THE next afternoon John and Kate were on the lawn, with Mrs Mitford sitting by, when Fred Huntley suddenly rode in at the gate. The two young people had no particular inclination for croquet, but the lawn had been mowed, and Mrs Mitford had given up her schools for one day, and seated herself outside the drawing-room window to countenance their intercourse. She did not take any part in their talk, but knitted with as much placidity as she could command, having reasoned with herself all the night through, and finally made up her mind that it would be better for her to take no part, but let things take their course. “If I try to influence her, she will think I have interested motives; and if I try to influence him, my boy will turn against me,” she had said to herself piteously, shedding a few silent tears under cover of the night; and her decision had been, that she would only stand by and look on, that was all. For the first time in his life John’s mother felt herself incapable of helping, or guiding, or being of any service to her boy. She had to see him face the danger, and say nothing—the danger on one hand of being secularised, and his heart turned to frivolity; and on the other, of having that heart broken. Which was the worse his mother could scarcely tell.
So these two were trifling, each with a mallet, and talking, and getting more and more interested in each other, when Fred Huntley, as I have said, rode suddenly in upon them. He gave a very keen knowing glance at the two on the lawn, as he passed them to pay his respects to Mrs Mitford. Was it her doing? was it their own doing? Fred caught the secret of the situation as a well-trained man of the world would naturally do. He had first a natural impulse to interfere; and then he paused and stopped himself, and declared to himself that he would not spoil sport. He was a man to whom generous thoughts came not, as is natural, by impulse, but upon thought. And after all, why should he meddle with them? If she married John, it would be a good thing for John, and, most likely, for her too—and why should I interfere? said Fred, without a doubt of his capability to do so; so he went and talked to Mrs Mitford, while the two on the lawn pursued their languid sport. “I hate him,” Kate had said on his arrival; “let us pretend we have begun a game;” and John was but too happy—too much delighted, by the suggestion. So they kept the lawn to themselves, and trifled and talked, while Fred chatted with the chaperone over her knitting. He had come to make the apologies of his family, expecting to find an assemblage of ladies with John in the midst, the one island of black among clouds of muslin. The ladies in Fanshawe Regis were not even young, and consequently it was a relief to him to see one pretty figure only, and the mother sitting by; and he did his best to make himself agreeable, having, as it happened, a more interesting subject than “le beau temps et la pluie.”
“I hear John has been distinguishing himself,” he said; and though he did not in the least intend it, there was something in his tone which made Mrs Mitford flush red to the edge of her hair, and raise herself stiffly on her seat. The truth was, John had been in competition with Fred more than once at college, and had not been held to have distinguished himself—which naturally drove his mother to arms at the first word.
“Not anything particular that I am aware of,” she said, drawing herself up stiffly; “he always is the best son and the kindest heart in the world.”
“But about Miss Crediton,” said Fred.
“Oh, that was a mere accident,” said John’s mother. “You see he can’t help having a warm heart, and being so big and strong.”
Fred was fully three inches shorter than John, and in this way at least he had never distinguished himself. “To be sure, that is an easy way of accounting for it,” he said, with much command of temper. “It must be very nice to be big and strong, especially when pretty girls and heiresses are in danger in one’s way.”
“Is she an heiress?” said Mrs Mitford, with the most innocent face in the world.
“Well, rather,” said Fred; and here the little passage of arms came to a close. “My sisters were very sorry they could not come,” he went on after an interval, during which he had been intently watching the two figures on the lawn. “They sent all kinds of messages, but I fear I have lost them on the way. They could scarcely have been more sorry had it been a dance—and what could a young lady say more?”
“I wish they could have come,” said Mrs Mitford; and just then Lizzie came and whispered something in her ear. “Will you excuse me for two minutes, Mr Huntley? It is one of my poor people. I am so sorry to be rude, and go away.”
Fred said something that was very polite, and went slowly towards the croquet-players as she left him. He thought Kate was very pretty—he had never seen her look so pretty. She was dressed in fresh muslin all but white, with her favourite blue ribbons, and looked so dainty, so refined, such a little princess beside John’s somewhat heavy large figure. Not but what he looked a gentleman too—but a rural gentleman, a heavy weight, and standing side by side with a creature made of sunshine and light. Fred Huntley had never admired Kate particularly heretofore, but he did that day, and wondered at himself. He sauntered up to them, watching their looks and movements, and stood by and criticised their play. “Miss Crediton, you have it all in your own hands,” he said. “He has not the heart to hit your ball. You have nothing to do but go in and win. My good fellow, I never saw such bad play!”
“As if one cared for winning!” said Kate, dragging her mallet along the grass. “What do we all play croquet for, I wonder?” And she gave vent to her feelings in a delicate yawn, and sank into the chair which John had brought out for her. He had placed it under the shadow of a graceful acacia, which kept dropping its white blossoms at her feet, and the two young men drew near and looked at her. Fred was much the more ready of the two, so far as talk was concerned.
