Cousin Mary by Mrs. Oliphant - HTML preview

 
 CHAPTER XXV.
 THE RESTORATION.

RHODA’S sitting-room was very warm and pleasant and quiet, the safest and most comfortable place—the fire lighting it up with fitful gleams, the windows still glimmering between the curtains with the dim twilight which had not turned to dark, the pictures and mirrors on the walls giving forth gleams of ruddy reflection. There were no longer flowers outside to brighten the prospect, but within groups of plants in every corner, and a tall pot of creamy, fragrant narcissus spreading its delicate spring scent through the room. The warm flicker of the firelight seemed to draw out the sweetness of the flowers, the deeper tints of colour, the reds and browns of the furniture. There could not have been a woman’s apartment more entirely breathing of women, and of comfort, and tranquillity, and peace. Hetty lay on the sofa near the fire, the ruddy glow shedding a pink colour over her still pale face. Rhoda sat at her feet, leaning against the sofa, holding up her eager little face, asking questions in her eager way about Hetty’s home, about the children, about baby, who was so funny. “Oh! I wish I could see him. Oh, I wish I could go and play with them all!” Rhoda said. Hetty, who had been removed here in her mother’s absence to join the little party once more, in the sweetness of that convalescence, which was almost more than coming back to health, lay smiling, answering the child’s questions in a little broken voice of weakness and happiness. Miss Hofland sat on a low chair by the fire, going through her usual little calculations, setting down all the comforts on one side against the very curious condition of this house on the other. All these things that had happened were very mysterious. The whispers of the maids, which could scarcely fail to reach her, were full of suggestions. It was not pleasant to live in a house where such strange things were heard and seen; but then, on the other hand, it was very comfortable. There was scarcely anything one wanted that one could not have. In some families the treatment was very different. She was putting these things meditatively against one another when the servant came in with the lamp. There was an abundant supply of light, as of everything else—no stint of anything—lamps and candles, it did not seem to matter how many were used. It was very comfortable, enough to make up for the many unpleasant circumstances which did not after all touch either her pupil or herself.

Just then the servant, going away after he had placed the lamp, uttered a cry of alarm, and seemed to fall back against the wall, letting go the handle of the door. Miss Hofland started up, feeling that if anything dreadful came in here, into this warm and pleasant place, all the comfort would not make up for such an interruption. She rose so hurriedly that her chair turned over, coming down with a muffled sound on the carpet, and turned her startled face towards the door. Mrs. Asquith had just come in, looking very pale and excited, leaning upon the arm of—no, she was not leaning, she was guiding him with her hand through his arm—a tall, slim man with a strange grey coat, too large for him, and wrapping over his shadowy thinness, a long face, with large projecting eyes, grizzled hair hanging wildly, a ragged beard, and drooping, melancholy moustache hiding the outlines of the tremulous mouth. He had a bewildered, dazed look, and turned his head slowly from side to side, as if he scarcely saw, and did not know where he was.

And before a word could be said, almost before the attention of the girls had been roused, or Miss Hofland’s cry of alarm got vent, the housekeeper rushed into the room. She swept into it like a whirlwind, and placed herself at the other side of that strange figure.

“Sir, sir!” she cried, “you must go back, you must go back—you must not be seen here!”

“John!” cried Mrs. Asquith, “don’t give way to her; this is your house, and here is your child.”

He turned his face from one side to the other, shrinking a little from the housekeeper, yet making a step back as if in obedience—appealing to Mary, yet drawing his arm away from hers in a self-contradictory movement, opening his mouth but only with a gasp, saying nothing.

Mrs. Mills put her hand upon his sleeve.

“Come back, sir,” she said; “come back, oh! come back to your own comfortable room, where things are fit and proper for you. My mistress would break her heart if she thought you were here. Oh, sir, come back! You know what my mistress would say, and that it’s all for your good. What does she think of night and day but for your good?”

He gasped again as if for breath, and then drew away, retreating a little. “Mary,” he said, “perhapth she’s right. I’ll be better in my own place.” As he stood thus irresolute, feeble, with a woman on each side of him, a picture of a bewildered soul cowed with long subjection, there came into the movement of the strange little drama another unexpected actor. Hetty had sprung up from her sofa, forgetting her weakness, putting out her hands at first as if to keep away the sight; and her movement had disturbed Rhoda, who sprang up too, and stood for a moment astonished, taking in the scene. Then with a cry the little girl flung herself forward, clutching at the grey coat, clinging to his knees. “Father!” she cried. Her little voice, shrill in its childish tones, rang through the air like the ring of a pistol shot, clearing away the mist. He gave a great, sobbing cry, shook himself clear, and stooping down, gathered the child into his arms. They all stood round, a group of hushed spectators, to watch that meeting. He seemed to grope for a chair, and sat down and folded her to him. “My little girl, my darling! my little girl, my darling! I’ve found you at latht!” Hetty tottered across the floor to her mother, and caught her arm and clung to her, hiding her head upon Mary’s shoulder. And behind them all young Darrell came in, and stood looking on like the rest.

