CHAPTER XIV.
THE SPECTATOR’S VIEW.
A FEW days passed, and the new cousin continued to be very popular at Mount. Mrs. Mountford made no secret of her liking for him.
‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I was never partial to the other branch, especially having no son myself. The Mount family has never liked them. Though they have always been poor, they have claimed to be the elder branch, and when your property is to go away from you without any fault of yours, naturally you are not fond of those to whom it goes. But with Heathcote one forgets all these prejudices. He is so thoroughly nice, he is so affectionate. He has no family of his own (unless you call his delicate brother a family), and anyone can see how he likes ladies’ society. Mr. Mountford thinks as much of him as we do. I quite look forward to introducing him to our friends; and I hope he may get to be popular in the county, for now that we have made such friends with him, he will be often here I trust.’
Such was the excellent opinion his cousin’s wife expressed of him. It is needless to say that her neighbours imputed motives to poor Mrs. Mountford, and jumped at the cause of her partiality. ‘She means him to marry Rose,’ everybody said; and some applauded her prudence; and some denounced her selfishness in sacrificing Rose to a man old enough to be her father; but, on the whole, the county approved both the man himself and the opportunity of making his acquaintance. He was asked to dinner at Meadowlands, which was all that could be desired for any visitor in the neighbourhood. The Mountfords felt that they had done their utmost for any guest of theirs when they had procured them this gratification. And Lord Meadowlands quite ‘took to’ Heathcote. This was the best thing that could happen to anyone new to the county, the sort of thing on which the other members of society congratulated each other when the neophyte was a favourite, taking each other into corners and saying: ‘He has been a great deal at the Castle,’ or ‘He has been taken up by Lord Meadowlands.’ Thus the reception given to the heir of entail was in every way satisfactory, and even Mr. Mountford himself got to like him. The only one who kept aloof was Anne, who was at this moment very much preoccupied with her own thoughts; but it was not from any dislike to the new member of the household. He had not fulfilled her expectations. But that most probably was not his fault. And, granting the utter want of delicate perception in him, and understanding of the rôle which ought to have been his in the circumstances, Anne, after a few days, came to think tolerably well of her new kinsman. He was intelligent: he could talk of things which the others rejected as nonsense or condemned as highflown. On the question of the cottages, for instance, he had shown great good sense; and on the whole, though with indifference, Anne conceded a general approval to him. But they did not draw together, or so at least the other members of the family thought. Rose monopolised him when he was in the drawing-room. She challenged him at every turn, as a very young and innocent girl may do, out of mere high spirits, without conscious coquetry at least: she contradicted him and defied him, and adopted his opinions and scoffed at them by turns, keeping him occupied, with an instinctive art which was quite artless, and meant ‘fun’ more than anything serious. At all this pretty play Anne looked on without seeing it, having her head full of other things. And the mother looked on, half-afraid, half-disapproving (as being herself of a stricter school and older fashion), yet not sufficiently afraid or displeased to interfere; while Heathcote himself was amused, and did not object to the kittenish sport of the pretty little girl, whose father (he said to himself) he might have been, so far as age went. But he kept an eye, notwithstanding, on ‘the other girl,’ whom he did not understand. That she was ‘engaged,’ and yet not permitted to be spoken of as ‘engaged’—that there was some mystery about her—was evident. A suspicion of a hidden story excites every observer. Heathcote wanted to find it out, as all of us would have done. As for himself, he was not incapable of higher sentiments, though Anne had easily set him down as being so: but his experiences had not been confined to one romantic episode, as she, in her youthful ignorance, had supposed. The story was true enough, but with a difference. The Italian princess was not a noble lady compelled to wed in her own rank and relinquish her young Englishman, as Mrs. Mountford had recounted it, but a poor girl of much homelier gentility, whose lot had been fixed long before Heathcote traversed her simple path, and who fulfilled that lot with a few tears but not very much reluctance, much more in the spirit of Keziah than of Anne. Heathcote himself looked back upon the little incident with a smile. He would have gone to the ends of the earth to serve her had she wanted his help, but he did not regret that Antonia had not been his wife all these years. Perhaps he would have required a moment’s reflection to think what anyone could mean who referred to this story. But even the fact that such an episode was of no special importance in his life would have been against him with Anne in the present state of her thoughts. She would not have allowed it as possible or right that a man should