THE room was in its usual partially lighted state, with darkness in all the corners, half-seen furniture, and ghostly pictures on the walls. A minute ago the servants had been there in a line kneeling at prayers—dim beings, something between pictures and ghosts. And now they had just stolen out in procession, and Dr Mitford had seated himself at the table for the regulation ten minutes which he spent with his family before retiring for the night. Kate had drawn a low chair close to the table, and was looking up at him with a little quiver of anxiety about her lips and eyes. These two—the old man’s venerable white head throwing reflections from it in the soft lamplight, the young girl all radiant with beauty and feeling—were alone within the circle of light. Outside of it stood two darker shadows, John and his mother. Mrs Mitford was in a black gown, and the bright tints of her pleasant face were neutralised by the failure of light. Two in the brightness and two in the gloom—a curious symbolical arrangement. And behind them all was the great open window, full of darkness, and the garden with all its unseen sweetness outside.
Dr Mitford was the only unconscious member of this curious party. He had no suspicion and no alarm. He stretched his legs, which were not long, out comfortably before him, and leant back composedly, now on the elbows, now on the back, of his chair.
“Well, Miss Kate, and what have you been doing with yourself all the evening?” he said, in his blissful ignorance. The other three gave a simultaneous gasp. What would he think when he heard? This thought, however, pressed hardest upon John. His mind was laden with a secret which as yet nobody divined, and speech almost forsook him when he had most need of it. Neither Kate nor his mother could see how pale he grew, and even if there had been light enough, John was not a handsome pink-and-white youth upon whom a sudden pallor shows. He might have shirked it even now, or left it to his mother, or chosen a more convenient moment. But he was uncompromising in his sense of necessities, and now was the moment at which it must be done. He went round quickly to his father’s right hand—
“Father,” he said, “I have got something to tell you. I have done what perhaps was not prudent, but I trust you will not think it was not honourable. I have fallen in love with Kate.”
“God bless my soul!” said Dr Mitford, instantly abandoning his comfortable attitude, and sitting straight up in his bewilderment. He was so startled that he looked from one to another, and finally turned to his wife, as a man does who has referred every blunder and surprise of a lifetime to her for explanation. It was an appealing half-reproachful glance. Here was something which no doubt she could have prevented or staved off from him. “My dear, what is the meaning of this?” he said.
“It is I who must tell you that,” said John, firmly. “I have a great deal to tell you—a great deal to explain to my mother as well as you. But this comes first of all—I love Kate. I saved her, you know; and then it seemed so natural that she should be mine. How could she have taken any one else than me who would have died for her? And see, father, she has consented,” said the poor fellow, taking Kate’s hand, and holding it in both his. His eyes were full of tears, and there was a smile on his face. It was that mingling of pathos and of triumph which marks passion at the highest strain.
“God bless my soul!” said Dr Mitford again, and this time he rose to his feet in his amazement. “My dear, if you heard this was going on, why did not you tell me? Consented! why, she is a mere child, and her father trusted her to us. Miss Kate, you must perceive he is talking nonsense—you must have turned his head. This can’t go any further. The boy must be mad to think of such a thing.”
“Then I am mad too,” said Kate, softly. “Oh, please, do not be angry with us—we could not help it. Oh, Mrs Mitford, say a word for John!”
And then there came a strange pause. The mother said nothing. She stood in the shade holding back, insensible, as it seemed, to this appeal; and on the other side of the table were the young pair, holding each other fast. As for Dr Mitford, he came to himself slowly as Kate spoke. A ray of intelligence passed over his face. He was a sensible man, and not one to throw away the good the gods provided. Gradually it became apparent to him that there are times when youthful folly brings about results such as mature wisdom could scarcely have conceived possible. From the first stupefaction his look brightened into surprise, then into interest and half-disguised approval. He drew a long breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was wonderfully changed.
“Then you must be more to blame than he is, my dear young lady, for you have not the same temptation,” he said, with a little flurry and excitement, but not much apparent displeasure. And then he made a pause, and looked at them with his brow contracted as if they were a book. “I don’t understand all this. Do you mean to tell me you are engaged, and it is not three weeks yet——”
“It did not want three weeks,” said John, “nor three days. Father, you see it is done now; she has consented, and she ought to know best.”
