A FLINTY-HEARTED FATHER.
BEATRIX walked up and down by the river, till the gray day grew darker and duller, and the first shadows of evening began to show blue behind the gables and chimney stacks and square church tower of Little Yafford. Her heart beat faster as the time went on. Every minute might bring her a summons to the library to hear her father’s decision. Or Cyril would come into the garden to seek her, perhaps. But the light grew grayer—evening was at hand, and there was still no summons.
‘Can he have gone away without seeing me? Cruel,’ she thought.
Miss Scales came running out, with her shawl over her head, full of reproaches about the risk of evening air.
‘Do you know if papa has had any visitors, Miss Scales, sweet?’ asked Beatrix, taking her governess’s arm affectionately.
‘My dear, when does your papa ever have visitors?’
‘Then there hasn’t been any one.’
‘I have been in my own room all the afternoon!’
‘Then you couldn’t have seen any one if they had come,’ said Beatrix. ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’
‘My dear Beatrix, you have not your usual amenity of manner,’ remonstrated the governess.
‘I beg your pardon, dear, but I have such a frightful headache.’
‘If you would only try a seidlitz——’
‘No, it will be better by and by. Let us go in——’
‘You shall have a cup of tea, dear.’
They went in together, and Beatrix pleaded exemption from the formality of dinner, on account of her headache. She went to her room, and threw herself on her sofa, and took up the first book that her hand lighted on, amidst a litter of books and papers on the old-fashioned writing-table.
It was Dante. That melodious language which had been her mother’s native tongue had always been dear to Beatrix, though it was only Miss Scales’ English lips from which she had learned it. Her mother had rarely spoken Italian in her presence. She had tried her best to become an Englishwoman.
She turned over the familiar pages of the ‘Inferno’ till she came to the story of Paolo and Francesca.
‘Perhaps my mother’s history was like that,’ she said. ‘She may never have loved my father. Poor Francesca! And Dante had known her when she was a happy, innocent child. No wonder that he should write of her with infinite pity.’
Her thoughts wandered back to that dream-like time of childhood, in which her mother had been the chief figure in the picture of life. Poor mother! There was some deep sorrow—some inexpressible grief and mystery mixed up with those early years.
Miss Scales brought her some tea, and was full of affectionate fussiness.
‘Dearest, kindest Miss Scales, if you would only go and have your dinner, and leave me quite alone,’ Beatrix entreated. ‘I know that perfect quiet will cure my headache.’
‘I’ll only stop till you have finished your tea, my dear. Oh, by-the-bye, your papa did have a visitor this afternoon. Quite an event, is it not? Mr. Culverhouse called, and was in the library for the best part of an hour, Peacock tells me. I suppose it was about the schools, or the church, or something.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Beatrix.
Thank Heaven, Miss Scales did not suspect anything. Beatrix could bear anything better than people’s sympathy. There was much of her father’s reserve in her nature. She had never made a confidante of Isabella Scratchell, of whom she was so fond.
Miss Scales went away to eat her lonely dinner. That meal was served for the governess and her pupil at half-past five o’clock in the cedar parlour—a pretty old room looking into the garden. Except on Sundays, when there was a dreary make-believe family dinner, Mr. Harefield dined alone at seven o’clock in the spacious dining-room.
It would not be good for his daughter to dine so late, he said; and he could not dine earlier. On this pretext he contrived to secure to himself the solitude which his gloomy soul loved. He was a man who took no pleasure in eating or drinking. He consumed his food in an absent-minded manner, for the most part with an open book beside his plate, and could not have told any one what he had had for dinner half an hour after he had dined.
Left to herself Beatrix lay upon the sofa, broad awake, with her arms folded above her head, still as a statue—waiting for her doom. That hung in some measure upon her father’s decision of to-day. But it was a resolute young soul which stood thus face to face with destiny—a soul capable of desperate things. Every line in the girl’s face told of decision. The firm lips were closely locked, the large dark eyes looked steadfastly forward, as if looking into the future and facing its worst issues.
At eight o’clock there came a gentle tapping at the door.
‘Oh, if you please, miss,’ said the housemaid, ‘master wishes to see you in the library.’
‘It has come,’ thought Beatrix, rising from the sofa. She paused for an instant as she passed the cheval glass to survey herself from head to foot. She was dressed in dark blue cloth, plainly made, fitting her like a riding habit—a close linen collar clasped with a gold button. The tall, full figure had more of womanly pride than girlish grace.
‘Yes,’ she said to herself, ‘I am like my mother. Perhaps that is why he hates me. And yet, if he had not loved her better than anything on earth, why should he be so miserable?’
This was a problem that Beatrix had often tried to solve. The loss which had blighted her father’s life must have been the loss of one deeply loved. Yet Beatrix’s memory of her mother’s last year on earth could recall no evidence of a husband’s love.
Her father was standing with his back to the fire, when she went into the library, just in the same attitude as that in which he had awaited Cyril Culverhouse. He had changed his long gray dressing-gown for a frock coat. That was the only alteration.
There was but one lamp in the room—a large reading lamp with a crimson velvet shade which threw all the light on Mr. Harefield’s table. The rest of the room was in semi-darkness, fitfully illuminated by the wood fire.
Mr. Harefield did not waste time upon any ceremonious preamble.
‘I have had an application for your hand,’ he said, his daughter standing before him, facing him steadily.
‘Yes, papa.’
‘You know of it, I suppose?’
‘Yes, papa.’
‘And you approve of it?’
