THAT evening I had the satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) of beholding a very similar condition of things to that which had occupied my attention in my own house at Easter. All the Harleys were at Waterflag, in honor of Willie’s birthday, including the pretty little Kate, whose first party this was, and—a more perplexing addition—their mother. Mrs. Harley was exactly what she had always been, but age had made her uncertain mind more uncertain, while it increased her anxiety to have her children “provided for,” as she called it. The colder Alice was to Mr. Reredos, the more warmly and tenderly her mother conciliated and courted him. Here was a good match, which might be lost for a caprice, one might have supposed the good woman to be thinking; and it was her duty to prevent that consummation, if possible. Mrs. Harley quite gave herself up to the task of soothing down the temper which Alice had ruffled, and whispering perseverance to the discouraged suitor. She referred to him on all occasions, thrust his opinions into anything that was going forward, contrived means of bringing him into immediate contact with Alice, which last brought many a little sting and slight to the unfortunate and too well-befriended lover—on the whole, conducted herself as a nervous, anxious, well-meaning woman, to whom Providence has not given the gift of comprehending other people’s individualities, might be supposed likely to do. As Mrs. Harley sat in her great chair by the fire in the Waterflag drawing-room, and looked round her upon her children and descendants, I did not wonder that she was both proud and anxious. There was Maurice with a new world of troublous thoughts in his face. I could no more understand what was their cause than I could interfere with them. Was it that dread following out of his investigations into Truth, wherever she might lead him, which he had contemplated with tragical but complacent placidity six months since—or had other troubles, more material, overtaken the Fellow of Exeter? I was somewhat curious, but how could I hope to know? Then there was Johnnie, poor, happy, deluded boy! Miss Reredos was of the company—and while she still saw nobody else who was more likely game, she amused herself with Johnnie, and overwhelmed his simple soul with joy. His book and his love together had changed him much, poor fellow; he was sadly impatient of being spoken to as a youth, or almost as a child, in the old sympathetic, tender custom which all his family had fallen into. He was jealous of being distinguished in any way from other people, and took the indulgences long accorded to his ill-health and helplessness fiercely, as if they had been so many insults. Poor Johnnie! he thought himself quite lifted above the old warm family affection, which clung so close to the weakest of the flock, by this new imaginary love of his. I wonder what that syren of his imagination felt when she saw what she had done! I imagine nothing but amusement, and a little pleasurable thrill of vanity. Many men made love to Miss Reredos, or had done so during the past career of that experienced young lady; few perhaps had thrown themselves at her feet tout entier, like our poor cripple Johnnie. She felt the flattery, though she cared little about the victim. I believe, while she foresaw quite coolly the misery she was bringing on the boy, she yet had and would retain a certain grateful memory of him all her life.
But it appeared that she had either tired of Maurice, or recognized as impracticable her flirtation with that accomplished young gentleman. They were on somewhat spiteful terms, having a little passing encounter of pique on the one side and anger on the other, whenever they chanced to come in contact. The pique was on the lady’s side; but as for Maurice, he looked as if it would have been a decided relief to his feelings to do her some small personal injury. There was a kind of snarl in his voice when he addressed her, such as I have heard men use to a woman who had somehow injured them, and whom they supposed to have taken a mean advantage of her woman’s exemption from accountability. “If you were a man I could punish you; but you are not a man, and I have to be polite to you, you cowardly female creature,” said the tone, but not the words of Maurice’s voice; and I could discover by that tone that something new must have happened which I did not know of. All the more fervently for the coolness of his mother and sisters to her, and for the constraint and gloomy looks of Maurice, did Johnnie, poor boy, hang upon the words and watch the looks of the enchantress—he saw nobody else in the room, cared for nobody else—was entirely carried beyond all other affections, beyond gratitude, beyond every sentiment but that of the exalted boyish passion which had, to his own consciousness, changed all his life and thoughts.
