JOHN

                             A LOVE STORY


                                  BY

                             MRS OLIPHANT

              AUTHOR OF 'CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,' ETC.


                            IN TWO VOLUMES

                               VOL. II.


                      WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
                         EDINBURGH AND LONDON
                               MDCCCLXX




            _ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE_




                                 JOHN.




CHAPTER XV.


There is nothing so hard in human experience as to fit in the
exceptional moments of life into their place, and bring them into a
certain harmony with that which surrounds them; and in youth it is
doubly hard to understand how it is that the exceptional can come
only in moments. When the superlative either of misery or happiness
arrives, there is nothing so difficult to an imaginative mind as to
descend from that altitude and allow that the commonplace must return,
and the ordinary resume its sway. And perhaps, more than any other
crisis, the crisis of youthful passion and romance is the one which
it is most difficult to come down from. It has wound up the young
soul to an exaltation which has scarcely any parallel in life; even
to the least visionary, the event which has happened--the union which
has taken place between one heart and another--the sentiment which has
concentrated all beauty and lovableness and desirableness in one being,
and made that being his--is something too supreme and dazzling to fall
suddenly into the light of common day. John Mitford was not matter of
fact, and the situation to him was doubly exciting. It was attended,
besides, by the disruption of his entire life; and though he would
readily have acknowledged that the rest of his existence could not be
passed in those exquisite pangs and delights--that mixture of absolute
rapture in being with her, and visionary despair at her absence--which
had made up the story of his brief courtship; yet there was in him
a strong unexpressed sense that the theory of life altogether must
henceforward be framed on a higher level--that a finer ideal was before
him, higher harmonies, a more perfect state of being; instead of all
which dreams, when he came to himself he was seated on a high stool,
before a desk, under the dusty window of Mr Crediton’s bank, with the
sound of the swinging door, and the voices of the public, and the
crackle of notes, and the jingle of coin in his ears, and a tedious
trade to learn, in which there seemed to him no possible satisfaction
of any kind! When John had said--in that golden age which already
seemed centuries past--that a clergyman’s was the only work worth
doing, he had meant, that it was the only work for mankind in which a
man could have any confidence. He had said so, while in the same breath
he had expressed his want of absolute belief; and the one sentiment had
not affected the other. But here he found himself in a sphere where
it did not matter to any one what he believed--where he was utterly
out of the way of influencing other people’s thoughts, and had none of
that work within reach which seems almost indispensable to men of his
training--work which should affect his fellow-men. So long as he knew
that two and two make four, that seemed to be all the knowledge that
was required of him. With a sense of surprise which almost stupefied
him, he found that all the careful education of his life was as nought
to him in his new sphere. If it did not harm him--which sometimes he
thought it did--at least it was totally useless. The multiplication
table was of more use than Homer or Virgil; and John’s mind was the
mind of a scholar, not of an active thinker, much less doer. He was
the kind of man that dwells and lingers upon the cadence of a line or
the turn of a sentence--a man not always very sure which were the most
real--the men and women in his books, or those he pushed against in the
public ways. “We are such stuff as dreams are made of.” Fancy a man
with such words in his mouth finding himself all at once a dream among
dreams, gazing vaguely over a counter at the public, feeling himself
utterly incapable of any point of encounter with that public such as
his education and previous training suggested, except in the way of
counting out money to them, or adding up the sums against them. What
a wonderful, wonderful change it was! And then to come down to this
from that exaltation of love’s dream--to jump into this, shivering as
into an ice-cold bath, out of all the excitement of youthful plans and
fancies, visions of the nobler existence, ecstasy of first betrothal!
The shock was so immense that it took away his breath. He sat all
silent, chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy for days together,
and then got his hat and walked back to the shabby little rooms he had
taken on the outskirts of Camelford, stupefied, and not knowing what he
was about. What was he to do when he got there? He ate his badly-cooked
and painfully-homely meal, and then he would sit and stare at his two
candles as he stared at the public in the bank. He did not feel capable
of reading--what was the good of reading? Nothing that he had within
his reach could be of any use to him in his new career, and his mind
was not in a fit condition for resuming any studies or seeking out any
occupation for itself. When Kate made inquiries into his life on the
Sunday evenings, he found it very difficult to answer her. What could
he say? There was nothing in it which was worth describing, or which it
would have given her, he thought, anything but pain to know.

“But tell me, have you nice rooms--is there a nice woman to look
after you?” Kate would say. “If you don’t answer me I shall have to
go and see them some day when you are at the bank. I will say you are
my--cousin, or something. Or perhaps if I were to tell the truth,”
she added, softly, with her favourite trick, almost leaning her head
against his arm, “it would interest her, and she would take more pains.”

“And what would you say if you said the truth?” said foolish John. Poor
fellow! this was all he had for his sacrifice, and naturally he longed
for his hire, such as it was.

“I should say, of course, that you were a nearer one still, and a
dearer one,” said Kate, with a soft little laugh; “what else? but oh,
John, is it not very different? That dear Fanshawe Regis, and your
mother, and everything you have been used to. Is it not very, very
different?” she cried, expecting that he would tell her how much more
blessed were his poor lodgings and close work when brightened by the
hope of her.

“Yes, it is very different,” he said, in a dreamy, dreary tone. The
summer was stealing on; it was August by this time, and the days were
shortening. And it was almost dark, as dark as a summer night can
be, when they strayed about the garden in the High Street, which was
so different from the Rectory garden. There were few flowers, but at
the farther end some great lime-trees, old and vast, which made the
gravel-path look like a woodland road for twenty paces or so. She could
not see his face in the dark, but there was in his voice nothing of
that inflection which promised a flattering end to the sentence. Kate
was a little chilled, she did not know why.

“But you don’t--grudge it?” she said, softly. “Oh, John, there is
something in your voice--you are not sorry you have done so much?--for
nothing but _me_?”

“Sorry!” he said, stooping over her--“sorry to be called into life
when I did not know I was living! But, Kate, if it were not for
_this_, that is my reward for everything, I will not deny that
there is a great difference. I should have been working upon men the
other way; and one gets contemptuous of money. Never mind, I care for
nothing while I have you.”

“I never knew any one that was contemptuous of money,” said Kate,
gravely; “people here say money can do everything. That is why I want
you to be rich.”

“Dear,” he said, holding her close to him, “you don’t understand, and
neither did I. I don’t think I shall ever be rich. How should I, a
clerk in a bank? Your father does not show me any favour, and it is
not to be expected he should. Who am I, that I should try to steal his
child from him? Since I have been here, Kate, there are a great many
things that I begin to understand----”

“What?” she said, as he paused; raising in the soft summer dark her
face to his.

“Well, for one thing, what a gulf there is between you and me!” he
said; “and how natural it was that your father should be vexed. And
then, Kate--don’t let it grieve you, darling--how very very unlikely
it is that I shall ever be the rich man you want me to be. I thought
when we spoke of it once that anything you told me to do would be
easy; and so it would, if it was definite--anything to bear--if it was
labouring night and day, suffering tortures for you----”

Here Kate interrupted him with a little sob of excitement, holding his
arm clasped in both her hands: “Oh, John, do I want you to suffer?” she
cried. “You should have everything that was best in the world if it was
me----”

“But I don’t know how to grow rich--I don’t think I shall ever know,”
said John, with a sigh. Up to this moment he had restrained himself
and had given no vent to his feelings, but when the ice was once
broken they all burst forth. The two went on together up and down
under the big lime-trees, she gazing up at him, he bending down to
her, as they had done in the old garden at Fanshawe when he confided
his difficulties to her. He had thrust off violently that series of
difficulties, abandoning the conflict, but only to let a new set of
difficulties seize upon him in still greater strength than the former.
And the whole was complicated by a sense that it was somehow her doing,
and that a complaint of them was next to a reproach of her. But still
it was not in nature, his mouth being thus opened, that John could
refrain.

“I seem to be always complaining,” he said--“one time of circumstances,
another time of myself; for it is of myself this time. Many a fellow
would be overjoyed, no doubt, to find himself in the way of making
his own fortune, but you can’t think how little good I am. I suppose
I never was very bright. If you will believe me, Kate, not only shall
I never make any fortune where your father has placed me, but I am so
stupid that I cannot see how a man may rise out of such a position, nor
how a fortune is to be made.”

“But people do it,” said Kate, eagerly; “one hears of them every day.
Of course I don’t know how. It is energy or something--making up their
minds to it; and of course though papa may look cross he must be
favourable to you. John, you _know_ he must. If I thought he was
not, I should make him--I don’t know what I should not make him do----”

“You must not make him do anything,” said John. “You may be sure I
don’t mean to give in--I shall try my best, and perhaps there may be
more in me than I think. I suppose it is seeing you, and being so far
apart from you, that is the worst. Except to-night--if the Sundays
came, say three times in a week----”

“I don’t think I should like that,” said Kate; “but seriously, you
know, don’t you like to see me?--are you--jealous?” she asked, with a
little laugh. The talk had been too grave for her, and she was glad to
draw it down to a lower sphere.

“If I were,” he said, with a sudden glow of passion, “I should go
away. I have never faced that idea yet; but if I were--jealous, as you
say----”

“What?” she cried, with the curiosity of her kind, clinging to him in
the fondest proximity, yet half pleased to play with her keen little
dagger in his heart.

“That would be the end,” he said, with a long-drawn breath. And a
thrill of excitement came over Kate which was more pleasurable than
otherwise. Had she really stirred him up to the height of a _grande
passion_? It was not that she meant to be cruel to John. But such
an opportunity does not come in everybody’s way. She could not help
wondering suddenly how he would feel under the trial, and how his
sufferings would show themselves. As for his going away, she did not
put much faith in that. He would be very unhappy, and there would be
a certain satisfaction in the sight of his torments. Kate did not say
this in words, nor was she conscious of meaning it; but in the mere
levity of her power the thought flashed through her mind. For, to be
sure, it would only be for a moment that she would let him suffer. When
she had enjoyed that evidence of her own supremacy, then she would
overwhelm him with kindness, prove to him how foolish he was ever to
doubt her, give herself to him without waiting for anybody’s leave. But
in the mean time that strange curiosity to see how far her power went
which is at the bottom of so much cruelty ran through her mind. It all
went and came in the twinkling of an eye, passing like the lightning,
and when she answered him, poor John had no idea what a sudden gleam of
suggestion had come over her, or how far her imagination had gone in
the time.

“But there is not going to be an end,” she said, in her soft, coaxing
voice. “And you will put up with it, and with papa, and with a great
many things we don’t like--won’t you? for the sake of a poor little
girl who is not worth it. Oh, John! you know you committed yourself to
all that when you saved my life.”

John was nothing loath to commit himself now to anything she asked of
him; and as they strayed on under the dark rustling lime-trees, with
nobody within sight or sound, and the darkness enclosing them, utter
content came over the young man’s mind. After all, was not this hour
cheaply purchased by all the tedium and all the disgusts of common
life? And even the common life looked more endurable in this sweet
gloom which was full of Kate’s soft breathing, and the soft rustle of
her dress, and sense of her presence. She was so close to him, leaning
on his arm, and yet he could see nothing but an outline of her by his
side. It was thus she had been by him on the night which decided his
fate--a shadow-woman, tender, clinging, almost invisible. “Kate, Kate,”
he said, out of his full heart, “I wonder if you are a little witch
leading me astray?--for it is always in the dark when I can’t see you
that you are good to me. When we go in you will be kind and sweet, but
you will be Miss Crediton. Are we shadows, you and I? or are you Undine
or Lorelei drawing me to my fate?”

“You foolish fellow,” said Kate; “how could I be Undine and not a drop
of water nearer than Fanshawe Regis? Don’t you see that when we go in
papa is there? You would not like me to write up in big letters--“I
have gone over to the enemy--I don’t belong to you any longer. You
know, John, it would be true. I am not _his_ now, poor papa, and
he is so fond of me; but you would not like me to put that on a flag
and have it carried before me; you would not be so cruel to papa?”

“I am a poor mortal,” said John, “I almost think I could be cruel. If
you are not his, are you mine? Say so, you little Queen of Shadows, and
I will try to remember it and comfort my heart.”

“Whose else should I be?” whispered Kate. And the lover’s satisfaction
attained for a moment to that point of perfection which lasts but for
a moment. His heart seemed to stop beating in that ineffable fulness
of content. He took her into his arms in the soft summer darkness--two
shadows in a world of shadow. Everything around them, everything before
them, was dim with mist. Nothing could be more uncertain than their
prospects, a fact which John, at least, had begun to realise fully. The
whole scene was an illustration of the words which were so often in his
heart. Uncertain gusts of balmy wind, now from one quarter, now from
another, agitated the trees overhead. The faint twilight of the skies
confused all outlines--the darkness under the trees obliterated every
living thing--little mysterious thrills of movement, of the leaves, of
the air, of invisible insects or roosted birds, were about them. “We
are such stuff as dreams are made of.” But amid these shadows for one
moment John caught a passing gleam of satisfaction and delight.

Mr Crediton was in the drawing-room all alone when they went in. Had
he been prudent he would have gone to his library, as he usually did,
and spared himself the sight; but this night a jealous curiosity had
possessed him. To see his child, who had been his for all these years,
come in with dazzled, dazzling eyes, and that soft blush on her cheek,
and her arm, even as they entered the room, lingering within that of
her lover, was very hard upon him. Confound him! he said in his heart,
although he knew well that but for John he would have had no child. He
noted the change which came over Kate--that change which chilled her
lover, and went through him like a blast from the snow-hills--without
any pleasure, almost with additional irritation. She is not even
frank, as she used to be, he said to himself. She puts on a face to
cheat me, and to make me believe I am something to her still; and it
might almost be said that Mr Crediton hated the young fellow who had
come between him and his child.

“It is such a lovely evening, papa,” said Kate, “we could scarcely make
up our minds to come in. It is not the country, of course; but still I
am fond of our garden. Even at Fanshawe I don’t think there are nicer
trees.”

“Of course the perfection of everything is at Fanshawe,” he said, with
a sudden sharpness which changed the very atmosphere of the room all
in a moment; “but I think it is imprudent to stay out so late, and it
is damp, and there is no moon. I thought you required a moon for such
rambles. Please let me have a cup of tea.”

