MARY was carried to her own room, where she came to herself without agitation or apparent disturbance, asking only “Where am I?” when she recovered her consciousness as she looked vaguely round, and requiring to have it explained to her that she was at the Park and not at her own house, which for the moment seemed the only thing that perplexed her. Agnes, in high excitement, hoping and fearing she knew not what, but something at least which should change and reconstitute life, watched her with an anxiety scarcely more strong than the disappointment with which she became aware that nothing was going to happen. Towards night Mary informed her sister that she had been dreaming a very strange dream, something about drinking toasts, “and there was one to my dear old lord. I think it must have been Duke’s birthday party that was in my head,” she said. Agnes did not venture to inquire further, or to suggest that Duke’s party was a reality and not a dream; but trembling with anxiety, with eagerness, with deep disappointment, had to compel herself to silence and allow her sister to rest. There is a period at which we all arrive in our deepest troubles, when we shrink from effort, when even to try to set matters right becomes too much, and to remain quiet always, to ignore one’s misery, seems the best. Agnes had come to this point. Even her prayers made her heart sick. She had waited so long and nothing had come—perhaps to leave off, to try no more, to be still was after all the best.
This explains how it was that she said nothing to Lady Frogmore—not a word concerning the scene at the dinner, or the generous speech of Duke, or that improvised address of Mar. Some emotion must have come into Mary’s mind, or she would not have fainted. But what was it? And how had the sight of her boy, and the hearing of him, and all that had been said about his father, affected her spirit? She gave no clue to this mystery. She was very quiet and feeble all the evening; would not go down again, and sent a message that she would see no one that night, but hoped to be quite well and strong for to-morrow. She sent her love to Duke, but mentioned no other name. Why her love to Duke? Was it because of what he had said? Was it for that generous setting forth of the other claims? Agnes shook her head sadly as she pondered in herself this mysterious question. But Mary threw no light upon it. She was more quiet even than usual, making little remark after that strange speech about her dream; and she said not a word of the incident of the day—the one point which everybody was discussing. Was she pondering it silently, feeling more than she said? Was her mind blank altogether to any light on that question? or was the light beginning to force itself upon her, to be painful and importunate? These mysteries perplexed and troubled Agnes beyond measure; but she could not answer them. When she went downstairs into the house all full and overflowing with youthful life, the contrast with the calm to which she was accustomed, the extreme quiet—like a cloister—of the atmosphere which surrounded Mary was wonderful. They were all discussing what had happened, in every way, from every point of view. The dinner was over, the farmers driving away in their dogcarts and shandry-dans—a few gentlemen, neighbors, the vicar of the parish, Mr. Blotting, the man of business, and one or two others were waiting for the late and informal meal which was the end of the day. John Parke stood between his son and his nephew in the great drawing-room where they were all assembled, standing against the window and the clear evening sky. He had a hand on the shoulder of each, and his air was that of a man satisfied with his boys, making no difference between them, as if both were his own. Mar, the long boy, tallest of all the party, looked almost grotesque in his thinness and precocious height against the light. In the corner of the room, where her face was half visible in the twilight, not lost like the others against the background of light, Letitia was talking to the lawyer. She was talking quickly, her countenance agitated with feelings very unlike those which united her husband and the boys. “I disapprove of it altogether,” she said, “it was a great mistake. Mar never ought to have been brought forward at his age, and in his state of health. I am very angry with Duke. He knows how particular I have been to keep the boy out of everything that is agitating and exciting, and now to spring this upon us in a moment, upsetting every body. Letty, you are always in the plot with those boys. I am sure you knew.”
“I knew that Duke meant to say something about Mar, if that is what you mean, mamma.”
“And you took good care not to tell me,” said her mother. Letitia’s eyes, though they were dull by nature, gave forth a sort of green light. “A boy of his age,” she said, “to be brought forward in this way, and got up to make such a ridiculous speech and talk such childish nonsense. At all events Duke should have had more sense. Everybody knows how careful I have been about Mar, to keep him out of all excitement. He is not fit for it. If he had not been kept in cotton wool all his life I don’t believe he would have been alive now.”
“I think you are too anxious, my dear lady,” said Mr. Blotting, “it will do the boy no harm. He is not a child. He’ll have to take his part in life sooner or later. Perhaps you would find it wiser to let him accustom himself a little——”
“His part in life at sixteen!” said Letitia. “What is that? The schoolroom and his lessons——”
“I should have said a public school, if you and John had listened to me.”