“I am utterly bewildered,” said Dr Mitford, but his tone softened more and more. “My dear, have you nothing to say to this? is it as unexpected to you as it is to me? Miss Kate, you understand it is no reluctance to receive you that overwhelms me, but the surprise—and—— My dear, is it possible you have nothing to say?”
“It is her father I am thinking of,” said Mrs Mitford, suddenly, with a sharp jarring sound of emotion in her voice. And so it was; but not entirely that. She seized upon the only feasible objection that occurred to her to cover her general consternation and sense of dismay.
“Yes, to be sure,” said Dr Mitford. “John, I wish you had spoken to Mr Crediton first. I shall explain to him that I knew nothing about it—nothing at all till the last moment. I fear you have taken away from me even the power of pleading your cause; though, Miss Kate,” he said, rising, and going up to her with the urbanity which was so becoming to him, “if you had no fortune, I should take the liberty to kiss you, and tell you my son had made a charming choice.”
“Then kiss me now,” said Kate, suddenly detaching herself from John, and holding out her hands to his father. Dr Mitford gave a little irresolute glance behind him to see what his wife was thinking; and then after a moment’s hesitation, melted by the pretty face lifted to him, by the fortune which he had thus set forward as a drawback to her, and by the mingled sentiment, false and true, of the occasion, took her hands into his and bent over her and kissed her forehead.
“My dear,” he said, with effusion, “I could not have hoped for so sweet a daughter-in-law. You would be as welcome to me as the flowers in May.” And then Dr Mitford paused, and the puckers came back to his forehead, and he turned round on his heel as on a pivot, and faced his son. “But don’t for a moment suppose, John, that I can approve of you. I will not adopt your cause with Mr Crediton. Good heavens! he might think it was a scheme. He might think——”
“That he could never think,” said Mrs Mitford, not able to restrain her impatience. “He may be angry, and blame everybody, and do away with it—but he could not think that.”
“If I have done wrong, let it come upon me,” said John, hoarsely. “But, Kate, come! you have had enough to bear.” He was thinking of her only, not of what any one else had to bear; and it was hard upon Mrs Mitford. And it was hard upon her, very hard, to take the interloper into her arms again, and falter forth a blessing on her. “He is everything in the world to me,” she whispered, with her lips on Kate’s cheek. “And what should his wife be? But my heart seems dead to-night.” “Dear mamma, don’t hate me. I will not take him away from you; and I have no mother,” Kate whispered back. And Mrs Mitford held her close for a moment, and cried, and was lightened at her heart. But this little interlude was unknown to the two men who stood looking on. John led his betrothed away into the hall, where he lingered one moment before he said good-night. What he said to her, or she to him, is not much to our present purpose. They lingered and whispered, and clung to each other as most of us have done once in our lives—and could not make up their minds to separate. While this went on, Dr Mitford made a little turn about the table in his excitement, and thrust up the shade from the lamp, as if to throw more light upon the matter. He was in a fidget, and a little alarmed by what his son had done, yet prepared to feel that all was for the best.
“My dear, is it possible you knew of this?” he said, rubbing his hands. “What a very odd thing that it should have happened so! Bless my soul! she is a great heiress. Why, Mary,” giving a glance round him, and lowering his voice a little, “who could have thought that lump of a boy would have had the sense to do so well for himself?”
“Oh, Dr Mitford, for heaven’s sake don’t speak so! Whatever he intends, my boy never thought of that.”
“I don’t suppose he did,” said the father, still softly rubbing his hands; “I don’t suppose he did—but still, all the same. Why, bless my soul! Mary—— To be sure it may be unpleasant with Mr Crediton. If he could think for one moment that we had any hand in it——”
“He cannot think that,” said Mrs Mitford. A sense that there was something more to be told kept her breathless and incapable of speech. But it gave her a little consolation to be able to defy Mr Crediton’s suspicions. It was a safety-valve, so far as it went.
“I hope not—I sincerely hope not. I should tell him at once that it is—well—yes—contrary to my wishes. Of course it would be a great thing for John. He is not the sort of boy to make his way in the world, and this would give him such a start. Unless her father is very adverse, Mary, I should be inclined to think that everything is for the best.”