“We did very well without a moon,” said Kate, trying to keep up her
usual tone; but it was not easy, and she went off with a subdued step
to the tea-table, and had not even the courage to call John to help her
as she generally did. Oh, why didn’t papa stay in his own room? she
said to herself. It is only one night in the week, and he should not
be so selfish. But she took him his tea with her own hand, and tried
all she could to soothe him. “You have got a headache, papa,” she said,
tenderly, putting down the cup on the table by him, and looking so
anxious, so ingenuous, and innocent, that it was hard to resist her.

“I have no headache,” he said; “but I am busy. Don’t take any
notice--occupy yourselves as you please, without any thought of me.”

This speech was produced by a sudden compunction and sense of
injustice. It was a sacrifice to right, and yet he was all wrong and
set on edge. He thought that Kate should have perceived that this
amiability was forced and fictitious; but either she was insensible
to it, or she did not any longer care to go deeper than mere words.
She kissed his forehead as if he had been in the kindest mood, and
said, “Poor papa!--thanks. It is so kind of you to think of us when
you are suffering.” To think of them! when she must have known he
was wishing the fellow away. And then Kate retired to the tea-table,
which was behind Mr Crediton, and out of sight, and he saw her beckon
to John with a half-perceptible movement. The young man obeyed, and
went and sat beside her, and the sound of their voices in low-toned
conversation, with little bursts of laughter and soft exclamations,
was gall and wormwood to the father. It was all “that fellow,” he
thought: his Kate herself would never have used him so; and it was
all his self-control could do to prevent him addressing some bitter
words to John. But the fact was, it was Kate’s doing alone--Kate,
who was less happy to-night than usual, but whom his tone had galled
into opposition. “No,” she was whispering to John, “you are not to go
away--not unless you want to be rid of _me_. Papa ought to be
brought to his senses--he has no right to be so cross; and I am not
going to give in to him.” This was the nature of the conversation which
was going on behind Mr Crediton’s back. He did not hear it, and yet it
gave him a furious sense of resentment, which expressed itself at last
in various little assaults.

“Have the goodness not to whisper, Kate,” he said. “You know it sets my
nerves on edge. Speak out,” an address which had the effect of ending
all conversation between the lovers for a minute or two. They sat
silent and looked at each other till Mr Crediton spoke again. “I seem
unfortunately to act upon you like a wet blanket,” he said, with an
acrid tone in his voice. “Perhaps you would rather I went away.”

At this Kate’s spirit was roused. “Papa, I don’t know what I have done
to displease you,” she said, coming forward. “If I am only to see him
once in the week, surely I may talk to him when he comes.”

“I am not aware that I have objected to your talk,” said Mr Crediton,
restraining his passion.

“Not in words,” said Kate, now fairly up in arms; “but it is not just,
papa. It makes John unhappy and it makes me unhappy. He has a right
to have me to himself when he comes. You cannot forget that we are
engaged. I never said a word when you insisted on once a-week, though
it was a disappointment; but you know he ought not to be cheated now.”

All this time John had been moving about at the further end of the
room, at once angry to the verge of violence, and discouraged to the
lowest pitch. He had cleared his throat and tried to speak a dozen
times already. Now he came forward, painfully restraining himself. “I
ought to speak,” he said; “but I dare not trust myself to say anything.
Mr Crediton cannot expect me to give up willingly the only consolation
I have.”

“It is time enough to speak of giving up when any one demands a
sacrifice,” said Mr Crediton, taking upon him suddenly that superiority
of perfect calm with which a middle-aged man finds it so often possible
to confute an impatient boy. “I am sorry that my innocent remarks
should have irritated you both. You must school me, Kate,” he added,
with a forced smile, “what I am to do and say.”

And then he went to his room, with a sense that he had won the
victory. And certainly, if a victory is won every time the other side
is discomfited, such was the case at this moment. John did not say
anything--did not even come to be comforted, but kept walking up and
down at the other end of the room. It was Kate who had to go to him, to
steal her hand within his arm, to coax him back to his usual composure.
And it was a process not very easy to be performed. She moved him
quickly enough to tender demonstrations over herself, which indeed she
had no objection to, but John was chilled and discouraged and cast down
to the very depths.

“He was only cross,” said Kate; “when he is cross I never pay any
attention. Something has gone wrong in business, or that sort of thing.
John, dear, say you don’t mind. It is not me that am making myself
disagreeable: it is only papa.”

But it was hard to get John to respond. Notwithstanding that Mr
Crediton had retired and left the field open, and that Kate did all in
her power to detain him, the young man left her earlier than usual,
and with a sufficiently heavy heart. Kate’s father was seeking a
quarrel--endeavouring to show him the falseness of his position,
and make it plain how obnoxious he was. John walked all the long
way home to his little lodgings, which were at the other end of the
town, contemplating the dim Sunday streets, all so dark, with gleams
of lamplight and dim reflections from the wet pavement--for in the
mean time rain had fallen. And this was all he had for all he had
sacrificed. He did not reckon Kate herself in the self-discussion. She
was worth everything a man could do; but to be thus chained and bound,
within sight, yet shut out from her--to be made the butt of another
man’s jealous resentment--to have a seeming privilege, which was made
into a kind of torture--and to have given his life for this;--what
could he say even to himself? He sat down in his hard arm-chair and
gazed into the flame of his two candles, and felt himself unable to do
anything but brood over what had happened. He could not read nor turn
his mind from the covert insult, the unwilling consent. And what was to
come of it? John covered his face with his hands when he came to that
part of the subject. There was nothing to look forward to--nothing but
darkness. It was natural that she, a spoiled child of fortune, should
smile and trust in something turning up; as for John, he saw nothing
that could turn up; and in all the world there seemed to him no single
creature with less hope of moulding his future according to his wishes
than himself.




CHAPTER XVI.


This moment of dismay, however, passed over, as the moments of delight
did, without bringing about any absolute revolution in John’s life.
The next day Mr Crediton took occasion to be more than ordinarily
civil, repenting of his bad humour, and Kate stopped short before his
window as she rode by to wave her hand to him. A man cannot build the
comfort of his life permanently on such trifles; but there is a moment
when the wave of a girl’s hand as she passes is enough to strengthen
and exhilarate his heart. So the crisis blew over as the others had
done, and the routine went on. John set his teeth, and confronted
his position with all its difficulties, making a desperate effort. A
woman might bear such a trial, and live through it; but it is hard
upon a man, when he is no longer a boy, to be called upon to give
up everything, to change the entire current of his occupations, and
make an unquestionable descent in the social scale, for love, without
even giving him its natural compensations. An imprudent marriage is a
different thing, for then the consequences are inevitable when once the
step has been taken, and have to be borne, will he nill he. But to make
love his all--the sole object and meaning of his life--there was in
this a certain humiliation which by turns overwhelmed John’s fortitude
and courage. It was indeed almost a relief to him, and helped him to
bear his burden more steadily when the annual removal of the family to
Fernwood took place, and Kate vanished from before his eyes. She cried
when she parted with him that last Sunday, and John felt a _serrement
du cœur_ which almost choked him; but still, at the same time, when
it was over and she was gone, life on the whole became easier. He made
an effort to interest himself in his brother clerks, and enter into
their life; but what was a humiliation to John was to them such a
badge of superiority that he could make but little of that. He was Mr
Crediton’s future son-in-law, probably their own future employer, in
the eyes of the young men around him, who accepted his advances with
a deference and half-concealed pride which threw him back again upon
himself. He had no equals, no companions. To be sure there were plenty
of people in Camelford who would have been glad to receive Dr Mitford’s
son, but he had no desire for the ordinary kind of society. And it is
not to be described with what pleasure he saw Fred Huntley, a man whom
he had never cared for heretofore, push open the swinging door of the
bank, and peer round the place with short-sighted eyes. “Mr Mitford, if
you please,” Fred said, perhaps rather superciliously, to the clerk who
was John’s superior, expecting, it was clear, to be ushered into some
secret retirement where the principals of the bank might be. When John
rose from his desk, Huntley gazed at him with unfeigned astonishment.
“What! you here!” he said; and opened his eyes still wider when John
turned round and explained to Mr Whichelo that he was going out, and
why. “You don’t mean to say they stick you at a desk like that, among
all those fellows?” Fred said, as they left the bank together; which
exclamation of wonder revived the original impatience which use and
wont by this time had calmed down.

“Exactly like the other fellows,” said John; “and quite right too, or
why should I be here?”

“Then I suppose you are--learning--the business,” said Fred. “Old
Crediton must mean you to be his successor. And that is great luck,
though I confess it would not have much charm for me.”

“It is very well,” said John, “I have nothing to complain of. If I can
stick to it I suppose I shall earn some money sooner or later, which is
a great matter, all you people say.”

“Of course it is a great matter,” said Fred. “You told that old fellow
you were going out in a wonderful explanatory way, as if you thought
he mightn’t like it. Can’t you stay and have something with me at the
hotel? I have to be here all night, much against my will, and I should
spend it all alone unless you’ll stay.”

“Thanks; it does me good to see a known face. I’ll stay if you’ll
have me,” said John; and then, as it was still daylight, they took a
preparatory stroll about the streets of Camelford. The inn was in the
High Street, not very far from the bank and the Crediton mansion. The
young men walked about the twilight streets talking of everything in
earth and heaven. It was to John as if they had met in the depths of
Africa or at a lonely Indian station. He had never been very intimate
with Fred Huntley, but they were of the same class, with something like
the same training and associations, and the exile could have embraced
the new-comer, who spoke his own language, and put the same meaning to
ordinary words as he did. It was a long time before he even noticed the
inquiring way in which Huntley looked at him, the half-questions he now
and then would put sharply in the midst of indifferent conversation,
as if to take him off his guard. John was not on his guard, and
consequently the precaution was ineffectual; but after a while he
observed it with a curious sensation of surprise. It was not, however,
till they had dined, and were seated opposite to each other over their
modest bottle of claret, that they fairly entered upon personal affairs.

“Do you find the life suit you?” said Fred, abruptly. “I beg your
pardon if I am too inquisitive; but of course it must be a great
change.”

“I am not sure that it suits me particularly,” said John; but the
glance which accompanied the question had been very keen and searching,
and somehow, without knowing it, a sense of suspicion ran through him;
“I don’t suppose any life does until one is thoroughly used to it.
Routine is the grand safeguard in everything--and perhaps more than in
anything else to a clerk in a bank.”

“But that is absurd,” said Fred. “How long do you and Mr Crediton mean
to keep up the farce? a clerk in the bank betrothed to his daughter--it
is too good a joke.”

“I don’t see the farce,” said John, “and neither, I suppose, does Mr
Crediton; he is not given to joking. Now tell me, Huntley, before we
go any further, is it the dear old people at home who have asked you
to come and look after me? was it--my mother? She might have known I
would tell her at first hand anything there was to tell.”

At this speech Fred Huntley became very much confused, though he did
not look like a man to be easily put out. He grew red, he cleared
his throat, he shuffled his feet about the carpet. “Upon my word you
mistake,” he said; “I have not seen either Mrs Mitford or the Doctor
since you left.”

“Then who has sent you?” said John.

“My dear fellow, you have grown mighty suspicious all at once. Why
should any one have sent me? may not I look up an old friend for my own
pleasure? surely we have known each other sufficiently for that.”

“You might,” said John, “but I don’t think that is the whole question,
and it would be best to tell me at once what you want to know--I am
quite willing to unfold my experiences,” he said, with a forced smile;
and then there was a pause----

“The fact of the matter is,” said Fred Huntley, after an interval, with
an attempt at jocularity, “that you are an intensely lucky fellow.
What will you say if I tell you that I have just come from Fernwood,
and that if any one sent me it was Kate Crediton, wishing for a report
as to your health and spirits--though it is not so long since she has
seen you, I suppose?”

“_Kate_ Crediton?” said John, haughtily.

“I beg your pardon: my sisters are intimate with her, you know, and
I hear her called so fifty times in a day--one falls into it without
knowing. Hang it! since you will have it, Mitford, Miss Crediton did
speak to me before I left. She heard I was coming to Camelford, and
she came to me the night before--last night, in fact--and told me you
were here alone, and she was uneasy about you. I wish anybody was
uneasy about me. She wanted to know if you were lonely, if you were
unhappy--half a hundred things. I hope you don’t object to her anxiety.
I assure you it conveyed a very delightful idea of your good fortune to
me.”

“Whatever Miss Crediton chose to say must have been like herself,”
cried John, trembling with sudden passion, “and no doubt she thought
you were a very proper ambassador. But you must be aware, Huntley,
that ladies judge very differently on these points from men. If you
please we will not go further into that question.”

“It was not I who began it, I am sure,” said Fred; and another pause
ensued, during which John sat with lowering brows, and an expression no
one had ever seen on his face before. “Look here, Mitford,” said Fred,
suddenly, “don’t go and vex yourself for nothing. If any indiscretion
of mine should make dispeace between you----”

“Pray don’t think for a moment that such a thing is likely to happen,”
said John.

“Well--well--if I am too presumptuous in supposing anything I say to
be likely to move you;” Huntley went on, with a restrained smile--“but
you really must not do Miss Crediton injustice through any clumsiness
of mine. It came about in the most natural way. She was afraid there
had been some little sparring between her father and yourself, and was
anxious, as in her position it was so natural to be----”

“Exactly,” said John. “Are you on your way home now, or are you going
back to Fernwood? I should ask you to take a little parcel for me if
you were likely to be near Fanshawe. How are the birds? I don’t suppose
I shall do them much harm this year.”

“Oh, they’re plentiful enough,” said Huntley; “my father has the house
full, and I am not much of a shot, you know. They would be charmed to
see you if you would go over for a day or two. I mean to make a run to
Switzerland, myself. Vaughan has some wonderful expedition on hand--up
the Matterhorn, or something--and I should like to be on the spot.”

“Shall you go up with him?” said John.

“Not I, but I should like to be at hand to pick up what remains of
him if he comes to grief--and to share his triumph, of course, if he
succeeds,” Fred added, with a laugh--“a friend’s privilege. Are you
going?--it is scarcely ten o’clock.”

“You forget I am a man of business nowadays,” said John, with an
uncomfortable smile; and then they stood over the table, facing but
not looking at each other; a suppressed resentment and excitement
possessing one, which he was doing his utmost to restrain--and the
other embarrassed, with a mixture of charitable vexation and malicious
pleasure in the effect he had produced.

