, I mean
to let Otho know that he has a sister,’ she pursued, with
a slight laugh.
‘Highly commendable,’ said Magdalen, either with
constraint or a slight sneer; it would have been difficult
to say which.
‘He is a great friend of yours, I find,’ continued
Eleanor, looking directly at Magdalen, who made no
reply to the words. Eleanor paused a moment, and
152then took her course. She was really anxious to learn,
if she could, the extent of this woman’s influence over
her brother; but more than that, to get to know whether
she were a sincere woman, or a false one. She would
feign a tender interest in Otho’s affairs, and a sisterly
solicitude for his welfare. As a matter of fact, she knew
nothing of the said affairs, nor whether well or ill might
be the word to apply to his spiritual condition. She
would try to discover. It was a hardy resolution, with
such a woman as Magdalen for her opponent, but want
of courage was not one of Eleanor’s defects.
‘It seems so strange,’ she presently went on, in a
musing tone, ‘that you, living in the same place and being
his friend, must have seen him often, and know him quite
well, while I, his own sister, scarcely know anything
about him.’
‘You think that is a great loss, I suppose?’
‘Well, yes, I do. I think I ought to know about him—good
or bad. It seems to me unnatural that I should
not. I wish you would tell me something about him,
Miss Wynter. It really seems as though he had left us
on purpose that we might discuss him.’
‘Why discuss him at all?’
‘Well,’ said Eleanor with a smile, ‘I don’t think you
and I can have many objects of mutual interest to talk
about. Otho is one, obviously—my brother and your
friend. I think it is most natural to talk about him.
From what he said of you, I am sure you must know
a great deal of his character and disposition. He is
very reserved, I think. I want to get on with him, of
course. Can’t you tell me something of his tastes and
habits?’
Miss Wynter’s white eyelids drooped, but quivered
153not. Her fingers flew in and out of the scarlet wool,
and the ivory needles made a pleasant, dull clicking.
What she thought with cold annoyance was, that Eleanor
was impertinent and inquisitive, devoid of tact and savoir
faire. (No one knew better than Eleanor herself that
her present conduct was scarcely conventional, but she
felt that she did not much care what it was, so long as
she rode away from Balder Hall possessed of definite
views as to Magdalen’s goodness or badness, and she
rather hoped the conversation would disclose badness.)
If the young woman were put down at once and promptly,
Magdalen argued, she might perhaps profit by the lesson;
if not, if encouraged in the least, she was almost certain
to become very troublesome. So she said—
‘My dear child, you surely do not suppose that
because a man comes once or twice a week and chats
with one for an hour or two, or even spends a whole
afternoon in one’s society, that he necessarily reveals to
one anything of his real habits or character?’
‘It depends on what his habits may be, of course,’
said Eleanor with gravity; and, in spite of telling herself
that she was acting a part, she felt a vague uneasiness,
which vexed her like a coming trouble whenever any
question arose of Otho and his doings. It was not the
first time she had felt it. Dim reports of his fastness and
strange habits had penetrated even to her well-sheltered
home with the Stanleys; and more than once her
uncle had said to her, ‘My dear, I’m afraid your brother
spends a good deal of money in a very reckless way.’
‘It depends on what his habits may be,’ she repeated;
‘but he could not come so often as that and not show
something of his character—or disposition, perhaps I
should say.’
154‘Well, you will see him daily, now that you have
come to live with him—possibly for many hours in each
day. I see him, at the most, once or twice a week, for
an hour, or perhaps two hours. It is obvious that your
opportunities will be incomparably greater than mine
have been. Don’t you think you had better study his
character at first hand—if you are interested in it,
that is?’
‘If I am interested—in my own brother?’
‘I see you have very enthusiastic ideas, and quite
orthodox ones, about brothers and sisters loving each
other, however dissimilar in character and disposition
they may be’ (Eleanor repressed a smile. She had not
expressed any such views), ‘just because they are
brothers and sisters. But, you know, it is not wise to
take your impressions of any one in whom you are interested
from a third person. How can you know what
feelings and what motives might influence me in speaking
to you of him——’
‘Oh, Miss Wynter, would Otho have brought me here
if you had had a bad influence over him? He thinks so
much of you,’ said Eleanor, seeing that Magdalen had
accepted her (Eleanor’s) presentation of herself, and
feeling that her rôle was now an easy one to play.
‘No,’ pursued Miss Wynter, apparently unheeding
Eleanor’s last remark; ‘study him and his character at
your ease, by yourself, and don’t worry yourself about
it. As for his habits—now, this advice really comes
from my heart, Miss Askam,’ and Magdalen laid down
her work and looked with cold earnestness at her companion—‘if
he were younger than you, or in any way in
your keeping or under your control, it would clearly be
your duty to become acquainted with his incomings and
155outgoings, and to supervise his proceedings. But just
the reverse is the case. He is older than you by several
years; he is his own master, and has been so for many
years, accustomed to consult himself alone—you little
know how much himself alone—in the management of
his own affairs. He knows his own aims and wishes, if
he has any. Let me advise you, if you wish to have a
shadow of influence over him, never to interfere, by word,
look, or deed, with anything that he may choose to do.
I do not say that by this course you will gain an influence
over him, but I say that if you do not observe it,
you will lose every chance of ever gaining one. He will
not brook the least appearance of meddling——’
‘But, indeed, I do not want——’ began Eleanor,
astounded at the revelation her ruse had called forth—amazed
at the depths of angry feeling which she saw
quickly enough were surging under that composed exterior
called Magdalen Wynter. But Magdalen had
begun her exhortation, and was not to be easily stopped.
In the same cold but energetic style she went on—
‘If you once let him see that you think his affairs are
anything to you, your chance is gone.’
‘My chance—of what?’ thought Eleanor, looking, as
she now felt, very grave.
Magdalen saw this gravity. Her thought was, ‘Silly,
sentimental creature! The idea of coming rushing in
with a mission or a vocation to improve her brother!
Some women never will learn.’ Then, after a moment’s
pause, she continued—
‘Men are odd, you know. If they do wrong, yes, even
if they wrong you—if they do something flagrantly unjust,
and you reproach them, or scold them, or try to
make them see how bad they have been, what good does
156it do? It does not make them sorry or ashamed, but
it makes them think you very disagreeable; it makes
them angry with you for dictating to them; it makes
them cease to have any wish to please you, or any regard
for you. Let him alone, unless you wish to make mischief.
You understand me, I daresay?’
‘I’m afraid I understand that my brother’s habits are
not what they should be.’
‘That is a very hasty conclusion, and shows that
you certainly have not understood me. If I must speak
so very plainly——’
‘I do not wish to interfere with him,’ said Eleanor,
with a shade of hauteur; but she was uneasy, and an
anxious colour had begun to burn on either cheek. She
had come hither against her will. She had disliked
Magdalen from Otho’s talk of her, had disliked her more
on seeing and conversing with her, and had descended to
subterfuge, to find out her thoughts about her brother.
She was pure of any wish to be a missionary to Otho,
which was evidently what Magdalen had gathered to be
her object; but she had unwittingly called forth an indirect
characterisation of her brother—and that from one
who evidently knew him well, and was tenacious of her
hold on him—which roused her deepest uneasiness.
After the last words there was a pause, and then Eleanor
said slowly, and wishing the while that she had not begun
the conversation—
‘And I have no doubt that you know far more about
him than I do.’
‘You credit me with a great deal of very important
knowledge,’ said Magdalen, coldly and sweetly. ‘All I can
say is, that if I possessed that knowledge to the full, I
should not think of imparting it to you—not for a moment.
157And let me remind you that, whether he be good or bad,
I am not your brother’s keeper. I think he is quite
competent to take care of himself.’
‘I was not dreaming of assuming any such office,’
Eleanor said, fully convinced from Magdalen’s tone that
she did feel herself to be Otho’s keeper, in a sense; that
she liked the proprietorship, and meant to fight for her
possession of it, if it were disputed. The idea of entering
the lists with her filled Eleanor with disgust. Her
impressions, could she have reduced them to their
simplest form, were that Otho was not what he ought to
be in the matter of conduct, and that Magdalen knew a
good deal more about him than she chose to tell. Miss
Wynter, however, seemed to consider the subject at an
end, and to assume that Eleanor had found out her
mistake. She herself began with a new subject.
‘How came you to know Michael Langstroth?’ she
inquired, with her sweetest smile.
‘Oh, I don’t consider that I know him. Did you not
hear what I said to Otho? He got into the carriage I
was in, at a station near Tebay. He seemed in a great
hurry, and jumped in as the train was setting off——’
‘Just like him!’
‘A porter at Tebay had told me that the station after
this one at which Mr. Langstroth got in would be Bradstane,
so I was collecting my things, and I suppose he
saw from that label on my bag where I was really going;
for he said, “Are you getting out at Cotherstone?”
Then, of course, I explained, and he explained, and it
was all right. He got out at Cotherstone, and I came on
to Bradstane.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Magdalen, who had listened attentively,
and watched no less attentively the manner and gestures
158of the speaker. ‘He has such long distances to go in a
country place like this.’
‘Do they call him “Doctor” Langstroth here?’
‘Yes, they all do. It is a country habit. He “doctors”
them, so he is “the doctor;” but he practises as a
surgeon.’
‘Is he a friend of yours, then?’
‘I have known him intimately for many years.’
‘Otho says that some one whom he called “Gilbert
Langstroth” is his greatest friend. Is he any relation
of this Mr. Langstroth?’
‘Brother.’
‘Indeed! But Otho seemed not to know Dr. Langstroth
very well.’
‘They are not devoted to each other.’
‘Have they quarrelled?’
It could hardly be that these questions of Eleanor’s,
put in all innocence and good faith, were agreeable to
Magdalen. Perhaps, when she asked Otho to bring his
sister soon, she had foreseen some such catechism. Perhaps
she had reflected that the old facts of her engagement
to Michael and its rupture, and the reasons assigned
for it, must surely, sooner or later, come to Eleanor
Askam’s ears, since they were public property, and it
was not the fashion in Bradstane to hide any treasure,
however minute, of fact or fiction, gossip or scandal,
which had once gained credence in the public mind.
Why not, she may have reflected, let Eleanor hear the
story from herself, and so at any rate gain that first hearing
which is supposed to go such a long way towards
deciding the final verdict? She knew quite well that,
along with the simple account of her own engagement to
Michael, and of its having been broken off, Eleanor
159would likewise hear that she, Magdalen, had jilted
Michael, hoping to be married by Otho Askam. That,
whether true or not, was what was said, and Magdalen
knew it as well as if she had heard it herself. She knew,
too, that women had laughed at her, and did laugh at
her yet, because she had thrown Michael over, they said,
and not secured Otho. People did not say those things
to her, of course, but she knew that they were said, and
that they would be said to Eleanor. Grievous though the
questions of the latter might appear to her, therefore, it
might have been still more grievous to know that Eleanor
was seated in other drawing-rooms, hearing other versions
of the story.
‘Oh, it is a long tale, rather,’ said she; and she related
correctly enough the history of the two brothers, not
mentioning her own relations to Michael, but watching
Eleanor with interest. She saw how the girl’s eyes
gradually kindled, and her lips parted, as she heard, and
seemed almost to foresee the end of the tale. She leaned
forward eagerly as Magdalen wound up with the story
of the will and its directions, and how Michael had
received the blow.
‘Yes?’ said Eleanor.
‘When he found that his father’s house was all that
belonged to him, the first thing he did was to turn
Gilbert out of it, calling him traitor, and saying he had
lost his brother. He drove him out that instant, you
know, on the spot.’
‘He was right,’ exclaimed Eleanor, in a deep voice,
which showed how great had been her interest and her
suspense; and as she spoke, she struck her riding whip
emphatically across her left hand, and looked up with a
frown. ‘I would have done the same. Cowardly, snakelike
160traitor!’ The instinct of the fighting animal was
strong in Eleanor, as it is in most healthy creatures.
‘You think so? A great many other persons thought
the same; and a great lawyer, a friend of Michael’s,
wanted him to dispute the will.’
‘And did he?’
‘Michael dispute it! My dear Miss Askam, he is far
too haughty and high-flown to descend to any such mundane
method of settling the matter. He said he washed his
hands of it, and left his brother Gilbert to his conscience.
He refused to touch any of the sum which was left him—or
rather, to Gilbert, to manage for him. He said he
had a profession which would keep him from starvation,
and a roof to cover him—he would have no more.’
‘I agree with him,’ said Eleanor, still very emphatically;
and she lifted her eyes, filled with the feeling that
was in her, and her whole countenance brightened with
an ennobling light, the result of inner exaltation, and
as Magdalen met this gaze, her own eyes dilated, a look
of something like affright crossed her face; she said
quickly and coldly—
‘It sounds very well—very grand, does it not? Quite
heroic, in fact.’
‘I think it was very fine—very high.’
‘It sounds so, and it was so, in a way. But when one
comes down to the dull regions of common sense, as one
always has to do in the end, it does not work very well.
For instance, that high resolution that you admire so
much was the rock that Michael and I split upon.’
‘Michael—and you,’ repeated Eleanor mechanically,
looking at Magdalen with a new expression, and with all
the glow fading from her eyes.
‘Yes, exactly. When Mr. Langstroth died, his son
161and I had been engaged three years. We had always
looked forward to being married—at least, I had—when
our prospects improved. But when all this came out, and
it was evident that Michael would have no assistance,
and even refused what he might have had, there was an
end to all that, of course. He was not well off. He
never will be. He has not the spirit of—I won’t say
money-making, but of the most ordinary providence for
the future. When he refused the provision that had
been made for him, I knew that meant that I must give
him up, and I did so. We have only been friends ever
since, and——’
‘You gave him up, then—oh, Miss Wynter, how could
you?’ Eleanor had exclaimed, before she knew what she
was saying. The next moment she felt that she had
committed an indiscretion, but she scarcely improved
the situation by hastily exclaiming, ‘Oh, I beg your
pardon!’
‘There is no need,’ said Magdalen, quite composedly.
‘One cannot enter into the details of such things with
strangers. I acted, as I thought, for the best. Poor
Michael! He is such a fine fellow in some ways, but so
utterly, so hopelessly unpractical. He is not fit for his
position, or for the present age; and yet he is so loyal,
so true. I do not believe he ever cared, or ever will care,
for any woman but me,’ she added, looking pensively at
Eleanor as she spoke. ‘That sounds rather a self-confident
thing to say, does it not? but I have known him
so long—I have good grounds for thinking that I am
right. He is not like those men who love here a day,
and there a day, and another day somewhere else.... Poor
Michael!’
While she spoke, Eleanor felt her heart as heavy as
162lead within her. If Magdalen Wynter and Gilbert
Langstroth were Otho’s friends, and beloved of him, and
this other man was shut out and disliked—yes, her idea
that Magdalen knew more about Otho than she would
say must be correct, and it seemed as if the whole thing
were painful and discordant. But she supposed Miss
Wynter must possess unusual powers of fascination,
since Michael, after being treated by her in a manner
which even her representations could not make to appear
creditable, remained her friend. Had he not been seated
there when they arrived?
Pondering painfully on this problem, she was roused
by the opening of the parlour door, and looked up quickly,
in the hope that it might be Otho, and that they would
soon escape from this room, which had become a place
that oppressed her.
CHAPTER XV THREE WOMEN
163
‘Miss Dixon to see you, ma’am,’ said the servant.
Eleanor looked on with some interest, as Magdalen
greeted the young woman who entered—greeted her in
a manner which, though cordial, was decidedly a patronising
manner. Eleanor saw that the girl’s eyes fell almost
instantly upon her, and dwelt upon her, surveying her
with an eagerness and a curiosity which puzzled and
somewhat annoyed her. Miss Askam saw, too, that the
new-comer, though Magdalen spoke to her in a tone
almost of intimacy, was not a lady, as the term is usually
understood.
‘This is Miss Ada Dixon,’ observed Magdalen; ‘a
friend of mine, who comes to sing with me sometimes.
Ada, Miss Askam.’
Eleanor bowed to the young girl, who returned the
movement with a somewhat affected contortion of the
body, and said, ‘How do you do, Miss Askam?’ all in
a certain manner which, while it could scarcely be called
vulgar or awkward, was yet most distinctly not the
manner of one accustomed to good society, or feeling at
her ease in it. Eleanor looked at her with some curiosity.
She saw an extremely pretty, slight girl, with a small
face, of classical purity and correctness of outline, light
164hazel eyes, a delicate complexion, a pretty mignonne
figure, dressed in the most outré of would-be fashionable
styles,—such second-rate, nay, third or fourth rate
fashion as Bradstane milliners and dressmakers could
supply, aggravated by an entire want in the wearer of
any sense of harmony or fitness. She had piled upon
her pretty little person many strange mixtures of material
and structures of garments. A tightly fitting winter
jacket, for example, of thick cloth, trimmed with fur,
was a not unsuitable garment for the season; but, instead
of the serviceable silk neckerchief one would have expected
to see worn with it, Miss Dixon had on a large
and conspicuous arrangement of white lace, muslin, and
blue ribbon, inclined to puff up under her chin in an
unmanageable way, but kept within bounds by a massive
silver locket and chain. This was but one example of the
innumerable errors of taste and style which characterised
the girl’s toilette; and yet, so pretty was she, so fresh
and charming in her prettiness, that one forgot to criticise
very severely such minor matters as clashing colours
and incongruous materials.
‘And how are you, Ada?’ asked Miss Wynter.
‘Very well, thank you, Miss Wynter. There’s
nothing ails me, that I know of.’
‘You’ll have a cup of tea, I daresay. Have you
walked from Bradstane?’
‘Yes, Miss Wynter, I have.’
‘And how are you going to get home?’
‘I’m to leave here at half-past six, if you can do with
me so long, and then Mr. Camm will meet me at the
gate, he said.’
‘Meet you at the gate? Did you not ask him to
come in?’
165‘I did say that you’d told me to bring him in, Miss
Wynter; but he never will. It’s no use. He has no
more manners than a cat, and so I often tell him. I’m
sure I’ve said many a time how bad it looks for him to
come just so far for me, and not any farther.’
‘Oh, I think Mr. Camm is not very fond of me.’
‘Oh, Miss Wynter, I assure you——’ began Ada,
reddening vividly.
‘There, never mind. Young men will do their own
way, I know. You must know, Miss Askam,’ she added,
turning to Eleanor, ‘Miss Dixon has a stalwart protector
in the shape of her betrothed, Mr. Roger Camm.’
‘Oh, indeed.’
‘He is Dr. Langstroth’s greatest friend, you know,’
pursued Magdalen. ‘They live in the same house,
and are quite inseparable.’
‘Yes,’ said Eleanor, wondering within herself whether
this Roger Camm formed, intellectually or socially, any
connecting link between Michael Langstroth and Ada
Dixon, for it appeared to her that there was a considerable
distance between them in every way.
Ada had now finished her tea. Of course, she did
not reveal to her hostess that Roger Camm had said
nothing would induce him to set foot within the Balder
Hall walls, but that he would walk the two miles from
Bradstane to meet his sweetheart, rather than let her
return alone in the dark, or be dependent upon Miss
Wynter’s good nature for an escort or a carriage.
‘Would you mind giving us a song, Ada?’ said the
latter. ‘I am sure Miss Askam would like it, and I
want to hear how you have progressed since the last
time I heard you.’
‘Oh, with pleasure,pleasure,’ said Ada, with an undeniable
166simper, as she pulled off her gloves and went to the
piano. She unrolled some music, sat down, and had
just run her fingers over the keys, when the door was
again opened, and this time it was Otho who walked in.
He paused a moment, looked round, and then said—
‘Holloa, Ada; you here! How do?’ And he nodded
to her.
‘How do you do, Mr. Askam?’ said the girl, colouring
a little, as she rose from the music-stool and made a
kind of bow.
‘Now, don’t let Mr. Askam prevent us from hearing
your song, child,’ said Magdalen, as Otho seated himself
near her, and began to talk in a low voice.
Eleanor had watched the scene with a sense of displeasure,
ill-defined, but strong. She now perceived
that Ada had become nervous—that she cleared her
throat, and did not seem quite able to begin. Thinking
it was too bad of Magdalen to treat the girl in this way,
and insist upon her singing before two perfect strangers,
when she had very likely expected no other audience
than her hostess herself, Eleanor, with the instinct which
never failed her in such cases, rose and went to the
piano.
‘What is your song called, Miss Dixon?’ she asked,
kindly. ‘I will turn over the leaves for you, if I may.’
‘Oh, thank you, Miss Askam!’ said Ada, evidently
much relieved.
Eleanor casually wondered why she should insist upon
saying the name of every person to whom she spoke
every time she addressed them. Magdalen and Otho
interrupted their conversation for a moment, to look and
listen, then resumed it as if no one but themselves were
present.
167Ada began to sing, in a fresh, tuneful soprano voice,
a simple unaffected ditty which Eleanor rightly conjectured
had been chosen for, rather than by her. It was
a bright, rather pathetic little song, all about faith and
love and the rewards of constancy, and when it was over
Eleanor was able conscientiously to say—
‘Thank you very much. It is a very pretty song.’
Otho also murmured something, intended perhaps for
thanks; and then Eleanor, who felt jarred and vexed in
every nerve, from the uncongenial conversation in which
she had lately partaken, wished Magdalen good afternoon.
‘Oh, are you going?’ exclaimed the latter. ‘Why
must you go so soon?’
‘It is dark, and I think I have been here a good
while. Are you ready, Otho?’
Otho looked at his sister for a moment. Then he
also took his leave, and very soon they were riding
away, side by side, down the avenue of the Balder Hall
drive.
Eleanor drew a long breath as they went out at the
gates, and emerged upon the high-road. She was conscious
of a feeling of weariness, of a wish for a little cold
fresh air—something bracing—and of a hope that Otho
would not ask her anything about Miss Wynter. In
that she was disappointed, for he inquired almost immediately
what she thought of her.
‘I do not like her much, Otho,’ she said, as gently as
she could. ‘It may be prejudice on my part, and one
cannot tell after seeing a person for the first time, but
there is something—I can hardly define it—a tone about
her that I do not like.’
‘Just like a girl,’ said Otho, in a surly tone. ‘And
168scarcely any women do like Magdalen. They can’t forgive
her for being so handsome.’
‘She is very handsome indeed. Perhaps I may like
her better when—or if I learn to know more of her. I
should be sorry to dislike a friend of yours. But I must
own that I could not get to like her, this afternoon.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose your likes or dislikes are of
much importance to her,’ he said, roughly.
‘Not of the very least, I should think. It is to me
that they are important, especially if I see much of Miss
Wynter. By the way, who was that girl who came in?
I could not quite understand her.’
‘Oh, she’s a protégée of Magdalen’s—has been for
years—a daughter of Dixon the stationer in the town.
A queer little rat, isn’t she, who tries to ape the ways of
fine ladies. She’s engaged to a very rough diamond of
a man—anything but a fine gentleman; and I should
have thought a counter-jumper or a commercial gent
would have been more in her line. But no, she’s going
to marry this fellow. Roger Camm is his name. He is
the manager at the Townend Mills, which Gilbert
Langstroth and I work together. I don’t like the
fellow. He is so uppish, and yet he is so first-rate in
his work, that if I sacked him I should not know where
to put my hand on any one else like him.’
‘A friend of Dr. Langstroth’s, Miss Wynter said.’
‘Yes, and that does not make me love him any the
better, I can tell you.’
‘You don’t like Dr. Langstroth?’
‘Like him!’ echoed Otho, with brutal candour. ‘I
hate him. A wild, vapouring, sentimental fellow, that
the women all rave about—why, I can’t imagine, for
his ways are cold enough to them, for all his handsome
169face. He sets up to know better than any one else. In
fact, he’s a conceited prig, that’s what Michael Langstroth
is. The place would be well rid of him, in my
opinion, if he’d only have the goodness to leave it. His
brother Gilbert is worth a thousand of him.’
‘In what way?’ asked Eleanor curtly.
‘In common sense, and knowledge of the world, and—everything
that goes to make a man,’ said Otho, angrily.
Eleanor hearkened, but made no reply to his words.
She had not yet been with him twenty-four hours, but
she already had an intuitive feeling as to what subjects
would and would not be congenial to him.
‘I see you’ve been hearing that old tale, have you?’
Otho went on, glancing at her. ‘Magdalen has been
improving the shining hour, I perceive. But she does
not usually slang Gilbert.’
‘She did not “slang” anybody, as you call it,’ said
Eleanor, feeling ever a deeper repugnance as Otho more
fully unfolded his views upon men and things, in
language, too, of increasing nicety of expression.
‘There are always two sides to a question,’ he went on,
‘and some people seem to me to forget that, but for
Gilbert, his father would have had no money to leave;
so that he was entitled to a voice in the disposal of it, if
ever man was. His brother treated him like a dog at
that time. I’ve always hated him for it, and I like to
flaunt Gilbert in his face when he comes to stay with
me. And as for Magdalen jilting Michael Langstroth,
as they call it—jilting him!’ Otho sneered—‘I don’t see
why a woman is to be called a jilt because, when she
has given a man full three years’ trial, and at the end
of the time finds that he is as far off as ever from being
able to keep her, and has chucked up the one chance
170there was of being provided for, she writes and tells him
she thinks there had better be an end to it. And that’s
about what did happen between them.’
Eleanor made no reply to this further explanation of
Otho’s views. She felt disgusted—it was the only word
for her condition. She felt as if she would like to
make her opinion known to both Otho and Magdalen,
upon this question of their conduct to Michael Langstroth.
It was the first time in her life that she had been
brought in contact with such doings as seemed to have
been going on here. Long ago they had taken place,
these ugly evil deeds of falsehood and injustice! Their
effect upon the perpetrators did not seem to have been
that of making them more urbane in manner, happy
in disposition, or lofty in character. Poor Eleanor still
felt very strong—felt as if she could cope with any fate
that presented itself to her. But even now she did not
feel so buoyant as before. The scenes she had that
afternoon passed through struck deep root in her
memory: Magdalen’s cold, unattractive beauty, her
cynicism, and the fear, which she had not been able
quite to conceal, lest she was going to lose her hold over
Otho (what was that hold? Eleanor wondered); Otho,
talking, self-assertive, abusive, and, as Eleanor felt, deep
down in her heart—miserable; Michael Langstroth, with
whom she had been struck on their first meeting, and
who haunted her, now that she knew his history, with
his dark face, grave and almost stern, his eyes, bent
upon her and Magdalen with, it seemed to her, the same
expression for both—one of cold, imperturbable politeness
and perfect indifference; the little dressed-up doll, with
her fifth-rate airs and graces;—the whole entertainment
had repelled and disgusted her. She would not cultivate
171Magdalen’s acquaintance, if she were doomed not
to have another friend in Bradstane. And as for Dr.
Langstroth, was he Magdalen’s friend still? She had
said so, but nothing in his manner or expression had
confirmed it.
‘I wish I knew,’ Eleanor said to herself, as they
stopped at their own hall-door. ‘I wonder he ever
condescended to speak to her again. It’s the only thing
about him that seems inexplicable,’ was her further
reflection, as Otho lifted her from her horse.
CHAPTER XVI A FRIENDSHIP EXPLAINED
172
Michael, tired himself, threw himself on to his tired
horse when he left Magdalen’s parlour, and rode down
the drive and into the high-road. He had had a long
and hard day, and there was weariness visible in the
paleness of his face, which was a thinner and an older
face than it had been.
But there was a theme in his mind, occupying it to
the exclusion of his weariness, and this it was which
engrossed him as he rode towards Bradstane.
‘So that is Otho Askam’s sister?’ he reflected. ‘I had
nearly forgotten that he had a sister. Somehow, one
never associates him with human, kindly connections of
that kind. I remember her now, though, when we used
to be children together in the Thorsgarth garden. She
wore a blue velvet frock, I remember, and little kid
shoes. I used to think her a pretty little thing. She is
something more than a pretty little thing now, though’—he
smiled a little to himself—‘rather a superb young
woman, I should say, and, judging from all one can
gather from a flying glimpse and a few words about the
antipodes of her brother in everything—yes, I should
say everything. I wonder if she knows about his
character? I wonder how she got to Balder Hall so
173soon after her arrival? With him for a brother, and
Magdalen for a friend—she is splendidly equipped, and
need fear nothing, morally or socially.... She is a
beautiful girl. Such eyes, and such a fine expression.’
Thinking such thoughts, he presently arrived at the
Red Gables, where he had to devote himself to work till
Roger came in for dinner. Eleanor had wondered, after
she had heard Michael’s story, how he had been able to
remain on terms of politeness with Magdalen, who said
plainly that he was her friend still. But Magdalen had
given no recital of the steps by which she and Michael
had arrived at their present degree of mutual courtesy and
neutrality. It was hardly likely that she should, when
such a recital must have laid bare the very eye and core
of her own humiliation, of the degradation which was
constantly present in her consciousness, and of the
disappointment and the failure which made her see all
things in the light of bitterness and cynicism.
She had broken with Michael, suddenly, promptly,
and pitilessly: she had not stayed her hand, she had
not softened her expressions; she had dealt a blow
which she knew might ruin his life, and that knowledge
had not deterred her, or caused her hand to tremble as
she struck. She had sent Michael—a broken man, as
he thought—to recover his health, moral and physical,
as best he might; and he had returned, saying he was
glad that nothing remained of the man who had been
Michael Langstroth, since that man had been a great fool.
When things have happened to a man which make
him feel as if the sun had fallen out of the heavens, and
the stars changed their courses, he is, no doubt, a little
apt to feel astounded on finding, after a time, that it
was not the sun nor the stars, but himself who was disturbed
174and jolted out of his old orbit into a new one. But
let him be astonished as much as he will—let him even
be indignant, as he very often is, at such vagaries of the
universe so distressing him—he cannot alter things.
The sun goes on shining, and the stars pursue their
appointed march, and by and by he—to descend from
great things to small ones—also falls into some sort of
progress, be it march, or shamble, or shuffle, or steady
struggle onwards and upwards. This always happens
if the man be a very man, and not an amorphous sort
of thing without backbone or sinew.
In obedience to this law it had come to pass that
Michael Langstroth, five years after he had been stricken
down, found himself able to stand upright—found that
he was still living, moving, working; could laugh when
a joke tickled him, which it did pretty often; could feel
hungry when he had fasted, and thought perhaps a little
more of the nature of the provision set before him than
he had formerly done. This last trait was, no doubt, if
one argues rightly, a powerful sign that if he moved
now easily enough, still it was in a different way, and
on a different platform from the old ones.
On his return from Hastings, after the illness which
followed his father’s death and Magdalen’s repudiation
of him, Dr. Rowntree had attacked him, and gone near
to kill him with kindness of a very practical sort; insisting
that he was an old man, tired of hard work, who had
long been wanting to retire, and had only been waiting
till Michael should be ready to take his place. All
tenders of payment for his generosity he had firmly and
steadily put aside, till Michael had been forced to stop
any such suggestions. He had finally accepted the
doctor’s goodness, as the latter had fully made up his
175mind that he should; and so it came to pass that, soon
after his return to work, Michael had found himself in
possession of a practice of his own, and also that the
retirement of his old friend had called a rival into the
field, another surgeon, who perhaps thought that the
Bradstane circuit was too large for the unaided management
of one man. Thus Michael, while he became
better off than he had ever been before, in a pecuniary
point of view, found at the same time that he must
work with all his might, just to keep the lead—not to
be swamped in the struggle. The practice he now had
was not as lucrative as the practice of the old doctor,
untroubled by any rival, had been, but it was a practice
on which Michael could have afforded that marriage
which had been his goal for three years. When he had
come home and begun work, he had heard many rumours,
many asseverations, even, that Magdalen Wynter and
Otho Askam were to be married. Scandal-mongers said
that she had jilted Michael in order that she might
marry Otho. Michael had to steel his heart and his
nerves and his whole moral man in a triple brazen
armour, in order to receive these assaults without
wincing, and in order to hear without shrinking the
proofs adduced in support of the hypothesis—Otho’s
constant visits, namely, to Balder Hall, and Magdalen’s
graciousness to him. For his own part, with a natural
revulsion of feeling, the result of the demolition of his
blind trust in her, he was firmly persuaded that the
marriage would take place; but it did not. Months
passed by, and the indignation at Magdalen’s infidelity
had merged into ridicule of her failure—if failure it
were, for Otho’s visits to Balder Hall continued with
unabated regularity.
176During these months Michael had never even seen
her, and he took it for granted, without thinking very
much about it, that he was not to see her any more, nor
hold any intercourse with her. Then, one day, a
messenger came in haste from Balder Hall, to Dr.
Rowntree, to say that Miss Strangforth was very ill,
and he was to go to her immediately. But Dr. Rowntree
was not in Bradstane at the moment. Michael was,
and of course there could be no question of hesitating
or debating. He went to Balder Hall; was ushered
straight into Miss Strangforth’s room, where the first
object he saw was Magdalen Wynter’s face, pale and
anxious, raised to look at him as he came in. Michael
had just time to feel that all that he had been sure he
would experience on first meeting her, was conspicuous
by its absence—all that he would have thought it least
likely that he should feel, he felt. It was she who
showed the more agitation of the two. Her eyes fell,
her lips fluttered—she could not meet Michael’s gaze.
She spoke in a low voice, timidly, deprecatingly. From
that moment he felt master of the situation, and of her.
It did not give him a more kindly feeling towards life
in general, or towards Magdalen in particular, but it
made him conscious he was a free man. It was he who
from this day took the lead in the intercourse between
Magdalen and himself—chose how far it should go, laid
down the terms on which they should meet. Magdalen
had said to Eleanor, ‘We have been friends ever since.’
Perhaps Michael would not have contradicted her, even
had she asserted this before his face. But none could
know better than Magdalen herself what Michael in
reality felt for her now—none was better acquainted
than herself with the nature of those ashes left after the
177edifice of his faith in her had been so entirely consumed
and demolished. She knew that she was powerless now
to move him in any way—that he was stronger than
she was, and that, instead of crushing him, she had
exposed herself to the possibility of being crushed by
him. He despised her—she knew it: he esteemed her
no higher than his brother Gilbert, if he did not
choose to visit his contempt upon her in the same way.
She was his ‘friend,’ not because he could not tear
himself away from her presence, but because she had
now become to him a thing of so little consequence
that it was not worth his while to avoid her. He had
never said so to her, but she knew it, and it was more
convenient to say to Eleanor Askam, ‘We are friends,’
than it would have been to explain to her the nature
of the friendship.
And thus it can be understood how Michael this
night thought more of Eleanor Askam, and felt more
interest in her—of a purely speculative kind—than in
the woman he had known and loved for so many years.
He had cut himself off entirely from the Askam clan, as
it were—Gilbert was mixed up with them; Magdalen
and Otho were friends, and Otho was a man whom he
disliked inevitably, from his very nature. The vision
of this bright and beautiful girl, suddenly appearing in a
quarter to which he was accustomed to consider himself
a perfect stranger, had struck him, and he felt interested
in her, as we feel interested in amusing or curious things
with which we do not expect or desire to have any intimacy.
And while he was waiting for Roger to come
in to dinner, and ostensibly reading, he found himself
half-dreaming, for he was sleepy, and ever the vision
before his mental eyes was Magdalen’s scented, warm
178parlour, with its ruddy glow of firelight cheering the
dull afternoon, and the sudden appearance upon the
scene of that bright and beautiful girl, with her open
gaze, and her abundant life and fire.
At last Roger came in, apologising for being late.
‘I went to meet Ada, and it is a good half-hour’s walk
from Balder Hall.’
‘Oh, I’ve been at Balder Hall this afternoon, too.
Who do you think I saw there?’
‘Miss Askam—I’ve heard.’
‘Otho Askam’s sister. That is the light in which I
saw her, I must confess.’
Roger shrugged his shoulders. They were as broad—he
was as big, as clumsy, as saturnine as ever.
‘Ada says she is very handsome.’
‘Ay, she is! Handsome enough to make a sensation
here, I can tell you.’
‘Ah! In her brother’s style?’
‘No, indeed. I should say they had no two points
in common, unless physiognomy lies most atrociously.’
‘Wish her joy, I’m sure, then,’ said Roger, drily.
‘Just what I was thinking. Are you going out again
to-night?’ he added, for they had returned to the library,
and he saw Roger collecting sundry songs and pieces of
music.
‘Yes. The usual rendezvous,’ replied Roger.
‘How go the rehearsals?’
‘First-rate; if she would only leave it to me, and
not go up to Balder Hall after every lesson, to get a
second opinion.’
Michael laughed a little sarcastically.
‘That must be flattering to your amour propre, both
as teacher and betrothed,’ he said.
179‘Very much so. Never mind! When we are wed,
the Balder Hall alliance must come to an end.’
‘Now, I don’t call that fair, but the very reverse,’
said Michael, emphatically. ‘She would have just as
much right to go to Miss Wynter and say, “Never mind!
When we are wed, the Red Gables alliance must come to
an end.”’
‘Oh no! There’s a great difference.’
‘Yes, there is. There is the difference that you could
make her give up Miss Wynter, and that she could not
make you give up me.’
‘No one makes me give up my friend,’ said Roger,
deliberately; ‘neither wife nor mistress, nor any one else.
It is no true wife’s part to wish to separate her husband
and his friends.’
‘A wife has the strictest right to say the same thing
with regard to her husband. And you have not a
shadow of right, Roger, to say she shall not know Miss
Wynter when she is married to you. If you make it a
sine quâ non, you ought to tell her so in advance.’
‘You are very hot about it. I’d as soon she had a
serpent for a friend as——’ He nodded expressively.
‘Well, I say you have no right to say so,’ said
Michael, ‘and I recommend you to think it over on your
way down. You talk about educating her where she is
deficient—poor little thing! but it isn’t education to say
“you shall” and “you shall not.”’
‘You may be right,’ said Roger, deliberately. ‘Only,
please, do me the justice to own that I did not say how
I should stop the alliance. I only said it should come
to an end. There is such a thing as persuasion.’
‘Oh, if you are going to get out of it in that
way——’
180‘Good night,’ said Roger, amiably. ‘Don’t leap so
readily to conclusions another time.’
With which he went out, leaving Michael laughing to
himself.
The latter had once again to turn out in the raw
November air, to see some patients in the town. As he
returned, he passed the shop of Mr. Dixon, the Bradstane
stationer, and looking up, saw a bright light burning
behind the red curtains of the windows on the second
story. Distant sounds of music also came to his ears.
He smiled and sighed, both at once; and in his mind
there were running thoughts, almost identical with those
which Roger Camm had thought of Michael’s own engagement,
eight years ago, to Magdalen Wynter.
‘If she is the girl to make him happy, well and good.
But I wish he had chosen differently. He talks about
marrying into his own sphere—such bosh! Small shopkeepers
are not his sphere, let him say what he likes.
If Ada Dixon had been a squire’s daughter, I suppose he
would have discovered that after all he was a clergyman’s
son, and a gentleman, her social equal. Now it suits
him better to call himself a working man, and say that
like must wed like, to be happy. It is a pity; he might
have had a career, only she drags him back.’
He called at Dr. Rowntree’s, and had half an hour’s
chat with the old man; then back to his own house, his
pipe, and a treatise on some new surgical experiments
with which it behoved him to make acquaintance.
CHAPTER XVII ROGER CAMM’S COURTING
181
Roger Camm, in the meantime, had carried himself, with
his roll of music in his hand, to see his betrothed at her
father’s house, and was having a less delightful time of
it, perhaps, than Michael pictured to himself.
The Dixon ménage had in no way fallen off, either in
substantial internal comfort or in outward vulgarity and
pretentiousness. Mrs. Dixon was even more bent upon
rising in the world than her husband: he still adhered
to the legitimate means by which a man may get on,
by steady attention to his business and judicious retail
impositions, which, when counted up at the end of the
year, generally amounted to a nice little wholesale sum.
Mrs. Dixon had, however, advanced in breadth of view
as years had passed. She held by the doctrine that
children were bound to help their parents, and she looked
to Ada to help them in pushing the family fortunes.
Mr. Dixon was what himself and his neighbours called
a warm man, but he was cautious about bragging of his
comfortableness and his competence. He looked the
brag instead of speaking it. He had exalted views as
to his own position and importance, but they were
tempered by a strong mixture of the strictest and
sternest common sense.
182Ada had returned to them just before she was seventeen,
nearly two years ago, a finished young lady, playing
the piano, singing, drawing (from anything but nature),
and with a smattering of execrable French. She had a
thousand airs and graces, a fine contempt for her father’s
business, and a meritorious sense of shame whenever it
was mentioned in her hearing, and she was exceedingly
and undeniably pretty.
There had been great discussions as to the part Ada
was to take in the establishment when she left school.
Mr. Dixon fell in with the wifely resolve that their child
should never go behind the counter—he quite understood
that she was neither designed nor finished for anything
of the kind. But his transports in other respects fell
short of those of his consort.
‘I don’t see,’ he observed, after Ada had been a few
months at home, ‘that she does much that’s useful, or
ever goes into the kitchen, or makes a pudding’ (infallible
criterion of feminine value and worth to a certain
order of masculine mind), ‘or her own clothes; and yet
she often seems to me to have a deal of time on her
hands that she doesn’t quite know what to do with; and
as for money, she has no notion of the value of it. It’s
awful.’
‘And how should she, I should like to know?’ asked
Mrs. Dixon, indignantly. ‘A child like her! She’ll
learn fast enough. And then I expect her to marry well.
I don’t know who ought to if she ought not.’
‘You have to marry very high up indeed to have no
need ever to think of money or housekeeping.’
‘I shall teach her what’s necessary, of course. And
you wrong her, Dixon, when you say she does no dressmaking.
I’m sure she’s most industrious. The time she
183spends in her room, altering things, and trying them on—both
hats and bonnets, and dresses too. If you could
see her, you’d say no more.’
‘Perhaps I should be too much astonished,’ said Dixon,
with a gleam of his native Yorkshire shrewdness.
‘There’s such a thing as thinking too much of dress, and
I’m afraid our Ada——’
‘Drat the man!’ said Mrs. Dixon, very sharply.
‘Will nothing satisfy him? First he grumbles that she
doesn’t do her dressmaking, and then he grumbles that
she does. It’s just like a man. Either they are up in
the clouds, or they are down in the depths, or——’
‘That’s the shop,’ said Mr. Dixon, feigning to hear
the bell, and alertly running away.
‘Can’t he see?’ Mrs. Dixon said, within herself, when
she was left alone. ‘Ada will marry a gentleman, of
course. She’s as pretty as she can be, and a wonderful
taste in dress, and a perfect lady in manners, and with
Miss Wynter for her friend, and constantly going up to
see her. Miss Wynter sees the best of society. Besides,
I’ve seen the gentlemen look at her, many a time.
Didn’t I hear Mr. Gilbert Langstroth, the very last time
he was here, say to her, quite respectfully, “Why, Miss
Dixon, I wondered what beauty had taken up her winter
quarters in Bradstane”? And Dixon pretending that Mr.
Langstroth is always sneering at people, and that he
would never have said such a thing to any lady, or anywhere
where it could be taken seriously! And him that
sees such high society in London! And Mr. Askam—didn’t
he say to me, “How’s your lovely daughter, Mrs.
Dixon? I hear she’s turning all the young men’s heads”?
It’s true Mr. Askam has a free and easy way with him,
and they say he means no good by any girl he pays compliments
184to; but then it was me he spoke to—not Ada.
Straws show which way the wind’s blowing, and I say
there’s no knowing what may happen.’
Time passed, and neither of the gentlemen whom Mrs.
Dixon had thought of became more marked in their
attentions. Nay, what with Ada’s magnificence, and the
scarcity of matches worthy her consideration, there were
even mortifications in store for the maternal ambition.
It was a distinct if not an acknowledged mortification
when Mary Metcalfe, a quiet-looking girl, with three
sisters under her—such a family of them,—a girl with
no beauty to boast of, and not a scrap of fashionable
education; a girl Ada’s own age to a day, and who had
once been her playfellow—got engaged to one of the most
well-to-do young farmers in all the country round. Not
that Ada would have listened for a moment to any farmer
but a gentleman-farmer, and of course young Simpson
would never have had the audacity to ask her. (Whether
from bashfulness or other reason, it is quite certain that
young Simpson never did ask her.) And yet, it was distinctly
mortifying to sit in one’s pew, and hear Mr.
Johnson read out the banns of James Simpson and Mary
Metcalfe. No one grudged Mary a good husband, poor
girl; but Ada—it really seemed as if, in the proper order
of things, Ada should have come first.
While the coming gentleman of high degree tarried,
Roger Camm appeared upon the scene, and very soon
made it manifest that he had the audacity, not only to
love, but to declare himself. Ada, to Mrs. Dixon’s severe
disappointment, was much pleased, charmed, nay, self-complacent.
Mrs. Dixon alone was really against the
match, saying many disparaging things of the suitor’s
appearance, position, and prospects, and of everything
185connected with him; and persisting, with the tenacity of
a weak and vain woman about her favourite object, that
if they would only wait, Ada would do much better.
Mr. Dixon was very firm.
‘Ada could not do much better,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t
have wished a better husband for her: he’s strong, and
he’s clever, and he knows what he is about. They trust
him absolutely, his employers do. He’s making an uncommonly
good thing out of those jute factories down
the river, and if he isn’t a partner in the concern within
a few years, my name is not Simon Dixon. I wouldn’t
force the girl, but she tells me she wants him, and if so
she shall have him; and thankful I am for her to do so
well. So let’s hear no more about it.’
No more was said about it, openly; but Mrs. Dixon
rebelled in secret. She knew Dixon too well to oppose
him overtly, but she thought to herself that Ada and
Roger were not married yet. She disliked him heartily:
his awkward gait, his rough ways; his habit of laughing
at her notions about gentility; the queer, rude things he
said. And, above all, he galled her by insisting upon
calling himself a working man, and telling Ada how she
was going to be a working man’s wife.
‘As if I brought her up for that!’ the mother indignantly
thought. He was just a bear, she felt, and about
as fit as a bear to marry their Ada.
The engagement had now been going on for six
months, and the marriage, it was thought, should not
take place for another year. Roger did not rebel against
this. Loving Ada with his whole soul, and as unselfishly
as man could love, he yet saw very clearly that her love
for him was not as his love for her. He was sure that
gentleness, and kindness, and the educating influence of
186companionship and gradually growing sympathy, would
teach her this love—as he had said to Michael, he had
to educate her in some things (in the very art or nature
of unselfish love, could he but have known it); and with
a kind of sublime patience and sublime blindness, which
might have been ridiculous if they had not been utterly
pure of selfishness, he calmly set himself to wait out
the year that had yet to elapse, and another after it, if
necessary, and in that time to teach Ada to love him as
he loved her. The process was not an exhilarating one;
the effort was based upon the assumption of an impossibility—the
assumption, namely, that such love can be
taught. But Roger did not know this.
Just now he and Ada had found a pastime in which
both had something in common. They were rehearsing
songs for a concert at which the amateur talent of the
neighbourhood was to display itself for the benefit of
the church schools, and incidentally for the pride and
delight of its own soul and the edification of the neighbourhood
at large. This great event always took place
in the month of December, and on this occasion Ada
was for the first time to appear on the platform. She
was to sing in a duet with her patroness, Miss Wynter,
and Roger was to play the accompaniment for them.
Despite this congenial occupation, Roger and his betrothed
this evening had several differences of opinion.
Ada was excited about her visit to Balder Hall, related
every incident that had occurred, and every word that
had been spoken there after her own arrival upon the
scene; dwelling upon them with persistency—describing
minutely Miss Askam’s appearance, voice, and gestures,
and especially her graciousness in coming and standing
by her, Ada Dixon, while she sang. Also Magdalen’s
187dress, and Otho’s long conversation with her, and the
new-fashioned table-covers which Miss Wynter had on
her small tea-table. All this was inexpressibly galling
to Roger, who hated what he called ‘that lot,’ with an
uncompromising scorn. He would have had Ada stand
as coolly aloof from them as he did himself, but she
would not. Balder Hall and its inmates and visitors
were to him the abode of a false woman, unworthy of
consideration, and the rendezvous of her intimates. To
Ada, on the contrary, Balder Hall was the fairy palace
where, to speak metaphorically, the roofs were of gold
and the windows of diamonds; the woman in it was her
ideal of beauty, elegance, fashion, and superiority in
general, and the woman’s friends and acquaintances
were other bright apparitions belonging to the same
enchanted sphere. She was very eloquent to-night,
partly because she wished to provoke Roger, partly
because her mind was quite filled with the afternoon’s
entertainment. He could, as he said, get neither rhyme
nor reason from her, and when he returned to the Red
Gables, earlier than usual, there was a cloud on his
brow.
CHAPTER XVIII A WILD-GOOSE CHASE
188
It was nearly a fortnight later, and the dusk of evening
crept over everything. From the window of her sitting-room,
facing south, with a little inclination to west,
Eleanor could catch a glimpse of the evening sky, but
not of the setting sun itself, which came but little north
of west at this time of the year. She could see the terraces,
spreading downwards to the river-side, and she had
a partial view of the stream itself, leaden in hue, but
swift in the race. The tall, heavy trees stood motionless:
one realised all the stateliness, and with it all the
melancholy, of the place. For Thorsgarth had always
been a melancholy house.
Eleanor sat in the embrasure of the window, with a
half-open book in her lap. It had grown too dark to
read any longer, and she raised her eyes from the page
and looked out. As the gloaming fell, the firelight
gleamed out more strongly, but it did not reach as far as
where she sat, and the cold light of the departing day
was all that fell upon her face. Perhaps this cold light
lent something to the impression of sadness, and even of
sternness, which had overcast her countenance since she
had come home. Whether from that cause or from some
other, it was quite certain that there was a slight expression
189of sternness upon her lips; the strength and resolution
which lay beneath her ripe and gracious beauty had
decidedly stepped to the front.
While she looked forth, with this expression deepening
on her face, there came a short, heavy knock upon the
door; before she had time to answer, the curtain was
pushed aside, and Otho came in.
‘Otho!’ she exclaimed, for it was the first time he
had entered the room since her arrival.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said, glancing round. ‘What
are you doing here, all alone?’
‘Reading Homer,’ said Eleanor, promptly, with a
rather wicked gleam in her eye. As she had expected,
an expression of slight alarm crossed Otho’s countenance.
But he drew a chair forward and sat down.
‘Is that how you amuse yourself here?’ he asked.
‘One way,’ she replied, rather curtly. She had perceived,
very shortly after her arrival, that Otho was
vexed with her presence, and had resolved in consequence
to take her own course. He had been disappointed
to find that she never uttered a word as to the
dulness of Bradstane or its want of society, nor ever
mentioned any idea of deserting it. Women with
‘resources within themselves’ were, of course, an unknown
species to Otho—he would vaguely have called
them ‘blues,’ if asked for his views on the subject. His
sister must be a blue; and after a moment given to
reflection on the situation, he burst into a short, rough
laugh.
‘Ha, ha! No wonder that you and Magdalen don’t
get on. And if that’s the sort of thing you have a fancy
for, you never will. She’s clever, deucedly clever, is
Magdalen, but it isn’t in the dead languages that she
190excels.’ And he laughed again, as if some inner thought
greatly diverted him.
‘If she troubles herself as little as I do whether we
get on or not, she will be very indifferent about it,’ said
Eleanor, annoyed in a truly girlish fashion at thus
having ‘Magdalen’ always thrust at her.
‘Jealous!’ said Otho, with his great guffaw, rubbing
his hands together.
Eleanor felt her face in a flame.
‘Jealous—of that woman!’ was the thought in her
mind, but she had self-control enough to let it remain a
thought. She merely smiled.
‘Did you learn nothing but Greek,’ pursued Otho,
‘when you were at college?’
‘Why, of course, you goose. What would be the use
of learning nothing but Greek?’
‘Well, I certainly never could see the use of learning
it—for me, at any rate,’ said Otho. ‘But I mean, didn’t
you go in for French, and music, and those things?’
‘Well, I should hardly ask such a question as that.
One “goes in,” as you call it, for French as naturally as
for English. Aunt Emily always had some French person
or other about. But Greek was a labour of love.’
‘It seems to me that you must be what they call a
blue,’ said Otho, vaguely.
‘Does it? I’m not conscious of being of a different
complexion from other young women. Aunt Emily, poor
dear, thought the reverse. She considered that I was
brought up too much with Paul, and altogether too like
a boy. She always said that if I had mixed more with
girls I should have been more alive to—oh, well, she
thought it would have been better for me.’
‘She thought that if you had been a bit more like
191other girls, you wouldn’t have let that parson slip, but
would have married him instead of coming rambling
off here, where you don’t know a creature, and have to
pass your time reading the “Iliad”; and I can tell you
I agree with her,’ said Otho.
‘Let him slip? I never tried to catch him,’ said Miss
Askam, touchy, despite her masculine education, upon
this point.
‘I never said you did,’ remarked Otho. ‘However,
I’m glad you are intellectual and independent, for now I
need not apologise for leaving you alone. I’m going
away this evening.’
‘Are you? Where?’
‘Oh, over into Friarsdale, on business. I don’t know
when I shall be back. Some time before Christmas, of
course, because Gilbert will be here then. You’ll have
to do as well as you can.’
‘I shall do very well, thank you. I shall return a
few of those numerous calls I have received. I like
some of the people very much. I don’t think they look
so dangerous as you seemed to think them. But, of
course, tastes differ. And on the first fine day I intend
to have a ride.’
‘I liked him very much when I had him before....
Isn’t evening an odd time to be setting off on a journey?
Where is this Friarsdale that you speak of?’
192‘Oh, I shall only go to Darlington to-night, and put
up with a fellow I know there. Then I shall drive on
into Friarsdale to-morrow.’
He still had not told her where it was, she noticed,
nor what he wanted there. She was not going to ask
again, and in a short time Otho said he must be off,
wished her good afternoon, and departed. He had gone
in intending to recommend her to cultivate Miss Wynter’s
society, but the conversation which had taken place had
caused him to abandon this design.
‘Magdalen and she will never get on. I shall leave
them both to it. It’s plain to me that Eleanor is no fool
in some things, whatever she may be in others; but I
verily believe she’d sooner have old Lady Winthrop for
a chum, or one of those charity-blanket Blundell girls,
than Magdalen.’
In which surmise Otho was perfectly correct.
‘It’s a rum sort of thing altogether,’ he reflected. ‘I
shall ask Gilbert what he thinks about it.’
It was on the following day that Eleanor, looking forth,
decided that there was a change in the weather, which
decidedly entitled her to the ride she had spoken of to
Otho. The clouds had parted, and the blue smiled forth,
and the sun lent his aid to enliven the prospect. Eleanor
promptly ordered her horse to be saddled and brought
round immediately after an early lunch. In obedience
to this order, it appeared, and she was ready for it shortly
before two o’clock. She found the lad William holding
her horse, and Barlow, the old butler, standing at the
door. William, it is necessary to state, was not a native
of Bradstane, nor, indeed, of Teesdale at all, but of Swaledale,
to the south, of which locality he was very proud,
and concerning which he was in the habit of relating
193many tales of wonder. It was a subject on which his
mistress already loved to draw him out, and he was
nothing loath to discourse upon it. He had begun to
plume himself amongst the other servants on being Miss
Askam’s own retainer, and would have felt bitterly
injured had she selected any one but himself as her
attendant.