“You are so ready to think that, Dr Mitford,” said his wife, sitting down suddenly in her excitement, feeling that her limbs could no longer support her. “But I am afraid I am not so submissive,” she added, with a little burst of feeling, putting up her hand to her eyes.
“You don’t mean to say you don’t see the advantages of it?” said her husband; “or is it the girl you object to? She seems to me to be a very nice girl.”
“Oh, hush!” said Mrs Mitford; “do not let him hear you. Oh my boy! my boy!”
John came in with his face just settling out of the melting tenderness of his good-night into the resolution which was necessary for what was now before him. He saw that his mother, half hidden in her chair, had covered her eyes with her hand; and his father stood by the table, as if he had been arguing, or reasoning, or explaining something. It was not an attitude very unusual with Dr Mitford; but explaining things to his wife, notwithstanding her respect for him, was not an effort generally attended with much success.
“I tell you, my dear,” he said, as John approached, with the air of concluding an argument, “that if Mr Crediton does not object, I shall think John has made an excellent choice.”
“Thank you, father,” John said, and held out his hand; while the mother, whose anxieties on the subject went so much deeper, sat still on her chair and covered her face, and felt a sharp pang of irritation strike through her. She had trained the boy to be very respectful, very dutiful, to his father; but Dr Mitford spent much of his time in his study, and there could not be much sympathy between them; yet the two stood clasping hands while she was left out. It was the strangest transposition of parts. She could not understand it, and it jarred through her with sudden pain. Nor did John seek her after that, as surely, she thought, he must do. He stood between them in front of the table, and kept looking straight, not at either of them, but at the light.
“I have had something else on my mind for a long time,” he said, and his lips were parched with excitement. “Father, it is a long affair: will you sit down again and listen to what I have to say?”
“If it is about this business,” said his father, “I have told you already, John, that nothing can be done without her father’s consent; and I have not time, you know, to waste in talk. Tell your mother what it is; I shall have it all from her. I have given you my consent and approbation conditionally. Your mother, surely, can do all the rest.”
“Wait,” said John; “pray, wait a little. It is not about this. I want to tell you and my mother both together. I should not have the courage,” he added, with the excitement of self-defence, “to speak to you separately. It has nothing to do with this. It was a burden upon my mind before I ever saw Kate. And now that everything has come to a crisis, I must speak. It cannot be delayed any longer. Hear me for this once.”
Mrs Mitford gave a stifled groan. It was very low, but the room was very silent, and the sound startled all of them—even herself. It sounded somehow as if it had come in through the window out of the dark. She raised herself up suddenly and opened her eyes, and uncovered her face, and looked at them both, lest any one should say it was she. Yes, she had foreseen it all the time; she had felt it, since ever that girl came to the house—which was not, it must be admitted, entirely just.
“You have brought me up to be a clergyman,” said John, still more and more hurried, “and there was a time when I accepted the idea as a matter of course; but since I have grown older, things are different. I cannot bear to disappoint you, and overturn all your plans; but, father, think! Can I undertake to say from the altar things I cannot believe? Ought I to do that? If I were a boy, it might be different, and I might learn better; but at my age——”
“Age!” said the Doctor, impatiently, “what is all this about? Age? of course you are a boy, and nothing else. And why shouldn’t you believe? Better men than you have gone over all that ground, and settled it again and again.”
“But, father, I cannot be guided by what other people think. I must judge for myself. I cannot do it! I have tried to carry out your expectations until the struggle has been almost more than I could bear. Forgive me: it has come to be a question of possibility——”
“A question of fiddlestick!” cried the Doctor, angrily, walking about the room. “I tell you, better men than you have settled all that. Of course you think your doubts are quite original, and never were heard of before. Nonsense! I have not the slightest doubt they have been refuted a hundred times over. Stuff! Mary, is it to be expected I should give in to him?—just when it was a comfort to think he was provided for, and all that. Are you such a fool as to think you can meet Mr Crediton with this story? Is he to understand at once that you mean to live on your wife?”
“I will never live on my wife,” said John, stung in the tenderest point.
“Oh, Dr Mitford, don’t speak to him so,” said his mother, rising up and throwing herself metaphorically between the combatants. “Do you think if he had not had a very strong reason he would have said this to us, knowing how it would grieve us? Oh, let him tell us what he means!”