“He is not fit for a public school any more than he is for the affairs of life,” cried Letitia. “Look at him! He’s like a skeleton already. That boy never could hold his own at school. Oh yes, Duke got on very well, and so did Jack and Reggie. They are not at all delicate, but Mar—so long as I have charge of him he shall be taken every care of,” Mrs. Parke said with decision. “There must be no more of this. I shall not sleep a wink all night in the fear that something may happen to him—either brain, and that’s most trying you know on one side of the house, Mr. Blotting—or heart.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Lady Frogmore now? I hear she has never gone back but maintained the improvement. I don’t think it is like a family tendency that sort of thing. Many ladies, they tell me——”
“Oh, Mr. Blotting, they tell you gentlemen a number of foolish things where women are concerned. I have had six children, and did I ever go off my head on any occasion? No. Poor Mary must have had a tendency—and when I think of that, and what a dreadful thing it would be if anything should happen to the boy under my roof.”
“You are very much afraid of anything happening to my nephew Frogmore, Letitia.”
“There it is,” said Letitia. “I knew how it would be—Frogmore!—To give him a false idea of his position when he is not old enough to understand. Yes, Agnes Hill; I am very much afraid. I know what all of you would say if anything happened to the boy while he was with me. You would put your heads together, and you would whisper how much it was to my interest. Oh, I know very well all the attacks that would be made upon us. You would not say anything clear out, but you would insinuate the most horrible things. You know very well yourself that that is what you would do.”
Miss Hill was not insensible to her own imperfections. She did not contradict Letitia. She even understood the anxiety which was not dictated by love or any concern for Mar, which was simply self-regard—a terror for blame. It was not unnatural, and she did not believe that Mrs. Parke would do anything to harm the boy. She said no more. She did not offer to take the responsibility upon herself, and how could she criticize the woman who had it laid upon her, whether she would or no?
“The boy has clearly something in him,” said Mr. Blotting; “he’s not stupid. What he said was very well said, and so evidently genuine and unprepared. It’s a pity he is not more forward in his education. I don’t blame you, Mrs. Parke, nor your husband. I understand your feeling. Still, if you could have made up your mind to the risk—— The last man, Brownlow, don’t you know, the tutor, thought——”
“The last man was an impertinent cad,” said Letitia. “Oh, yes, I pick up the boys’ words as everybody does. He was always unpleasant. His principle was to contradict me whatever was settled on. I wish you would not quote a man like that to me. We have done the best we could for the boy, John and I—— I wish his mother would take him; that would be the natural arrangement. I assure you we would jump at anything that would free us from the responsibility. Well, what is it now?”
“Mother; Mar is to sit up for supper. He couldn’t be sent upstairs at this hour, a day like this?”
“Papa says he may,” said Letty coming forward a step, dragging her father to the front with her arm through his arm.
“I don’t say anything, Letitia,” said John alarmed, “except with your approval. But I think you may relax your care a little for once, for Duke’s sake. I don’t think it will do the boy any harm.”
Letitia threw up her arms with a gesture of despair. “You must have it your own way of course,” she said. “I can’t oppose you; and if Mar is laid up to-morrow it will be his own fault, or it will be your fault, and much good that will do him. You can put him in the way of having a headache, but you can’t bear it for him; but I wash my hands of it,” Mrs. Parke said.
The supper was very gay. The few guests were all old friends. The youngest members of the family were all there, and the license of a family domestic festival prevailed. The one spectator who did not unbend was Agnes, whose heart was so full of anxieties that her countenance could not lose their trace. She sat by John’s side, however, which was the most favorable place, and listened to all the chatter of the children, who had perfect confidence in their father, and felt in spite of herself a confidence in the eventual fate of Mar which she had never felt before. John Parke was but a stupid man, and he had not been without a feeling that to sweep the little interloper out of his way, if it could be done, was desirable; but that had long died away, and John had come to regard Mar as one of his family, with a little special pity for the delicacy upon which his wife dwelt so much, acquiescing in all her measures of special care for the weakly boy with a more generous and kind motive than hers. John was heartily pleased that Mar had distinguished himself, that it was he almost more than Duke who was the hero of the day. He was pleased with his son’s generosity, and with his nephew’s affection, and with the clamor and pleasure of all the young ones ranged near him, leaving the strangers to be entertained by the mother. Tiny was at her father’s elbow, the youngest of all, the privileged member of the party, at whose sallies everybody laughed, though perhaps they were not very witty. By one of those curious confusions of nature which occur in families, Tiny, who was like her mother—not a Parke at all, as good-natured friends said—had also, in certain aspects of her lively little countenance, a resemblance to Mar, who was a Parke all over except in the point of height. And it had been very agreeable to Mar to find in the baby of his aunt’s nursery a something more feeble, more easily tired, less capable of fatigue than even he himself was considered to be; from which circumstance, and from the fact that the little one had become the playmate of the delicate boy when all the other boys had gone to school, there was a special tie between them. Mar himself was a totally different being here from the mild and sad boy whom Agnes had found alone in the schoolroom accepting his solitary fate with precocious philosophy. Very different dreams were now before his eyes. He had forgotten how likely it was that “something should happen.” The gravest impressions disappear like a passing breath from the consciousness of sixteen. Mar had made a great step in advance by his first appearance in public. He felt himself almost a man with fortune before him. He no longer looked on Reggie and Jack with the uneasy sense of superiority, yet inferiority, which is so bitter at all ages. The sense that he was more advanced than they, of a different kind of being in his boyish premature thoughtfulness, but oh so far behind the public school-boy in everything that is most prized at that age, passed from his mind in the happier consciousness of personal importance, of being in himself something that Reggie and Jack could never be. This made the boy happier with them all, with the two boys who were least his friends and did not conceal their contempt of him, as well as with the others who patronized and pitied Mar. Neither of these conditions, which were both humiliating, were visible this evening. Duke did not patronize nor Reggie contradict. They were all, to say the truth, a good deal startled, even those who had brought that happy accident about, by the unexpected response of Mar to the call of circumstances. There is no English boy or man who does not feel the advantage of being able to make a speech. And though Mar might be a milksop, unfit for football, and unable to be out in all weathers, yet it was a tremendous revolution to find that he could stand up before a crowd and not be afraid to speak. Even Duke had learned off by heart a speech which had been prepared for him beforehand, the boys knew. But Mar said it straight off out of his head.