She hesitated for a moment, remembering her last conversation with Cyril.
‘I am deeply attached to Mr. Culverhouse,’ she said, her voice trembling a little at the daring confession, ‘and he is the only man I will ever marry.’
‘Indeed! That is coming to the point. How old are you, Beatrix?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘And you have made up your mind already that there is but one man upon earth you can love—that you will marry him, and no other?’
‘Yes, papa,’ she answered, looking at him with those dark intense eyes of hers—so like other eyes, long since quenched in eternal night.
‘Yes, papa, I am very sure of that. Fate may be too strong for me—I feel sometimes as if I were born for an evil destiny. I may not marry Cyril, perhaps; but I will never marry any one else.’
‘Do you know that when I am dead—if you do not offend me—you will be a very rich woman?’
‘I have never thought about it, papa.’
‘Think about it now, then. If you marry to please me you will have an estate large enough to make you an important personage in the world. If you marry Cyril Culverhouse you will not have sixpence. I will leave all I have in the world to found an asylum for——’
A coarse word was on his lips, but he checked himself and substituted a euphuism,—
‘An asylum for nameless children.’
‘Papa, I should be sorry to offend you,’ said Beatrix, with a quiet resoluteness that took him by surprise, ‘but the consideration of your wealth would not influence me in the least. I have seen that money cannot bring happiness,’ she went on, unconsciously repeating Cyril’s argument, ‘and I can let the chance of being rich slip by me without a pang. I have quite made up my mind to marry Cyril—to share his poverty, and be his patient, hard-working wife—if he will have me.’
‘You deliberately announce your intention to disobey me!’ cried Mr. Harefield, pale with indignation.
‘You have never given me love. Cyril loves me. Can you expect me to obey you at the sacrifice of that love? Do you think it is reasonable, father?’
‘Ah!’ sighed Christian Harefield, ‘it is in the blood—it is in the blood! It would not be natural for her to love me.’
He paced the room two or three times, through the sombre shadows, leaving Beatrix standing by the hearth. Then he came slowly back, and seated himself in the large arm-chair beside the fire.
He bent over the logs and stirred them into a blaze. The broad yellow light leaped up and filled the room with brightness. The grinning faces in the carved bookcases came to life, the tarnished gilding of the books seemed new again.
‘Now listen to me, Beatrix,’ he said, without looking up from the fire. ‘You complain that I have given you no love. Well, perhaps your complaint is not baseless. The fountain of my affections was poisoned at its spring—years ago. If I had loved you my love would have been baneful. Better that I should lock my heart against you, that you should grow up at my side almost as a stranger, near and yet far off. You have so grown up, and, according to my lights, I have done my duty to you as a father. Now comes the question of obedience. You repudiate my claim to that. I will put the question in another way. I appeal to your self-interest. Mr. Culverhouse loves you, you think. Very probably he does. You are young, handsome, and considering it to his advantage to fall in love with you, he may have found the task easy. But be assured that he loves the heiress better than he loves the woman—that he looks to your fortune as a stepping-stone to his advancement. He is ambitious, no doubt. All these Churchmen are. They assume the religion of humility, and yet languish for power. Every country vicar is at heart a Pope, and believes in his own infallibility. Mr. Culverhouse knows that a rich wife is the shortest cut to a deanery.’
‘Put him to the test,’ cried Beatrix. ‘Let him take me without a sixpence.’
‘Yes, he would do that, believing that time would take the edge off my anger, and that I should end by leaving you mistress of my estates. He would speculate upon the chances of the future, and then when I died and left you nothing, you would have to pay for his disappointment. A life of poverty and complaint, discontent, and upbraiding. Be reasonable, Beatrix. Let the bitter experience of my life govern yours. Great inequality of fortune between husband and wife means that one of the two is dupe or victim. Wait till a suitor approaches you who has advantages to offer equal to those you can give. You are tired of this gloomy home—you want to spread your wings and fly. Be patient for a little while. For your sake I will come out of my shell. I will take you to great cities. You shall see the world, and make your own choice, but make it wisely. This first choice of yours is only a girl’s fancy, and means nothing.’
‘It means life or death, papa,’ she answered, firmly. ‘I shall never change.’
‘And you deliberately refuse to obey me?’
‘Yes, I refuse to sacrifice my happiness at your bidding. If you had loved me it would have been different. Your love would have filled my heart. But my heart was as empty as a desert. I had nothing but the memory of my mother, and that was full of sorrow——’
‘Hush!’ said Christian Harefield. ‘Do not speak of your mother.’
‘Why should I not?’ exclaimed Beatrix, haughtily. ‘She was good, and pure, and noble. My heart tells me that. Nothing you could say against her would shake my faith in her. I love her memory better—better than anything upon this earth—except Cyril.’
She said this softly, and for the first time since she had entered her father’s presence a maidenly blush dyed her face.
‘Go,’ said Christian Harefield, ‘you and I are as likely to agree as fire and water. Go. I have no more to say to you. Take your own course.’
She went to the door without a word, but, with her hand upon the lock, paused, faltered, and came slowly back to the hearth. Unconsciously she repeated the conduct of Desdemona after her rebellious marriage. She knelt at her father’s feet, took his hand, and kissed it.
‘Forgive me for disobeying you,’ she pleaded. ‘The sacrifice you require is too great.’
He answered not a word, but when she had reached the door he said, ‘So long as you are in my house, and under age, I shall insist upon obedience. You are to go no more to the Vicarage—understand that.’
‘Very well, papa.’