She told old Barlow that she did not expect to be
back much before five, and he, by reason of long service,
and in the capacity of ‘friend of the family,’ took upon
himself to ask if he might venture to inquire in which
direction she thought of riding.
‘Oh yes, Barlow, you had, perhaps, better know. I
think of going round by Cotherstone, to a place called
Catcastle.’
‘It’s a very wild country, miss,’ said Barlow, with a
look of alarm. ‘A very bleak road, indeed, Miss Askam,
for a winter’s day.’
‘It is not like a winter’s day this afternoon, and I
shall do nothing rash, you may be sure,’ she said, repressing
with a little feeling of guiltiness the further information
that ‘romantic Deepdale’s slender rill’ had taken
such hold on her imagination, that after carefully consulting
an ordnance map, and finding that all the three
places—Cotherstone, Catcastle, and Deepdale—were
within a circuit of ten miles, she had resolved to see them
that afternoon.
‘I don’t think Mr. Askam would quite approve,’ began
Barlow, with an anxious look.
‘Oh, Mr. Askam is away,’ said Eleanor, wilfully.
‘And, Barlow, be sure to have some tea quite ready by
five o’clock, for I am sure I shall want it very badly
when I get in.’
194So saying, she chirped to her horse, and it carried her
quickly round the bend in the drive, William following
her. Barlow stood at the door, and shook his venerable
head.
‘A real Askam for wilfulness,’ he said within himself,
‘but as sweet as an angel in temper. Eh, dear! If
poor dear Mr. Otho was but a bit more like her! I
don’t know where he’ll end, I’m sure.’
Again shaking his head with the true Jeremiah shake
of an old retainer who sees his most cherished prejudices
overridden by a new generation, Barlow closed the hall-door
and retired to his own quarters.
Eleanor rode quickly forth, feeling the air and the
sunshine thrill through her, and rejoice her very soul.
She lifted her beautiful face upwards towards the field
of blue—albeit a pale November blue, one could see the
colour it was meant for—and inhaled the fresh, westerly
breeze, which had in it, could she have understood its
‘feel,’ a promise of north in the not distant future.
They trotted briskly through Bradstane town, past
the shops, and up the cobble-stoned street, sharply on
through long, unlovely Bridge Street, and so over the
old stone bridge under the castle crag, and upon a road
on the Yorkshire side of the river, leading through the
village of Lartington to that of Cotherstone.
‘Is that building a church, William?’ she asked,
pointing to one with her whip.
‘Yes, miss,’ he replied, riding up and touching his hat.
‘I think it is the smallest one I ever saw,’ she remarked.
‘By your leave, miss, I have seen one, and been in it,
not above half the size—at Lunds,’ he said, his eyes
growing round, and his face red, from which signs Miss
195Askam knew infallibly that he had a tale of wonder to
unfold.
‘Indeed; and where is Lunds?’ she asked.
‘If you please, miss, on Abbotside Common, going
from Hawes to Hell Gill,—to Kirby Stephen, that is;
it lies off on the common, to the right. ’Tis a rare small
‘un; and there was another peculiar thing about it, too.’
‘What was that?’
‘Well, the folk about was poor, vary poor indade;
and they couldn’t afford a bell. So for many a year th’
sexton used to climb to t’ top of th’ church—’twere such
a vary lile church, you see—wi’ a tin can full o’ stones
in’s hand, and wi’ that he used to shake it to and fro, so
as to mak’ the stones rattle, and a’ called out at the same
time, “Boll-loll, boll-loll, boll-loll!” at top of his voice
while t’ congregation got all come in, and then he clammert
down again, and went in hissel! That were i’stead of a
bell, you know; they couldn’t get t’ money to buy one.
Ay, Lunds church was known for miles around.’
‘I should think so,’ said Miss Askam, laughing. ‘Do
you know of any more customs like that?’
‘No, ma’am; except there was another vary small
church where there was a queer habit, more like than a
custom——’
‘Indeed,’ said she, amused within herself at the distinction.
‘A vary lile one it was, too, i’ Langstrothdale——’
‘Langstrothdale—where’s that?’ she asked, quickly.
‘On the other side o’ Cam Fell, miss. They do say
that that’s where the doctor’s and Mr. Gilbert’s family
first came fro’, and that they’re not Durham at all, but
Yorkshire. I reckon doctor desarves to be a Yorkshire-man,
choose what Mr. Gilbert——’
196‘Never mind about that. What of the little church?’
‘Only that th’ congrygation there was vary poor too,
and it was a door as they were in want of,—just like i’
Lunds they couldna get a bell. So, when service was
o’er, they used to stick a big thorn in th’ doorway, to
fill it up; but shape’ (the sheep) ‘used to get in in t’
winter weather, and make a shelter of it; and they had
to be cleared out regular, ivery Sunda’—that’s all, miss,’
said William, exhausted with his two prolonged narrative
efforts, and falling into his place behind again.
Eleanor rode on, smiling to herself at the picture of
the man who shook a tin can full of stones, and cried
‘boll-loll’ from the top of the church to summon the
congregation. He must have had lusty lungs, she
thought, that Yorkshire sexton.
Cotherstone was safely reached about three o’clock,
and Eleanor must ride down to the river, and see where
Balder emptied his waters into Tees, and repeat to herself—
‘Then Balder, one bleak garth was thine;
And one sweet brooklet’s silver line.’
The ‘sweet brooklet’ was just then rushing onwards,
muddy and swollen, in anything but a silver line.
Eleanor turned back, and finding that William’s knowledge
of the country here became rather misty, made
inquiries in the village as to the nearest way to ‘Catcastle
Crag.’
Visible astonishment arose upon the countenance of
the rustic whom she addressed—an elderly labourer, who
made answer, after the wary manner of the English of
the north—
‘It’s a vary rough rooäd to Catcastle.’
‘Is it? Well, would you tell me the nearest way?’
197‘Your horse won’t go within half a mile of the crag.’
‘Well, I would like to know how you get within half
a mile of the crag, if you will please to tell me the nearest
way.’
‘Nearest rooäd is o’er yonder,’ was the reply, accompanied
by a sweep of a long and stalwart arm, which
sweep might embrace some fifteen or twenty miles of
country.
Eleanor laughed, and after some difficulty induced
her informant so far to commit himself as to mention one
or two roads by name, which thing he did very reluctantly;
but she gathered from what he said that she
had ‘three miles and a piece’ to ride, not continuing on
the same road, but always keeping to the left whenever
cross roads came, and that by doing this she would arrive
as near Catcastle Crag as her horse would take her;
while by skirting round it, still to the left, she would
come to a road leading to Deepdale, and thence
home.
‘But,’ observed her interlocutor, with a look of tolerant
pity, ‘I think it’s something of a fool’s errand, of a day
like this. Wind’s changing, and we’ll have frost before
midnight.’
Eleanor thanked him, and set off cheerily, thinking
with a smile that the tea would have to wait till after
five o’clock, and that she hoped Barlow would not be
worrying his old head about her, or sending in all
directions to meet her.
The three miles ‘and a piece’ proved exceedingly like
the ‘mile and a bittock’ of story. That is, the three
miles were presently accomplished, but the ‘piece’
stretched far before them, and the light was no longer
so clear as it had been. Moreover, the wary peasant’s
198prophecy was being fulfilled with a startling promptness.
The wind had already shifted, and was blowing from the
north, almost in her face, keen and piercing. Every
cloud had disappeared, and the sky was of a crystalline
clearness, ominous of coming frost; and still Catcastle
Crag—though they could see what Eleanor imagined must
be that remarkable eminence—grew no nearer. They
seemed to have got round it, and it still kept provokingly
to their left, with the road, and several fields, and a
thicket between them and it.
‘I suppose,’ said Eleanor within herself, ‘that they
call this part of the road a “piece,” because they have no
numbers with which to count its length in miles.’ She
had grown thoughtful. Dusk had fallen over her high
spirits, as well as over the landscape.
At length she called William, and said she thought
they had better leave the crag and keep to the homeward
road, a proposition to which he yielded a cheerful assent,
and fell back into his place. Eleanor rode on; she
supposed they were on the right road, but it wound on
and on without seeming to lead to anywhere in particular.
She was sure, from what she remembered of the map,
that they ought to be at Deepdale before now. Deepdale,
she knew, was a wood. But here was no sign of any
wood to be seen. The road was a bare, bleak road,
with a rough stone wall on either side, a road which
must have been dreary and monotonous at any season;
but which now, in the grim November evening, with the
dusk rapidly falling—not a sound to be heard but the
faint piping of a bitter wind from the black wall of fells
to the north; not a sight to be seen save the bare fields
on either side, and at a little distance a clump of trees—was
melancholy in the extreme; and Eleanor, looking at
199the frowning escarpments to the left, no longer felt that
her listed to
‘Climb Catcastle’s giddy crag,’
as, before setting off, she had fondly hoped to do ere her
return. She was of a nature at once poetical and highly
imaginative, and for all the hard, stony prose of the road,
there was something attractive to her in the very bleakness
and chillness of it;—that faintly moaning wind
seemed to whisper that it came from the north, that it
had its cradle in the ultimate Thule, where its breath
was more piercing even than here.
She felt all the force of the contrast to this scene
which was presented by the sudden appearance of a
light gleaming out of the clump of trees before spoken
of.
‘Oh,’ she said, quickly, ‘there must be a house behind
those trees—some place, at any rate, where we can ask
if we are in the right road to Bradstane.’
She rode on, and they presently stopped at the door
of a wayside farmlet, if such a term be admissible.
William knocked, and a young woman, with a gentle,
handsome countenance, and in stature like some female
Hercules, came to the door, looked at them with
astonishment in her great clear gray eyes, and asked to
know their will.
Eleanor preferred her request for information as to
whether they were on the right road for Bradstane; she
said not a word now of Catcastle.
‘For Bradstane! Eh, what! but ye’re mony a mile
out o’ t’ straight rooad,’ was the reply, which struck dismay
into her hearer.
On further investigation, however, it turned out to be
not so bad as had seemed at first. They must keep
200straight on for half a mile till they came to the Balder
Beck, which they would have to ford, and then they would
be in the right road, and five miles away from Bradstane.
‘Straight along, do we go? and is the beck deep?’
asked Eleanor, thinking of the darkness.
‘Straight down this lane. Deep?—nay, you needna
be afeard—not a little bit, you needna. It’s no a bad
ford;—a bit swollen with th’ rains just now, but safe
enough. I’d show you th’ way, only my child’s ill, and
I canna lave it. But you cannot go wrong. And th’
doctor’s not been gone five minutes. Happen you may
light on him in th’ lane, and then, if you’re in doubt, you
might ask him. He kens all th’ rooads rarely,—both
them that’s bad and them that’s good.’
‘Thank you,’ said Eleanor, not deriving so much
comfort from this suggestion as the woman seemed to
think would be natural; for during her short residence
in Bradstane she had not been left ignorant of the
relations between Michael Langstroth, his brother, her
brother, and Magdalen Wynter. The version of the
story given to her by the latter had been supplemented
by revised ones, explained and annotated in a very
different spirit. Eleanor felt that, taken all in all, she
would prefer not to overtake Dr. Langstroth.
It was not, however, very likely that they would do
so, for he would probably ride on quickly, being, as the
woman said, well acquainted with all the roads; whereas
they had to go very slowly, being ignorant of them, and
the dark fast falling.
She wished the woman good-night, and rode on.
Presently they came in sight of the ford, or, at any rate,
of the beck which they had to ford at this juncture. It
was rushing along, brown, noisy, and swollen, and
201Eleanor, though a hardy horsewoman, drew back a little
as she saw it. Which, and where might be the ford?
Whether to venture across, or to return all the dreary
way they had ridden—ten miles or more? As she
paused, debating, her eyes strained through the dusk on
the other side; she almost hoped, now, that she might
see a figure; but there was nothing except some gaunt
trees, and as for sounds, the rattle of the beck drowned
them all in the noise it made.
Tired of reflecting, and noticing a broad mark, as if
wheels had here entered the stream, and a corresponding
one on the other side, showing that they had safely
emerged from it, Eleanor put her horse at the water, telling
William to wait till she was across. The boy was not
old enough, nor possessed of sufficient self-confidence, to
make the lady pause till he had tried the ford himself;
he felt unhappy, but did as he was told. She found
herself in a moment in the midst of the roar and the
darkness. About the middle of the stream, her horse
displayed an evident desire to diverge to the right hand,
down-stream. Eleanor, seeing the cart-tracks faintly
on the other side, a little to the left, and bewildered with
the rush and the noise and the swirl of the waters,
became somewhat confused, and persisted in pushing
the animal’s head up-stream. In a moment her horse
plunged into a hole, so deeply that she felt the water
washing round her own knees. She gave an involuntary
short cry, and heard a loud despairing—
‘Oh, Lord, miss, what shall I do?’
The tragic utterance restored her to herself. She
gave her horse his head, and he, after another wild
plunge or two, and a desperate, scraping scramble,
succeeded in pulling himself up and taking his own way;
202went first a little to the right, and then a little to the
left, and emerged in the cart-track.
Her servant, following, came through high and dry,
but with chattering teeth.
‘What is the matter? Are you afraid?’ she asked,
and was much astonished to hear the only answer he
gave—a piercing view-halloo. There was a moment’s
silence, then the halloo was answered from some distance
before them, and William, saying, ‘You bide here a
minute, miss,’ rode on.
‘What can he be thinking of?’ she speculated, in
some annoyance. ‘Leaving me here in the cold! I
shall follow him.’
It was a good resolution, but not easy to carry out.
She began to feel the cold stealing over every limb,
while her soaked habit hung down, and seemed like a
mass of ice, dragging her downwards. She could now
see only a glimmer of the surrounding country, and the
angry beck—black, flecked with specks of white, rushing
and roaring as it seemed to her with redoubled
force. A feeling of fright and alarm at the loneliness of
it, the darkness and the wildness, overcame her. She
felt herself trembling in every limb. A wild suspicion
that William had taken flight, and did not intend to
return, seemed to turn her to stone.
She jerked the reins, putting her horse at the little
bank she had to climb, with the idea that the motion
of riding would restore the circulation to her benumbed
limbs; but it did not. She felt the cold seize her very
vitals; unconsciously she slipped from her seat, crying
out almost without knowing it, ‘William!’
Her own voice sounded hoarse and far off, yet she
dimly heard sounds of other horses coming rapidly
203towards her, vaguely beheld a rider—two riders, glimmering
on her sight. Then she heard a voice say, ‘Miss
Askam!’ in tones of astonishment, saw a man vault from
his horse—all in vague, magnified proportions; and then
for two or three moments she was so cold that she knew
nothing at all.
CHAPTER XIX INEVITABLE
204
Michael, after leaving the cottage of the tall young
woman with the sick child, and delaying a little, to let
his horse drink from the beck, had safely crossed the
ford which had proved so disastrous to Eleanor, and was
riding peaceably and slowly. In his life there had always
been present one negative blessing which he had not
perhaps recognised with the active gratitude which it
deserved; implanted in his heart was a love of Nature
and of her things—a keen recognition of the beauty of
every season and every weather. He was not in the
habit of talking about it; perhaps he did not know himself
how strong it was—how fundamental a part of his
mental constitution it formed. But it was there, and it
was manifested in the fact that oftentimes, though
wearied and busy, he could not force himself to ride
onwards in haste, even over the roads that were very
familiar to him; could not neglect to notice the page
that was silently and lovingly spread for him by that
friend who ‘never did betray the heart that loved
her.’ Even on an afternoon like this, he found time
to go slowly, and receive the silent influence of the
scene into his heart; and did not refuse to let the
brooding solemnity of the darkening sky, or the
205bodeful whisper of the stealing wind, tell their tale to
him.
It was this vagrant humour, this unconfessed unwillingness
to desert the ample exterior nature for the
shelter and confinement of a roof and walls, which had
caused him to be so little advanced on the road, that a
loud halloo came distinctly to his ear; and after waiting
a moment to hear if it should be any preconcerted signal,
he concluded it to be a cry for help, and answered it,
turning back down the lane towards the ford. In a few
moments he was met by the ingenuous William, panting,
and presenting an appearance of extreme disorder.
‘What’s the matter? Was it you who called?’
‘Yes, sir, if you plase, sir, Miss Askam is nearly
drowned; leastways, her horse had a very bad tumble
in th’ ford. A woman told us you was on afore, and I
made bold to call upon you.’
Michael made no answer, but rode back to the ford,
as fast as the darkness and the rough road would allow
him. His keen eyes, well accustomed to search the
country by this doubtful light, discerned the form of a
woman on horseback; he saw that she drooped and
wavered, and he heard the half-inarticulate cry she gave.
He sprang from his horse just in time to catch her as
she slipped from her saddle, and in so doing he discovered
that her riding habit was dripping, and heavy as lead
with the icy water with which it was filled. He wasted
no time in wondering how she had got there, but placed
her on a large rough boulder, behind which was the trunk
of a great old thorn-tree, affording some support to her
back, and he felt with one hand in his pocket for his
flask, while he held her up with the other.
But before he had got the flask, she had recovered
206from the momentary powerlessness—it was not a faint—which
had overtaken her. She opened her eyes just as
William, in a hoarse and terrified whisper, inquired—
‘Is she drowned, sir?’
The youth was standing in a drooping attitude between
his mistress’s horse and his own, holding a rein
of each, and shivering with fear in every limb. It was
on him that Eleanor’s eyes fell as she opened them, and
she gave a little convulsive laugh.
‘How queer he looks!’ she said, raising herself, and
then stopping, as she saw Michael.
‘There, I thought you were not so very far gone,’
observed the latter with composure, raising himself from
his knee and standing over her. ‘It was the cold, and
the shock. Not very nice in the middle of the beck, I
should fancy, was it?’
‘Oh, horrid!’ said Eleanor, shivering. ‘It is Dr.
Langstroth, isn’t it?’
‘It is Dr. Langstroth—yes,’ was the dry reply. ‘You
had better drink off this,’ he added, pouring out some of
the brandy. ‘Then, if you can get on your horse and
ride on at once, you may feel no bad effects.’ He
proffered a prosaic flask, in a business-like manner.
Eleanor swallowed the portion presented to her with
docility, and stood up.
‘I don’t think I fainted,’ she remarked thoughtfully;
‘but I shall never forget the coldness of that water when
my horse plunged into that hole.’
‘I suppose you’re not liable to colds or coughs much?’
asked Michael, with apparent indifference.
‘Oh dear, no! I shall be all right, if I can but wring
some of the water from my habit. It is so heavy
with it.’
207She stood up, feeling quite strong; and while Michael
screwed the top on to his brandy-flask, she raised her
soaking riding habit, and wrung out the water as well as
she could.
‘It is too bad that you should have been troubled
about this,’ she said, suddenly stopping in her operations,
as it all at once flashed into her mind that he was waiting
there entirely on her account. ‘Is my groom there?
William!’
‘Yes, miss!’
‘You should not have ridden away and left me. If
you had waited a moment, I should have been all right,
and Dr. Langstroth need not have been detained.’
‘Do not scold him,’ said Michael, in a low voice. ‘The
poor lad is frightened out of his senses. He thought
you were drowned, and wished for medical assistance.
His promptitude in calling for it, and getting rid of
responsibility——’
‘The responsibility of this insane expedition is mine,’
said Eleanor, shortly, beginning to realise the situation.
‘But, indeed, Dr. Langstroth, do not let me keep you
here in the cold. We cannot miss the road again, and I
am ashamed to have troubled you so much.’
‘Do not be distressed on my account,’ said Michael,
calmly. He had restored the flask to his pocket, and
now he picked up the gauntlets which she had pulled off
and thrown to the ground, and stood watching her, in
the ever-deepening twilight, in silence, for some little
time after he had spoken. He felt something unreal
and dreamlike in the whole situation—in the shadowy
woman’s figure, with its quick, graceful, movements; in
the surrounding dark, the rushing stream, the sharp
night air. Eleanor said nothing to him, for she felt
208somewhat embarrassed. She did not wish to trouble
him, but when she thought of that five miles of a ride to
Bradstane, in the dark, with no guide but William, her
courage did not exactly rise. She would have felt very
well satisfied to be ordered by a competent authority to
hold her tongue and do as she was bidden, and it was
this, in effect, which Michael did tell her when he next
spoke.
‘Here are your gloves’—he saw she had wrung her
habit as well as she could, and he had noted, even in
the dusk, the beautiful curves and strong, flexible power
of her white hands and wrists—‘there are your gloves;
and when you have put them on, the sooner we move
forward again, the better for you.’
‘Yes, I am sure of that. I should very soon be
chilled to the bone again, if I stood here,’ she said,
drawing on her gloves, and feeling a little thrill of pleased
excitement and wonder. ‘This is the second time he
has come to my help,’ she informed herself, with accurate
recollection of the former circumstance.
‘Now shall I help you?’ said Michael, in his coldest,
most civil tone, as William led up the horse. He held
his hand for her foot, and in a moment she was in her
saddle, remarking—
‘Now I shall be not a bit the worse.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Michael, instinctively speaking
with greater dryness and curtness as he began to feel a
sense of pleasure and interest in the adventure and the
heroine of it. He liked her hardihood; hardy she was,
for he knew pretty well that she could not be feeling
very warm or comfortable, under the circumstances; and
the sousing with cold water, and the shock and danger
of the accident would have been, as he well knew, excuse
209enough for hysteria and nervous attacks, in nine
cases out of ten. She was evidently no friend to such
demonstrations. He mounted his own horse, and they
started, William falling behind, thankfully enough.
‘We shall go as far as the end of this lane together?’
said Eleanor tentatively; ‘but you must not let me take
you farther out of your way.’
‘My way is where I choose or need to go,’ replied
Michael carelessly. ‘I see your groom has dropped
behind, but if you will allow me, I will just tell him to
ride on as fast as he can—even he cannot now very well
miss the way. He must see your maid, and tell her to
have lots of dry things ready for you, and some hot tea
or coffee; and then, perhaps, you may escape without
harm. Otherwise, I would not answer for consequences.’
‘But——’
‘Oh, of course I will ride home with you,’ he answered
to her unspoken objection. ‘It will be all right.’
Eleanor’s high spirit failed to come to her aid.
‘Thorsgarth is so much out of your way,’ she said, in
a low tone.
‘Not when I choose to go there. Wait a moment,’
he answered; and stopping, he called the groom up,
gave him his directions succinctly, and bade him ride
on. William touched his hat, spurred on, and was soon
out of sight in the glimmering, shadowy light.
Eleanor heaved a deep, if silent sigh. She had not
given way under the shock of her plunge into the cold
water, nor, except physically, and for a moment, afterwards;
but now something laid a strange oppression
over her heart. Michael was very polite to her; he
neglected not a thing which could help her, even to this
forethought about acquainting her maid with what had
210happened. She had thought about him more than once
during the last fortnight; had heard of him a great deal
oftener than once, chiefly from Mrs. Parker, the old
doctor’s sister, with whom she had become acquainted,
and from many others. All she had heard had prepossessed
her in his favour, but now that she was with
him, actually in his presence, and as it were under his
guidance, for the time, she felt afraid of him—felt a
strange and painful constraint; was nervous, timid,
tongue-tied. Woman-like, she had the story of his
slighted love and his other wrongs, very large and very
much present in her mind; and she credited him with
having them before himself in just the same proportion.
Then, too, his tone was curt, if civil. It did not invite
to anything like friendly and familiar intercourse.
‘Civil, civil,’ repeated Eleanor in her own mind.
‘Yes, indeed, “civil as an orange,” and—oh, if he would
but speak!’
He did, exactly at that moment.
‘I have ridden over this road for ten years,’ he
remarked, ‘and I may have met an acquaintance on it,
perhaps, three or four times, and the hounds now and
then. How came you to be here?’
‘I don’t know myself how I got on to this road,’ said
she, laughing a little nervously. ‘But I know what I
intended to do when I set out.’ And then she related
to him the scheme of exploration which had taken
possession of her mind.
Michael was diverted at the idea of any one setting
off on such an expedition with no better guide than her
recollections of the ordnance map, and a groom who did
not know any of the cross roads.
‘Barlow, our butler, warned me against the expedition,’
211she added, when Michael had once or twice laughed
at her explanations. ‘But I would not listen to him.
And I only told him about Catcastle. I did not mention
either of the other places.’
‘No wonder he warned you,’ said Michael, silently
noting, however, with approval, her independence of
spirit. ‘Why, Catcastle alone is an excursion for a
summer’s afternoon and evening.... And well worth
the time it is,’ he added, half to himself. ‘But Deepdale!
You evidently have not the faintest idea what
kind of a place it is. It’s one of old Drayton’s “Helbecks,”
eerie enough at the best of times, utterly impossible in
weather like this. I suppose it was its “slender rill,”
which attracted your fancy?’
‘Yes, it was, because it was
‘“Last and least, but loveliest still.”’
‘Ha, ha! Yes—
‘“Romantic Deepdale’s slender rill.”
It will be roaring away at the bottom of the chasm, just
now, in a manner a good deal more vigorous than
romantic.’
‘Well, I think it is very disappointing. I set off
intending to see three places, and I have not seen even
one.’
‘But have got a good drenching in cold water instead.
Don’t you think you might take it as an omen?’ said
Michael, mockingly still, for he was determined not to
allow himself to be interested in her; quite resolved not
to yield to the pleasure of giving his full appreciation
to the music of the round, fresh young voice, with its
soft, southern accent, and unmistakable sincerity of tone.
212Michael was more of a connoisseur now, than he once
had been, in such items. And as for the wonder which
had just arisen in his mind—‘what is the charm about
her?’—that he felt was a problem which it was quite
outside of his province to consider.
‘As an omen!’ she repeated, sweetly. ‘Perhaps I
might if I chose. I don’t know that I care much about
the drenching.’
Michael scarcely heard her. He was thinking that
he could not even call to-morrow upon her, to ask her
how she did. Not that he was afraid of Thorsgarth, or
of Otho; but simply because he had no part or lot in
the Askam clan. He was separated from them for ever,
by circumstances which could never—no, never be
bridged over. Nothing could ever make it possible for
him to have anything to do with them. And this girl
by whose side he was now riding was Otho’s sister, and
the present mistress of Thorsgarth.
‘I mean to see the places some other day,’ her voice
continued; ‘and the drenching does not alter the fact
that Barlow is an old man who potters about the house,
and is rather slow about his work, and that I am a
young woman, accustomed to take long rides.’
‘Alone, and in a rough country like this, no doubt.’
‘N—no. I must say I have never before ridden
alone in a country like this.’
‘Well,’ said Michael, indifferently, and more for something
to say than for any feeling he had about it, ‘it
was not a safe expedition, and I rather wonder that your
brother allowed it.’
‘Oh, I know perfectly well that Otho would not allow
it, so I seized upon the opportunity while he was away.’
‘Ah, he is away?’
213‘Yes. He has gone to some place called Friarsdale.
I don’t know where that is. Can you tell me?’
‘Easily. It is over beyond Swaledale and Wensleydale;
a good way off, and very out of the way; but, of
course, that makes it all the better fitted for your
brother’s purpose. It is a good place for the stables, and
capital exercise for the——’
‘The training stables, I mean. He has some splendid
yearlings there. You should get him to take you over
to see them—if you care for horses, that is.’
‘But, Mr. Langstroth, you do not mean to tell me
that Otho has anything to do with racing—my brother?
Oh, well, I have heard that he took an interest in “the
turf,” as they call it; but in a racing stable—impossible!’
Michael suppressed a ‘whew!’ of sheer astonishment.
The natural reply to the question, and the one which he
would have made to any man, would have been to laugh,
and say, ‘Oh, hasn’t he, though?’ But he remembered
himself in time, and, after a moment’s pause, said, ‘Oh,
didn’t you know? I thought every one was acquainted
with that fact. It is certainly no secret; only I rather
think you are mixing up two things. Your brother’s
place is not what one would call a “racing stable”—that
is, it is not a place where they train race-horses. They
breed horses there for racers, and sell them. It is a
purely business kind of thing. I’m surprised you have
not happened to hear of it, because his stables are very
well known, though, it’s true, not perhaps in your world,
up to now.’
‘But,’ said Eleanor, anxiously, her mind apparently
fixed on one point, ‘he doesn’t race with them, does he?’
214‘With the horses?’ said Michael, laughing, in spite of
himself. ‘He has not run one of his own, so far; but
I believe he intends to at the next Derby, and some
people say that Crackpot will be the favourite.’
‘Crackpot—is that the horse’s name?’ asked Eleanor,
in the tone with which one speaks of some extremely
ugly and repulsive thing, so that Michael again smiled
to himself in the dark.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He’s called after a waterfall in
Swaledale, noted for its swiftness.’
Eleanor did not smile at the joke, if joke it were.
‘It seems,’ thought Michael, ‘that I have opened her
eyes in an unexpected manner—by accident. Who was
to suppose that she could be so exceedingly simple as
never to gather what he was after in Friarsdale? If
she’s going to take that so much to heart, I am afraid
there will be some other rather unpleasant surprises in
store for her.’
At this point she broke in again, in a voice which
betrayed her uneasiness.
‘You speak as if you did not think much of it, Mr.
Langstroth; but, surely, that sort of thing is not for
gentlemen.’
‘My dear Miss Askam, you have got quite a wrong
impression, I assure you. You must know that some
very fine gentlemen have to do with such things. The
only thing is, it is such a frightfully expensive hobby,
and——’
‘It’s a low kind of amusement, I think,’ she began.
‘Not at all—at least, not of necessity. You must
excuse me for contradicting you; but——’
‘Well, if he keeps this place to get money, why not
turn horse-dealer at once?’ said Eleanor, resentfully.
215Michael felt that extreme innocence can, and does
ask more awkward questions, in perfect good faith, than
the most hardened wickedness could possibly devise. If
he had spoken the truth aloud, he would have been
obliged to say that the fact of being a horse-dealer by
profession could scarcely be considered a reproach to a
man, whatever ignorant young ladies might think on the
subject; but that in Otho Askam’s neck-or-nothing way
of carrying on what he was pleased to call his ‘business,’
there was matter for reproach, and that, as a matter of
fact, a respectable horse-dealer had the pull over the
master of Thorsgarth, as regarded character. But he
could not say this to Miss Askam, who evidently considered
the matter in another light—as a low pursuit,
namely,—one, perhaps, of other low pursuits which her
brother was in the habit of following. It let a new
light into his mind as to her character and her ignorance,
and he followed a natural impulse—the impulse to reassure
her.
‘You really think quite too much about it,’ he said,
lightly. ‘Every true Yorkshire man—and every true
border-man, for that matter—has a strain of the jockey
in him. And when a man lives in the country, and has
his soul in country pursuits it is inevitable that horses
should come into the list.’
‘That horses should come into the list!’ repeated
Eleanor, in the same tone of mortification. ‘How many
more things come into the list of country pursuits?
“Running factories,” that is one—buying shares: he
told me that his friend, Mr. Langstroth, kept him from
plunging too deep into that.’ She had forgotten who
was with her; and as she uttered the next words, a
flash of lurid, hideous light seemed to burn the meaning
216of it all into her brain. ‘Card-parties——’ Her breath
failed her for a moment. Michael never forgot the
voice with which she suddenly asked him, with desperate,
urgent haste, ‘Mr. Langstroth, for God’s sake—is Otho
a gambler?’
Michael hesitated for one moment. But he knew he
could not shirk the question. So asked, it must be
answered truly, however cruel the blow.
‘I’m sorry you have asked me that question,’ said he.
‘But there is only one answer to it. He is a born
gambler.’
He awaited her next words with an eagerness and
anxiety which surprised himself, and when no words
came, he was again surprised at the feeling of chill
regret which came over him. For Eleanor made no
answer whatever to his answer to her question. The
vibrating eagerness of her voice, of the voice with which
she had asked if Otho were a gambler, was stilled. In
the darkness, which was now deep, they rode on in
drear, unbroken silence. What she felt, what she
thought, she did not betray. She was not made of the
stuff that wails and laments over the discovery that life
is not a track of smooth grass, warmed by unclouded
sunshine.
‘Well,’ said Michael to himself, as this silence grew
more and more oppressive to him; ‘she asked the
question. I had to speak the truth. She must have
learnt it sooner or later. I can’t imagine how it is she
has not found it out already....’ Then an intense,
eager wish. ‘If she would only speak! How she must
hate me! Yes, she must hate me for telling her that.
How can she help? I expect she is wishing now that
she had never seen me. It’s a pity for her that she
217should have come up here, to be thrown into the midst
of such doings. Otho for her brother, Magdalen for her
friend, and my brother—well, for l’ami de la maison!
A nice company for her to be in.... And, after all,
what is it to me? Only it’s a piece of cursed ill-luck
that I should have got mixed up with her at all.... I
wish she would speak.’
But Eleanor did not speak for what seemed a very
long time, except when Michael, who felt the silence
absolutely unbearable, said to her once, in a curt tone,
to cover his unhappiness, ‘Don’t you think we had
better trot along this road? You will get cold if we go
too slowly.’ To which she replied in a measured voice,
‘Yes, no doubt,’ and at once put her horse into a trot,
but made no further remark.
This state of things continued until, having made
considerable progress, they were going up the hill
towards the old bridge, and had about twenty minutes
more of a ride before them. Just as they had reached
the bridge and got into the light, they met Roger Camm
striding out of the town. He gazed with visible astonishment
at Michael and his companion, raised his hat,
and passed on. Then Eleanor spoke, quite quietly and
composedly.
‘Is not that your friend, Mr. Camm?’
‘Yes,’ said Michael, with a profound sense of relief.
‘But, if I may ask, how do you know he is my friend,
and what do you know of him?’
‘I heard about him when Otho took me to see Miss
Wynter. And Miss Dixon was there too——’
‘When was that?’ asked Michael.
‘Why, the day after I came to Thorsgarth. You were
there when we called. Don’t you remember?’
218‘I remember that occasion perfectly; but it is a
fortnight ago.’
‘Well, I have never been since.’ Michael raised his
eyebrows. She had never been since! ‘Miss Dixon
came before we left,’ went on Eleanor. ‘She said Mr.
Camm was going out to fetch her home. Miss Wynter
told me you and he were great friends.’
‘Yes, Roger and I have knocked about together a
good deal. We know the best and the worst of each
other, I fancy; and if you can stick together after that
it means that you are friends.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. He looks—he has an original-looking
face. Is he clever?’
‘Yes, he is very clever. He has a career before him—at
least——’
‘At least?’
‘I believe I was going to say he would have, if he
were not engaged to Ada Dixon; but I don’t see that
she need hinder him so much, after all.’
‘I do not know Mr. Camm, of course; but I should
not imagine she was his equal, if he is really a clever
and able man.’
‘I fear you are right. But Roger has crotchets, and
one of them is, that he is a working man. In a way, he
is, as we all are, or ought to be; but his father was a
clergyman of the Church of England. He is never going
to be anything else, according to his own theory; and
working men, from what he says, must marry in their
own sphere, or else they will always be in a false position,
and “getting into lumber,” as he calls it.’
‘Well, there may be a good deal in that; but from
what I saw of Miss Dixon that afternoon, I should think
she was the last person to be a suitable wife for a real
219working man. She seemed to feel herself quite outside
anything of that kind.’
‘Of course. She is outside anything of that kind,
practically. But Roger wants to marry her, and, of
course, theories are elastic, under certain circumstances.
I suppose he was going out to Balder Hall now, to fetch
her home.’
‘Yes,’ said Eleanor, and they did not pursue the topic.
They were now very near Thorsgarth; a few minutes
more brought them to its gates, and as they rode up the
avenue, Eleanor suddenly said, in an extinguished voice—
‘How tired I am! I never was so tired in my life
before.’
He was silent. They stopped before the door, over
which burned a light. Eleanor’s hands dropped on her
lap, as she sat still and tired out. Michael dismounted
and came to her to lift her from her horse.
‘Won’t you ring?’ said she; ‘then they will send the
men round, and save you any more trouble.’
‘Let me do my own way,’ said he, lifting her down.
For a moment, just one moment, he held her in his arms,
and as the light fell upon her, he thought he had never
seen so sad and proud an expression on any woman’s
face. Something rose in his throat for a moment.
Then, just as he turned to put his hand on the bell, she
said—
‘Stop one moment. I am very tired, and cannot talk
to-night; but there is something that I must speak to
you about. Yes, I must,’ she added, almost vehemently.
‘All the way I have been thinking of it; I can never
rest till I have asked you about it. Will you call to-morrow
afternoon? Would you very much mind? I
will not keep you long.’
220‘I will call,’ said he, after a very brief pause. ‘At
what hour?’
‘Shall we say four? I think you are exceedingly
good. I—I cannot thank you.’
‘No, you have nothing to thank me for,’ said Michael
drily, as he pulled the bell. ‘But since you are pleased
to feel grateful to me for something or other, prove it by
not thinking or fretting too much about—what we were
speaking of,’ and he looked meaningly at her. He could
not speak so indifferently as he would have wished to.
He knew, with unerring certainty, that she had not a
careless nature, but a deep one—not a nature that lives
on the surface. He had pained her; that thought, though
unreasonable, was persistently present in his mind. She
smiled rather wanly in answer to his exhortation.
‘I will do what I can,’ she said.
‘I wish you had never asked me that question,’ said
Michael, and his voice betrayed his disturbance.
‘Let me repeat your own advice—do not think too
much about it,’ said she, turning as the door was opened.
Barlow stood there uttering an exclamation of joy.
Eleanor held out her hand to Michael, and said in a
very distinct voice—
‘I thank you for your escort. And you will do me
the favour to call to-morrow afternoon?’
‘I shall do so,’ said he, and stood with his hat in his
hand till the door was closed behind her. Then he
turned, to find William in possession of his mistress’s
horse, and inquiring anxiously if she was likely to be
any the worse.
‘I hope not,’ said Michael, getting on to his own
horse again. ‘But listen to me, my lad. When Miss
Askam thinks of riding long distances ‘cross country,
221and you don’t know the way, another time let me advise
you to tell her so, and not get into such a mess again.’
He rode away, leaving William speechless between
concern at what had happened and desperate puzzlement
as to how he was possibly to refuse to obey his mistress’s
orders.
‘I isn’t here to tell her what she ought to do,’
reflected the youth. ‘I’se here to do what she tells me.
How be I to do both? Perhaps you could’—with a
nod after the vanishing figure,—‘but I’se different
from you.’
CHAPTER XX HOW A THORN WAS PLANTED
222
‘Look here, Michael, if you ever mean to sit still again,
I should be awfully glad if you would begin to do it
now, if it’s quite the same to you. A man whirring
about the room, and crumpling up newspapers without
ever reading them is not the best sort of help in working
out calculations.’
‘I’m sure I beg your pardon. I was really lost in
thought.’
‘Humph! Pretty noisy kind of thoughts,’ said Roger,
bending again over the sheet which had occupied him.
There was perfect silence now for a few moments
(the scene was, of course, the library at the Red Gables),
too perfect a silence to last very long. Then Michael
suddenly burst out in his turn—
‘Are you obliged to finish those wretched calculations
to-night? Because, if not, I should like to speak to
you.’
Roger threw his pen down.
‘Thankful for an excuse to let them alone,’ said he.
‘What’s up?’
‘I told you how I came to meet Miss Askam this
afternoon.’
‘You did.’
223‘You may be aware that from the Black Bank Ford
to Thorsgarth is a good five miles?’
‘It is every bit of it. I admit it freely.’
‘Perhaps you can also comprehend that we did not
ride all that distance in unbroken silence?’
‘Rather stupid of you both, if you did, I should say.’
‘Yes. Well, we had a good deal of conversation.’
‘Ah! Was it of an agreeable nature?’
‘It was interesting, at any rate.’
‘That was well. I am yearning to hear more.
What did you talk about?’
‘Scenery, amongst other things.’
‘Yes? Has she an eye for the picturesque?’
‘A taste for it, I should say, seeing the kind of expedition
she had undertaken, and how she came to be
where I found her.’
‘To be sure! I had forgotten that. Well?’
Michael paused, and Roger looked at him. He had
spoken flippantly, but he had not been altogether
delighted to find how full his friend was of the afternoon’s
adventure.
‘She talked about her brother,’ said Michael, slowly.
‘To you! Well——’
‘Wait a bit! It came on quite accidentally. The
whole thing was accidental, and I don’t know that I am
not very sorry to have got let in for it at all. It was
apropos of Otho’s having gone away from home. She
told me he had gone to Friarsdale, and asked me where,
exactly, it was. My reply enlightened her considerably.
Would you believe that she was perfectly ignorant that
he possessed that place in Friarsdale? She was in a
great state about it when she gathered, from my casual
remark, that he had horses over there.’
224‘No wonder, if she has any idea of the value of
money, or any conception of the way in which it flies in
Friarsdale.’
‘Bah! She knows nothing about that, of course.
She had an idea that everything of that kind must be
low. I tried to make things straight, but she had got
thinking, and putting two and two together as quick-witted
women will; and before I had time to take my
breath, almost, she had hit upon the exact truth, turned
upon me, and demanded to know if Otho were a gambler.’
‘How intensely disagreeable for you!’
‘Humph! Not very pleasant for her, when I had to
say yes to her question. She did not speak for an
immense time. It seemed an eternity to me. I began
to wish myself well out of it.’
‘Well, you are well out of it now,’ said Roger, looking
at him from under his bushy brows. But he spoke with
some uncertainty.
‘No, I’m not, unless I break a promise I made her.’
Roger was too entirely in sympathy with Michael and
his every mood to express surprise, but, well though he
knew his friend, he felt it. Michael must, he understood
at once, have been very much moved, to have made
promises to Eleanor Askam.
‘What sort of a promise was that, Michael?’ he asked,
quietly.
‘When we parted at her door, I lifted her from her
horse, and she looked so utterly sad and heartbroken,
that I could hardly bear to see her. She asked me to
call upon her to-morrow afternoon, as she had something
to say to me, and I—said I would.’
Silence again. Roger pondered the situation, and at
last said—
225‘I suppose, if you made a promise of that sort, you
must keep it.’
‘I must, I think. I’m only under the impression
that I was an awful fool ever to make it.’
‘I don’t see why. It commits you to nothing.’
‘Oh, nothing, of course,’ said Michael, quickly. ‘I’m
sorry for her, that’s all. And I hate to see a woman in
trouble.’
‘She may have got over her trouble by the time you
get there.’
‘She’ll never get over it, if you mean that she may
have begun not to care about her brother’s weaknesses,
or vices—whichever you please to call them.’
‘Does she expect you to help her in curing them?’
asked Roger, rather bitterly.
‘I don’t know what she wants,’ said Michael curtly.
‘I thought I’d tell you about it, that was all. It’s all
right.’
With that he seemed to consider the subject at an
end. Roger knew quite well that what Michael meant
was, that he repented him bitterly of his incautious
promise to set foot again within Thorsgarth, and that
in speaking about it, he had had one lingering wish
that Roger might say, ‘Don’t go. Say you can’t, or
won’t.’ But Roger had not been able to say that, and
if he had, Michael would not have been able to act upon
it. The thing was settled. He was to go.
All the following day he went about his business and
his work, seemingly just as usual. But behind all his
occupations he had constantly before his mind’s eye the
scene of the previous evening—a sepia-tinted landscape,
a picture all in neutral hues, behind whose grayness he
could feel a warmth and a glow which thrilled him.
226He saw again the darkling sky and fields, heard the
roaring of the swollen Balder, and then the measured
clank of their horses’ hoofs through the streets and
along the frosty roads. And when this recollection
faded for a time, it was replaced by that of their parting—the
tired voice, the earnest request, the promised, ‘I
will not keep you long,’ the sweet burden held for one
moment in his arms, and the door closed between them
when she went in.
‘Pooh! What folly. I shall not give way to any
such nonsense. Otho Askam—Otho is her brother.
Magdalen—Gilbert—what part or lot have I with them?
She has some crotchet in her head. I would not be unkind
to her, but I will make no more promises. I shall
give her to understand that.’
It was a powerful and an honest resolution, and came
from the very depths of Michael’s convictions on the
subject of his own relations with these persons who had
once, years ago, played so important a part in his life.
Directly after four o’clock, he found himself walking
up the Thorsgarth avenue, and, as he went, he could not
but remember, mistily at first, how he and those three
other boys had once made that now so mournful aisle ring
with their shouts of mirth and delight. ‘The thoughts
of youth are long, long thoughts,’ and as he walked on
and emerged in the open space before the house, the
dimness vanished, and there came, glowing and sunshiny
as at the time, athwart all the frost and grayness of the
present, the vivid recollection of those summer days,
when he had seen this same girl on whom he was now
going to call, led by her nurse’s hand, or by that of the
proud young beauty, her mother, pacing the terraces,
and he, a boy of twelve, had lain upon the river-bank,
227and dreamed his dreams, lulled half to sleep by the
warmth of the sunshine and the murmur of the stream.
Then, almost before he had adjusted his mind to this
recollection it seemed, he heard his name announced to
her and stood before her, in a sombre room on the
ground-floor—the library.
Eleanor, who was pale and tired, as he saw when he
entered, rose from a chair by the fire, and offered him
her hand, a slow, deep blush spreading itself over her
whole face. But she betrayed no embarrassment of
speech or manner. She looked grave, sad, composed.
‘It is kind of you to come, just because I asked you,’
said she, as they both sat down.
‘There is no kindness in that,’ said Michael, beginning
to measure his words, in pursuance of his resolution.
‘You said you wished to speak to me, or to ask me
something—I forget which,—and of course I came.
Equally of course, you may find me the most ignorant
or silent of men, before I leave you.’
‘I know you are not ignorant on the points as to
which I wish for information. But you may very easily
choose to be silent,’ answered Eleanor.
‘First of all, let me ask how you are to-day? How
did you sustain the shock of the cold water yesterday
afternoon?’
‘I have taken no cold, thank you. In fact, when I
had got my wet things off, and had become warm by the
fire, I was so utterly worn out that I couldn’t sit up any
longer, and ignominiously went to bed.’
‘And to sleep, I hope?’
‘Well—I won’t boast of having slept much; but that
was not because of the plunge into the Balder Beck....
Mr. Langstroth, I am not going to make apologies
228or say I am sure you must be surprised at my asking
you to call upon me to-day, or anything of that kind. I
think you can believe I am trying to act for the best.’
‘I am sure you are,’ said he, briefly and coldly.
‘Yes. Therefore, no apologies are needed; but perhaps
a word of explanation is. You know I am almost
a stranger here?’
‘Yes.’
‘But of course you do not know that my brother is
as much a stranger to me and my friends as I am to
him and his.’
‘I did not know it—but——’
‘You did not know it. But it is so. What you told
me last night, in answer to my question,’—she hastened
to add, as he looked up quickly—‘you could not help it,
it was not your fault, but it distressed me dreadfully.
I thought about it all night. I felt that I was groping
in the dark, with no one and nothing to guide me.
There is no one here from whom I can ask a question—not
one. I want to know if you will answer me one or
two.’
‘It will depend upon what they are,’ he replied in
the same curt, dry voice.
‘Yes, of course. First of all—ah, I cannot go on in
this way, cataloguing things,’ exclaimed Eleanor, passionately.
‘It is too horrible. I don’t believe I have the
right to ask one of these questions; and yet I feel as
if so much depended on my knowing the answers to
them!’
She had sat up, and leaned forward, looking with intense
earnestness, pleading earnestness at him. Michael,
imperceptibly to her, caught his breath. The temptation
was strong to bid her ask what she would, since he knew
229her motives must be pure. As a matter of fact, he
looked at her steadily, gravely, and attentively, awaiting
what more she had to say. He said no words to help
or lead her on.
‘I will tell you what I want to know,’ she said.
‘Does Miss Wynter know about Otho—about what he
does with his money—his gambling? Does he want to
marry her? and would it be good for him if he did
marry her?’
Having asked her questions, Eleanor sat, with her
face aflame, and looked at him, every trace of her first
self-possession having vanished. As he did not immediately
answer, she went on hurriedly—
‘I asked Miss Wynter if she knew about Otho’s
character and habits. I asked her partly in joke and
to tease her, because I saw she hated me to take any
interest in him; but she told me that if she knew everything
about him to the most minute particular, she
would not think of sharing her knowledge with me.’
Then, seeing Michael’s lips grow tight and his eyebrows
draw together, she added, ‘That is why I know it is
useless to ask her.’
‘It would be absurd to refuse to answer that question,’
said Michael, almost contemptuously. ‘Every one
in Bradstane knows that Miss Wynter and your brother
are friends—intimate friends, and that she knows more
about him than any one else, except——’ He paused,
with a look of deep distaste on his face.
‘I know, I know,’ said Eleanor, quickly.
‘Therefore that is no secret. As for your other
questions—I must decline to make any kind of an
answer to them. I cannot imagine any circumstances
under which I would discuss those points.’
230‘It is perfectly natural that you should feel so,’ said
Eleanor, every spark of spirit gone from her voice and
attitude, as she sat, leaning rather droopingly forward,
despondency on her face, and her fingers loosely twined
together. She looked towards the ground after that
remark, and was silent, giving a deep sigh after a while.
Michael could not help looking at her as she sat thus,
having evidently almost forgotten his presence. In contemplating
her he was vividly aware of her beauty, and
of the noble order to which it belonged; but he was still
more keenly alive to something else—to the deep sadness
which overspread her whole countenance and attitude.
He was sure, from her whole appearance, and from what
his experienced eye knew to be her temperament, that
she was well-formed for the enjoyment of pleasure. But
not, it would seem, to the exclusion of other things. It
was quite evident that since the discovery she had made
with regard to Otho, she had not had much delight in existence,
or even found much relief in looking forward to a
better time. Michael could understand and appreciate this
kind of disposition; in a woman, he had grown greatly
to admire it. Eleanor, as she sat now, disappointed,
puzzled, unhappy, seemingly wondering what she was to
do for the best, appealed very strongly to the emotional
side of his nature, which had been dormant for years
now—ever since he had taken his life and career into his
own hands again, after the great shock they had once
sustained. But he was no longer a boy, or even a very
impetuous man,—at least, not the man any more to let
his impetuses run away with him. There was no
possible justification for the questions which Eleanor had
asked him. He was not going to answer them—was not
going for one moment to enter into any discussion on
231those points. But while his reason told him how wrong
she had been in asking the questions, his heart forgave
her freely the indiscretion. She had asked him—because
she felt she could trust him. He liked the bold frankness
and unconventionality of the action. Magdalen had
ever loved the strictest observance of outside form—unless
there had been some advantage to be gained by disregarding
it. At this moment Eleanor looked up, and
met his eyes dwelling steadily on her face. She blushed
deeply.
‘I have to beg your pardon,’ said she, ‘for having
brought you here on such a fruitless errand. I might
have known—I did know, in my inmost heart—that
you could not, and would not answer those questions.
But I felt so at sea in the matter. I had such a need of
guidance.’
Michael rose, smiling slightly.
‘Do not apologise,’ said he; ‘we all do impetuous
things sometimes. You, at least, were actuated by no
bad motives.’
‘No,’ she said, in a low voice, as she, too, rose.
Then Michael, in his turn, gave way to a sudden
impulse.
‘Because I cannot speak to you on these subjects,’ said
he, ‘that is no reason why you should not ask some one
else; it is no reason why you should not know what you
wish to know. For my part, I think you are quite right
in seeking to learn the truth on these matters.’
‘But there is no one else,’ said Eleanor. ‘You and
Miss Wynter are the only——’
‘You are quite mistaken,’ he interrupted her gravely.
‘What you say shows that you are, indeed, a stranger to
your brother and his associates. He has one friend who
232knows him more intimately and has more influence over
him than even Miss Wynter, and that one is——’
‘Your brother,’ Eleanor almost whispered, again rushing
to the right conclusion, and saving Michael the pain
of finishing his sentence.
‘Yes,’ he answered, gravely. ‘It is he whom I mean.
And as I believe he comes here often——’
‘He is coming down for Christmas, Otho told me,’ she
interposed eagerly.
‘Ask him what you wish to know,’ said Michael, a hardness
coming into his tone which was peculiar to him in
speaking of Gilbert. ‘He can have no reasons for concealing
anything from you, and can tell you all you have
asked me, and as much more as you wish to know—that
is, if he chooses.’
‘Thank you,’ said Eleanor unenthusiastically. ‘I will
remember what you say.’
‘Then I will wish you good afternoon,’ said Michael,
holding out his hand. Eleanor put hers within it silently.
‘Miss Askam,’ he said, quickly, ‘do not, I say again,
make too much of this trouble. Do not battle too hard
with it, if you know what I mean. I expect that to you,
who have very likely never known a cross, in the real
sense of the word, it seems something to be resented
bitterly, but——’
‘No, you are quite mistaken,’ said Eleanor, quickly
but softly, lifting her eyes to his face with a steady look
in them that struck him very much. ‘I see that it is
something I shall have to live with. There is no use in resenting
a trouble of that kind. When I came here, I came
looking for joy. I have found sorrow. I found it the very
day after I got here, though I hardly knew what it was,
then. I understand now. I shall not rebel against it.’
233‘That is right,’ he could not help exclaiming heartily,
in a very different tone of voice from any which she
had yet heard from his lips. And he gave her hand
a pressure and a little quick shake. ‘Forgive me if
I take the freedom of saying to you, that from the first
time I saw you I thought you were made of the right
stuff.’stuff.’
‘Did you?’ she said, smiling involuntarily, and with
a queer look adding, ‘I don’t mean to make fun of serious
things, but it always did seem to me that people
made, as you say, of the right stuff, meant those who
were chosen out to bear a lot of trouble, because their
backs were broader or stronger than those of their
neighbours.’
‘That is one view of the case, certainly,’ said Michael,
going to the door. ‘Good day!’
And he walked out, having a final impression of her,
standing with her hands folded before her, and looking
after him with an expression, half anxiety, half relief, on
her face.
‘A fine girl!’ said he to himself, as he walked very
slowly down the avenue: he did not feel, now, in such a
desperate hurry to shake the dust of the place from his
feet. ‘What a blending of fire and softness, of vigour
and gentleness! No weak-willed fool would have spoken
in that way. It was not a spiritless acquiescence in evil
because she really had no power to cope with it. It is
that she understands something of what is below the
surface. She has found out the best way to meet it.
“I came here looking for joy. I have found sorrow.”
How noble she did look as she said it! Well, may she
find strength too, to carry her sorrow wisely and well.
It is the best any of us can ask for in this world.’