have gone beyond the simplicity of such an incident. In her experience love was as yet the first great fact, the one enlightener, awakener of existence. It had changed her own life from the foundation, nay, had given her an individual, separate life, as she fondly thought, such as, without this enchantment, no one could have. But Heathcote had lived a great deal longer, had seen a great deal more. He had been ‘knocked about,’ as people say. He had seen the futility of a great many things upon which simple people set their hopes; he had come to be not very solicitous about much which seems deeply important to youth. Thirty-five had worked upon him its usual influence. But of all this Anne knew nothing, and she put him aside as a problem not worth solution, as a being whose deficiencies were deficiencies of nature. She was more interesting to him. She was the only one of the house who was not evident on the surface. And his interest was stimulated by natural curiosity. He wanted to know what the story was which the child-sister referred to so frankly, which the mother wanted to ignore. There was even a something in the intercourse between Anne and her father which caught his attention. They were on perfectly good terms—but what was it? He was a man who took things as they came, who did not feel a very profound interest in anything—save one thing. But this little mystery reflected in Anne’s serious eyes, and pervading the house with a sense of something not apparent, roused the dormant sentiment more than he could have thought possible.
The one thing that interested Heathcote Mountford to the bottom of his heart was his young brother, for whom he had a tender, semi-parental passion, preferring his concerns above everything else in the world. It was this, indeed, which had brought him to Mount with a proposal which he could not but feel that Mr. Mountford would grasp at. He had come to offer to his predecessor in the entail that they should join together and break it—a singular step for an heir in his position to take. But as yet he had said nothing about this chief object of his visit. When he formed the project it had not cost him much. What did he want with an estate and a big house to keep up, he had said to himself in the snugness of his bachelor’s chambers, so much more comfortable than Mount, or any other such big barrack of a place could ever be made? He had already a shabby old house to which he went now and then to shoot, and which—because Edward (not to speak of himself) had been born in it, and their mother had died in it, as well as many generations of Edwards and Heathcotes in the past—could not be done away with, however melancholy and dismal it might get to be. But Mount had no associations for him. Why should not St. John’s girls have it, as was just and natural? The Mountfords of Mount were not anything so very great that heaven and earth should be moved to keep them up. Besides, he would not be of much use in keeping them up; he never meant to marry (not because of Antonia, but probably because of ‘knocking about’ and forgetting that any one thing in the world was more important than any other), and Edward was delicate, and there was no telling what the boy might do;—far better to have a good sum of money, to set that wayward fellow above the reach of trouble, and leave it to St. John’s girls to provide for the race. No doubt they would do that fast enough. They would marry, and their children could take the name. Thus he had his plans all cut and dry before he reached Mount. But when he got there, either the reserve of Mr. Mountford’s manner, or some certain charm in the place which he had not anticipated, deferred the execution of it. He thought it over and arranged all the details during each day’s shooting, notwithstanding that the gamekeepers insisted all the time on discoursing with him upon the estate, and pointing out what should be done under a new reign which the present master did not care to have done; but in the evening he was too tired (he said to himself) to open so important a subject; and thus day after day went on. Perhaps the discourses even of the gamekeepers, and their eagerness to point out to him the evils that were to be amended at presumably the not very distant period when a new monarch should reign, and the welcome he received from the people he met, and the success he had at Meadowlands, and the interest which he excited in the county, had something to do with the disinclination to open the subject which seemed to have crept upon him; or probably it was only laziness. This was the reason which he assigned to himself—indolence of mind, which was one of his besetting sins he knew. But, anyhow, whatever was the cause, he had as yet said nothing on the subject. He had accepted all the allusions that were made to his future connection with the county, and the overtures of friendship; and he had owned himself flattered by the attentions of Lord Meadowlands: everything had gone indeed precisely as things might have gone had he fully accepted his position as heir of the Mountfords. Nobody for a moment doubted that position: and still he did nothing to undeceive them, nothing to show his real disinclination to assume the burden of the ownership of Mount. Was he really so disinclined to accept it? After this week of the new life his head seemed confused on the subject, and he was not quite so sure.
