DERWENT had not yet returned, and I could understand perfectly why he waited, uneasy for further news, or at least for some explanation of that which we had already heard. I waited also, spending the days sadly, but giving up hope, and consequently in a state of anxiety less painful. Sometimes, indeed, Derwie thrust me back into my fever of suspense by his oft-repeated wonder that there should be no news yet of that feat of arms which had cost Bertie his life. The child could not and would not understand how the bravest may perish by some anonymous undistinguished shot, as well as the coward; nor believe that “Bertie had died for nothing,” as he said. And sometimes that name which Maurice Harley pointed out to me wavered through my memory for hours together, and upset my calm. Captain Nicolas Hughes—who was he? I wondered, musing at the window, with still that vague thrilling thought at my heart that it would not surprise me to see Bertie coming across the lawn. Was he young, perhaps, and had mother and sisters at home breaking their hearts with an anxiety kindred to our own—or, harder still, perhaps a wife trembling to believe that her children had no father? Alas! alas! who could choose to be delivered one’s-self at the cost of another’s heartbreak? God’s will be done, whatever it was! He knew, though we did not. There was nothing else to say.
A few days after I had an unexpected, and, I am grieved to say, not very welcome visit from Mrs. Harley. I had shunned seeing her hitherto, afraid alike of her condolences over a sorrow which I had not consented to, or her weak encouragements of a hope in which I durst not believe. Had it been possible to so old a friend, I would have denied myself, when I saw the same gig in which Maurice had driven Alice—a convenient rural vehicle belonging to a farmer close by her house—driving up once more to Hilfont with Mrs. Harley; but as, in spite of thirty years’ close friendship, the good woman would still have set this down as a slight to her poverty, I did not venture to refuse her admittance. She came in with her best conventional look of sympathy, shook my hand with emphasis, and gave me a slow lingering kiss; did all those things by which our friends mark their profound consciousness of our sorrow, and readiness to receive our confidence. I, for my part, was disposed to say very little on the subject. There was no more news—nothing to say. I was afraid to speculate, or to have any speculations upon this, which none of us could elucidate. It was best to leave it in silence while we waited—time enough to speak when all was secure.
Yet when I saw that Mrs. Harley’s sympathy was the merest superficial crust overlaid upon her own perennial anxieties, I am not sure that I was pleased. One feels it impossible that one’s friends can feel for one fully; yet one is disappointed, notwithstanding, when one perceives how entirely occupied they are with the closer current of their own affairs. Mrs. Harley had no sooner expressed her feeble affliction over “the sad calamity,” than she forsook that subject for a more interesting one; and it was a little grievous to be called upon to adjudicate in favor of Alice’s lover, just after I had looked with respect and sympathy on Alice’s tears.
“My dear Mrs. Crofton, I am sure I would not for the world trouble you with my affairs, when you are in such deep affliction,” said Mrs. Harley, doing of course the very thing she deprecated; “but I am in such anxiety about Alice; and really Mr. Reredos is so very urgent that I no longer know what to say to him. I ventured to give him an intimation, a few weeks ago, that Alice was rather inclining towards him, as I thought—and of course the poor young man redoubled his attentions; and now, whether it is mere perversity or dislike, or what it is, I cannot tell, but from that time Alice has treated him with such indifference, not to say disdain, that I am at my wit’s end.”
“It would have been better to have said nothing to the Rector without Alice’s consent,” said I, languidly, yet not without a certain satisfaction in piercing my visitor with this little javelin. Mrs. Harley shook her head and wiped her eyes.
“It is so easy to say so,” said the troubled mother, “so easy to think what is best when one’s own heart is not concerned; But if I was wrong I cannot help it now—Alice is so very unreasonable. She cannot endure the very sight of Mr. Reredos now—it is extremely distressing to me.”
“I am very sorry to hear it, Mrs. Harley, but you know I cannot help you,” said I.
“Oh! my dear Clare, I beg your pardon a thousand times for troubling you when you have such distressing news, but you know quite well you are all-powerful with Alice. Then another thing, Clara tells me that dear Bertie—dear fellow!—I am sure I loved him like a child of my own—had something to do with her sister’s behavior to the Rector—not that they were in love, you know, only some old childish friendship that the dear girl remembered when he was in danger. Do you think there is anything in it, Clara? Can that be the reason? but you know of course it is quite nonsense. Why, they have not met for eight years!”
“That proves it must be nonsense, to be sure,” said I; “but excuse me, Mrs. Harley, this dear boy who is gone was very dear to me—I cannot mingle his name in any talk about other people. I beg your pardon—I can’t indeed.”
“Dear, dear, it is I who should beg your pardon,” cried Mrs. Harley, in great distress; “I am sure I did not mean to be so selfish; but you used to be very fond of Alice, Clare—fonder of her than of any one else, though I say it. Long ago you would not have turned off anything that was for the poor girl’s good.”