234But he pondered the theme in every variety of aspect
on his homeward way. He wondered what she would
do after he had left her—how pass the dreary evening,
alone and uncheered, in the great, desolate house. At
this idea Michael suddenly felt a wave of exceeding great
pity and compunction sweep over his soul. Well might
she say, ‘I have found sorrow.’ What else could one,
nurtured as she had been, look for, in that house and its
associations? He suddenly became conscious how very
bad it was for a young woman to sit alone and brood
over troubles—bad for both mental and bodily health.
And he fell to wondering who, in all the social circles of
Bradstane and its neighbourhood could in some way play
the part to her of friend or associate.
Of course, what he pictured her as doing was entirely
different from what she really did. After he had left
the room, she stood looking at the door which had closed
after him, and listened to his footsteps for the few short
moments during which it was possible to hear them.
Then, suddenly, with a quick, restless movement she
began to pace the room. Backwards and forwards she
went, with an uneasy step, for some time, till, in the
gathering dark, Barlow came in with a lamp, and with a
taper lighted some candles which stood on the mantelpiece.
He soon went away again, and the illumination
he had made would have revealed her to any one who
had happened to be there, with a face pallid but excited,
and a strange unusual light in her eyes. She made a
pause in her walk, moved uncertainly once or twice, and
then walked up to the mantelpiece. She was not now
thinking of the ill news and the trouble which had, as it
were, stalked into her life, but of him through whom,
indirectly, she had become acquainted with them. What
235did it all mean? and herself of two days ago, where was
it? Was it laughter or tears now struggling within her—pleasure
or pain? Something had happened to her,
that she felt, and she would always be different from
what she had been before. Had she been lifted up, or
struck down? She could not tell, she had not the
faintest idea, but she felt Michael’s voice thrilling again
through every nerve, till at last the sensation of the
mastery he had gotten over her became almost unbearable.
If he had thus laid her under a spell which she
felt to be almost terrible in its strength and intensity,
what of herself? She was not yet so lost in her own
subjective sensations as to be unable to take his into
consideration, and at this moment she suddenly lifted
her eyes and looked at her own reflection in the mirror
over the mantelpiece—her lips parted, and a new searching
eagerness in her expression.
‘He saw my face this afternoon, clearly enough,’
something within her seemed to say, with an uncontrollable
frankness, for which her usual self was in no wise
accountable. It was as if a voice apart, and yet
belonging to her, spoke, and she had to listen. Some
phase of her own nature which had never yet addressed
itself to her, appealed to her now, crying aloud, so
that other voices were stilled; it made itself imperiously
audible.
‘He saw it. Did it please him, I wonder? What
did he think of it? What does he think of me? I would
give all the world, if I had it, to know.’
But the reflection of herself which she saw, only
flung her own doubt and wonder and groping speculation
back into her own face, and presently she sat down again,
muttering, ‘I wish I had never seen him.’
236Then, at last, the wished-for tears broke forth, and
she whispered to herself between them, ‘He is good, he
is good, he is good! I know he is.’
Good or bad, he had that day planted a thorn in her
breast, and it grew apace.
CHAPTER XXI WORK AND WAGES
237
Three weeks of unmitigated, solid, hard work followed
in Michael’s life upon these two eventful afternoons—not
work of a kind to make him forget whatever transient
gleam of a different world might have crossed his path.
It was not the art that can make poverty rich, and turn
prose into poetry; it was not the science which can
possess and absorb and fascinate a man, and charm him
away from outside influences, so as to be a formidable
rival to even a well-loved human being. It was none of
that, but one continual, mechanical grind amongst prosaic
and often sordid surroundings, accomplished without
excitement or glamour, at the expense of considerable
physical wear and tear and weariness. After such a
day’s work as this, he would come in to his home and
his friend. If he was not too tired, there was always
plenty to occupy his time in the shape of reading, connected
with his profession; very often more visits to pay
during the evening; very occasionally a dinner-party at
some house in the neighbourhood, where he met the
same people he had been meeting ever since he had
begun to go to local dinner-parties, and heard the same
topics discussed that always were discussed in Bradstane.
His nearest approach to a social and domestic evening
238was when he, being very tired, would indulge himself in
the luxury of a sofa and a pipe, and Roger, putting away
his books, would sit down to the piano and play, or sing,
or improvise for an hour or two for his benefit. During
moments of frivolity and relaxation like these, he often
caught himself thinking of Eleanor Askam, as she
thanked him, in her sweet tired voice, for his escort, or
stood before him with steadfast gaze, saying, ‘I came
looking for joy. I have found sorrow.’ They were both
situations in such sharp contrast with the rest of his existence,
that it can scarcely be matter for surprise if he
dwelt upon them rather often in recollection. He did
not, however, think of them as anything more than
passing incidents, to which it was pleasant to revert
in memory; not as epochs or turning-points in his
mental or emotional condition. During these weeks it
happened that he never once met Eleanor, or perhaps
his eyes might have had the scales lifted from
them. He heard of her sometimes, as was natural.
And one day, at a house where he was lunching,
some girls were discussing her and her claims to beauty.
They agreed that these claims were quite undeniable;
they admired her exceedingly. She was very
original-looking, as well as beautiful, and yet not in the
least odd.
Expressing a smile, and exercising what measure he
possessed of the wisdom of the serpent, Michael opened
his ears that they might, if possible, gather in the reasons
for this magnanimous and universal admission. He presently
learned that Miss Askam, though so handsome,
and not a bit dull or stupid, was rather quiet, went out
very little, and had said she did not think of visiting
much during the winter.
239‘Then she won’t be at any of the balls?’balls?’ asked a
practical spirit.
‘I suppose not, from that. But I don’t know, of
course. She didn’t say she had vowed never to go out
at all. But it must be very trying for her. He won’t
go anywhere, you know; and she is evidently not the
sort of young woman who goes in for society and amusement
at any price.’
‘No; and I must say I admire her for it. Mamma
said she thought her quite dignified and proper in her
ideas—very good form in every way. It’s very sad for
her, having a brother like that, and no one to take her
out. I think we’re going to ask her to lunch, some day.’
‘Ah, yes!’ came in a chorus of satisfied assent.
Michael hereupon took his leave. The girls had
forgotten his presence, and, on his appearance amongst
them, eagerly asked if he knew Miss Askam.
‘I’ve met her casually, once or twice,’ said Michael,
calmly. ‘So far as I can judge, your verdict upon her
is full of wisdom and justice.’ And he bowed himself out.
‘Michael Langstroth does get more and more dull and
unsatisfactory as a companion every time one sees him,’
observed a young matron, who had known him since
they had both been children. ‘He’s a disappointed
man, that’s what he is,’ she added with decision. ‘He
will go on getting worse and worse in that way.’
Michael, riding away, thought also how fortunate it
was for Miss Askam that she was ‘dignified;’ though it
certainly seemed as if the dignity must bring with it
a good deal of dulness, when practised in a place like
Bradstane.
But these thoughts of her, and talk of her, even such
as that he had just heard, were occasional, rare; while
240his work was daily, hourly, and continual, and the pursuit
of it carried him quickly through the last days of
November, and the first week or two of December, till
it did not want so very long to Christmas.
It was ‘an open winter,’ that year. At least,
December was well advanced, and there had been hardly
a touch of frost. The roads were soft, and the air was
mild, so that it was not only Michael who was to be seen
riding up and down at this season. He met friends
occasionally, and exchanged greetings with them, at long
distances from their homes.
One morning, riding in a road some three or four
miles from Bradstane, he was walking his horse, and
looking with curiosity at some bushes in the hedge, on
which were visible many buds. The trees had mistaken
the warmth of autumn for that of spring; no doubt they
would presently be rudely reminded of their error,
blighted, and turned into vegetable misanthropes, while
the little unseasonable black buds would die an untimely
death.
Slowly turning a corner, he came full upon what
seemed to him, at first, quite a cavalcade of horsemen
and horsewomen. A moment’s glance, however, showed
that the party consisted of four—two ladies, and two
men, with a couple of grooms in the background. The
lane was not wide, and they rode two and two.
Those in front, whom he saw and recognised first,
were Magdalen and Otho Askam. Magdalen was a little
flushed; she looked even handsomer than usual, and
decidedly more animated. But, as she suddenly recognised
Michael, a change passed over her face—a rapid,
subtle look of unease, a trouble, a stirring of the depths
below. It was the look which she never could quite
241repress when she met him, especially if Otho Askam
were present, and it was a look which always renewed
to Michael the assurance that, in the combat between
them, it was he who had conquered her, not she him.
Otho frowned as they met; Magdalen averted her eyes
as she bowed. It was their way of acknowledging the
wrong they had done him. It was wrung from them
every time they encountered him. They passed on, and
then the next riders came full into Michael’s view.
In an instant he felt chilled, disconcerted, and angered,
too, with an anger that hurt and pained him. His mind
was filled at once with wild, incoherent fears and ideas.
It was Eleanor Askam whose gaze first met his, looking
very grave, and as it seemed to him very sweet, and
rather sad. The clear eyes dilated, and a quick flush
came into her face as she saw him. He saw that look,
and knew it as an acknowledgment of what had already
passed between them. That sight of her, and that look
of hers could only have given him pleasure. It was
when he recognised her companion that his heart sank
so heavily. Gilbert’s gaze had not wavered as Magdalen’s
did, when he encountered that of Michael. He had
grown into the sort of man, outwardly considered, that
he might have been expected to develop into. He was
not in the least handsome, but had an air of distinction,
an individuality in his whole appearance which went far
beyond good looks. He was perfectly dressed. He was
a perfect horseman—his city life had not broken him of
that familiar habitude of his youth and young manhood,—and
he looked every inch like a gentleman and a man
of the world. When Michael took off his hat, so did
Gilbert, with unruffled composure. It was Michael’s
turn to be troubled and distressed beyond all reason.
242Long after they had passed each other he rode on with
his feelings in a state of the utmost perturbation, a
thousand wild thoughts tormenting his soul.
The chief one was that he himself had advised Eleanor,
so to speak, to make a friend of Gilbert—to confide her
troubles to him, and ask his advice. What had he been
dreaming of? Had he been fool enough to identify her
feelings with his own, and be confident that she would
have no intercourse with Gilbert beyond what was
absolutely necessary? What earthly right or reason had
he had for assuming such a thing? A ludicrous feeling
of injured vanity came across him as, in a kind of parenthesis,
he recollected Gilbert’s appearance; the high
finish and perfection of every appointment, from his hat
to his boots, and then contrasted with it all his own
rather rough-and-ready accoutrements—the clothing and
paraphernalia of the poor country doctor who must be
out at all hours and in all weather, no matter what betide.
A deep, dark flush crossed Michael’s face. It was the
first time such a contrast had ever crossed his mind.
Now he thought, ‘What does it matter how he came by
it all? She will not inquire into that, and he is the sort
of man she has been accustomed to. And we always
like what we are accustomed to, no matter how we may
pretend to relish a change.’ His poverty and want of
power to make the appearance of other young men, no
better born nor bred than himself, galled him, for the
very first time, deep in his heart of hearts.
Then other considerations came rushing into his mind.
She had looked grave, it was true; but what of that?
Hers might be one of those deep natures to which happiness
gives a grave expression. And, grave or not, she
had been riding by Gilbert’s side; she had apparently
243been conversing with him on friendly terms; there had
been no expression of displeasure or dislike upon her
face.
And on what other terms could she possibly have
been with him? he asked himself. And what had she
to do with his quarrels? ‘I must be going off my head!’
said Michael to himself, lifting off his hat, to let the air
cool his forehead. After all, he realised, when he had
had a little time in which to let his ideas adjust themselves,
the fear which had seized upon his innermost
soul and dismayed it was, not lest Eleanor should be
attracted by Gilbert, but lest Gilbert should be attracted
by Eleanor. That which caused him to be dismayed by
this prospect was the knowledge that if such a thing
were to happen—if Gilbert should love her, and be
pleased to tell her so, and to make any claim for her,
he had a great deal of power. He literally held her
brother’s fortunes in the hollow of his hand. If he
could not altogether repair the ravages Otho had made
in his estate, he could finish the matter at his pleasure,
and make a complete ruin of what as yet was but a
badly damaged property. If it should ever come to
pass that he wished to marry Eleanor, and she should
not wish to marry him, he could make her life miserable
to her, if he chose, through the injuries which he could
inflict upon her brother. And, then, supposing she
should care for him! Michael found himself breathing
harder and riding faster as this possibility entered his
mind, but he forced himself to face it. Should she ever
‘care for’ Gilbert, there was nothing to prevent, but
everything to urge a marriage between them. And
after all, why should she not care for him? She had
been far away, and all unwitting the circumstances,
244when Gilbert’s sin had been committed; and if he had
sinned basely and blackly, once, he had by his sin got
what he aimed at; he had bought with it the means
and the power to be honest for all the rest of his life.
Not every one, reflected Michael, could boast so much.
Thoughts like these did not form a soothing accompaniment
to his ride. He angrily asked himself what it
was to him, supposing she and Gilbert chose to be
married next week? He had no answer to that, but
only the consciousness that it would be a great deal to
him; unhappiness which he preferred not to contemplate.
Reason told him that his thoughts were extravagant and
exaggerated—that he had imagined without a cause the
extremest possibilities of a given (imaginary) situation.
Something else, though, importunately said that though
they might be extreme possibilities, yet that they distinctly
were possibilities.
He set his teeth, and told himself in effect, if not in
so many words, that he was not ‘going to be made a
fool of again by that set.’ And if, by some unaccountable
means, Eleanor Askam had become an object of so
much importance in his mind, the best thing to do now
would be to be hard, and root her out at once;—hard to
himself, of course—not to her.
He had an opportunity that very evening of, so to
speak, trying the effect of a scourge upon his own flesh.
Dr. Rowntree presented himself after dinner for a chat.
This, as a rule, meant that they all three gossiped as
hard, or harder than if they had been so many spinsters
of the same ages and standing. This evening, from the
nature of the subject, which soon became apparent,
Roger and the old doctor did the gossiping with avidity;
and Michael seized the opportunity, without taking them
245into his confidence, to use the scourge upon himself.
They sat in the library, and after a few preliminary
remarks, Dr. Rowntree uttered the words which he had
come for the express purpose of uttering—
‘I was at Johnson’s last night,’ said he.
‘Johnson’ was the vicar of Bradstane—a toil-worn
man, with a very exceeding numerous progeny.
‘Were you?’ said Michael; ‘and how are they going
on? I haven’t been there for ages.’
‘No, they said it was long since they had seen you.
I think they are all flourishing. Effie looks a great deal
better. Your absence does not seem to have damaged
you in her estimation yet.’
‘Yet—why the extreme emphasis upon that word?’
asked Michael, in surprise. ‘I don’t expect ever to be
damaged in Effie’s estimation. And I told Mrs. Johnson
that the treatment would have to be persevered in some
time before any good effects could be expected, so I
thought my absence would be accounted for.’
‘Oh, I’m not meaning that,’ said the doctor mysteriously.
‘Mrs. Johnson is not the woman to shirk a
direction of that kind. You may be sure that if you
told her the treatment needed perseverance, it would
get it from her. It has had it, and with good results.
Poor little weakling! She may out-grow it all yet,
though; and I will say that I don’t know a kinder and
a gentler family, parents and children and all, than the
Johnsons, anywhere.’
‘Yes, they are a very nice lot of children,’ said
Michael, who was tracing out the details of the Battle of
Bull Run on a map, and who spoke absently. ‘Very
nice children, and I must go and see them soon. But I
have been so busy.’
246‘You had better go, if you don’t want your nose
putting out of joint,’ said the doctor. ‘They are in a
state of excitement at having found a new friend—a
formidable rival to you, I can tell you, my lad.’
‘Whoever it may be,’ said Michael, his finger on the
line of the Shenandoah Valley railroad, ‘I will stake all
I am worth on Effie’s fidelity.’
‘Well, Effie—of course she’s infatuated about you.
Perhaps the camp might even divide,—Effie and the
rest of the girls on your side, and the boys on that of
the new person. Guess who it is.’
Michael, who had given his undivided attention to
this last remark, knew in an instant. He had no need
to guess. Not feeling inclined to rouse the curiosity of
the other two, however, he merely shook his head, and
apparently returned to the study of his map. It was
at this juncture that the scourge came into requisition.
He was silent, he knew he should not take much part in
the rest of the conversation. Roger, who was also, to
some extent, a friend of the little Johnsons, now inquired
with interest who the ‘new person’ was.
‘Well, you’d never guess, if you tried for a week,’
said the innocent old gentleman, beaming triumphantly
upon them through his spectacles; ‘so I may as well tell
you. It is Miss Askam of Thorsgarth—Otho’s sister.’
‘Of course it was,’ thought Michael; and he was conscious
that Roger in expressing his own astonishment,
shot a quick glance at him, Michael. He managed to
conjure up a look which, accompanied by raised eyebrows,
and a murmured ‘dear me!’ formed a very fair
imitation of surprise. He envied Roger’s unaffected
interest and astonishment.
‘I have such a thorough contempt for all that lot,’
247went on Dr. Rowntree, ‘that if I had known Miss
Askam was going to be there last night, nothing would
have induced me to go. I’ve had many lessons on the
folly of being prejudiced and pig-headed, but I believe I
am occasionally a little inclined that way—eh, what?’
He looked sharply at Roger, who merely laughed and
said, ‘Go on. When are you coming to Miss Askam?’
‘Well, at once. I turned in unexpectedly, about
half-past seven, last night. I wanted to see Mrs.
Johnson about my Christmas-tree. You know the
children always have a Christmas-tree at my house. I
was shown into the sitting-room, and there I found
them. Mrs. Johnson was actually sitting by the fire,
reading—would you believe it?—reading a novel. And
Miss Askam was at the table playing “commerce” with
all of them. There wasn’t one left out. And they had
candies for a pool. I was so astounded that I hardly
knew what to make of it, and stood there looking quite
foolish. However, I was presented to the lady, and she
invited me to join the game; but of course I had come
on other business.’
He paused. Roger did not vex Michael by looking
at him. But he instinctively understood that Michael
did not wish to take any part in this conversation. He
therefore said, ‘Well?’
‘Well, Mrs. Johnson and I had a little conversation—about
the Christmas-tree, of course—in another room.
Naturally, she mentioned Miss Askam, and how they had
become acquainted. She says Miss Askam is an angel,
and that she has done more than any one else to
reconcile her to her position here—of the poor lady
struggling amongst rich acquaintances, without a real
friend in the lot.’
248It was well known by Mrs. Johnson’s intimate friends,
and by these three men amongst them, that she had
never felt happy or at home with the well-born and
wealthy sheep of her husband’s flock—those sheep who
stood in every worldly consideration so very high above
their shepherd. Her poverty, her many children, and
her many cares had always prevented her from visiting
them on terms of anything like equality; while her own
upbringing as a gentlewoman, made their patronage,
however good-natured, very galling to her. And, perhaps,
none of them had ever been so careworn themselves
or so troubled as to be able to approach her as a friend.
It was, at least, whosesoever the fault might be, a certain
thing that Mrs. Johnson did not ‘get on’ with her richer
neighbours, and that many of them considered her
unbending, unreasonable, and disagreeable. There was
probably ground for both opinions. Her brusqueness
and utter unwillingness to receive any kind of favours
annoyed them, while to have them step from their
carriages into her shabby house, and coldly behold the
bareness of the domestic territory, exasperated and
humiliated her at the same time. Perhaps, as a matter
of fact, their hearts were better than their manners;
certainly, this was the case with Mrs. Johnson herself;
but neither of them could see the good in the other
side.
‘Miss Askam didn’t patronise her, then?’ said Roger.
‘Well, no, or you may be sure she would not have
been sitting in the midst of them in that fashion. It
seems Johnson insisted that his wife should call upon
Miss Askam soon after she came. He said Otho’s goings
on were nothing to them, and they had no right to
assume that Miss Askam would be anything but delighted
249to receive the wife of her parish priest. So Mrs.
Johnson put on her best gown and went, sorely against
her will, having made up her mind to find a female
edition of Otho. You may judge of her relief at what
she did find.’
‘I don’t see how we can be expected to enter into
the fulness of Mrs. Johnson’s joy, seeing that we don’t
know Miss Askam. And why she should have assumed
that——’
‘Botheration to you and your assumptions! Will
you let me tell my own tale in my own way, and don’t
be a prig. Mrs. Johnson found, as she said, a simple,
unassuming young lady, as unpretentious as if she had
lived in a four-roomed cottage. She seemed downright
glad to see Mrs. Johnson, and made her have tea, and
asked her about the children; and, above all, she didn’t
offer to send her home in the carriage.’ (Roger gave
vent to a short, sardonic laugh. He had a powerful,
insane objection to Ada’s being ‘sent home in the
carriage’ from Balder Hall.) ‘But she did put on her
things and walk half the way home with her. She
asked if she might go and see the children. Of course
Mrs. Johnson gave a few particulars about their establishment,
which seems to me to have been highly unnecessary——’
‘Very,’ echoed Roger. ‘Why can’t people stand on
their own legs, as their own legs, and not be always
deprecating the fact that they are not just the same
shape as the legs of other people? Well!’
‘It was not long before Miss Askam presented herself,
at an hour when they were all in, and in five minutes
she’d made friends with every one of them, from the
biggest to the least. So now she’s a friend of the
250family, and her name a household word, like yours,
Mike.’
‘Isn’t it rather odd that she should chum so with
the Johnsons?’ asked Roger, going fully into the
question.
‘No, I don’t think so. I think she finds it congenial.
She’s always welcome, and she knows it. And there’s
another thing,—she is a woman of the right sort.’
‘What on earth do you mean by that?’ asked Roger,
while Michael sat silent.
‘Well, it would take a good while to explain all I
mean by that. But when you come across such a woman,
you know her quickly for what she is, or I’m sorry for
you if you don’t; you ain’t up to much. The right sort
of woman, when she has griefs and sorrows of her own—and
that young thing has, unless her sad eyes are very
misleading—does not seek her distractions where the
wrong sort of woman does. I don’t mean that she shuts
herself up like a nun—that’s no good; but she does
seem to fly to charity, by which I don’t mean carrying
round tracts and soup-tickets; she flies to charity, I say,
as a duck takes to water. I don’t know that she is
always so anxious to forget her troubles—the right sort
of woman. You can’t forget a constant pain; you
couldn’t forget chronic neuralgia if you had that blessing
given you; but she does find a right use for them—the
use they were intended for by Him who sent them to
her,’ said the little doctor, lowering his voice; ‘and she
best alleviates her own griefs by helping others out of
theirs. I’m convinced that Miss Askam is such a
woman. She’s sad—very sad—she is, for all her riches
and all her beauty; and—Michael, what must you be
rattling that blind down for, just when I’m talking?
251It’s your own garden outside. You can’t be overlooked,
if that is what you are afraid of.’
‘I beg your pardon. Well, what next?’ said
Michael, with an immense effort, sitting down again, and
trying to look tranquil. One would almost have said
that the worthy doctor’s eulogiums bored him.
‘I daresay you are right,’ said Roger. ‘Anyhow, if
she finds a need for friends of that sort, to whom she can
be a help, I am glad she has found out the Johnsons;
for they can do with a few, “of the right sort,” as you
say.’
‘I can’t tell you how much I liked her,’ said Dr.
Rowntree, beaming contentedly. ‘There was only one
thing that Mrs. Johnson said, that went a little against
the grain with me.’
‘While you were settling about the Christmas-tree, I
suppose?’ said Roger, politely.
‘That man from London, saving your presence,
Michael, is staying at Thorsgarth now. He called with
her one morning when she came to the Vicarage——’
‘Oh, come!’ said Roger, hastily, ‘Mrs. Johnson is well
known to be a match-maker.’
‘Well,’ said the doctor, a little abashed, ‘we’ll hope
that that idea is nothing but imagination, of course.’
‘It may be, or it may not be so,’ here observed
Michael, joining in the conversation for the first time,
and using his scourge upon himself out of sheer
perversity of spirit. ‘But I should say if it is,
imagination has got a better handle to lay hold of
than it usually has, in Bradstane.’
‘Why—do you know anything? Have you heard
anything?’ both the others inquired, turning upon him
with greedy eagerness.
252‘Nothing in the world,’ said Michael, coldly, ‘except
what my own senses tell me. I met them all out riding
this morning—Askam and Magdalen; Miss Askam and
Gilbert. I immediately thought of that possibility, for
some reason—and thought it a very likely one too.’
‘It is not likely she would favour him,’ said Dr.
Rowntree, with an angry sniff, ‘however he might like
her.’
Michael shrugged his shoulders. For some reason,
unknown to himself, he felt impelled to combat the
doctor—try to dispel the couleur de rose in which he saw
all that he liked or loved.
‘No one can even hazard a guess on such a subject,’
said he; ‘but if he “liked” her, as you express it, things
might be made very unpleasant for her, if she didn’t see
her way to liking him in return.’
‘Ah—ow!’ gasped Dr. Rowntree, as this possibility
flashed across his mind. ‘I knew she had her troubles,’
he concluded, darkly.
Roger burst out laughing. Michael said not another
word. It sometimes happened that he had occasion, as
now, to mention Gilbert’s name, in the course of conversation,
when it always fell from his lips as calmly
and coldly as if it had been the name of some one
unknown.
‘I suppose,’ said Roger, ‘that she will be at the
concert?’
‘Oh yes. She has promised them to go to that. It
was raining last night when her carriage came for her,
and she begged to set me down at my house. So I went
with her, and had a little conversation with her. She
insists upon joining at my Christmas-tree. She says
she knows of a lot of things the children want which
253their mother would never tell me of—and I who thought
she told me everything! And then she said, “Fancy“Fancy
their faces, you know, when they every one find two
presents instead of only one. It will be worth anything,
just to look at them.”them.” And she laughed at the idea.
So she is to call upon my sister to-morrow, and they
will settle it all between them. But you’ll be at my
house at the party, of course, and then you can see and
judge for yourselves.’
Neither of the young men said anything to this, and
Dr. Rowntree, expressing an opinion that he had tarried
long enough, got up from his chair, and took his
departure.
There was silence for a little while, and then Roger
said, ‘What an old enthusiast he is when he takes a
fancy to any one.’
‘Yes, he is,’ said Michael, coldly, as he, too, rose. ‘I
have to go out again, so I had better lose no more time.’
‘Out again, Michael! Are you sure?’
‘I’m not very likely to make a mistake about it,’ said
the young man, smiling slightly, as he glanced over his
list.
‘Well, I do call it too bad, after such a day as you
have had. Anybody is better off than a doctor,’
grumbled Roger.
Michael went out, merely remarking that it was all
in the day’s work.
It was late before he returned, and during his absence
Roger had time to reflect upon the matters they had been
discussing earlier.
‘It touched up Michael in some disagreeable way—what
the old man said,’ he decided. ‘I wonder what it
could be. Surely he has not got a fancy for that girl!
254What a cursed complication that would be, to be sure!
But I’m sure he hasn’t, or if he had, he has will enough
to crush it out, quickly. He would never yield to it.
What a voice that was in which he spoke of meeting
them!... Sometimes I wonder if he ever has any self-reproach
when he meets Gilbert on these auspicious
occasions. Not likely, I should think. Michael is a
good man; and when a good man—a really good man,
like him—feels that he has a right to be hard, by George!
he does use it with a vengeance. I don’t think it would
ever occur to him that Gilbert could have anything to
say for himself. And I do fondly hope he has no
“feelings” on the subject of this astonishing Miss
Askam. It would be too horrible if anything like that
were to happen.’
CHAPTER XXII CROSS-PURPOSES
255
A few days after this, the subject of the above discussion,
the ‘astonishing Miss Askam,’ the new friend of
the Johnson family, and the object of Dr. Rowntree’s
fervent admiration, returning from a morning visit to
the Vicarage, and making her way home by way of the
‘Castle-walk,’ as it was called, found herself a little tired;
and as it was a mild and sunshiny day, she seated herself
upon a wooden bench which was situated just under the
ruin of the great tower, and rested herself, while she
watched the flow of Tees, turbid with the late rains, far
below her feet.
While she sat there, some one, humming a tune,
came round the corner, and Eleanor, glancing at her,
beheld the showily dressed little figure of Ada Dixon.
Ada had seen Eleanor, too, and she hesitated perceptibly
in her walk, a look of expectation and curiosity upon
her face.
‘Good morning,’ said Eleanor cheerfully, and did not
intend to say any more; but Ada stopped, now that she
had a faint excuse for doing so. Eleanor then remembered
what had seemed to her the rude treatment
bestowed upon the young girl by Otho and Magdalen,
on the occasion of her well-remembered visit to Balder
256Hall, and she decided that a little courtesy might not be
out of place here.
‘Good morning, Miss Askam,’ Ada replied, her eyes
roving anxiously over all the details of the other’s costume.
‘How do you do? I hope you are very well,’ she
added, deciding within her own mind that Miss Askam
‘dressed very plain and dark, and all one colour—just
a plain, dark brown. I do like a little brightness.’
‘I am very well, thank you,’ said Eleanor, utterly
unconscious of this scrutiny. ‘Have you been to Miss
Wynter’s again lately?’
‘Yes, Miss Askam. I go there pretty often. Once
or twice a week, at any rate. Miss Wynter and I are
great friends.’
‘Oh. And how are your songs getting on? Those
which you are preparing for the concert, I mean!’
‘Oh, thank you, very well. I’m almost perfect in
them now.’
‘Perhaps you would like to sit down. I felt tired;
it is such a mild morning,’ said Eleanor, making room
on the bench.
Ada promptly sat down.
‘I was feeling a little tired,’ she replied, with an air
of languor; ‘really, the weather is not at all seasonable.’
‘No; but do you like frost? I do; but you don’t
look to me as if you could stand much of that sort of
thing.’
‘Oh, I’m not particularly delicate, thank you—never
very strong, but I always keep going, somehow,’ said
Ada. ‘I haven’t seen you at Balder Hall, lately,’ she
added, to Eleanor’s great astonishment.
‘That is not surprising, as I have not been there
since the day I saw you,’ she answered, indifferently.
257‘Are you going to sing that same song at the concert?’
she added.
‘No, not that one. I take part in a duet with Miss
Wynter.’
‘I see. Not so trying, quite, as having to stand up
alone. I saw you were a little nervous that afternoon;
but one soon gets over that when one has once started.’
‘Oh, thank you, there’s no call to pity me,’ said Ada,
with a lofty smile. ‘I’m accustomed to singing before
gentlemen.’
‘Oh, I don’t mean that exactly,’ said Eleanor, astounded
to find the construction put upon her words.
‘What a queer little self-sufficient, ill-bred thing it is!’
she reflected to herself. ‘How sad that Mr. Camm
should be so blind!’ For she had heard a great deal
about Roger Camm at the Vicarage, and from the doctor,
whom she had seen once or twice in the last few days.
‘It did not matter in the least,’ went on Ada, anxious
to vindicate herself from the charge of nervousness.
‘When one has to sing in public, it would never do to
get nervous before one’s friends.’
‘Well, no,’ Eleanor admitted, secretly more and more
surprised and amused. ‘Is she like this by nature, or
has Miss Wynter petted her till she has got such ideas
into her head?’ Meantime, Ada, secretly much elated,
wished very much that some one would come by and see
her seated side by side with Miss Askam, who, it was
evident, was quite pleased to see her. She was accustomed
to be treated very differently by Magdalen, who
talked to her as if she had been a child, snubbed her, and
sent her running to fetch and carry, while she encouraged
her to come, and said she could not do without
her. Magdalen, as Ada knew, valued her at no very
258high figure; Miss Askam, she fancied, mistook her for
a lady. For poor Ada, with all her vanity, was so keenly
conscious of not being a lady, so well aware that something
was wanting to make her into one—a really
fashionable milliner, probably, or a course of visiting
amongst stylish people. So she behaved now with a
perkish flippancy, intended to show that she was as well
aware of her own claims to distinction as any one else
could be, which, indeed, was very emphatically the case.
Ada had a book in her hand, or rather a paper
number of a newspaper or journal.
‘Were you reading as you took your walk?’ asked
Eleanor.
‘Yes, I was,’ and she displayed the title-page of the
periodical, with a sensational engraving on it, and the
title, Genteel Journal.
‘Oh dear!’ Eleanor could not help saying; ‘are you
fond of reading?’
‘Very, some sorts of reading. I like the stories in
the Genteel Journal, and the poetry too. Have you read
“The Earl’s Caprice”?’
‘No,’ said Eleanor, much interested, and wondering
what further developments the conversation would take.
‘Is that a story?’
‘Yes, indeed, a most delightful one. It is running
now in the Journal, and leaves off at such an exciting
part. They always do.’
‘Who is the author?’
‘Miss Laura Loveday. Don’t you think her stories
are very pretty?’
‘I’m afraid I am very ignorant, for I never heard of
her before.’
‘You do surprise me. There’s lovely poetry in this
259paper too. Augustus Sprout writes a good deal for it.
You will know his poetry, I daresay.’
‘I must plead guilty to having never heard of either
him or his poems.’
‘Dear me, how odd! The Genteel Journal published
a sketch of his life a little while ago. It was like a
novel to read it.’
‘Since you are so fond of stories, of course you are
acquainted with the classics amongst our novelists,—Thackeray,
Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, and all the other
great names?’
‘Classics!’ cried Ada, not answering the question.
‘Oh, I know what classics are. Roger—Mr. Camm,
that is, you know—is always telling me I should read
this and that and the other, because they are classics.
I know I never tried a classic yet that wasn’t awfully
dry—yes, awfully.’
‘Perhaps you haven’t ever really tried.’
‘Oh yes, I have. He does like such very dry books.
I lent him one of Laura Loveday’s novels, one day—not
the “Earl’s Caprice,” but another, “The Fate of the
Falconers,” it was called. It is such a pretty story, all
about how a very old family were saved from ruin by
the eldest son’s clandestine marriage with quite a poor,
obscure girl, but very beautiful, of course. Well, Roger
brought it back very soon, and said it was worse than
silly, it was nasty—fancy, accusing me of reading nasty
things, Miss Askam! And he wondered how I could
pollute my mind with such stuff.’
‘Well?’ said Eleanor, with deep interest.
‘And he wanted me to promise never to read any
more of Laura Loveday’s novels. Just fancy!’
‘And I am sure you did promise,’ said Eleanor, gently.
260‘Not I, indeed!’ retorted Ada, tossing her head; and
then, seeing that Miss Askam’s eyes were fixed very
gravely upon her, she reddened, and added, with some
confusion—
‘Well, there, I did promise. He was so very urgent
about it.’
‘I thought you would. I am sure Mr. Camm was
quite right. And I am sure you will be all the better
for not reading any more of Miss Loveday’s novels.
Even if you read nothing else, it would be better not to
read them.’
Ada fumbled for some little time with a massive
silver watch-chain, and then said slowly—
‘Miss Askam, don’t you be shocked, but I have read
some more of them—two of them. I did not tell Roger,
because I knew he’d never ask me. He doesn’t really
care about it, you know; it’s only that he hasn’t a head
for stories, and that sort of thing; and he thinks every
one else can care for the same dry things that he likes.
I did try to read Macaulay’s “History,” but it was no
use. What do I care for such things—things that
happened hundreds and thousands of years ago——’
She saw a startled expression upon her auditor’s face,
and went on: ‘There, I see I’m all wrong; but I did
hate it so, that I can’t even remember what it was
about, nor when it all happened. I can’t read such
books, and that’s all about it; and yet, something I
must have to read.’
‘Oh, I am so sorry that you did read those two
other books!’ exclaimed Eleanor, earnestly.
And Ada Dixon thought how very odd she was, and
not anything like as nice as Miss Wynter. Miss Wynter
always encouraged her to talk about the novels of Laura
261Loveday, or about the poems of Augustus Sprout, or,
indeed, about anything and everything that came into
her head. Remembering this, and feeling that it was
impossible for any one to know better about things than
Miss Wynter, she took courage, and said—
‘Well, but, Miss Askam, I don’t see that Roger has a
right to dictate things of that kind to me, especially when
I’m not interested in the things that interest him. Miss
Wynter always asks me all about the novels, and poetry,
and things, and she says it amuses her immensely to
hear about them.’
‘I daresay it does,’ said Eleanor, in a tone of such
strong and unguarded displeasure, that Ada immediately
thought, ‘She’s jealous of Miss Wynter for something.
Ma said she was.’
‘But,’ Eleanor pursued, ‘you had not been dictated
to. I understand that you promised Mr. Camm——’
‘Well, I did; but——’
‘But you should not have broken your promise.
Please do excuse my saying it. I daresay I have no
business to, but I feel so much interested in you and
Mr. Camm. I have heard so much about him,
and I think he must be so remarkably clever and
interesting——’
‘Do you!’you!’ exclaimed Ada, in unaffected astonishment.
‘Well, I never!’‘Well, I never!’
‘I feel perfectly certain that he is very clever, and
that some day he will make a mark in the world. I’m
sure there is no doubt about that. You should be very
proud to have won the love of such a man, for I am sure
that you will have reason to be proud to be his wife,
some day.’
‘Eh, Miss Askam!’
262Ada was, as she would have said herself, ‘taken
aback’ by Miss Askam’s earnestness, and especially by
the bold way in which she prophesied great things, and
that, too, before the event. It had never occurred to
her to look at it in that light before. Her father always
said how steady and ‘decent’ Roger was; that meant,
she knew, that he was expected always to have an
income and a comfortable home for her, Ada. But her
mother looked down upon him; and she herself, though
she had been pleased and flattered with his attentions at
first, and was aware that many another girl in Bradstane
would have lent no unwilling ear to his courting, had
lately begun to see the possibility of a future, far more
highly coloured and richly gilded than any that Roger
Camm had to offer her; a future more like the state of
things depicted in ‘The Fate of the Falconers,’ in which
the heir of an ancient and lordly house, handsome,
picturesque, with the manners of a prince, and the sins
of a Corsair upon his soul, became enslaved by the charms
of a young girl, her own age, and, so far as she had
gathered from the description, very much resembling
herself in personal appearance. A secret marriage had
followed; a little romantic adversity, in which lovers
and flattery, and old castles and devoted retainers, of
whom, she thought, old Barlow at Thorsgarth might
stand as a very fair specimen, had never been missing.
These romantic adjuncts had never been wanting in the
story; and then came the gradual working-round, which
in the end left the lovely Adela a countess, with crowds
of servants, jewels, a box at the opera, and all London
raving about her beauty. That—or something as near
it as circumstances allowed—was the life for her, thought
Ada. That was the sphere she had been born to grace;
263and the rapture of feeling that for her sake a man would
give up his evil ways, was infinitely beyond any prosaic
union with one who was not distinguished by having
evil ways to give up. But here Miss Askam’s voice
again disturbed her.
‘Yes, I am quite sure of it,’ she said, in the same
straightforward, earnest way. ‘I think you ought to be
very proud that he has chosen you; and as for giving up
reading things which he disapproves of, you surely
cannot hesitate about that. You must know that he is
very clever, and has had a great deal more experience
than you have.’
‘Oh yes.’ Ada was quite ready to own that. It was
what she was quite sure of. The only thing was, she
was not sure that cleverness and experience, like Roger’s,
made their owners altogether more agreeable. At any
rate, they became oppressive when frequently used to
point out to her her shortcomings. That was not her
idea of the functions of a lover; it was not the way in
which the heroes in Laura Loveday’s novels behaved.
Those gentlemen had eyes of fire and lips of flame; they
always managed to appear suddenly by moonlight, and
the scenery in which they moved always happened to be
of a picturesque kind,—balconies and verandahs forming
a great feature in every landscape. They never alluded
to Macaulay’s ‘History;’ and while Roger had once told
her how glad he was that she had discarded her chignon,
which he went so far as to characterise as a ‘nasty lump,’
Miss Loveday’s heroes were in the habit of pushing back
the tresses from their mistress’s brows, and murmuring
words of adoration in her ears. Yet here was Miss
Askam telling her she ought to be proud to be loved by
this fault-finding man; perhaps she ought to be proud
264even of being found fault with. She would ask; and
she did.
‘But, Miss Askam, Roger is always picking holes in
what I do. It isn’t in books alone, but about everything,
and always—at least, very often. I suppose I ought to
be proud of that, too, since he’s so very clever, you say.’
‘You say!’ Eleanor perceived from these words that
she had wasted her breath, and privately felt that it
served her right for ever entering into such a discussion.
But Ada was looking at her with intense earnestness,
and Eleanor asked, ‘Do you really wish me to give you
my opinion on such a subject?’
‘Indeed, I wish you would.’
‘Well, in a way, I think you ought to be proud to be
even found fault with by him. He would not do it if he
did not care very much for you, and also feel sure that
you had it in you to grow into something higher and
better.’better.’
‘Well, I don’t know. Roger was satisfied enough
when I said I would have him,’ said Ada, discontentedly.
‘But,’ said Eleanor, the slow, deep blush coming over
her face, and hesitating as she spoke, ‘if you love him
very much, as of course you do——?’
‘I—oh yes, I’m very fond of him, of course,’ said Ada,
unwillingly.
‘Then you won’t be satisfied with yourself, I should
think, but will want to rise higher and become better
and better, so as to be more worthy of him.’
‘Worthy of him!’ echoed Ada, offended. ‘I’m as
good as he is. He’s not the only one I could have had.
No, and I needn’t be sitting in the dust to keep him.
If it was all off to-morrow I could have another next
week.’
265‘Could you, indeed?’ said Eleanor, coldly. ‘I think
we probably don’t agree upon the matter, and had better
not say any more about it. You asked my opinion, or
I certainly should not have spoken to you on such a
subject.’
She rose, and seeing Ada’s flushed and discomfited
look, could not continue vexed with her.
‘I am sorry if I have annoyed you,’ she said, frankly,
and smiling her bright smile. She offered Ada her
hand, adding, still with a smile, ‘You must forgive me,
and don’t let Mr. Camm know that you have been
getting lectures from some one else. I expect he prefers
to keep a monopoly of them.’
Ada could not rise to the occasion. She shook hands
rather sheepishly, muttered something about it ‘not
mattering,’ and the two separated.
After lunch, late in the afternoon, and when it was
growing dusk, Eleanor was sitting in the library. She
had found that when she did this, Otho, especially now
that he had a friend with him, would sometimes stroll
in towards evening and sit for an hour. This afternoon
he did so, followed by Gilbert. They had been shooting,
said they were thirsty, and craved for tea, which she
gave them.
If Eleanor looked grave in these days, the gravity
was partly caused by the fact that she could not reconcile
the Gilbert Langstroth of whom she had heard so
much, and from so many persons, with the Gilbert
Langstroth who was Otho’s guest, and her own frequent
companion. She naturally abhorred what she had
heard of him; she had received him with cold civility,
and was in every way disposed to keep him at a distance
and cherish exalted thoughts of his brother. But she
266had found it impossible. Strongly biassed though she
was against Gilbert, and for Michael, she could not
succeed in finding Gilbert detestable. Reason as she
would, she could not make herself find him personally
disagreeable, or be bored, vexed, or harassed by his
company. He had great power, she had had to confess—power
to make himself welcome, looked for, agreeable,
his opinion valuable, and his influence desired; while
his marvellous command over Otho called forth her
gratitude, and forced her into an attitude of half-cordial,
half-reluctant civility to him and respect for him. It
was the effort to reconcile this Gilbert Langstroth who
had suddenly appeared in her life, with the Gilbert
Langstroth of years ago, of whom and of whose treachery
one uniform story was everywhere told, that helped to
make her grave, and gave a shade of embarrassment to
her manner towards him.
CHAPTER XXIII QUARREL
267
It was two days before Christmas that this great event
usually took place,—an event spoken of by Mrs. Johnson
as though it had been a solemn feast, with an appointed
date in the Church’s year; and it formed almost the most
trying of the many trying occasions which chequered
her earthly career. This season, thanks to the valuable
assistance of Miss Askam in the dreary business known
as ‘decorating,’ Mrs. Johnson felt her difficulties much
lightened, and looked forward to the evening’s entertainment
with a kind of ‘rest-and-be-thankful’ feeling,
rare indeed in her experience.
Eleanor felt less comfort than Mrs. Johnson, in the
anticipation of the evening. She hardly knew how it
was, or with whom the invitation had originated,
whether with Otho, herself, or Magdalen’s self—but an
invitation had certainly been given to the latter to dine
at Thorsgarth, and go with the party from there to the
entertainment. ‘The party’ meant all of them!—Eleanor,
Magdalen, Gilbert, and Otho. Eleanor had
been unaffectedly astonished when Otho had said he was
going. She had promised Mrs. Johnson to be there
herself, and did not intend to fail her; but she had
268expected to go alone, call for the doctor’s sister, Mrs.
Parker, on the way, and under the decent, if not highly
distinguished chaperonage of that lady, sit through the
concert, and derive from it what enjoyment she might.
She had resolved to know nothing about Gilbert and
his arrangements, and to ignore Magdalen, except by a
bow, and a few words. This new scheme had completely
changed the aspect of things. She had had to send a
note to Mrs. Parker explaining that, so far from being
alone, she would have a party with her, and must remain
with them. And then there was the prospect of the
concert itself, and of the company of her brother and
Gilbert Langstroth, and of Magdalen Wynter, who
would, of course, join them as soon as her part in the
performance should be over. It was a thoroughly
painful prospect to her; not the less so, in that there
was absolutely no excuse for her shirking the ceremony.
She returned to Thorsgarth from the Vicarage, in the
afternoon, and presently went upstairs to dress for the
evening’s entertainment. The most competent authorities
had assured her that at these concerts it was the
custom for the ladies of the vicinity to go in full dress,
or, at any rate, in unmistakable evening dress, in order
to do honour to their town and townspeople, and to
show that they did not labour under the idea that ‘anything
would do’ for a Bradstane concert. Following
out this tradition, Miss Askam had caused her maid to
array her in a quaint-looking but handsome gown of
velvet and brocade. She knew that dresses of this kind,
more splendid than airy, suited her, and wore them by
preference to any others.
She stood now before the toilet glass, while her
Abigail put the finishing touches to the dress, right
269glad to see some of the finery worn once again. It
appeared to her that her mistress’s beauty, of which she
was proud, and her accomplishments, of which she had
heard people speak, were utterly and entirely thrown
away in a place like this. Eleanor stood a little undecided
what ornaments to wear, when her maid was
summoned away, and presently returned, bearing in her
hand a bouquet, with a card dangling from it.
‘If you please, ma’am, I was to give you this, with
Mr. Langstroth’s compliments.’
‘Mr. Langstroth!’ suddenly exclaimed Eleanor, a
quick change coming over her face; and then, taking
the flowers, she lifted the card and read: ‘With Mr.
Gilbert Langstroth’s compliments;’ and just below, ‘Miss
Askam wished for some double violets for this evening,
which G. L. hopes do not arrive too late to be of use.’
Eleanor had held her breath as she perused these
words; she now breathed again, quickly, and said, as
she gave his flowers again into her maid’s hand—
‘Put them down, and just twist these pearls through
my hair. I shall wear them, I think.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Louisa, and added as she surveyed
the flowers—‘They’re really lovely, ma’am. Could Mr.
Langstroth have got them in England?’
‘Of course he could. One can get anything by
sending to Covent Garden,’ replied her mistress hastily.
‘Pray be quick, Louisa, for I hear that Miss Wynter
has come, and is waiting for me.’
Louisa laid the flowers—exquisite double violets,
both blue and white, whose delicate perfume had already
made itself felt in the warm air of the room—upon a
table and obeyed the injunction in silence. Eleanor sat
before the glass, with eyes cast down, and feelings in
270which vague apprehension and uncertainty were predominant.
Gilbert Langstroth had been with them a
fortnight—surely not a very long time; but in that
fortnight he had succeeded in making her feel that he
was a power, and a great one, in everything that concerned
her brother’s affairs; that if she wished to have
any permanent hold upon Otho, she must take Otho’s
friend, and that friend’s will and pleasure into account;
that only by cutting herself entirely adrift from Otho
could she act or plan without reference to Gilbert.
That was surely matter enough for consideration; and,
in addition to that, she had begun to feel during the
last week, that Gilbert had some idea of being a power
in her affairs too. She rebelled against this; she revolted
against it, but she trembled, and she literally did
not know what course to take. The appearance of the
violets now only added to her embarrassment.
She was roused by Louisa’s voice.
‘There, ma’am. These always suit you better than
anything else, and they go perfectly with this dress.
And I think, if you would let me put a small bunch of
the violets here, in front of your dress, instead of any
more ornaments——’
‘No, certainly not,’ said Eleanor, hastily. ‘I will not
wear them.’ Then, seeing a look of surprise at her
vehemence, she added, hesitatingly, ‘I will carry them in
my hand. I—it would be a pity to spoil the bouquet
by taking any out of it; it is so beautifully arranged.
Am I ready now? I will go down.’
She went into the drawing-room, framing in her
mind some kind of apology for being so late. But on
entering the room she found that Magdalen was not
alone. Otho was there with her. He was standing on
271the hearthrug, ready dressed for the evening, with his
back against the mantelpiece, and his hands clasped
behind him. There was a smile of anything but a
genial nature upon his lips, and his eyes were fixed
upon Miss Wynter with an expression which struck
Eleanor instantly as being unusual, but which she could
not quite fathom. Magdalen was reposing in a low
chair, with her fan closed in her hands, which were
lightly folded one over the other. She was tranquil,
calm, unmoved; her marble eyelids a little drooped,
and the faintest smile upon her lips. She was looking
marvellously handsome, in a black velvet gown, and
with scarlet geraniums in her breast and hair.
‘I am‘I am sorry to have been so long in coming, Miss
Wynter. I really was kept upstairs; but I see Otho
has been with you, so you have not been entirely alone.’
‘Perhaps it would have been better if I had,’ responded
Magdalen nonchalantly, as she rose to shake
hands with Eleanor. ‘Otho and I have been quarrelling,
and when he quarrels no one can be more nasty.’
Eleanor smiled slightly, taking it for a jest, and one
in rather doubtful taste; but she was enlightened when
Otho, with a scowl significant of anything but jesting,
said with something like a snarl in his voice—
‘You are right, Magdalen. “Nasty” is the word, and
nasty you shall find me, since this is the way you treat
me.’
‘Really,’ said Magdalen, with a taunting little laugh,
‘how absurdly you talk! TreatTreat you in this way!
You are too ridiculous!’
Eleanor stood looking from one to the other. Magdalen
was still standing, speaking lightly, in an attitude
of careless grace, and with a disdainful little smile upon
272her lips; but it seemed to Eleanor that there was a
strained look in her eyes.
‘Have you been really quarrelling?’ she asked, doubtfully.
‘Why, he thinks so much of you.’
‘I did,’ said Otho; ‘but it’s d—d difficult to go on
thinking so much of a woman who carries on as she
does. She’s in my house now, and I hope I know what
is due to my guests; but wait till we are out of it, and
on neutral ground, that’s all.’
‘Oh, Otho!’ began his sister, shocked. But he had
walked sullenly to the door, and opened it. Then he
turned and looked towards them again.
‘Remember, Magdalen, you shall pay me with interest
for every bit of this night’s work, and that before long.’
‘That will be as I choose,’ she retorted, but her lips
had grown thin. Otho was banging out of the room,
when Gilbert Langstroth, coming in, caught hold of his
arm.
‘Now then, Otho, what is the matter?’
‘Don’t hold me!’ said Otho, looking wrathfully at
him. ‘I’m in a bad temper, and you had best let me
alone.’
With which he left them, and Gilbert came forward,
looking a little seriously at both the young women.
‘Miss Wynter,’ exclaimed Eleanor, ‘what can have
happened, and what is to be done?’
‘Oh,’ said Magdalen, ‘pray don’t heed him. He will
be all right again before the evening is over.’
Eleanor felt great doubt as to the correctness of that
theory, and was annoyed, too, to hear Otho spoken of
as if he had been a petted child, who must be humoured,
though indeed, as she had to admit to herself, his behaviour
gave only too good ground for such treatment.
273And despite Magdalen’s lofty words, she seemed not
able to cast off the constraint left by the late disagreeable
scene; but, picking up the Spectator, opened it as
wide as it would unfold, and seemed to read it. Eleanor
felt her eyes turn involuntarily towards Gilbert; it was
not that she wished to appeal to him, but she was
intensely conscious that he alone was capable of giving
counsel (if counsel were to be had) in such a situation,
and she looked at him, just as one would send for the
nearest doctor, if one were attacked by some strange
and inexplicable illness. She found his eyes also fixed
upon hers, attentively, carefully, and admiringly. She
felt with a cold thrill of certainty that what she had
suspected and feared was true, and he was now thinking
of her, and not of either Magdalen or Otho.
He handed her a chair, and seated himself beside her.
His very first words only heightened her uneasiness.
‘I hope you did not think me too officious in sending
for the violets,’ he said in a low voice.
Magdalen lowered her paper, and gave him a look,
which he received and returned; and, with a dark expression
on her face, she resumed her ostensible occupation.
Perhaps Gilbert knew all about what had passed,
and was mocking her futile efforts to appear unconcerned.
Magdalen had always felt that Gilbert’s sin and hers
had had such very unequally meted rewards. He had
been so successful after his sin, and she had failed so
wretchedly and so tantalisingly after hers.
‘Officious—no. They are beautiful flowers,’ said
Eleanor, uneasily. ‘It was very kind to take so much
trouble; for, after all, it was only a whim of mine.’
‘You have so few whims, that when one is vouchsafed
a hint of one, one is only too glad to gratify it.’
274‘Oh, I hope I am not so exacting as to expect such
gratifications.... I—will Otho—what is Otho doing
just now, do you think?’ she added, in a still lower
voice, unable to shake off the disagreeable impression
she had derived from his look and words.
‘Don’t trouble yourself about Otho,’ rejoined Gilbert,
in the same tone, but in a still lower voice. ‘Do not
let any thought of him disturb your enjoyment this
evening.’
‘Enjoyment; do you suppose I am expecting enjoyment!’
Eleanor had exclaimed almost before she knew
what she was saying.
‘If you cannot have it, no one else deserves a grain
of it,’ said Gilbert, deliberately. ‘But, really, I wish
you would calm your fears. Just let us reason about it.
What can Otho possibly do to-night, that can cause you
any uneasiness? We shall go straight to the concert-room,
and once there, he is safe.’
‘He may not go at all.’
‘Well, if he does not, you will; and why should you
allow your mind to be engaged in imagining him doing
something disagreeable? Your apprehensions are exaggerated,
I assure you. Tell me what you are afraid of.’
‘He said,’ replied Eleanor, almost in a whisper, so
that Magdalen could not possibly hear, ‘that he would
make her repent, and that before long. I thought he
might, perhaps, if he went to-night, say or do something
rude—or at dinner—I do not know what he will do when
he looks so dangerous.’
Gilbert laughed a low laugh, speaking of amusement
and enjoyment too.
‘Otho has other methods of punishing her,’ he said.
