CHRISTIAN HAREFIELD’S ANSWER.
THE Monday after that Sunday evening supper at the Vicarage dragged more heavily than any day Beatrix could remember since that never-to-be forgotten awful day when—a little child in a strange city—she was told of her mother’s death. To-day she felt that a blow was impending—a stroke that must shatter the rosy chain that bound her to her bright new life. The strictness of Miss Scales’ rule had been relaxed since Beatrix’s eighteenth birthday. The lady was now rather companion and duenna than governess; but Miss Scales was conscientious, and did not care to take her salary without earning it, so she had urged upon Beatrix that a young lady of eighteen was in duty bound to go on improving her mind, and Beatrix had consented to two hours’ daily reading, on a rigid system. English history one day—Roman another—Grecian another—Travels on the fourth day—Belles-lettres, represented by the dullest books in the English language, on the fifth—and French, as exemplified in an intensely proper novel, on the sixth. And all this reading was to be carefully done, with a good deal of reference to the best authorities—all obsolete, and improved upon by the newest lights to be obtained from the last discoveries published a year or two before the battle of Waterloo. That her favourite authorities could be superseded was a possibility beyond Miss Scales’ mental grasp. She had learned out of those books, and would continue to teach out of them to her dying day.
Upon this particular Monday the English historians hung somewhat heavily. Hume was dull—and Rapin furnished no improvement upon him.
‘Really, Miss Scales dear,’ said Beatrix at last, with a stifled yawn, ‘I don’t think I am appreciating Joan of Arc at all properly this morning. She was much too good a person to be yawned over like this; and if she really was burnt at Rouen, and did not get out of that cruel Beaufort’s clutches, and marry and have ever so many children afterwards——’
‘Joan of Arc—married—and the mother of a family! Beatrix, what are you dreaming of?’ cried the scandalized Miss Scales, her little gray ringlets quivering with indignation.
‘Mr. Dulcimer says she did, and that there are documents to prove it.’
‘Mr. Dulcimer is a horrid person to tell you such stories; and after this I shouldn’t be at all surprised at his going over to Rome.’
‘Would you much mind my putting up the books, Miss Scales love?’ asked Beatrix, in the coaxing way in which she was wont to address her duenna. ‘My mind isn’t equal to grasping such heroism as Joan’s to-day.’
‘You have been looking absent-minded all the morning, certainly.’
‘I do feel rather head-achy.’
‘Then you’d better take a seidlitz powder—and be sure you put in the blue paper first——’
‘No, thank you, dear, I’m really not ill. But I think a turn in the garden would do me good. I’ll read ever so much to-morrow, if you’ll let me.’
‘If I’ll let you, Beatrix! When have I ever stood between you and the improvement of your mind? But I hope you won’t get hold of Mr. Dulcimer’s crotchets. Joan of Arc not burned at Rouen, indeed! What is the world coming to? And Archbishop Whately has written a pamphlet to prove that there was no such person as Napoleon, though my father saw him—with his own eyes—on board the Bellerophon, in Plymouth roads.’
Beatrix waited for no further permission to put the dingy old books back upon their shelves, and go out bare-headed into the autumnal garden. It was a good old garden at all times—a wide stretch of lawn following the bend of the river—a broad gravelled walk with moss-grown old stone vases at intervals—and a stone bench here and there—flowers in profusion, but of the old-fashioned sort—rare shrubs and trees—plane and tulip, and Spanish chestnut that had been growing for centuries—one grand cedar stretching wide his limbs over the close-shorn sward—a stone sundial with a blatantly false inscription to the effect that it recorded only happy hours—and for prospect, the Roman one-arched bridge, with the deep narrow river flowing swiftly under it,—these in the foreground; and in the distance across the river the heterogeneous roofs, chimneys, and gables of Little Yafford, with the good old square church tower rising up in their midst, and behind this little settlement the purple moor sloping far up towards the calm grey sky.
It was a scene so familiar to Beatrix that she scarcely felt its great beauty, as she walked up and down the river terrace, thinking of Cyril and the interview that was to take place to-day. She was not hopeful as to the result of that interview. There were hard thoughts in her mind about her father.