“I know what he means,” said Dr Mitford, “better than he does himself. He thinks it is a fine thing to be a sceptic. His father believes what he can’t believe, and that makes him out superior to his father. And then here is Kate Crediton with all her money——”
“Father!” cried John, pale with rage.
“Oh, hush, hush!” said Mrs Mitford; “that has nothing to do with it. Oh, don’t let us bring her name in to make bitterness. John, John, do not say anything hasty! We had so set our hearts upon it. And, dear, your papa might explain things to you if you would but have patience. He never knew you had any doubts before.”
“Mother,” said John, with tears in his eyes, turning to her, “it is like you to take my part.”
“But he must have a very strong reason,” she went on, without heeding him, addressing her husband, “to be able to make up his mind to disappoint us so. Don’t be hard upon our poor boy. If you were to argue with him, and explain things—I am sure my John did not mean any harm. Oh, consider, John!—Fanshawe, that you were born in—how could you bear to see it go to others? And the poor people that know you so well—— Dr Mitford, when all this is over, and—strangers gone, and we are quiet again, you will take the boy with you, and go over everything and explain——”
“The fact is,” said the Doctor, suddenly going to the side table and selecting his candle, “that I have no time to waste on such nonsense. You can have what books you want out of my library, and I hope your own sense and reflection will carry the day. Not a word more. You are excited, I hope, and that is the cause of this exhibition. No; of course I don’t accept what you have said. Speak to your mother—that is the best thing you can do. I have got my paper to finish, so good-night.”
John stood aghast, and watched his father go out at the door, impatient and contemptuous of the explanation it had cost him so much to make. And when he turned to his mother, expecting her sympathy, she was standing by him transformed, with a gleam of fire in her eyes such as he had never seen there; a flush on her face, and her hand held up with indignant, almost threatening, vehemence.
“How could you do it?” she cried—“how could you have the heart to do it? To us that have had no thought but for you! Look what sacrifices we have made all your life that you should have everything. Look how your father has worked at his papers—and all that we have done to secure your prosperity. And for the sake of a silly girl you had never seen a month ago! Oh, God forgive me! what shall I do?”
And she sank down on her chair and covered her face, and burst into angry weeping. It was not simple sorrow, but mortification, rage, disappointment—a combination of feelings which it was impossible for John to identify with his mother. She had been defending him but a moment before. It had given him a sense of the most exquisite relief to find her on his side. He had turned to her without doubt or fear, expecting that she would cry a little, perhaps, and lament over him, and be wistfully respectful of his doubts, and tender of his sufferings. And to see her confronting him, flushed, indignant, almost menacing! His consternation was too great for words. “Mother,” he said, faltering, “you are mistaken—indeed you are mistaken!” and stopped short, with mingled resentment and humiliation. Why should Kate be supposed to have anything to do with it? And yet in his heart he knew that she had a great deal to do with it. Her—but not her fortune, as his father thought. Curse her fortune! John, who had always been so gentle, walked up and down the room like a caged lion, with a hundred passions in his heart. He was wild with mortification, and with that sense of the intolerable which accompanies the first great contrariety of a life. Nothing (to speak of) had ever gone cross with him before. But now his mother herself had turned against him—could such a thing be possible?—and the solid earth had been rent away from under his feet.
Neither of them knew how long it was before anything more was said. Mrs Mitford sobbed out her passion, and dried her tears, and remained silent; and so did John, till the air seemed to stir round him with wings and rustlings as of unseen spectators. It was only when it had become unbearable that he broke the silence. “Mother,” he said, with a voice which even to his own ears sounded harsh and strange, “you have always believed me till now. When I tell you that this has been in my heart ever since I left Oxford—and while I was at Oxford—and that I have always refrained from telling you, hoping that when the time of decision came I might feel differently—will you refuse to believe me now?”
Mrs Mitford was incapable of making any reply. “Oh, John,” she said—“oh, my boy!” shaking her head mournfully, while the tears dropped from her eyes. She did not mean to imply that she would not believe him. Poor soul! she did not very well know what she meant, except utter confusion and misery; but that was the meaning which her gesture bore to him.
“I have done nothing to deserve this,” he said, with indignation. “You have a right to be as severe upon me as you like for disobeying your wishes, but you have no right to disbelieve your son.”