‘Do not alarm yourself; I will see to it. And’—he bent
275his head close to hers, and her fingers tightened one over
the other—‘please excuse the question; but I always
see two sides of a thing. Do you mean to tell me that
you would be very sorry for her to be punished, a little,
if it could be done unobtrusively?’
Gilbert certainly knew what he was about when he
asked this question. The eyes that were suddenly lifted
towards his own held confession in their glance. She
shook her head silently; but the very silence implied
that he had guessed aright.
‘I thought you might have whims for other things, as
well as double violets,’ said Gilbert, with a slight smile,
which made her feel that he was very much stronger
than she was, and very much better acquainted with
human nature. She was silent; but Gilbert had got an
object to gain, and he said, ‘You owe me some little
reward for having guessed so correctly. Won’t you tell
me what you have done with those flowers?’
‘I—oh, I left them in my room.’
‘There to wither and die, I suppose? Poor things!
I have a great weakness for flowers—those flowers,
especially. If you dislike them, will you do me the
cruel favour to return them? I mean it, really.’
‘But I do not dislike them. I—it—I thought I would
carry them in my hand to-night,’ she said, distracted at
the extent of the concessions he was wringing from her,
but perfectly aware that when he promised to see that
Otho behaved himself, and then began instantly to talk
about violets, he conveyed a hint which she must accept
on pain of his displeasure.
‘You did! I could not possibly wish for more than
that,’ he said, and there was triumph, intense, if repressed,
in his smile and his tone.
276Eleanor could only feel wretched, and wish she were
a hundred miles away from Bradstane; all the more
fervently when, on looking up, she found that Magdalen
had laid the newspaper down, and was looking at her
with a mocking smile—the smile of one who, being in
difficulties herself, was not sorry to see some one else
entangled.
Here the door opened. Otho came in, with Barlow
behind him, to announce dinner. The master of the
house offered his arm to Miss Wynter, who took it, treating
him with what seemed a composed cheerfulness.
During the meal, Otho was portentously gentle and
polite to every one he addressed. There was no trace in
voice or manner of his late anger; only in the sullen
glow which still lurked in his eyes. Eleanor, who had
acquired the sad habitude of noticing such things,
observed that he scarcely touched wine. In his whole
demeanour there was a most unusual softness and
courtesy. She could not shake off her constraint; the
shock of the unbridled fury which she had seen on his
face when she had gone into the drawing-room was not
to be easily obliterated. Never before had she felt so
strongly his likeness, with all his goodly outward apparel
of strength and a kind of beauty, to some savage, wild
creature—some beast of prey, whose spirit sat in his
heart, and looked out of the windows of his eyes. With
all the dread and foreboding that he had begun to inspire
in her, she always thought of him as ‘poor Otho.’
CHAPTER XXIV OTHO’S REVENGE
277
When Michael Langstroth went into the concert-room
that night, rather late, he found the place crowded with
an audience, watchful and attentive as only country
audiences can be, all in their war-paint and feathers, as
Roger remarked, and the choir, in a row on the platform,
lustily singing of how
‘The oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree,
They grow the best at home, in the north countrie.’
Going up the room, he found himself near the top of
it without having found a seat, and he stood looking
about him, when a demonstration a little to one side
caused him to turn, and he saw a small, lean hand beckoning
to him, and a thin, eager-looking face, brimming over
with pleasure, asking him, as loudly as silent expressiveness
can ask, to come and sit beside her, and, what was
more to the purpose, pointing out a space close to her
for his accommodation. It was his little patient, Effie
Johnson, radiant in the proud consciousness of a new
frock, and an unheard-of treat—that of being the only
one of her brethren and sisters privileged to be present
at the concert. He nodded and smiled, and gradually
made his way to her, receiving many a greeting on his
way from ‘all sorts and conditions’ of men and women.
278Effie was on a side-bench, he found, and his place was
beside her; but it was a side-bench at the end nearest
the platform. Her mother sat at one side of her, and
greeted Michael with a nod, and an unusually serene
smile. When he was seated, Michael found that amongst
his near neighbours were Eleanor Askam, who had found
a seat beside Mrs. Parker, after all; and beside Miss
Askam, his brother Gilbert. He did not see either Otho
or Miss Wynter, and was a little puzzled; for Dr. Rowntree
had told him of Eleanor’s note to his sister, explaining
why she could not go with her.
If he did not see Magdalen or Otho, he did see very
distinctly upon Eleanor’s face an expression of gravity
and even anxiety, impossible to be mistaken; a very
different expression from the one of hope and strength
and light-heartedness which she had worn when he had
first seen her. Gilbert’s countenance wore an expression
of composure and even contentment.
Michael sat still, and the crowded, lighted room, and
loud voices of the singers seemed to disappear. He was
alone with his brother. In all the years that had passed
since his breaking with Gilbert, in all the occasions on
which Gilbert had been in Bradstane since then, they
had never met thus closely, and, as it were, side by side.
A deep oppression came over Michael’s heart. What was
this thing that he felt? He scarcely seemed to himself
the same man he had been, even five minutes ago. Gilbert
and Eleanor, sitting side by side, and, as it were, alone;
that was all of which he was really conscious.
‘Where have you been for such a long time, Dr.
Langstroth?’ whispered Effie, as she nestled up to his
side with the confidence of childhood—that confidence
which is seldom at fault.
279‘I have been very busy, Effie, and I have neglected
you. I am going to amend my conduct very soon.’
‘But you never forget us, do you?’ said Effie.
‘No, I never forget you, my child; I will come and
see you soon.’
Contented, she was silent, and observed the scene
with her bright, keen childish eyes looking from her
little thin face.
Michael was uneasy and unhappy. At last, unable to
endure his suspense any longer, he leaned over to Mrs.
Johnson, and asked, in a cautious undertone—
‘Have not Otho Askam and Miss Wynter come?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, in the same tone, and with a significant
look. ‘They have both gone into the room where
the performers wait. Some people think he is going to
volunteer a song.’
Michael nodded, as if satisfied with the explanation.
He could not help giving a glance towards Eleanor, and
he saw that the look of unease on her countenance had
deepened. She looked constrained and uneasy. Just at
that moment, Gilbert bent over her and said something
to her, with a smile, and as he spoke to her, he raised
his eyes, and encountered those of Michael. Michael felt,
he knew not what, as he met that glance. Was it anger,
or grief, or pain that clutched him? It was a hot and
burning feeling, which seemed to surge up within him.
He did not know—yet—what it was, but he felt as if he
must at all risks avoid meeting Gilbert’s eyes again. He
had never experienced pain like this in any meeting with
Magdalen, after their separation. He had thought that
he had put Gilbert away from him altogether; that he
had become no more to him than Magdalen, or than the
merest stranger on the road. This terrible emotional
280disturbance showed him that he had been wrong. But
how? What did it import?
The next thing he saw, just as the closing notes of
the glee were sounding, was Roger Camm, who walked
quickly up the room, and went into the waiting-room,
spoken of by Mrs. Johnson. Then the music ceased;
the singers received their meed of applause and left the
stage, and then there was a little pause, which was, of
course, employed as such pauses usually are, in a general
uprising, talking, questioning, and laughing. It was
wearisome to Michael, who, while anxious above all
things to avoid looking at Gilbert again, could still not
prevent his eyes from being drawn in Eleanor’s direction.
She recognised and greeted him gravely, but, as he
keenly felt, not indifferently. She was still, as he could
not but see, practically alone with Gilbert, as neither
Otho nor Magdalen made their appearance, and Mrs.
Parker strayed away to converse with her friends. Then
he saw some neighbours—some of those ‘charity blanket
Blundell girls,’ as Otho gracefully called them, and poor
Sir Thomas Winthrop (glaring distrustfully at Gilbert,
who stood erect and half-smiling, all the while), come
and talk to her, and Michael did not move from his
place, but sat still, listening vaguely to Effie’s prattle, and
feeling again and again the same strange, strong and
painful feeling shake him from head to foot. Then
people began to go back to their places. The noise and
bustle settled down, the pause was over. The next
thing was a round of applause, and Michael, looking up,
saw that Roger Camm had appeared upon the platform,
and was going to the piano with some music in his hand.
It was Michael’s turn to begin to feel uneasy, when he
saw Roger’s face. There was a savage scowl upon it; no
281holiday expression, but one of the darkest anger and
displeasure. He looked neither right nor left, but
marched straight to the piano, seated himself, and struck
some chords, as if to try the instrument; then sat and
waited. Michael consulted his programme, and found
that the piece was a duet for soprano and contralto, and
that the singers were Miss Wynter and Miss Ada Dixon.
For the first time he began to connect Eleanor’s anxious
look, and Roger’s angry expression with the words Mrs.
Johnson had spoken about Otho and Magdalen having
gone together into the little room where the performers
waited.
At that moment there was more clapping, and then
appeared what seemed to Michael the key to both the
black frown and the anxious looks which he had seen.
From the room which opened on to the platform, and
where they had been waiting, emerged three persons.
First came Ada Dixon, who, as soprano, took precedence,
and leading her by the hand in the most approved fashion,
and with every manifestation of devotion, admiration,
and respect, Otho Askam, who, all the time that he led
the girl forward, was stooping towards her, and saying
something that caused her to simper, and mince her steps
in a manner at once gratified, nervous, and self-important.
The nervousness was quite visible, but the gratification
and self-importance outweighed it. Ada evidently felt
herself a star of the first magnitude—the personage of
the evening, and was swelling with conscious pride in
thus being singled out for honourable distinction.
Michael at first only saw the broadly farcical side of the
affair, and was inclined to burst into a shout of laughter;
but, as these two first figures advanced to the front,
and the other became fully visible, he at once began to
282realise that there was a very different side to the picture,
and that it might prove anything but a laughing matter
to those concerned.
Magdalen was perfectly alone, perfectly dignified and
composed in her demeanour. With marvellous dexterity
she contrived to throw something into her manner which
placed an immeasurable distance between herself and the
two buffoons on whose steps circumstances caused her to
follow. The audience might stare and gape, laugh and
point the finger at them; it was impossible to do so at
her. She walked straight to her place, and stood there,
facing the audience, unmoved, and apparently immovable,
while Otho, with a final flourish of his hand, presented
Miss Dixon with her music, and retired to a chair at the
back of the platform, apparently to be ready to hand her
back again when the performance was over. Ada turned,
laid her handkerchief upon the piano, after the most
approved manner of distinguished artistes, and—climax
of impudence, thought Michael, who was now watching
every movement of the actors in this tragic-comedy with
the intensest interest—nodded to Roger to begin. He
looked at her with his deep-set eyes from his white face—for
it was quite white, and Michael knew the storm
that was raging beneath the impassive expression—looked
at her thus, and began.
During the playing of the symphony Ada looked at
Miss Wynter, and tried to catch her eye—in vain. The
distinguished soprano fumbled with her gloves and her
music, and looked ill at ease, despite the great glory
which had so unexpectedly (to the spectators, at any rate)
descended upon her. Miss Wynter, heeding her no more
than if she had been a spider on the wall, stood in calm
and motionless dignity, her hands lightly folded in front
283of her; her eyes, cool and calm and unembarrassed,
moving deliberately from one face to the other of the
audience—perfectly able to stand alone before them all,
even under an open slight, even while a man who was
spoken of, far and wide, as her particular friend, flouted
her, in the faces of the assembled county, in favour of a
chit like Ada Dixon. In a negative, analytical way,
Michael could not but respect her—respect, at any rate,
the undaunted fortitude of the front she presented. And
when her eyes met his, and her set lips quivered for a
second, he rendered homage to her bravery, by a grave
and respectful bow.
The duet began; it seemed hours before it was over,
but it was finished at last; and then the same grotesque
performance was gone through, as had taken place before,
but that this time Magdalen, calmly sweeping past Otho
and Ada, left them behind, and walked first into the
waiting-room behind the scenes. Then Otho and Ada
disappeared, hand in hand, as before; and as before,
Michael felt a wild inclination to burst into peal after
peal of laughter—inextinguishable laughter, which inclination
was once more checked by the sight of Roger’s
white and wrathful face, as he picked up some sheets of
music, and disappeared in his turn.
All this had taken place in so public a manner that
no one present could fail to be cognisant of it all, and it
had been watched with breathless interest and suspense
by the whole audience, who, when the actors in the
scene had disappeared, seemed as it were to draw a long
breath; and then there burst forth a perfect storm of
talk, comments, and laughter. This laughter jarred
upon Michael’s every nerve. Though he knew what a
vulgar farce it all was, and had seen its ludicrous side
284easily enough, yet he could not bear that others should
make merry over it, and he could imagine only too well
what it must be as it beat upon Eleanor’s brain. He
refrained at first from even looking at her; but at last
his fascinated mind drew his eyes in her direction, and
he saw that she had made a movement as if to rise and
go. She was younger than Magdalen, he reflected, and
not so hardened to the standing boldly in a false position.
She wanted to get away from this, naturally, and
she intended to go; he saw it in her look, and saw, too,
how Mrs. Parker’s hurried expostulation was of no avail.
Then he saw Gilbert for a moment lay his hand upon
her wrist, and say something in a low voice—only a few
words, but they had the effect of making her sit down
again, with a look of indignant resignation on her
face.
Michael never knew how the performance came to an
end. The things he had seen had set him in a state of
great agitation. What he saw afterwards only made
him feel more bewildered and more anxious. After the
first part of the concert, Otho reappeared, and Magdalen
with him. She was walking alone, and had nothing to
say to him. She took a seat beside Eleanor, who
appeared to exert herself to talk to her. Of course,
Michael reflected, it was out of the question that Miss
Askam should even appear to countenance her brother’s
behaviour; and Magdalen, being the insulted person, had
to be treated with courtesy and apparent cordiality. He
could imagine with what an effort this courtesy would
be displayed, and he thought she played her part very
well.
Otho was seated at the other side of Magdalen, and he
occasionally addressed her. She answered him gravely,
285but with a cold politeness. Michael could not understand
it.
He was an involuntary witness of one other scene in
the drama. In the throng, going out, he found himself
near the Thorsgarth party; saw Gilbert fold Eleanor’s
cloak about her, and overheard what was said amongst
them.
‘Miss Wynter,’ inquired Eleanor, ‘how are you going
to get home?’
‘The brougham will be there for me, thank you.’
‘Oh, that is all right, then. Because we could have
driven you round, if——’
‘My dear Miss Askam! Five miles round, on such a
night! They say it is snowing.’
Here Michael saw that Otho fixed his eyes upon
Magdalen’s face, and without speaking, offered her his arm.
Michael watched, with a neutral but strong interest, to
see what she would do. She took the offered arm, without
any smile, certainly, but without any appearance of
being angry or offended. Neither of them spoke. They
dropped behind Gilbert and Eleanor, who were also arm
in arm.
Then when they stood outside, Michael, pausing to
see if Roger would join him again, heard Miss Askam’s
voice—
‘There is our carriage. We had better let it go
round again, and wait till Miss Wynter has got off, as
she is alone.’
‘No,’ said Otho, signing to the Thorsgarth coachman
to stop. ‘You get in, Eleanor; Langstroth will look
after you. I’m going to see Magdalen home.’
‘Otho!’ exclaimed his sister, in a vehement whisper,
‘how can you behave in this manner?’
286But Magdalen appeared to accept the announcement
with the utmost calm, saying—
‘Well, there is the carriage, Otho, coming after yours.’
Then Michael saw how Gilbert led Eleanor, who
looked like a person in a dream, to her carriage; handed
her in, followed her, and they were driven away.
Michael, before stepping forth himself, gave a glance
at the figures of the other two; saw Otho say something
with a laugh to Magdalen. Then the Balder Hall
brougham drove up. Michael waited no longer. It was
evident that Roger must have gone when Ada did. It
was useless to wait for him, and he took his way home.
CHAPTER XXV IN THE ANTE-ROOM
287
When the Thorsgarth party arrived at the concert-room,
before all the disturbance had taken place, Magdalen
went straight to that waiting-room where the performers
sat, and which was just behind the platform. She walked
quickly thither, and did not know, until she had entered
the room, that Otho had followed her. But on turning
to close the door, she saw him there, and he walked in
after her, not looking at her at all, but casting a quick
glance round the room, to see who might be already
present.
Those who were there, were Ada Dixon, and one or
two other girls who belonged to the choir, and were
going to assist in the part-songs. Ada looked very
pretty, if a little commonplace and vulgar, in her blue
frock, and white fleecy shawl. She sat apart from her
companions in solitary dignity, and appeared to be
studying her song; and it was in this situation that
Magdalen and Otho found her. Ada looked up as they
came in, and rose with a heightened colour. Magdalen
took no notice of Otho, but shook hands with Ada.
‘Well, Ada, how are you, and how is your song?’
‘Oh, I’m ready with mine, thank you, Miss Wynter;
and there’s no need to ask you about yours.’
288‘Good evening, Miss Dixon,’ here said Otho, and he
too advanced, and shook hands with her. Ada looked
both alarmed and conscious. He had never done this
before—at least, in Magdalen’s presence.
‘So long as you are here,’ pursued Otho, addressing
Ada, ‘things cannot go very far wrong.’
‘Oh, Mr. Askam, what nonsense!’ said the girl, half-pleased,
half-confused, and wholly astonished, at this
public manifestation of favour and interest. She gave
a furtive glance behind her, and was not displeased to
find that the audience had been augmented by the
arrival of more youths and maidens.
‘Otho,’ observed Magdalen, in her clear, low tones,
‘excuse me if I remind you that this room is set apart
for those who take part in the performance, and I don’t
think you ought to be here.’
‘I’m going to take part in the performance,’ said Otho,
throwing his head back, and flashing a curious glance
upon her—a glance which Ada saw, and in her silly little
soul at once decided that Otho was paying her more
attention than was agreeable to Miss Wynter. That was
delightful to her, and she simpered complacently.
‘You!’ exclaimed Magdalen, who had also seen the
glance, and who had hard work not to betray the
tremulousness she felt.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Otho, carelessly. ‘What’s to
prevent me if I choose?’
He brought forward a chair, and placed it for her
with a polite bow, and a wave of his hand, inviting her
to be seated. Magdalen behaved as if she were paralysed,
as in truth she was, in a manner. She had
absolutely no precedent from which to judge the meaning
of Otho’s conduct just now. She had studied him,
289humoured him, flattered him, made him the object of
her supreme interest and supreme attention, for more
than five years; and within the last year, she had begun
to confess that her pains had been in vain—that he
had never intended to proceed to anything more than
friendship, and was not likely now to change his mind.
And then her own deeds had avenged themselves upon
her, for in confessing this, she had suffered tortures, and
in trying to act upon it, and to shake off her intimacy
with him, she had found that she could not. He had
made himself master of what heart she possessed. Her
resistance this evening to a demand of his had cost her
a pang, and this conduct of his, in consequence, bewildered
her. She was thrown off her guard; she felt
that she was groping in a fog, and she knew not how
to battle with him. She repented her now, in her soul,
of having thwarted him just to-night, since this was the
way in which he chose to revenge himself. She could
see nothing except to maintain an unruffled personal
dignity, which she knew came easily to her, and, if
necessary, to retire altogether from the arena. She was
calculating altogether without her host in the matter, as
Otho soon proved to her.
She took the chair he offered her, and sat down; and
then Otho, taking no further present notice of her,
turned to Ada, and, under Magdalen’s eyes, proceeded to
inaugurate a flirtation with the young girl, in the most
outrageously bad taste, and with a persistency and
determination from which, as Magdalen very well saw, a
more resolute girl than Ada could with difficulty have
withdrawn herself. The only method of resistance would
have been for the object of his attentions to close her
lips, and entirely refuse to converse with him; and that,
290of course, was a method which did not for a moment
occur to Ada, whose inflammable vanity, utterly unbalanced
by common sense, took fire at his attentions,
and construed them into proofs of the most flattering
regard.
Magdalen sat quite passive under this behaviour until
the choir had gone to the concert-room, to sing their
glee about ‘the oak and the ash, and the bonny ivy
tree,’ and then she said, coldly and deliberately—
‘Ada, I want to speak to you.’
‘Oh, never mind her!’ said Otho, carelessly, almost
contemptuously. ‘A sermon should not come before a
song, especially such a song as Miss Dixon is going to
give us.’
But old habit was yet strong in Ada. Never before
had Miss Wynter addressed her without receiving instant
and profound attention, and she received it now. Ada
gave it almost instinctively.
‘What is it, Miss Wynter?’ she asked.
‘Only this, that I don’t know what Mr. Askam means
by behaving as he is doing, and I am quite sure you
do not; but one thing is certain,—that Mr. Roger Camm
will be here directly, and I would advise you to moderate
your transports, and behave a little more like
a reasonable being before he comes.’
‘Roger Camm, indeed!’ exclaimed Ada, nettled.
‘He’s not my master yet, nor ever will be, Miss Wynter.
He may come twenty times for aught I care.’
Never before had she addressed Magdalen in such a
tone. It would appear that the latter was in earnest in
her remonstrance, for she now appealed to Otho.
‘Listen to me, Otho. If you are conducting yourself
in this way in order to vex me, you have quite succeeded.
291I’m ready to own it, and I will give you whatever
explanation you like after this is over; but for heaven’s
sake go back into the concert-room before Roger Camm
comes. You have no right to behave as you are doing,
and he will very speedily let you know that he thinks
so.’
‘Right!’ exclaimed Otho, with a laugh. ‘I never
ask about right. I do what I have a fancy for.’
‘Pray what harm can Roger say of me?’ said Ada
pettishly.
‘I would rather ask, what good he can say of you, if
you let him see you making yourself ridiculous in this
fashion. In any case, you belong to him, and——’
‘Not yet!’ exclaimed both Otho and Ada in one
voice. Magdalen looked at them both, and showed
what was with her a rare sign, betokening strong
emotion—a heightened colour in her cheeks.
‘Otho,’ she said, slowly and deliberately, and with a
glitter in her eyes, ‘I believe you are a downright bad
man; and, Ada, I am certain now that you are a
complete fool. You are both doing what you will rue
to the last day of your lives.’ Magdalen spoke with a
suppressed passion, so unusual with her as to cause her
physical pain in the effort to control it—passion which
would have astounded Otho now, if he had not been too
angrily determined to do his own way to heed her.
‘To the last day of your lives,’ she repeated. ‘But I
have spoken, and I leave it between you. I wash my
hands of you both.’
She got up, and went to another chair at the extreme
end of the room, and seating herself at the table, rested
her chin on her hand, and fixed her eyes on the floor.
Otho whispered something to Ada, who was not quite so
292happy as she had been, now that she had heard the
denunciations of Magdalen. While he stooped towards
her, and she was laughing in a nervously pleased manner
at his words, the suddenly opened door let in a louder
burst of music from the front. It was closed again.
‘Oh, I’m not so late, after all,’ began Roger Camm’s
voice, and then he came to a dead stop, looking from
one to the other, speechless. Otho, who was leaning
over the back of Ada’s chair, raised his head as Roger
entered, and looked at him with the disagreeable smile
which showed his white teeth and his frowning brows.
‘Good evening, Camm,’ he said, carelessly, and in so
condescending a tone that Magdalen looked up.
Roger advanced a step.
‘What does this mean?’ he asked, and his hands had
clenched themselves, and his face had grown pale.
‘What does what mean?’ asked Ada, laughing flippantly,
to conceal her dismay.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Roger, standing
directly in front of Otho, and looking at him with a
frown as black as night.
‘What I please,’ replied Otho, insolently, and not
raising himself from his too familiar attitude.
‘That is an odd answer to give me,’ observed Roger,
incisively, ‘when you are apparently amusing yourself
with my future wife.’
‘Roger!’ exclaimed Ada, flushing fiercely, and
speaking in a choked voice.
‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Otho.
At this juncture Magdalen again rose, and came
forward once more. She was pale even to her lips, and
she walked up to Roger Camm, laid her hand upon his
arm, and said—
293‘Mr. Camm, you must listen to me. I believe I am
the cause of this scene, but I swear it is without fault
of mine that it has arisen. He wished me to promise
him, earlier in the evening, when I was at his house,
that I would let him hand me on to the stage when our
song came, and said he would remain in this room while
I was here. I said he had nothing to do with the
concert, and that I would not consent to it. He replied
that he would have his revenge—very manly and nice
of him, of course. I suppose this is it, and I must say
it seems pitiful to me. If I had known, nothing would
have induced me to come here. I can only say he is
beside himself, and——’
‘That will scarcely do,’ said Roger, turning away.
‘He is not acknowledged as a lunatic yet, nor shut up,
whatever he ought to be, and I will thank him——’
Here the door again opened, and all the performers came
into the room. Magdalen said imploringly to Roger—
‘Please go and play the prelude. I will make him
behave himself.’
There was no time to be lost, and Roger, after hesitating
a second or two, followed her directions. Magdalen
turned to Otho. For once she found him deaf
and senseless to her words. She bade him go to the
concert-room. He flatly refused to do so, with a bow
and a smile. She said she would not go in herself, if he
did not do as she told him; to which he replied, that in
that case he would himself go forward, and say that
since Miss Wynter was in a bad temper and refused to
sing, he offered himself as a substitute. All this passed
in low tones, the pantomime being eagerly watched by
those who had come in, and who could see the gestures of
the speakers and their faces, without hearing their words.
294The man’s vindictive determination prevailed. If he
were mad there was method in his madness. He was
prepared to throw all appearances to the winds, and to
say or do whatever came uppermost. Magdalen was
not; and she had little time in which to decide. Otho
offered his arm to Ada, and they went on to the stage
in the order before spoken of.
When they all returned to the ante-room, Ada was
more uneasy and less triumphant than she had been;
and greatly embarrassed too, by Otho’s marked attentions
in the face of the other performers, who, so far from
being awestruck at the distinction conferred upon her,
seemed to be tittering amongst themselves at the absurdity
of the whole affair.
Roger walked up to Ada, and asked her gravely and
quietly if she had to sing again.
‘No, Roger,’ said she, in a subdued voice.
‘Then I think you had better let me take you home,’
he said gently, and offered her his arm. Ada took it
instantly.
‘Oh, nonsense!’ began Otho. ‘We can’t do with
that. She——’
‘Be good enough to stand out of the way,’ said Roger,
fixing his eyes upon him with a steady look that boded
anything but peace between them in the future. ‘I will
take Miss Dixon home now. There has been foolery
enough to-night. I will settle with you to-morrow.’
This promise was given heartily enough, if in a low
voice. Otho, with a sneering laugh, let him pass, and
then turned to Magdalen.
‘I suppose you are not too overcome to go into the
other room,’ he said. ‘Shall I take you there?’
‘I shall go when I am ready,’ replied Magdalen,
295coldly. ‘You are at liberty to go as soon as ever you
please.’
‘Not I!’ said he, throwing himself into a chair near
to her. ‘I’ve worked hard enough to get your society.
I’m not going to quit it the instant I have secured it.’
Here the choir were again summoned to the front,
and they were left alone. Otho had spoken of having
worked hard to obtain Magdalen’s company, but he sat
in silence till towards the end of the chorus, when, as it
was the last thing in the first part of the concert, Magdalen
rose, and began to gather up her shawl.
‘Now I shall go,’ she remarked.
‘All right!’ said he. ‘But listen to me, Magdalen;
you must let me see you home, and I’ll tell you the
meaning of this.’
‘As if I required to know the meaning of it!’ she
said, bitterly. ‘It is pure malice and viciousness on your
part, Otho. Meaning, indeed!’
‘You know nothing in the world about it.’
‘I cannot talk about it now. I am not going to enter
into an argument with you. You have made me feel
ill already.’
‘Then settle matters by promising that I shall go
home with you; or I vow you shall hear me in this very
room. I intend to have it out with you to-night, do
you hear?’
‘Very well—as we go home,’ said Magdalen, very
coldly.
And, as the door opened to admit the returning performers,
and the interval had begun, they took their
way to the concert-room, and joined their party.
CHAPTER XXVI HER HEART’S DESIRE
296
When the Thorsgarth carriage had driven away, and
the Balder Hall one came up, Otho handed Magdalen
in, followed her, shut the window, and turned to her.
After the bright light around the concert-room door,
they seemed suddenly to plunge into utter and outer
darkness, and Magdalen was glad of it, for she would
not have had Otho see her face now for a great deal of
money,—perhaps not even if his seeing it would have
secured to her the object for which she had toiled so
long and so unsuccessfully—the position of his wife.
She did not know what he was going to say to her, but
she believed she could guess. She believed that the
new line she had lately taken towards him—to-night,
and on one or two other occasions recently—had so
angered his imperious and exacting temper that he was
now going to tell her that their friendship was at an
end, unless she would submit to take a lower position
with regard to him than she had yet done. She knew—she
had been so unhappy as to have to consider the
subject, in reckoning with herself about Otho and his
‘intentions’—she knew that she had no ‘dishonourable’
proposal to fear from him. She had maintained always
a footing distinctly forbidding such possibilities; but she
297dreaded and feared that he had shaken off what influence
she had had over him—that he found he could exist
without the counsel and advice for which he had often
come to her, and which he professed, had often been of
service to him. She believed he was angry that she had
dared to thwart him in a whim which he considered to
be harmless, and a kind of amusing joke, and that after
making the bizarre and humiliating exhibition of himself,
her, and Ada, which he had accomplished this evening,
he was now going to let her understand that he was about
to shake off her influence once and for all. And what
was it that she experienced in this idea? Scarcely what
might have been expected. Neither anger, contempt,
nor indignation, but grief, sorrow, soreness; a yearning
unwillingness to part, and a dread of the days when she
should not see him; an almost passionate speculation as
to whether she could not concede something—keep the
man at her side, somehow.
Thus she was glad when the darkness hid her face.
He could not see the thrill that shot through her, as she
wondered what the next half hour was to bring forth
for her, and she managed to control her voice, and to
say calmly—
‘Pray be quick. I do not know why I have granted
you this favour at all. It is far beyond your deserts.’
‘As for that, there may be two opinions. If you’d
heard me out to-night, instead of pouncing upon me as
you did——’
‘Do not allude to that. It is over, and I have not
repented my refusal to you. It was quite obvious what
people thought when you appeared with that girl on
your arm. Not for worlds would I have put myself
into such a position.’
298‘Position—position! You spit out that word just as
women do when they want to make out that their dearest
friend is doing something bad. I’ve heard that your
friendship is a dangerous kind of thing, Magdalen, but I
have never heeded such reports. I don’t know whether
they are true or not, but I know you have often talked
a lot about friendship, and the duty of sticking to your
friend when you have got one. I wondered whether you
dared show every one that you were my friend to-night.’
‘Absurd! To show myself your friend in that
fashion means one of two things—either that I am engaged
to be married to you, or else that I show myself
a bold, vulgar woman, whom any other man might well
be afraid to marry. That is not friendship; it is senseless
bravado; it is being loud and fast, and all to no
purpose. Such a proceeding could serve no possible end.’
‘I know that. Do you think I am a fool?’ said he.
‘But when you began to pitch into me, without losing
any time, you made me so wild, that I was resolved to
pay you out, cost what it might. Magdalen——’ his
voice sank, and it thrilled through her, and with it a
sense of dread and terror, and the miserable consciousness
that she, who had so long contrived to have the
reins in her own hands, was now the one to be dominated
with bit and bridle, and made to turn this way and that,
at the will of another. She listened, stooping a little
forward, in a crouching attitude, waiting to hear her
doom. ‘I’ve got what they call a bad character. Whatever
it is, good or bad, it is a pretty correct estimate
they have made of me. They’ll tell you that I drink,
and I dice, and I bet. So I do, and like them all; and,
of course, they’ll tell you I’m no fitting husband for a
decent woman. As for decent, I know nothing; but
299from what I’ve seen of women, I should judge it wanted
a bold one to undertake me. If you would, Magdalen—Magdalen!
I don’t say I’d make you happy, for I
know I should make you miserable, but whatever I
seemed—I can’t always answer for myself—whatever I
seemed, I’d love you to the end of my life, ten times
better than I do now. Dare you do it?’
Silence. The carriage rolled softly on over the snowy
road. Otho had seized hold of her two hands. His
face she could not see, but she heard his breath, laboured
and heavy. A very strange, wild sensation surged
through her whole being. As in a flash of lightning, in
a kind of revelation, she seemed to see all the terrible
possibilities of the dim future—all that could be implied
by his ‘dare you do it?’ He did not urge her
when she did not answer; his passion seemed to have
softened into patience. He waited and waited for her
to reply.
‘Otho!’—her face almost touched his as she spoke—‘I
know what you are. I have been trying to tear
you out of my heart. I did not want you there. I
cannot kill the love I have for you. I dare do anything
for you.’
As she ceased to speak, their lips met in a clinging
kiss—a kiss which bound their two fates together from
henceforth, for evermore, and which made her heart beat
chokingly with terror and passion, but which was utterly
devoid of the joy and springing rapture it might have
had. When Magdalen said, ‘I know what you are,’ she
spoke the truth. She was nearly a year older than he
was, and had all her life seen very clearly out of her
passive eyes. When he said, ‘Dare you do it?’ that
meant, and she knew that it meant, not that he was
300going to give up his evil ways for her sake, and try to become
mild and human and gentle, and a fitting husband
for a civilised lady, but that she accepted his evil ways
along with himself, and endured them as best she might.
They sat silent for a while after this, till at last he
said—
‘Magdalen!’
‘Well?’
‘You are not a good young woman, you know. You
have not always stuck to people as you promised you
would. They say—every one says—that you jilted
Michael Langstroth,—did not keep your promises to
him, you know.’
‘They say what is quite true; and Michael Langstroth
may thank me if I did jilt him. He was not made for
me, nor I for him. I daresay he knows it by now.’
‘He took his dismissal,’ pursued Otho, with a sneer,
‘and never raised his hand. But let me advise you not
to try that game with me, or there might be murder
done, or something as bad. I’m not Michael Langstroth.
Do you understand?’
He spoke in a fierce whisper, and in Magdalen’s laugh,
as she answered him, there was a hysterical sound.
‘Do you suppose I don’t know that! For every one
of Michael Langstroth’s good qualities, you have half a
dozen bad ones. If you wasted your whole life in trying,
you could never get as much goodness into your whole
body as he has in his little finger; and oh, how tired I
was of it—how tired I was, before it was all over.’
‘H’m! Well, I can promise that you shall never tire
of my oppressive goodness and piety—that’s all.’
‘I know you are a complete pagan; sometimes I think
I am too. There’s one thing, Otho—you must not ask
301me to marry you yet; my aunt would faint at the idea
that I was engaged to you, and I am not going to tell
her, and leave her, and break her heart. Do you understand?’
‘I understand that you think more of that old woman
than of any one in the world,’ said Otho, surlily, ‘whatever
you may profess; but I suppose you must have your
way. And, Magdalen’—he dropped his voice—‘confess
that you were worsted to-night. You found your master.’
‘If I did, he might have been more generous. It was
an odious thing that you did, to flout me, and openly
play the gallant to a little chit who has always looked up
to me with reverence. I can never have anything more
to say to little Ada, now; and I can tell you, the child
was almost my only amusement. I don’t know who will
afford me any entertainment now.’
‘I will,’ said Otho, with generous promptitude.
‘You can’t. Here we are, and it is snowing, actually,’
she added, as she let down the glass, and looked out.
‘Heavy snow! How on earth will you get home?’
‘I’ll walk, of course,’ said Otho, jumping out, and
holding out his hand to her.
‘Walk!’ repeated Magdalen, pausing before she got
out, to expostulate with him—‘walk over three miles in
this driving snow—and on such a road! Indeed, you
must not. If you wait, they will get you a gig, or a dogcart,
or something; it will be lighter than the brougham,
and you could put it up at your place till to-morrow.’
‘I’ll walk, I tell you. Come out; you’ll get your
death of cold, sitting there,’ said Otho, gruffly and impatiently.
‘What’s a few flakes of snow to me, now?
Haven’t I been in a fever all night? I tell you, I want to
work it off, so let me alone.’
302She had got out of the carriage, and they stood on
the steps. She was going to expostulate again, but Otho
told the men to drive to the stables, he was going to walk
home; and they, nothing willing to turn out again on such
a night,—a contingency which they had already discussed,—obeyed
with alacrity. The two figures, dark and
shrouded, stood within the porch, and Magdalen stretched
out her hand towards the bell.
‘Stop a minute!’ said Otho. ‘Heugh! what a wind!’
as a screaming blast from the north-west whistled past
the vestibule.
‘Otho, you must not walk home——’
‘Be quiet, I tell you; let me alone! If I’ve a fancy,
I’ll sleep in the vestibule, or anywhere I choose. Now,
Magdalen,’—he seized her hands in a grasp that hurt
them,—‘swear that you will not go back from what
you have said to-night’
‘I swear I will not, Otho.’
‘And that when the time comes—we shall both know
when it does—you’ll marry me, and follow me, as truly
as I’ll go on loving you.’
‘Yes, I swear I will.’
‘And that whatever happens, you are mine—you
don’t cut yourself adrift from me as you did from
Michael Langstroth.’
‘There is no need for me to swear that, for I could
not, if I would.’
‘All right! give me a kiss, and let me get home.’
Magdalen put her two hands on his shoulders, and
said—
‘I have sworn a good many things to you; I want you
to swear nothing to me; but remember this, whatever
wrong you do me, directly or indirectly, from this time
303forward, you do to your wife, for you are mine now, as
much as I am yours. Good night!’
She kissed him on his mouth, and was turning away.
Otho suddenly put his arm about her neck, laid his head
for a moment on her breast, and said in a rough, broken
voice—
‘You have been very good to me, and very patient
with me, Magdalen. You’ll get your reward, I hope.’
Then he turned on his heel, rammed his cap on to his
head, and plunged into the darkness and the snow, which
drove blindingly in his face.
He had chosen to walk—persisted in walking, perhaps
with some idea of cooling, in the wintry blast, the fever
of his hot heart; for it was hot, and it beat and tossed
with restless pain.
‘The biggest throw I ever made,’ he muttered to himself,
as he passed out at the Balder Hall gate, and
emerged in the tempest of the open road. ‘Will she be
staunch, I wonder? I believe she will. We’ve been
driven together, if ever two lost souls were, and——’
Here he was obliged to give his undivided attention
to keeping the right road. Thorsgarth was but three miles
away from Balder Hall, even by the roundabout way of
the high road. It had been a little after eleven when
Otho had turned away from Miss Strangforth’s door; it
was nearly two when at last Gilbert let him in at the
side door of his own house; and he entered, pallid,
gasping, and scarce able to stand, covered all over with
snow, and shading his blinded eyes from the light.
‘Good heavens, man! where have you been; and what
have you been doing? I was just thinking of rousing
the house, and sending relays of men after you, with
lanterns.’
304‘I’ve been doing my courting,’ said Otho, pulling off
his overcoat, and shaking himself; ‘and since winning
the lady, I’ve had to do battle with the storm. Have you
got a good fire in there, and something to drink? It’s
not weather for a dog to be out in.’
‘Which lady have you been honouring with your
proposals?’ inquired Gilbert drily.
‘Which? Why, there is only one, and that’s
Magdalen.’
‘Oh! It is a pity you did not manage to let other
people understand that as clearly as you seem to do
yourself.’
‘Come, don’t be crusty, Gilbert,’ said he, suddenly, and
without his usual sullenness. ‘You know I have been
wondering for a long time if I should do this; and now
that it’s done, by Jove, you don’t seem to think it makes
any difference to a fellow! I thought you would shake
hands, and wish me joy at any rate.’
Gilbert was a little time silent before he answered.
Then he said—
‘I can do that, if you like, and do it honestly. I’ve
no objection to shake hands with you, and I would
rather you met with joy than sorrow; but’—with a
sudden change of tone—‘why did you spoil everything
by making that hideous exhibition of yourself to-night?
Why could you not tame Magdalen, if she wants taming,
without embroiling yourself with half a dozen other
people? It is too stupid!’
It was not by reproaches like these that Gilbert had
got and maintained his power over Otho, but something
to-night seemed to drive the words out of him, whether
he wished to utter them or not. Otho did not seem
inclined to quarrel.
305‘What does it matter?’ he said, tolerantly. ‘Let me
alone. It will all blow over.’
‘It will not blow over!’ said Gilbert, almost passionately.
‘Do you suppose that Roger Camm will put up
with such treatment? He was perfectly frantic, and
you will have to reckon with him yet——’
‘I’m quite ready,’ said Otho, scowling suddenly. ‘He
had better mind what he is about, in calling me to
account, that’s all.’
‘Not only that, but you made yourself ridiculous;
and, above all, Otho, you put a public insult upon your
sister by behaving as you did in her presence, with a
little vulgar fool like that Dixon girl. It is——’
‘My sister chose to come poking her nose into my
house, and mixing herself with my affairs,’ said Otho,
sullenly. ‘She may take the consequences. Let her go
home again to her genteel friends, if she objects to what
goes on here.’
‘Bah!’ said Gilbert, with indignation. ‘Have you
no sense of decency?’
‘You are cross, Gilbert; and it’s very late. I’m
going to bed, and I advise you to do the same. The
lecture to-morrow, when you’ve had time to think things
over. Good-night, old fellow.’
He took a candle, nodded to Gilbert, and left the
room. His friend slowly followed him, looking
altogether more limp and less self-assured than he had
done six hours earlier.
CHAPTER XXVII RECRIMINATION
306
Roger Camm, leading Ada away, went out into the
passage, and stood at the door of the cloak-room, while she
put on her shawl and hat, and then came out to him.
Her face was still flushed, and more sullen than downcast.
She did not look at him, as she said, ‘I am ready.’
He gave her his arm, and they went out, to walk the
few hundred yards between the schoolroom and Ada’s
home. The cold night air blew upon their heated faces,
for Roger, though he looked so pale, was in a fever, and
Ada’s heart was hot with anger and disappointment.
Nothing was said till they arrived at the side door which
led to the house part of Mr. Dixon’s premises. Then
Ada observed—
‘Well, I suppose after all this, you won’t want to
come in.’
‘Oh, Ada!’ exclaimed the young man in a voice of
reproach, ‘that is cruel. I want to speak to you, of
course. I would not go away and leave you alone—the
idea!’
‘Oh, come in, pray! Now that you have spoiled my
whole pleasure, and made me a laughing-stock; taking
me away, like a baby in disgrace,’ said Ada, in a voice
that trembled violently.
307They went into the house. The astonished servant
came out of the kitchen, on hearing the unexpected
noise, but retired when she saw who the intruders were.
Mr. and Mrs. Dixon were both at the concert. Ada led
the way upstairs, to the family sitting-room, and turned
up the gas, and gave Roger the prosaic order to poke the
fire.
He did so, and then turned to her. For a little time
he stood with his back against the mantelpiece, and his
hands clasped behind him. She drew out her handkerchief
and held it before her eyes, to conceal the tears
which rage and temper prevented from flowing; while
she tapped the floor with her foot. It was a cruelly
painful ordeal to him, and he was revolving in his mind
how to speak to her. How, how was he to reproach
her? For reproach her he must. He had gone so
suddenly into the ante-room at the concert; for once, he
had seen Ada and her actions clearly, and without any
flattering veil over them—had seen her openly coquetting
with another man, and that a man whose character and
station made it impossible for such coquetting to be
innocent. It was her innocence and ignorance, he told
himself, with yearning love in his heart, which had
permitted her to be so misled. All that was necessary
was for him to tell her what the real character was, that
Otho Askam bore, and she would see what a mistake
she had made. But how to begin—what words were
soft enough, gentle enough? While he was thus inwardly
debating, Ada suddenly looked up.
‘Have you brought me here to play at a quaker’s
meeting?’ she asked, angrily. ‘I thought you said you
had something to say; and I wish you’d be quick with
it, as I’m sure it’s nothing agreeable.’
308‘Ada, is that my fault?’ he asked, turning to her with
a wistful look.
‘Of course it is your fault,’ was the indignant reply.
‘Why must you fly into a passion about nothing at all,
and speak to me as if I’d been doing something worse
than any one else ever did, and insult me, and speak in
such a way to a gentleman like Mr. Askam—and Miss
Wynter sitting there? Am I not to be allowed to speak
to a gentleman?’
‘Ada!’ he exclaimed, all the gentle phrases scattered
to the winds at the picture which her words conjured
into his mind, and speaking solemnly, and even sternly,—‘for
heaven’s sake be silent, or you will drive me to
speak to you in a way that I shall repent. Gentleman!
No gentleman would behave as that blackguard behaved
to-night. When I went in and saw him leaning over
your chair, I wonder I did not rush at him and knock
him down, without a word. Let me tell you that no
girl’s character would benefit by its being known that
Otho Askam was on friendly terms with her. He is a
thorough-paced cad, without honour, or honesty, or
principles. Child, child! How could you let him lead
you on, in the face——’
‘You’re never jealous!’ cried Ada, her anger turned
into something like a smile.
‘Jealous!’ echoed Roger, with unspeakable contempt
in his tone. ‘When I have to be jealous of him, it will
be all up between you and me. I boil with rage at the
pollution you suffer from his familiarity. Ada—you do
love me, my darling, don’t you?’
‘Why, yes, of course,’ said Ada, slowly.
‘Then you must promise me to have no more to do
with him. See to what you have driven me already. I
309shall have to have a reckoning with him to-morrow. I
shall tell him what I think of him, and promise him a
horsewhipping, if ever he ventures upon such impertinence
again——’
‘Roger!’ The presumption, the audacity of his words,
caused Ada to turn pale.
‘And of course,’ Roger went on, calmly, ‘I shall
have to shake the dust of this place from my feet. I
have no fear of not being able to get another situation;
but it may be some little time first; it may be a long
way from here when I do get it; it cannot be here, of
course; there is no other place here. And that will
separate us. You did not know or foresee all this; you
could not, but it is so, you see. And I cannot speak
quite calmly about it.’
Ada was silent. Roger thought she was thunderstruck
on being shown the consequences of what had doubtless
seemed to her a few flattering attentions.
‘I don’t see the good of making all that fuss about it,’
she said at last. ‘There was no wrong in Mr. Askam’s
saying a few words to me; but people will say there is,
if you go on in that way.’ (A feminine view of the case
which had not before occurred to Roger.) ‘I have always
been a friend of Miss Wynter’s——’
‘Yes, indeed; and precious little good it has done
you,’ was Roger’s ill-advised retort.
‘And Miss Askam sat talking with me for nearly an
hour the other day. There’s nothing strange about it.
I have always felt at home with the gentry about here,
and there’s proof positive that it isn’t only the gentlemen
who notice me——’
‘Notice you—notice you!’ he said, stung intensely
by her words. ‘Who wants you to be noticed? You
310have no need of any one’s notice. No honest girl
has——’
‘Honest girl! Well, I declare!’
‘Your lines are not cast among such people. They
only amuse themselves with you, whatever you may
think. If you keep them at a distance they respect you.
As for Miss Wynter, I have always disliked her——’
‘Yes, you have; and without a scrap of reason. You
think she’s worse than poison, and say all sorts of things
about her,—false, I’ve heard you call her. And there
was she before you came in, talking to Mr. Askam and
trying with all her might to make him behave himself——’
‘Oh!’ said Roger, turning sharp upon her, with an
expression of bitter pain upon his face. ‘If she did that,
he must have needed it, sorely. And you said to me
that there was no harm in what he was doing. Ada, my
girl, this is cruel; it is, indeed.’
‘Oh dear!’ exclaimed Ada, mentally anathematising
her maladroit admission. ‘She was just as bad as you,
for making too much of it. I only meant to show that
she is not the false woman you call her.’
‘I judge her by her actions. As for Miss Askam,
she is different. Dr. Rowntree knows her, and he says
so; and Michael Langstroth——’
‘Oh, I know he thinks so. And of course he’s always
right!’ retorted Ada, excitedly. ‘Every one knows that.
I suppose if he had been talking to me, we should have
heard none of all this.’
‘Not a word; you are quite right,’ said Roger, constrainedly.
‘I should have known there was some
reason for what he did. But that’s just it. No one ever
hears of him making a fool of himself in that way, and
311behaving like a cad at a public entertainment. It isn’t
in him.’
‘I know I’m awfully tired of hearing Dr. Langstroth’s
praises for ever sung. And as for Miss Askam, of course
he says she is an angel, and an angel that’s pretty thick
with him, by all accounts.’
‘What do you mean? Who says anything against
them?’ asked Roger, indignant at her tone.
‘Goodness! I never said it was against them. I see
no harm in it; but then I’m not so strait-laced as some
people. They’ve been seen riding together, not so long
ago, and he called there when Mr. Askam was away.’
‘Their meeting was a pure accident.’
‘Oh, of course! Such things are always accidents,’accidents,’
said Ada, with a laugh.
‘Do you mean that you doubt me, Ada?’ he asked,
very seriously.
‘Doubt you?—not at all. I suppose Dr. Langstroth
said it was an accident, and of course we all know he
has nothing to do but speak, and you do what he tells
you, and believe what he says.’
This shaft fell quite ineffectually.
‘It does not matter who circulated the report,’ said
Roger. ‘Every one knows that Miss Askam is a young
lady of the very highest character.’
‘She’s perhaps got all the propriety for herself and
her brother as well——’
‘It is very certain that her brother has none. And
that brings me back. Ada, you will promise me not to
have anything further to do with him, will you not,
dear?’
‘If he speaks to me, I suppose I’m to shut my mouth
and not say a word?’
312‘He shall not speak to you again in any way that you
cannot answer.’
‘Oh, what do I care for him? I want none of him,
especially if there’s to be all this fuss made about it,’
said Ada; but she did not meet his eyes as she spoke.
‘That’s my own dearest Ada!’ exclaimed Roger, too
much pleased with what he considered her promise, to
notice anything else. ‘And by to-morrow night, I hope
to have done with him for ever. I will speak to your
father, and make it right with him. And now let us
forget it all, and have some music by ourselves, shall we?’
But Ada was by no means to be so easily pacified.
She declined the music entirely, and said that such a
concert could not in the least make up for the one she
had lost. After some utterly abortive attempts to keep
up a cheerful conversation, all of which she cut short
with snaps, or yawns, Roger at last relieved her of his
company, and went on his way, with the dreary, blank
sense that he and she were thoroughly divided in their
opinion upon the occurrences of the evening.
But she was so young, so innocent, he said to himself.
What could she possibly know of the real character of a
man like Otho Askam, or of the sinister and compromising
nature of any attentions from him? Patience,
patience! he preached to himself, and it would all come
right. When she was married to him, and he could
speak plainly to her, soul to soul, there would be no more
of these misunderstandings, these clouds and disputes.
She would be innocent still, but not ignorant any
more.
And, perhaps, so far as he was himself concerned, it
was better for his soul’s health to be free from all
connection with a man like Askam.
313Thus he reflected, as he took his homeward way, and
on arriving at the Red Gables, found the rooms dark,
and Michael still absent.
About half-past ten he arrived, and found Roger
alone, in an easy-chair by the fireside.
‘Halloa! Back again!’ exclaimed Michael.
‘Ay!’
‘You took her away altogether, did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Quite right, too. Brutes like him want showing
that they can’t ride rough-shod over every one and
everything.’everything.’
‘Michael, do you think he is a little cracked?’
‘Not a particle, unless being born bad, and a bully,
is being cracked. It is a somewhat debatable question,
you know, now. We are so very liberal and tolerant in
these days. It seems to be the theory that if by chance
you behave decently, you ought at once to have a statue
put up to you; whereas, if you conduct yourself like a
savage, or a blackleg, or as if you had been brought up
amongst professional thieves, and the lowest riff-raff, the
thing is, that you are not quite all there, poor fellow!—that’s
all, and ought not to be considered accountable for
your actions. It’s not a view that I ever took, and I say
that Otho Askam is no more mad than you are at this
moment. He’s vicious, and he’s a bully. And I suppose
that Miss Wynter had crossed him in some way, and he
wanted to punish her publicly. That’s about the tune
of it.’it.’
‘Bullies are usually cowards,’ observed Roger, reflectively.
‘And so is he. Wait till the time comes when the
shoe begins to pinch,—when his sins come back to him,
314and demand house-room with him, and bring their
children by the hand, and when he has made such a hole
in his estate that even his guardian angel can’t stave off the
remarks of creditors; then you’ll see where his brag ends.’
‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to look
on at such a moment,’ said Roger, speaking out of the
pride and the blindness of his heart. ‘To-morrow he
will have to whistle to the tune of my saying good-bye
to him, and leaving him to his own resources. I’m
not a “gentleman born,” like he is——’
‘Now come, Roger. You’ll be saying next that all
“gentlemen born” are like Otho Askam, and all
“working men,” as you are pleased to call yourself, are
just like you—on the same level, and with the same
feelings. Keep within bounds.’
‘Not a gentleman by birth, like he is,’ Roger went
on softly; ‘but I am a human being, with susceptibilities,
and with coarse desires and impulses. The former
have been wounded by his behaviour to my betrothed,
which I consider to have been wanting in respect. The
latter inspire me to tell him he is a cad, threaten him
with a horsewhipping, and cry quits with him. Don’t
say anything against it, because I am going to do it, and
it’s no use your worrying about it.’
‘I—worry. Nay, you may choke him by knocking
his own impudence down his throat, if you like; I have
nothing against it. I am sorry for his sister, I must say.
Did you see her to-night?’
‘Yes,’ said Roger, tranquilly. ‘So did you. She
looked superb.’
‘And miserable, poor thing! Who would guess them
to be brother and sister?’
‘Who, indeed?’
315‘I cannot imagine that she can be very happy in that
house.’
‘I can’t imagine that any decent person would.’
Then Roger lighted a pipe, and smoked it, before
going to bed. Michael pulled out a book, and said he
had some reading to do. How soon the one slept, how
much the other read—these things have not been
ascertained.
CHAPTER XXVIII AT THE MILLS
316
When Michael came down on the following morning, he
found Roger gazing out of the window, at the snowy
prospect, and drumming his fingers on the pane.
‘A jolly day for you to turn out, Michael. Have you
to go far afield?’
‘Not very; but I have a good deal to do. Balder
Hall is the farthest place I have to go to. I must see Miss
Strangforth.’
‘Ah, well, it is not a very good road.’
He turned to the breakfast-table, and they had both
made some progress with the meal, when Michael observed—
‘Roger, you said you were going to have it out with
Otho Askam to-day.’
‘So I am.’
‘Do you mean to give it him hot?’
‘I mean to tell him that I have done with him, and
to promise him a horsewhipping if he ever looks at my
young woman again,’ said Roger, roughly.
‘Do you know, I don’t think it is the best thing you
could do.’
‘Better make him a speech, thanking him for his
politeness and condescension, perhaps,’ said Roger,
bitingly.
317‘Oh, nonsense! You know that is not what I
mean.’
The thought in Michael’s mind, of which he could not,
of course, speak to Roger, was, that the girl was not worth
making a great fuss about. He found it difficult to
speak very seriously on the matter, looking at it from
his point of view, and felt a sorrowful surprise at Roger’s
denseness.