“You know I am as fond of Alice as ever I was—what do you want me to do?” cried I.
“Oh, nothing, Clare, dear—nothing but a little good advice,” said Mrs. Harley. “If it should happen to be dear Bertie whom she has set her thoughts upon, just because he was in danger, as girls will do, and refusing other eligible offers, and throwing away quite a satisfactory match and suitable establishment, wouldn’t you speak to her, dear Clare? Her dear papa had such confidence in you that you would always be a friend to his girls—he said so many a time, long before we knew what was going to happen. You have such influence with all my children, Mrs. Crofton—almost more than their mother has. Do represent to Alice how much she’s throwing away—and especially, alas! now.”
This emphasis was rather too much for my patience.
“You forget,” I said, “that Alice is able to judge for herself—she is not a girl now”——
“She is seven and twenty, Mrs. Crofton—do you mean to reproach her with her age?” said Mrs. Harley, with an angry color rising on her face.
“Reproach her! for what?” said I, constrained to laugh in the midst of my grief. “Why will you tease Alice, and yourself, and me? She is very well—she is,” I added, with a little gulp, swallowing my better knowledge, “quite contented and happy—why will you torture her into marrying? She is quite satisfied to be as she is.”
“Ah, Clare—but I have so many children to provide for!” cried poor Mrs. Harley, with a gush of tears.
This silenced me, and I said no more. But Mrs. Harley had not exhausted her budget of complaints.
“And Maurice,” said this unfortunate mother; “after the education he has had, and all the money and pains that have been expended on him—Maurice, I do believe, Mrs. Crofton, will do something violent one of these days; he will go into business, or,” with another outburst of tears, “set himself to learn a trade.”
“Surely nothing quite so bad as that,” said I, with as much sympathy as I could summon up.
“Ah, you don’t know how he speaks—if you could only hear him; and the troubles in India and this last dreadful news have had such an effect upon Maurice,” said Mrs. Harley; “you would suppose, to hear him speak, that the poor soldiers had suffered all the more because he was doing nothing. Such nonsense! And instead of going into the Church in a proper and dignified manner, like his dear father, I see nothing better for it but that he’ll make a tradesman of himself.”
“But it would be satisfactory to see him doing something for himself—improving his own position; he can never settle and make a home for himself while he has only his Fellowship. Don’t you think Maurice is right?” said I, keeping up the conversation from mere politeness, and already sufficiently tired of the interruption it made.
“He has his mother’s house,” said Mrs. Harley, a little sharply, “and he has the position of a gentleman,” she added a moment after, in a faltering, apologetic tone. Good, troubled woman! She had come to that age of conflicting interests when the instincts of the heart do not always guide true. She wanted—very naturally—to see her daughter provided for; and so, if she could, would have persuaded Alice into an unwilling marriage. She could not bear to see her son derogating from the “position” which his father’s son ought to fill; and as he would not go into the Church, she would fain have condemned the young man to shrivel up into the dreary dignity of a College Don. Poor Mrs. Harley!—that was all that the philosophy of the affections instructed her to do.
She had scarcely left me half an hour when I was startled by the appearance of the Rector. He was grave and pale, held my hand in his tight grasp, and made his professions of sympathy all very properly and in good taste. But his looks and his tone aggravated a sick impatience of sympathy which began to grow about my heart. I began to comprehend how people in deep and real grief, might grow disgusted with the conventional looks expected from them, and learn an almost levity of manner, to forestall those vulgar, dreary sympathies; and this sympathy, too, covered something very different—something a great deal nearer to the Rector’s heart.
“It may seem to you a very indelicate question—I beg your pardon, Mrs. Crofton—I ask it with great diffidence—but I do not hesitate to confess to you that my own happiness is deeply concerned,” said Mr. Reredos, blushing painfully—and I knew at once, and recognized with a certain thrill of impatience and disgust, what he was going to ask; “Miss Harley and the late Captain Nugent were almost brought up together, I have heard; will you forgive me asking if there was any attachment—any engagement between them?”
“Colonel Nugent, please!” said I, I fear rather haughtily; “and it is surely premature to say the late, as I trust in Heaven we shall yet have better news.”
“I beg your pardon,” repeated the Rector, quickly, “I—I was not aware—but might I ask an answer to my question?”
“If there was any engagement between Alice and my dear Bertie?—none whatever!” cried I, with all my might—“nothing of the kind! Pardon me, you have not been delicate—you have not considered my feelings—if Alice has been unfavorable to you, it is for your own merits, and not on his account.”
I was half sorry when I saw the grave, grieved, ashamed expression with which this other young man turned away. He bowed and was gone almost before I knew what I had said—I fear not without an arrow of mortification and injured pride tingling through the love in his heart.