“IT is pouring rain,” said Mrs Underwood, “and he will get his death of cold. Oh, how can boys be so incautious; and just when he has heard what comes of it! Poor Leonard! I have not had time to think of him yet, with all you have been saying; but when one thinks how well one knew him once, and that he was our own flesh and blood! And Geoff doing the same thing, the very same thing, in spite of such a warning!”
“You are insufferable,” cried Miss Anna; “hold your tongue, for Heaven’s sake. Do you think the man died, whoever he was, only to give a warning to your son?”
“I think nothing of the kind, Anna. Poor Leonard, there never could be anybody more sorry: and his poor wife, I am sure my heart bleeds for her: but Geoff ought to take example by him, all the same.”
“His wife?” Miss Anna said; and she laughed; “the wife of the man who left England thirty years ago with a broken heart. It has been on my mind ever since that I might have been kinder to him. I thought at first I had killed him.” She laughed again. “I might have saved myself the trouble. He is dead now of a wet night—a great deal more deadly a thing than a love rejected; and here are you maundering about his poor wife. His poor wife! I have no doubt she’ll marry again before the year’s out. It’s the way of the world.”
“It is not the way of all the world, Anna,” said Mrs Underwood. She would not make a direct claim of superiority on account of her faithfulness, but she drew up her head a little and sighed, with a look of conscious merit; at which Miss Anna laughed the more.
“That is true,” she said, “you’ve never married, Mary, nor wished to, I believe. You are a superior creature. I ought to have made an exception for you.”
“Not so superior as you think, Anna,” said the simple woman; “there is many and many another like me, that would not, could not—oh, no, no, for nothing in the world! Yes; I thought too that he never would have got over it, he was so devoted to you; but he was young; if you will remember, he was two years younger than——”
“Have done with these absurd recollections, Mary,” said her sister angrily; “I want to hear no more of him. He’s safely out of the way now at last; and there’s his—there’s these girls to deal with. If I had only been by myself and had all my wits about me I should soon have settled these girls; but I never have it in my power to act for myself. There was Geoff standing by with those glaring eyes of his—not that I am afraid of his eyes. They don’t know a single thing, these girls. If I had taken my own way I should have asked them here, and made much of them.”
“Oh, Anna, dear! I always said you had such a good heart!”
Miss Anna paused to look at her sister with contemptuous toleration. “Was any one talking of my good heart?” she said. “But, never mind, I should have taken them in—in every sense of the word. I would have been Aunt Anna to them. I would have packed them off to their mother with my love and a little present. To have to do with fools blunts the sharpest intellect. That is what I ought to have done. And it was all they wanted. To find their English relations, to get up a little sentiment; that was all they wanted; they have money enough; and they did not know a thing, not a thing! To think I should have missed my opportunity like that! A bit of china that would have got smashed on the voyage out, and our love; they would have written us gushing letters and talked of our kindness all their lives.”
Mrs Underwood, good woman, was puzzled. She did not understand what this meant. “If they had known you, Anna, I am sure they would have—loved you,” she said, faltering a little. This was not always the result of more intimate knowledge in Miss Anna’s case, but her sister had a robust faith. Miss Anna cast a contemptuous glance upon her, but it was not worth her while to argue.
“If it had not been for your son I would have done it,” she said; “what could have been more easy? If Geoff had been out in the world, as I always said he ought to have been, in chambers of his own, not tied to our apron-strings, out of my way——”
“Anna! you never said such a thing before! You have always said you liked to have him at home.”
“I like a man in the house,” said Miss Anna; “I don’t deny it. There is an advantage in having a man in the house, if he would hold his tongue and do what he is told; but as you have never known how to hold your own tongue about anything, Geoff understands all our affairs. What is the use of talking? I could have done it, but the opportunity is over. Now there is that little spitfire with her imagination all aflame. I should not wonder if she thought there was a dukedom dormant in the family, and a romantic vast estate that we are keeping from her; and Geoff with his ridiculous ideas and all that false nonsense about honour——”
“Geoff has no ridiculous ideas,” said his mother, flushed and tearful; “there is nothing false about Geoff. He is honour itself, and sense and judgment; and he is as true as the day—and——”
“Everything that is perfect, we all know.”