‘What I mean is this,’ he went on. ‘Otho Askam is
not exactly like other men; he’s a greater blackguard
than most. You might as well harangue this table as
expect to make him ashamed of himself, or get him to
see that he behaved vilely last night. That’s the sort of
creature that he is. And if you quit him at a moment’s
notice, people will be quite ready to say that there was
more in it than met the eye. I think that, for her sake,
you should be careful.’
Roger moved uneasily in his chair, and a deep flush of
anger was on his face.
‘Curse him!’ he exclaimed, at length, with emphasis.
‘It would be a good deed to choke him!’
‘Oh yes! But we have to put up with human vermin
where we should scotch them if they were snakes.’
Michael spoke more lightly, for he saw that his words
had taken the effect he wished them to have, without his
having been forced to say what he thought; that though
Otho had doubtless behaved abominably, yet that Ada
Dixon, by conducting herself like a fool, and a vulgar
one, had put no impediment in the way of his so
behaving.
‘You know, he can sue you for breach of contract if
you inconvenience him, and that would be confoundedly
expensive, and very disagreeable—for you could hardly
318mention in a court of justice the reason why you left
him at a moment’s notice.’
‘But I could pay the fine, without making any row.’
‘And make every one think that he could say more
about you than he had done, if he chose to. No; you
have to deal with men as they are, you know, and not as
they should be; and you cannot treat a poisonous thing
in the same way you might one that has no sting. I
should advise you quietly to give him three months’
notice; don’t let him see that you think so much of him
as would be implied by your leaving him on the spot.
Say you want a situation in a large town; you often
have wished it, you know, and——’
‘And Ada!’ said Roger, in a constrained voice.
‘While I am palavering to save appearances, I must pass
over the insult to her, without a word. As if I should
trouble my head about him, except on her account!’
‘Roger, I don’t think you can accuse me of being
wanting in a sense of honour; and if you will believe
me, you will honour her, and consider her more truly,
by not mentioning her name in Askam’s presence. You
proved last night that you knew how to take care of
her; why condescend to name her to him again?’
There was a pause, during which Roger looked dark
and angry, but at last said abruptly—
‘Yes, yes; you are perfectly right. But oh, Lord!’
he added, almost grinding his teeth, ‘it can’t be a
good law that protects a cad like that from a horsewhipping.
And I would like to be the man to give it
him.’
‘Of course, the fighting animal in you would,’ said
Michael, who had hardly been prepared for such intense
bitterness on Roger’s part. Could he have seen clearly
319into his friend’s mind, he might have found that the
thing which added bitterness to the gall was a first
glimmering consciousness that the fault had not been
wholly on the side of him whom he so freely apostrophised
as ‘cad’ and ‘blackguard.’
‘There’s a higher thing though, than a fighting
animal,’ pursued Michael; ‘and that is a gentleman,
who does not walk in the dirt, unless circumstances
oblige him to.’
Roger made no answer to this oracular utterance, and
they presently separated and went their several ways.
Roger, in the office, pondered upon Michael’s words,
and knew they were right. He swallowed down his
consuming anger, and determined to be discreet in what
he said and did. If Otho came down to the mills that
morning, well and good. If not, Roger would, he
thought, either write to him with his decision, or go and
call upon him that evening. With an effort, he mastered
the vexation that had been gnawing at his heart, and
turned to his work.
The morning, which despite the snow, had broken
bright, clear, and sharp, clouded over, till everything
looked very sad and gray;—the street where the tramping
work-people had pounded the snow into a dirty
slush; the mill-yard itself; the river flowing sullenly
past, deep and flooded.
None of them all could be grayer than the spirits of
Roger Camm. He began to wonder how it was that he
had so little luck, and tried hard to see his way, even
for a yard before him, but not with much success. By
degrees, to his trenchant mood succeeded one of despondency
and aversion to everything. He began to
hope then that Otho would not come down; so far from
320desiring to give him a horsewhipping, he now felt as if
it would cost him a disagreeable effort even to look upon
his face; he would prefer to write to him, and get the
whole thing disposed of without words or glances.
This was not to be. About half-past eleven he saw
two horsemen enter the yard—Otho Askam and his
guest, Gilbert Langstroth. Otho called a man to hold
their horses, and they dismounted and entered the
office; but not before some conversation had passed
between them outside. Roger saw how Gilbert pointed
here and there with his whip, and stood reflectively
looking about him. Then, after Otho had shrugged his
shoulders and raised his eyebrows, they came slowly
towards the office. Roger felt dreary, cross, and cynical.
The effort had to be made, and he was in no mood for
making it. The deadly, nauseous flatness which is the
reaction and the avenger of strong excitement, had
taken possession of him. He scarcely looked up as
they entered; barely returned Gilbert’s courteous ‘good
morning,’ but he noticed that Otho came in with more
swagger than usual, and that in his insolence he did not
condescend to utter a greeting of any kind.
‘What business?’ he asked.
‘There are the letters,’ replied Camm, as he pushed
them across to him.
Otho took them and stood near the fire. Gilbert
turned to Roger.
‘I have been talking to Mr. Askam,’ he said; ‘and
I find that he has not insured that new machinery that
came the other day. I think it ought to be done as
soon as possible.’
Otho looked up.
‘What’s that? Oh, insurance! You are at it again.’
321‘I should imagine that Camm would agree with me,’
said Gilbert.
‘Why, of course,’ replied Roger. ‘It is a thing that
ought to be done at once, and I have mentioned it
several times.’
‘Do you hear, Otho? Now do be reasonable, and
get Camm to write about it at once, and have it settled
now.’
‘Not I!’ said Otho, laying down the letters. ‘We’ve
spent far too much money already in insurance. Insurance
is all bosh. The mills are insured; and where’s
the use of a thing, or the amusement, if you go and
arrange against all accidents beforehand?’
At this novel view of the merits and uses of insurance,
Gilbert gave a short laugh; but having some
personal interest in the matter, presently resumed an
air of gravity, and said—
‘Oh, you must not gamble with everything; and
even if you do, it’s wiser to calculate your chances a bit,
unless you are clean mad.’
‘What answers have you sent, Camm?’ inquired Otho.
‘Those,’ replied Roger, pointing to some envelopes
that lay on the desk.
This extreme brevity, which for the life of him Roger
could not have altered, seemed to have an irritating
effect upon Otho. He glanced at Roger, and almost
showed his teeth along with the scowl he gave. But he
picked up the letters and read them. As for Roger, the
mere presence of the other made him feel that his own
power of self-restraint was not so great as he had, in a
moment of despondency, imagined it to be. His blood
was running with wild speed through every vein; his
hands did not tremble, but he felt breathless, excited,
322furious; and as he happened to catch a glimpse of Otho’s
face, dark, nearly hairless, and coarse in its very handsomeness,
with its scowling brow and sinister smile, and
recollected how, last night, he had seen that face bending
with a more insolent expression than it wore even to-day,
over the fair countenance of his Ada, and how the
latter had been seen raised towards that of this man,
with every sign of pleased and flattered self-complacency,
he felt a longing to have his hands at Askam’s throat.
Truly, he felt, he and these other two were no better
suited to one another now than they had been fourteen
years ago, when they had played together in the old
garden at Thorsgarth.
Gilbert, who was leaning against a desk, with his
eyes half-closed, and looking tired and bored, was, as
usual, taking it all in. He had been a witness of the
scene last night, and Roger’s pale face and compressed
lips now, and the glitter in his eyes as he looked towards
his employer, were not lost upon him.
‘Come, Otho, haven’t you nearly done? It is time
we were moving,’ he said.
‘Yes, I’m just ready,’ replied Otho, laying down the
letters. ‘They’re all right, I think.’ He never interfered
with anything that Roger did; his reading the letters
was a form to be gone through, for he knew absolutely
nothing of business of this kind, though he could have
rattled off, correctly and nimbly, the pedigrees of twoscore
celebrated racers.
‘Well,’ said Gilbert, once again, ‘won’t you think
about the insurance?’
‘No,’ retorted Otho, impatiently. ‘I’ve no money to
spare for insurance.’
‘Turning economical with advancing years,’ observed
323Gilbert, with polite sarcasm. ‘Let me tell you that fire
and water and bad luck never spare a man because he had
not money to insure himself against them, and——’
‘How you preach!’ almost snarled Otho. ‘Tell you
I don’t mean to insure. Come away.’
‘I should like to speak to you before you go,’go,’ observed
Roger, composedly.
Otho, hearing this, turned sharp upon him, grasping
his whip in his hand, and the insolence in his eyes
growing bolder. Gilbert looked quietly, but with equal
interest.
‘What is it?’ asked Otho, his hand on the door-handle.
‘Merely that I am thinking of leaving Bradstane. To-day
is the twenty-fourth;—it was the twenty-fourth when
I came to you. I wish to give three months’ notice to
you, as I shall leave you at the end of that time.’
‘What the devil is the meaning of all this?’ demanded
Otho, loosing the door-handle, but holding the whip
faster, and turning upon Roger with a black look of anger.
Roger, eyeing him fixedly, thought within himself—
‘How did I ever bear with him for this length of time,
the brute!’
But he answered civilly and tranquilly—
‘That is scarcely the way in which to speak to me.
I say that I wish to leave your employment this day
three months. Isn’t that simple enough?’
‘I’ll be hanged if it is!’ said Otho, savagely. ‘It’s
usual to give a reason when you leave a place,—and I
want to know yours.’
‘I would advise you not to ask for it,’ was Roger’s
answer, his face growing paler, his lips tighter, his eyes
more dangerous, as his anger grew hotter within him.
324‘What! may a man not ask his servant’s reasons for
leaving him?’ began Otho. ‘It’s the first time I
ever——’
‘Don’t be a fool, Otho!’ here observed Gilbert.
‘Roger Camm has as good a right to give you three
months’ notice as anybody else; and he’s in the right
of it, when he says you had better not ask his reasons.
Of course you’ll want a written notice, and of course
you’ll get one. So come away.’
‘I say,’ observed Otho, suddenly changing his angry
demeanour into one of facetiousness, and with an impudent
smile, ‘perhaps you disapprove of my attentions
to a certain young lady, last night; but I can tell
you——’
‘If you mention her name, I’ll give you the hiding you
deserve!’ thundered Roger, springing up, and walking
very close up to Otho, whose laugh now changed to a
look of furious anger.
‘You are threatening me!’ he demanded, in a voice
of suppressed rage.
‘I shall not confine myself to threats very long,’ was
the breathless reply.
Otho’s eyes looked dangerous still, but he seemed also
amused, in a curious manner.
‘Then it is about the little girl that you have cut up
rough. Lord bless you, she isn’t worth thinking about
twice!’ he said, bursting into a loud laugh. ‘Which
was the worst, eh?—she or I?’
‘You blackguard!’ said Camm, between his clenched
teeth. ‘I’ll——’
His hand was raised, and there was fury in his eyes.
The words seemed surging in his brain, and burnt upon
his heart. The tone of them lashed him to perfect madness.
325If he had got hold of Otho’s collar the results
might have been unpleasant, but he felt Gilbert’s hand
on his arm, and Gilbert’s voice whispered in his ear—
‘Don’t you see he is just leading you on? You are
not a prize-fighter, if he is. Let him go!’
Roger’s hand dropped. Otho was watching him with
a look of hatred in his face which was far stronger than
the sneer which his lips tried to form. He was insolent,
and he carried the matter off with a laugh, but it had
roused his worst hatred and his blackest animosity.
‘I said I would go in three months,’ said Roger, constrainedly,
clenching his hands down, to keep himself
under control; ‘but you have made that impossible. You
can look out for yourself from this moment. I will not
darken your doors again, if I can help it.’
With which, picking up his hat, he pushed Otho unceremoniously
to one side, and walked out, leaving the
others to make the best of the situation.
His heart was sick as he walked away. Such a scene
his very soul abhorred. All the tingling desire to
chastise Otho seemed to evaporate as he left his presence.
He felt again nothing but loathing, aversion, and a wish
to keep as clear of him as possible. But reptiles can
sting, and Otho had stung. As Roger passed through
the street, and saw the windows of Ada’s home, his impulse
was to call there and see her; he hesitated, paused,
walked on.
‘She’s not worth thinking twice about. Which was
the worst, eh?—she or I?’
His heart, wrung with shame and anguish, called upon
her name. No. He must not go in now. He must
wait until hours had passed, and reflection had come to
his aid.
326He went on to the Red Gables, and found Michael just
in from his first round. To him Roger related what had
happened, and what he had done.
‘I could not help it,’ he said. ‘I began civilly enough,
and prudently enough; but when that cur gives tongue
I lose my head. He has never happened to do it before,
about anything in which I had any concern; but as soon
as he began, it was all up with me. I left him and your
excellent brother to settle it as they best could; I walked
off.’
‘Well, I cannot blame you,’ said Michael, when he had
heard him out. should’should’ have done the same, or more.
But it is an odious business.’
‘It is a vile business,’ replied Roger, gloomily; ‘and
until after Christmas, I shall be at a loose end, for it is
useless trying to see after anything before then.’
CHAPTER XXIX A FALSE STEP IN GOOD FAITH
327
The day after that unfortunate fracas at the mills was
Christmas Day. It will easily be understood that to
Roger it did not this year form the most cheerful
occasion imaginable. He had seen Ada on the evening
of the twenty-fourth, and some kind of a reconciliation
had then been patched up between them, but one which
set Roger thinking, and made him feel that many
differences of opinion might be less disastrous than such
a making up of a quarrel. It had not been spontaneous;
it had been largely due to the intervention of Mr. Dixon,
who was very indignant with his daughter for what he
called ‘making such an exhibition of herself.’ He condemned
Otho Askam in no measured terms, but his
blame of Ada and her ‘want of sense’ was almost as
strong. He wanted to know where she meant to draw
the line in her folly. He added that she was doing her
character no good by such ‘carryings on,’ and uttered a
dark hint as to the implacable nature of his wrath should
she ever in the future disgrace, or as he expressed it,
‘lower herself’ in any way whatsoever.
During the paternal admonitions Mrs. Dixon maintained
an ominous silence. As has been before said, she
did not favour Roger’s pretensions, and had always looked
328to her daughter to marry well;—not what Mr. Dixon
considered to be well, but what she, his consort, understood
by the term. On returning from the concert, and
finding that Ada had gone to her room, her mother had
repaired thither, and had extracted from the girl an
account of every word uttered throughout the evening,
by herself, Otho, Miss Wynter, and Roger. She had
not said much, save some strong expressions condemnatory
of Roger’s behaviour, which she characterised as
‘tyrannical,’ ‘impudent,’ ‘masterful,’ and ‘odious,’ and
expressed indignation that her daughter should be forced
to do the bidding of such a man. But at the recital of
Otho’s attentions there was an expression in her face
which Ada did not interpret as one of displeasure.
By Mr. Dixon’s orders the young woman had received
her betrothed with outward friendliness, though she
declined with quiet, persistent obstinacy, to say she was
sorry for what had happened. Reconciliations made
to order are apt to carry about them a very strong
flavour of their artificial nature and origin, and this
particular reconciliation bore the stamp of unreality very
plainly to be read.
On going in on Christmas Eve, Roger was, for once,
not at all sorry to find that the Dixons had friends with
them. Mr. Dixon received him heartily, Ada demurely,
Mrs. Dixon coldly, scarcely speaking to him at all.
There was a miserable constraint and unreality about
everything. Roger felt it a relief to himself, and had a
bitter conviction that it was also one to Ada, when he
had to tell her that he had promised Mr. Johnson to
take all the organist’s duty on the following day, in
order that that official might take a holiday and visit some
friends. His time would, therefore, be so much taken
329up that he would not be able to call and see her before
service. She heard his excuse with indifference, and
Roger went to bed that night, and arose also on the
following morning, with a heavy problem agitating his
mind. How was he to treat her? What was he to do
with this wilful creature whom he loved so much, and
who had succeeded in making their mutual relations so
miserable and so embarrassed? For it was he who had
been sinned against, as he very well knew, and though
in his tenderness he was ready to condone that, and
would have eagerly made an effort after any reconciliation
that should have reality in it, yet the sense of duty
and of the fitness of things stepped in, and told him that
to let a condition of things be initiated in which the
woman was to be humoured even when wrong, and the
man was to beg forgiveness for all misunderstandings,
whether caused by himself or not, was simple madness.
Yet how he was to institute anything more reasonable,
he did not see, unless Ada were brought to see that
she had behaved badly, of which truth not the most
glimmering consciousness seemed to have been afforded
her.
With this trouble in his mind he went to church on
Christmas morning, and tried, almost unconsciously, to
find a solution to his difficulties in the language spoken
to him by his music. To a certain extent he found what
he wanted; he received soothing, and that alone was a
help to counsel. It was not the first time that music
had come to him with healing on her wings; most
likely it would not be the last.
Seated up in the organ-loft, and looking into the
mirror in front of him, he could see, not only the vicar
and his curate, but a good many of the congregation
330too,—all diminished, reversed in position, moving up
and down silently, rising and sitting down again like
automata or dream-creatures. His sight was keen and
long. He could identify a good many of those who
came in, and amongst them he saw Ada and her father
and mother. Ada, he perceived, was not so prostrate
under the shock of their quarrel as to have neglected the
claims of Christmas Day to be considered a fête day in
matters of toilette. She was dressed gaily, and he saw a
pretty face, looking prettier still in the framework of a
smart and becoming new bonnet. It was a fresh, sweet
face, seen thus in repose, and at a distance, and his heart
yearned towards its owner, and he tried to put out of
his mind the ugly recollection of the same face turned
upwards towards Otho Askam, with a smile, and afterwards
looking at him, cross, distorted, pouting.
Whether the music inspired him, or the sight of Ada,
he knew not, but there flashed suddenly into his mind
the recollection that he must most likely soon lose sight
of her, for a considerable time at any rate, and with this
recollection the conviction that that was the best thing
that could possibly happen to them both. Separation
for a season would, he argued, teach them both to look
upon things with less prejudiced eyes. She would miss
him, and want him, and he would learn to be less indignant
at what had happened between them.
As he came to this conclusion, which he hugged as a
conviction, because it presented to him a way out of his
difficulty with regard to the most judicious course to
take with Ada, he perceived Gilbert Langstroth walking
up the aisle behind Eleanor Askam, and they went
together to the great square pew belonging to Thorsgarth.
Roger began to wonder if Michael was right in
331thinking there might be something between them. Then
he saw the choir and parsons coming in, and he wound
up his voluntary, and the service began. When it was
over, he played the congregation out to the music of a
quick movement from a sonata of Beethoven—a passage
full of storm and stress; of pain, struggle, and striving.
And as the wild and noble music pealed out, some of his
pain and unrest passed away with it.
When he had left the church, and got into the churchyard,
it was almost empty. One or two groups still
lingered in conversation. Ada and her parents were not
amongst them, but Roger was surprised to see Gilbert
and Miss Askam still there. She looked very pale, he
noticed, and grave, but also very beautiful in her dark
brown velvet and furs. He raised his hat, and was
passing on, but Gilbert stepped forward, and to Roger’s
bewildered amazement, accosted him.
‘I have been waiting for you,’ said he. ‘I want a
word with you, if you can spare a moment; and Miss
Askam desires me to present you to her;’ and he turned
from one to the other.
Again Roger’s hat came off, and he could not find it
in his heart to look with anything but gentleness upon
this sad young face, in which he, like Michael, had
begun to perceive a nobility and firmness of expression
beneath the mere beauty of outline, which expression
attracted him whether he would or no. She only said
a very few words to him, quietly and simply.
‘I wished to make your acquaintance. I have heard
much about you from Dr. Rowntree, and from my friend,
Mrs. Johnson.’
To which Roger gravely replied that he was highly
honoured, and had heard also of Miss Askam from the
332same friends. He perfectly appreciated the spirit which
dictated this advance from her.
‘She would repair the wrong, if she could. Poor
thing! She might as well try to sweep back the ocean
with a besom.’
Then Gilbert said to him, ‘I had no opportunity of
speaking to you the other morning, but I want to do so
particularly. I have business to discuss with you. Will
you meet me to-morrow morning in the reading-room
in the town—say at twelve, or earlier if you like?’
‘Certainly. Twelve will suit me perfectly. It will
no doubt be better that we should have a little talk.’
‘Thank you. I shall be punctual,’ said Gilbert, with
the air of a man who is much obliged.
They parted, and Roger took his way to Mr. Dixon’s,
where he had been bidden some time ago, to dine and
spend the day; not because he felt any sudden desire for
their society, or they for his, but because it was Christmas,
and it is the proper thing to go and make merry
with your friends and relations at that season. He had
to go out once more to play at the evening service,
except for which interval he spent most of his time in the
company of his betrothed and her parents, with what
results may be imagined. Ada was no more gracious,
no more penitent to-day, than she had been yesterday.
Roger’s conviction that a temporary separation would
be good for the spiritual welfare of both became stronger.
He imparted his idea to Mr. Dixon, in a private conversation
with him, stating his reasons, and Mr. Dixon entirely
agreed with him. They both brought heavy
broadsides of common sense to bear upon the question,
and neither of them could do more; neither of them
could have understood, if some scatter-brained person
333had stepped forward, and assured them that to settle a
question of that kind it was most desirable that to
common sense should be joined a little of the much
rarer and more precious quality of imagination. They
saw facts, and they grappled with them in the very best
way in which they knew how; and they were at one in
the opinion that Ada, if left to herself a little, might
come to a better mind.
On the following day, at noon, punctual to his appointment,
Roger repaired to the reading-room in the
town. There was no one there; it was holiday time,
and people were otherwise amusing themselves. As he
waited for Gilbert he could not but reflect how it was
they came to meet thus.
‘He knows I wouldn’t set my foot inside Thorsgarth,
and he knows, too, that he need never again darken the
door of his brother; so we have to sneak into a public
room, where there is neutral ground. It is an odious
state of things, and I shall be glad to be out of it.’
He had not long to wait. Gilbert arrived directly
afterwards, and looked pleased to see him.
‘I am much obliged to you for coming,’ began Gilbert.
‘It gives me hopes that I shall be successful in my
errand.’
‘I thought you would want to know how the books
stand and so on, for the benefit of my successor, when
he arrives.’
‘Of course that will be necessary, but it is not what
I came about to-day. I won’t waste words in telling
you how annoyed, and more than annoyed I have been—I
may say mortified and disgusted, at what has just
taken place. I know the value of your services, and
that this is no fitting recompense for them.’
334‘I don’t know about the value of my services, but I
feel as if I had been rubbed the wrong way, and that by
no means gently,’ said Roger.
‘Of course. And you will naturally be unwilling to
remain without a situation longer than is necessary.’
‘Naturally. I have done nothing about it yet, because
nobody wants to hear about such things at Christmas-time;
but I thought of advertising, or perhaps
writing to my former employers directly.’
‘Yes, of course you could do that. But I have it on
my conscience that it was to oblige me and to do me a
service that you left those former employers, and it
must be my business not to let you suffer for that.’
‘You are very kind,’ said Roger, perfectly appreciating
the unusual nature of this long memory. ‘Very kind,
you are; but I don’t see how any one could hold you
responsible for what has happened, or consider it your
fault if a man whom I have had to do with is such a
blackguard, and shows his blackguardism in such an
offensive manner that I have to leave him. I’ve had
my wages for more than six years, and——’
‘You have done a great deal more than that. You
have stuck to the affair from the beginning, and worked
it through good and bad, till from a doubtful venture
you have made it into a profitable business. Any common
foreman might have stayed in his place and taken his
wages. You have been something different. But there
is no need to beat about the bush. I have a proposal
to make to you. I have had a fair measure of success
in the business in which I am engaged. I think of
finally settling accounts with Mr. Askam, who has never
cared for business of that kind. I shall pay him the
remainder of the capital and interest still owing to him,
335and continue to work the mills on my own account;
and I thought that under those circumstances you might
consent to remain, since you would have the entire
management of the concern, and of course a share in the
profits, and would have absolutely nothing further to do
with Otho Askam. What do you say to it?’
The proposition took Roger by surprise, and embarrassed
him at the same time, for it made his decision
concerning the separation of Ada and himself seem less
than before the only reasonable one to come to. But
he was not a man who came to such decisions in a
moment of carelessness or impatience, and, having once
arrived at them he was hard to move. At first there
was a strong feeling of temptation,—the sensation that
Gilbert’s proposal put an end to all difficulties, and made
his way clear before him. This, which was the natural
feeling, he immediately began to distrust, chiefly because
of his previous resolution to leave Bradstane, and after
a few moments of rapid thought decided that to make
things clear and right between him and Ada, he would
make any sacrifice; and if this was the sacrifice required—the
giving up of this opening—why, the more promptly
and rapidly it was accomplished the better.
‘This is what I never expected,’ he at last said, slowly,
‘and it is very tempting.’
‘That means, that it does not tempt you, but the
reverse; is it not so?’
‘No; it does tempt me very much. But there are
private reasons—reasons which I can’t quite explain to
you, which I am afraid will prevent it.’
‘If you say that, I suppose I must not press you.
But I am very sorry, if you think you cannot do as I
wish. There are several reasons why I wished it very
336much, apart from the one that you are far better suited
to the post than any one else I could possibly find. One
is, that if you had accepted, there would have been no
further settlements required, since I know you so well;—no
question of references, or recommendations from
other persons.’
‘Yes, I understand that.’
‘But, if you do not come to me, but take another
situation, you will have to refer to your former employer,
who, in name at any rate, has been Mr. Askam.’
‘Well, and what can Mr. Askam say of me that is not
creditable?’
‘Nothing—with truth. But you are aware that he is
unscrupulous and extremely vindictive.’
‘But there is such a thing as an action for defamation
of character, if people tell lies about you. I have not
the slightest fear of any such thing. He may dislike me,
but he is not quite mad, and he simply dare not do it.’
‘I fear you do not know him so well as I do.
“Daring” has simply nothing to do with it. He is not
a man who dares or dares not. He is a creature who
yields to every impulse of anger or passion, as blindly
and unquestioningly, almost, as when he was a child.
He has got an intense hatred for you now, because you
have thwarted and spoken plainly to him, and he is now
capable of committing any folly in order to punish you.
What I wished to say is this, that if you will allow me,
I will do all in my power to see you placed as soon as
possible in a situation at least as good as the one which,
from no fault of yours, you are forced to leave. And if
I am the first to hear of such an opening, I will at once
communicate with you; if you are the first, all I ask of
you is, that you will write to me, and not to Mr. Askam,
337for references. Then I shall be able to see that justice
is done, and that no scandal takes place.’
Roger yielded to the honest impulse which arose in
him, to lay aside all suspicion, and thank Gilbert heartily
and unaffectedly.
‘I don’t pretend it is not a matter of importance to
me,’ he said, ‘for it is; and I am thankful to be helped
forward a bit. I feel very grateful to you.’
‘You won’t take a few days, then, to consider my
proposal about the works here?’ said Gilbert, looking
almost wistfully at him.
Roger shook his head slowly.
‘I think it is better not,’ said he. ‘I have considered
my whole situation carefully since Friday night, and I
am perfectly certain that I am best out of Bradstane for
a time, both for my own sake, and for that of those most
bound up with me. And when I settle down, it would
be as well that it should not be here, but somewhere
else.’
‘Very well. I shall not attempt to alter your decision
now. We must see about another situation as speedily
as possible.’
There was a little pause, during which Roger thought
some rather puzzled thoughts. He could not understand
Gilbert—that was very natural—and he owned that the
character of the other man was a problem to which he
had not the key. He felt the charm of manner which
years of growth and cultivation had developed in Gilbert,
and which is a thing not to be described in so many
words. He understood also that Gilbert was acting
the part now of a gentleman, an honourable man, and a
friend. He gathered that Gilbert disliked and abhorred
the conduct of Otho Askam, and his character. That was
338a group of characteristics which went harmoniously together.
What he could not understand, in his simplicity
and straightforwardness, was that this same man should
still be the friend, adviser, visitor, companion of Askam,
whose whole conduct was so indecent and brutal; and
that in past days he should have descended to the very
base intrigue which he had undoubtedly conducted, with
regard to the disposal of his father’s property. That
intrigue, when discovered, had alienated his brother from
him for ever; and, reflected Roger, suddenly, whose
money was it with which Gilbert proposed to carry on
the working of the Townend Mills? There had never
been a word said about the two thousand pounds which
Michael had rejected, but which Gilbert had probably
manipulated all these years. This wonder started up
suddenly in his mind, and with all his disposition to
think well of the man who was so readily and so
ungrudgingly stepping to his aid, Roger could not stifle
those other voices, which spoke of another phase in the
said man’s character.
His thoughts on the subject, though this was the
drift of them, were not thus orderly and formulated.
They ran vaguely and ramblingly through his mind, in
and out of one another, uncertain and shapeless.
Suddenly Gilbert observed—
‘I was present at the concert in the schoolroom the
other night, and I saw what happened there.’
‘Ay; along with the rest of the world,’ said Roger,
writhing under the recollection of it.
‘Yes; and you must excuse me for mentioning it. I
feel it a duty, I may say. There is no harm in your
leaving Bradstane under the present circumstances; but
there might have been, but for something that has taken
339place since the concert. But for this, I should have told
you plainly, as a friend, that you would do foolishly to
go away, and leave your fiancée exposed to the possibility
of receiving further attentions from Otho Askam. It
would have been by no means an impossible contingency.
Now, I am glad to say, there is no danger of it.’
‘Indeed; and pray to what fortunate circumstance am
I indebted for such immunity?’
‘Just to this, that after the concert he saw Miss Wynter
home, proposed to her, and was accepted. He had
accomplished his purpose of frightening and subduing
her, though it seems to me that in order to clinch his
victory he had to go farther than he intended.’
‘She has got him at last, then,’ said Roger with
contempt. ‘And now I think of it, that will be an
advantage to me, for she can never have anything more
to say to my little girl, and there will be an end to an
intimacy which I have always detested.’
‘Yes, you are right to be glad of that. Hers is not a
friendship I should desire for any woman in whom I was
interested.’
‘The wicked always gain their ends,’ said Roger, unguardedly.
‘I did hope she would never succeed in
catching him, so far as I hoped anything about it.’
‘She is not so fortunate, even from her point of view,
as you suppose,’ said Gilbert, tranquilly. ‘She has certainly
got what she aimed at, but sadly deteriorated
from what it was when she first began to scheme for it,
and with it she has got a lot of other things thrown in,
which she could well have dispensed with. If she were
any one else I should feel sorry for her.’
‘You say that what she schemed for is deteriorated;
now, excuse my saying it, but how is it that you too cling
340to that man? That is a thing which I have been
wondering ever since you came here this year.’
Gilbert’s face changed a little.
‘I suppose it must be unaccountable to many another,
as well as to you,’ he said. ‘I can only say that it is because
he was true to me, in his way, long ago, when I
had other hopes and other ambitions than I have now.
He was not afraid to declare that he was my friend, and
that whoever spoke against me, insulted him. It would
conduce greatly to my comfort and peace of mind, if I
could forget that; but I cannot. So my relations to him
are defined, not by my present opinion of him, but by
his conduct towards me in former days. Other things
happened at that time; I know it is useless to speak to
you of it, but he stood my friend when no one else would
have done. Otho Askam is my Old Man of the Sea. We
all have one of some kind, and it seems to me that the
best thing to do with them is to carry them quietly as
long as one’s strength holds out.’
‘You say it is useless to speak to me of that past time.
But, since we have got so far below the surface in our
talk, there is one thing I would like to tell you, without
any prejudice to my friendship with Michael. You sent
a note to him one day.’
‘Yes.’
‘He gave it to me to read at the time.’
‘Yes?’
‘I urged him to take a day to consider the matter,
and I have always felt that you were wronged by his refusing
to do so. But his own wrongs at that time were
so incomparably greater than yours, and his heart was so
broken, that I have always condoned the fault, though I
was sorry for it. Now you know all.’
341‘I am glad you have told me. His heart was so
broken, you say,’ said Gilbert, speaking with an
evident effort. ‘I did not dare to think of anything
connected with him, then. He—is he—do you think it
would be a breach of confidence to let me know something
of his circumstances?’
‘I am afraid he would think so. He does not even
know I am meeting you.’
‘Ah! Say nothing then. But—his engagement
with Miss Wynter. Surely he cannot regret now that
it was broken off?’
‘I don’t suppose he does. That did not make the
blow at the time less hard.’
‘No, no! I should have fancied somehow that he
would have married some one else. But he has
not.’
‘No, he has not.’
‘Do you think he has ever cared to?’
‘He never had, up to a little while ago.’
‘And now you think he does?’
‘No, I don’t. I think he has been so well disciplined
by what he has gone through that it would take a great
deal to make him really want to marry any one. He
can’t help admiring beautiful things, but he won’t do
anything so disastrous as to fall in love with the lady I
am thinking of. And besides, I know nothing about his
feelings, really. He does not wear his heart upon his
sleeve—now.’
‘No. Of course I look upon all this as said in confidence;
and I think that for the present we have settled
all we had to do.’
‘Yes, quite, I think. And I assure you I am much
obliged to you.’
342‘Not at all. I am glad to have had the talk. You
have my London address, I think.’
‘Yes. How long do you remain here?’
‘Only a few days more.’
They exchanged good mornings, and separated.
Roger, going home, was very thoughtful. He knew he
had taken a momentous step in refusing to remain in
Bradstane. He believed it was the best step that was
open to him, and he took it. It is what men have to do
on their way through life. Steps of some kind we have
to take, though each one may be fraught with consequences
which we cannot foresee, and which we can only
appreciate after we have lost all power in the matter.
We can look on, in these after days, at the results of our
actions; it is permitted to us to rejoice in the fruits of
our conduct, or, as often as not, to repine over the same,
or to beat our breasts and wish we had never been born,—but
not to alter by so much as a hair’s-breadth, the
direction of the road opened out long ago by our own
deed.
CHAPTER XXX SERMON, BY A SINNER
343
Gilbert had said to Roger that he was only remaining a
few days longer at Thorsgarth; but as a matter of fact,
he stayed till over the New Year,—being able, seemingly,
to put off the business which, he every now and then remarked
in a casual way, called aloud to him from
London. He could hardly have enjoyed himself much,
during the latter portion of his visit—at least, that was
Eleanor’s feeling, as she uneasily watched the course of
events after the concert. For a few days she was quite
in the dark as to the exact state of things. Of course
she lay awake a long time on that particular night, feeling
uneasy about every subject to which her thoughts
turned,—Otho, Gilbert, Magdalen, Ada; she felt no sense
of security or comprehension with regard to any one of
them. Why did Magdalen, after behaving so well at
first under the insult which Otho had put upon her, fall
off so lamentably afterwards—tamely submitting to his
behest, and allowing him to drive home with her?
And Gilbert—in whom, to a certain extent, she had
put her trust—was no more than a broken reed. He
had promised to see that all should go right, and, on the
contrary, everything had gone wrong—just as wrong
as it could possibly go; and he seemed neither vexed
344nor uneasy about it, but allowed things to take their
course.
When she met Otho at lunch, after his quarrel with
Roger, and saw his sullen look, and heard his sulky, curt
remarks and replies, she felt miserable, in spite of telling
herself that it was no affair of hers; and she did not
venture to inquire what had angered him. She vaguely
dreaded to hear his reply. The Christmas Day, which
happened also to be a Sunday, came; and the doctor’s
Christmas-tree was to be on the twenty-sixth. She had
not seen Mrs. Johnson since the concert, and was therefore
in ignorance as to what had happened at the mills,
and it suited Gilbert for a day or two to say nothing to
her. So she lived on in uneasiness, and sometimes caught
herself thinking of her former life, which she had left
six weeks ago, as if it were a hundred years away from
her; and of her uncle and cousin Paul on their travels,
as if they were inhabitants of another world, journeying
on seas and in lands unheard of.
Things were in this condition on Monday afternoon,
and she was sitting alone in her parlour in the waning
daylight, when Barlow came in with a message from
Gilbert, to know if she would see him. Her thoughts,
which had strayed away from the painful present, were
suddenly pulled back again to their post. Instinctively
bracing herself to meet something disagreeable, she bade
Barlow show Mr. Langstroth up, and then sat and waited
for him.
In a minute, however, he was with her; and, as usual,
his presence, unwished for, and even dreaded in anticipation,
proved in reality soothing, almost agreeable.
Eleanor struggled against this power of Gilbert to make
himself agreeable to her; resented it deeply in her heart,
345as a sort of disloyalty to his brother, to whom she had
in her soul given irrevocably and for ever, the place of
master of her heart and destiny. This last was as strong
a feeling as anything which could be experienced; but,
nevertheless, Gilbert possessed this power of being
agreeable to her when he came, and the fact puzzled and
annoyed her more than she would have cared to own.
‘You are very kind to let me see you,’ he said at once,
as he took the chair she pointed to. ‘I have been
wanting to speak to you for a day or two—about Otho.’
‘Ah, I knew it was about Otho. Say on, and let us
have done with it.’
‘Perhaps that will not be so easy, either. However,
I will say on, as you suggest. Before I could speak to
you, I wished to accomplish a certain piece of business.
I have now done so, and am free to say what I like. I
suppose you have been noticing how angry Otho looks,
without being able in your own mind to assign a cause
for it?’
‘Unless the cause is that he is unhappy because he
has been doing wrong.’
Gilbert repressed a smile.
‘I am afraid I cannot comfort you by confirming that
theory of yours. By “doing wrong,” I suppose you
mean his little escapade at the concert the other night.
Yes, I see. Well, I imagine he has forgotten all about
that by now. He is angry, or “unhappy,” if you like,
because he has been, and is being, put to great inconvenience,
and he doesn’t like it; it makes him uncomfortable.’
Then he told her about the quarrel between Otho and
Roger, with a sort of amused carelessness, as if he had
been diverted by the combat, and somewhat contemptuous
346of the combatants, which tone puzzled and did not
reassure his hearer.
‘Otho does not like office work,’ he went on, smiling
openly. ‘He has not had much of it yet; but the
factories reopen to-morrow, after the holiday, and then
he will have to try a little of it. I have telegraphed to
a man whom I know to send down some one suitable, and
I have promised Otho to wait until the some one comes,
and just to put him in the way of business; but it may
be a week or so before my friend can hit upon the right
kind of man. That makes him very angry——’
‘You don’t seem to think anything of the way in
which he has behaved,’ burst forth Eleanor, indignantly,
the colour high in her cheeks. ‘I think it is the most
abominable thing I ever heard of—his treating Mr.
Camm in that way. It is—it is——’
Words failed her. She felt as if she would choke
with anger and disgust. Gilbert’s eyes were fixed upon
her face; the slight smile was still hovering about his
lips.
‘You talk about what makes him angry, as if it
mattered. He deserves to be put to inconvenience. He
does not deserve to be helped out of it. What becomes
of Mr. Camm?’
‘Oh, I have seen Roger. We understand each other.
But don’t you want to hear all that I have to tell you?
I have another piece of news.’
‘What is it?’ she asked, feeling from the way in
which he spoke that it must be news of some importance,
and staying her anger to hear it.
‘Something else has happened, which ought to have
made him forget his anger, one would think. I told him
he ought to tell you about it, but he says he won’t; it is
347all between him and her. He does not feel inclined to
talk about it, and, in short, I see you half guess already.
Yes; it is quite true. He got engaged to Miss Wynter
the other night.’
‘Engaged—to—Miss—Wynter!’ Eleanor stared at
him incredulously. ‘She took him—after what he had
done?’
Gilbert laughed aloud.
‘She took him, it would appear. I thought you
ought to be informed of it. Probably all the neighbourhood
is gossiping over it by now, and you would have
looked ridiculous if you had heard people talking about
it, and had not understood.’
‘I—oh, to be ridiculous is nothing, it seems to me, if
one is not disgraceful,’ said Eleanor, and paused, because
she could not help wondering what Gilbert felt about it
himself. If she were to judge from his present manner,
she would have said that he regarded it all from a
superior standpoint, as a kind of joke amongst some
unsophisticated creatures, whose habits it amused him to
study; but, recollecting the very different tone he had
lately taken, and his present avowed conviction that he
thought it serious enough to come and tell her about it,
since Otho would not, she felt that his motives were
quite beyond her comprehension. So she ceased to
speculate upon them, and turned her attention to
another point.
‘It is all very extraordinary to me, and most disagreeable—the
way in which it has been done,’ she said, and
again caught the curious expression, half amusement, half—what?
in Gilbert’s look. ‘You know them both much
better than I do. Do you think it will be for his good?’
‘In a way, I am sure it will. It is perfectly certain
348that whatever kind of woman Miss Wynter may be, as
a woman, she is the only one who has, or ever had,
any shadow of influence over him. She knows him
thoroughly. She knows the frightful risks she is running,—perhaps
she does not feel them frightful—and she
knows the precarious state of his fortunes at the present
time. With her eyes open she has taken him. If they
would or could be married at once she might do a great
deal to retrieve his affairs.’
‘I did not mean that exactly,’ said Eleanor, going on
with what she did mean, despite what seemed to her
Gilbert’s look of mockery. ‘I was thinking more of the
moral influence. I should have thought that a woman
of higher mind—one who would have roused him to
better things——’
‘Yes, that is a very fine idea,’ said Gilbert, with
ready benevolence—‘that theory of overcoming evil with
good. The thing is, how far is it practicable? You
speak as a woman, and a good woman. I see as a man,
and a man of the world. And speaking from my
knowledge of men in general, and of your brother Otho
in particular, I should say Miss Wynter would make him
a far more suitable wife than the best of women, filled
with high aspirations and noble aims. Magdalen
Wynter understands him by reason of being composed of
a similar clay. Understanding him, she will lead him—at
least, very often. A saint would simply exasperate
him into something ten times worse than he is. You do
not know the ease, the comfort, and the help it is to be
understood; how it can keep a wavering man in the
right, and drag a sinning man out of the wrong. Good
people don’t need half as much understanding as bad
ones, and with due respect to you and to current notions
349on the subject, saints and people who never do wrong
are not those who are the most sympathetic and comprehending.
It sounds very degrading, I daresay, but it
is true—true as anything can be.’
Gilbert spoke with much more emphasis than usual,
and with a shade of bitterness in his tone. Had Roger
Camm been there, he would have understood it in a
moment; it would have confirmed some vague suspicions
long entertained by him. But to Eleanor, it seemed as
if Gilbert were composing an apology for wrong-doing;
making it out as being rather meritorious than otherwise.
With emphasis equal to his own, and with some bitterness
in her tone also, she replied—
‘I daresay you may be right. Men of the world
usually are right, on the outside, at any rate; but I look
inside, and it seems to me that all this is very sad and
dreadful, too. Life is full of these horrible contradictions,
and it appears as if you can never have any good
or beautiful thing without, as it were, a heap of dust and
ashes beside it, spoiling it all.’
Gilbert laughed a little, and she felt chilled—not
vexed with him—as she was conscious she ought to have
been, but discouraged by the fact that he was about to
differ from her.
‘Why, of course,’ he admitted. ‘Is it not in the very
nature of life, as we know life, that it should be so?
What are the good and beautiful things, as you call
them, except sacrifices and aspirations or struggles after
something higher and better than our everyday fight and
grind? And how can you have beautiful sacrifices without
something bad and mean to call them out? and how
can you aspire after the better, without a worse which
makes the better desirable to you? But for the dustheaps,
350I do not really see how the shrines and temples
would ever get their due share of admiration.’
‘Admiration!’ repeated Eleanor, indignantly; ‘as if
one admired a holy place! I daresay you have risen
superior to all such superstitious considerations, but I say
again, I think it is horrible; and I maintain that I do
not think Miss Wynter is a good or a high-principled
woman, and I am very sorry Otho is going to marry her.’
‘Which of them do you look upon as the temple, and
which as the cinder-heap?’ asked Gilbert politely, but
with a queer look. Eleanor was furious with herself for
laughing out, quickly and readily; but she had to admit
that Gilbert had the best of it. Then a sudden gravity
came over her; she caught her breath, and looked at him
in renewed bewilderment. In what light did he wish
her to see him; how did he desire her to view him, that
he, who had cheated his brother, and undermined his
father’s integrity, should have the effrontery to sit there
and talk lightly about wrong being necessary to call
forth the higher life, and to say that temples could not
be properly ‘admired,’ unless there were sordid details
close to them, to emphasise their beauty? Seen from
her point of view, his conversation was sickening in its
hypocrisy and unreality; and yet—again the feeling of
surprise came over her—she was interested in it; she
could not feel revolted. Was the man’s personal influence
really so potent as to nullify all the effect of what
she knew to his disadvantage?
Gilbert had listened to her last words with an amused
smile, betraying by nothing whether she hurt him or
not; his gaze met hers steadily, and he continued to
watch her while she silently reflected. At last he said,
lightly still, and coldly—
351‘I see you are wondering what to make of me. It is
very natural—in you; and if you can trust me far
enough to believe that anything disinterested can proceed
out of my mouth, I would suggest to you not to go on
wondering any more, but to listen to me, and attentively
consider what I have to say to you.’
Eleanor started, reddening with confusion, and
feeling, with a sudden revulsion, as some child might,
which, instead of attending to its professor’s discourse,
had been speculating about the wrinkles on the brow of
the learned man, and was suddenly called to order. An
immense distance seemed to open up at once between
her and Gilbert. She remembered the sentiments she
had attributed to him of admiration for herself, and felt
that egregious vanity must have led her very far astray.
‘Indeed, I will listen to whatever you have to say. I
think you are very kind to take so much trouble about—poor
Otho.’
‘“Poor Otho,” as you call him, is my oldest friend;
I know him better than any one else does, except
perhaps the lady we have been speaking of, whose
acquaintance with him dates from the very same time.
You laughed just now—you could not help it. Does not
your common sense now explain to you that it is much
better to take men as they are, and provide them with
the best that circumstances will allow, instead of wanting
to insist on their having for mate an ideal which does
not suit, and which they would hate if they had to live
with it? That is my view of the case.’
‘Very well,’ said she, resignedly. ‘Go on.’
‘I was about to observe that though Otho certainly
appears disposed just now to kick over the traces
altogether, and not listen to anything that any one has
352to say to him, yet I think I may still say, I have more
influence over him than any one else has. But upon my
soul, I do not know how long it may last. He has got
some notion into his head which, for a wonder, he has
not confided to me, and I cannot answer for the freaks
which it may inspire him to play. I wonder if you will
think me impertinent for asking, did you know much
about Otho and his character before you came to live
here?’
‘No—at least, my uncle, Mr. Stanley, used to say he
was afraid Otho was rather fast, and told me not to let
him bet. I think,’ added Eleanor, with rather a sad
smile, ‘that if we had known him better, we should not
have wasted our words in that way.’
‘I think something still more probable is, that you
would not have wasted your time in coming here.’
‘I did not choose to come here. It so fell out that
this was the right place for me to come to.’
‘You had nowhere else to go?’
‘Practically nowhere. My aunt died, and my uncle’s
health had so given way that he and Paul—my cousin,
and their only child—have gone to travel together for
an indefinite time. Where should I have thought of
coming to but to my home?’
She raised her head, and looked at him both proudly
and sadly. Gilbert’s eyes fell—not in confusion, but
reflectively.
‘True,’ he admitted, after a moment. ‘And you intend
to remain here?’
‘Certainly I do. Why should I go?’
‘Oh, there are many reasons. It is not a pleasant
house for you to be in.’
Eleanor felt as if Otho’s conduct were being commented
353upon, and she herself tutored by some one who
was much more master of the situation than she was.
She did not exactly like it, but she was powerless to
resent it; she did not quite know whether she wished
even to resent it.
‘It is a dreary house,’ said she at length. ‘It is depressing
to me, too. But I don’t know that one may always
leave a place just because it happens not to be pleasant.’
‘Ah! You know Otho is going away when I do?’
‘Yes.’
‘I will answer for it that you will not see much more
of him till after the Derby Day, and perhaps not then.
Don’t you think it would be advisable for you to have a
change, too?’
‘A change—in the depth of winter—after being here
just six weeks? No, I do not.’
‘You are very decided, I see. Pardon me for pressing
the question again. Are you quite decided to stay here?’
‘Yes. Why not? Why should I go away? It is
my home, as I said before,’ she said, looking at him
rather impatiently.
‘You will be very dull. Otho, you see, has no
scruples about leaving you, and will not return an hour
the sooner from the knowledge that you are here alone.’
‘And if I like Bradstane, and wish to remain at
Thorsgarth, in spite of this dulness, and in spite of what
Otho does?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Of course, in that case. There are compensations
sometimes, which go a long way towards repaying a
little dulness and solitude. Every one to his taste. If
that is yours, I may as well proceed to tell you that my
advice to you would be to prepare for reverses.’
354‘Reverses?’
‘Yes. Racing, and the sort of horse-dealing in
which Otho indulges—never to mention a dozen other
expensive little trifles that he likes, are not profitable
occupations, and he has not found them so. I speak
plainly. You may live to see very evil days at Thorsgarth,
if you choose to remain here. You may live to
see Otho reduced to poverty, and, if your feelings are
easily worked upon, your own fortune in danger—that
is, if you should let yourself be deluded into the idea
that you can help him out of his difficulties, and set him
on his legs again.’
‘I think I could meet reverses, if they came, without
too much lamenting.’
‘In addition to which he may at any time get married
to your favourite, Magdalen Wynter, and request you to
find another home.’
‘I have a house of my own, and I should not wait to
be asked to go.’
‘Oh, you mean the Dower House—a nice old house,
that. It stands quite near to my own old home, the
Red Gables.’
‘Yes. I have thought sometimes it would be a
pleasant house to live in, as——’
‘As you are so much alone,’ interposed Gilbert, almost
eagerly. ‘Don’t you really think that it would be much
better than for you to be here, alone, without chaperon
or companion——’
‘Nay,’ interposed Eleanor, half-smiling; ‘don’t twit
me with that. I don’t want a chaperon; but if I did,
how could I have one, when you know very well that
Otho says——’
She stopped. Otho had said that one petticoat in the
355house was more than enough for him, and he would put
up with no more. Gilbert smiled.
‘Yes, I know what Otho says. I was not twitting
you. I only wish you would see that reason tells you
to leave him, and not mix yourself in his affairs.’
‘Your reason may. Mine does not. Mine tells me
that Otho is my brother; and I’m sure he is wretched
with his own wrong-doing, though you scoff at the idea.
Do you mean to tell me that Otho is happy?—you
cannot. And my reason tells me that, sometime, I
might find a way of helping him. He might want to
come home and have some one to be kind to him, sometime.
And I might be away, and never hear of it till a
long time afterwards. I don’t mean to say that nothing
would induce me ever to go to the Dower House; that
is a different thing. But I will not think of leaving
Bradstane. Men’s reason is proverbially superior to
women’s reason, you know. Perhaps that is why we
don’t agree.’
‘Perhaps it is,’ said he, tranquilly. ‘After what you
have said it would be impertinence in me to urge anything
further. Perhaps I have gone too far already.
I was under the impression that you were very unhappy
in Bradstane, but I am pleased to find that my fears
were exaggerated. I am very glad you have found
mitigating circumstances, and I hope the good may continue
to outweigh the evil in your estimation.’
He spoke politely and coldly. Eleanor sat silent and
almost breathless. Gilbert had never spoken to her
thus before. She was alarmed at his tone, and it brought
back to her recollection all the dissertations she had
heard from Dr. Rowntree on the subject of his infernal
cleverness, as the worthy Friend called it. At the same
356moment she recalled a descriptive sentence which she
had heard Otho utter not long ago. ‘Finding’—he had
said, speaking of some acquaintance who had long unsuccessfully
wooed a lady—‘finding the sentimental
dodge no go, he took to intimidation, and fairly bullied
her into it.’
A convulsive smile twitched her lips. She did not
believe now that Gilbert’s altered tone arose from disappointed
sentiment. A much more prosaic reason
suggested itself to her, namely, that the sentiment had
been assumed in order to amuse himself, and see what
the effect would be upon her. He must stand sorely
in need of some kind of amusement at Thorsgarth, she
reflected, and that was the one nearest to his hand. His
present demeanour and sentiments were probably those
of the natural man. What he had just said convinced
her that he did not more than half believe in her desire
to remain in order to be of some possible service to
Otho. She was more than ever sure of this when he
rose and said—
‘I will not detain you any longer, I know you are
going out this evening, and I know that children’s
parties begin early, as a rule.’
‘Yes, that is——’
‘Oh, I know what a benevolent old gentleman Dr.
Rowntree is, especially to those who are his favourites.
He would like to give them all Christmas presents and
kisses, young and old, big and little. I wish you a very
pleasant evening.’
She was silent still. Gilbert wished her good afternoon,
and departed.
From various allusions which he let fall before he
went away, he gave her to understand that he knew
357Michael had been at the doctor’s party. Eleanor tried
to ignore these hints, and to look openly at Gilbert when
he spoke of his brother; but her heart was hot within
her, with mingled fear and indignation; fear lest he
should even yet harbour some scheme of harm against
Michael; indignation at what she considered his audacity
in naming him, and a miserable sense that she had
better not provoke him, or the results might be bad for
Otho. Gilbert sought her society no more; he had no
more of those pleasant, gentle things to say to her, such
as he had uttered on the night of the concert. She
became convinced that he regarded her with dislike, if
not with enmity, and she withdrew herself as much as
possible from his and Otho’s society. Gilbert had yet
another twist to give to the tangled coil into which her
thoughts had got, concerning him, and he did it ingeniously.
He was alone with her in the drawing-room,
after dinner, on the evening before the day on which he
and Otho were to depart.
He took a card case from his pocket, extracted a card
from it, and gave it to her.
‘That is my London address,’ said he, with the
blandest of smiles. ‘If you should ever—since you
will remain at Thorsgarth—find yourself involved in
difficulties with Otho, or in any other circumstances in
which the advice of a—business man would be of any
use to you, telegraph there to me, and I will be with
you within four-and-twenty hours.’
‘Oh, Mr. Langstroth——’
‘Don’t, pray, trouble yourself to express any gratitude.
How do you know what dark motives may lurk
beneath my seeming kindness? We leave by the seven-thirty
train in the morning, so I shall not be likely
358to see you again. I will therefore wish you good-bye
now.’
‘Good-bye,’ said she, hesitatingly, feeling as if she
ought to add something to the baldness of the word,
but utterly at a loss to know what that something should
be.
‘I shall, I hope, be here again for the shooting, if not
before,’ said Gilbert. ‘I shall hope to find you well, and
as pleased with Thorsgarth—and Bradstane, too—as you
are now.’
With which he left her, with his words, and the tone
of them, echoing in her ears, and with the shadow of his
shadowy smile floating still before her eyes. She was as
far as ever from being able to decide whether he was a
gross hypocrite, or only a man who had once done very
wrong, and was now trying to do very right. That he
might be something between the two did not occur to
her.