“That is a tremendous question,” he said. “It is as bad as if you had invited us to clear up the origin of evil. But there is nobody like women for going to the bottom of things. We do it because somebody once considered it pleasant, I suppose.”
“Or because we are believed to have nothing else to do,” said John.
“Then why can’t we be permitted to do nothing? It tires me to death standing about in the sun,” said Kate, in a plaintive voice. “I’d rather lean back and be comfortable, and listen to the leaves. I’d rather even have you two sit down here in the shade,” and she waved her hand like a little princess towards the turf on each side of her, “and quarrel about something—so long as you did not come to blows. Talk—oh, please, talk about something women are not supposed to understand!”
“By all means,” said Fred, throwing himself down at her feet; “what shall it be? Sophocles, or steam-engines, or the Darwinian theory? Mitford is up in everything, I know, and one has a few vague ideas on general subjects—which shall it be?”
But John said nothing. He stood bending towards her with that great, tall, somewhat heavy figure of his. He had been talking not unagreeably so long as the two were alone, but Fred’s interposition quenched him. He stood with an inexpressible something in his look and attitude, which said, “I am here to watch over you, to serve you, not to take my ease and talk nonsense in your presence,” which brought a little colour to Kate’s cheeks. She looked at the young men in her turn, involuntarily contrasting the ease of the man of the world with the almost awkwardness of the other. Under such circumstances one knows what the verdict of a frivolous girl would naturally be. One of them could enter into all her habitual chatter, and give her all her nonsense back. He was handsomer than John Mitford, though neither was an Adonis. He was more successful; he had the prestige about him of a man of intellect, and yet he was just like other people. Whereas John, without the prestige, was unlike other people. Kate looked at them with a curious impression on her mind, as if she were making that grand decision which the heroes of olden time used to be called upon to make between the true and the false—between Pleasure and Goodness. A slight shiver went over her, she could not tell why. Neither of them was asking anything of her at that moment. As for Fred Huntley, he had never shown the slightest inclination to ask anything of her, and yet in some mysterious way she felt as if she were deciding her fate.
“You are cold—let me go and bring you a shawl,” said John.
“Oh, it is nothing. It is because I have been ill. I never was so stupid in all my life before. Thanks, Mr Mitford, that is so nice,” said Kate. But she was not cold, though she accepted the shawl he brought her. She was trembling before her fate. And it was John to whom some unseen counsellor seemed to direct her. It was John she liked best, she said to herself. His was the good face, the tender eyes, the loyal soul. Why such a crisis should come upon her in the middle of a game at croquet, Kate could not imagine; nor why her innocent intention of bewildering poor John’s being for him, and giving a sharp tug at his heart-strings by way of diversion, should have changed all at once into this sudden compulsion of fate upon herself to choose or to reject. Such nonsense! when nobody was asking her—nobody thinking of such a thing! She got out of it precipitately, with the haste of fear, not knowing or caring what nonsense she spoke. “You make me so uncomfortable when you stand like that,” she cried. “Sit down, as Mr Huntley has done. There are only us three, and why should we make martyrs of ourselves? and when Mrs Mitford comes back, you can go and bring her chair under this tree. Mr Huntley, are you going to the ball at the Castle when the young Earl comes of age?”
“I had not heard anything about it,” said Fred. “I don’t care for balls in a general way; but if you are to be there, Miss Crediton——”
“Of course you will go,” said Kate; “oh, I understand that. I wish you gentlemen would now and then say something a little original. Mr Mitford, I suppose I must not ask if you are going, or you will answer me the same?”
“No, I don’t think there is any chance that I shall go,” he said, with a smile, “not even if you are there.”
“That is not original,” said Fred, “it is only ringing the changes. But I suppose you will be going up to the bishop then, Mitford, eh? When is it? You ought not to speak to him about balls, and tempt him, Miss Crediton, at this moment of his life.”
Kate started a little in spite of herself. “Is it so near as that? Oh, Mr Mitford, is it true?”
“Quite true,” John answered, facing her, with a certain faltering steadiness which she found it hard to understand; “but I don’t think the temptation of balls, so far as that goes, is likely to do me much harm.”
“And I hope you are all right in other respects, old fellow,” said Fred Huntley, suddenly, in an undertone. “You are not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable, I hope. You are not going to make any sacrifice of—of opinion—of—— I remember the talks we used to have long ago.”
“I am not going to sacrifice my conscience, if that is what you mean,” said John, shortly, growing very red; “but this is not the moment for such a discussion.”
“I wonder where Mrs Mitford can be for so long,” cried Kate, rushing into the conversation; “it must be some of her poor people. I think, as the croquet has been a failure, I shall go and see; but in the mean time, Mr Huntley, tell me what the girls are about, and where they are going. Are they to pay as many visits this year as they did last? or are you going to have your house full of people? Papa has asked some hundreds to Fernwood, I believe. I hate autumn and the shooting, and all the people that come from town. Why should the poor partridges lose their lives and we our tempers every year, as soon as September comes? It is very hard upon us both. Or else you all go off to the grouse, and then there is not a man left in the place to fill a corner at dinner. What harm have those poor birds ever done to you?”