“I did not say that; he has his little faults, like all of us. He is a little hasty; he is perhaps too generous; but as for interfering with any kind thing you meant to do, Anna, you are mistaken, quite mistaken, my dear. Let me go and see them to-morrow; poor things, poor things! of course one wants to be kind to them. And to think that Geoff would have had any objection! For that matter,” the mother said, faltering a little, “he has always so many invitations; people are always asking him; he might go away upon a visit while they are here.”
“That is an idea,” said Miss Anna; “but no, things have gone too far now; besides,” she said with conscious malice, “that would balk me in one of my plans. If the worst comes to the worst we might marry him—to the youngest of them.”
Mrs Underwood sat bolt upright in her chair; the colour went out of her comely cheeks; her very voice failed her. “Ma—arry him!” she said with a gasp.
“They are both pretty,” said Miss Anna; “and especially the little one—the younger one. I saw him cast many a glance at her. Oh, I notice that sort of thing always. Though I never married like you, I was not without my experiences. And I think I know. It would not have wanted much on his side; and that would have saved your share of the money, which would always be something if the worst came to the worst.”
Geoff’s mother had become incapable of speech as this dreadful prospect was placed before her. She made a little movement with her hand, as if to clear it away.
“Geoff is thinking of nothing of the kind, Anna. Geoff—has his heart entirely in his home. He is just as simple-minded and as—pure-hearted as when he was a boy.”
“Dear me!” said Miss Anna, “I thought it was the height of purity and simplicity to marry early; I have always been told so. Some French young men, who you know are the types of everything that is improper, can’t be got to marry. But Geoff, being the best of good boys, of course will want to marry as soon as possible; and here is a capital chance for him. That was my plan, Mary—if the worst comes to the worst. If you have a better, of course I have nothing to say.”
Mrs Underwood sat all limp and downfallen, every line of her showing the droop of dismay and depression which her sister’s words, spoken in mere mischief—for the idea of Milly, though it had glanced across her mind, had gone no farther—had produced. “I——” she faltered, “Anna—I have got no plan. How should I have any plan? If they have a right to—the money, we shall have to give it up to them. And we will have to give up our pretty house, and live in—the poorest way. He says, Never mind, dear boy. He will work for us, he will never forsake us, Anna! Now you will see what my Geoff is made of. He has the best heart; but it will be a dreadful change, a dreadful change for him—he that has been used to have everything he wanted all his life.”
“And you will rather let him fall into poverty, and be compelled to work, and have us two old women hanging upon him and cramping him—than save his share of the money for him and get him a nice young wife? That’s what mothers are! I have always said, when they made such a fuss about their children, it was themselves they were thinking of. Now, what concerns me,” said Miss Anna with only the malicious gleam in her eyes to contradict her dignified assumption of superior virtue, “what concerns me is Geoff’s real advantage, not the selfish wish of keeping him for ever at my side.”
Mrs Underwood’s countenance fell more and more. She looked haggard in the sudden severity of the conflict set up within her. “I—thinking of myself?” she said, almost weeping. But the accusation was too terrible to be met with mere tears, which are fit only for lesser matters. She gazed at her sister with large round eyes full of wretchedness. No crime in the world was so dreadful to her as this of thinking of one’s self; it is the thing of all others which cuts a virtuous Englishwoman to the heart. “For Geoff’s good, you know, you know, Anna,” she cried, “I would submit to anything. I would go to the stake; I would give myself to be cut in pieces.”
“Nobody is the least likely to cut you in pieces, my dear,” said Miss Anna coolly. “The stake is not an English institution. It is easy to promise things that never will be asked from you. The question is, will you let Geoff be happy, poor boy, in his own way?”