CHAPTER XXXI BRASS POTS AND EARTHENWARE PIPKINS
359
The worst of winter had stormed itself away, and it was
March—the latter end of March. The leonine portion
of his reign had endured a long time this year, and
though it was now over, the warmer gales had yet
some north-east to blow back, and the dominion of the
lamb had not fairly set in. And yet, there was the
caress of spring in the air—that caress which is unmistakable,
and which may be felt, if it be there, through
the bleakest wind and the coldest rain. This caress was
in the air, and the hue of spring was in the sky. Here
and there her fingers had swept aside the withered
leaves, and allowed a violet to push its way up; and in
some very sheltered southern corners appeared a tuft or
two of primroses. In the garden borders at Thorsgarth,
the crocuses were beginning to make a gallant show.
The blue behind the rolling white clouds was deep and
profound,—steady and to be relied upon. In the shady
corners of the garden, under the budding trees, the
clumps of daffodils were putting forth their tender first
shoots, ready to nod their heads and laugh through the
April showers. And the grass, too, was recovering its
colour,—its green, which weeks under the snow had
faded and browned. Everything was full of promise.
360Nature stepped forward, erect and laughing, jocund,
casting the burden of her sadness behind her; not as in
autumn, advancing droopingly towards it.
So much for the garden, the cultivated. Outside, the
roads were heavy and soft with mud; but it was a mud
to make glad the heart of man, especially farming man.
The ploughed fields, stretching their great shoulders
towards the uplands, looked rich in their purple-brown
hue. The hedgerows here and there seemed to wear a
filmy, downy veil, the first output of yellow-green buds.
In the great pastures near Rookswood, on the Durham
side of Tees, the giant ash-trees stood yet in their winter
bareness, giving no sign, save by the hard, burnished
black buds, which for months to come were meaning to
hold fast their secret wealth of bud and leaf, their
treasure of summer glory. There was every promise
that this year the oak would be out before the ash, with,
it was to be hoped, the proverbial result.
It was on such an afternoon as this, when the breeze
blew from the south-west, that Eleanor walked along one
of the muddy lanes leading from Thorsgarth to Bradstane.
Beside her trotted Mrs. Johnson’s little girl,
Effie, whom Eleanor had borrowed a week or two ago
from her mother, to keep her company in the solitude of
Thorsgarth. For Gilbert’s prophecy had been fulfilled.
She found it very lonely there, so lonely that she was
now on her way, half-willingly, half-reluctantly, to the
Dower House, in order to inspect it from garret to cellar,
and think whether it would not better suit her as a
residence than the great dreary house which had grown
so oppressive to her.
As they came in their walk to a bend in the river,
Effie suddenly said—
361‘How full the river is just now; and so brown and
strong! Dr. Langstroth says he remembers the river
longer than anything else; and he says that Tees is as
broad as Bradstane is long. Isn’t that queer?’
Eleanor laughed. It is an indubitable fact, and one
which she had herself noted with amusement during the
first part of her stay in Bradstane, that in a town like
this, or, indeed, in any small town or village situated
upon a stream as big as the Tees, ‘the river’ becomes
the important feature of the neighbourhood. What it
looks like, whether it be high or low; in winter,
whether the river be frozen or flowing; and in fishing-time,
what sort of a water the river shows to-day;
whether there has been rain to the north-west, which
floods it, or whether drought, which makes it dry.
Whenever the conversation turns upon out-of-door subjects,
the river is sure to assert itself somewhere or other,
and that before very long. It is the same as a living
thing, and that a powerful one; its moods are watched
and recorded as if they were the moods of a person in
whom one took a deep interest. It is for ever the river,
the river; and this watery friend, and enemy—for it is
both—gives a colour, and has an influence over the lives
that are lived near it, which is very remarkable, especially
to those who know nothing of such surroundings.
And Tees, be it remarked, is a river with a powerful
individuality, which none in his vicinity can afford to
despise.
‘He says that because people think so much about the
river here,’ said Eleanor. ‘You must know how they
talk about it. You never go anywhere without finding
the Tees,—in people’s houses as well as here flowing
through the meadows. That is what he means.’
362‘I suppose it must be,’ said Effie, who was a philosophical
child. And they went on in silence. Eleanor
resumed the mental debate which had been occupying
her before—as to the wisdom of the step she contemplated
taking. It would be separating herself from Otho, at
one moment, she thought; and then she remembered
Gilbert’s dry words—that Otho left her without scruple,
and that no thought of her loneliness would bring him
back a moment before it was convenient or pleasant to
him to come. That was true; she would most likely see
quite as much of him at the Dower House as at Thorsgarth.
She had not had a line from him since he had
gone away with Gilbert to London. Once or twice she
had seen Magdalen, who had mentioned having heard
from him; but Eleanor suspected that his letters to
Magdalen even, were very brief. Miss Wynter volunteered
no details or news, and Eleanor felt no more drawn
to her than before, and disdained to ask for information
which was not proffered.
Once or twice she had ventured on making a tour of
inspection all round the Thorsgarth park and grounds,
penetrating even to the courtyards, the kennels, and
stables which lay behind the house. What she saw there
did not tend to encourage her. She found that everything
was conducted with a lavish profusion, a reckless
extravagance, which would have been foolish in any
case; and it was a lavishness which had also its stingy
side, as such lavishness usually has. While necessary
repairs were left neglected for months, or undone altogether,
many pounds would be spent on some new
contrivance for warming or ventilating a stable, already
luxuriously fitted up. While some of the men on the
farm complained that their carts were falling to pieces,
363silver-mounted harness was accumulating in the harness-room,
for no earthly purpose except to make a show
behind the glass doors. Many another extravagant and
senseless fancy or whim was indulged to the full, while
ordinary necessaries were stinted. It seemed to Eleanor
that the establishment swarmed with servants, both men
and maids. Their functions and offices were a mystery
to her. They always seemed exceedingly busy when she
appeared upon the scene, but she had an uneasy consciousness
that it was only in seeming, and that as soon as her
back was turned, a very different state of things again
prevailed. She had been accustomed to a liberal, and even
splendid establishment, but one conducted on principles of
enlightened economy—without a superfluous retainer, but
at the same time without a fault or a failure, from one
year’s end to the other. The contrast which she saw here
offended her sense of decency and order. She knew that
Otho ought to retrench, and she would gladly have helped
him to do so, with the joy usually brought to bear by
women, unskilled in active financial matters, upon this
negative process of saving by means of renouncing things.
Thinking over these things, she now walked with Effie
towards the Dower House. The old square, when they
reached it, looked very pleasant that sunny afternoon;
bright sunshine lighting up all the sober, solid old houses,
which stood reposefully, as if secure for ever of peace and
plenty; their quiet closed doors and shining window
panes revealing nothing of the emotions which might be
stirring those who inhabited them. The trees on either
side the square had begun to show a first tinge of green,
like the rest of nature. Not a soul stirred in the afternoon
quietness; only Michael’s great dog, Pluto, who lay
basking on the flags outside the Red Gables, looked and
364blinked at them lazily as they passed, and slightly
moved the tip of his tail in reply to their greeting.
Next door but one was the Dower House—a pleasant
old stone building, gray, with a door in the middle, and
two windows on either side; upstairs five windows, and
a third story with five windows more. It was, in fact, a
large, substantial stone house, very suitable as the country
residence of a single woman of some means and position.
It stood on the sunny side of the square, and like nearly
all the houses in it, its gardens and its pleasantest rooms
lay to the back. It was furnished with old-fashioned
furniture, and kept in order by an old gardener and his
wife, who lived there. Eleanor liked it. She liked the
windows looking into the broad open street. Such a
prospect seemed to bring her nearer to humanity, and
to the wholesome everyday life of her fellow-creatures.
The recollection of Thorsgarth, rising stately from its
basement of velvet sward, rendered dark by the towering
trees which surrounded it,—of the terraces sloping to the
river; the flights of steps, the discoloured marble fauns
and nymphs—this recollection came over her, and made
her feel dreary. She felt as if she had lived in it all for
years, and had no joy in any one of them.
In her own mind she almost resolved to go to this
other house, but she wished to wait for Otho’s return,
and explain it all to him—if ever he should return; if
only he would return!
Three days later, without letter and without warning,
he came home, late in the evening, having no apologies
to make, and very few remarks concerning his long
absence and silence. He sat for an hour or two with his
sister, and she found something in his looks and aspect
which did not tend to allay whatever anxiety she might
365have felt about him. The ruddy brown of his skin had
grown sallow and dark, and his cheeks were hollow.
There was a haggard look about him, and the traces,
unmistakably to be read, that he had been living hard
and fast. His eyes had sunk; he was not an encouraging
spectacle, and there was an uneasy restlessness about
him which fretted her. She tried to talk about commonplace
things.
‘Did you see much of the Websters?’ she asked,
alluding to some distant cousins with whom she had been
on terms of intimacy in former days—days which now
seemed very far back.
‘Websters—no! When I go to town, I don’t go to
do the proper with them. I have other friends and
other places to go to.’
‘Lucy told me in a letter that Dick had met you
somewhere.’
‘And I’ve met Dick,’ retorted Otho, with an uncomplimentary
sneer; ‘and a precious prig he is.’
‘Indeed, Otho, he is not. He is a very nice lad, and
very free from priggishness. That’s his great charm.’
‘He’s a young milksop.’
‘He is neither vulgar nor dissipated, if that is what
you mean.’
‘I haven’t wasted my time in thinking about him.’
‘And Mr. Langstroth—how did you leave him?’
‘Gilbert—oh, he’s flourishing. By the way, he sent a
message to you,—rather a complimentary message—and
he told me to be sure and not change it into the very
reverse of what he wished it to be.’ Otho chuckled a
little. ‘Let me see. He wished to be remembered to
you, sent his best compliments, and hoped to see you
again during the year—perhaps when he comes for the
366shooting. I fancy Gilbert was a bit taken with you,
Eleanor. He was mighty particular about his message.’
‘You fancy very uncalled-for things.’
‘Hey, but I wouldn’t mind having him for a brother-in-law,’
persisted Otho; but he was too careless even to
look at her as he aired his views. ‘A first-rate fellow is
Gilbert, and he has rid me of those blessed factories, and
stumped up like a man. I’ve never repented standing
his friend when I did.’
She made no answer, and as they were alone (for
Eleanor had judged it better to send Effie into the
background) there was a silence—that profound silence
only to be heard in the country. Suddenly Otho started,
passed his hand over his eyes, and exclaimed impatiently—
‘What a hole of a place this is! What a deadly
stillness; it’s enough to give one the blues. I’d open the
window, only that would make it worse, letting in the
“swish” of that beastly river, which is a sound I hate.
I do detest the country,’ he continued, poking the fire
with vigour. ‘Give me the pavement, and chambers,
where you hear the rattle going on all night. This
confounded place would depress the spirits of a dog, I
do believe.’
‘Does Magdalen know you are here? Why don’t
you go up and see her?’
‘Magdalen?’ He gave a little start. ‘Oh, never
mind Magdalen! She understands me. She is not a
child, nor a love-sick girl, to expect me to be always at
her apron-strings. I shall see Magdalen, trust me. But
I’m off into Friarsdale the day after to-morrow.’
‘Friarsdale again!’
‘Ay! There’s a heap of things to see after. I shall
367have to be back and forward from there till it’s time to
take Crackpot down to Epsom.... Did you ever see a
Derby, Eleanor?’
‘No.’
‘Would you like to?’
‘Not when a horse of yours is running.’
‘Little starched out puritan! You might write a
tract, or get Michael Langstroth to do it, and have it
printed, and salve your conscience over, by distributing
it over the grand stand.’
‘I have something to say to you, Otho. I do not
like living alone in this great house when you are so
much away; and I have been thinking whether to go to
the Dower House, and take up my abode there.’
‘Hoh!’ Otho paused. ‘While you are about it,
why not cut the whole concern, and go to the Websters?’
he said. ‘They would be overjoyed to have
you. It doesn’t suit you? I knew it wouldn’t; but you
would come. You see, my dear, when a little earthenware
pipkin of a woman jumps into the water, and is for
sailing along with the brass pots, she generally comes to
grief. My life suits me; but it is so unlike all you have
been accustomed to, that you can’t fit into it—can’t even
settle down to look on at it. You look downright ill
now, and——’
‘Otho! that shows how little you understand,’ said she,
a convulsive laugh struggling with her inner bitterness
of heart. The whole thing came before her as so tragi-comic;
so horrible, yet so laughable. So Otho thought
that playing fast and loose with his life, drinking and
dicing, brawling and betting, and generally conducting
himself like a blackguard, was a fine, heroic thing—a
proof that he was a brass pot amongst men, and able to
368sail unharmed down that stream. Ludicrous, pitiable,
agonisingly laughable theory!
‘It remains to be proved which of us two is the brass
pot, and which the pipkin,’ she went on, unable to help
smiling. ‘For my part, I fancy we are both made of
very common clay. But, to leave parables, I would
rather not go to the Websters. My ideas about life and
otherother things have changed very much lately. I would
rather not return to my old one at present. I should
prefer to go to the Dower House, if it will be all the
same to you.’
‘Oh, quite. Since you prefer to stay here. It is an
odd taste, I think, for a girl brought up as you have
been. But you are better away from here. There’s no
doubt of that.’
Eleanor was looking at him as he spoke, and saw,
more plainly than before, the haggardness, and the lines
upon his face; it seemed to her that they had been
planted there since she had last seen him, but this might
be imagination. She was startled by a resemblance
which she fancied she discovered in this altered face of
his, to a miniature of their father which was in her
possession—that father who had been in tastes, character,
and disposition, so utterly unlike the son who followed
him. Since coming to Thorsgarth she had often studied
this miniature, wondering how such a father came to have
such a son. At this moment Otho was leaning his head
back, as if weary. His wild eyes were closed, so that
their strange, savage look did not distort the likeness.
Compunction, longing, yea, love rushed into her
heart.
‘Otho!’ she said, in a voice which trembled; and he
looked up.
369‘What’s up?’ he demanded, seeing with surprise that
she had risen and was coming towards him.
‘Dear Otho!’ she repeated, as she knelt before him,
and clasped his hand in her own; ‘why am I better away
from you? Why better away from my own brother,
and my father’s house, where he intended me to find
my home? It is not right, Otho; it is not right that it
should be so. Ah, if you would only be different, how
happy we might be—you and Magdalen and I; and
where in all your world outside will you find anything
that will endure as our love to you will?—for I know
that Magdalen does love you, though you treat her
cruelly, as you treat me.’
Otho stared down into her face with a strange, alien
glance; a shocked, wondering look. He was not
rough; he did not repulse her, but he looked as if she
had been apostrophising him in some strange tongue,
which he could not understand. Presently he said—
‘Little girl, you don’t know what you are talking
about. I settle down with you and Magdalen! Heaven
help you! I should be mad, or dead of it in a very
short time. It is a thousand pities you should think you
have got anything to do with my concerns. Leave me
alone, that’s a good child. I’m past any mending of yours.’
She still knelt by his chair, gazing, as if she would
have forced the secret of his wild, unhappy nature to
show itself. Perhaps she thought of the happy dark
days she had read of, when holy women, by dint of
fasting and prayer and faith, could master even such
savage souls as Otho’s—could cast forth devils, and so
relieve the souls of wretched men. Those days must be
past, for she could gather nothing from her searching
gaze. Perhaps she was not holy enough. She had
370prayed, but she had not fasted; and to judge from
Effie’s chatter, she had renounced none of the pomps and
vanities of her station.
‘You will be all right at the Dower House,’ Otho
resumed presently. ‘Then you can have people to stay
with you, and make yourself a little less dull. There!
get up, don’t look so desperately sentimental. I am as
I am; and I shall get along, if you’ll leave me alone.’
With that, he rose and put her aside, but gently and
quietly; and she was almost sure that the hands which
rested for a moment on her shoulders, quivered a little.
Otho went into the smoking-room, shut the door, and
turned up the light. He took a brandy decanter from a
case of spirits which stood on the sideboard, and poured
some into a glass; and this time there was no question
as to his hand trembling. His lips, too, were unsteady.
He drank the brandy, and muttered to himself—
‘I must go and see Magdalen, or she will be suspicious.
But not to-night—not to-night. Surely
to-morrow will do. What was it she said to me that
night about wronging her?’
He threw himself into a chair, and tried to collect his
thoughts, and shape a coherent recollection of Magdalen’s
words. At last he had gradually pieced them together,
and with them the scene in which they had been uttered—the
great square, draughty vestibule before the Balder
Hall door; the north-west storm wind screaming past it;
his own figure, and that of Magdalen; the way in
which they had stood close together, and the vows he
had forced from her; and how at last she had put her
hands upon his shoulders, and looked him straight in
the eyes, and said that she did not claim any vows from
him, but only bade him remember that whatever wrong
371he did her, directly or indirectly, from that day forth,
he did to his wife, for that he was hers, as much as she
was his.
‘Well,’ he thought, as he laughed a feeble echo of his
old blustering laugh, ‘it would not be the first time a
man had wronged his wife either; but I shan’t. I shall
tell the little baggage not to make a fool of herself, but
to keep her languishing eyes for her bear of a lover.’
Otho, as he made these reflections, was thinking of no
one in London. His sister had taken it for granted
that he came straight from his sojourn with Gilbert
Langstroth,—a very great mistake, as he had driven
that very morning from Friarsdale to Darlington, and
taken the train thence to Bradstane.
On the following day some kind of an interview took
place between Otho and Magdalen. Eleanor saw very
little of the other. They were amicable when they met,
but nothing more. The day after that Otho went into
Friarsdale, not saying that he was returning there, but
simply that he was going. Eleanor was thus again left
alone, and as soon as her young visitor had returned to
the Vicarage, she began her preparations for removing to
the Dower House.
One day, in the course of these preparations, she had
cause to go into the shop of Ada Dixon’s father. Mrs.
Dixon herself came forward to serve her. She was, as
usual, stout, pompous, and important-looking, had on a
superfine gown, and a cap which struck Miss Askam as
being ridiculously young and small for her. Mrs. Dixon
wore it with an air, as if it had been a coronet, which
added to the absurdity of the spectacle. Eleanor had
never liked this woman, whose hard eyes and want of
simplicity and directness had always offended her; and
372she liked not the air with which she now came forward.
But that it was (thought Eleanor) absurd on the face of
the thing, she would have considered the glance bestowed
upon her by Mrs. Dixon as an insolent one. It
was at least hard, bold, and supercilious. Not thinking
it worth while to betray that she had even noticed this
manner, Eleanor made her purchases, which were set
aside for her by Mrs. Dixon in lofty silence. While she
sought in her purse for the sum with which to pay for
the things, she inquired—
‘How is your daughter, Mrs. Dixon? I have not
seen her lately.’
‘Thank you, Miss Dixon is very well.’ (Eleanor
repressed a smile on hearing Ada’s mother speak of her
thus.) ‘She is not at home just at present. She’s
staying with some friends in Yorkshire—in the Dales—some
relations of Mr. Dixon’s.’
‘Oh yes. In which of the Dales?’
‘Wensleydale. My husband’s cousin has a place
there’ (a large farm would have been the correct description),
‘near Bedale, it is.’
‘Oh, I hope she is enjoying herself.’
‘Oh, very much, thank you. She’s very much sought
after—sixpence you will want, I think—and they visit a
good deal amongst the neighbours.’
‘Yes? And Mr. Camm? I hope you have good
accounts of him?’
‘I really haven’t heard anything about him lately,’
said Mrs. Dixon, in an indescribable tone, as she poised
the fingers of both hands on the counter and looked out
of the window, as if she thought the interview had better
come to an end.
‘Ah, I suppose Ada will be the person to get news of
373him. I was so glad to hear he had done so well, and
got such an excellent situation at Leeds. Ada will like
to live near a large town like that, I should think.’
‘Well, yes—perhaps. Perhaps not,’ said Mrs. Dixon,
with a glacial reserve, and then with crushing mysteriousness—‘There’s
no saying where Ada may end,
or what she’s born to. She is not a common girl, by
any means.’
‘I hope she will end in marrying Mr. Camm, and
making him a very good wife. He is a first-rate young
man, and deserves to be made happy,’ said Eleanor,
nettled by the supercilious tone in which Roger’s future
mother-in-law spoke of him.
‘Oh, he’s a very worthy young man, I don’t doubt,’
came the rejoinder; ‘a little rough, and wanting in polish—hardly
the genteel manners one could desire.’
‘No, not very genteel, certainly,’ said Eleanor, hurrying
a little in her desire to be able to laugh at leisure
over the complaint that Roger Camm’s manners were not
‘genteel.’ Indeed, they were not. If gentility were the
desideratum, they were deplorably wanting, and likely to
remain so.
Going up the street she suddenly met Michael Langstroth,
and could not help telling him the joke, her eyes
dancing as she spoke.
‘Mr. Langstroth, do you know that for years you
have cherished as your brother a person—I can call him
nothing else—whose manners are not genteel. At least,
Mrs. Dixon says they are not,—not as genteel as she
could wish in her son-in-law—and she ought to know.’
Michael looked at her searchingly for a perceptible
time, before he replied—
‘At last you have heard something that has made you
374laugh,’ said he. ‘I am delighted, and Roger may congratulate
himself on his want of gentility, if it leads even
indirectly to that good result.’
‘Why—how—what do you know about my laughing?’
she asked, crimsoning.
‘Nothing, except that you don’t do it often enough.
I wish I could give you a prescription, but there is none
for the ailment that is want of mirth; none in all the
pharmacopeia.’
She took her leave of him, and walked away. No, she
thought; the herb that brings laughter is called heartsease,
and for her just now it grew not in Bradstane.
CHAPTER XXXII FIRST ALARM
375
One day, very early in May, Michael Langstroth wrote
from Bradstane to Roger Camm in Leeds:—
‘A strong sense of duty alone induces me to trouble
you with a letter, for there is literally no news to tell
you. When was there ever any in Bradstane? And just
now we are duller than usual, for nearly every one is
away. People (the few who are left here) talk now off
and on about the Derby, and speculate whether Crackpot
will win. He is not the favourite, as of course you know,
but takes a good place. I daresay I hear more of that
kind of thing than you do. The British Medical people
meet in Leeds this year. Of course it won’t be till
August, but I have every intention of going; and putting
up with you; and I look forward to it as if it were some
wild dissipation. It is, at any rate, too good a chance to
be missed of hearing and seeing something, and getting
one’s blood stirred up generally. I often wonder I do
not turn into a mummy or a block of wood. On reading
this you will probably leap to the rash conclusion that
your account of two political meetings, and their consequent
excitement, has roused my envy and upset my
tranquillity, and that in future, you had perhaps better
not supply me with such stimulating food! I beg you
376will not cherish any such delusion. Your account of the
meetings was most interesting and amusing; but as you
know, I have a great contempt for all political parties
in the abstract, and to see a vast body of men, swayed
like reeds by the passion of the moment—groaning like
demons when they hear one set of names, cheering like
maniacs at another, falling like living storm waves upon
any unfortunate wight who dares to express dissent from
their views, and hustling him out—is to me a melancholy
spectacle. You would doubtless say, that without such
passions and prejudices to be worked upon, things might
be at a standstill. I suppose they might: all I know is,
I am very thankful that there are so many men in the
world that my indifference makes no difference. You
will wonder whence this sermon arises. I have been
meditating a good deal lately o’ nights; having felt tired
when I came in, and not having had your music to
govern my meditations, as in days of old. And I was
thinking, only last night, of a dispute we used to have in
our younger days, about life and events. I always maintained
(quite wrongly, I confess now) that you got no
real life, no movement, stimulus, animation, outside of a
big city: you vowed that, on the contrary, it is the
nature of the man that determines his life, and that
dramas and tragedies as full of terror and pathos as
Shakespeare’s own might be played out within even as
narrow a compass as the township of Bradstane-on-Tees,
provided the actors were there, and that they lived, not
played their parts. You were right, and I suppose you hold
the opinion still; but this is what I want to know—how
often is it that one gets the chance to live? Most people
would answer, once at least, in a lifetime; and there it is
that I totally disagree with them. Mine is a small stage
377from which to preach, but I have seen as many people as
some who live on a larger one, and I have observed them
and their conditions carefully. And, because of my profession,
the people I have seen have been of all sorts and
conditions, and the conclusion I have come to is, that
most lives are filled with emptiness—with a dead, dull
uneventfulness. Action is for the favoured few; culture
for a great many more, if they choose to avail themselves
of it, which usually they don’t; monotony for most.
‘That brings me back to my own life, and its monotony.
Let me try to collect a little gossip for you, and
free myself from the reproach of having sent an essay,
unredeemed by a single touch of narrative.
‘Otho Askam is away. He has scarcely been at
Thorsgarth since the new year. Just now he is busied,
they say, about this precious horse which is to run this
precious race. His sister’s house, too, is empty just now.
She was persuaded, Mrs. Johnson tells me, to go and see
her friends in London for a time; but is coming back before
Whitsuntide, as, in the kindness of her heart she is
going to feast some little ragged wretches out of Bridge
Street, whom she has taken under her wing. But it
is not Whitsuntide yet. It falls near the end of May
this year. I feel in a communicative humour to-night,
so I will tell you a secret. My life is monotonous to
me, as I believe I have set forth already at some length;
and I wish with all my heart that Eleanor Askam had
not a fortune of twelve hundred a year; for if she had
nothing at all, I would humbly ask her if she would condescend
to relieve that monotony of my life. I should
also have the feeling that I could in a measure pay her
back in kind, by alleviating, as I would, some of the
sorrow that darkens hers.
378‘I believe I had something else to say to you. I am
almost certain that I sat down with a distinct impression
that I was going to write to you about something. Oh
yes, here it is. I suppose you hear regularly from Miss
Dixon, and so, of course, you will know that a little
while ago, she returned from her long sojourn in Wensleydale.
I heard she had gone there for the pure air and
all that, and because her father’s relations wanted to
have her, and because she did not feel very strong at the
end of the winter. You know, I have always thought
her a very delicate girl, but now—I do not think it right
to conceal it from you—she looks very ill indeed. Her
cheeks have fallen in; her face is pale; she is the shadow
of what she was. I hate to write this; in fact, I was so
unwilling to write it, that I scribbled all the rubbish
which premises it, in the hope that, somehow, I might get
out of this; but I cannot. It would be no friend’s part;
and what blame would you not have the right to put
upon me, if I let it pass by without telling you. She
is very ill, I am certain. If I were on different terms with
them, I should go to Mrs. Dixon, and tell her she ought to
have advice for her. I keep wishing they would summon
me, or Rowntree; for they surely must see themselves the
change in her. I fancy she ought to go to a warmer climate,
or rather, she ought never to have gone to Yorkshire.
That part of Wensleydale where she was, is piercingly
cold—worse than this. It is in a valley, but the valley
itself is very much elevated. I do not want to make you
more uneasy than is necessary. We must recollect that this
is the “merry month” of east winds, bronchitis, and pleurisy,
and many a delicate girl withers up during May and comes
out blooming again in June. Let us hope this is such a case.
Sleep takes possession of me; therefore, good night!’
379This letter had veritably been written in the way
described in it. Michael had beheld Ada, and the change
in her; and as Roger never, in any of his pretty frequent
letters, mentioned any rumour of the illness of his
betrothed, his friend reluctantly came to the conclusion
that he knew nothing about it, and that to leave him in
such a state of ignorance was utterly impossible for him.
All the first part of his letter he had written ramblingly,
half his mind occupied with a wonder whether he could
not absolve himself from the moral necessity which he
felt upon him, of speaking about Ada. He could not,
and the result was the composition above, which was
written on a Wednesday night, and despatched on a
Thursday morning. Michael did not expect any immediate
answer to it, but went about his business, as
usual.
On the said Thursday morning, near the Castle, he
met Ada Dixon. There was, indeed, a piercing east
wind blowing, and the girl wore a common-looking fur
cloak, with which her father had presented her at Christmas,
and of which she had been proud, in that in shape
and fashion it bore a faint resemblance to the costly
garments in which Miss Wynter and Miss Askam were
in the habit of wrapping themselves on cold days. Perhaps
the dead black of the cloak showed up her pallor
still more strongly by contrast; but as Michael met her—he
was on foot, going to see a patient who lived beside
the river-bank; she ascending a little hill, slowly and
wearily, and he going down it—with her face a little upturned,
and the flickering light quivering upon it through
the leaves—her white hat and her fair hair,—as he met
her thus, her appearance was almost spectral in its
whiteness and fragility.
380She inclined her head to him, and would have passed
on. But he stopped, and held out his hand to her.
‘Good morning, Miss Dixon. You must not think
me meddlesome, but when Roger is not here, I consider
you a little bit under my care; and my duty obliges me
to tell you that you are not looking so robust as is
desirable. Have you been catching cold?’
He was surprised at the effect of his words. Ada’s
white face became in a moment angrily red; the colour
rushing over it in a flood. Her eyes flashed, and in a
voice that was sharp with irritation, she said—
‘Nothing ails me at all. I’m as well as I can be, and
I think there’s no call for you to make such remarks,
Dr. Langstroth.’
‘I am sure I beg your pardon if I have offended you.
I assure you there is nothing I less wish to do. I am
very glad if you do feel well. Only, I wish you looked
stronger—that is all.’
‘What do looks matter, when one feels perfectly
well?’ said Ada.
‘There is certainly a good deal in that. Good
morning. I will not detain you.’
He raised his hat, and was moving on; indeed, he
had walked a pace or two, when Ada’s voice, just behind
him, caused him to turn again. She looked embarrassed,
and half stammered, as she said—
‘Oh, please—do you know—have you any idea when
Miss Askam is coming home?’
‘I have not,’ said he, gravely, and very much surprised.
‘At least, I know nothing of the exact day; but before
Whitsuntide, Mrs. Johnson says. She would know, I
daresay, if you like to call and ask her.’
‘Oh, thank you! I’ll see. It’s—it’s not of so much
381importance,’ said Ada. ‘Good morning, Dr. Langstroth.’
They parted. Michael went on his way, and as he
went he shook his head.
‘It is not of the least use for her to tell me that she
is perfectly well. She is very ill indeed, and something
ought to be done for her.’
Many times during the day he thought of Ada, and
of her changed looks, and wondered how Mrs. Dixon
would take it if he spoke to her about her daughter.
About seven o’clock, just as he was sitting down to
his solitary dinner, his dining-room door was opened,
and Roger Camm walked in.
Michael uttered an ‘ah!’ of pleasure and relief when
he saw the mighty figure lounge into the room.
‘You here, Roger?’ he said, jumping up and grasping
his hand. ‘Was it my letter? Did you take the alarm?’
‘Ay! I could not rest another day without coming
to see that child. She scarcely ever mentions her health;
indeed, never; so it never occurred to me that there
could be anything the matter with her.’
‘Then, my dear fellow, you must prepare yourself
for a very disagreeable surprise, that’s all. But have
some dinner now, and you can go down and see her
afterwards.’
Another place was set for Roger, who made a praiseworthy
effort to eat his dinner, and to talk as if nothing
had happened. He could, however, scarcely sit out the
meal, and the instant it was over he rose.
‘I’ve come to you feeling sure you would put me up,
Michael. I’ve got what they call in Leeds “the week-end,”
and must go off again by the late train from
Darlington on Sunday night.’
382‘Of course you will put up here, and I’ll drive you
into Darlington on Sunday. I suppose you’ll go out
now?’
‘Yes. Don’t expect me back till you see me,’ said
Roger, going away; and directly afterwards, Michael
heard the door shut after him.
CHAPTER XXXIII BROKEN OFF
383
Despite that cutting east wind, it was a glorious May
evening. The trees and fields were coming on grandly,
and the sun shone dazzlingly towards his decline, in a
heaven of bright blue and gold, with piles of glorified
clouds in a steady bank to the north. The beams shone
slantingly all on the old brown houses, and their rays
were flashed back from the windows of the quaint old
sleepy town. As Roger walked down the street, his
heart beating with foreboding, he was but vaguely conscious
of the stir of life around him, the murmur and
bustle of those whose day’s work was done, and who
were enjoying their pipes, their gossip, and their games;
for in one part of the town the youths played quoits in
an open space, while many reverend elders looked on,
and made sententious remarks as the sport progressed.
He was conscious of receiving here and there a greeting;
he returned them vaguely, and went on his way, and
presently found himself within Mr. Dixon’s shop, which
looked very mean and low and small, and which seemed
quite filled by his tall and broad figure. Mr. Dixon
was alone in the shop.
‘Bless my soul, Roger—you!’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes,’ replied Roger. ‘I got a couple of days’ holiday,
384so I thought I’d run over and see Ada. Is she
in?’
‘Yes, she’s in. You’ll find her upstairs at her piano.
The wife has gone out to tea. And look you, Roger,’ he
added, drawing the young man aside, and lowering his
voice, though they were alone, ‘Ada has got uncommon
twiny and washed-out looking, and has taken to singing
the most sentimental songs. I declare it makes me feel
quite low in my mind to hear her constantly wailing and
wailing. Try to cheer her up a bit.’
‘That I will!’
‘I daresay she’s just fretting a bit after you.’
Roger’s heart bounded, and fell again. It could not
be so. Ada knew she needed not to fret after him.
But he said, as cheerfully as he could—
‘I’ll go upstairs and find her.’
With which he went through the shop into the
passage, and quickly up the stairs. As he ascended, the
‘wailing’ of which Mr. Dixon had complained became
distinctly audible. It was a very, very mournful song
that Ada sang, and Roger’s heart died within him as he
heard it.
He opened the parlour door softly, and looked in.
The piano was opposite to the door; therefore Ada,
seated at it, had her back turned towards him. She had
ceased to play within the last minute, and sat very still,
with her hands, he noticed, dropping down at her sides,
in a way that had something very painful and hopeless
about it. His heart went out to her, and as she did not
at first appear to notice any sound or any footstep, he
walked softly up behind her; but not so softly, big and
heavy as he was, and unused to treading gingerly, but
that she could hear him distinctly; and he noticed that
385she suddenly drew her hands up, and that they were
clenched, and that her shoulders heaved, as if she drew
a deep breath—not as if she were surprised, Roger
thought, hope beginning to beat high in his heart again,
but rather as if she were very glad. She knew, then, that
he was there. She recognised his footstep, and she was
moved, deeply moved, by his presence.
He laid his hands upon her shoulders, and said, softly
and caressingly—
‘Ada!’
She faced him, with the quickness of lightning, and
with a veritable shriek,—it was too loud, too affrighted
to be called an exclamation—and Roger recoiled before
the expression of the face which was turned towards
him. He literally fell back a step or two, gazing at her
alarmed and speechless, while she put her hands, one to
either side of her head, and shrank together, staring at
him with a look of terror and amaze.
‘Ada, my love,’ he began at last, alarmed and
bewildered by the contradiction between her manner
before she had seen him, and that manner now that she
beheld him. Then she found her voice, and rose from
the music stool.
‘Roger, Roger!’ she gasped. ‘How can you! Stealing
up behind one, and startling one in that way! It’s
enough to turn the head, if one’s a nervous person.’
‘But, my darling, I saw that you heard me,’ he
began; but she burst into hysterical tears, turning away
from him, and flinging herself upon a sofa, so that he
saw it was useless to attempt to explain or apologise.
Once it crossed his mind, ‘She behaves almost as if she
had expected some one else.’ Then he put the idea
aside, as we do put ideas aside which we know would be
386absurd in regard to ourselves, often without stopping to
make allowances for the differences in others’ minds and
our own.
It was a very distressful scene. Nothing that he could
do or say restored calmness to her, though the first
violence of her agitation presently wore off. In vain he
tried to wring from her some explanation of her altered
looks, her nervous terrors; asked her what ailed her,
and tenderly upbraided her with not having told him
she was out of health. Ada would own nothing, say
nothing; and when he rather pitifully said he had hoped
to give her a pleasant surprise by his unexpected arrival,
she replied with irritation that she hated such surprises;
he ought to have written or telegraphed. In fact, Roger,
with the deepest alarm, presently saw that his presence
was doing her no good, but harm; it was perfectly
evident that he had better retire, and he decided to do
so. But before going, he said—
‘Now, look here, Ada. Grant me a very great
favour, and I’ll not tease you about anything else. Let
Michael Langstroth, or Dr. Rowntree, see you. Rowntree,
perhaps. He’s such a kind, good old fellow. He
would give you something to strengthen you.’
‘I am not ill,’ cried Ada; and she stamped her foot
on the ground, and clenched her teeth. ‘I will see none
of your doctors. I hate them, and I’ll have nothing to
do with them. You will make me ill, if you don’t let
me alone.’
Every sign warned Roger that this was a subject it
would be best not to pursue any farther, and he
presently left her. He had no heart to go into the shop
again and speak to Mr. Dixon. Slowly and dispiritedly
he made his way back to the Red Gables, and found
387Michael there, astonished to see him back again so soon,
and looking the questions he felt he would not ask.
‘I don’t know, Michael,’ said Roger, in answer to
this look. ‘There’s something awfully wrong. I must
see her father to-morrow. She denies that anything ails
her, but at the same time she goes on in such a way as
no one would who was all right. It is not the end—I
know it is not the end.’
On the following day it seemed as if the end, so far
as Roger was concerned, had arrived. In the forenoon
Mr. Dixon made his appearance, and asked to see Roger.
Then, slowly and with difficulty, he unfolded the fact
that Ada had summoned him to her after her lover’s
departure, and had told him that she could never be
Roger’s wife; that her life was a misery to her, so long
as she was engaged to him, and that if her father wished
to see her well and happy again, he was to take this
opportunity of telling Roger so, and of making him
understand that she did not wish to see him again.
The stout, prosperous tradesman looked pinched and
miserable as he told his sorry tale; while the young man
sat opposite to him, his face turning very white, his
strong hands shaking, and his mighty figure trembling
all over, like a leaf in the wind. The sun was shining
outside, though not into the room; one could see its
glare in the yellow hue of the grass, and the shadows
cast by the trees. The sound of singing birds came in
at the open window, and also a blast of north-east wind,
cold, dry, cutting as a knife.
‘She does not mean it, Mr. Dixon; she does not
really mean it?’ he stammered, fighting for his life.
‘She means it, Roger. I wrestled with her about it
for an hour; for with expecting you to be my son for so
388long, I’ve got to look upon you as if you were my son.
I wrestled with her till I saw she was nigh to fainting,
and then I had to stop. She pulled this off her finger,
and told me to give it you.’
He pulled a little pearl ring from his pocket, and
pushed it across the table towards Roger, without looking
at him. Roger picked it up, and turned it round
in his fingers as if he did not know what it was—as if
the sight of the little jewels dazed him.
‘She said she wished to send no unkind words, for
that perhaps she’d never see you again; but that you
must not come nigh her, for another scene with you
would kill her, and she wants to live.’
‘Let her live then,’ said Roger, in a hoarse and
laboured voice. ‘It does not matter what becomes of
me.’
Mr. Dixon, sturdy philistine that he was, wiped his
eyes with his handkerchief.
‘Roger,’ he said, with a solemnity and strength of
conviction which gave dignity and something like majesty
to his commonplace, outside man, ‘you have just cause
to look upon my girl with suspicion, and to fight shy
and speak ill of us all. But, lad, I tell you, we don’t
know the end of it all yet. I can tell you, my heart is
heavy. There’s a weight on it, as if something uncommon
was coming, or hanging about in the air somewhere.
I can’t mind my business, nor eat my victuals,
for thinking of that girl, that looks like a ghost; and
why, that’s what I want to know—why?’
‘I’m afraid,’ said Roger, in a laboured voice, but instinctively
trying to give comfort to the man who was
older and weaker than himself, ‘that she may have begun
to care for some one else, who perhaps doesn’t respond
389as she could wish. If so, it is best for her to be free
from me.’
‘Choose what it is, it’s a heavy trouble for us all,’
said Mr. Dixon, wearily. ‘I’m often afraid that she was
brought up with notions far above her station—Miss
Wynter, and all that; but somehow, I never took it to
be anything seriously wrong.... You’ll not look upon
me as an enemy, Roger, for I’ve fought for you through
thick and thin?’
‘An enemy—God forbid! I know you have been my
friend all through.’
‘We are going to send her away,’ pursued Mr. Dixon.
‘She has asked to go down to my sister in Devonshire,
a widow, who has often wanted to have a visit from her.
She says, if she gets away from all this (‘all what?’
thought Roger, a thick dread at his heart—‘her home,
her friends, her natural life, with all its hopes and interests?’),
once away, she thinks she’ll be better. So we
shall send her. I won’t stay. I’ve dragged myself here,
and I shall drag myself back again. Can you shake
hands with me, my lad?’
Roger unhesitatingly gave him his hand, went with
him to the door, and saw him walk away; then returned,
to try and understand the meaning of what had befallen
him. He was surprised to find that after a time, instead
of reproaching Ada, even in thought, he was occupied
in trying to recall any occasions on which he might have
spoken harshly to her, and in mentally imploring her to
forgive him his trespasses, and in wishing that he had
but the chance to do it in so many words; while his
sense of the mysterious terror that hung over her grew
greater every moment. He did not leave Bradstane
earlier than he had intended. A great calm and a great
390pity had settled upon his soul. He found himself able
to speak freely to Michael of what had happened—to
tell him more of his inner thoughts and feelings than, in
all their long intimacy, he had ever divulged before.
He told Michael what Ada was going to do, and he
said—
‘When she comes back, for my sake, Michael, you
will pay a little heed to her, and let me know how she
looks, at any rate.’
‘You may trust me to do it.’
‘It is all quite over between us. I have a feeling that
that is quite certain; but I don’t feel as if we knew
everything yet. And God forbid that I should judge
her in the dark. A girl doesn’t carry on as she is doing,
either from lightness of mind or hardness of heart.’
This was as Michael drove him along the lanes to
Darlington to catch the night train. Michael said
nothing. Friendship demanded that what Roger required
of him in this matter, he should do, whatever he
might think of the cause of his friend’s distress.
CHAPTER XXXIV HOW CRACKPOT WAS SCRATCHED
391
They left the dogcart outside the station, and Michael
went in with Roger to see him off. As he stood beside
the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, Roger,
leaning out, said to him in a low voice—
‘I haven’t forgotten what you said to me, Michael,
though it looks as if I had—what you said in your letter
about a certain lady.’
‘I did not suppose you had forgotten,’ replied Michael,
gravely and simply; ‘but I think you had better do so.
Consider that I wrote it in a fit of momentary weakness
of mind. Indeed, if I could have borne to write the last
part of the letter over again, I would not have sent the
first, when it came to the point.’
‘It is safe enough with me; but I can’t quite see why
you should call it weakness. Look here, Michael, we
both know how that lady is situated, and you say you
wish she had not got twelve hundred a year of her own.
Take my word for it, if she knew that, she would curse
her money. Don’t go to suppose that I have not eyes
in my head, and ears to hear with.’
They had clasped hands, and the train had begun
very slowly to move. Roger went on rapidly—
‘I hoped at first that you never would care for her,
392when I began to see that she attracted you. Now I
believe she is the woman to make you happy, as you are
the man to do the same thing by her. Go in, and win,
Michael, and never heed what the black things about
her may say. Good-bye, old friend, and luck go with
you.’
There was a hard pressure of the two hands, which
then had to be unclasped. The train glided out. Michael
was left upon the platform, looking after it. When it had
disappeared, he went outside again, found his dogcart,
gave a coin to the boy who had held the horse—for he
had brought no servant, wishing to have Roger to himself
on the drive; and now he set off on his return
journey.
When he drove out of Darlington it was after eleven
o’clock; there was a radiant full moon hanging in the
sky, and the whole land was flooded with its beauty and
its brilliance. The roads, after he had got out of the
town, were solitary and silent, as country roads, late on
a Sunday night, are wont to be. He had all the beauty,
all the glamour of the night to himself, and it sank
into his soul, and the words which Roger had uttered
resounded in his mind, like a refrain. He did not drive
very fast. He was in no mood to tear along, but was
rather disposed to taste to the full the cup of beauty
and graciousness that was offered to him. One by one,
he drove through the chain of exquisite villages which
make that road one of the most beautiful in all England,—Coniscliffe,
Piercebridge, Gainford, and Winston, arrived
at which place, for the sheer pleasure of the farther drive,
and the enjoyment of the pure night air, and the magic
of the scene and the hour, he turned off, instead of
pursuing his way straight, to one side, and took the
393roundabout and surpassingly beautiful road which leads
through Ovington, and past Wycliffe Hall and wood, and
its ancient little church of solemn beauty, and so across
Whorlton Bridge to Bradstane. Every inch of the way
was beautiful. And that which lent the greatest charm
to it was the river, which, ever as he drove, he had near
him. Now he lost it; again it gleamed suddenly on his
sight, emerging unexpectedly into the open, from some
deep wood, or rushing in a sweeping curve into view;
now sunk between marly banks, now making its way
‘o’er solid sheets of marble gray.’ Grand old Tees!
thought Michael, paying it a parenthetical tribute, in the
midst of the many other thoughts which just then
crowded his mind, and made the long drive seem to him
a short one; where was it to be matched for beauty and
stateliness, and natural grandeur, and wild, unbounded
variety? How different here, as it flowed on steady and
strong, from what it was as it came, little more than a
fierce, brawling mountain stream, tearing over the wild
moors near its source! It had been his friend and
companion through many a weary year, as he had gone
his rounds, wide and long as the valley itself. Like all
such friends, ungifted with the deceitful power of human
language, it had always had the very voice that suited his
mood. In his youth, no longings had been too high, and
no hopes too feverish for it to encourage. And for ten
years, since he had been a veritable man, it had been his
constant guide and associate. In spring it rushed joyfully
along, singing a song of encouragement; in summer
its cool surface and the soothing murmur of its flow had
many a time made tolerable the burden and heat of the
day. He had heard its autumn roar, and in wilder
moods had ridden races with it; and he knew its aspect
394in winter, gray and sullen, or even iron-bound almost all
its length, from mouth to source; in its smoother
expanses covered with skaters, or laden with blocks of
ice, which, when the thaw wind began to blow, split and
parted with reports like explosions, and then went sailing
in beautiful glistening blocks towards the sea.
Just now, in this May moonlight, at the hour which
was neither night nor day—for midnight was past—it
fulfilled its spring vocation; and as he drove along, its
murmur swelled out into the night, and held out promises—promises
so brave and high that he mistrusted them
almost. And yet, a voice in his heart told him, with an
unerring whisper, that he might believe these promises;
that if he went and asked Eleanor Askam to confirm
their truth, she would do so. The knowledge thrilled
him; it was pungent—half-bitter, half-sweet. It gave
him a new sense of youth, a conquering confidence to
which he had long been a stranger. He rejoiced in it,
and rejoiced greatly all the while that he shook his head,
and said within himself ‘impossible,’ and repeated that
he wished she were not so rich—so much richer than he
was. If anything should happen—some transitory misfortune,
by which she might for one moment feel herself
quite poor, and believe she had no resting-place for her
head, and he the next moment might bid that dear head
rest where it should ever be welcome—on his own heart—ah,
Bradstane town and the cobble-stoned streets, the
Red Gables and reality!
On the following day he heard that Ada Dixon had
gone to stay with her father’s widowed sister, at some
remote Devonshire village. The sister had been housekeeper
to a great family in the neighbourhood; had
married the butler, and was now living partly on the
395fruits of her own savings, partly on a pension from the
said family.
‘Poor Roger!’ reflected Michael. ‘If the girl were
something very wonderful, or very gifted, or marvellously
attractive, one could forgive such connections. And
there’s no harm in poor old Dixon; but as for the
others—no, they are not suited for him.’
The little bit of gossip and talk caused by this second
visit of Ada Dixon to friends at a distance, following so
rapidly upon her return from a first absence, had had
time to die away, and the middle of May had arrived,
when Michael became aware that his new neighbour,
Miss Askam, had returned from her sojourn amongst
her friends. The Dower House showed signs of life;
the windows were filled with pots of flowering plants,
and one or other of the little Johnsons began to be frequently
seen on the doorsteps, while the Thorsgarth
landau came round every fine afternoon, and was driven
into the country with Miss Askam and one or more
either of these little Johnsons, or their hard-worked
mamma, or Mrs. Parker; for the young lady seemed to
have no pleasure in solitary state drives. Sometimes,
on his rounds, Michael met her, and then there was a
bow on his part, and a secret thrill of delight, and perhaps
some of the power he felt showing in his eyes; and a
gracious inclination, an irrepressible brightness overspreading
her face, on her side. A week or ten days passed, by no
means ungenially, in this way, till the Derby week arrived.
On the Monday morning Michael was amazed to
receive a note from Eleanor.
‘My dear Mr. Langstroth,
I wonder if you would think it very
396troublesome to come and tell me, if by any chance you
should hear anything about my brother’s horse, on Wednesday.
I am most anxious to know, and thought perhaps
you might know people who will have telegrams about
the race before Thursday’s paper comes. I shall not see
that till the afternoon, you know.
‘Sincerely yours,
‘E. Askam.’
Michael, as she conjectured, had means of gaining information
before Thursday’s London paper made its
appearance. He wrote to the secretary of a certain club
at Darlington, desiring him to telegraph to him any news
of ‘Crackpot,’ at as early a date as possible. He was
both astonished and disturbed to receive a telegram on
the Tuesday night, and its contents were not too soothing
to his feelings. Thinking it best to get the business
over, he went straight to the Dower House, and was
admitted to Miss Askam at once.
She looked astonished to see him, and he perceived
that her brightness was gone. There was a look of worn
and harassed anxiety, and of nervous restlessness, too,
about her. Her hands trembled, and her eyes wavered.
‘Miss Askam,’ he was beginning, but she interrupted
him.
‘You have got a telegram. Something has happened.
I knew it. I had—I was certain of it. What is it,—because
I know the race is not yet run? Is anything
the matter with Otho?’
‘This telegram,’ he began again.
‘Please let me read it. I cannot wait.’
He handed it to her silently, and it fluttered in her
hands as she perused it;—
397‘Crackpot scratched. No end of a row.’
‘I do not know what that means,’ she said, tremulously.
‘Scratched—will you please explain.’
‘It means,’ said he, reluctantly, ‘that your brother
has withdrawn his horse at the last moment from the
race; and from the last part of the telegram, I am afraid
there must be an impression that—that——’
‘That he has not dealt honourably,’ she said, quickly
and breathlessly. ‘I want to know a little more, please,
Mr. Langstroth. Is it not usual to withdraw a horse in
this way?’
‘No. At least, it is a great pity when it has to be
done. It is particularly a great pity that your brother
should have had to do it the first time a horse of his was
running. Some men do it pretty often; and then, you
know, they get a bad name, and are not considered——’
‘Honourable. I understand. But will he have done
it without any reason? Can you say, just at the last,
“I have changed my mind, and my horse shall not run?”’
‘Most likely it is given out that Crackpot is ill, and
unfit to run. Nay, it may be that he is so. Do not
distress yourself about it,’ he added, eagerly. ‘I will
find out all that I can about it, and let you know.
Everything will be uncertain now, of course.’
She was still standing by the table, looking at him
with haggard eyes, and as he spoke thus, she shook her
head.
‘No, no!’ said she. ‘Just once, while I was in
London, I happened to be at a regatta, with my friends,
and Otho was there too. And I saw a disagreeable-looking
man come up to him, who did not know I had
anything to do with him. They talked together for a
little while, and I did not hear what they said, till
398suddenly the man said, “But mind you, Askam, none of
your tricks. You are a slippery customer at the best.”
I felt so indignant that I turned round quite angrily;
and then he saw that I knew Otho, and they laughed,
and moved a little to one side.’
‘I don’t see that that incident has any necessary connection
with this,’ said he, quietly. ‘You can do nothing,
you know, Miss Askam. Do not distress yourself needlessly.
To do that is to render yourself powerless when
any real emergency arises.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said she, and paused. He looked at
her, and saw that she looked worn and anxious.
‘Is there anything else I could do for you?’ he began.
‘Because I should be so glad——’
‘No, thank you, nothing, except to promise that
should you hear anything more about the thing, you
will let me know.’
‘That I certainly will,’ said he, and rose to take his
leave. ‘You still remain amongst us, in Bradstane,’
he observed, gravely, but kindly, as he held out his
hand.
‘Yes,’ said Eleanor, with a quick flush. ‘I do not
wish to go away. I—I intend to stay here.’
‘Always?’
‘I think—always.’ She spoke steadily, but did not
look at him.
‘I am very glad to hear that,’ replied Michael, quietly.
‘Now I know you are strong when you choose to be so.
Will you promise not to fret foolishly over this thing—not
to brood and mope over it; or else I shall be sorry
I complied with your request?’
‘I promise to behave as well as in me lies,’ said
Eleanor, smiling.
399‘Then, good evening.’
He went away thoughtful. He knew perfectly well
that she would have to hear more disagreeable things
about Otho before very long, but he had succeeded in
lulling her fears for the present, at any rate.
CHAPTER XXXV ‘CARELESSE CONTENTE’
400
The withdrawal of Crackpot from the running, on the
very day before the race, made a great sensation in the
world of the turf. The affair was looked upon with
suspicion, especially in connection with Otho Askam’s
known character for slipperiness—a character which
stuck to him, although no one could exactly say how he
had first got it. But the sensation was very much
confined to the circles immediately connected with the
event. Otho had managed with sufficient skill to avoid
having anything tangible brought up against him. The
rumours that were current did not penetrate to his
sister’s ears. The things that were written about the
circumstance were published in sporting or ‘society’
papers, which she never saw, and in their own peculiar
jargon. Michael, in his rounds, heard it all freely
discussed, but was careful never to let her know what
he heard. He wished her to forget it, and presently it
seemed as if she did. At her age, and with her temperament,
the heart, though it is peculiarly sensible to
sorrow, and feels it with a keenness resembling
resentment, is also very open to joy; and there were
joyful influences at work in her life that summer.
Michael did not even tell her of the rumours he had
401heard, that Otho had lost a great deal of money by
withdrawing Crackpot from the race; for after all, they
were rumours, and not substantiated facts, though
Michael believed them to be true enough. Otho had
what Michael considered the good taste not to come near
Thorsgarth after his escapade, and for a season the land
had rest from him and his presence.
It has been said that there were joyful influences at
work in the life of Eleanor this summer; and that was
true. Her nature loved sunshine, and just now it had
it in plenty, both moral and material. From May—after
the bad news about Otho—till August, sunlight
prevailed. There was a long, hot, glorious summer, such
as is not often vouchsafed to us nowadays. Hitherto she
had known Bradstane literally only under its winter aspect.
These months offered a variety of view and climate; and
she, keenly and intensely sensitive to such influences,
rejoiced with the rejoicing summer. Her life at the
Dower House just then was a far from unpleasant one.
She had gathered round her a little circle of friends,
both young and old, and they gave freshness and variety
to her life, as she helped to bring charm and poetry into
theirs. She began for the first time really to understand
what pleasure money can give—the possession of
it, that is, and the power which that possession confers
of affording pleasure and relief to others. She helped
to make the summer golden to others beside herself.