‘He has never given me his love,’ she said to herself. ‘Will he be cruel enough to take this love from me—this love that makes life a new thing?’
While Beatrix was pacing slowly to and fro along the quiet river-side walk, Cyril was coming down the sloping road to the Roman bridge, thinking of what he had to do. It was not a pleasant mission by any means. He was going to beard the lion in his den—to offer himself as a husband for the richest heiress in the neighbourhood. He, Cyril Culverhouse, who had not a sixpence beyond his stipend, and who yet came of too good a family to be called an adventurer. He had never spoken to Mr. Harefield, and he was going to him to ask for his daughter’s hand. The position was difficult, but Cyril did not shrink from facing it.
He went under the archway into the grassy quadrangle, where the low stone mullioned windows faced him with their dull blank look, as of windows out of which no one ever looked. There was a low door in a corner, studded with iron nails—and a bell that would have been loud enough for a means of communication with a house a quarter of a mile away. This noisy bell clanged out unmercifully in the afternoon quiet.
‘He will never forgive me for ringing such a peal as that,’ thought Cyril.
The staid old butler looked at him wonderingly when he asked if Mr. Harefield was at home. Visitors were rare at the Water House.
‘He is at home,’ answered the butler, dubiously, as much as to say, ‘but he won’t see you.’
‘Will you say that I wish to see him—upon particular business?’
The butler led the way to the drawing-room, without a word. He had heard Mr. Culverhouse preach, at odd times, though himself a member of the Little Yafford Baptists, and had too much respect for his cloth to express his opinion as to the uselessness of this proceeding. He led the way to the drawing-room and left Cyril there.
It was a pretty room, despite the gloom that had fallen upon it. A long old room, with oak panelling, a richly carved cornice, and a low ceiling, a few good Italian pictures, a tall pillared marble chimney-piece, broad Tudor windows looking towards the river, deep recesses filled with books, and chairs and sofas of the Louis Seize period, covered with Gobelins tapestry.
But there was no sign of occupation—no open piano—not a book out of its place—not a newspaper or pamphlet on the tables. Everything was in perfect order, as in a house that is shown and not lived in.
This was the first time Cyril had been under the roof that sheltered Beatrix. He looked around him for some trace of her presence, but he saw no such trace. Did she inhabit this room? No, it was evidently a room in which no one lived.
He went to one of the windows and looked out. He could just see the lonely figure at the end of the river walk, bare-headed under the sunless sky—a figure full of grace and dignity, to his eye, as it moved slowly along, the face turned towards the bridge.
‘Poor child, she is watching for me, perhaps,’ he thought with tender sadness, ‘waiting and fearing.’
‘My master will be pleased to see you, sir,’ said the voice in the doorway, and Cyril turned to follow the butler.
He followed him down a corridor that went the whole length of the house. The butler opened a deep-set oak door, thick enough for a gaol, and gravely announced the visitor. It was a very solemn thing altogether, Cyril felt.
He found himself in a large low room, lined from floor to ceiling with books on carved oak shelves. A sombre brownness prevailed throughout the room. All that was not brown leather was brown oak.
Three low windows looked into a courtyard. A pile of damp logs smouldered on the wide stone hearth. Cyril had never entered a more gloomy room.
The master of the Water House stood before the hearth, ready to receive his visitor—a tall, powerfully built man, in a long cloth dressing-gown, like a monk’s habit, which made him look taller than he really was. The hard, stern face would have done for one of Cromwell’s Ironsides; the grizzled black hair worn somewhat long, the large nostrils, iron mouth and jaw, dark deep-set eyes, and heavily lined forehead were full of character; but it was character that was calculated to repel rather than to invite sympathy.
‘You have asked to see me on particular business, Mr. Culverhouse,’ said Christian Harefield, with a wave of his hand which might or might not mean an invitation to be seated. He remained standing himself. ‘If it is any question of church restoration, Mr. Dulcimer ought to know that my cheque-book is at his command. I take no personal interest in these things, but I like to do what is right.’