“I’ll walk with you,” said Huntley; for to shake hands and separate at
this moment would have been something like an irredeemable breach--and
that, for two men belonging to the same county, and almost the same
set, was a thing to be avoided. John had not sufficient command
of himself to make any effusive reply, but he did not object; and
presently they were in the street walking side by side and discoursing
on every subject except the one in their minds. They had not walked
very far, however, before some indefinable impulse made John turn back
to cast a glance at the bank--the scene of his daily penance--and
the vacant house that stood beside it. They were a good way down
the street, on the opposite side. He gave a slight start, which his
companion perceived, but offered no explanation of it. “Let us turn
back a little, I have forgotten something,” he said. Huntley, who had
no particular interest where they went, turned as he was desired, and
was just debating with himself whether, all the due courtesies having
been attended to, he might not go into his hotel as they passed it, and
leave John at peace to pursue his sullen way. But it occurred to him
that John made a half-perceptible pause at the door of the “Greyhound,”
as if inviting him to withdraw, and this movement decided the question.
“Confound the fellow! I’m not going to be dismissed when he pleases,”
Fred said to himself; and so went on, not knowing where he went.

“I thought so!” cried John, suddenly, in the midst of some
philosophical talk, interrupting Fred in the middle of a sentence--and
he rushed across the street to the bank, to his companion’s utter
consternation. “What is the matter?” cried Fred. John dashed at the
closed door, ringing the bell violently, and beating with his stick
upon the panels. Then he called loudly to a passing policeman--“Knock
at the house!” he cried. “Fire! fire! Huntley, for heaven’s sake, fly
for the engines!--they will let me in and not you, or I should go
myself--don’t lose a moment. Fire! fire!”

“But stop a little,” cried Huntley in dismay, plucking at John’s arm;
and what with the sound of the knocking and the peals of the bell which
sounded sepulchrally in the empty place, he scarcely could hear his own
voice. “Stop a moment--you are deceiving yourself; I see no signs of
fire.”

“_You_ run!” cried John, hoarsely, turning to the policeman, “or
you--five pounds to the man who gets there first! Signs!--Good God!
the wretches are out. We must break open the door.” And he beat at it,
as if he would beat it in, with a kind of frenzy; while Huntley stood
stupefied, and saw two or three of the bystanders, who had already
begun to collect, start off with a rush to get the fire-engines.
“There’s nobody in the house either, sir, or else I can’t make ’em
hear,” said the policeman, coming up to John for his orders. “Then we
must break in,” cried John. “There’s a locksmith in the next street:
you fly and fetch him, my good fellow. And where shall we get some
ladders? There is a way of getting in from the house if we were once
in the house.”

“Not to make too bold, sir,” said the policeman, “I’d like to know
afore breaking into folks' houses, if you had any title to do the like.
You’re not Mr Crediton, and he aint got no son----”

John drew himself to his full height, and even then in his excitement
glanced at Huntley, who kept by his side, irresolute and ignorant, not
knowing what to do. “I am closely connected with Mr Crediton,” he said;
“nobody can have a better right to look after his affairs; and he is
away from home. Get us ladders, and don’t let us stand parleying here.”

The policeman looked at him for a moment, and then moved leisurely
across the street to seek the ladders, while in the mean time the two
young men stood in front of the blind house with all its shuttered
windows, and the closed door which echoed hollow to John’s assault. The
dark front so jealously bolted and barred, all dangers without shut
out, and the fiery traitor within ravaging at its leisure, drove John
wild, excited as he was to begin with. “Good heavens! to think we must
stand here,” he said, ringing once more, but this time so violently
that he broke the useless bell. They heard it echo shrilly through the
silent place in the darkness. “Mr White the porter’s gone out for a
walk--I seed him,” said a boy; “there aint no one there.” “But I see
no signs of fire,” cried Fred. Just then there came silently through
the night air a something which contradicted him to his face--a puff
of smoke from somewhere, nobody could tell where; and all at once
through the freshness of the autumn night the smell of fire suddenly
breathed round them. Fred uttered one sharp exclamation, and then
stood still, confounded. As for John, he gave a spring at the lower
window and caught the iron bar and swung himself up. But the bar
resisted his efforts, and there was nothing for it but to wait. When
the ladders were at last visible, moving across the gloom, he rushed
at them, without taking time to think, and snatching one out of the
slow hands of the indifferent bearers, placed it against the wall of
the house, while Fred stood observing, and was up almost at the sill
of an unshuttered window on the upper floor before Huntley could say
a word. Then Fred contented himself with standing outside and looking
on. “One is enough for that sort of work,” he said half audibly, and
fell into conversation with the policeman, who stood with an anxious
countenance beside him. “I hope as the gentleman won’t hurt himself,”
said the policeman. “I hope it’s true as he’s Mr Crediton’s relation,
sir. Very excited he do seem, about not much, don’t you think, sir? And
them engines will be tearing down, running over the children before a
man knows.”

“Do you think there is not much danger, then?” said Fred.

“Danger!” cried the man--“Lord bless you! if it was a regular fire
don’t ye think as I’d have noticed it, and me just finished my round
not half an hour since? But it’s hawful negligent of that fellow White.
I knew as he’d been going to the bad for some time back, and I’m almost
glad he’s catched; but as for fire, sir----”

At this moment another puff of smoke, darker and heavier, came in a
gust from the roof, and the policeman putting his eye to the keyhole,
fell back again exclaiming vehemently, “By George! but it is a fire,
and the gentleman’s right,” and sprang his rattle loudly. The crowd
round gave a half-cheer of excitement, and up full speed rattled the
fire-engines, clearing the way, and filling the air with clangour. At
the same moment arrived a guilty sodden soul, wringing his hands, in
which was a big key. “Gentlemen,” he cried, “I take you to witness
as I never was out before. It’s an accident as nobody couldn’t have
foreseen. It’s an accident as has never happened before.” “Open the
door, you ass!” cried Huntley; and then the babel of sounds, the gleams
of wild light, the hiss of the falling water, all the confused whirl
of circumstance that belongs to such a moment swept in, and took all
distinct understanding even from the self-possessed perceptions of Fred.

As for John, when he found himself in the silent house which he had
entered from the window, he had no time to think of his sensations. He
had snatched the policeman’s lantern from his hand ere he made his
ascent, and went hastily stumbling through the unknown room, and down
the long, echoing stairs, as through a wall of darkness; projecting
before him the round eye of light, which made the darkness if possible
more weird and mystical. His heart was very sore; it pained him
physically, or at least he thought it did, lying like a lump of lead in
his breast. But he was glad of the excitement which forced his thoughts
away from himself. To unbolt the ponderous doors at either end of the
passage which led into the bank, took him what seemed an age; but at
last he succeeded in getting them open. A cloud of smoke enveloped him
as he went in, and all but drove him back. He burst through it with a
confused sense of flames and suffocation, and blazing sheets of red,
that waved long tongues towards him to catch him as he rushed through
them; but, notwithstanding, he forced his way into Mr Crediton’s room,
where he knew there were valuable papers. He thought of nothing as he
rushed through the jaws of death; neither of Kate, nor of his past
life, nor of his home, nor of any of those things which are supposed
to gleam upon the mind in moments of supreme danger. He thought only of
the papers in Mr Crediton’s room. Unconsciously he formed an idea of
the origin of the fire, as, panting, choked, and scorched, he gathered,
without seeing them, into his arms the box of papers, and seized upon
everything he could feel with his hands upon the table. He could see
nothing, for his eyes were stinging with the smoke, and scorched with
the flames. When he had grasped everything he could feel, with his
senses failing him, he pushed blindly for the door, hoping, so far as
he had wit enough to hope anything, that he might reach the front of
the house, and be able to unloose its fastenings before he gave way. By
this time there was a roaring of the fire in his ears; an insufferable
smell of burning wood and paint; all his senses were assailed, even
that of touch, which recoiled from the heated walls against which he
staggered trying to find the door. At last the sharp pain with which
he struck violently against it, cutting open his forehead, brought him
partially to himself. He half-staggered half-fell into the passage,
dropping upon his knees, for his arms were full, and he had no hand to
support himself with. Then all at once a sudden wild gust of air struck
him in the face from the other side; the flames, with (he thought) a
cry, leaped at him from behind, and he fell prostrate, clasping tight
the papers he had recovered, and knew no more.

It was half an hour later when Fred Huntley, venturing into the narrow
hall of the burning house after the first detachment of firemen had
entered with their hatchets, found some one lying drenched with water
from the engines, and looking like a calcined thing that would drop to
powder at a touch, against the wall. The calcined creature moved when
it was touched, and gave signs of life; but every one by this time had
forgotten John in the greater excitement of the fire; and it had not
occurred to Huntley even, the only one who knew much about him, to
ask what had become of him. He was dragged out, not very gently, to
the steps in front; and there, fortunately for John, was the porter
who had been the cause of all the mischief, and who stood outside
wringing his hands, and getting in everybody’s way. “Look after him,
you!” cried Fred, plunging in again to the heart of the conflict. Some
of the clerks had arrived by this time, and were anxiously directing
the fire-engines to play upon the strong room in which most of the
valuables of the bank were placed. Fred Huntley was not noticeably
destitute of courage, but he was more ready to put himself in the
front when the pioneers had passed before, and there were plenty
of followers to support him behind. He took the command of affairs
while John lay moaning, scorched, and drenched on the wet step, with
people rushing past him, now and then almost treading on him, and pain
gradually rousing him into consciousness. They had tried to take his
charge from him and he had resisted, showing a dawn of memory. When
the water from the hose struck him again in the face, he struggled
half up, and sat and looked round him. “Good Lord, Mr Mitford!” said
Mr Whichelo, the chief cashier, discovering him with consternation.
“Take me somewhere,” gasped John; “and take care of these,” holding
out his innocent booty. Mr Whichelo rushed at him eagerly. “God bless
you!” he cried; “it was that I was thinking of. How did you get it?
have you been into the fire and the flames to fetch it, and saved my
character?” cried the poor man, hysterically. “Hold your tongue, and
take me somewhere!” cried John; and the next moment his senses had once
more forsaken him, and he knew nothing about either blaze or flame.

The after incidents of the night, of which John was conscious only by
glimpses, were--that he was carried to the inn opposite, his treasures
taken from his arms and locked carefully away, and the doctor brought,
who examined him, and shook his head, and said a great deal about a
shock to the nerves. John was in one of his intervals of consciousness
when this was said, and raised himself from the strange distance and
dreaminess in which he seemed to be lying. “I have had no shock to my
nerves,” he said. “I’m burnt and sore and soaking, that’s all. Plaster
me or mend me somehow.” And this effort saved him from the feverish
confusion into which he was falling. When he came to himself he felt
that he was indeed sore all over, with minute burns in a hundred places
about his person; his hair and his eyelashes scorched off, and his skin
all blistered and burning. Perhaps it was the pain which kept him in
full possession of his faculties for all the rest of the night. Then
he felt it was not the fire he had cared for, nor the possible loss,
but only the pure satisfaction of doing something. When they told him
the fire was got under, the strong room saved, and that nothing very
serious had happened, the news did not in the least excite him. He
had asked as if he was profoundly concerned, and he was scarcely even
interested. “Pain has often that effect,” he heard the doctor say.
“This kind of irritating, ever-present suffering, absorbs the mind.
Of course he cares. Tell him again, that the news may get into his
mind.” And then somebody told him again, and John longed to cry, What
the devil is that to me! but restrained himself. It was nothing to
him; and the burning on his skin was not much: it was nothing indeed
to the burning in his heart. She had discussed with another matters
which were between themselves. She had sent another to report on his
looks and his state of mind; there was between her and another man a
secret alliance which he was not intended to know. The blood seemed
to boil in John’s veins as he lay tossing through the restless night,
trying in vain to banish the thought from him. But the thought, being
intolerable, would not be banished. It lay upon him, and tore at him
as the vultures tore Prometheus. She had discussed their engagement
with Fred Huntley; taken him into her confidence--that confidence which
should have been held sacred to another. John was thrown back suddenly
and wildly upon himself. His heart throbbed and swelled as if it
would break, and felt as if hot irons had seared it. He imagined them
sitting together, talking him over. He even fancied the account of this
accident which Huntley would give. He would be at her ear, while John
was banished. He denied that it had been a shock to his nerves; and yet
his nerves had received such a shock as he might never recover in his
life.




CHAPTER XVII.


For some days after the fire, John continued in a sadly uncomfortable
state both of body and mind. The two, indeed, were not dissimilar.
He was much burnt, though superficially, and suffered double pangs
from the stinging, gnawing, unrelaxing pain. His spirit was burnt
too--scorched by sudden flames; stiff and sore all over, like his
limbs, with points of exaggerated suffering here and there,--a thing
he could not take his thoughts from, nor try to forget. He was very
unmanageable by his attendants, was with difficulty persuaded to obey
the doctor’s prescriptions, and absolutely refused to lay himself up.
“The end’ll be as you’ll kill yourself, sir, and that you’ll see,”
said his landlady. “Not much matter either,” John murmured between
his teeth. He was smarting all over, as the poor moth is which flies
into the candle. It does the same thing over again next minute, no
doubt; and so, probably, would he: but in the mean time he suffered
much both in body and mind. He would not keep in bed, or even in-doors,
notwithstanding the doctor’s orders; and it was only downright
incapacity that kept him from appearing in the temporary offices which
had been arranged for the business of the bank. Mr Crediton had come
in from Fernwood at once to look after matters; but on that day John
was really ill, and so had escaped the visit which otherwise would have
been inevitable. Mr Whichelo came that evening to bring his principal’s
regrets. “He was very much cut up about not seeing you,” said the
head-clerk. “You know your own affairs best, and I don’t wish to be
intrusive; but I think you would find it work better not to keep him at
such a distance.”

“I keep Mr Crediton at a distance!” said John, with a grimace of pain.

“You do, Mr Mitford. I don’t say that he is always what he might be
expected to be; but, anyhow, no advances come from your side.”

“It is not from my side advances should come,” John said, turning his
face to the wall with an obstinacy which was almost sullen; while at
the same time he said to himself at the bottom of his heart, What
does it matter? These were but the merest outward details. The real
question was very different. Did a woman know what love meant?--was it
anything but a diversion to her--an amusement? was what he was asking
himself; while a man, on the other hand, might give up his life for it,
and annul himself, all for a passing smile--a smile that was quite as
bright to the next comer. Such thoughts were thorns in John’s pillow as
he tossed and groaned. They burned and gnawed at his heart worse than
his outward wounds; and there were no cool applications which could
be made to them. He did not want to be spoken to, nor to have even
the friendliest light thrown upon the workings of his mind. To be let
alone--to be left to make the best of it--to be allowed to resume his
work quietly, and go and come, and wait until the problem had been
solved for him, or until he himself had solved it,--it seemed to John
that he wished for nothing more.