Amongst the pleasures of that season, there were none
she enjoyed more than the out-of-door life which the
unusual fineness and dryness of the summer rendered
possible. There were day-long excursions, begun early
in the morning, and only ended when the dew and the
night were falling together—excursions into the deep
402woods, over the glorious moors, or beside the lovely
streams which water and adorn that wild and beautiful
tract of Borderland, called Teesdale. Sometimes she and
her friends, the little Johnsons, would set off alone,
swarming (the children) in and out of a pony chaise
which never seemed too small, however many got into
it; and which was yet never too large, even when there
were not more than two or three to occupy it. As often
as not the old doctor would be their guide and chaperon;
and under his direction they explored the country for
miles around. It was new to Eleanor; it was mostly
new to her young companions, who had never before had
a fairy with a pony chaise to take them about. This
was very pleasant, with the lunches eaten ‘by shallow
rivers,’ or under leafy trees; when the children splashed
and waded to their heart’s content, and the days, long
though they were, never seemed long enough.
But there were also other and larger affairs, more
important in every sense of the word,—proper picnics,
at which several parties joined,—the Johnsons, Dr.
Rowntree and his sister, Mrs. Parker, Eleanor; and on
one or two occasions, even Michael had managed to
snatch a day and join them, leaving his work to his
assistant. On one of these days when he was present,
they explored Deepdale; on another they managed to
climb ‘Catcastle Crag.’ On both of these occasions it
was noticed that Michael’s behaviour was marked by an
unaccountable levity, and Miss Askam’s by a kind of
laughing apprehension. She, too, seemed to see jokes
where no one else could detect them. Michael, indeed,
went so far as to tell the children that this was not the
first time that Miss Askam had been to Catcastle, and
having by means of sundry mysterious hints roused their
403curiosity to fever pitch, and set them to attack her
with every kind of question they could think of, he fell
into the rear, and conversed with Mrs. Parker, leaving
Eleanor to baffle them as best she could.
They happened to be alone for a few moments on the
occasion of the Deepdale expedition, and he seized the
opportunity to say—
‘I notice that you still retain that ingenuous youth,
William, for your special body-servant; I suppose it is
his complete incapacity which recommends him to you?
You do not like to dismiss him, because you are quite
sure no one else would take him on; and you think it is
better that he should have the semblance of an occupation
than that you should have to support him by
charity.’
‘You wrong poor William, Mr. Langstroth. He is a
very good servant, and a most faithful creature.’
‘So I should fancy. He knows the country almost
as well as his mistress does, and has such wonderful
presence of mind, as to make him invaluable in any
emergency.’
‘Well, I think he has the presence of mind, at any
rate, to know when help was nigh.’
‘Say, rather, the power of lung to invoke that help
when it was afar off. You don’t know what a long way
I rode back, summoned by that unearthly yell of his.’
Eleanor laughed. ‘Poor William!’ she said.
‘Ah, I do admire William. Do you see, he knows
we are talking about him, and the children are beginning
to be suspicious too. I believe William fears we are
going to ask him to act as guide to some place. Would
you mind my catechising him a little on the geography
of the district? It would keep him up to the mark, you
404know, and would be such a useful thing for the children
as well.’
‘Please don’t, Mr. Langstroth. You will make me
look ridiculous before them all.’
‘If I have seen you looking ridiculous, and if William
has seen you looking ridiculous,’ said Michael, ‘as we
certainly did, you know, on a never-to-be-forgotten occasion,
what can it matter if a set of children and their
mother see the same thing?’
‘Oh, nothing, perhaps,’ was the sweet reply. ‘But
are you sure you did not look a little ridiculous too?
And if Effie once had her confidence in your infallibility
shaken——’
‘That is true. Like the villains in novels, you have a
power over me, through the innocent ones whom I love.
I will keep silence this time, but take care how you provoke
me too far.’
‘Do not be so childish.’
This was very frivolous nonsense, and they enjoyed it,
as they enjoyed the hot summer sun, the cool streams,
the shady woods, and even the fun they had in combating
the swarms of wasps which usually followed them in these
expeditions, and entirely frustrated their efforts to sit
down, and, as Effie plaintively said, ‘eat a meal in peace.’
Once, deeper feelings were touched, and this was on
a day when they had penetrated farther than ever before;
and on this occasion, too, Michael was with them. Setting
off very early, they drove in the morning coolness to
Middleton-in-Teesdale, and thence onwards to High Force,
where they rested and lunched; after which they drove
onwards to some little huts at the edge of the moor,
where path ended, and wilderness began; when they got
out, and walked for a mile and a half to the wild spot
405where Tees comes first winding, sluggish and sinuous,
over the moor top, in what is called the Weel, and
then suddenly precipitates himself madly over ‘Caldron
Snout,’ tearing down an incline of two hundred feet to
the lower level, where he pursues a brawling way towards
High Force, his next descent.
This is a very wild and desolate spot, and requires intrepid
walking to get to it; plunging through the thymy moor,
rough, pathless, and uneven, without guide, save for rough
wooden posts like crosses, planted at intervals of several
hundred yards, to show the directest way to the cataract.
But so few persons visit Caldron Snout, so few tourists
or picnickers care to be at the trouble of penetrating to it,
that no road has got beaten out. Nature seems to sit
enthroned in undesecrated queenliness in the fastnesses
around the cataract.
It was a day that Michael and Eleanor never forgot.
The children, literally frantic with the novelty and the
wildness of the thing, and with the exhilarating moorland
air, tore about in all directions—over heather and thyme,
bluebells and boulders. Now came a scream of joy, and
a mad rush to Michael or the doctor to ask the name of
some hitherto unknown plant or flower—as the delicate
autumn gentian, or, on some grassy banks, the poetical
looking fragile ‘grass of Parnassus.’ Anon, wonder,
quite awed and hushed, and treading on tiptoe to peep
into a nest concealed beneath the grass, and containing
five dirty-white eggs, with wine-coloured splashes on
them. Then on again, to fresh fields and pastures new,
till one wild whoop announced the discovery, in its
steep hidden gorge, of the waterfall itself.
The elders walked more sedately, rejoicing with joy
more cultivated, if not more intense, in the larger grandness
406of great, sweeping lonely fells, of miles of purple
heather; and in the abstract impressiveness of such a
solitary torrent as Caldron Snout.
It was as they were wending back towards their
vehicles, in the evening, that Michael and Eleanor found
themselves alone. The children were scattered, making
the most of what time remained to them, for the collection
of interesting natural objects. Mrs. Johnson, with
an eye to her rockery at home, had stopped in front of a
patch of fine bog-plants, and had made the doctor go on
his knees, armed with an old table knife. She was
standing over him, directing him to the finest plunder,
perfectly deaf to his assurances that the fine purple pinguicula
which she coveted could find lovely flies here for
its sustenance, but that its poor carnivorous leaves would
most likely shrivel up and die in the dark corner of her
garden, devoted to the cultivation of ferns and house-leeks.
At some distance from these two Michael and Eleanor
stood side by side, facing Mickle Fell, and gazing at the
noble sight unfolded for their delight. Many a time
Eleanor had seen this grand old mountain in the distance,
overtopping his comrades, always; but now he rose
straight before them, apparently not a mile away. They
were both struck by what they saw. The great Fell, who
seemed to spring aloft from the smaller ones which
clustered about him, formed a centre and a focus to the
picture, rising in a blunt, massive kind of point. His
huge and grim sides were clothed in a violet veil of
summer haze and heat, like a garment such as no earthly
hands ever fashioned. This was beautiful; but it was
not all. The sun stood, at the moment when it seemed
to rest exactly on the midmost point of his summit, a
407blazing golden ball, and rays streamed away from it
on every side, so that Mickle Fell seemed veritably to
wear a crown of glory, surpassing all the crowns and all
the jewels of all the kings in the whole world. Just
at the moment, the stillness was utterly unbroken. Not
even the murmur of the torrent reached them, nor the
voices of the children ‘playing in the light of the setting
sun.’ Earth seemed to hold her breath while one of her
great hills received the crown and the benediction of the
closing day. No hum of booming bee, no voice even of
any bird, broke the dead silence; nor did these two
venture to disturb it, but gazed and worshipped, and felt
that even if they lived to be very old, they would not
often see the heavens declare the glory of God so sublimely
as at this moment.
And it was but for a moment; such scenes seldom
last longer. Suddenly things seemed to change; the
glory became dimmed; sounds became audible; the spell
was loosed; and with one deep sigh both their hearts
confessed it, as their eyes met.
Perhaps they both understood at that moment, though
all that Michael said, was, ‘I am very glad that we have
seen that—together.’
‘So am I,’ she rejoined, softly.
Then suddenly, almost at their feet, broke forth a
gossipy, importunate, ‘Brek-kek-kek!’ and behind them
children’s voices shouted. They smiled. The awe and
the solemnity had gone, but the joy remained and was
abiding. It did not die away, even after the sun had
set and the golden rays were quenched in night. It
made itself felt all through the long drive home through
the darkling lanes, and it breathed out of the delicious
scent of the firwoods, beneath which part of their road
408lay. It looked out of the eyes of both, as they clasped
hands and parted after it was all over.
That was the last of some cloudlessly happy days. It
was, in reality, the first day of Michael’s summer holiday,
and he knew it would be the best. On the following
morning he set off to Leeds, where that year the British
Medical Association had its annual meeting; after which,
he and Roger were going to take a short country tour
together.
One evening, in August, soon after Michael had gone,
Eleanor was startled to see Otho walk into her drawing-room,
looking ill and haggard. He threw himself into
a chair, gave a long kind of sigh, and asked her how she
did.
CHAPTER XXXVI THE SHADOW
409
It seemed as if, when Otho came in, joy went out.
Eleanor, as she viewed his sinister figure, and saw his
haggard countenance, felt a chill steal over her in the
midst of the August warmth. It was like the first
breath of winter, sent as a warning when autumn days
are mild and life delicious.
‘You have come back at last, Otho. Are you going
to stay at Thorsgarth?’
‘Just for two or three days. I’ve been there and put
up my traps, and I meant to stay there, but it is such a
dismal hole. It makes me creep all over. I could not
stand it, so I thought I would look in upon you.’
‘I am glad you did,’ she said, wondering a little why
he had chosen rather to visit her than Magdalen. But
she did not ask, and he did not mention the subject.
He did not stay very long. She asked him if he came
from London, and he said yes. She did not ask him
about Gilbert. She had nearly forgotten him. The
strength of the love she felt for Michael had effaced
almost the recollection of the uncomfortable days she
had passed during Gilbert’s Christmas visit, and the
fears she had felt with regard to him.
‘I thought you would be coming before,’ she said,
410‘for the shooting. People are saying it is something
unheard of for you to be without a party at Thorsgarth
just now.’
‘People may mind their own business. It doesn’t
suit me to have a party. I can’t afford.’
‘Are you poor, Otho? Have you been losing money?’
‘What a question to ask! If you inquired whether
I’d got any money left to lose, it would be more to
the point.’
‘I am very sorry to hear it. Are you going already?’
For he had risen.
‘Yes, I arranged with a fellow to meet me at home
at eight, and it’s nearly that now.’
‘I shall see you to-morrow?’
‘I shall be busy in the day, but at night—yes, I’ll
come and dine with you, Eleanor. What time?’
‘Seven, Otho; but come as soon as you like, and I’ll
invite Magdalen to spend the evening too.’
‘Magdalen!’ He looked startled, as he had done on
a former occasion, and not too well pleased. Then he
said, with an attempt at indifference—
‘Oh, all right. That will be the best way.’
He departed, and as it was not too late, Eleanor sent
a note by that night’s post, telling Miss Wynter that
Otho was over, and would dine with her the following
evening. Would she (Magdalen) join them and spend
the evening?
Magdalen sent a man the next day with her acceptance
of the invitation, and Eleanor awaited her two
guests with the feelings of one who is heroically going
through a most disagreeable duty.
It was the end of August, and on quiet, cloudy days
it was twilight by seven o’clock. Just before that hour
411Eleanor had occasion to go into one of the front rooms;—her
dining and drawing-rooms were at the back,
looking upon a pleasant garden and orchard, and the
front rooms were small ones, separated from these others
by folding doors.
She got what she wanted, and then paused for a
moment beside the window, looking out upon the street,
which was gray with the dusk, and the houses over the
way did not show very clearly. No one was about
except, as Eleanor noticed, a woman, whom she had seen
earlier in the afternoon, in another part of the town; an
itinerant singer, who had been going from door to door,
singing ballads and collecting money. Eleanor had
noticed her, and had been struck with the decency of
her appearance, and the unusual quietness and modesty
of her look. She had told her servants, if the young
woman came to her house, to take her into the kitchen,
and give her a meal. This had been done, and the girl
now seemed not to intend to sing any more. She had
been going about bareheaded; now she had put on a
small straw bonnet, and placed a woollen shawl about her
shoulders. She stood near the doorsteps, and looked
this way and that, as if not certain in which direction
to go. The window was open, and Eleanor was about
to throw it still higher up, and suggest to the young
woman where she might find a lodging for the night,
when quick steps approached from that side of her own
house at which she stood. Then a man’s figure, in a
light summer overcoat and a round hat, appeared; it
was Otho, and he had one foot on the doorstep, when
the young woman turned, and began rather timidly—‘If
you please, sir——’
‘Good God! what do you mean!’ he exclaimed, in a
412voice in which both fear and anger struggled. ‘Have
you no more——’
‘Sir!’ exclaimed the young woman, facing him fully,
and in evident astonishment, ‘I was not going to beg—I——’
‘Confound you!’ burst from Otho’s lips, and his
voice trembled, with what emotion Eleanor could not
guess. ‘You made me think—what do you want, loafing
about here?’
‘I am doing no such thing as loafing,’ said the young
woman in high dudgeon. I am a respectable woman,
and I was going to ask you a civil question—that’s all.
But I’ll go farther on, now.’
She turned away, indignation quivering in her every
movement. Otho stood still a moment, Eleanor noticed,
as she breathlessly watched and listened, with his hand
resting against the door pillar, as if to support himself.
And she saw that he pulled out his handkerchief and
wiped his brow; and she heard something muttered
between his teeth, and then the words, ‘cursed hole
like this!’ Then he came into the house, for the door
opened from the outside, and she mechanically went out
to meet him, disturbed more than she would have cared
to own. For whom, for what had he mistaken the young
woman, that he should show such alarm and such fear?
He was standing in the hall, having laid his hat upon
the table, and was pulling off his overcoat. His face was
quite white, or rather, gray, and his eyes looked wild
and startled.
‘Halloa!’ said he, evidently with an effort—at least,
it was evident to her now that she knew what had gone
before. ‘How are you? Has Magdalen come?’
‘No. I am expecting her every minute,’ she replied.
413‘Ah, there are the carriage wheels. She is here
now.’
Otho was now master of himself again. He waited
in the hall till Magdalen had come in, and received her,
looking into her eyes with a sort of eagerness, and kissing
her as he looked at her.
The evening proved, in a way, less depressing than
Eleanor had expected. Magdalen was unusually sweet
and gracious; Otho more genial and expansive than his
sister had ever seen him. Magdalen openly and unreservedly
put questions to him about his affairs and
intentions, which Eleanor would never have dreamed of
asking. He was not very explicit as to his business,
but said it was business that brought him to Thorsgarth,
adding with candour that nothing else would induce him
to set foot in the place, for he had got a horror of it.
From some hints that he let fall, the two young women
gathered that his stables and stud were to come to the
hammer—when, he did not say. Also, that he was at
present somewhat straitened for any considerable sum of
money. But he did not hint at any wish to borrow
money, or receive assistance, only saying that Gilbert
would see him safe through present difficulties, and that
the Friarsdale stables would bring in ‘a pot of money.’
‘I’m going to Friarsdale to-morrow,’ he added, ‘and
back here the same night. The day after, I’m off again.’
‘Are you? Where?’
‘London first. Then Paris, I expect. I’ve got some
business there,’ he condescended to inform them, ‘in
connection with the Grand Prix next spring.’
‘Racing again!’ said Magdalen. ‘But you’ve got no
horse in it.’
‘Yes, but I have. I’ve Crackpot again.’
414‘Again!’ repeated Miss Wynter, with emphasis and
meaning.
‘Oh, it’s all straight this time. You need not be
sneering, Mag; and Eleanor need not turn up her eyes
in that lackadaisical fashion. When Crackpot has won
the Grand Prix, as I intend him to, I shall sell him for—well,
a good lot of money. Then I shall be fairly on my
legs again. Thorsgarth may stay as it is, yet awhile, and
the timber can remain in the woods.’
‘I should hope so!’ exclaimed Eleanor, in a voice of
alarm.
‘And if you’d only marry me now, Magdalen, out of
hand, you should have the purse-strings, and keep me in
order. Come, let it be a bargain!’
Magdalen’s eyes glittered. It was a bargain she
would have clinched that moment if she could.
‘You know it is utterly impossible, Otho, now. But
if you’ll come home again before Christmas—well
before Christmas, you know, I might be able to settle
things.’
‘Oh, do promise, Otho!’ Eleanor urged him eagerly.
‘If only you and Magdalen could get married at the end
of this year or the beginning of next—why, you might
go abroad; and when you had got this money that you
speak of, you might live abroad.’
Her heart leaped up at the idea that Magdalen, if she
once had him in hand, and was as he said mistress of the
purse-strings, might have a strong influence over him,
and that, having broken from his sporting associates,
both here and in London, something different—something
a little better, might surely be made of him.
‘If you would marry him, Magdalen,’ she went on,
‘I would spend the rest of the winter myself with Miss
415Strangforth, if she would have me; or you could find
her another niece to come and live with her.’
‘I would do my best,’ Magdalen said, ‘if he’ll promise
to come home before Christmas.’
Otho h’md and ha’d, and said at last, he could not
promise more than she did. He would do his best too.
‘It would be very nice,’ Magdalen said, reflectively.
‘Bradstane is dull to the carnally minded. People given
up to good works and acts of mercy, like Miss Askam,
may find it bearable. I think it is awful. And there is
hardly any one left in it now. All my old friends are
gone. You away, Otho; Gilbert away; Roger Camm
gone.’
‘Camm lives in Leeds now, doesn’t he?’ asked Otho;
and there was something in his voice as he spoke—an
inflexion, a shade, which caused Eleanor to glance at him
quickly. But he looked as usual, except that he was
still haggard and worn-looking, and appeared indifferent
about the answer.
‘Yes,’ said his sister. ‘He has a very good post there.’
‘What has become of that little girl he was going to
marry?’ asked Otho; and Magdalen gave a little laugh,
saying—
‘Well, that is good, I must say. After the way you
behaved to her——’
‘What?’ stammered Otho, and there was the same
look on his face that Eleanor had seen there as he stood
in the hall just before Magdalen’s arrival.
‘He pretends not to know,’ said Magdalen, mockingly.
‘It is not a hundred years since there was a concert in
the Bradstane schoolroom, sir.’
And she laughed her measured, cold laugh.
‘Oh, bah!’
416‘Ada Dixon was very much out of health, and was
sent away into Devonshire into a warmer climate,’ said
Eleanor, gravely. ‘She has been away all the summer,
and has not yet returned.’
‘Ah!’ said Otho, stifling a yawn. ‘I used to see her
in former days, going up and down the village, and going
to see you, Mag——’
‘Yes. You put a stop to that by your behaviour that
night. After that it was impossible for me to have anything
more to do with her.’
He laughed.
‘I never saw anything of her this time, so I thought
she might have got married to some one, and cleared
out.’
Neither his sister nor Magdalen saw how, as he spoke,
he looked sideways at them. Magdalen was opening
and shutting her fan. Eleanor had some trifle of fancy
work in her hands.
He did not stay much longer, but had some talk with
Magdalen at the door before he went away. He did not
wait till Miss Strangforth’s carriage came, nor offer, as
on a former occasion, to see her home. Magdalen returned
to Eleanor when the door had closed behind Otho.
‘He is really exasperating. He will not give me his
address now; says he is so uncertain: I must write
through Gilbert, as usual. I declare he grows more and
more mysterious. One might almost think he had some
reason for wishing to conceal his whereabouts,’ Magdalen
went on, reflectively. ‘Suppose one wanted to get
at him suddenly, in any emergency, and everything had
to be done through Gilbert. It might be most awkward.’
She spoke with entire tranquillity of mien and voice,
and stood before the looking-glass over the mantelpiece,
417arranging the flowers in her corsage, with drooped eyelids
and leisurely fingers. It was evidently a purely
imaginary picture that she drew. But Eleanor looked
up sharply, remembering what she had witnessed that
very evening. Magdalen, however, was no person to
whom she could disclose her vague and shadowy fears.
There was nothing for it but silence. She gave a
troubled sigh.
CHAPTER XXXVII THE RETURN
418
With Otho’s absence and silence, the uneasiness and the
fears which he seemed to bring with him, like so many
invisible but potent attendants, gradually died away
and were lulled into serenity. The great house was
closed. The Thorsgarth shooting was let, so Eleanor
heard. She never went near the place, and heard
nothing of it all. Her own life was sweet to her just
now, and full of hope. The most beautiful season of
the year floated by like an ideal, a dream of peace and
of calm, yet ample life.
It would be almost impossible to imagine anything
more beautiful than the aspect of Teesdale—especially of
that portion of Teesdale—in the months of September
and October—when they are fine and seasonable that is,
and bring such skies, such winds, and such suns as are
due, in these two most gorgeous months of the year.
In this particular season they were all that could be
desired, and our lovers—for lovers they were, though no
explicit word of love had ever passed between them—enjoyed
their glory to their heart’s content. Eleanor
was satisfied that Michael did not speak to her; the
spell of the present time was so delicious that she would
not have had it broken. She had forgotten outside
419troubles and difficulties; she only felt that all was well,
and that a happiness awaited her in the future, so great
that she could well afford to wait for it.
September sighed itself out in golden glory, leaving
a luxury of ripening tints on every tree, filling the
tangled hedges with many-coloured flames of dying
weeds; for, as every one knows who lives in the country,
the smaller plants that grow in the ditches and near to
the ground—the wild geranium, the smaller hemlock, or
that plant which is akin to it, the rose-bushes, the hawthorn,
and wild guelder rose—these are the things that
‘turn’ first, these the objects on which autumn first
places her crimson finger; and then, when she has embellished
the hedges, and is pleased with the result of her
handiwork, she becomes bolder, mounts higher, attacks
the trees—the oak and the beech first, the sycamore and
the ash following in their turn. Then it is that the
river gains his stronger voice, and rushes along, ever
more tumultuously. Then it is that o’ nights the air is
keen, and that at that hour which has said good-bye to
afternoon, and is not yet evening, there is a strange,
metallic, lambent light in the sky, a light which seems
also almost to crackle and sparkle in the very atmosphere,
a magic, unearthly light, which has its charms for those
who love to study nature in her more obscure
phases.
It was on a glorious, crisp afternoon, a little beyond
the middle of October, that Eleanor returned to the
Dower House, after driving about a bevy of little Johnsons
the whole afternoon. She dressed herself then, and
went to dine and spend the evening at the old doctor’s
house. After dinner Michael came in. He seemed
lately to have enjoyed an unusual quantity of leisure in
420the evening hours. The talk turned to books; amongst
other books to a book of poetry, some passage in which
was disputed. Eleanor said that she had the book, and
would go across to her house and fetch it. Upon this
Michael announced that he should convey her across the
square, and had gone as far as the door of the doctor’s
house with her, when his old friend, who was in his
library, called to him, hearing his step.
‘Go to him,’ said Eleanor. ‘I will fetch the book,
and return to you.’ And she walked quickly across the
square to her own door.
Arrived there, she found a woman’s figure standing,
in an uncertain attitude, near it. Something—a nameless
chill, an unspeakable dread, took possession of her.
She did not speak, but paused, looking at the figure, her
mind disturbed with vague recollections of Otho’s last
visit.
‘Miss Askam!’ said the loiterer, in an uncertain voice.
‘Yes; who is it?’
‘It is I—Ada. I wanted to speak to you.’
‘Come in with me, then,’ she replied, but felt all the
time that she was inviting some great terror and woe to
enter her house.
She opened the door, and led Ada into the drawing-room,
turned up the light, and looked at her; and as
she looked, the words were frozen upon her lips at the
aspect of the figure before her. Had not the voice said,
‘It is I—Ada,’ she would scarcely have recognised this
countenance. Ada wore a large, thick, woollen shawl,
falling loosely about her; and a small hat, from under
which showed a face which had aged by twenty years,
and which was not only aged, but seamed, furrowed,
worn with lines of what must have been mortal anguish,
421seeing that every one of them had been stamped in less
than five short months. The pretty, delicate, meaningless
face was clean gone: in its stead there was a mask,
betraying a mind devoured by misery; eyes which
looked at once hard and frightened, hunted and yet
defiant—the eyes of an animal at bay; a countenance to
fill the most indifferent beholder with horror.
Struck literally speechless, Eleanor stood, her hand
on the table, and stared at the figure with wide open
eyes, while she felt cold and terror seize every limb.
What did this apparition want with her or hers? A
sickly dread, a kind of dim first suspicion of the meaning
of it all crept into her heart.
‘Miss Askam,’ said this spectre of Ada Dixon, in a
low and husky voice, ‘I’m in trouble.’
‘Yes,’ almost gasped the other.
‘I’m come to you, since it was no use writing to your
brother. Where is he?’
The tongue of Eleanor at first clave to the roof of her
mouth; at last, in a hoarse voice, she asked—
‘What have you to do with my brother?’
With a swift motion, Ada unfastened the pin at her
throat; her shawl slid from her shoulders to the ground,
and she confronted Eleanor.
Trembling overpowered the latter. Speech was at
first denied her. She could stand no more, but crouched
upon a chair, and gasped out—
‘Oh, horrible, horrible!’
Suddenly a wild gleam of hope crossed her mind.
Why was she assuming the very worst to have happened?
By what right did she condemn not only Otho, but Ada?
She sprang up again, went close to the girl, and almost
whispered—
422‘Did he not marry you?’
‘Marry me!’ repeated Ada, in a fearful voice of
bitterness, scorn, and despair. ‘Nay, he only swore he
would, again and again.’
‘And—and——’ she shivered still. ‘And when was
this?’
‘It was in March,’ replied Ada, with stony composure.
‘When I was staying in Wensleydale, and he was in
Friarsdale, and he met me every day, and said he’d
never cared for anybody else. I’ve written to him—a
hundred letters. He has never answered one. I thought
he was at home now; I heard so. I came to tell him he
must—to shame him, if I couldn’t persuade him; and
now ... he’s not here. No one knows ... where he is.’
With an hysterical sob she sank together in the
corner of a couch.
‘In March,’ Eleanor was repeating to herself, with
mechanical calm, and clenching her hands, to keep herself
still. ‘March—and this is October. There is yet time.’
That was all she could think of at the moment. There
was no time, no possibility for anything else. Her brain
felt wound up to this emergency, and to nothing more.
She walked up to Ada, and touched her.
‘Your parents—what do they know?’
‘Nothing,’ said Ada, in a dull, colourless monotone.
‘Mother is away, or I dare not have come home. Father
is away for the night. He’ll be back to-morrow: he
will find out ... he will turn me out of doors. Oh,
Miss Askam, save me, save me, save me!’
‘Hush!’ said Eleanor, quietly. ‘Let me think. Some
one must have known—the people you were staying with—your
aunt?’
‘She would keep me no longer. I put her off by telling
423her that he was coming down there to marry me—that
he’d sent me there to wait for him. I said it all
depended on her keeping silence; that was why she let
me stay so long.’
‘At what time will your father be back?’
‘At eleven to-morrow morning, they said.’
‘You will go home now, and stay there all night. At
nine o’clock to-morrow morning come to me. I shall
have had time to make arrangements then. I will see
your father. I do not think he will turn you out of
doors. If he does, you shall come here. I will send for—my
brother. I think I can make him come. I do
not wish to seem harsh to you, but you must go home
now, that I may have time to arrange things. You will
go to your room at once, when you get home. You
understand—you can say you are tired. Try not to be
frightened,’ she added, bending over Ada, who was
crouched in an attitude of blank despair; ‘because I
can shelter you, and I will do so, as God is above
us. I promise you this. Now go.’
Slowly Ada rose. Eleanor felt afraid lest she should
break down before she had left the house. But she did
not. She submitted to have her shawl pinned on again,
and with the same look of utter, vacant despair, walked
away.
‘Either it will turn her brain or kill her,’ Eleanor felt,
as the girl departed, and she sat down at the table, and
rested her head on her hands, and tried to put away the
recollection of the awful figure she had seen, and to
reflect upon what must be done. But she scarcely had
sufficient power yet, over her emotion, to be able to reflect.
She could only remember, and shudder, and feel horrified,
while all kinds of wild speculations darted through her
424mind, as to the effect the event would have upon this
person, and that person; and, above all, she wondered how
it was that it had never for one moment occurred to any
of them that when Ada was in Wensleydale, and Otho in
Friarsdale, they might easily have met. In fact, she could
think of nothing but of the thing itself, and the crushing,
the overwhelming horror of it, except that every now and
then a thought crossed her mind that something must be
done at once, and that there was no one but herself to
do it; which thought reduced her to complete powerlessness.
While she sat in this chaos of thought and emotion
she heard a knock at the door. She said nothing; she
had forgotten all about the little things that one
remembers at ordinary times, and after a moment, while
she still sat, unheeding, it was gently opened, and Michael
Langstroth looked in.
‘I have been sent to fetch you,’ he had begun, and
then he came to a dead stop, as he saw and comprehended
her strange attitude; and when, at his voice, she raised
her head and looked at him, he beheld her face, and knew
that since she had quitted them, a quarter of an hour ago,
something terrible had happened to her. And he knew
that moment—he did not in so many words state it to
himself, but he knew it—that it was to him she would
appeal for help. He was glad of that, but he was sorry
that he had let the days go by in a dream, and had not
given her the right to come to him, without thought and
without question.
Eleanor, as she looked at him, felt at first a little
bewildered. So overwhelmed was she with what had
passed, that it was a moment or two before she actually
realised who he was.
425‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,’ says the
Psalmist, ‘from whence cometh my help.’ And, in a
certain degree, it was so with her. A voice supreme and
unerring spoke to her; all her nature, every fibre seemed
to bow to an overwhelming intuition which directed her
towards the man who stood before her, looking so
earnestly down upon her. She loved him, and that with
a love which had grown into a great passion, and an
absorbing one. But it was something different—something
deeper and higher than even this great love which
impelled her action now;—instinct, some might call it,
and others say that she had naturally a gift for reading
character correctly, and for discerning which persons
were, and which were not to be relied upon. She herself
would have said that God inspired her. She sat motionless
for a moment, bending to this inner voice which
spoke to her, acknowledging what her belief told her
was the providential arrival of the one person whom
she would most implicitly trust—and fighting down the
unwillingness—natural and good in itself, but which she
felt it was useless to stand upon now—to speak openly of
such things as had happened, to a man who was neither
her husband, her father, nor her brother. And then, her
resolution taken, or rather, that importunate inner voice
obeyed, she got up, and leaning over the table towards
him, said—
‘I want to know if you will help me in a very great
trouble?’
‘With every power that I have, I will help you,’ he
replied, unhesitatingly, and waited to hear what it was
that he had to do.
‘Since I came in I have heard of a thing that has
happened. I hardly know how to tell you of it. It
426makes me feel as if I had been laughing and amusing
myself in some room, underneath which another person
was being tortured to death.’
Her lips were parched; her eyes dilated.
‘If I did not trust you entirely,’ she said, as if she
appealed to him, ‘I could not tell you.’
For a moment she was silent, while Michael waited,
and then, turning to him again, told him, unfalteringly,
of the discovery she had made, and repeated, word for
word, the conversation between herself and Ada.
Michael listened in perfect silence; it was, he felt, the
only way in which to hear such a tale.
‘I have sent her home,’ Eleanor said at last, ‘that I
might try to think. She is safe for to-night, since she
says her mother is away, and her father will not return
before eleven to-morrow. I have told her to come here
early—at nine to-morrow morning. I thought I would
keep her here till her parents knew. I think her father
has a heart, but I cannot endure that woman, her
mother. I feel that she would rail at her—not because
she had done wrong, but because she had failed in
getting married to Otho.’
He nodded.
‘Do you think I have done right?’
‘Perfectly right. There was nothing else to be done.
Do you know where—he—is?’
He spoke as if he found a difficulty in finding a term
by which to speak of Otho.
‘No, I do not; but your—Mr. Langstroth knows all
about him. He gave me his address at Christmas, and
I have kept it. It is through him we shall have to
send.... It is now clear to me why Otho would not
give his address to Magdalen.’
427‘I see. The thing is, suppose he does not choose to
answer the summons—your brother, I mean. You say
she said she had written to him?’
‘A hundred times, she said, and received no answer.’
‘That looks very much as if he had chosen to desert
her entirely, and did not intend to notice any demand.
I fear he will not come if we send for him.’
‘I do not know that. I think he may. I have an
idea in my mind. I will tell you why I have it, afterwards.
Since you told me what his besetting sin was,
I have watched him carefully. He does what he feels
inclined to do, and leaves the results to chance. I have
seen it in a thousand things, great and small. I can tell
no reason why he should have committed this crime—his
heart is black—I do not understand such things.
But I believe that when last he saw the girl, he did not
know of this, and that he was tired of the caprice, and
afraid that her letters might tell him of some such thing;
so he has never read them, but trusted to his god, chance,
that they did not tell him what he did not want to hear.
I saw him burn a thing one day, without opening it.
Your brother asked him why he did that, when he knew
it was a bill he would have to pay. He said he knew
nothing till he had read it.’
She also told him of the episode she had seen between
Otho and the young woman who had been singing.
‘The expression on his face was fear,’ she went on, as
coolly as she could. ‘I did not understand it then.
Now I do. It was dusk. He could not see the figure
properly; he feared to meet Ada; he thought for a
moment that it was Ada, come to accuse him of his sin.
All the time he was here he must have been haunted by
the fear that she might confront him. His questions to
428us about her, were for a blind; and I think he wanted
to get some news of her, without seeming to seek it.
As we told him nothing, he chose to behave as if there
were nothing to tell. This has all come into my mind
since I have seen Ada. Perhaps I am wrong; but if I
am right—and I believe I am, and we send a message to
Mr. Gilbert Langstroth, Otho will know what it means,
and will come.’
‘Could Gilbert have known?’
‘No, no, no!’ she exclaimed, vehemently. ‘I will
stake my life on it that he did not.’
‘I think your theory may be quite right, up to a
certain point. You may be right as to the past, that is,
for that would be quite consistent with his character.
But I doubt your sanguine anticipations being correct.
I doubt his coming, if we send for him. Suppose he is
out of England, and refuses to come; because it would
be so much easier for him just to leave her to you, or to
herself, or to her fate.’
‘There is some little time yet. If he does not answer,
I will go to him where he is, and make him come. I
will so speak to him that he shall not dare do anything
but come. I will die, but I will force him to make what
miserable reparation lies with him. He is poor now,’ she
added, with a peculiar smile, such as Michael had never
seen upon her face before. ‘Before very long, he will be
a pauper. I know it. He will be dependent upon me.
I have understood that for some little time past. But if
he does not come home and marry Ada, I will let him
die of hunger in the street, rather than give him a
penny.’
She did not speak noisily nor vehemently, but Michael
saw that she was quite prepared to carry out her words.
429‘Then you have a strong hold upon him,’ he said.
‘Now, what we have to do, is to telegraph to Gilbert.
We can, of course, have an answer from him to-morrow.
By the way, it cannot go before to-morrow. Then we
shall know better what to do. If you will give me pen
and paper, we can perhaps agree together what to say.’
Eleanor brought the writing things, and after various
false attempts, they decided to send:—
‘Send O. A. here instantly, on a matter of life and
death. Not an hour to be lost. If he is not near, send
information how he is soonest to be found.’
‘I will see that it goes first thing in the morning,’
said he. ‘And you say Ada is coming to you?’
‘Yes; at nine.’
‘That is well. She could not be in a better place.
Do not leave your house yourself. I will see Mr. Dixon.
There is no necessity for you to trouble. Try to make
her talk to you about it; do you understand? It will
be better for her than anything. It may save her life
and her reason.’
‘Yes, I will do so. Do you think I should send for
her here to-night?’
‘No, I do not. It would excite the curiosity and suspicion
of your own servants, and the tale would be over
the whole village long before morning. I shall be
obliged to tell them over the way, though,’ he added,
‘because it might be just possible that Gilbert’s reply
might make it necessary for some one to go up to town,
to settle things more expeditiously. I might go up alone;
or if you went, I would go with you—if I may.’
‘If you may!’ she repeated, in a faltering voice,
‘What could I have done without you!’
‘Another time,’ said he, looking straight into her eyes,
430‘I will tell you something. We have other things to
think about now. Be as tranquil as you can, and
remember that you could have done nothing but what
you have done.’
He wrung her hand without saying anything more,
and left her.
They had searched their hearts to find what was the
best to do in this terrible emergency, and being at one
on the point they did it. The time in which to decide
was short, and they did not know the whole extent of
the woe about which they were, as it were, legislating.
Perhaps they tacitly agreed that the nature which had
endured so long could endure till to-morrow morning.
They knew not what were the principal factors in the
sum of the events, in the midst of which they found
themselves without a moment’s warning. Those factors
were despair, and the promptings of a heart which had
literally had all life and all reason ground out of it by
seven months of perfect wretchedness.
Eleanor slept little that night, and waited with
sickening anxiety for nine o’clock. It came, but
brought not Ada with it. Half-past nine; yea, ten had
struck, and she came not. Thrilling with uneasiness,
Eleanor knew not what to do. She feared by making
inquiries to excite suspicion. Unhappy and uncertain,
she waited till about half-past ten. Michael called, and,
without sitting down, just told her not to make herself
more uneasy than was necessary, but that he had been
at Mr. Dixon’s, intending to appoint a meeting with him
on his return. His assistant said he had had a letter
from him, deferring his return till the following day, and
that the maid had told him that Miss Dixon had gone out,
and up the town, without waiting for any breakfast.
431Eleanor felt her heart in her mouth.
‘Has she gone out to kill herself?’ she whispered.1
‘I do not think so,’ said Michael. ‘She cannot have
wandered very far. You shall have news as soon as I
can send it. There is only one road out of this end of
the town, and I am riding that way. Good morning.’
So she was left alone, with the conviction that
Michael himself was far more disturbed than he chose to
tell her. Fears and terrors loomed up like giant shadows
in the background of her mind, and so she passed the
most terrible day of her life.
CHAPTER XXXVIII ADA
432
Ada had gone home, after leaving the Dower House.
The maid had told Michael that Miss Dixon had gone
out about eight o’clock, in her bonnet and shawl, without
any breakfast, and that she had had nothing to eat after
her arrival at home. She had never, indeed, taken her
things off; but was in exactly the same dress she had
worn on her journey to Bradstane, which had been a
long and fatiguing one. On going home from her
interview with Eleanor, she went upstairs, partly in
mechanical obedience to a remembered mandate of Miss
Askam’s, partly automatically.
She never undressed, or even lay down on her bed.
Part of the cruel night she spent in sitting on a chair by
the wall, staring with blank eyes into the darkness, and
repressing, half mechanically, the moans that rose to her
lips. Another portion of her vigil was consumed in a
restless wandering to and fro. Her chamber was over
the empty parlour. No one would hear or heed her
footsteps. At last, finding the darkness unbearable, she
struck a match, and lighted two candles which stood on
the dressing-table, and gazed about the room. It was
her own bedroom that she was in, and the bed, beside
which she sat, was the bed in which Ada Dixon had
433slept—the same Ada Dixon who had felt indignant and
insulted when her plain-spoken lover had told her that
no honest girl required notice from her superiors. How
very angry she had been when he said it. At this recollection
she held her hands before her mouth to stifle
a shriek. In this room, before that looking-glass, how
many hours had she spent, trying the effect of this, that,
or the other piece of finery; endeavouring to model her
bonnets, her hats, her mantles, and her gowns upon those
of her patroness, Magdalen Wynter? In that desk,
standing upon the little round table in the corner, how
many notes might be reposing, indited by Otho Askam?
Notes slipped into her hand under Magdalen’s very eyes,
when he had met her at Balder Hall; behind her unsuspecting
father’s back, when she happened to be in the
shop. Notes containing at first nothing but a rather
heavy style of compliment, adapted to a taste not over-fastidious
in such matters; tragic effusions, when read
by the light of this present; ponderously comic, if viewed
critically on their intrinsic merits as compositions.
When had it first seriously occurred to her that she
might become Mrs. Askam, of Thorsgarth? Why, on
that night, a hundred years ago, when there had been a
grand concert, at which she had sung—when Miss
Wynter had been flouted, and Ada flattered and complimented.
That was the night Roger had come in in such a fury,
and carried her away. Roger—Roger—her thoughts
wandered—who was Roger, and what had he to do with
her? They were engaged to be married once—now—yet——Yes,
and in November he was to come and see
her.
Again a scream of wild laughter rose to her lips.
434Again she managed to stifle it, and again her mind
reverted, whether she would or no, to her horror, her
nightmare, the history of the last seven months. She
recollected how Otho had appeared one day at the
farmhouse where she was staying, and had paid her
compliments; how she, grown bolder now that Magdalen
was not present to overawe her, had, in a perkish
manner, chaffed him about his engagement; to which he
had retorted that he was not married yet, and that
engagements might be broken off; and had appealed to
her admiring cousins to know if Miss Dixon would not
grace any sphere, even the most exalted. She remembered
the gradually arising passion in his looks and his
words, and how she herself, by one of those mysterious
attractions which we see daily exemplified, had found
herself spellbound by him in a manner which Roger
could never have compassed if he had died for it.
Temptation, kisses, promises—such profuse promises,
appealing with instinctive acuteness to her vanity, her
love of distinction—the strange eyes which magnetised
and fascinated her; a brief, delirious dream—and since
then, hell, by day and by night; not from the sense of
defilement which would kill some natures—but, let the
truth be written of her; she has her compeers in many
places—from the scorching conviction that if, or when,
she was found out, disgrace and contumely would be her
portion.
She recalled the parting from Roger—when she had
dismissed him in the pride of her heart, at a time when
hope was still strong; and though she was beginning to
have sickening qualms, yet she had been deluded enough
to mistake his footstep behind her for Otho’s, and had
had a wild idea that he had at last broken with Magdalen,
435and was coming to save and to claim her. Then her
departure; the letters she had written, which had never
been noticed; her aunt’s gradually awakened suspicions,
and the tales she had told to stave off ruin and discovery;
her journey home in fluttering hope, and desperate
resolve; for a letter from home in which her father had
expressed himself obscurely, had made her think Otho
was at Thorsgarth. How she had made inquiries, and
learnt that he had been gone a month or more. Then
Eleanor, and her promises, and how she was to go and
see her in the morning.
The night hours passed swiftly in this consuming vigil,
and presently Ada saw that it was broad day, time, therefore,
to go and see Miss Askam. That was her one
thought now, that she was to go and see Miss Askam.
And yet, her mind being more than a little wandering,
she did not realise that though daylight, it was not yet
the appointed time; but went downstairs, and let herself
out of the house. The maid was at work in the
kitchen; but she was a new-comer since Ada had left
home, and did not therefore address her, or ask her any
questions.
When Ada was out in the street she felt very weak
and very strange, but she looked at a clock which stood
over a public building, nearly opposite her father’s house.
The hands pointed to eight; and then she remembered
vaguely that Miss Askam had said nine; she must not
go before nine.
She would take a little walk then, in the early freshness;
she could not go back to that dreadful room.
Besides, she had advanced a little up the town, into the
square: there were Miss Askam’s blinds still down; it
would not do to go there yet, though she longed to do
436so, and, had she been in her right mind, would have
knocked without further ado, confident in the generous
charity of the other woman.
So she wandered on, out of the town, faint and feeble
for want of food and rest; crazy, and growing every
moment more so, with woe, and fear, and wretchedness.
Soon she was on a lonely road, stretching out to the
north-east, with few houses, and, at that hour, scarcely a
person on it. How beautiful it all was, in this golden
morning sunshine, with the mists rising from the river,
and the trees, clad in yellow and scarlet and russet, heavy
and drooping in the windless air of a frosty October
morning, precursor of a glorious autumn day!
Then she emerged from the shade of these trees, and
found herself upon a wild upland road, with sweeps of
country stretching far and wide around her; fields of
yellow stubble, pastures, meadows; stretches of heavy
wood; here and there the gleam of the river, and on
every side, the wall of blue fells in the distance. The
rough, uphill road lay before her, with scarce a house
to be seen; and overhead a blue sky, from which fleecy
white clouds were everywhere rolling back to show the
fathomless, serene expanse.
‘Ay, but I’m so tired, so tired!’ Ada sighed, as she
stumbled, and then recovered herself. ‘This is not being
a lady; why does he not come home? If I had the
carriage he promised me,—he said he would drive to
Balder Hall with me, to see Miss Wynter, and show her
what he thought of me, when we were married.’
Here she found herself opposite to a tiny house at
the roadside, or rather, at a corner where four roads met;
and at its door a woman stood, saw her, called out to her,
and wished her good day.
437‘Good day!’ said Ada, with a sudden affectation of
her old mincing manner. ‘Might I beg a drink of water
from you?’
The woman, who was kindly, though rough, would
have had her come in and have some bread and milk, but
she would not. She had quite forgotten Eleanor Askam
by this time, and said she had far to go, and must not
wait. The water was bestowed upon her, and she stood
to drink it, holding the cup with her right hand, while
her left rested upon the table. The woman looked at
her, and drew her own conclusions from what she saw.
Ada thanked her, with an affectation of superiority and
patronage, and left the cottage. Its mistress stood
watching her, as she turned to the right, along a high,
toilsome road, and marched slowly and heavily along it.
‘Some poor crazy creature, whose hour is not far off.
God pity her!’ she said within herself, and for a moment
felt inclined to run after the girl, and insist on sheltering
her. But the thought of her ‘man,’ and the trouble he
would feel it to have such a person in the house deterred
her. She went inside again, to her morning’s work.
Ada crept on, till she saw at a little distance, gray
farm-buildings and a whitewashed house, with a long,
low front; and it came across her mind that she could
not walk any farther, but that she would go there, and
ask them to let her rest till her carriage came, which was
to meet her there, and take her home to lunch. And if
they asked her who she was—why, the answer was
simple—Mrs. Askam, of Thorsgarth. And in fancy, she
saw curtseys dropped, and heard them begging her to be
seated. For she was now quite crazy, only in this way;
the connecting string in all her wild thoughts, was the
vague recollection of real promises.
438Before she arrived at the farm, she swerved to one
side; her knees gave way, and in a little hollow in the
wall, where there was a heap of stones, she sank down,
feeling as if she were going to sleep; but the sleep became
a long, deadly faint, and Ada Dixon, the petted
beauty of the old town where she had been born and bred,
who had been the plighted wife of a good man, lay in a
heap by the roadside, with only the broad sky above her,
with nothing but her mother earth on which to rest her
dainty limbs.
And here she continued to lie, till Michael Langstroth
rode up, having made inquiries on his way, and learnt
from the woman at the cross-roads, that such a young
woman as he described had passed.
‘Ay, doctor,’ said the woman, who knew him, though
not Ada. ‘She was none fit to be walking on such roads
at such times. I wanted her to bide a bit, and rest; but
nay—she said she had far to go, and yon’s t’ road she
took.’
Michael rode on, determined to find her, for Roger’s
sake, for the sake of Eleanor, and out of his own pity for
her condition. He was not long in coming within sight
of the gray stone farm, and within a stone’s throw of it,
the curve in the wall, and the figure that lay beneath it.
He muttered an inarticulate word, as he sprang from
his horse, and stooped over her, and when he saw her
face, recoiled for a moment. For a brief instant or two
he could see nothing distinctly, a film was over his eyes,
and a great sob in his throat, as he turned, and hung his
horse’s bridle over the post of a gate in the wall He
then stooped down, raised the lifeless figure in his arms,
and carried her over the rough road to the farm door.
The dogs, who were his friends, came out to welcome him,
439and then stopped, sniffing suspiciously at the skirts of the
strange burden he bore. The farmer’s wife saw him, and
ran forward, with upraised hands, ‘Lord ’a mercy, Dr.
Langstroth—what is’t?’
‘Mrs. Nadin, you have promised many a time to do
me a good turn; and I want a very good one doing now.
Give a shelter to this poor thing till her trouble is over;
it is a sad tale, and I’ll tell it you afterwards.’
Mrs. Nadin made no more ado. Langstroth had,
according to her, saved her husband’s life two years ago,
and with true north country love, she had been ever
since burning to ‘pay him back again.’ She only stopped
to look at the girl’s face, and to ejaculate Ada’s name.
Then she called her daughter to her aid, and they
whispered horror-struck conjectures to one another as
they tended the wretched young woman.
And here, under the roof of these pitiful strangers,
was that evening born, before his time, the son of Otho
Askam—a child of sorrow, if ever one came into the
world.
CHAPTER XXXIX THE BROTHERS
440
It was late in the evening of the same day. Eleanor and
Michael were alone together in her drawing-room. She
had not been left alone all day. Unable to bear the
solitude and suspense alone, she had sent for Mrs. Parker,
who, of course, knew all the story from Michael. The
good lady had come, and remained with her during all
the hours of waiting and terror. When Michael was
announced, Eleanor had said she would like to see him
alone, and Mrs. Parker had gone into another room.
He had come in, looking both tired and haggard; for
what had happened had struck him, both through his
friend, and through the woman he loved. Though
Roger had now no connection with Ada, Michael knew
him too well to suppose for a moment that he had, or
could have, ceased to love her, in the space of five short
months. The worst agony of separation might be over,
but he could imagine what this news would be to the
man who had loved this unhappy girl so tenderly and
so faithfully. As for Eleanor, her sufferings were his
sufferings now. And thirdly, there was himself and his
own sensations in the matter. He had never admired
Ada, and had always been sorry that she had been
Roger’s choice; but it had never entered into his head
441to dream of such a dénouement to the broad farce he had
seen played at the concert. It was not that he had
credited Otho with being any better than he was, but it
had not occurred to him to look at such a side as being
possible to the affair. If any one had suggested it to
him, he would have said first, that Otho would not dare
to commit such a sin where a girl of Ada’s upbringing
was concerned, and next, that Ada herself was beyond
suspicion. The whole thing had burst upon him, and
he was filled with disgust and horror, such as a man
whose mind and life have been alike clean, must feel
when he comes face to face with such a history, and
finds it intruding itself into the most intimate relations
of his own life.
Summoning up his courage, he had told her all that
had happened. She had at first been standing. As he
proceeded, her face went paler; her limbs trembled. At
the picture of how he had found Ada lying by the roadside,
the tears rained from her eyes. And when he
ceased to speak she was seated at the table, her head
buried in her arms, as if she would fain have hidden her
face from him and from all the world. Indeed, a cloud
of great darkness hung over her soul, and it seemed for
the moment as if neither religion nor hope, nor any good
thing could stand in the presence of overwhelming,
triumphant villainy like this. Michael was watching her
silently, while a conflict was going on in his own mind.
She considered him the embodiment of strength and
goodness, and believed implicitly in a most godlike mind
which she attributed to him. And he knew she thought
that of him. Women’s eyes have the habit of confiding
such opinions, to the men concerning whom they hold
them, when their tongues may not say the same things.
442Michael knew very well that he was nothing at all like
what she imagined him to be; indeed, he perhaps would
not have been what she thought him if he could. He
was, as he knew, something a great deal more serviceable
and useful in this working day world—a man, with
a man’s wants and failings and weaknesses. And the
desire which just then was stronger in him than anything
else was, not to lecture this young woman, from the
superior standpoint of a godlike intelligence, on the
futility of her cries and tears, but to clasp her in his arms,
and tell her that it was all very dreadful—even more
dreadful than she in her innocence knew or could understand
yet, and that he only asked her to let him take the
half of all her trouble upon himself. That was his
impulse, even as he stood here. And the conflicting
agency, which beat back this desire was, the fear lest to
do what he wished now might bear the semblance of entrapping
her, of taking her unawares, and of making her
need into his opportunity. Not very godlike this, nor
very superior, but quite human.
‘All is of no use, then?’ she said at last, raising her
face, tear-stained and disfigured, from her hands, and
looking at him. Then, as if a sudden thought had struck
her, she rose and came hastily near to where he stood.
‘How stupid of me to sit crying there, and thinking
of nothing but myself, while you think of every one
except yourself. You wish me to go to her, do you not?
And I will go. I will be ready directly, if you will wait.
I never thought of it. If he deserts her, I will not. If
I can do nothing else, I can sit by her, and people can
hear that I am there. That is always something.’
She made a step as if to go to the door. Michael
caught her hand to detain her.
443‘No, no! I was thinking nothing of the kind,’ said
he. ‘You must not go. Do you know—but of course
you don’t—that she is perfectly insane at this present
moment? She would not know you. She does not
know me; and she would shriek with horror if any one
showed her her child. She is in the right hands, and
you must not go near her.’
‘Mad—but she will get better?’
‘I hope so—at least, perhaps she may.’
‘But she will recover her reason?’
‘Most likely, if she lives. But it may be a long time
first.’
Stayed in her desire to go to Ada’s help, and as it
were cast back upon herself, Eleanor stood drooping for
a moment.
‘Have you had no telegram from London?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I had nearly forgotten. This is it,’ she said,
taking it from the mantelpiece. Michael read—
‘Your message received and attended to.’ It was
from Gilbert. He turned it over reflectively.
‘H’m! I wonder what that means.’
‘Can it mean that he is coming? I wish he had been
more explicit.’
‘He would not wish to excite suspicion. Bradstane
suspicion is easily aroused. If he did come, it would be
by the south mail, which is due in a quarter of an hour.
If you like, if you will allow me, I will wait with you
till he comes; or rather, till we see whether he comes.’
‘You are very good. You are sure there is nothing
more that I can do?’
‘Nothing, at present.’
‘Then shall we go to the other room, and stay with
Mrs. Parker till we know what happens?’
444‘If you like,’ said Michael, slowly; and he felt as if
some living, tangible thing were rushing on wings of
swiftness towards them, so visibly, to him, did the
moment approach when the veil between them should be
rent aside. Yet he made a step towards the door, as if
to open it for her; and she moved towards it too, and
swerved unsteadily to one side, for excitement and suspense
had told upon her and weakened her. Michael
knew that she was proud, and that her pride impelled
her to conceal what she felt as long as was practicable;
but not the slightest sign or movement that she made
could escape him. He was at her side in an instant.
‘No, stay here! Do not go into the other room,’ he
said, taking her hand. ‘I will bring Mrs. Parker to you,
if you like; but do you stay here.’
He had a firm hand, and a grasp at once strong and
gentle; and as she felt her hand in it she paused again,
steadying herself against the head of a sofa, and looking
at him, half-affrighted, half-eager, at the look she encountered.