And there, on the other hand, was Alice, thwarting all the wishes and inclinations of her friends. Mrs. Harley forgave Johnnie, and turned all her wrath for his foolishness upon Miss Reredos; but she did not forgive Alice for those cold and brief answers, that unapproachable aspect which daunted the Rector, comfortable and satisfactory as was his opinion of himself. I could not help looking at these young people with a passing wonder in my mind over the strange caprices and cross-purposes of their period of life. Maurice, for instance—what was it that had set Maurice all astray from his comfortable self-complacency and dilettante leisure? Somehow the pleasure-boat of his life had got among the rocks, and nothing but dissatisfaction—extreme, utter, unmitigated dissatisfaction—was left to the young man, as I could perceive, of all his accomplishments and perfections. Alice was thrusting ordinary life away from her—thrusting aside love, and independence, and “an eligible establishment,” trying to persuade herself that there were other pursuits more dignified than the common life of woman—for—a caprice, Clara said. Johnnie, poor Johnnie, was happy in the merest folly of self-deception that ever innocent boy practised. Alas! and that was but the threshold of hard, sober existence, and who could tell what bitter things were yet in store for them? How hard is life! Perhaps Bertie Nugent at that moment lay stark upon some Eastern field of battle; perhaps he was pledging his heart and life to some of those languid-lively Indian Englishwomen, ever so many thousand miles off—who can tell? And why, because Bertie was in danger, should Alice Harley snub that excellent young Rector, and turn from his attentions with such an air of impatience, almost of disgust? Nobody could answer me these simple questions. Indeed, to tell the truth, I did not ask anybody, but quietly pursued the elucidation of them for myself.
And of course our conversation during the course of the evening ran upon matters connected with India and the last news. Derwent and Mr. Sedgwick held grave consultations on the political aspect of the matter and the future government of India. Miss Reredos shuddered, and put on pretty looks of earnest attention; Clara told the story of the conversation in the nursery; while, in the mean time, Alice expressed her interest neither by look nor word—only betrayed it by sitting stock-still, taking no part in the conversation, and restraining more than was natural every appearance of feeling. That silence would have been enough, if there had been nothing else, to betray her to me.
But I confess I was surprised to hear the eager part which Maurice took in the conversation, and the heat and earnestness with which he spoke.
“If there is one man on earth whom I envy it is Bertie Nugent,” said Maurice, when Clara had ended her nursery story. “I remember him well enough, and I know the interest Mrs. Crofton takes in him. You need not make faces at me, Clara—I don’t think he’s very brilliant, and neither, I daresay, does Mrs. Crofton; but he’s in his proper place.”
“Maurice, my dear, the place Providence appoints to us is always our proper place,” said Mrs. Harley, with the true professional spirit of a clergyman’s wife.
“Oh! just so, mother,” said the Fellow of Exeter, with a momentary return of his old, superb, superior smile, “only, you know, one differs in opinion with Providence now and then. Bertie Nugent, however, has no doubt about it, I am certain. I envy him,” added the young man, with a certain glance at me, as if he expected me to appreciate the change in his sentiments, and to feel rather complimented that my poor Bertie was promoted to the envy of so exalted a personage.
“I thought Mr. Maurice Harley despised soldiers,” said Miss Reredos, dropping her words slowly out of her mouth, as if with a pleasant consciousness that they contained a sting.
“On the contrary, I think soldiering the only natural profession to which we are born,” said Maurice, starting with an angry flush, and all but rudeness of tone.
“Don’t say so, please, before the children,” cried Clara. “War’s disgusting. For one thing, nobody can talk of anything else when it’s going on. And then only think what shoals of poor men it carries away, never to bring them back again. Ah, poor Bertie!” cried Clara, with a little feeling, “I wish the war were over, and he was safe home.”
“I am not sure that war is not the most wholesome of standing institutions,” said Maurice, philosophically. “Your shoals of poor men who go away, and never return, don’t matter much to general humanity. There were more went off in the Irish exodus than we shall lose in India. We can afford to lose a little blood.”
“Oh, yes, and sometimes it takes troublesome people out of the way,” said the Rector’s sister—“one should not forget that.”
“Extremely true, and very philosophical, for a woman,” said Maurice, with a savage look. “It drains the surplus population off, and makes room for those who remain.”
Clara and her mother, both of them, rushed into the conversation with the same breath as women rush to separate combatants. I should have been very much surprised had I been more deeply interested. But at present I was occupied with that imperturbable, uninterfering quietness with which Alice sat at the table, saying nothing;—how elaborately unconscious and unconcerned she looked!—that was much more important to me than any squabble between Maurice and the Rector’s sister—or than the Rector himself, or any one of the many and various individual concerns which, like the different threads of a web, were woven into the quiet household circle—giving a deep dramatic interest to the well-bred, unpicturesque pose of the little company in that quiet English room.