“That may be,” said Mr Whichelo; “but all the same you don’t take
much pains to conciliate him--though that is not my business. A man
who has had a number of us round him all his life always anxious to
conciliate--as good men as himself any day,” the head-clerk added, with
some heat, “but still in a measure dependent upon his will for our
bread--it takes a strong head to stand such a strain, Mr Mitford. An
employer is pretty near a despot, unless he’s a very good man. I don’t
want to say a word against Mr Crediton----”

“Much better not,” said John, with another revulsion of feeling, not
indisposed to knock the man down who ventured to thrust in his opinion
between Kate’s father and himself; and Mr Whichelo for the moment was
silent, with a half-alarmed sense of having gone too far.

“He is very grateful to you for your promptitude and energy,” he
continued: “but for you these papers must have been lost. It would
have been my fault,” said Mr Whichelo, with animation, yet in a low
tone. There was even emotion in his words, and something like a tear in
his eye. If he had been a great general or a distinguished artist, his
professional reputation could not have been more precious to him. But
John was preoccupied, and paid no attention. He did not care for having
saved Mr Whichelo’s character any more than Mr Crediton’s money, though
he had, indeed, risked his life to do it. He had been in such a mood
that to risk his life was rather agreeable to him than otherwise, not
for any “good motive,” but simply as he would have thrust his burnt leg
or arm into cold water for the momentary relief of his pain.

“Don’t let us talk any more about it,” he said; “they are safe, I
suppose, and there is an end of it. But how I got out of that place,”
he added, turning himself once more impatiently on his uneasy bed, “is
a mystery to me.”

“You have your friend to thank for that,” said his companion, with the
sense that now at last a topic had been found on which it would be safe
to speak.

“My--what?” cried John, sitting suddenly upright in his bed.

“Your--friend,--the gentleman who was with you. Good God! this is the
worst of all,” cried poor Whichelo, driven to his wits' end.

And, indeed, for a minute John’s expression was that of a demon. He
had some cuts on his forehead, which were covered with plaster; he was
excessively pale; one of his arms was bandaged up; and when you have
added to all these not beautifying circumstances the dim light thrown
upon the bed under its shabby curtains, and the look of horror, dismay,
and rage which passed over the unhappy young fellow’s face, poor Mr
Whichelo’s consternation may be understood. “My--friend!” he repeated,
with a groan. He could not himself have given any reason for it; but it
seemed at the moment to be the last and finishing blow.

“Yes,” said Mr Whichelo, “so they told me. He found you lying in the
passage with the engines playing upon you, and dragged you out. It was
very lucky for you he was there.”

John fell back in his bed with a look of utter weariness and lassitude.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “But is anybody such a fool as to think
that I should have died with the engines playing on me? Nonsense! He
need not have been so confoundedly officious: but it don’t matter, I
tell you,” he added, angrily; “don’t let us speak of it any more.”

“My dear Mr Mitford,” said Mr Whichelo, “I don’t wish to interfere; but
I am the father of a family myself, with grown-up sons, and I don’t
like to see a young man give way to wrong feeling. The gentleman did
a most friendly action. I don’t know, I am sure, if you would have
died--but--he meant well, there can be no doubt of that.”

“Confound him!” said John between his closed teeth. Mr Whichelo was
glad he could not quite hear what it was; perhaps, however, he expected
something worse than “confound him”--for a sense of horror crept over
him, and he was very thankful that he had no closer interest in this
impatient young man than mere acquaintanceship--a man who was going in
for the Church! he said to himself. He sat silent for a little, and
then got up and took his hat.

“I hear you have to be kept very quiet,” he said; “and as it is late,
I will take my leave. Good evening, Mr Mitford; I hope you will have a
good night; and if I can be of any use----”

“Good-night,” said John, too much worn to be able to think of
politeness. And when Mr Whichelo was gone the doctor came, who gave
him a great deal of suffering by way of relieving him. He bore it all
in silence, having plenty of distraction afforded him by his thoughts,
which were bitter enough. “Doctor,” he said, sitting up all at once
while his injured arm was being bandaged, “answer me one question: I
hear I was found lying somewhere with the engines playing on me; could
I have died like that?”

“You might--in time,” said the doctor, with a smile, “but not just for
as long as the fire lasted; unless you had taken cold, which you don’t
appear to have done, better luck.”

“But there was no other danger?”

“You could not have been burnt alive with the engines playing on you,”
said the doctor. “Yes, of course there was danger: the roof might have
fallen in, which it did not--thanks, I believe, to your promptitude; or
even if the partition had come down upon you, it would have been far
from pleasant; but I should think you have had quite enough of it as it
is.”

“I want to make sure,” said the patient, with incomprehensible
eagerness, “not for my own sake--but--there never was any real danger?
you can tell me that.”

“One can never say as much,” was the answer. “I should not myself like
to lie insensible in a burning house, close to a partition which fell
eventually. At the least you might have been crippled and disfigured
for life.”

A groan burst from John’s breast when he found himself alone on that
weary lingering night. How long it seemed!--years almost since the
excitement of the fire which had sustained him for the moment, though
he was not aware of it. He put his hand up to his eyes, and found that
there were tears in them, and despised himself, which added another
thorn to his pillow. He had nobody to console him; nobody to keep him
from brooding over the sudden misery. Was it a fit revenge of fate
upon him for his feeling of right in regard to Kate? He had felt that
he had a right to her because he had saved her life. Was it possible
that he had taken an ungenerous advantage of that? He went back over
the whole matter, and he said to himself that, had he loved a girl so
much out of his sphere, without this claim upon her, he would have
smothered his love, and made up his mind from the beginning that it was
useless. But the sense that he had saved her life had given him a sense
of power--yes, of ungenerous power--over her. And now he himself had
fallen into the same subjection. Another man had saved his life; or, at
least, was supposed by others, and no doubt would himself believe that
he had done so. Fred Huntley, whom she had taken into her confidence,
to whom she had described the state of the affairs between them, whose
advice almost she had asked on a matter which never should have been
breathed to profane ears--Fred Huntley had saved his life. He groaned
in his solitude, and put up his hand to his eyes, and despised himself.
“I had better cry over it, like a sick baby,” he said to himself, with
savage irony; and oh to think that was all, all he could do!

Next morning John insisted on getting up, in utter disobedience to his
doctor. He had his arm in a sling, but what did that matter? and he
had still the plaster on the cuts on his forehead. He tried to read,
but that was not possible. He wrote to his mother as best he could
with his left hand, telling her there had been a fire, and that he
had burned his fingers pulling some papers out of it--“nothing of the
least importance,” he said. And when he had done that he paused and
hesitated. Should he write to Kate? He had not done it for several
days past. It was the longest gap that had ever occurred in their
correspondence. His heart yearned a little within him notwithstanding
all its wounds; yet after he had taken up the pen he flung it down
again in the sickness of his heart. Why should he write? She must
have heard all about it from Fred Huntley and from her father. She
had heard, no doubt, that Fred had saved his life--and she had taken
no notice. Why should she take any notice? It did not humiliate a
woman to be under such an obligation, but it did humiliate a man. John
rose and stalked about his little room, which scarcely left him space
enough for four steps from end to end. He stared out hopelessly at the
window which looked into the little humble suburban street with its
tiny gardens; and then he went and stared into the little glass over
the mantelpiece, which was scarcely tall enough to reflect him unless
he stooped. A pretty sight he was to look at; three lines of plaster
on his forehead, marks of scorching on his cheek, dark lines of pain
under his eyes, and the restless, anxious, uneasy expression of extreme
suffering on his scarred face. He was not an Adonis at the best, poor
John, and he was conscious of it. What was there in him that she should
care for him? She had been overborne by his claim of right over her. It
had been ungenerous of him; he had put forth a plea which never ought
to be urged, and which another man now had the right of urging over
himself. With a groan of renewed anguish he threw himself down on the
little sofa, and leaned his head and his folded arms on the table at
which he had been writing his mother’s letter. He had nothing to fall
back upon: all his life and hopes he had given up for this, and here
was what it had come to. He had no capability left in his mind but of
despair.

It was, no doubt, because he was so absorbed in his own feelings and
unconscious of what was passing, that he heard nothing of any arrival
at the door. He scarcely raised his head when the door of his own
little sitting-room was opened. “I want nothing, thanks,” he said,
turning his back on his officious landlady, he thought. She must have
come into the room more officious than ever, for there was a faint
rustling sound of a woman’s dress, and that sense of some one in the
room which is so infallible; but John only turned his back the more
obstinately. Then all at once there came something that breathed over
him like a wind from the south, something made up of soft touch, soft
sound, soft breath. “John, my poor John!” said the voice; and the
touch was as of two arms going round that poor wounded head of his.
It was impossible--it could not be. He suffered his hands to be drawn
down from his face, his head to be encircled in the arms, and said to
himself that it was a dream. “Am I mad?” he said, half aloud; “am I
losing my head?--for I know it cannot be.”

“What cannot be? and why should not it be?” said Kate, in his ear.
“Oh, you unkind, cruel John! Did you want me to break my heart without
a word or a message from you? Not even to see papa! not to send me a
single line! to leave me to think you were dying or something, and
you not even in bed. If I were not so glad, I should be in a dreadful
passion. You horrid, cruel, brave, dear old John!”

He did not know what to think or say. All his evil thoughts slid away
from him unawares, as the ice melts. There was no reason for it; but
the sun had shone on them, and they were gone. He took hold of, and
kept fast in his, the hands that had touched his aching head. “I do not
think it is you,” he said; “I am afraid to look lest it should not be
you.”

“I know better than that,” said Kate; “it is because you will not let
me see your face. Poor dear face!” cried the impulsive girl, and cried
a little, and dropped a sudden, soft, momentary kiss upon the scorched
cheek. That was her tribute to the solemnity of the occasion. And then
she laughed half hysterically. “John, dear, you are so ugly, and I like
you so,” she said; and sat down by him, and clasped his arm with both
her hands. John’s heart had melted into the foolishest tenderness and
joy by this time. He was so happy that his very pain seemed to him the
tingling of pleasure. “I cannot think it is you,” he said, looking down
upon her with a fondness which could find no words.

“I have come all this way to see him,” she cried, “and evidently now he
thinks it is not proper. Look, I have brought Parsons with me. There
she is standing in the window all this time, not to intrude upon us. Do
you think I am improper now?”

“Hush!” he said, softly; “don’t blaspheme yourself. Because I cannot
say anything except wonder to feel myself so happy----”

“My poor John, my poor dear old John!” she said, leaning the fairy
head against him which ought to have had a crown of stars round it
instead of a mite of a bonnet. Kate took no thought of her bonnet at
that moment. She sat by his side, and talked and talked, healing his
wounds with her soft words. And Parsons drew a chair quietly to her and
sat down in the window, turning her back upon the pair. “Lord, if I
was to behave like that,” Parsons was saying to herself, “and somebody
a-looking on!” And she sat and stared out of the window, and attracted
a barrel-organ, which came and played before her, with a pair of keen
Italian eyes gleaming at her over it from among the black elf-locks.
Parsons shook her head at the performer; but her presence was enough
for him, and he kept on grinding “La Donna é Mobile” slowly and
steadily, through her thoughts and through the murmuring conversation
of the other two. Neither Kate nor John paid any attention to the
music. They had not heard it, they would have said; and yet it was
strange how the air would return to both of them in later times.

“I see now you could not write,” said Kate; “but still you have
scribbled something to your mother. I think I might have had a word
too. But I did not come to scold you. Oh, that horrid organ-man, I wish
he would go away! You might have sent me a message by papa.”

“I did not see him,” said John.

“Or by Fred Huntley. You saw him, for he told me---- John! what is the
matter? Are you angry? Ought I not to have come?”

Then there was a pause; he had drawn his arm away out of her clasping
hands, and all at once the tingling which was like pleasure became
pain again, and gnawed and burned him as if in a sudden endeavour
to overcome his patience. And yet it was so difficult to look down
upon the flushed wondering face, the eyes wide open with surprise,
the bewildered look, and remain unkind to her. For it was unkind to
pull away the arm which she was clasping with both her hands. He felt
himself a barbarian, and yet he could not help it. Huntley’s name was
like a shot in the heart to him. And the organ went on with its creaks
and jerks, playing out its air. “That organ is enough to drive one
wild,” he said, pettishly, and felt that he had committed himself, and
was to blame.

“Is it only the organ?” said Kate, relieved. “Yes, is it not dreadful?
but I thought you were angry with me. Oh, John, I don’t think I could
bear it if I thought you were really angry with me.”

“My darling! I am a brute,” he said, and put the arm which he had drawn
so suddenly away round her. He had but one--the other was enveloped in
bandages and supported in a sling.

“Does it hurt?” said Kate, laying soft fingers full of healing upon it.
“I do so want to hear how it all happened. Tell me how it was. They say
the bank might all have been burned down if you had not seen it, and
papa would have lost such heaps of money. John, dear, I think you will
find papa easier to manage now.”

“Do you think so?” he said, with a faint smile; “but that is buying his
favour, Kate.”

“Never mind how we get it, if we do get it,” cried Kate. “I am sure
I would do anything to buy his favour--but I cannot go and save his
papers and do such things for him. Or, John, was it for me?” she said,
lowering her voice, and looking up in his face.

“No, I don’t think it was for you,” he answered, rather hoarsely; “and
it was not for him. I did it because I could not help it, and to escape
from myself.”

“To escape from yourself! Why did you want that?” she said, with an
innocent little cry of astonishment. It was clear she was quite unaware
of having done him any wrong.

“Kate, Kate,” he said, holding her close, “you did not mean it; but why
did you take Fred Huntley into your confidence--why did you speak to
him about you and me?”

She gave him a wondering look, and then the colour rose into her cheek.
“John!” she said, in a tone of amazement, “what is this about Fred
Huntley? Are you jealous of him--jealous of _him_? Oh, I hope I
am not quite so foolish as that.”

Was that all she was going to say? No disclaimer of having given him
her confidence, nothing about her part in the matter, only about his.
Was he jealous? the question sank into John’s heart like a stone.