All this change of feeling Agnes perceived with an absorbed attention which in no way changed the grimness of her aspect as she sat at table. She listened to all the young clamor about her with a yielding heart but an unyielding face. “You are not used to a noisy party, and I am afraid they worry you,” said John Parke, whose attention was suddenly called from his own placid enjoyment of his children’s gaiety which he pretended to hush by times with a raised finger and a “Don’t let your mother hear you making such a row”—to the aspect of the “old lady,” as he called her, though Agnes was younger than himself, by his side. “You see,” he added, “it makes a difference, I suppose, when they are one’s own—otherwise I object as much as you to the young ones taking the lead. It’s one of those American fashions we are all getting infested with.”
“It is an exceptional day,” said Agnes, stiffly, as if she disapproved. She was not able to change the fashion of her countenance, notwithstanding the sympathy of her heart.
“That’s it,” said John. “Your eldest boy can’t come of age but once in your life”—he laughed at this wise speech as he made it—“and then,” he added, caressing his big moustache, “the boys acquitted themselves so well. That’s what I look at. A boy mayn’t be strong, but as long as he knows how to take his part in life——”
“Papa,” said Tiny, “do you call a tenants’ dinner life?”
“It’s life in a kind of way,” said Duke, whose attention had been attracted from more mirthful matters by that sound which would catch the ear through a bombardment or a cyclone, the sound of praise.
“They have all votes for the county,” said Mar, whose ear had been drawn in the same magical way.
“That’s a very good answer, Mar,” said John. “Life’s whatever you have to do with in the condition you are in. And I can tell you that to make such a speech when you’re suddenly called upon is one of the things—— I can tell you this. It makes my heart sink down into my boots. I’d rather meet a mad dog any day——”
“It’s not so hard, Uncle John,” said Mar, unable altogether to suppress the instinctive desire of youth to instruct its elders, “when you have no time to think at all, but must just carry on.”
John shook his head. “When you have to tell them you can’t take off ten per cent. off their rent—it’s not so easy,” he said. “They don’t sing ‘He’s a jolly good fellow,’ then.”
“It wasn’t Mar that was the jolly good fellow, it was Duke,” said Tiny.
“It was both of them,” cried Jack from across the table.
“I started it myself,” cried Reggie; “I know who I meant.”
“It was Duke,” said Miss Hill, to the great astonishment of the young ones. “It is not a thing I would ever sing—but I started it too. And Duke, if I ever was unkind to you—”
“You—unkind!” cried the young man with his laughing voice, in which the tears he was ashamed of were half audible. “But look here. I thought of what you said, Aunt Agnes. Now, father, listen, that boy’s not to be Mar any longer. He’s to be Frogmore.”
“Oh, Froggy—that is what I shall call him,” said the little girl.
“What are you all saying?” cried Letty, who was making conversation for the vicar at the other end of the table, but who could bear it no longer. “Oh, what are you saying? You are keeping all the fun to yourselves, and I can’t hear a word you say.”
The boys began to sing, drowning her voice—the two schoolboys who had lost their heads altogether. Reggie “started” again, as he said, the chorus of the rest; but as Jack began a different performance altogether to the strain of ‘Froggy he would a wooing go,’ the two tunes clashed for a moment, until attracted by the superior appropriateness of the new ditty Reggie abandoned his first inspiration and chimed in, while Duke rising up cried, “We’ll drink his health again, and christen him for the family, Frogmore!”
That moment, however, an electric shock ran down the table, the song died off into silence. Letitia rose from her place pale with wrath. “How can you permit such a Babel,” she cried. “I am ashamed of you, John. If it goes on another moment I shall have to leave the room: let me hear no more of this nonsense and childish folly here.”