Even the housekeeper had been paralysed by

“‘MY LITTLE GIRL, MY DARLING!’”

this touching sight; she had not been able to speak or interfere, but at the appearance of Darrell she recovered herself. “Doctor,” she said, going up to him, “you know what our orders are, you know he’ll hurt himself by this, you know it’s for his good—for his good. What were we put here for but for his good? And who is this lady that has ventured to interfere? Doctor, call Turner, call the man, and take him back. I order you,” cried the woman, “in my mistress’s name, take him back. Sir, sir, Mr. Prescott! take the child from him, take him back.”

No one paid any attention to her cries, and the woman was almost beside herself. “Miss Hofland,” she said, “it’s as much as our places are worth. You said yourself it was a comfortable house. Oh, for goodness’ sake take the child from him, take the child from him! Don’t you know he’s off his head? I’ve got my mistress’s authority. Turner—doctor—this moment, he must be taken back!”

Little Rhoda here released herself from her father’s arms. She put herself before him like a guardian spirit, not angel, for her eyes flashed fire, and her little hands clenched. “If you touch him I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” cried the little girl, setting her white teeth.

“Mrs. Mills,” said Mary, “the time for all that is over; I am here to protect my cousin. Whatever your mistress may do or say, I am his nearest relation here. We can take care of Mr. Prescott without you; he shall neither be shut up nor coerced again. Doctor, he knows us all; he only wants his child; he is as gentle as an infant. Why should he be shut up and banished from the light of day?”

“There is no reason at all,” young Darrell said. “I am ashamed of my part in it. It was I who opened the door to him to-night; I hoped that this would happen which has happened. I don’t know if you will ever believe that I acted at first in good faith. There is no reason, no reason at all, for keeping him confined now.”

John Prescott sat holding his child with one arm round her, looking out solemnly upon the group about him. There was something in the aspect of his large immovable eyes, showing that he saw imperfectly if at all, which strangely heightened the effect of the scene. He put out his other arm as if feeling for some one. “Mary, Mary! Wasn’t Mary here?”

She came up to him and took his hand. “Yes, John, I am here, I am here: nobody shall touch you. They daren’t touch you while I am here.”

It was the second time in twenty-four hours that she had brought peace and security by these words—she, a helpless woman, the poor parson’s wife, never of much account in the world—and yet they were true! But probably John Prescott did not make any question to himself how that was, or even understand clearly what she was doing for him. He grasped her hand, making no reply to what she said. “Mary,” he said slowly, “I want your advice.”

“Yes, John.”

“Mutht a man do all his wife says? She’s clever, and I’m not. I never was one of the clever fellowths. She’s gone away, and I promithed—But, Mary, I want my little girl.”

“Yes, John, and you shall have her. You shall not be parted again,” Mary cried with tears.

“I want my little girl. They say I frightened thome one that wasn’t mine; I ask her pardon, I’m sure. I never meant to frighten any one; all I want ith my little girl.”

“Father, here I am!” cried little Rhoda, one arm clasping his, one uplifted in defence.

“And, Cousin John, oh! I love you too: I wasn’t frightened,” Hetty cried.

The sound of this prodigious falsehood, told with all the conviction of the heart, brought a note of something like laughter into the room, when this scene ended, the strange little drama, which, but for Hetty’s fright and Mary’s arrival, might have been a tragedy, and ended in a very different way.

The explanation of the circumstances was not difficult to give. John Prescott had married, or rather, to use a juster phraseology, had been married to, a Californian lady with a great fortune, who had come to England to dazzle the old civilization, as so many do. But the earl, or the viscount, or the duke’s son, who are the natural prey of such conquering invaders, had not turned up, and the beautiful old house, and the armorial bearings of the Prescotts, and all that was old and traditionary about them, had been felt by Miss Rotherham to be next best. To say that her husband belonged to the old untitled aristocracy, who looked upon new lordships with contempt, was so refined and exquisite a piece of brag that the imagination of the daughter of the wilds was captivated by it. And John looked every inch an effete aristocrat, languid with over-civilization. She took him, with his old place and impoverished estate, as if he had been a choicer piece of antiquated lumber than all the rest. But when she had been married for a few years to John, that vivacious representative of the New World had found her stupid Englishman too much for her. His very goodness had driven her frantic. He had submitted to almost anything she exacted, with a dull amiability which took all her patience from her. Finally he had got blind, or almost blind, but never otherwise than patient, uncomplaining, and kind, adoring his child, who adored him, and very submissive to his wife. And she did not find her untitled aristocracy did her much good in a social point of view. The compatriots who had secured the earls and the viscounts laughed, and the Prescotts had fallen out of society too long in the days of their poverty to recover their position easily. And John was dull. Ye heavens! how dull he was—dull even to the simple people who loved him at home—how much more dull to the lively Transatlantic who had intended to build her advancement upon him, but never had loved him at all!