“I don’t know if I am jealous,” he said, with a falter in his voice,
which went to Kate’s impressionable heart. “It must be worse to me than
it is to you, or you would not ask me. To have said anything to anybody
about us, Kate!”

“I see,” she said, holding away from him a little; “I see,”--and was
silent for two seconds at least, which felt like two hours to them
both. And the man went on playing “La Donna é Mobile,”--and Parsons,
very red in the face, kept shaking her head at him, but did not attempt
to leave her post. Then Kate turned and lifted her pretty eyes, full of
tears, to her lover’s face, and spoke in his very ear. “John, it was
very silly of me, and thoughtless, and nasty, I see. But I have had
nobody to tell me such things. I have never had a mother like you; I
say whatever comes into my head. John! I am so sorry----”

Could he have let her say any more? he ended the sweet confession as
lovers use; he held her to him, and healed himself by her touch, by her
breath, by the softness of her caressing hands. He forgot everything
in the world but that she was there. She had meant no harm, she had
thought no harm. It was her innocence, her ignorance, that had led her
into this passing error, and foolish John was so happy that all his
sufferings passed from his mind.

    “His old remembrances went from him wholly,
     And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.”

Everything smiled and brightened before him; the organ-grinder stopped
and found out from poor Parsons’s perpetual gesticulations that pennies
were not to be expected; and something soft and tranquil and serene
seemed to steal into the room and envelop the two, who were betrothing
themselves over again, or so they thought. “Papa says you are to come
to Fernwood. You must come and let me nurse you,” Kate whispered in his
ear. “That would be too sweet,” John whispered back again; and then
she opened the note to his mother and wrote a little postscript to it,
with his arm round her, and his poor scarred face over her shoulder
watching every word as she wrote it. “He looks so frightful,” Kate
wrote, “you never saw any one so hideous, dear mamma, or such a darling
[don’t shake my arm, John]. I never knew how nice he was, nor how fond
I was of him, till now.”

This was how the day ended which had been begun in such misery; for it
was nearly dusk when Kate left him with the faithful Parsons. “Indeed
you shall not come with me,” she said, “you who ought to be in bed----”
but, notwithstanding this protest and all his scars, he went with
her till they came within sight of the bank, where the carriage was
standing. Of course it did him harm, and the doctor was very angry; but
what did John, in the delight of his heart, care for that?




CHAPTER XVIII.


A day or two after this visit John found himself at Fernwood.

It was not perhaps a judicious step for any of them. He came still
suffering--and, above all, still marked by his sufferings--among a
collection of strangers to whom the bank, and the fire, and the value
of the papers he had saved, were of the smallest possible consequence,
and who were intensely mystified by his heterogeneous position as
at once the betrothed of Kate Crediton and a clerk in her father’s
bank. Then there was a sense of embarrassment between him and Mr
Crediton which it was impossible either to ignore or to make an end
of--John had done so much for the man who was so unwilling to grant
him anything in return. He had not only saved the banker’s daughter,
but his papers, perhaps his very habitation, and the bulk of all he
had in the world, and Mr Crediton was confused by such a weight of
obligations. “I must take care he don’t save my life next,” he said to
himself; but, notwithstanding this weight of gratitude which he owed,
he was not in the least changed in his reluctance to pay. To give his
child as salvage-money was a thing he could not bear to think of;
and when he looked at John’s pale face among the more animated faces
round him, Mr Crediton grew wellnigh spiteful. “That fellow! without
an attraction!”--he would say to himself. John was not handsome; he
had little of the ready wit and ready talk of society; he did not
distinguish himself socially above other men; he was nobody to speak
of--a country clergyman’s son without a penny. And yet he was to have
Kate! Mr Crediton asked himself why he had ever consented to it, when
he saw John’s pale face at his table. He had done it--because Kate
had set her heart upon it--because he thought Kate would be fickle
and change her mind--because--he could scarcely tell why; but always
with the thought that it would come to nothing. He would not allow,
when any one asked him, that there was an engagement. “There is some
nonsense of the kind,” he would say, “boy and girl trash. I take it
quietly because I know it never can come to anything. He saved her
that time her horse ran away with her, and it is just a piece of
romantic gratitude on her part. If I opposed it I should make her
twice as determined, and therefore I don’t oppose.” He had said as
much to almost everybody at Fernwood, though neither of the two most
immediately concerned were aware. And this was another reason why the
strangers were mystified, and could not make out what it meant.

As for Kate, though she had been so anxious for his coming, it
cannot be said that it made her very happy; for the first time the
complications of the matter reached her. She was not, as when she had
been at Fanshawe, a disengaged young lady able to give up her time to
her lover, but, on the contrary, the mistress of the house, with all
her guests to look after, and a thousand things to think of. She could
not sit and talk with him, or walk with him, as she had done at the
Rectory. He could not secure the seat next to her, or keep by her side,
as, in other circumstances, it would have been so natural for him to
do. He got her left hand at table the first day of his arrival, and was
happy, and thought this privilege was always to be his; but, alas! the
next day was on the other side, unable so much as to catch a glimpse of
her. “I am the lady of the house. I have to be at everybody’s beck and
call,” she said, trying to smooth him down. “On the contrary, you ought
to do just what you please,” said foolish John; and he wandered about
all day seeking opportunities to pounce upon her--for, to be sure, he
cared for nobody and nothing at Fernwood but Kate, and he was ill and
sensitive, and wanted to be cared for, even petted, if that could have
been. He could not go out to ride with the rest of the party on account
of his injured hand, but Kate had to go, or thought she must, leaving
him alone to seek what comfort was possible in the library. No doubt it
was very selfish of John to wish to keep her back from anything that
was a pleasure to her, but then he was an eager, ardent lover, who
had been much debarred from her society, and was set on edge by seeing
others round her who were more like her than he was. To be left behind,
or to find himself shut out all day from so much as a word with her,
was one pang; but to find even when he was with her, that he had little
to say that interested her, and to see her return to the common crowd
as soon as any excuse occurred to make it possible, was far harder and
struck more deep. He would sit in a corner of the drawing-room and look
and listen while the conversation went on. They talked about the people
they knew, the amusements they had been enjoying, the past season
and the future one, and a hundred little details which only persons
in their own “set” could understand. John himself could have talked
such talk in college rooms or the chambers of a friend, but he would
have thought it rude to continue when strangers were present; but the
fashionable people did not think it rude. And even when he was leaning
over her chair whispering to her, he could note that Kate’s attention
failed, and could see her face brighten and her ear strain to hear
some petty joke bandied about among the others. “Was it Mr Lunday that
said that? it is so like him,” she said once in the very midst of
something he was saying. And poor John’s heart sank down--down to his
very boots.

And then Kate had a hundred things to do in concert with her other
guests. She sang with one, and John did not sing, and had to look
on with the forlornest thoughts, while a precious hour would pass,
consumed by duet after duet and such talk as the following:--“Do you
know this?” “Let us try that.” “I must do something to amuse all those
people,” she would say, when he complained. She was not angry with him
for complaining, but always kind and sweet, and ready, if she gave him
nothing else, to give him one of her pretty smiles.

“But I shall be gone directly, and I have not had ten minutes of you,”
he said, bitterly.

“Oh, a great deal more than ten minutes,” said Kate; “you unkind,
exacting John! When I was at Fanshawe I had all my time on my hands,
and nobody but you to think of;--I mean, no other claims upon me.
Don’t you think it hurts me as much as any one, when they all crowd
round me, and I see your dear old face, looking so pale and glum, on
the outside? Please don’t look so glum! You know I should so much, much
rather be with you.”

“Should you?” said John, mournfully. Perhaps she believed it; but he
found it so very hard to believe. “Dear, I don’t mean to be glum,
and spoil your pleasure,” he said, with a certain pathetic humility;
“perhaps I had better go and get to my work again, and wait for the old
Sunday nights when you come back.”

“That will look as if you were angry with me,” she said. “Oh, John, I
thought you would understand! You know I can’t do what I would do with
all these people in the house. What I should like would be to nurse
you and take care of you, and be with you always; but what can I do
with all these girls and people? I hate them sometimes, though they
are my great friends. Don’t go and make me think you are angry. It is
_that_ that would spoil my pleasure. Look here! come and get your
hat, and bring me a shawl; there is time for a little walk before the
dinner-bell rings.”

And then the poor fellow would be rapt into paradise for half an hour
under shadow of the elm-trees, which were beginning to put on their
bright-coloured garments. His reason told him how vain this snatch
of enjoyment was, and gave him many a warning that he was spending
his life for nought, and giving his treasure for what was not bread;
but at such moments John would not listen to the voice of reason.
Her hands were on his arm--her head inclining towards him, sometimes
almost touching his sleeve--her eyes raised to his--her smile and her
sweet kind words all his own. She was as kind as if she had been his
mother--as tender and affectionate and forbearing with him. “Don’t be
so cross and so exacting. Because I am fond of you, is that any reason
why you should tyrannise over me?” said Kate, with a voice as of a
dove close to his ear. And how could he answer her but with abject
protestations of penitence and ineffable content?

“It is because I hunger for you--and I have so little of my darling,”
said repentant John; “what do I care for all the world if I have not my
Kate?”

“But you have your Kate, you foolish boy,” she said; “and what does
anything matter when you know that? Do I ever distrust you? When I see
you talking to somebody at the very other end of the drawing-room, just
when I am wanting you perhaps, I don’t make myself wretched, as you do.
I only say to myself, Never mind, he is my John and not hers; and I am
quite happy--though I am sure a girl has a great deal more cause to be
uneasy than a man.”

And when John had been brought to this point, he would swallow such
a speech, and would not allow himself to ask whether it was possible
that his absence at the other end of the drawing-room could make Kate
wretched. Had he put the question to himself, no doubt Reason would
have come in; but why should Reason be allowed to come in to spoil the
moments of happiness which came so rarely? He held the hands which were
clasped on his arm closer to his side, and gave himself up to the
sweetness. And he kept her until ever so long after the dressing-bell
had pealed its summons to them under the silent trees. It was the
stillest autumn night--a little chill, with a new moon which was just
going to set as the dining-room was lighted up for dinner--and now and
then a leaf detached itself in the soft darkness, and came down with
a noiseless languid whirl in the air, like a signal from the unseen.
One of these fell upon Kate’s pretty head as she raised it towards her
lover, and he lifted the leaf from her hair and put it into his coat.
“I will give you a better flower,” said Kate; “but oh, John, I must
go in. I shall never have time to dress. Well----then, just one more
turn: and never say I am not the most foolish yielding girl that ever
was, doing everything you like to ask--though you scold me and threaten
to go away.”

This interview made the evening bearable for John; and it was all the
more bearable to him, though it is strange to say so, because Fred
Huntley had returned, and sat next him at dinner. He had hated Fred
for some days, and was not yet much inclined towards him; but still
there was a pleasure in being able to talk freely to some one, and to
feel himself, to some extent at least, comprehended, position and all.
He was very dry and stiff to Huntley at first, but by degrees the ice
broke. “I have never seen you since that night,” said Fred. “My heart
has smote me since for the way in which I left you, lying on those
door-steps. In that excitement one forgets everything. But you bear
considerable marks of it, I see.”

“Nothing to signify,” said John; and Fred gave him a nod, and began to
eat his soup with an indifference which was balm to the other’s excited
feelings. Finding thus that no gratitude was claimed of him, John grew
generous. “I hear it was you who dragged me out; and I have never had a
chance of thanking you,” he said.

“Thanking me--what for? I don’t remember dragging any one out,” said
Fred. “It was very hot work. I did not rush into the thick of it, like
you, to do any good; but I daresay I could give the best description
of it. Have they found out how much damage was done?--but I suppose the
bank is still going on all the same.”

“Banks cannot stop,” said John, “unless things are going very badly
with them indeed.”

“That comes of going in for a special study,” said Huntley; “you always
did know all about political economy, didn’t you? No, it wasn’t you, it
was Sutherland--never mind; if you have not studied it theoretically,
you have practically. I often think if I had gone in for business it
would have been better for me on the whole.”

“You have less occasion to say so than most men,” said John.

“Because we are well off?--or because I have got my fellowship, and
that sort of thing? I don’t know that it matters much. A man has to
work--or else,” said Fred, with a sigh, swallowing something more than
that _entrée_, “he drifts somehow into mischief whether he will or
no.”

Did he cast a glance at the head of the table as he spoke, where Kate
sat radiant, dispensing her smiles on either hand? It was difficult
to imagine why he did so, and yet so it seemed. John looked at her
too, and for the moment his heart failed him. Could he say, as she
herself had suggested, “After all, she is my Kate and no one’s else,”
as she sat there in all her splendour? What could he give her that
would bear comparison? Of all the men at her father’s table, he was
the most humble. At that moment he caught Kate’s eye, and she gave him
the most imperceptible little nod, the brightest momentary glance. She
acknowledged him when even his own faith failed him. His heart came
bounding up again to his breast, and throbbed and knocked against it,
making itself all but audible in a kind of shout of triumph. Then he
turned half round to his companion, with heightened colour, and an
animation of manner which was quite unusual to him. He found Huntley’s
eyes fixed upon his face, looking at him with grave, wondering,
almost sympathetic interest. Of course Fred’s countenance changed as
soon as he found that it was perceived, and sank into the ordinary
expressionless look of good society. He was the spectator looking on
at this drama, and felt himself so much better qualified to judge than
either of those more closely concerned.

“How do you like Fernwood?” Huntley began, with some precipitation. “It
is rather too full to be pleasant while you are half an invalid, isn’t
it? Does your arm give you much pain?”

“It is very full,” said John, “and one is very much alone among a crowd
of people whom one does not know.”

“You will soon get to know them,” said Fred, consolingly; “people are
very easy to get on with nowadays on the whole.”

“I am going away on Thursday,” said John.

“What! the day after to-morrow? before your arm is better, or--anything
different? Do you know, Mitford, I think you stand a good deal in your
own light.”

“That may be,” John said, hotly, “but there are some personal matters
of which one can only judge for one’s self.”

Fred made no answer to this; he shrugged his shoulders a little as who
should say, It is no business of mine, and began to talk of politics
and the member for Camelford, about whose election there were great
searchings of heart in the borough and its neighbourhood. An inquiry
was going on in the town, and disclosures were being made which excited
the district. The two young men turned their thoughts, or at least
their conversation, to that subject, and seemed to forget everything
else; but whether the election committee took any very strong hold upon
them, or if they were really much interested about the doings of the
Man in the Moon, it would be hard to say.