“Happy!” the poor lady cried in a lamentable voice; but then her voice failed her, though a dozen questions rose and fluttered through her mind. Could Geoff be happy in abandoning his mother? Would he give her up for a bit of a girl who never could love him half so well? Was it possible that there was anything wanting to his happiness now, watched over and cared for as he was? She sat gazing aghast into the vacant air before her, suddenly brought face to face with a question which was far more serious even than the loss of the money. If the money was to be lost, Mrs Underwood felt in herself the power of enduring everything. To be housemaid and valet to Geoff would be, in its way, a kind of blessedness; it would knit the domestic ties closer. She would have more of her boy if they lived in a smaller space, in a poorer way; and with that happiness before her, what did she care for poverty? But her sister’s suggestion brought in an entirely different circle of ideas. She saw herself dropping apart from Geoff’s life altogether. He, happy with his young wife: she, set aside from his existence: and she looked at that visionary picture aghast. To be cut in pieces was one thing, to stand aside and let him go away from her was another. Was it all selfishness, as Anna said?
“I see I have startled you,” said Miss Anna; “but it is too late for anything now; that eldest girl is not to be taken in. She will fight it out; she will drag us through the mire. Never mind, it was Geoff’s fault, and Geoff will have to bear the brunt. But you will be able to keep him to yourself, and that will be a consolation,” she added with a sneer. “Never mind what he has to put up with as long as you can keep him to yourself: that is everything to you, I know. And there’s the dressing bell, Mary. We must have our dinner, whatever happens,” Miss Anna said.
But Mrs Underwood, poor lady, did not have much dinner that day. She came down to the meal in her pretty cap, but it was a haggard countenance that showed beneath the lace. She could not talk nor eat, but sat mute at the head of the table choked with natural tears. To Geoffrey, who had come in hungry and full of thought from his wet walk, there seemed nothing wonderful in his mother’s woebegone condition; it chimed in with the tone of his own thoughts. To some certain extent she would feel for him, she would sympathise with him, though even she could never know the whole extent of the sacrifice he would be called upon to make. The dinner was a very silent one. Miss Anna tried a few sallies of her malicious observation, but in vain. The others were too much depressed to take any notice, even to resent them. The old butler made his solemn rounds about the table with a gradual increase of curiosity at every step. Whatever was the matter? the worthy servant asked himself. He was a north-countryman, and knew a little about the family history; but an unfortunate chance had taken him out at the moment when the strange visitor arrived who had caused so much commotion in the house a fortnight since. The twilight hour, when it was too late for visitors (as he chose to think) was Simmons’ hour for taking a little walk, sometimes to the post, sometimes to the fishmonger’s, who had a way of forgetting. He had missed the young ladies too, of whom the housemaid had told such stories downstairs. But he saw there was “summat up,” and he bent the whole powers of his mind, as was to be expected, to make out what it was. When Miss Anna’s speeches met with no response she turned to Simmons, as she had a habit of doing when she was in want of amusement. “Did you hear any news when you were out for your walk?” she said. “If it were not for Simmons I should know nothing about my fellow-creatures. You never bring in a word of gossip from year’s end to year’s end, Geoff; and what is the use of a man with a club to go to every day if he never brings one any news? Simmons, you are a person with a better sense of your responsibilities. Tell me something that is going on outside. What’s the last news in Grove Road?”
“There is no news, Miss Anna, as I am aware of,” said Simmons, coughing a little behind his hand by way of prelude. “There is nothink that is of any consequence;” and then he began to tell of the gentleman at No. 5, whose conduct troubled the entire neighbourhood. Miss Anna had an eager interest in everything that was going on. She asked about the gentleman at No. 5 as if she had no greater interest in life. Her beautiful eyes sparkled and shone with eagerness. All the details about him were acceptable to her. A spectator would have vowed that she never had known a personal anxiety in her life.
Geoff sat late that night thinking over all that had happened and was going to happen. He had begun to ask himself what he could do to make a little money, and the answer had not been a satisfactory one. It is very common in novels, and even in society, to represent every young man who is without occupation as doing literary work and finding it always ready to his hand. And, naturally, Geoff thought of that among other things. But he did not know what to write about, nor to whom to take his productions if they were written. He knew what he had learned at school and at Oxford, but he did not know very much else. Classics and philosophy are very excellent things, but it is hard to make money of them immediately, save by being a professor or a schoolmaster, which were occupations Geoff did not incline to and was not fitted for. He did not understand much about politics; he was not deeply read in general literature; he had no imagination of the creative sort. In short, like a great many others, though he had all the will in the world to embrace the profession of literature, which seems such an easy one, he did not know how to do it; and to hope to support his mother and her sister upon the few briefs which he was likely to get was ridiculous. As well attempt to support them by sweeping chimneys. He reflected with a doleful smile that even that required, if not special aptitude, at least special training, of which he had none. He was thinking of this drearily enough long after the rest of the household had, as he supposed, gone to bed, and all was still.