‘It was nothing—the weakness of a moment,’ she
said. ‘I will conquer it. I must not give way now.’
‘I think you must,’ said he, as he released her hand,
and stood before her for a moment. ‘You are faint;
you are weak; you are broken. This battle is one for
which you have never been trained. Give way; it is
the best.’
‘And what is to become of me if I do?’ she asked,
blankly.
Michael opened wide his arms. She looked at him
for a little while, and then, with a low sobbing, as of one
who is weary and broken-hearted, moved towards him as
he towards her, and found her rest.
445* * * * *
They were still sitting together, when a ring sounded
through the house.
‘That is just the time for the people from the south
to come in,’ said Eleanor. And in another moment her
maid had ushered Gilbert Langstroth into the room.
Both of them noticed the expression upon Gilbert’s face
as he came in. It was one of eager expectancy. Both
saw the glance which fell from his eyes upon Eleanor.
It chilled her; it was like the looks he had bestowed
upon her when he had sent her the flowers, before he
had preached to her a sermon on the necessity of evil to
the development of good in the world. But from her,
his eyes fell upon Michael, and his face changed. He
was quite silent. She rose, looking at him tremulously.
‘You are very, very good. I did not quite know
what to expect from your message,’ said she.
‘I knew you would not. I could not explain in a
telegram. From yours, I gathered that some kind of
storm had burst, and that you were in trouble.’
‘I am in such trouble, that but for him,’ she said,
slowly, and stopped a moment, laying her hand upon
Michael’s arm, and looking very earnestly at Gilbert,
who had gone very pale. Michael had not changed.
But as Eleanor paused, Gilbert’s eager look all faded, and
he shook slightly from head to foot. The two brothers
were regarding one another; for the first time for six
years they were actually confronted. They must, to
carry this business through, have some kind of intercourse
and communication.
‘But for him,’ she went on, ‘I could have done
nothing. I—a woman, could have done nothing to any
purpose.’
446She looked from one to the other of them earnestly,
imploringly, and still there was silence; till at last she
sat down at the table, rested her arms upon it, and
leaning forward said, first to one and then to the other—
‘Michael, you have spent your strength and your
time this day in helping those who have never done you
any good, in trying to save them from the effects of
their sins, at least. And you, Gilbert, have come
promptly here on no selfish errand. At my call you
have come quickly to help me, who have no claim at all
upon you. So good, and so considerate and helpful to
others, will you go on hating each other; will you not
be brothers again?’
The two men were looking into each other’s eyes, and
Michael at last knew what that strange, potent sensation
had been, which had shaken him on encountering
Gilbert’s look that night, when they had been almost
side by side at the concert-room. Not hate, not resentment,
as he had fancied; neither one nor the other; but
his old love for his brother, the ancient, inborn love,
which not all the anger, enmity, and bitterness had
succeeded in quenching. And the voice which addressed
them both, went on speaking still, earnestly, tremulously,
with passionate conviction—
‘If but one good thing came out of all this blackness,
would it not be better than nothing—nothing but sin
and sorrow? And there is so much grief and so much
wrong in the world, that if men had not forgiveness to
fight them with, I do not see how there could be any
chance for happiness at all.’
There was another little pause. At last Gilbert said,
in a low voice—
‘I never hated him——’
447Without quite knowing how, they found their hands
clasped, each in one of the other’s, and Michael said,
‘Shall it be all over, Gilbert?’
‘From the bottom of my heart.’
‘Then let us say no more about it.’
Eleanor rose.
‘I shall leave you,’ she said, gently. ‘Stay here if you
choose. I shall go to Mrs. Parker.’
Gilbert and Michael both made a movement towards
the door, but something in Gilbert’s look caused Michael
to fall back and yield place to his brother. He turned
away, went inside the room again, and looked into the
fire, feeling that he could afford to be very magnanimous.
Gilbert opened the door, and as Eleanor was passing
out, he said to her almost in a whisper—
‘Only one word. You and he—are you—has he—have
you given him any promise?’
Eleanor looked at him steadily, though without any
of the old distrust, and then answered him in the same
voice, but with a proud smile—
‘I have promised him everything. I have given my
life into his hands.’
‘I am too late?’
She hesitated, looking troubled. Gilbert smiled
slightly.
‘I should always have been too late, Eleanor?’
She looked at him appealingly, and inclined her head.
He bowed to her, and she went quickly away. Gilbert
returned to the room, and to his brother.
‘I shall never want to say anything to her again,
Michael, that you may not hear.’
Michael looked at him, but said nothing, and Gilbert
went on—
448‘Shall we have to see her again to-night—on this
matter, I mean?’
‘No. Let us go to my house, if you will come.
There is a black business to be settled, sooner or
later.’
449CHAPTER XL
‘AMIDST THE BLAZE OF NOON’
Michael took his brother home, and so true is it that
time and life can and do, if not wipe out, yet blur and
deface the recollection of the sternest and most terrible
past scenes, that Michael never once thought, as he
opened the door, and ushered Gilbert in, of how that
door had last closed upon his companion. Gilbert,
however, remembered it—remembered many other
things too, as he entered the familiar square hall, and
looked furtively round at the well-known things which
still furnished it. When they got into the library, some
recollection of it all seemed to come to Michael too.
Perhaps something in his brother’s attitude, and in the
slow, stiff way in which he moved and gazed about him,
recalled past scenes to his mind. He turned to Gilbert,
took his hand into one of his, and laid the other upon
his shoulder.
‘Gilbert, we have little time for going into old
troubles, in the midst of these new ones; but, I say, let
bygones be bygones. I am more glad than I can tell
you to see you here; and I would like you to feel it
your home again, if you can.’
Gilbert’s only present reply—though he had more to
say, at some future date—was to wring the hand that
450held his. They understood each other again, at last—or,
perhaps, for the first time; and as Michael said,
there was no time for further explanations. He rang the
bell, and ordered refreshments for his brother; and
while Gilbert ate and drank, Michael sat conning over a
railway guide, and jotting down memoranda.
‘How long can you stay, Gilbert? Over to-morrow?’
‘I could manage till the day after, if I wire to my
head man to-morrow morning.’
‘That is well. Then to-morrow, I will leave you in
charge here, and go over to Leeds, and tell Roger of
this. If I began to write it, I should make a mess of it,
I know; besides, writing is cold-blooded work, in such
a case.’
‘It was all off between them, was it not?’
‘Ay. But it never need have been, but for that
d—d scoundrel philandering round the girl, and putting
her out of conceit with Roger. It is his doing from
beginning to end, and I must say I should glory in
seeing him punished as he deserves. I think he wants
tearing to pieces. But don’t talk to me about it, or I
shall lose all my self-control, and I want it every bit.’
With which he returned to the study of Bradshaw,
trying to make out how he could soonest get himself
conveyed to Leeds, see Roger, and return to Bradstane.
And as he searched in the railway guide, to see how the
trains were connected on the different lines, there came
into his mind a keen sense of the grimness of the
contrast between his errand, and the means by which he
was going to hurry to Roger with his budget of ill-news,
and back again.
Our modern contrivances, indeed, for speedily moving
451about from place to place, and for darting news hither
and thither, have a certain appearance of haste and
want of dignity when tragedy comes in question. And
yet, it is surely a proof of the intrinsic might, of the
victorious power of great elementary human emotions,
that when they are every now and then called into play,
in this decorous age, it is they that triumph, and not the
comfortable arrangements which only take into account
ease of mind and plenty of purse. Love and hate and
despair go striding grimly or gloriously on, and live
their lives, and strike their strokes, and sway the minds
and souls of those possessed by them, and override the
obstacles in their course, as potently now as they did in
more picturesque days. Bradshaw and the penny post
come in in a parenthesis, and the system of electric
telegraphy powerfully supports them, so that we can send
the news of our own catastrophes, or of those of our
neighbours, with a speed unheard of a century ago,
though even before then there was a saying that ‘ill
news travels fast.’ Nay, these things, if rightly considered,
appear conducive to privacy rather than, as
might appear from a superficial glance, to publicity.
For any one who reads a startling announcement in
letter or newspaper, has the habit, nowadays, of calling
it a canard, and of saying that it is sure to be contradicted
to-morrow. And so it often is. But even if it be not, this
beautiful system of Bradshaw, penny post and Co., has
no sooner certified the truth of one calamity, than it is
ready and to the fore with another, and a worse than
the former one; which second tragedy an intelligently
interested public devours, even if incredulous, with
never-satiated delight; and thus the immediate actors in
the events chronicled are in reality left almost as much
452to themselves and their own devouring emotions, as they
would have been before the steam-engine was invented.
The world has heard of your domestic drama, that is
true; and its details have been printed in every daily
paper throughout the kingdom. But the day after, it is
provided with something much more remarkable than
your twopenny-halfpenny calamity, and has forgotten in
a week that it ever heard your name.
Some such train of thought was in Michael’s mind,
as he paused to consider the sequence in which he should
arrange his different tasks on the morrow. Gilbert’s
voice broke in upon his reverie. He had risen, and
stood with his back against the mantelpiece.
‘Michael, it seems that you and Miss Askam “understand
each other,” as the phrase goes.’
‘Yes, we do,’ said Michael.
‘I’ll make a clean breast of it. Last year, I came
down here with some curiosity to see this girl who had
come and planted herself down with Otho. Knowing
what he was, I was undecided whether she was very
fast, or very silly. So I came prepared for a good deal
of amusement. You need not glare at me in that way.
I would bet something you had your own private bit of
astonishment in the matter, too. Well, the very first
time I saw her, I understood one thing—that she was
neither fast nor silly, and the more I saw of her the
more lost in astonishment I was. Do you remember
that knight in “The Faery Queene”—I forget which
he was—who came across a woman of her sort, and
was struck dumb by her goodness, till
‘“He himself, long gazing thereupon,
At last fell humbly down upon his knee,
And of his wonder made religion.”
453It was something like that with me; and in a very short
time I had made up my mind that she was the woman
I would marry, if I could only get her to take me. And
I had the best hopes in the world, for Otho had begun
to conduct himself like a maniac, even then, and she
speedily found out that I was the only person who had
any control over him. Well, then came that night of
the concert; a good many things came about that night,
it seems to me. And when I saw you and her in the
same room together, and you speaking to her, and her
to you, I was certain there was something of the kind
going on. Michael, I gave her up from that moment....
And yet, when time went on—it is nearly a year
ago—and I heard of nothing between you, I began to
think that, perhaps, after all, you had decided to have
nothing to do with one who belonged to us, and I began
to have a little hope again. When I got her telegram
this morning, I felt a good deal of hope, and I frankly
confess I was not sorry to hear that she was in trouble.
I hoped that I could so serve her that I should be able
to ask for a reward; and the shape I proposed to give
it was, that we should pension off Otho with her money,—some
of it, you know,—and that she should come to
me, and never be troubled any more—if she only would.
But you had forestalled me; and since it is you, I submit;
but if it had been anybody else——’
He paused expressively. Michael was looking earnestly
at him, a crowd of new emotions in his heart.
This, then, was the secret of Gilbert’s conduct which had
so puzzled Eleanor.
‘I should have told her long ago that I loved her,’
observed Michael; ‘but there was her money, and her
connections. They were too much for me.’
454‘As far as money goes, you will be her equal,’ said
Gilbert. ‘I don’t suppose she will let Otho starve, and
I can assure you there will not be a great superfluity of
means when his affairs are wound up; and now that this
girl and this child will have to be provided for——’
‘If they live,’ put in Michael.
‘If they live—yes. Well, that will make a hole in
her income, I can assure you. While, on your part,
there is that money—Michael——’ he hesitated, stammered—‘that
money that——’
‘I know,’ said Michael, quietly. ‘What about it?’
‘Why, I have done well with it. I have always
hoped that some day you would not reject it. It is six
years ago, and I have made the most of it. It is a
good large sum now—larger than if——’
Michael gave a short laugh.
‘I can well believe that.’
‘And if I am to believe that you have forgiven,’ he
added earnestly, ‘you will not refuse any longer to take
your share—ay, and as much more as you like—so that
you can go to her and fear nothing, even if she loses
every penny she has.’
There was a pause. Michael at last said—
‘You must let me think about it. I cannot decide
such a thing all in a minute.’
Indeed, he felt that he could not. And he was beginning
to feel that six years ago he had been hard—as
hard as some pagan or puritan, whose creed relentlessly
demands an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
Quite a new feeling came over him with regard to
Gilbert, who, it seemed, had worked for him for many
years, and patiently bided till circumstances should allow
him to offer the fruits of his work. Sweeping condemnations,
455he reflected, would be comfortable, very comfortable,
to the carnal heart of offended man; but
reasonable man must confess that scarcely ever are
they just.
* * * * *
The months dragged on. Autumn fled by; winter
had passed from off the face of the earth, and disappeared
from the skies, but not from the soul and the mind of
Ada. Gradually, after a long and terrible illness, her
bodily health began to be restored. The death for
which she had prayed, and which she had wildly begged
Michael to procure for her, had stayed his hand. She
was uplifted from the bed of sickness, but arose a
changed being, altered and transformed apparently in
her very nature. A melancholy, deep, black, and profound
as the grave itself, had settled upon her—a melancholy
which nothing ever seemed to move or change.
She was not mad now, if she could still hardly be called
sane, just because of this black cloud which rolled between
her and other persons. She had no craze, and no
delusion, properly speaking; she was simply dead to
hope and joy, to every amelioration of the present, to
every hope in the future. Eleanor studied her with awe
and wonder, realising the mysterious nature of the human
creature in her. For if Ada had lost great things, if she
had fallen from a high ideal, had been dashed from a
great height of purity and loftiness of soul, and so had
felt herself irreparably stained and polluted, her present
condition of apathetic despair would have been comprehensible
to Eleanor, and she would have sympathised as
well as pitied. But the things she had lost, and the loss
of which had reduced her to what she was, were so
small; at least, they appeared so to the other. It was
456not for moral and spiritual degradation that she mourned
and refused to be comforted, but for material trouble,—vanity
crushed, great hopes of advancement and aggrandisement
shattered; her social position, such as it was,
gone for ever, and humbler women who had been clever
enough to take care of themselves, exalted above her.
When they showed her her child, who was a healthy and
beautiful boy, though not robust, she turned away in
horror, with hatred in her eyes—the nearest approach to
an active emotion which she had shown since her
calamity. It was what Michael had expected to see,
and he noted it down in his mind.
‘I wish he was dead, and me too!’ she said, looking
coldly at Michael. ‘I think you might have put us both
out of the way, Dr. Langstroth, if you had had as much
kind feeling as people talk about.’
Michael told Eleanor that the child must be removed
from Ada’s vicinity. Therefore, while the latter remained
at the farm, in Mrs. Nadin’s care, Eleanor charged herself
with the baby, and took it and its nurse into her house.
She could have devised no surer means of healing the
wounds, sweetening the bitterness, soothing the angriness
of her own thoughts. The utter helplessness of the child,
the terrible circumstances of its birth, its clouded future,
appealed irresistibly to her nature. She grew to love
the little creature with an intensity which surprised herself.
She hushed it to sleep in her arms, or interrogated
its large mournful eyes as they stared upwards, with
long, vacant gaze into her absorbed face. And in this
occupation she had time to ponder over all that had
happened, and to try to shape her course in accordance,
not with the dictates of anger and passion, however just,
but with the laws of mercy and forgiveness. The helpless
457figure in her arms, whose warm and clinging dependence
seemed to make everything more human and more
endurable, softened her, calmed her, so that sometimes
she spoke to Michael of what had happened, and of
what might happen, with an insight and a depth of
thought and feeling which surprised him, ready as he
was to credit her with all manner of goodness and
nobleness.
Her great desire, during the period in which the boy
was under her care, was to get a marriage performed between
Otho and Ada. Thorsgarth was not an entailed
property, though it had always been the practice in the
Askam family to arrange it and the succession to it as if
it had been. If Otho and Ada were married, and he
could be forced to do justice to this child, though he
could never give him the name he ought to have borne,
yet much evil would be removed, and great sorrow and
heart-burning averted.
Strange to say, the difficulties in the way of this
scheme arose, not with Otho, but with Ada. When the
latter was well enough to leave the farm, Eleanor brought
her to her own house, since Ada utterly refused to go
home, saying she would kill herself if they took her
there.
Through Gilbert, she and Michael had word that Otho
was subdued, cowed, and changed; that it had become a
sort of superstitious wish with him to have the marriage
legalised. This gave hope to Eleanor. But Ada, when
questioned, merely said, with profound melancholy, and
profound indifference, ‘What does it matter? If he
married me fifty times, he cannot give me back any
of the things that made me happy. I do not care what
any one thinks or says. Father says he will remove from
458here, and let me live with him. That will do as well as
anything.’
So firmly was she planted in this mind, that after a
time they ceased to press it upon her, trusting to time to
work a change. At the end of March she was still at the
Dower House, seeing only Eleanor, Michael, and her
father, who sometimes came to visit her. Mr. Dixon
was a broken man now. His wife’s anger took a different
shape from his; she would have had him sell his
business and retire altogether from a place where they
could never hold up their heads again. But the poor
old man was not thus to be torn away from his child, or
from the place where she was. Mrs. Dixon indignantly
refused to see the baby; but her husband frequently
stole up to the Dower House of an afternoon or evening,
creeping timidly into the room where his daughter sat,
and taking a place beside her. And here he used to
nurse his little grandchild upon his knee, trying to disguise
from Ada the delight he could not help taking in
its looks and ways, as, when he had once or twice called
her attention to them, she had looked at him and at the
child, too, in a strange way, of which Eleanor took more
notice than he did; and, warned by Michael, she was ever
on her guard. But it was not written that Ada was to
fulfil her lot in any way such as they sometimes dimly
dreaded. Her thoughts strayed within her darkened
mind, and as she saw the spring outside breaking around
her, and beheld also the looks and gestures by which
Michael and Eleanor sometimes betrayed, amidst all the
gloom, that they loved, and were happy, Ada might have
cried also—
‘Oh, dark, dark, dark, amidst the blaze of noon!’
Most likely, the intelligence of a certain order which
459her woe seemed to have developed in her, read their
fears, and smiled at them. They thought she planned
nothing for the future, any more than she revived
at any sign in the present; but in this they were
mistaken.
460CHAPTER XLI
‘LET ME ALONE’
As soon as she had been able to brace herself up to it,
about three weeks after Ada’s return, Eleanor had driven
to Balder Hall to see Magdalen, who was, of course,
acquainted with what had happened. While Miss Askam
could not restrain her sobs and tears when she came to
speak of these things, Miss Wynter maintained her usual
impassive calm. What she felt about it, none could have
told. She asked many questions which Eleanor, keenly
feeling her right to be informed in the matter, answered
freely; but she was very quiet and calm, and made
scarce any comments upon it all, and let Eleanor go
away, scarcely replying to the offers of friendship and
sympathy on the part of the latter. Eleanor had mentioned
Miss Strangforth, to which Magdalen replied very
quietly—
‘Miss Strangforth is dying. I fear there is no doubt
about that, though Michael would scarcely be likely to
mention it to you in your other troubles. It is a question
of time only, he tells me—and not a very long time.’
‘And then—you?’
‘I—oh, I shall get on somehow. I am not afraid.’
‘But promise me that if you are not decided, you
will come to me till you know something.’
461‘I will see. I appreciate your kindness, but I can promise
nothing,’ said Magdalen; but to the great surprise
of Eleanor, she stooped her proud head, and lightly
kissed her visitor’s cheek.
With this unaccustomed salute still tingling there—now
hot, now cold—Eleanor drove home, with what
cheer she might.
A short time after this, just about Christmas, Miss
Strangforth died. Her place was empty at last, and there
was to be one made for the heir to step into. Eleanor
wondered what would happen to Magdalen, and at last
received news through Michael. She was going to remain
at Balder Hall. Mr. Strangforth, the new owner,
was a middle-aged man, with an invalid wife. He was,
of course, distantly related to Magdalen herself. He had
a family of boys and girls, who wanted much looking
after, and he had asked Miss Wynter to remain, and
manage the household as she had always done. It seemed
a strange post for the haughty young woman, who had
been almost too proud to set foot outside her aunt’s park.
She had accepted Mr. Strangforth’s offer, and said she
would call to see Eleanor as soon as she had time. At
present she was so busy preparing for the new-comers
that she could not leave the house.
‘Oh,’ exclaimed Eleanor, ‘is he a nice man, Michael?
Will he be kind to her?’
‘He is a very sedate, grave kind of man—almost
austere. But he is a gentleman, and he will behave becomingly
towards her, I am certain. He quite appreciates
her devotion to his aunt, and told me he should always
provide for her in a way suitable to her condition and
his family, whatever that may mean.’
Eleanor was very thoughtful about this. She seemed
462to see Magdalen—and yet she could not believe that it
would ever be so—growing into one of those women
whose lives are all behind them; gradually becoming
old and more stately, more monumental, as the years
went by; so that at last no one would imagine, to look
at her, that she had been the centre of such passions as
she had caused, or moved in; so that no one but herself
and a few others, grown old with her, would know how
hotly her heart had beaten, at the same time that other
old hearts had throbbed, which with time had grown
chill.
And at this time, at the end of March, a change took
place in the circumstances of all, and the marriage which
Eleanor had grown so anxious for, took place—but not
until a little later, in April.
Gilbert wrote to Michael, and said that he and Otho
were coming to Thorsgarth; that Otho’s affairs were now
in such a state that something must be done about them.
He had, it would seem, run his course, and it was necessary
to see what could be retrieved in his estate. They
were, of course, coming very quietly, and would stay as
short a time as possible, bringing the solicitor of the
Askam family with them, as there were certain papers
at Thorsgarth which it was necessary to overhaul. He
wished Eleanor to know this, as Otho was still in his
cowed and subdued state, and ready to go through
the marriage with Ada, if she could be persuaded
to it.
Eleanor waited till she had heard that they had
actually arrived at Thorsgarth, and then shut herself up
with Ada, and combated her objections in such wise, and
placed the matter in such a light, that Ada at last
exclaimed—
463‘Very well! Give me peace! Since you say it will
do so much good, let us try it.’
The words haunted her hearer for some time, but
she felt that her purpose was genuine. Some of the reproach
would be wiped away, and the future of the child
would at any rate be rendered somewhat more hopeful.
She at once communicated with Gilbert and Mr. Johnson,
and a special license having been procured, Otho Askam
and Ada Dixon were made man and wife, in the drawing-room
of the Dower House, one showery April morning.
Eleanor noticed how, during the service there was a
violent shower of rain, which beat against the pane,
while the sunlight fell on the trees in the square outside,
and how, at the sound of the falling water, Ada lifted
her face to the window, and looked with a strange look
towards the sky.
Eleanor found her eyes dragged towards Otho, by a
power stronger than her own will. She was struck with
the change in him. He had grown old-looking: his
shoulders were bowed; his head drooped. He glanced
from one to the other of them, with a shifty, cowed expression;
and his eyes every now and then wandered
towards Ada, who was perhaps the only person in the
room who neither saw nor looked at him. When it was
over, and Gilbert, who had been at his side through it
all, took his arm to lead him away, he wiped the sweat
from his brow, and looked all about him, and at Gilbert,
and at Ada, with a white, scared face, and moved uncertainly,
as if he could not see.
When every one had gone, except Mr. Dixon, Eleanor
went to Ada, stooped over her chair, and said—
‘Now, Ada, the worst is over. You may have something
to live for yet.’
464Ada looked at her with one of those prolonged, vacant
gazes, which seemed to Eleanor to come from somewhere
far on the other side of the tomb, and shaking her head,
merely replied—
‘Let me alone now. I’ve done what you wanted. I
am satisfied. Next time, I will do what I want.’
465CHAPTER XLII
HOW ADA SOLVED HER PROBLEM
It was a week after the marriage, and during that week
much business had been accomplished, and many plans
laid. Ever since that day, a change had been perceptible
in Ada—a change which, by contrast with her late
gloom, might almost have been called brightness. She
noticed persons and things, and once or twice voluntarily
addressed herself to others.
Gilbert had been in communication with Eleanor, on
business affairs, and it was decided that Thorsgarth need
not be sold, if Eleanor chose to make an allowance to her
brother and to Ada, which she was very willing to do,
so long as Otho agreed to absent himself from her neighbourhood
and that of Ada, wherever they might be. He
was ready enough to promise this. His fear and dread
seemed to have turned into an indifference in which
considerable irritability displayed itself. But for the
strong head and hand of Gilbert keeping him in check,
it seemed as if Otho, once secure of a subsistence, would
have taken his departure from the scene, and left those
behind him to settle his affairs as they could, or would.
This, however, he was not permitted to do, but was kept
on the spot until everything was arranged, the agreements
drawn up and signed,—a ceremony which took
466place at the Dower House, in the presence of Otho,
Eleanor, Gilbert, Mr. Coningsby of Bradstane, Mr.
Palfreyman of London, and the requisite witnesses.
By the new arrangement Eleanor would be practically
left with only two or three hundred a year at her disposal,
instead of the ample income of twelve or thirteen hundred
a year which she had hitherto enjoyed. In another state
of things this might have troubled her, but now it failed
to do so in the least. Discussing the circumstance one
day with Michael, she smilingly said something about his
being tied to a pauper, to which Michael replied in a
very matter-of-course tone, that as soon as everything
was settled, and Otho gone away, and Ada retired to her
father’s house, he intended Eleanor and himself to be
married.
‘The sooner you enter upon your life of pauperism,
the better,’ he remarked.
Eleanor made no opposition; her feeling was one of
thankfulness that instead of coming in the style of the
orthodox lover, and asking her what she would like to
do, he simply told her what was going to be done. Her
trust in him was entire and without flaw or reservation,
and from this course on his part she perceived that his
trust in her was of the same nature as hers in him. She
might have echoed the words of the heroine in Wuthering
Heights,’ who cried, ‘Do I love Heathcliff? Why,
I am Heathcliff!’ So Eleanor felt with regard to
Michael. That which they had passed through together,
the fate which after so short an acquaintance,
had thrown them, across every obstacle, into the closest
intimacy, had developed perfection of sympathy, and a
oneness of heart and mind, which sometimes only comes
with years of married life, sometimes never comes at all.
467On the evening of that day when the final settlements
had taken place, Gilbert came to the Dower House, and
related how all was decided, and how, the day after to-morrow,
they were returning to town, Otho having consented
to remain a day longer, as Gilbert had business
to settle at the mills. These arrangements, and Ada’s
prospective departure, were discussed openly and purposely
in Ada’s presence on this particular evening, and
though she did not speak, she seemed to listen attentively
to what was said. By and by Gilbert went away,
saying that he would see Eleanor once again before he
left Bradstane altogether, as he had something that he
particularly wished to say to her.
During the forenoon of the following day Michael
called at the Dower House. Ada presently left him
and Eleanor alone, but in a few minutes returned,
dressed, to the surprise of both, in bonnet and shawl, as
if she intended going out. Both looked up in astonishment.
Ada’s face wore an expression of something like
hopefulness. It was still so different from her former
face, that scarcely any one would have recognised it who
had been unacquainted with the history of what had
happened during the last year. That is to say, it was
now no longer the face of a girl, but the set, formed
countenance of a woman who has suffered, and whose
sufferings have hardened, not softened her. But to-day
it wore a look of expectancy, almost of animation.
‘Dr. Langstroth,’ said she, ‘I’m going to ask a great
favour of you.’
‘Are you, Ada? I am glad to hear it.’
‘It is, that if you’ve a little time to spare, you’d walk
with me through the town. You see, you have that
character that whatever you choose to do, you may do;
468you won’t lose any reputation by being seen with me.
I—I’ve been thinking that when you and Miss Askam
are married, and I go back to father and mother, I cannot
bear the long days in the house there, as I have done
here. It would drive me mad. But if I’m left to
myself, I shall never have the courage to walk out alone.
I thought, if you’d go out with me this once, just down
the town, then perhaps I might not be afraid to find my
way back alone, over the old bridge and up here again,
if you do not mind.’
This was by far the longest speech Ada had made
since she had been under Eleanor’s roof, and Michael
watched her attentively as she spoke, and noticed that
she did not meet his eye.
‘Mind!’ he echoed, rising; ‘no, I do not mind, Ada.
I am very glad to find you disposed to make this beginning.
Let us go. Miss Askam will spare me.’
‘Surely, Michael!’ said Eleanor; but she looked at
him anxiously, for her keen sympathy told her that he
was not altogether easy about this decision of Ada’s. She
looked at him earnestly, and her fears were not lulled
when she found that he avoided looking at her, though
he waved his hand a little, and smiled, saying they
should not be long.
‘Oh, Michael, take care of yourself,’ she whispered in
his ear; to which he nodded, and followed Ada out of
the room. Eleanor watched them from the window,
and saw that they walked slowly.
Two minutes after they had gone, Gilbert came in.
‘You are alone,’ he said; ‘I am not sorry, Eleanor,
for I want to say something to you.’
‘Yes, Gilbert,’ said she, and he was surprised when
she took the hand he extended into both her own, and
469pressing it almost convulsively, said, rapidly, and with a
kind of passion in her tones—‘Another time I will see
you alone—whenever you like; and if you have any
favour to ask of me, I swear I will grant it; but oh,
Gilbert, listen to me, now. Ada has asked Michael to
take her for a walk through the town, because she dare
not go alone. I know he thinks she is going to try to
do something dreadful, because she is not sane, though
she seems so; he told me so. Perhaps to kill herself, or
him. Who can answer for the fancies of a madwoman?
I hate her sometimes.’
‘Well?’ he echoed, looking down into her upturned
face, which seemed to blaze with emotion, and feeling a
spasm contract his own heart.
‘Will you not follow them, Gilbert, dear Gilbert?
For my sake, if it is not too selfish of me to ask it. If
you will not go, I must. I cannot tell why I feel this
agony of fear, but I do, and it masters me. To please
me, Gilbert; and I will do what I can to please you,
afterwards.’
She had pressed more closely to him, her eyes strainingly
fixed upon his face, her whole frame trembling.
Her agitation communicated itself to Gilbert, like some
subtle electric thrill. Over his blue-gray eyes there was
a kind of film, and a tremor in his voice, as he said—
‘For your sake, my sister ... but ... if anything
hinders me from seeing you again to-day, Eleanor, good-bye.’
He stooped his head, and his lips rested for a second,
no more, upon her brow. And then she was alone again.
* * * * *
Michael and Ada walked slowly down the sloping
square, where they saw scarcely any one. Then, turning
470a corner, they emerged in the main street of the old
town, which also sloped steeply downhill. The sunlight
was streaming gaily upon this street; the shops were
open, and many people were moving to and fro. In
it were situated the house of Ada’s father, her former
home; the schoolroom in which the concert had taken
place, and several other public buildings—all clustering
together, in homely vicinity, as they do in towns of this
size. As they proceeded down this street they, of course,
attracted notice. It was not a usual thing to see Michael
walking in a leisurely manner down the town at that
hour of the day. And it was more than a year since his
companion had been seen in the places where her figure
had once been familiar. People looked at them—came
to their doors in curiosity, and gazed at and after them,
and Michael knew that his companion was trembling
from head to foot. Her face was deadly pale; her eyes
were fixed upon the ground. But she neither hurried,
nor faltered in her step, walking straight onwards, down
the hill, and towards the mills. When they were nearly
there, and the number of people who were about had
sensibly diminished, he spoke to her, for the first time,
quietly and tranquilly—
‘Now, Ada, shall we return? I think you have
walked far enough.’
‘Not that way,’ she replied, in a fluttering voice. ‘I
can’t face it again. We’ll cross the footbridge, and go
round the other side, where it’s quieter.’
He humoured her, and they went through the dark
passage, and emerged on the bridge.
‘Now,’ said she, ‘won’t you turn back, sir? I don’t
want to keep you, and I can go well enough by myself
this way. It is very quiet.’
471‘Yes, very quiet,’ replied he composedly. ‘I will
walk round with you. My time is quite at your
disposal.’
She hesitated for a moment, and he saw that she
looked at him in a stealthy, side-long manner, of which
he took no notice, openly. Happening to turn his head,
he saw Gilbert just behind them. He wondered how he
had got there, but felt a sense of relief in knowing that
he was present, and obeying a sign of his brother’s hand,
took no notice of him.
Midway over the bridge, Ada walked more slowly,
raised her head, and began to look about her.
‘Why,’ she observed, ‘the river is in spate; that’s
the rains up by Cauldron, I suppose?’
‘Yes,’ said Michael; and, indeed, there was a wild, if
a joyous prospect around them. April green on the
woods and grass, and April sunshine in the sky, and the
river, which was, as she said, in spate, tearing along,
many feet higher than usual, with brown, turbid waters,
looking resistless in their swiftness and their strength.
‘Well,’ she next observed, in a muffled voice, ‘it’s far
worse than I thought, and not better, as Miss Askam
said it would be. It makes me sure that I’m right.’
‘Right in what, Ada?’
‘In what I thought about facing the people again.’
‘It is the first step that costs. In time you will mind
it less. It is well that you tried it.’
‘Perhaps it is. It is well to make sure of things,’
said Ada, in a stronger voice. ‘But I’ll never do it
again. I’ll never be stared at and whispered about in
that way, any more. They would like to throw stones
at me, if they dared. If I’d been alone, I daresay they
would have done.’
472‘You wrong them——’
‘What does it matter?’ she said, coldly, as she
stooped to pick a tuft of small flowers from the grassy
bank of the river. Then she paused a moment, picking
them to pieces, and seemed absorbed in reflection
upon what she had felt in passing through the town.
Suddenly she looked up at Michael, and said—
‘There’s one thing I should like to say, Dr. Langstroth.
You are a man, whatever the rest may be; and
I always knew you were; and it was because I always
felt you were so high above me that I used to say such
ill-natured things of you to Roger. I knew that you
saw through me, if he didn’t; but you never betrayed
me. However, it will be all the same to you. I can’t
hurt you or help you, one way or another—so good-bye.’
With that she slipped past him, with a darting
movement which eluded his grasp, ran down the bank
of the river, stood for one moment poised for the spring
she took, and the next instant he saw her swept like a
reed, many yards away, down the giant current of the
stream.
‘Fool that I was!’ he muttered, turning instinctively
to rush down the stream, and if possible, go beyond her,
before he plunged in, so that he could meet and
intercept her. But Gilbert met him at the corner of
the bridge. There was a curious look in his eyes, and
his hand held back Michael by the arm, with a grip in
which the latter felt powerless.
‘Your way is over the bridge,’ he said. ‘Go and
meet us. Eleanor sent me.’
It had scarce taken two seconds to say and do; and
Gilbert had plunged into the stream also. The current
instantly washed both figures across to the other bank.
473Michael rushed across the bridge, and down the other
side, pale; a surging in his ears; his heart thumping,
so that his laboured breath could scarce come. Dimly
he saw that other forms met him at the bridge end, and
followed him; vaguely he heard a hum of voices behind
him. He pursued his way, panting, blind with fear.
Ever and anon the noise of the river seemed to swell
into a roar like thunder, which quenched all other
sounds. Here and there a growth of bushes and willows
hid the waters from him; but at last, as he stumbled
onwards, and rounded one of the curves in that much
curved stream, his straining eyes caught sight of something—human
forms, surely—arrested by a rock which
projected midway into the current.
‘He has got to shore, and brought her with him,’ a
thought seemed to say. ‘He is too exhausted to drag
himself out. I shall soon be with him now.’
But, without knowing it, he began to sob and sob
and sob as he approached; and when he drew near,
instead of going swiftly to the place, he strayed around
and about it, and could not, dared not go close.
It seemed long, very long before he could understand.
Other persons, who had seen what had happened, or
part of it, and who had seen Michael rush after the
other two, had come up, and they told him again and
again. A score of times he heard the words repeated:
‘Dead; both dead. No one could swim in such a
flood!’ And yet he did not grasp it. But at last, after
what seemed a long time, it did come home to him, and
he understood that Ada had avenged herself.
474CHAPTER XLIII
MAGDALEN. IN VALEDICTION
It was July of the same year, and the time drew
towards evening. The bright, westering sun was shining
into the library at the Red Gables. In one of the deep
window-seats, Eleanor and Michael sat side by side, and
hand in hand. It seemed as if he had just returned
from some journey, for there were signs about the room
of a traveller’s recent arrival; and she, it would appear,
had not even yet done bidding him welcome, her eyes
dwelling still, with undiminished light of affection upon
a face beloved. They had been man and wife for three
weeks, and after a short ten days of honeymoon, he had
brought her home, and left her there, while he went to
London, to attend to the innumerable affairs connected
with his brother’s business, will, and death. Ten minutes
ago he had come in, and she was asking him for his
news, which he seemed almost unwilling to enter upon.
‘There are letters for me, I perceive,’ he said at last.
‘That is from Roger. When did it come?’
‘This morning only.’
‘Let me have it.’
‘No. I have read it. It will keep, because it contains
good news. I want to know first all you have not told
me. The good news for the last.’
475‘I have told you almost everything, my child. It has
been a sad business; sad from beginning to end. I have
settled it all up—all poor Gilbert’s affairs. He was different
from me; no doubt of that. I learnt a lesson or two.’
‘In what way?’
‘Why, Eleanor, it is simply the old story, that a man
often seems much worse than he is. I never for a moment
realised that I could have been in fault. I always saw
his sin so large; it blotted out everything else. We will
talk it all over another time. There was no difficulty in
settling his affairs; disorder was abhorrent to his very
soul. When I think of that, and of his painstaking,
methodical, perfect system of doing things, and then remember
my own scatterbrained practices, and remember
how young he was, too, I feel as if now, by the light of
all these other troubles and experiences, I can understand
the temptation that beset him then, to keep things
safe—the returning prosperity which he had built up
with so much trouble—to keep me from squandering it,
as he felt sure I should. Yes; I can see it. By George!
What an opinion I must have had in those days of my
own perfection and freedom from flaw of any kind. It is
incredible.’
‘But, Michael, it was wrong of him.’
‘Yes, it was wrong of him, and as wrong of me.
Roger knew that. Roger was very unhappy because of
what I did. We were both about as wrong as we could
be, I suppose.’
Eleanor was silent. She would not gainsay him, but
she did not agree; and it was hardly to be expected that
she should at that stage of the proceedings.
‘His will, Eleanor, will surprise you. It was made
since that Christmas when you and he were together
476at Thorsgarth; when Magdalen and Otho became engaged.
And he has left his money rather curiously,—half
to Magdalen, in case she marries Otho, to be settled upon
her and her children if she should have any, as strictly
as it can possibly be done; and half to you, in case you
marry—whom, do you suppose?’
‘Not himself?’ she asked, pale and breathless.
Michael laughed.
‘No, madam, but your present husband.’
‘Michael! And what if——’
‘If neither of those marriages really took place, it all
came to me, except an annuity to Magdalen of five
hundred a year.’
‘To Magdalen!’
‘Yes. I, too, was surprised at first. And then I
seemed to comprehend that too. It was for the sake of
old times, when we were young together. He and
Magdalen in a cool, curious sort of way, always understood
one another; and when he was over here, he
several times spoke to me about her, and seemed
distressed at the idea of the great change and reverse
that had come over her. “She is not a high-minded
woman,” he said to me once, “but she has had every hope
crushed, and has lived in a kind of tomb with that old
woman all the best of her life.” So that was the way he
took, I suppose, of expressing his sympathy.’
‘It is wonderful,’ said Eleanor, in a low voice, feeling
humbled, puzzled, and ashamed. This view of Magdalen’s
life had never intruded itself into her mind. And it
was as if she heard a voice echoing in the air about her,
‘Judge not!’
‘Yes, it is wonderful, and very humbling to me. And
to you also, he left this ring.’
477He took a case from his breast-pocket, and gave it to
her. It contained a ring set with a large pearl of
unusual size and beauty, surrounded by brilliants, in a
fine and delicate small pattern.
‘He wished you to wear it always,’ said Michael in a
low voice. ‘This was in a private letter to me, half
finished, which he must have left amongst his other
papers when he came down here with Otho, just before
that wedding. He said it was more like his idea of you
than anything he had ever seen.’
Eleanor was weeping silently as Michael placed this
ring upon her hand.
‘Why did he think of me in that way?’ she whispered,
between her tears. ‘It was so wrong, so unlike the
truth. It makes me afraid. I shall always feel that I
am a renegade when I look at it.’
‘It made him a great deal happier, at any rate,’ said
Michael, gently. ‘And now, Eleanor, something else. I
saw Otho while I was in town.’
‘Yes?’ she said, in a slow, reluctant whisper.
‘Well, he is indeed a broken man. His sins have
come home to him, and Ada avenged herself fearfully;
but how, do you suppose?’
She shook her head.
‘Not by her own death; he hardly alluded to it.
That whole connection with Ada was the merest freak.
It is, as it were, by chance alone—that awful chance
which we call Destiny—that that caprice has had such
effects for us all. It is, through Gilbert’s death, and his
alone. It sounds odd to say such a thing of the regard
of one man for another, but one might almost say that
his affection for Gilbert has been the one love of his
life——’
478‘I know what you mean; and it is so, in a way.
Gilbert had more of his heart and soul than any one else—even
Magdalen.’
‘Yes, even Magdalen; for he trifled and played with
her, and in fact, mastered her even in coming round to
her wishes; but Gilbert, never. It was like the love of
a dog for its master. It has knocked him down completely;
he has no spirit left. He said there was nothing
to live for when a fellow’s friend was gone, and he gave
some dark hint as to being Gilbert’s murderer. I did
not stay long with him. I don’t know what will become
of him. It was absolutely necessary that I should see
him on business; so I saw him, and had done with
him.’
‘Did he say nothing about Ada’s little child, and its
death?’
‘Not a word; and I did not, either. It seemed to me
a desecration to mention such things to him.’
‘Yes. Let us not speak of him. We cannot do anything
for him. He would not let us; and for years to
come I do not think I could bear to look upon his face.
That is all I want to know. Let us read Roger’s letter
now. He has got a great post, and is going to take a
long holiday with us in the autumn; and then he is going
to South America to manage a business there for the
people he is now with.’
‘Ah! His career, that I have prophesied for him, is beginning
then,’ said Michael, as he read Roger’s letter with
her, seated beside her, each of them holding a leaf. And
as they sat thus, with that softened look upon their faces
which comes with thoughts of a much-loved absent one, the
door opened, and the servant announced Miss Wynter.
They both looked up in surprise as she entered. She
479walked up to the table and stood looking at them with
a keen, searching gaze, and her lips quivered a little as
she saw the attitude of entire trust, and the look of peace
and of rest upon both faces. Magdalen, like the others,
was in black; she was still clad in the deep mourning she
had been wearing for Miss Strangforth; perhaps in her
soul she was not sorry that circumstances allowed her
to wear a garb so well according with her own feelings.
But it struck Eleanor that she was equipped for a longer
journey than that from Balder Hall to the Red Gables.
Her face was very pale, but there was no abatement—there
never had been any abatement—in the pride of its
expression. Whatever Magdalen’s fate, she would always
carry it, to all outward seeming, with the stateliness of
a queen who wears her crown.
‘You were so absorbed, you scarcely heard my name,’
she said, in her clear, rather sarcastic tones, and with a
slight cool smile. ‘I am glad to find you in. I heard
that Michael was coming home to-day, and I did not wish
to go away without saying good-bye.’
‘You are going away?’ said Eleanor. ‘Are you going
for long?’
‘Most likely I shall never see you again,’ Magdalen
pursued. ‘It is not probable that our paths will ever
cross. Indeed, I shall make it my object to prevent them
from doing so.’
‘Magdalen——’
But Michael, a little better acquainted with human
nature, and especially with Magdalen’s nature, than was
his wife, had already guessed, and his eyes were fixed upon
Miss Wynter’s face, scrutinisingly, but with little surprise.
‘I am going to London,’ said Magdalen. ‘I intend
travelling there by the south mail this evening. I have
480sent my things on, and called to see you on my way to
the station.’
‘To London——’ began Eleanor.
Magdalen’s eyebrows contracted. She gave a short,
impatient laugh.
‘How long you are in comprehending! I see Michael
understood at once. Ah, Michael, if you had understood
me as well seven years ago!... Well, Eleanor, I am
going to Otho.’
‘To Otho!’
‘Yes, to Otho. When I promised to marry him, I
swore that when the time came, I would follow him faithfully,
no matter how or where. He said we should both
know when it had come. It has come now. Since he
saw you in town, Michael, I have heard from him. He
has taken some rooms for me, and I shall go and stay
there; and as soon as I have been there long enough, we
shall be married.’
Eleanor was silent at first. Then she began tremulously—
‘Have you thought seriously about it? After what
has happened, he can have no claim upon you; and you
surely do not dare to go to him.’
‘Dare—I dare, most certainly, go to him, and stay
with him. I am not afraid of him. I never was. If
some other people had been as little afraid of him as I was,
perhaps he might not have made such a hideous bungle
as he has done, of his life. But if I were afraid of him, I
should go to him all the more, after what I swore to
him, lest he should do me some hurt if I disobeyed him.’
‘But, Magdalen——’
‘But, Eleanor!’ said the other, in a deep, stern voice.
‘Let me explain myself, and then, if you fail to understand,
481it will not be my fault. I am going to him now,
first because of my promise, which meant, that when there
should be nothing to prevent me from marrying him, I
would be his wife. And what is there to prevent me
now?’
‘There is himself!’ cried Eleanor, passionately. ‘Michael,
tell her—explain to her that she must not tie——’
‘Wait! She has not finished yet,’ said Michael.
‘No, I have not,’ Magdalen assented. ‘First, because
of my promise to him. You think that because himself,
as you call it, frightened and repelled you, it must, of
course, be the same with every one else. Well, while I
am about it, I will tell you the whole truth. He has not
a friend in the world, I suppose, now that Gilbert is gone,
except me. I am in the same case. While my poor old
aunt still lived, there was always some one who believed
in me, and thought I was an angel. There is no one now.
Himself—such as he is—loves me, with such love as he
has to give; clings to me, and wants me. And I—such
as I am—infinitely beneath you, I confess’ (with a mocking
smile and bow), ‘love him, with what heart has not
been crushed out of me. Yes, and such as he is,’ she
added, raising herself before them, and looking at them
with a kind of defiance on her scornful face—‘such as he
is, I think it worth while to go to him, and try to save
him from destruction. Perhaps I shall not succeed.
That doesn’t matter. I want something to do, and there
it is, ready to my hand.... And also, I shall then have
kept a promise to one man, at any rate.’
Eleanor stared at her, half-fascinated, half-repelled.
‘One word to you, Michael,’ added Magdalen. ‘You
look happy now, as I have never seen you look before;
and I firmly believe you will be happy. You must have
482forgiven me long ago for not having married you; and
now I should think you join thankfulness to forgiveness.
But I wish to tell you that I know I behaved vilely to
you—not in breaking off our engagement, but in ever
making it; and you treated me better than most men
would treat a woman who has cheated them, and then
made a mess of her affairs. I wronged you, and I
deserve what I have got for it. That is more than I
would own to any one else in the world. It will serve
as my wedding present to you, Eleanor; there is no
testimony to goodness so strong as that which is offered
by what is—not goodness. And now,’ she added, looking
at the clock, ‘it is time for me to go. I should
like to shake hands with you both, and wish you good-bye.’
In her attitude, as she turned towards them, there
was something imposing. There was neither softness,
nor benignity, nor true nobility—the nobility of soul,
that is—in any of her looks or gestures; but there was
a certain still, unbending pride, and a dauntless, unquailing
gaze into the iron eyes of misfortune which
thrilled them both. Eleanor took her hand between
both her own, and looked long, earnestly, speechlessly
into her face, saying at last—
‘Magdalen, why do you delight to make yourself out
a worse woman than you are? Is it nothing that you
have done, to live with Miss Strangforth as you did, and
treat her so that she thought you an angel? nothing in
what you are going to do? For it is a martyrdom to
which you doom yourself, say what you please.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ said Magdalen, with a harsh laugh,
looking with a curious expression into Eleanor’s eyes.
‘That’s why I am not a good woman, Eleanor. It is no
483martyrdom at all. I am glad, I am glad I am going—going
to get away from this hateful place, and be
married to Otho. And if I had got married to Michael,
long before he ever saw you, child, I should have been a
miserable woman, and should most likely have done
something outrageous, sooner or later. That’s where
the badness comes in. Good-bye, Michael.’
‘Let me come to the train and see you off,’ he said.
‘No, certainly not. You mean to be kind, I know;
but I am going alone. If I fancied you were looking
after me, I might look back, and not be so delighted
with my future as I ought.’
‘Then, Magdalen, give it up, and stay with——’
began Eleanor eagerly, as she stepped forward with
outstretched hands. But the other had gone swiftly out
of the room, without looking back, and had closed the
door after her.
Eleanor turned to her husband, who was looking at
her. They confronted each other for a moment or two,
till she asked—
‘Is she a heroine, or is she—Michael, what is she?’
‘She is Magdalen Wynter,’ he answered. ‘I don’t
know what she is; but there is certainly some heroine
in her.’
‘To marry Otho!’ murmured Eleanor.
‘I think she is just doing what she said herself, going
to work with the thing nearest her hand—anything to
get away from here. And it takes the shape of heroism,
because, you know, she will never let him sink; at least,
she will be always struggling to keep him straight—what
they call straight,’ said Michael, and his voice
was not quite steady. ‘Magdalen always laughed at
heroism,’ he added.
484‘God help her!’ said Eleanor, in a low voice.
* * * * *
The factories by the river have now been long disused.
Most likely Michael will some time follow the once
despised advice of honest Sir Thomas Winthrop, and
pull them down. As they stand now, silent and quiet,
footsteps echo through the passage which leads to the
bridge, and Tees goes murmuring past the spot, telling,
as it seems to our imperfect ears, the same story exactly
that it has been telling for so many hundred years.
Whether what we call inanimate nature stands blindly
by, without taking any impress from the scenes which
humanity acts in the arena she prepares for them, is one
of the mysteries which we cannot solve. To us, the
trees appear the same each year, and the voice of the
river changes only with the seasons, and with periods of
drought or flood. A shriek, once uttered, is lost, and
death is the end of all things.
Long letters come from Roger to the friends at the
Red Gables, telling of prosperity and advancement,
speaking of love unchanged to them and theirs, but
never hinting at any thoughts of returning to his native
land.
Ada’s child, which pined and died not long after she
did, is buried in her grave; and Gilbert also sleeps in
Bradstane churchyard.
As for the two who were left alone of all this
company who had been young at the same time, the
years brought changes in their life, and ofttimes in their
habitations. But since this chronicle professes only to
deal with that part of their lives which was played out
in the Borderland where they dwelt, it is not necessary
to follow those changes, but only to say that they still
485speak of Bradstane and the Red Gables as ‘home.’ For
humane and kindly hearts always find loves and interests;
hopes and occupations spring thickly around
them, on every side and in every soil; and so it was
with these two. Human interests and hopes, keen and
deep, bind them to the old spot. There are those there,
both old and young, whom they love, and who love them,
and from whose vicinity they would not, if they could,
tear themselves altogether. These things, and a certain
righteousness of thought and deed in their own lives,
have mercifully dimmed and blurred the memories of
one or two tragic years, and have restored most of its
loveliness and much of its freshness to life; have done
for their bitterer remembrances exactly what the abundant
ivy and the gracious growth of flowers and ferns
have done for the naked grimness of the castle ruins
which stand on the cliff above the river.
THE END
S. & H.
Printed byR. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.
BENTLEY’S FAVOURITE NOVELS.
Each work can be had separately, price 6s., of all Booksellers in
Town or Country.
By RHODA BROUGHTON.
Cometh up as a Flower.
Good-bye, Sweetheart!
Joan.
Nancy.
Not Wisely, but too Well.
Red as a Rose is She.
Second Thoughts.
Belinda.
Dr. Cupid.
Alas!
By Mrs. ALEXANDER.
The Wooing o’t.
Her Dearest Foe.
Look before you Leap.
The Admiral’s Ward.
The Executor.
The Freres.
Which Shall it Be?
By ANTHONY TROLLOPE.
The Three Clerks.
By MARCUS CLARKE.
For the Term of his Natural Life.
By HAWLEY SMART.
Breezie Langton.
By HECTOR MALOT.
No Relations. (With numerous illustrations.)
By ROSA N. CAREY.
Nellie’s Memories.
Barbara Heathcote’s Trial.
Not like Other Girls.
Only the Governess.
Queenie’s Whim.
Robert Ord’s Atonement.
Uncle Max.
Wee Wifie.
Wooed and Married.
Heriot’s Choice.
By W. E. NORRIS.
Thirlby Hall.
A Bachelor’s Blunder.
Major and Minor.
The Rogue.
Miss Shafto.
By Mrs. ANNIE EDWARDES.
Ought We to Visit Her?
Leah: a Woman of Fashion.
A Ball-Room Repentance.
A Girton Girl.
Pearl Powder.
By CHARLES READE.
A Perilous Secret.
By the Hon. L. WINGFIELD.
Lady Grizel.
By Mrs. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN.
A Sister’s Story (reprinting).
LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON ST.
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
BENTLEY’S FAVOURITE NOVELS.
Each work can be had separately, price 6s., of all Booksellers in
Town or Country.
By MARIE CORELLI.
A Romance of Two Worlds.
Vendetta! | Thelma.
Ardath.
By F. MONTGOMERY.
Misunderstood.
Thrown Together.
Seaforth.
By E. WERNER.
Success: and how he Won It.
Under a Charm.
Fickle Fortune.
No Surrender.
By J. SHERIDAN LE FANU.
Uncle Silas.
In a Glass Darkly.
The House by the Churchyard.
By Mrs. NOTLEY.
Olive Varcoe.
By FRANCES M. PEARD.
Near Neighbours.
ANONYMOUS.
The Last of the Cavaliers.
Sir Charles Danvers.
By Lady G. FULLERTON.
Ellen Middleton.
Ladybird.
Too Strange not to be True.
By JESSIE FOTHERGILL.
The ‘First Violin.’
Borderland.
Healey.
Kith and Kin.
Probation.
By HELEN MATHERS.
Comin’ thro’ the Rye.
Sam’s Sweetheart.
By HENRY ERROLL.
An Ugly Duckling.
By Mrs. PARR.
Adam and Eve.
Dorothy Fox.
By Baroness TAUTPHŒUS.
The Initials.
Quits!
By Mrs. RIDDELL.
George Geith of Fen Court.
Berna Boyle.
By JANE AUSTEN.
(Messrs. Bentley’s are the only
complete Editions of Miss Austen’s Works.)
Emma.
Lady Susan, and The Watsons.
Mansfield Park.
Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion.
Pride and Prejudice.
Sense and Sensibility.
LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON ST.
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
Transcriber’s Note
Certain compound words appear both with and without hyphens: dogcart,
hearthrug, bulldog, scatterbrained. Where the hyphen appears on
a line break, it is retained or removed based on other occurences of
the word.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