The drawing-room was very bright and very gay that evening--like a
scene in a play, John was tempted to think. There was a great deal of
music, and he sat in his corner and looked and saw everything, and
would have been amused had he felt no special interest in it. Kate
was in the very centre of it all, guiding and directing, as it was
natural she should be. The spectator in the corner watched her by the
piano, now taking a part, now accompanying, now throwing herself back
into her chair with an air of relief when something elaborate had
been set agoing, and whispering and smiling behind her fan to some
favoured being, though never to himself. At one moment his vague pain
in watching her rose to a positive pang. It was when Fred Huntley
was the person with whom she talked. He was stooping down over her,
leaning on the back of a chair, and Kate’s face was raised to him
and half screened with her fan. Their talk looked very confidential,
very animated and friendly; and it seemed to John (but that must have
been a mistake) that she gave him just the tips of her fingers as she
dismissed him. Fred rose from the chair on which he had been half
kneeling with a little movement of his head, which Kate reciprocated,
and went off upon a meandering passage round the room. She had given
him some commission, John felt--to him, and not to me, he said bitterly
in his heart, and then tried to comfort himself, not very successfully,
with the words she had taught him, “After all, she is my Kate and not
his.” Was she John’s? or was it all a dream and phantasmagoria, that
might vanish in an instant and leave no trace behind? He covered his
eyes with his hand for a second in the sickness of jealous love with
which he was struggling; but when he looked up again, found that a new
revelation waited him, harder than anything he had yet had to undergo.
It was that Fred Huntley was approaching himself, and that the mission
with which Kate, giving him the tips of her fingers, had intrusted
the man to whom of all others he felt most antagonistic, concerned
himself. Fred managed the business very cleverly, and would have taken
in any unsuspicious person; but John, on the contrary, was horribly
suspicious, looking for pricks at all possible points. The ambassador
threw himself into a vacant chair which happened to be handy, and
stretched himself out comfortably in it, and said nothing for a minute.
Then he yawned (was that, too, done on purpose?) and turned to John.
“Were you asleep, Mitford?” he said; “I don’t much wonder. It’s very
amusing, but it’s very monotonous night after night.”

“I have not had so much of it as you have, to get so tired,” said John.

“Well, perhaps there is something in that; and, after all, there are
some nice people here. The worst for a new-comer,” said Fred, poising
himself lazily in his chair, “is, that everybody has made acquaintance
before he comes; and till he has been here for some time and gets used
to it, he is apt to feel himself left out in the cold. Of course you
can’t have any such sensations in this house--but _I_ have felt
it; and Ka--Miss Crediton, though she is an admirable hostess, can’t be
everywhere at once.”

“But she can send ambassadors,” said John, with a faint attempt at a
smile.

“Oh yes; of course she can send ambassadors,” said Huntley, confused,
“when she has any ambassadors to send. I wanted to ask you, Mitford,
about that archæological business your father takes so much interest
in. I hear they are to visit Dulchester----”

“Did she tell you that?” said John. “My dear fellow, say to me plainly,
I have been sent to talk to you and draw you out. That is reasonable
and comprehensible, and I should not be ungrateful. But never mind my
father. Let us talk since we are required to do so. When are you likely
to be at Westbrook? I want to go home one of these days; and my mother
would like to see you, to thank you----”

“To thank me for what?” said Fred, with much consternation.

“For dragging me out of that fire. I don’t say for saving my life,
for it did not come to that--but still you have laid me under a great
obligation,” said John, with a setting together of his teeth which did
not look much like gratitude; and then he rose up suddenly and went
away out of his corner, leaving Huntley alone there, and not so happy
as his wont. As for John himself, he was stung to exertions quite
unusual to him. He went and talked politics, and university talk, and
sporting talk, with a variety of men. He did not approach any of the
ladies--his heart was beating too fast for that; but he stood up in
the doorway and against the wall wherever the men of the party most
congregated. And he never so much as looked at the creature who was
at once his delight and his torment during all the long weary tedious
evening, which looked as if it never would come to an end and leave him
at peace.




CHAPTER XIX.


Next morning John packed himself up before he saw any one. He had not
slept all night. It is true that the incidents of the past evening had
been trifling enough--not of sufficient consequence to affect, as his
sudden departure might do, the entire complexion of his life. It was
only as a climax, indeed, that they were of any importance at all; but
as such, they had wound him up to a point of resolution. The present
state of affairs, it was evident, could not go on. Had he been a mere
idle man of society, he said to himself, in whose life this perpetual
excitement might supply a painful-pleasant sensation, then it might
have been possible; but he could not, love as he might, wear away
his existence in watching a girl’s face, or waiting for such moments
of her society as she might be able to give him. It was impossible:
better to go away where he should never see her again; better to give
up for ever all the joys of life, than wear out every vestige of
manliness within him in this hopeless way. He had been born to higher
uses and better purposes surely, or where was the good of being born at
all? Accordingly he prepared all his belongings for instant departure.
Kate was still dearer to him than anything in earth or heaven, he
acknowledged with a sigh; but unless perhaps time or Providence might
arrange the terms of their intercourse on a more possible footing, that
intercourse for the present must be suspended. He could not go on.
With this resolution in his mind he went down-stairs; and looked so
pale, that he attracted the attention of the lady who sat next to him
at the breakfast-table, where Kate, who was so often late, had not yet
appeared.

“I am afraid you are ill,” she said; “I fear your arm pains you more
than usual. I think I knew your mother, Mr Mitford, a thousand years
ago. Was not she a Miss Olive, of Burton? Ah, yes! I remember--one of
the prettiest girls I ever saw. I think----you are a little like her,”
said this benevolent woman, with a slight hesitation. And then there
was a titter at the table, in which John did not feel much disposed to
join.

“Oh no,” cried Kate, who had just come in; “it is not him that is like
Mrs Mitford, but me. I allow he is her son, but that does not matter. I
was at Fanshawe Regis ever so long in summer. Mr John, tell Lady Winton
she was like me when she was a girl, and I shall be like her when I am
an old lady. You know it is so.”

And she paused a moment just beside him, with her hand on Lady Winton’s
chair, and looked into John’s pale face as he rose at her appeal.
Something was wrong--Kate was not sure what. Lady Winton, perhaps, had
been annoying him with questions, or Fred Huntley with criticism. It
did not occur to her that she herself could be the offender. She looked
into John’s face, meaning to say a thousand things to him with her
eyes, but his were blank, and made no reply.

“She was prettier than you are, Kate,” said Lady Winton, with a smile.

“Nay,” said John, unawares. He had not meant to enter into the
talk--but to look at her standing there before him in her fresh morning
dress, in all her perfection of youth and sweetness, and to believe
that anybody had ever been more lovely, was impossible. At that moment,
when he was about to leave her, he could have bent down and kissed
the hem of her dress. It seemed the only fitting thing to do, but it
could not be done before all these people. Kate was still more and
more perplexed what he could mean. His eyes, which had been blank,
lighted up all in a moment, and spoke things to her which she could not
understand. What was the meaning of the pathos in them--the melancholy,
the dumb appeal that almost made her cry? She gave a little laugh
instead, much fluttered and disturbed in her mind the while, and nodded
her head and went on to her seat at the head of the table.

“When one’s friends begin to discuss one’s looks, don’t you think it is
best to withdraw?” she said. “Oh, thanks, Madeline, for doing my duty.
It is so wretched to be late. Please, somebody, have some tea.”

And then the ordinary talk came in and swept this little episode out of
sight.

When breakfast was over, and one after another the guests began to
disperse to their morning occupations, Kate, turning round to accompany
one of the last to the morning room, where all the embroidery and the
practising and the gossip went on, had her uncomfortable thoughts
brought back in a moment by the sight of John standing right in her
way, holding out his hand. “I am obliged to go away,” he said, in the
most calm tone he could muster. “Good-bye, Miss Crediton; and thanks,
many thanks.”

“Going away!” cried Kate, standing still in her amazement. “Going
away! Has anything happened at Fanshawe Regis---- Your mother--or Dr
Mitford----?”

“They are both well,” he said. “I am not going to Fanshawe, only back
to the town to my work. Good-bye.”

“I must hear about this,” said Kate, abruptly. “Please don’t wait for
me, Madeline; I want to speak to Mr Mitford. Go on, and I will join
you. Oh, John, what does it mean?” she cried, turning to her lover,
almost without waiting until the door had closed on her companion. By
this time everybody was gone, and the two were left alone in the great
empty room where five minutes ago there had been so much sound and
movement. They were standing in front of one of the deeply-recessed
windows, with the light falling direct upon them as on a stage. He held
out his hand again and took hers, which she was too much disturbed to
give.

“It is nothing,” he said, with a forlorn sort of smile, “except just
that I must go away. Don’t let that cloud your face, dear. I can’t help
myself. I am obliged to go.”

“Is any one ill?” she cried; “is that the reason? Oh, John, tell me!
are you really _obliged_ to go? Or is it--anything--we have done?”

“No,” he said, holding her hand in his. “It is all my fault. It does
not matter. It is that I cannot manage this sort of life. No blame to
you, my darling. Don’t think I am blaming you. When I am back at my
work, things will look different. I was not brought up to it, like you.
You must pardon me as you would pardon me for being ignorant and not
knowing another language; but it is best I should go away.”

“John!” she cried, the tears coming with a sudden rush into the
wondering eyes that had been gazing at him so intently, “what have I
done?”

“Nothing--nothing,” he said, stooping over her hand and kissing it
again and again. “There is only myself to blame. I can’t take things,
I suppose, as other people do. I am exacting and inconsiderate and----
Never mind, dear, I must go away; and you will not remember my faults
when I am gone.”

“But I never thought you had any faults,” cried Kate. “You speak as if
it were me. I never have found fault with you, John--nor asked anything
more--nor---- I know I am silly. Tell me, and scold me, and forgive me.
Say as papa does--it is only Kate. I know I did not mean it. Oh, John,
dear, if I beg your pardon, though I don’t know what I have done----”

“You have done nothing,” he cried, in despair. “Oh, my Kate! are you
my Kate? or are you a witch coming into my arms to distract me from
everything? No, no, no! I must not be conquered this time. My love, it
will be best for both of us. I cannot go on seeing you always within
my reach and always out of my reach. I would have you always like
this--always here--always mine; but I can’t have you; and I have no
strength to stand by at a distance and look on. Do you understand me
now? I shall go away so much happier because of this five minutes.
Good-bye.”

“But, John!” she cried, clinging to him, “don’t go away; why should you
go away? I will do anything you please. I will--make a change; don’t go
and leave me. I want you to be here.”

“You break my heart!” he cried; “but I cannot be here. What use is it
to you? And to me it is distraction. Kate! don’t ask me to stay.”

“But it is of use to me,” she said, with a flush on her face, and an
expression unlike anything he had seen before--an uneasy look, half
of shame and half of alarm. Then she turned from him a little, with a
slight change of tone. “It is a strange way of using me,” she said,
looking steadfastly at the carpet, “after my going to you, and all; not
many girls would have gone to you as I did; you might stay now when I
ask you--for my sake.”

“I will do anything in the world for your sake,” he said; “but, Kate,
it does you no good, you know. It is an embarrassment to you,” John
went on, with a half-groan escaping him, “and it is distraction to me.”

Then there followed a pause. She drew her hand away from his with a
little petulant movement. She kept her eyes away from him, not meeting
his, which were fixed upon her. Her face glowed with a painful heat;
her little foot tapped the carpet. “Do you mean that--other things--are
to be over too?” she said; and twisted her fingers together, and gazed
out of the window, waiting for what he had to say.

Such a question comes naturally to the mind of a lover whenever there
is any fretting of his silken chain; and accordingly it was not novel
to John’s imagination--but it struck upon his heart as if it had been a
blow. “Surely not--surely not,” he answered, hastily; “not so far as I
am concerned.”

And then they stood again--for how long?--side by side, not looking
at each other, waiting a chance word to separate or to reunite them.
Should she be able to bear her first rebuff? she, a spoiled child,
to whom everybody yielded? Or could she all in a moment learn that
sweet philosophy of yielding in her own person, which makes all the
difference between sorrow and unhappiness? Everything--the world
itself--seemed to hang in the balance for that moment. Kate terminated
it suddenly, in her own unexpected way. She turned on him all at once,
with the sweetness restored to her face and her voice, and held out her
hand: “Neither shall it be so far as I am concerned,” she said. “Since
you must go, good-bye, John!”

And thus it came to an end. When he was on his way back to Camelford,
and the visit to Fernwood, with all its pains and pleasures, and the
last touch of her hand, were things of the past, John asked himself,
with a lover’s ingenuity of self-torment, if this frank sweetness of
reply was enough? if she should have let him go so easily? if there
was not something of relief in it? He drove himself frantic with these
questions, as he made his way back to his poor little lodgings. Mr
Crediton had looked politely indifferent, rather glad than otherwise,
when he took his leave. “Going to leave us?” Mr Crediton had said.
“I am very sorry; I hope it is not any bad news. But perhaps you are
right, and perfect quiet will be better for your arm. Never mind about
business--you must take your own time. If you see Whichelo, tell him
I mean to come in on Saturday. I am very sorry you have given us so
short a visit. Good-bye.” Such was Mr Crediton’s farewell; but the
young man made very little account of that. Mr Crediton’s words or ways
were not of so much importance to him as one glance of Kate’s eye.
What she meant by her dismay and distress, and then by the sudden
change, the sweet look, the good-bye so kindly, gently said, was the
question he debated with himself; and naturally he had put a hundred
interpretations upon it before he reached his journey’s end.

It was still but mid-day when he reached the little melancholy shabby
rooms which were his home in Camelford. The place might be supportable
at night, when he came in only for rest after the day’s labours,
though even then it was dreary enough; but what could be thought of it
in the middle of a bright autumn day, when the young man came in and
closed his door, and felt the silence hem him in and enclose him, and
put seals, as it were, to the grave in which he had buried himself.
Full day and nothing to do, and a little room to walk about in, four
paces from one side to the other--and a suburban street to look out
upon, with blinds drawn over the windows, and plants shutting out the
air, and an organ grinding melancholy music forth along each side of
the way: could he stay still and bear it? When he was at Fernwood his
rooms looked to him like a place of rest, where he could go and hide
himself and be at peace. But as soon as he had entered them, it was
Fernwood that grew lovely in the distance, where Kate was, where there
were blessed people who would be round her all day long, and the stir
of life, and a thousand pleasant matters going on. He was weary and
sick of himself, and sick of the world. Could he sit down and read a
novel in the light of that October day--or what was he to do?