Suddenly his door creaked a little, softly opened, and his mother stole in. She was dressed in an old-fashioned dressing-gown, of what was then called a shawl pattern, with a muslin cap on her head tied round with a broad black ribbon. She had been going to bed, but had not been able to go to bed without a little reconciliation and kind good-night to her boy. “Did we quarrel, mother? I did not know it,” he said.
“Oh, quarrel, Geoff! we never quarrelled in our lives. You have always been the best of sons, and I hope I have always appreciated you. I couldn’t go to bed, my darling boy, if there was the least little thing between me and you.”
“But there is nothing, mother,” he said, caressing the hand she had laid upon his.
“Yes, there is something; I could not rest for thinking of it. Oh, is it true, my darling, is it true that you want to be—married? If you had that in your mind I would never stand in your way, you may be sure never, whatever it might cost me. What is my happiness but in seeing yours, my boy? I would never say a word. I would give up and go away; oh, not far, to vex you, only far enough not to be spying upon you and her; to leave you free, if you are sure it is really, really for your happiness, my own boy.”
“Mother!” cried Geoff, staring at her, “I think you must have taken leave of your senses. I—marry? at such a moment as this?”
“Anna thinks it would be the only thing to do. She thinks, Geoff, she says, it is—the youngest of the two.”
Here Geoff, unable to quench entirely the traitor in him, blushed like a girl, growing red up to his hair under his mother’s jealous eyes. “This is mere folly,” he said, trying to laugh. “Why, I have only seen her twice.”
“Sometimes that is enough,” Mrs Underwood said mournfully. “Things look so different at my time of life and yours. I dare say you think it is very fine to fall in love at first sight; but oh, when you think of it—on one side those that have loved you and cherished you all your life, on the other somebody you know nothing about—that you have only seen twice!”
“My dear mother,” the young man said. He made this beginning as if he intended to follow it up with a warm disclaimer and protestation of his own superiority to any such youthful delusion. But when he had said these words he stopped short suddenly and said no more.
His mother had her eyes fixed upon him, anxiously expecting to hear something in his defence; but when he thus broke down, and it appeared that he had no plea at all, no justification to offer, her heart sank within her. She stood by him for a minute waiting, and then she put her hand tremblingly upon his shoulder. “Have you nothing to say to me, Geoff?”
“I don’t know what you would like me to say, mother,” he replied somewhat impatiently. “What you are speaking of is preposterous. What might have happened in happier circumstances I can’t tell—but that I should think of marrying anybody just now, and above all one of the people whose fortune we have taken from them——”
“Geoff! we never meant to take anybody’s money. We never dreamt that it was not our own; we don’t know even yet,” said his mother, faltering.
“No; we don’t know even yet; and perhaps I am wrong in urging you to a decision. Perhaps we ought to wait and see what evidence there is. It is a hard thing to contemplate, anyhow, mother.”
“Oh, my dear! very hard, very hard! and if it separates you from me!”
“I do not see how it can do that in any case,” he said coldly. It chilled him to think that her chief terror in the matter was lest there should be any opening of happiness to him in it. It was preposterous, as he had said; but still, was that the chief thing she feared—that he should have a life of his own, that he should be happy? It made him recoil a little from her. “Go to bed, mother; there is nothing that need disturb your rest, at least for to-night.”
She would have stayed and questioned and groped into every corner of his heart, if she could, and protested that it was for him, not herself, that she feared anything; but Geoff was not so tractable as usual to-night. He opened the door for her, and kissed her and bade her good-night with something like a dismissal. Then Mrs Underwood perceived by a logic peculiar to herself that Anna was right, and that her worst fears were true.