‘It is no question of church restoration, Mr. Harefield.’
‘Some of your poor people burned out, or washed out, or down with fever, perhaps? I hear you are very active in good works. My purse is at your disposal. Pray do not scruple to make use of it. I do so little good myself, that I am glad to practise a little vicarious benevolence.’
He seated himself at a large oak table covered with books and papers, and opened his cheque-book.
‘How much shall it be?’ he asked, in a business-like tone.
Cyril was looking at him thoughtfully. There was something noble in that iron-gray head, surely—a grand intelligence at least, if not the highest type of moral good.
‘Pardon me, Mr. Harefield,’ said the curate, ‘you are altogether mistaken in the purpose of my visit. I came to ask no favour for others. I am here as a suppliant for myself alone. I know and love your daughter, and I have her permission to tell you that she loves me, and only waits your approval to accept me as her future husband.’
Christian Harefield started to his feet, and turned upon the suppliant.
‘What, it has come already!’ he cried. ‘I knew that it was inevitable; but I did not think it would come quite so soon. My daughter is not nineteen, I believe, and she is already a prey for the first gentlemanly adventurer who crosses her path——’
‘Mr. Harefield!’
‘Mr. Culverhouse, I was married for my money. My daughter shall escape that misery if any power of mine can shield her from it. We will not bandy hard words. You profess to love her—a raw, uncultured girl whom you have known at most six months—I will give you credit for being sincere, if you like—for believing that you do love her—and I can only say that I am sorry your fancy should have taken so inopportune a direction. My daughter shall marry no man who is not so entirely her equal in wealth and position that I can feel very sure he takes her for her own sake.’
‘I expected something of this kind from you, Mr. Harefield.’
‘You can never know my justification for this line of conduct,’ replied Mr. Harefield. ‘I marked out this course for myself long ago, when my daughter was a child. I will spare her a deception that turned my life to gall. I will spare her disillusions that broke my heart. I am speaking openly to you, Mr. Culverhouse, more freely than I have spoken to any man, and I beg that all I have said may be sacred.’
‘It shall be so,’ answered Cyril. ‘You think you can protect your daughter from the possibility of a sorrow like that which has darkened your own life. But do you not think that Providence is stronger to guard and save than you can be, and that it might be wiser to let her obey the instinct of her own heart?’
‘As I did,’ cried Christian Harefield, with a laugh. ‘Sir, Providence did not guard or save me. I was a man—of mature years—and thought I knew mankind by heart. Yet I walked blindfold into the trap. Would you have me trust my daughter’s instinct at eighteen, when my own reason at thirty could so betray me? No, I shall take my own course. If I can save a silly girl from a future of ruined hopes and broken dreams, I will so save her, against her own will. I have never played the tender father, but perhaps in this my sternness may serve my daughter better than a more loving father’s softness. If Beatrix marries without my approval she will be a pauper.’
‘I would gladly so take her,’ cried Cyril.
‘And teach her to disobey her father! you, who read the commandments to her in church every other Sunday, would teach her to set one of them at nought!’
It was Cyril’s own argument. He blushed as he heard it.
‘Must you withhold your love because you withhold your money?’ he asked. ‘You say that your own marriage was unhappy because you were a rich man. Let the weight of riches be lifted from your daughter’s life. She does not value them—nor do I.’
‘What, a Culverhouse—the son of a spendthrift father—a parson, too! You can afford to despise riches?’
‘Yes, because I look round me and see how rarely money can bring happiness. Perhaps there is not much real and perfect happiness upon earth; but I am very sure that what little there is has never been bought with gold. Leave your estate away from your daughter—leave it where you please—devote it to some great work. Let me have Beatrix without a sixpence—let me be your son—and if it is possible for affection to brighten your later life you shall not find it wanting.’
‘It is not possible,’ answered Harefield, coldly. ‘I never desired affection except from one source—and it was not given me. I cannot open my heart again—its doors are sealed.’
‘Against your only child?’
‘Against all flesh and blood.’