The end was that he took his portmanteau, which had not been unpacked,
and threw it into a passing cab, and went off to the railway. He had
not gone home since he came to his clerkship in the bank, and that was
three months since. It seemed the only thing that was left for him to
do now. He went back along the familiar road with something of the
feelings of a prodigal approaching his home. It seemed strange to him
when the porter at the little roadside station of Fanshawe touched his
cap, and announced his intention of carrying Mr John’s portmanteau to
the Rectory. He felt it strange that the poor fellow should remember
him. Surely it was years since he had been there before.

And this feeling grew as John walked slowly along the quiet country
road that led to his home. Everything he passed was associated with
thoughts which were as much over and gone as if they had happened in a
different existence. He had walked along by these hedgerows pondering
a thousand things, but scarcely one that had any reference to, any
relation with, his present life. He had been a dreamer, planning high
things for the welfare of the world; he had been a reformer, rousing,
sometimes tenderly, sometimes violently, the indifferent country from
its slumbers; sometimes, even, retiring to the prose of things, he had
tried to realise the details of a clergyman’s work, and to fit himself
into them, and ask himself how he should perform them. But never,
in all these questionings, had he thought of himself as a banker’s
clerk--a man working for money alone, and the hope of money. It was so
strange that he did not know what to make of it. As he went on, the
other John, his former self, seemed to go with him--and which was
the real man, and which the phantom, he could not tell. All the quiet
country lifted prevailing hands, and laid hold on him as he went home.
It looked so natural--and he, what was he? But the country, too, had
changed as if in a dream. He had left it in the full blaze of June, and
now it was October, with the leaves in autumn glory, the fields reaped,
the brown stubble everywhere, and now and then in the clear blue air
the crack of a sportsman’s gun. All these things had borne a different
aspect once to John. He too had been a little of a sportsman, as was
natural; but the dog and the gun did not harmonise with the figure of a
banker’s clerk. The women on the road, who stared at him, and curtsied
to him with a smile of recognition, confused him, he could not tell
why. It was so strange that everybody should recognise him--he who did
not recognise himself.

And as he approached the Rectory, a vague sense that something must
have happened there, came over him. It was only three days since he
had received a letter from his mother full of those cheerful details
which it cost her, though he did not know it, so much labour and pain
to write. He tried to remind himself of all the pleasant everyday
gossip, and picture of things serene and unchangeable which she had
sent him; but still the nearer he drew and the more familiar everything
became, the more he felt that something must have happened. He went in
by the little garden-gate, which opened noiselessly, and made his way
through the shrubbery, to satisfy himself that no cloud of calamity
had fallen upon the house. It was a warm genial autumn day, very
still, and somewhat pathetic, but almost as balmy as summer. And the
drawing-room window stood wide open as it had done through all those
wonderful June days when John’s life had come to its climax. The lilies
had vanished that stood up in great pyramids against the buttresses;
even their tall green stalks were gone, cut down to the ground; and
there were no roses, except here and there a pale monthly one, or a
half-nipped, half-open bud. John paused under the acacia-tree where
he had so often placed Kate’s chair, and which was now littering all
the lawn round about with its leaflets--to gain a glimpse, before he
entered, of what was going on within. The dear, tender mother! to whom
he had been everything--all her heart had to rest on. What had she to
recompense her for all the tender patience, all the care and labour she
took upon herself for the sake of her Saviour and fellow-creatures!
Her son, who had taken things for granted all this time as sons do,
opened his eyes suddenly as he stood peeping in like a stranger, and
began to understand her life. God never made a better, purer woman;
she had lived fifty years doing good and not evil to every soul around
her, and what had she in return? A husband, who thought she was a very
good sort of ignorant foolish little woman on the whole, and very
useful in the parish, and handy to keep off all interruptions and
annoyances; and a son who had gone away and abandoned her at the first
chance--disappointed all her hopes, left her alone, doubly alone, in
the world. “It is her hour for the school, the dearest little mother,”
he said to himself, with the tears coming to his eyes; “she never
fails, though we all fail her;” but even as the words formed in his
mind he perceived that the room into which he was gazing was not empty.
There she sat, thrown back into a chair; her work was lying on the
floor at her feet; but John had never seen such an air of weariness
and lassitude in his mother before. He recognised the gown she had on,
the basket of work on the table, all the still life round her; but
her he could not recognise. She had her hands crossed loosely in her
lap, laid together with a passive indifference that went to his heart.
Could she be asleep? but she was not asleep; for after a while one of
the hands went softly up to her cheek, and something was brushed off,
which could only be a tear. He could scarcely restrain the cry that
came to his lips; but at that moment the door, which he could not see,
must have opened, for she gave a start, and roused herself, and turned
to speak to somebody. “I am coming, Lizzie,” John heard her answer in
a spiritless, weary tone; and then she rose and put away her work, and
took up her white shawl, which was lying on the back of a chair. She
liked white and pretty bright colours about her, the simple soul. They
became her, and were like herself. But when she had wrapped herself in
the shawl, which was as familiar to John as her own face, his mother
gave a long weary sigh, and sat down again as if she could not make up
her mind to move. He had crept quite close to the window by this time,
moved beyond expression by the sight of her, with tears in his eyes,
and unspeakable compunction in his heart. “What does it matter now?”
she said to herself, drearily. She had come to be so much alone that
the thought was spoken and not merely thought. When John stepped into
the room a moment after, his mother stood and gazed at him as if he had
risen out of the earth, and then gave a great cry which rang through
all the house, and fell upon his neck. Fell upon his neck--that was the
expression--reaching her arms, little woman as she was, up to him as he
towered over her; and would not have cared if she had died then, in the
passion of her joy.

“Mother, dear, you are trembling,” John said, as he put her tenderly
into her chair and knelt down beside her, taking her hands into his. “I
should not have been so foolish startling you; but I could not resist
the temptation when I saw you here.”

“Joy does not hurt,” said Mrs Mitford. “I have grown so silly, my dear,
now I have not you to keep me right; and it was a surprise. There--I
don’t in the least mean to cry; it is only foolishness. And oh, my poor
John, your arm!”

“It is nothing,” he said; “it is almost well. Never mind it. I am a
dreadful guy, to be sure. Is that what you are looking at, mamma mia?”
In his wan face and fire-scorched hair she had not known her child.

“Oh, John, that you could think so,” she said, in her earnest
matter-of-fact way. “My own boy! as if I should not have known you
anywhere, whatever you had done to yourself. It was not that. John, my
dear?”

“What, mother?”

“I was looking to see if you were happy, my dearest, dearest boy.
Don’t be angry with me. As long as you are happy I don’t mind--what
happens--to me.”

John laid his head down on his mother’s lap. How often he had done
it!--as a child, as a lad, as a man--sometimes after those soft
reproofs which were like caresses--sometimes in penitence, when he had
been rebellious even to her; but never before as now, that her eyes
might not read his heart. He did it by instinct, having no time to
think; but in the moment that followed thought came, and he saw that he
must put a brave face on it, and not betray himself. So he raised his
head again, and met her eyes with a smile, believing, man as he was,
that he could cheat her with that simulation of gladness which went no
further than his lips.

“What could I be but happy?” he said; “but not to see you looking so
pale, and trembling like this, my pretty mamma. You are too pretty
to-day--too pink and too white and too bright-eyed. What do you mean by
it? It must be put a stop to, now I have come home.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, with tremulous eagerness. He was
not happy; he might deceive all the world, she said to herself, but he
could not deceive his mother. He was not happy, but he did not mean
her to know it, and she would not betray her knowledge. So she only
trembled a little more, and smiled pathetically upon him, and kissed
his forehead, and shed back the hair from it with her soft nervous
hands. “Coming home has such a sound to me. It used to mean the long
nice holidays; and once I thought it meant something more; but now----”

“Now it means a week or two,” he said; “not much, but still we can make
a great deal out of it. And the first thing must be to look after your
health, mother. This will never do.”

“My health will mend now,” she said, with a smile; and then, afraid
to have been supposed to consent to the fact that her health had
need of mending--“I mean I never was better, John. I am only a
little--nervous--because of the surprise; the first thing is to make
you enjoy your holiday, my own boy.”

“Yes,” he said, with a curious smile. Enjoy his holiday!--which was
the escape of a man beaten from the field on which he had failed in his
first encounter with fate. But I will not let her know that, John said
to himself. And I must not show him that I see it, was the reflection
of his mother. This was how they met again after the great parting
which looked like the crisis of their lives.




CHAPTER XX.


Kate was very much perplexed by her interview with her lover, and by
the abrupt conclusion of his visit. She was very sweet-tempered and
good-natured, and could not bear to vex any one; but perhaps it pained
her secretly a little to be brought in contact with those very strong
feelings which she scarcely understood, and which did not bear much
resemblance to her own tender, affectionate, caressing love. She was
very fond of John; at bottom she knew and felt that of all the men she
had ever seen, he was the man whom she preferred trusting her life
and happiness to; and when opportunity served she was very willing to
give him her smiles, her sweet words, to lean her head against him,
caressing and dependent, to bestow even a soft unimpassioned kiss;
but to think of nothing but John, to resign any part of her duties
as mistress of the house, or to neglect other people, and make them
uncomfortable, on account of him, would never have occurred to her,
and there was in her mind at the same time something of that fatal
curiosity which so often attends power. She wanted to know how far her
power could go: it gave her a thrill of excitement to speculate upon
just touching the utmost borders of it, coming to the verge of loss and
despair, and then mending everything with a touch of her hand or sudden
smile. By nature Kate seemed to have been so completely separated from
all tragical possibilities. She had never wanted anything in all her
life that had not been procured for her. Everything had given way to
her, everything conspired to give her her will. And what if she should
give herself one supreme pleasure to end with, and skirt the very edge
of the abyss, and feel the awful thrill of danger, and go just within
a hair’s-breadth of destruction? Kate’s heart beat as the thought
occurred to her. If she could do this, then she might sip the very
essence of tragedy, and never more be obliged to despise herself as
ignorant of intense emotions--while yet she would still keep her own
happiness all the time to fall back upon. Such was the thought--we
cannot call it project--which gradually shaped itself in Kate’s mind,
and which accident went so far to carry out.

“So he has gone,” her father said to her; “we have not paid our
deliverer sufficient attention, I suppose.”

“Papa, you know I will not have him talked of so,” cried Kate; “he
went away because he chose to go. I am dreadfully sorry; and it makes
me think a great deal less of the people who are staying here, not of
John.”

“How do you make that out?” said her father.

“Because they did not understand him better,” said Kate, with flashing
eyes; “they took their cue from you, papa--not from me--which shows
what they are; for of course it is the lady of the house who has to be
followed, not the gentleman. And he did not see anything of me, which
was what he came for. I only wonder that he should have stayed a
single day.”

“That is complimentary to us,” said her father; and then he looked her
keenly in the face. “It is not much use trying to deceive me,” he said.
“You have quarrelled with Mitford; why don’t you tell me so at once?
You have no reproach to expect from me.”

“I have not quarrelled with Mr Mitford,” said Kate, raising her head
with an amount of indignation for which Mr Crediton was not prepared.

“No, by Jove! you need not expect any reproaches from me; a good
riddance, I should be disposed to say. The fellow begins to get
intolerable. Between you and me, Kate, I would almost rather the Bank
had been burnt to the ground than owe all this to a man I----”

“Papa,” said Kate, loftily, “the man you are speaking of is engaged to
be married to me.”

Upon which Mr Crediton laughed. Such a cynical Mephistophelian laugh
was not in his way, neither was it usual with him to swear by Jove;
but he was aggravated, and his mind was twisted quite out of its
general strain. No doubt it is very hard to have favours heaped upon
you by a man whom you do not like. And then he had the feeling which
embittered his dislike, that for every good service John had done him,
he had repaid him with harm. As a recompense for his daughter’s life,
he had placed her lover in the dingy outer office--a clerk with more
pretensions and less prospect of success than any of the rest. As a
reward for the devotion which had saved him his property, he made his
house, if not disagreeable, at least unattractive to his visitor, and
now felt a certain vigorous satisfaction in the thought of having
beaten him off the field. “That fellow!” he said, and flattered himself
that Kate too was getting tired of him. John had not even taken his
preferment gratefully and humbly, as would have been natural; but
insisted upon taking possession of Kate whenever he could monopolise
her society, and looked as black as night when she was not at his call.
Instead of being overjoyed with the prospect of going to Fernwood at
any price, he had the assurance to resent his cool reception and
to cut short his visit, as if he were on an equal or even superior
footing. Mr Crediton was very glad to get rid of him, but yet he was
furious at his presumption in venturing to take it upon himself to go
away. It was a curious position altogether. He dared not be rude to the
man who had done so much for him; everybody would have called shame on
him had he attempted it; and yet he began to hate him for his services.
And at the same time he had the substantial foundation of justice to
rest upon, that in point of fact John Mitford was not a suitable match
for Kate Crediton. It was in this mood that he accosted Kate, almost
expecting to find her disposed to respond in his own vein.

“There is many a slip between the cup and the lip,” he said oracularly,
and left her standing where he had found her, almost diverted from her
own thoughts by indignation and that healthful impulse of opposition
which springs so naturally in the young human breast. “There shall be
no slips in John’s cup,” she said to herself, with a certain fury, as
she turned away, not thinking much of the unity of the metaphor. No,
nothing should interfere with John’s happiness; at least nothing should
permanently interfere with it. The course of true love should certainly
be made to run smooth for him, and everything should go right--at the
last. That, of course, was all that was necessary--the most severe
critic could not demand more than a happy conclusion. “Papa is very,
very much mistaken if he thinks he can make me a traitor to John,” Kate
said within herself, indignantly, and hurried off to put on her habit,
and went out to ride with a countenance severe in conscious virtue.
She was pleased that it was Fred Huntley who kept most closely by her
side all the way. For one thing, he rode very well, which is always a
recommendation; and then she felt that she could speak to him of the
subject which was most in her thoughts. It was true that she had almost
quarrelled with her lover on Fred’s account, and that there had been a
moment when her mind was full of the thought that her choice must lie
between the two. But Kate forgot these warnings in the impulse of the
moment, and in her longing for confidential communion with somebody who
was interested in John.