“Oh, John, what is the use of speaking?” said Mrs Mitford. “Disbelieve you! why should I disbelieve you? The best thing is just to say nothing more about it, but let me break my heart and take no notice. What am I that I should stand in your way? Your father will get the better of it, for he has so many things to occupy him; but I will never get the better of it. Don’t take any notice of me; the old must give up, whatever happens—I know that—and the young must have their day.”
“Yes; the young must have their day,” said John, severely; and then his heart smote him, and he came and knelt down by his mother’s side. “But why should you be in such despair?” he said. “Mother, I am not going away from you. Though I should not be curate of Fanshawe Regis, may not we all be very happy together?—as happy in a different way? Mother, dear, I thought you were the one to stand by me, whoever should be against me.”
“And so I will stand by you,” she sobbed, permitting him to take her hand and caress it. “Nobody shall say I do not stand up for my own boy. You shall have your mother for your defender, John, if it should kill me. But oh, my heart is broke!” she cried, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Now and then even a boy’s mother must think of herself. All my dreams were about you, John. I have not been so happy, not so very happy, in my life. Other women have been happier than me, and more thought of, that perhaps have done no more than I have. But I have always said to myself, I have my John. I thought you would make it up to me; I thought my happiness had all been saving up—all waiting till I was growing old, and needed it most. Don’t cry, my dear. I would not have you cry, you that are a man, as if you were a girl. Oh, if I had had a girl of my own, I think I could have borne it better. But she would have gone off and married too. There, there! I am very selfish speaking about my feelings. I will never do it again. What does anything matter to me if you are happy? My dear, go to bed now, and don’t take any more notice. It was the shock, you know. In the morning you will see I shall have come to myself.”
“But, mother, it matters most to me that you should understand me,” cried John—“you who have been everything to me. Do you think I am going to forget who has trained me, and taught me, and guided me since ever I remember? What difference will this make between you and me? Does giving up the Church mean giving up my mother? Never, never! I should give up even my own conscience, whatever it cost me, could I think that.”
“Oh, John, my dear, perhaps if things were rightly explained——?” she faltered, raising her voice with a little spring of hope, and looking anxiously in his face. But she saw no hope there, and then her voice grew tremulous and solemn. “John, do you think it will bring a blessing on you to turn back after you have put your hand to the plough, and forsake God for the world? Is that the way to get His grace?”
“Will God be better pleased with me if I stand up at the altar before Him and say a lie?” said John. “Mother, you who are so true and just, you cannot think what you say.”
“But it is truth you have to speak, and not lies,” said the unused controversialist, with a thousand wistful pleas, which were not arguments, in her eyes; and then she threw her tender arms round her son, and clasped him to her. “Oh, my boy, what can I say? It is because of the shock and my not expecting it. I think my heart is broken. But go to bed, my dear, and think no more of me for to-night.”
“I cannot bear you saying your heart is broken,” cried John. “Mother, don’t be so hard upon me. I must act according to my conscience, whatever I may have to bear.”
“Oh, John! God knows I don’t mean to be hard upon you!” cried Mrs Mitford, stung with the reproach. And then she rose up trembling, her pretty grey hair ruffled about her forehead, her eyes wet and shining with so great a strain of emotion. Thus she stood for a moment, looking at him with such a faint effort at a smile as she could accomplish. “Perhaps things will look different in the morning,” she said; softly, “if we say our prayers with all our hearts before we go to bed.”
And with that she drew her son to her, and gave him his good-night kiss, and went away quickly without turning round again. John was left master of the field. Neither father nor mother had any effectual forces to bring against him—they had both retired with a postponement of the question, which weakened their power and strengthened his. And he had attained what seemed to him the greatest happiness in life—the love of the girl whom he loved. And yet he was not happy. He walked slowly up and down the deserted room, and stood at the open window, and breathed in the breath of the lilies and the dew, and remembered that Kate was his, and yet was not happy. How incredible that was, and yet true! When he left the room he caught himself moving with stealthy footsteps, as if something lay dead in the house. And something did lie dead. The hopes that had centred in him had got their death-blow. The house had lost what had been its heart and strength. He became vaguely, sadly conscious of this, as he stole away in the silence to his own room, and shut himself up there, though it was still so early, with his heart as heavy as lead within his breast.