“They are very nice to eat,” said Fred, “and I suppose if we did not kill them they’d kill us in time. But, Miss Crediton, you are too philosophical. May not a man play croquet or shoot partridges without rendering a reason? One does so many things without any reason at all.”
“Well,” said Kate, smothering another yawn, “if you will not say anything that is amusing, or argue, or do anything I tell you, I shall go and look for Mrs Mitford. I don’t think it is quite proper to sit here by myself and talk to two gentlemen, especially as you let me do almost all the talking. And it is hot out of doors. I will go in till tea is ready; but, Mr John, you do not need to trouble yourself. There is not even a door to open. I shall go in at the window. Pray don’t come,” she added, in a lower tone, as he followed her across the lawn; “go and talk to him.”
“I would much rather attend upon you, even though you don’t want me,” said John, with a half-audible sigh.
“But I do want you,” said Kate, touched by his tone, “you are always so good to me; and I can’t bear him, with his chatter and talk. Do keep him away as long as you can—until we call you in to tea.”
And then she gave the poor fellow a little nod of friendship, and a smile which dazzled him. He went away strengthened in his soul to be more than civil to Fred Huntley—poor Fred, upon whom this sunshine had not fallen—whom, indeed, she was inclined to avert her countenance from. He strolled about the garden with that unfortunate but unconscious being for half an hour, and then took him to see the church, which was a fine one, wondering in himself all the time when that summons would come to tea. Huntley seemed abstracted too, and it came natural to John to think that everybody must be moved as he himself was, and that it was absence from her which made a cloud over his visitor. Their conversation strayed to a hundred other subjects as they strolled gravely up and down. They talked of the doings in Parliament, of the newspapers, of the county member, of the nature of the county architecture, of the difference in point of age between the chancel and the nave of Fanshawe Regis church, which was a question much discussed in antiquarian circles; but it was not until a full hour had elapsed that anything was said of Kate. At last,—
“By the by,” said Huntley, “what was that accident that happened to Miss Crediton? One hears different accounts of it all over the country, and she does not seem to know very well herself.”
“It was not much,” said John, with rising colour. “Her horse ran away with her—he was making for the cliff, you know, at Winton, that overhangs the river—I beg your pardon, but the thought makes me sick—and I stopped him—that’s all.”
“But how did you stop him?”
“It does not greatly matter,” said John; “I did somehow. I don’t know much more about it than she does. And don’t speak of it to her, for heaven’s sake! She does not know what an awful danger she escaped.”
“But surely she knows what happened?” said Fred.
“Oh yes—she knows, and she does not know. I tell you I don’t know myself. Don’t say anything more about it, please.”
“That is all very well, my dear fellow,” said Huntley; “but Kate Crediton is an heiress, and a very nice girl; and if you were to go in for her, I can tell you it would be a very good thing for you.”
This time John grew pale—so pale that the keen observer by his side was filled with sudden consternation, and could not make it out. “Suppose, in the mean time, we go in to tea,” he said, with a curious sternness. Not another word was said, for Huntley was too much a man of the world to repeat an unpalatable piece of advice; but he was rather relieved, on the whole, when the ceremonial was over, the tea swallowed, and half an hour of talk in the drawing-room added on to the talk on the lawn. “I should like to know what she means by it,” Fred said to himself, indignantly, as he rode home to dinner. John Mitford was a simpleton, an innocent, an ass, if you please; but Kate knew what was what, and must have some idea where she was drifting. And what could she mean, did anybody know?
She herself did not know, at least. She was very good to John all that evening, asking him questions about his Oxford life, and humouring him in a hundred little ways, of which he himself was but half conscious. And after dinner it so happened that they were left in the garden together, for Mrs Mitford had relaxed a little in the sternness of the chaperone’s duties, which were new to her, and began to forget that the boy and the girl were each other’s natural enemies. It was a lovely night, and Kate lingered and walked round and round the old house till she was compelled at last to acknowledge herself tired. And John, well pleased, gave her his arm; and it was only when she had accepted that support, and had him at a vantage, that she put the question she had been meditating. The soft air enclosed them round and round, and the soft darkness, and all the delicate odours and insensible sounds of night. He could scarcely see her, and yet she was leaning on him with her face raised and his bent, each toward the other. Then it was, with just a little pressure of his arm to give emphasis to her question, that she opened her batteries upon him at one coup.
“Is it really true,” she said, with a certain supplication in her voice, “that you are determined to be a clergyman, Mr John?”
“True!” he said, staggering under it as he received the blow, and in his confusion not knowing what to say.
“Yes, true. Will you tell me? I should so very much like to know.”
And then John’s heart stood still for one painful moment. The question was so easy to ask, and the answer was not so easy. He drew his breath like a man drowning, before he could muster strength to reply.