‘Then, if you withhold your love from Beatrix, it would be only right and reasonable to withhold your fortune, and leave her free to accept the love which may in some measure atone for the loss of yours.’
‘You must have a monstrous good opinion of yourself, Mr. Culverhouse, when you set your own value above that of one of the finest estates in this part of Yorkshire.’
‘I have no exalted opinion of my own value, but I have a very low estimate of the blessings of wealth. For such a woman as Beatrix a great estate can only be a great burthen. She has been brought up in solitude, she will never be a woman of the world. She does not value money.’
‘Because she has never had to do without it, and because she has seen very little of what it can do. Launch her in the world to-morrow, and in one year she will have learned the full value of wealth. No, Mr. Culverhouse, I cannot accept your judgment in this matter. If I have withheld my affection from my daughter, so much the more reason that I should give her the estate which, as my only child, she is entitled to inherit. And it shall be my business to obtain for her such an alliance as will place her husband above the suspicion of mercenary motives.’
‘And in arriving at this decision you put your daughter’s feelings out of the question. You do not even take the trouble to make yourself acquainted with her sentiments.’
‘No. I trust to time. I regret that she should have been so soon exposed to a peril which I had not apprehended for her just yet. If I had, I should have been more on my guard. I must request you, as a man of honour, to hold no further communication—either personally or by letter—with my daughter, and I shall be under the painful necessity of forbidding any more visiting at the Vicarage.’
‘You are asking too much, Mr. Harefield. No man with common sense would submit to such an exaction as that. I will do more than most men in my position would be willing to do. Your daughter is young and impulsive, unversed in worldly knowledge. I will promise to wait for her till she is of age, and to hold no communication with her in the interval. Two years hence, if your wishes have conquered, I will submit to my fate. I will make no claim. But if she still thinks as she thinks to-day, I shall claim my right to address her on equal terms. But it is my duty to remind you that your daughter has some strength of will—that she is a creature of impulse, not easily to be dragooned into subservience to the ideas and plans of another—even though that other be her father.’
‘I shall know how to govern her impulses, sir, and to bring a stronger will than her own to bear upon her follies. I have no more to say—except that I rely upon your promise, and consider your acquaintance with my daughter at an end from this hour.’
Cyril had hardly expected anything better than this, yet the actual discomfiture was no less difficult to bear. To be told that he must see Beatrix no more, knowing as he did that the girl he loved returned his love with fullest measure, and was willing to fling every tie to the winds for his sake! And then her ties were at best so feeble. The father she was ready to defy for his sake was a father who had never loved her, who freely confessed his lack of affection for her. Not much, perhaps, to forfeit such a father’s favour for the sake of a lover who loved her with all the strength of his strong nature.
Cyril could not bring himself to say, Disobey your father, fling fortune to the winds, and be my wife. Duty forbade him, and consideration for Beatrix was on the side of duty. The day might come when she would upbraid him with the loss of her father’s cold liking, and her loss of fortune. He saw himself, far away in the future, a disappointed man—a failure—high hopes unrealized, labours unsuccessful, aspirations blighted; saw himself struggling single-handed against misfortune, and with Beatrix by his side. Might she not—if life went badly with him—repent her choice? And what was the bitterness of the present—the loss involved in doing right—compared with that sharper bitterness, that greater loss, which might follow in the future upon doing wrong?
‘My first and last visit to the Water House, I dare say,’ he thought, as he paused for a minute in the quadrangle, to look up at the ivy-clad walls, the massive stone mullions and Tudor gables. A fine old house if its associations had been bright and pleasant, but, looked at as the dungeon of unloved youth, it appeared dismal as an Egyptian tomb.
He saw an open door in the cloistered side wall—a door leading to the garden, and thought how natural it would be for him to go there in search of Beatrix—thought how happily he would have gone to seek her if Mr. Harefield’s decision had favoured their love—if he had given them ever so little encouragement, ever so small a right to look hopefully towards the future. Now all was blank—a dull, dead despair.
He went under the archway, and the outer door shut behind him with a hollow clang in the twilight.