Mrs. Asquith found out by degrees that her cousin’s wife had tried to make him out incapable of managing his affairs, and to get him shut up, which was unkind, seeing that he was perfectly content to commit to her hands the management of these affairs, and never grumbled at her absences, or found fault with her proceedings, too happy to be left with Rhoda in the home he loved. Mrs. Prescott-Rotherham, however, had failed in this, and thereupon had organized another plan for freeing herself from circumstances which she would not tolerate. To have great wealth and belong to a new civilization in which there is little bondage of precedent, and not to have whatever you like, whatever you can pay for, is intolerable. It is always intolerable not to be able to do what one pleases, and have what one likes; but these are things which most people have to put up with. Mrs. Prescott-Rotherham did not see why she should put up with anything she disliked so much, and she went off to America to obtain a divorce. If she had told John this, the probabilities were that, unless some sudden gleam of religious objection had crossed the tranquillity of his dulled brain, he would have acquiesced, as he did everything else. But there are limits to the boldness even of a rich Californian, accustomed to see all obstacles disappear before her. And what she did was to persuade her husband that to confine himself entirely to his own rooms would be good for his eyes and for his health, and that until her return it was his policy to lead a secluded life. She pointed out to him the misery of being plagued by visitors, the trouble which even Rhoda’s governess would bring upon him, and that to seclude himself in the east wing while she was absent was the best thing he could do. Poor John did not know till she was gone that he was to be secluded from Rhoda too; but though it was very difficult to manage him when he learned this, yet he was smoothed down and coaxed into patience for the time. Needless to say that of the divorce suit going briskly on on the other side of the Atlantic nobody knew. The citation to John to appear had been conveyed to him in a newspaper, which he had solemnly opened, as was his wont, looked at with his half-blind eyes, and put away with the remark that there was nothing in it. He was indeed more than half blind, and the paper conveyed to him no information at all.

It is needless to say that Mrs. Prescott-Rotherham obtained her divorce in the American court, but that the English law, as was natural, took no notice of that decree, and altogether refused to take Rhoda from her father’s keeping. It is equally of course that from the moment when Mary led him back into his own house, there could be no question of secluding him any more. He was as sane as he had ever been, understanding everything that was kind and friendly, not wise nor yet abundant in speech, which would have been out of nature. The poor relation, who was only Mary, and the poor parson whom she had married, protected his gentle weakness, and John Prescott, with his patient yet half-tragic face, his almost sightless eyes, and his little story of undeserved wrong, wrong of which even now he was barely conscious, opining that his wife had only gone to visit her relations and meant no harm, made a great impression upon the Commissioners in Lunacy who examined him, and pronounced in his favour authoritatively, adding however a gentle recommendation that in view of his yielding character he should have some relation to stay with and to take care of him. This condition was fulfilled by the return of his sister Anna from India, widowed, shortly after, and thus everything was set right.

Hetty took no harm from that attack, which might have been shortened or even averted if any one had been as bold as her mother. Mr. Darrell was of opinion that she required very careful watching for a long time—watching which the young man was too willing to give. He remained in the position of the family doctor for some time after for this cause, in his anxiety about Hetty’s health: and as soon as her parents consider her old enough there is little doubt that he will get his reward.

John Prescott was left poor when his wife, baffled yet emancipated, took away her money, as when the negotiations were all over she was at liberty to do—but without the child, who clung to him, and would not hear a word said of her mother. He was left quite poor, poorer even than the Prescotts had been in Mary’s early days. But yet there was something in Cousin John’s power. One morning, about a year after, the post brought news of the death of the Rev. Hugh Prescott, the rector of Horton, in one of the villages of the Riviera where he had lived so long. In strict justice the appointment ought to have gone to the old clergyman who had officiated as his locum tenens for a dozen years. But when was strict justice ever regarded in this world? John would receive no council on this matter. He had been pronounced able to manage his own affairs, and in this one point at least he was determined to do so. He tried, in his blindness to write a letter to Mary with his own hands offering the Rectory to her husband. The letter was illegible, but the purpose was carried out, and thus Mary returned with all her children to the home of her youth.

“Don’t speak of it, Miss Hetty; don’t speak of it,” said the old clergyman. “If you think I know so little of the world as to believe that the claims of pure justice, as you call it, could ever stand against the claims of the Squire’s cousin—But your father is a good man, and you and your mother have been the saving of the Prescotts, and I don’t grudge it, though perhaps it is a little hard upon me.”

Everything that is good for one is a little hard perhaps for some one else—or almost everything. Mary thinks sometimes that it is a little hard upon Mrs. Rotherham, once Prescott, to be deprived of her only child; but then, when a woman cannot put up with a dull husband, which is so much less a matter than many other matrimonial burdens, what can she expect? And on the whole, no doubt everything is for the best.