Heart and Cross by Mrs. Oliphant - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXIV.

A FORTNIGHT after came my birthday, and a family festival.

Mr. Crofton was greatly given to keeping birthdays; he was not a man to be daunted by that coldest and vulgarest commonplace, which warns us with lugubrious mock solemnity that these birthdays are hastening us to the grave. The grave out of which our Lord rose was no devouring, irresponsible monster to Derwent—it was a Christian institution, blessed and hallowed by Him who triumphed over it. So he kept his birthdays with thanks and a celebration of love; and I was well content in this, as in many another kind suggestion of his genial nature, that my husband should have his way.

Bertie was to leave us shortly after, to look after the fitting up of his own house—the Estcourt jointure-house, which he was to occupy during my lifetime. It was a very sufficient, comfortable house, and he was to fit it up according to his own taste. But he was very slow to talk of his intentions. Any suggestions which I made to him on the subject he received in silence, or with a confused assent. Good Bertie!—he meant that somebody else should decide these questions for him; and somebody else was so perverse, so unaccountable, so unsatisfactory. He sighed, and held his peace.

Johnnie Harley wandered off from Waterflag that night, after his explanation with Miss Reredos. For a week the unfortunate lad was not heard of, and the family spent that interval in the wildest anxiety, making every kind of search after him, from Maurice’s hunt through London, whither they thought it likely he would go, to fruitless dragging in the pretty Est river, which mudded its pleasant pools, but fortunately had no other result. At the end of a week he came home—where he had been he never would tell. He returned ill, remorseful, and penitent, with all his little money gone, and his watch—his father’s watch—a catastrophe which quite completed Mrs. Harley’s misery. Renewed and increased ill health followed this sad escapade of poor Johnnie; but the boy was happy in his unhappiness—nothing could part from him that all-forgiving home-love which forgot every fault of the poor cripple boy.

And in that fortnight Bertie made a brief journey to London—a journey which thrilled the whole household with the highest excitement, and warmed every individual in it with a touch of the reflected glory. Bertie was decoré when he returned; but no, there is no French word in existence which deserves to be used in connection with that supremest badge of modern chivalry, which our boy, with a modest and shame-faced delight, impossible to describe in words, received from his Queen.

Bertie wore his prize with a swelling breast, but an abashed cheek; indeed, he did not wear it at all, reserving it for his private triumph, and, as I supposed, for my birthday feast. But our hero had something else in his mind.

The day came at last, and at last, most earnestly looked for, in a carriage filled with the Sedgwick children, and, I believe, all the flowers in Clara’s conservatory, and all that could be come by honestly or dishonestly within ten miles of country—Alice Harley made her appearance. To show emphatically how much I was mistaken in supposing that any reason could keep her away from Hilfont when her dear Mrs. Crofton wished her to be there, Alice with rash temerity had volunteered to take charge of the children, and come with them early and alone. In the same spirit she had actually taken a little trouble with her dress, which was new, full, soft, and delicate—if not white, as nearly so as Alice’s conscience and profound conviction of her grave years could permit it to be. She was on her defence, but not exactly defiant as yet—a little melted in spite of herself by sundry associations of the place and time—by good news from Maurice, which she whispered in my ear, news of an appointment which her brother had got after much exertion, and which would enable him to marry; and perhaps a little by the honor which she knew her “old playfellow” had come to. I saw her cast a momentary but somewhat eager look at Bertie’s breast when she saw him first, but to my disappointment, as to hers, his decoration was not there.

And then Alice had a present for me. I had by me a little present to be given to her on the same occasion—an old ornament of my own, which I thought, for that reason at least, the prim Alice might perhaps be induced to wear. The children had gone away with their attendants, to be extricated out of the many wrappings in which their mother’s care had enveloped them. Only Derwie stayed with us in the breakfast-room; the child was extremely anxious about these two, I could not tell why. Some unconscious link of association, or acute childish observation, connected them in little Derwent’s mind. He stood by my side on pretence of waiting till Clary and the rest were ready, but I believe in my heart from sheer curiosity and interest in these affairs of life and humanity which were so deeply attractive to my son.

Alice was seated near the great window, her pretty figure visible against the light, looking fresher and more youthful than she had done for a long time, and the soft breadth of landscape without, making a pleasant background to the picture. A little more in the shade stood Bertie, and Derwie and I were opposite Alice, with a little table between us, all full in the light of the large bow-window, from which all curtains and obscuring influences—such was my husband’s cheerful pleasure—were always drawn as much back as possible. My present to Alice was a little gold chain for the neck. I like that fashion of ornament. This one was long enough to encircle that pretty throat twice, or to hang loose upon her breast if she pleased. I said it wanted a pendant, as I threw it loosely round her neck.

Alice had been a little nervous and tremulous before; this made her rather more so—she kissed me in a trembling, breathless way. She could not help feeling conscious of that shadow behind her, and of a certain want of air and cloud which betokened a crisis. She knew something was coming, and faltered—it was quite a secret, close, appealing touch which her arms gave me for the moment. Alice was afraid. When she sat down again she played with the clasp of the chain and unloosed it, and continued so, unconsciously dangling that loose end in her hand.

“It should have a heart at it, mamma—like Clary’s,” said little Derwent.

“Yes,” said I, “certainly it wants a pendant—a locket—or, as Derwie says, a heart, or a cross, or——”

“For once let me supply what it wants,” said Bertie, suddenly starting forward with one of those long, noiseless steps which people only make when they are almost past speaking. He took the end of the chain from Alice’s fingers, slid his own matchless decoration on it, clasped it, let it fall. “Heart and Cross!” said Bertie, breathless with feelings he could not speak. Alice had not looked up—did not see what it was, so rapidly was all done, till it lay dark upon the white bosom of her dress, moving with the palpitations of her heart—cold, ugly, glorious—a gift far beyond all Bertie’s fortune—more precious to him than his life.

She gazed at it astonished for a moment, then glanced round at us all with an amazed, inquiring glance—then faltering, and making the utmost efforts to control herself, took it in her hands, put it to her lips, and burst into an irrestrainable passion of tears.

Little Derwie and I, like sensible people, took each other’s hands, and marched away.

Alice did not wear her hero’s cross that night to her chain. He wore it himself, as was fit—but it did not much matter. She had taken the other invaluable and invisible appendage which Bertie offered with his glorious badge—had consented to be solemnly endowed with all his worldly goods, cross and heart included, and humbly put her chain round her neck without any pendant, in token of the unwilling bondage to which she had yielded at last.

So ended, after eight years of disappointment, and that early love-affair, which Colonel Bertie had long ago forgotten, my solitary enterprise in match-making. Let nobody despair. I am secure now that Estcourt shall have no alien mistress, and that all Huntingshire will not hold a happier household than that of Bertie Nugent, my heir, who has already added the highest distinction of modern chivalry to the name of his fathers and mine.

THE END.