But all the same he felt instinctively that Anne would make a far better squire than he should. He had gone through the village with the girls, and he had seen how everything centred in Anne. Though there was (he thought) a certain severity in her, the village people evidently did not feel it. They were more at home with her than even with her little sister. The rector came up to her in the street, and put his arm within hers, and led her away to see something which had to be done, with a mixture of authority and appeal which touched the looker-on. Mr. Ashley was old and feeble, and there was something pretty in the way in which he supported himself at once physically and morally on the young, slim, elastic strength of the girl, who was the natural born princess of the place. At the schools she was supreme. Wherever she went, it was evidently recognised that she was the representative at once of law and of power. Heathcote, who had not been used to it, looked upon her with surprise and a wondering admiration. ‘You are in great demand,’ he said. ‘You have a great deal to do. You seem to have the government of the place in your hands.’
‘Papa is not so active as he used to be,’ Anne said. ‘Besides, there are so many little things which come more naturally to me.’
‘You are princess regent,’ he said: ‘I see; you act for the king, but you are more than the king. A man could never do that.’
‘Men can do a great deal more than women in everything,’ said Anne, with decision.
‘Oh! can they? I should not have said so; but no doubt you know best.’
‘If they cannot, what is the meaning of everything that is said in the world, Mr. Heathcote? you would have to change the entire language. We are never supposed to be good for anything. What is life to us is supposed to be an amusement to you.’
‘This is a new light,’ said Heathcote, somewhat startled. He had no idea that it was poor Antonia, the mother of half a dozen children, who was in Anne’s mind all the time.
‘Anne, don’t! Mamma says you should never talk like that to gentlemen; they will think you go in for women’s rights and all sorts of horrible things. She doesn’t, cousin Heathcote. She only wants to make you stare.’
‘I think I go in for everybody’s rights; I don’t mind whether they are women or men,’ said Anne. ‘Mrs. Fisher, what is the matter? The children don’t come to school, and Johnny has left the choir. There must be some reason for all that.’
‘Miss Anne,’ said the woman, with a smirk and a curtsey, ‘Johnny’s been in the rectory kitchen learning to be a boy. Mr. Douglas, miss, that was stopping at the rectory, took a fancy to him, and old Simes is a-training of him. Mr. Douglas—that’s the gentleman—is going to have him at his house in town, Miss Anne. You knows him, Johnny says.’
At this Rose gave vent to a suppressed giggle, and the woman smirked more broadly than ever. But these signs might not have caught the attention of Heathcote but for the violent flush which he saw overspread Anne’s face. His attention was roused on the moment.
‘Mr. Douglas has been gone for some time,’ he heard Anne say. A note had got into her voice that had not been there before—a softness, a roundness, a melting of the tones. Mr. Douglas!—who was he? Heathcote said who was the fellow? within himself with an instinctive opposition. ‘The fellow’ had nothing whatever to do with him, yet he disliked him at once.
‘Yes, Miss Anne; but Johnny has been in the rectory kitchen a-training ever since the gentleman went away.’
Anne made the woman a little friendly sign with her hand and went on. She did not pursue her inquiries as officer of the school any more: she accepted the excuse, though it was no excuse; which showed, he said to himself with a smile, how efficient female officers of school boards would be. Perhaps she was half humbled by this evidence of being too easily satisfied. She volunteered a profession of her faith.
‘I do not approve of too stringent measures: you ought not to set up one arbitrary rule; you ought to take the circumstances into consideration.’ All this was said with a little heat. ‘I suppose why school boards have been so unpopular where they exist is very much because of that.’
Again a little giggle escaped from the bosom of Rose; but it was quickly suppressed. She gave Heathcote a significant look, as Anne was stopped by some one else who wanted to speak to her. ‘That was the gentleman,’ Rose whispered, with mischievous delight.
Well, if it was the gentleman! Heathcote thought, he was a lucky fellow; but the idea of giving up Mount was from that moment less pleasant, he could scarcely tell why. He did not relish the notion of some fellow called Douglas, probably some Scotsman who would not part with his very ordinary name for a king’s ransom, coming into possession of the old place. Who was Douglas? On the whole, Heathcote for the first time acknowledged to himself that there might be two sides to the question, and that there was something wrong and faithless in separating the old name of Mountford and the male heir from Mount.
Next day, however, by accident further light was thrown to him on this question. The principal post came in at noon, and it was the habit of the house that the letters which came by it should be ranged upon one of the tables in the hall, in little heaps, where their respective owners found them. Coming in to get his share of the budget, Heathcote found that Mr. Mountford was there before him. He had his letters in his left hand, but with his right had taken up another which lay on Anne’s heap. He was balancing it in his fingers half-contemptuous, half-angry, when Heathcote, with the involuntary indiscretion which so often belongs to the innocent, knowing no reason why anything should be done in secret, paused behind him, and saw at a glance what he was about. It was not anything tragical: Mr. Mountford had no intention of tampering with Anne’s letter: but he held it up, and turned it over, and looked at it all round with a look of disgust on his countenance. By this time Heathcote had been awakened to the sense that he was prying into a domestic mystery, he who had no right to do so, and he hastened to gather his own letters from the table. Mrs. Mountford by this time had come in, on the same errand. Her husband held the letter up to her with an indignant ‘humph!’ ‘Do you see? She is keeping it up in spite of all I have said.’
‘I don’t want to see it,’ said the stepmother, nervously; ‘put it down. I have nothing to do with Anne’s letters, papa!’
And then a sort of sensation spread through the room, he could not tell what, and Heathcote became aware that Anne herself had come in. She walked straight to the table where her father stood, still with her letter in his hand. She recognised it in his hand with a sudden flush of consciousness, and stood facing him, saying nothing, pale now, but with courage, not fear.
‘This is for you apparently, Anne; you are keeping up the correspondence whatever I may say.’
‘Yes, papa, I am keeping it up.’ She put out her hand and took the letter. She made no explanation or excuse; but went away with it, slowly, with a sort of formal dignity. It was a strange little scene. The observer seemed to see the story rising like a picture before him—as Anne had thought she saw his story—but more distinctly as being more near. He was more interested than he could say. He had no right to inquire into what was so distinctly a family secret. If she only would have confided in him, told him how it was!—but that he had no right to expect. It made a visible commotion in the house for the rest of the day. Little signs of agitation were visible, signs which without this elucidation would only have puzzled, would have conveyed no enlightenment to his mind. Anne did not appear at lunch. She had gone, it was said, to the village, and no doubt had stopped to luncheon with the Woodheads. And Mr. Mountford was gloomy and absent, yet at the same time more alert than usual. ‘I am going to ride over to Hunston this afternoon,’ he announced. ‘Perhaps you would like to go with me, Heathcote, and see the place?’
‘What are you going to do at Hunston, papa? Let me come with you too: let us all go together,’ said Rose.
‘I am going to see Mr. Loseby,’ her father said; and this, though it had no effect upon Rose, made her mother start slightly, and cast an anxious look towards the head of the table.
‘Do you think, St. John, it is a good day to go to Hunston? It is very damp, and I am sure you will make your cold worse.’
Mrs. Mountford was not the soul of generosity: but she was far from being unjust or cruel. She was afraid of what her husband might be going to do, even should it be for the advantage of Rose.
‘I think I can manage to take care of my cold,’ he said.
‘But that is just what gentlemen never do. Don’t go to-day, St. John. Wait till it is drier and brighter;’ she even got up from her chair and went round to him and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Wait till you have had time to think.’
‘I have taken too much time to think,’ he said crossly, turning away his head and rising from the table. ‘Heathcote, if you would like to come with me, I shall be ready in half-an-hour.’
‘What is it, mamma?’ said Rose, half frightened too, as her father went out of the room. Mrs. Mountford—the spectator always thought the better of her for it—fell a-crying, without being able to restrain herself, half in real distress, half in nervous excitement. ‘Oh, Mr. Heathcote, if you can do anything to smooth him down, do so; I am afraid he is going to—to tamper with his will!’ she cried.