“Papa has been making himself so disagreeable to-day,” she said. “No, I
know I have not much to complain of in that way; generally he is very
good; but this morning--though perhaps I ought not to say anything
about it,” Kate concluded with a sigh.

“It is a way our fathers have,” said Fred, “though they ought to
know better at their time of life; but Mr Crediton is a model in his
way--small blame to him when he has only to deal with----”

“Me,” said Kate; “please don’t pay me any compliments; we don’t
really like them, you know, though we have to pretend to. I know I am
sometimes very aggravating; but if there is any good in a girl at all,
she must stand up for anybody who--who is fond of her: don’t you think
so, Mr Huntley? What could any one think of her if she had not the
heart to do that?”

“I am afraid I don’t quite follow your meaning,” said Fred; “to stand
up for everybody who is fond of her? but in that case your life would
be a series of standings-up for somebody or other--and one might have
too much of that.”

“There you go again,” said Kate; “another compliment! when that is not
in the least what I want. I want backing up myself. I want--advice.”

“Indeed, indeed,” said Fred--“I am quite ready to give any quantity of
backing up--on the terms you have just mentioned; or--advice.”

“Well,” said Kate, with a certain softness in her tone--she could not
help being slightly caressing to anybody she talked confidentially
with--“you know we have been friends almost all our lives; at least I
was a very small little girl when I first knew you; we used to call you
Fred in those days--Minnie and Lizzie and I----”

“Minnie and Lizzie call me Fred still,” said her companion, dryly; and
he brought his horse very close, almost too close, to her side.

“Of course, they are your sisters,” said Kate; “but that was not what
I meant. I meant that it was natural I should talk to you. I have not
got any brother to advise me, and papa has been so disagreeable; and
then, besides knowing me so well, you are quite intimate--with--poor
John.”

“Do you know,” said Fred, with apparent hesitation, “I meant to have
spoken to you on that subject. I fear Mitford does not like it. I
don’t blame him. If I had been as fortunate as he is--pardon the
supposition--I don’t think I should have liked you--I mean the lady--to
talk to any other man of me.”

Kate did not answer for some minutes. She went along very slowly, her
head and her horse’s drooping in harmony; and then she suddenly roused
herself as they came to a level stretch of turf, and with a little wave
of her hand went off at full speed. Such abrupt changes were familiar
to all her friends, but Fred had a feeling that the caprice for once
was policy, and that she wanted time to recover herself, and make up
her mind what kind of answer she should give. Perhaps she had another
notion too, and had half hoped to shake off her attendant, and pick up
some one else who would not tempt her into paths so difficult. However
that might be, the fact was that she did not shake Fred off, but found
him at her side when she drew rein and breath a good way ahead of the
rest of the party.

“That was sudden,” he said, with a smile, stopping as she did, and
timing all his movements to hers with a deference that half flattered,
half annoyed her. And Kate was silent again. Her spirit failed at this
emergency--or else, which was more likely, she had not made up her mind
that it was an emergency, or that now was the moment when any decision
must be made.

“I don’t understand why you should feel like that,” she said, all at
once. “It is natural to talk about people one--cares for; and who
should one talk of them to but their friends? I told you papa had been
dreadfully disagreeable all this time--to _him_; I am sure I can’t
think why--unless it is to make me unhappy; and I am unhappy whenever
I think of it,” Kate added, with a candour of which she herself was
unaware.

“I think I can understand quite well why,” said Fred. “It is natural
enough. I daresay he hates every fellow that ventures to look at you;
and as for a man who hopes to take you from him altogether--I don’t see
how the best of Christians could be expected to stand that.”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Kate. “All the books say that our fathers and
mothers are only too glad to get rid of us. I don’t think, however,
it would be true to say that of papa. He would be very lonely. But in
that case, don’t you think the thing would be to make very good friends
with--poor John?”

Fred shook his head with every appearance of profound gravity and
deliberation. “I do not think my virtue would be equal to such an
exertion,” he said, with great seriousness, “if I were your papa.”

“You are very absurd,” said Kate, laughing; “as if you could be my
papa! Yes, indeed, it is easy to laugh; but if you had as much on your
mind as I have, Mr Huntley----”

“You said you used to call me Fred.”

“That was only with your sisters,” said Kate. “We are too old for that
now; and, besides, if you were my real friend, and felt for me, you
would not talk nonsense when I tell you how much I have on my mind.”

“Am I talking nonsense?” said Fred; and just then, as ill luck
would have it, their companions overtook them and interrupted
the conversation, just, Kate said to herself, as it began to be
interesting. And she had not really been able to obtain any advice
from this old friend of her own and of John’s, who was, she reflected,
of all people the right one to consult. John had been impatient about
it, but of course it was simply because John did not know. _He_
thought Fred was intruding between them, attempting to take his own
place, which was, oh, such folly! Fred of all men! who never even
_looks_ at me! said Kate. And then her conscience smote her a
little, for Fred had surely looked at her, even this very day, more
perhaps than John would have approved of. However, he was perfectly
innocent, he was a man who never had been fond of any girl--who was a
fellow of a college, and that sort of thing: and it was natural that
she should want to talk over the circumstances and discuss the matter
with somebody. Though she would not really have vexed John for the
world, yet somehow his unreasonable dislike to Fred rather stimulated
than prevented her from seeking Fred’s advice. Why should she give in
to an injustice? And surely in such a matter it was she who must know
best.

As for Fred Huntley, there was a curious combat going on within him
which he concealed skilfully from everybody, and even laboriously
from himself. He pretended not to be aware of the little internal
controversy. When his heart gave him a little tug and intimation
that he was John Mitford’s friend, and ought to guard his interests,
he acquiesced without allowing that any question on the matter was
possible. Of course he was John’s friend--of course he would stand
by him; and he only saw with the tail of his eye, and took no notice
of, the little imp which in a corner of his mind was gibing at this
conscientious resolution. And then he said to himself how pretty Kate
Crediton looked to-day, when she suddenly woke out of her reverie, and
gathered up her reins and went off like a wild creature, her horse
and she one being, over the level turf. He could not but allow it was
very odd that he had never remarked it before. He supposed she must
have been as pretty all these years, when he had seen her growing from
summer to summer into fuller bloom. But the fact was that he had never
taken any notice of her until now; and he did not know how to explain
it. While the thought passed through his mind, it appeared to Fred as
if the little demon, whom he could just perceive with the tail of the
eye of his mind, so to speak, made a grimace at him, as much as to say,
I know the reason why. Impertinent little imp! Fred turned and looked
himself full in the face, as it were, and there was no demon visible.
It was only to be seen with the tail of his eye, when his immediate
attention was fixed on other things.

And thus the day passed on at Fernwood, with the ride and the talk; and
at night the great dinner, which was like a picture, with its heaps
of flowers on the table, and pretty toilettes and pretty faces round
it--a long day for those who had no particular interest, and a short
day for those who were better occupied. Lady Winton, who had known Mrs
Mitford when she was a girl, yawned over her dressing, and told her
confidential maid drearily that she could not think why she had come,
and wished she might go, except that the next place would be just as
bad. But Fred felt in his calm veins a little thrill of excitement, as
of a man setting forth in an unknown country, and found Fernwood much
more interesting than he had ever done before. “They have always such
nice people--Lady Winton for one,” he said to the man who sat next him
after dinner; for Lady Winton was a very clever woman, and rather noted
in society. Such was the fashion of life at Fernwood, when John sat
down in the shadow of his mother’s lamp at Fanshawe Regis, and did his
best to make the evening cheerful for her, for the first time for three
months.




CHAPTER XXI.


The conversation above recorded was, it may be supposed, very far from
being the last on so tempting a subject. In short, the two who had
such a topic to themselves did with it what two people invariably do
with a private occasion for talk,--produced it perpetually, had little
snatches of discussion over it, which were broken off as soon as any
stranger appeared, and gradually got into a confidential and mysterious
intimacy. Kate, to do her justice, had no evil intention. None of the
girls about her knew John sufficiently well to discuss him. They had
seen him but for these two days, when he had been _distrait_,
preoccupied, and suffering; and indeed her friends did not admire
her choice, and Madeline Winton, who was her chief intimate, had not
hesitated to say so. “Of course I don’t doubt Mr Mitford is very
nice,” had been Miss Winton’s deliverance; “but if you really ask my
_opinion_, Kate, I must say he did not captivate me.” “I did not
want him to captivate you,” Kate had answered, with some heat. But
nevertheless it is discouraging to have your confidences about your
betrothed thus summarily checked. And on the whole, perhaps, it was
more piquant to have Fred Huntley for a confidant than Madeline Winton.
He never snubbed her. To be sure, with him it was not possible to
indulge in very much enthusiasm over the excellences of the beloved;
but that was not in any case Kate’s way; and the matter, without doubt,
was full of difficulties. It was hard to know how to overcome Mr
Crediton’s passive but unfaltering resistance--how to bring the father
and the lover to something like an understanding of each other--how
to satisfy John and smooth down his asperities and make him content
with his position. “It is not that he is discontented,” Kate said,
with an anxious pucker on her brow, on one of those evenings when she
had stolen a moment from her cares and her guests. “It is not that
he is discontented,” she repeated; “I hope he is too fond of me for
that--but----”

“I don’t understand how such a word as discontent could be spoken in
the same breath with his name,” said Fred--“a lucky fellow! No, surely
it cannot be that.”

“I told you it was not discontent,” Kate said, almost sharply;
“and as for lucky and all that, you always make me angry with your
nonsense--when we are talking gravely of a subject which is of so much
importance; at least it is of great importance to me.”

“I think you might know by this time,” said Fred, with soft reproach,
“that everything that concerns you is important to me.”

She looked up at him with that soft glow of gratitude and thanks in her
eyes which had subdued John, and half extended to him the tips of her
fingers. “Yes, indeed,” she said, “you are very, very kind. I don’t
know why I talk to you like this. I can’t talk so to anybody else. And
I do so want some one to feel for me. Is it very selfish? I am afraid
it is.”

“If it is selfish, I hope you will always be selfish,” said Fred,
with a fervour which was out of place, considering all things, and yet
was natural enough; and though he could not kiss the finger-tips with
so many eyes looking on, he squeezed them furtively in the shadow of
her dress. And then for one moment they looked at each other and felt
they were going wrong. To Fred, I am afraid, the feeling was not new,
nor so painful as it ought to have been; but it sent the blood pulsing
suddenly with a curious thrill up to Kate’s very hair, startling her as
if she had received an electric shock. And then next moment she said
to herself, “Nonsense! it is only Fred; he is fond of me as if he were
my brother. And how nice it would be to have a brother!” she added
unconsciously, with a half-uttered sigh.

“Did you speak?” said Fred.

“No; I was only thinking how nice it would be--if you were my real
brother,” said Kate. “How I wish you were my brother! You have always
been so kind; and then you would settle it all for me, and everything
would come right. It would have been so nice for papa too to have had
a son like you. He would not have minded losing me so much; and he
would have been so proud of your first class and all that. What a nice
arrangement it would have been altogether!” she ran on, beginning to
see a little fun in the suggestion, which even in her present anxious
state was sweet to her. “I wonder, you know--- I don’t mean to be
wicked, but I do wonder--why Providence shouldn’t think of such things.
It would have been so very, very nice both for me and for papa!”

To this Fred made no reply: he even looked a little glum, if the truth
must be told, and wondered, after all, was she laughing at him as well
as at the rest of the world? and the general company, as it happened,
wanted a little stirring up just at that particular moment, and Kate
had darted off before he was aware, and was here and there among her
guests looking as if vexation of any kind had never come near her.
Fred asked himself, did she mean what she said--was she really moved
by the difficulties that lay in John Mitford’s way, or did she care
anything about John Mitford? and what was still more important, what
did she mean about himself?--did she mean anything?--was she playing
with him as a cat plays with a mouse? or was it all real for the
moment--her anxieties, her friendship, all her winning ways?--for they
were winning ways, though he did not feel sure what faith was to be
put in them; and Fred felt a certain pleasant weakness about his heart
at the very thought of her--though she was not his but another man’s
Kate, and though he had no desire to be her brother. There were various
men within reach with whom he could have talked pleasantly enough in
other circumstances; and there were women whom he liked--Lady Winton,
for instance--who was very clever, and a great friend of Fred’s. Yet
instead of consoling himself with any of these resources, he sat in
his corner, going over and over the foolish little conversation which
had just passed, watching Kate’s movements, and wondering if she would
come back. The time was--and that not so very long ago--when he would
have thought Lady Winton’s company worth twenty of Kate Crediton’s;
though Lady Winton was as old as his mother, and as free from any
thought of flirting with her son’s friend. But something had suddenly
made the very idea of Kate Crediton much more captivating than her
ladyship’s wit and wisdom. What was it? Is it quite fair to Mitford?
Fred even asked himself faintly, though he gave himself no answer. At
the last, however, his patience was rewarded. Kate came back after
a long interval, after she had suggested “a little music,” and had
herself sung, and successfully started the performances of the evening.
She came back to Fred, as she had never gone back to John,--partly,
perhaps, because Fred was not much to her, and John was a great deal.
But nevertheless, she slid into the easy-chair again, and threw herself
back, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the music. “This is so
sweet. Please don’t talk to me--any one,” she said, audibly. And Fred
did not talk; but he sat half behind her, half concealed by her chair
and dress, and felt a curious beatitude steal over him. Why? He could
not tell, and he did not ask;--he felt it, that was all.

“Do you know,” Kate said, with a certain abruptness, in the middle
of a bar, “that I think everything might come right, Mr Huntley, if
you would really use your influence; if you would represent to papa
how good he is; and if you would only be patient with _him_, and
show him how much better things might be. You men are so queer. If it
were me, I would put on any look, it would not matter. Could there be
anything wrong in putting on a look just for a little while, when it
might conciliate papa? Any girl would do it naturally,” Kate continued,
in a slightly aggrieved tone. “I know you men are honester, and
superior, and all that; but when one has not a bad motive, it can’t be
any harm to make-believe a little, for so short a time.”

“I think I could make-believe as much and as long as you liked,” said
Fred, “if you would condescend to ask me.”

“Everybody does it--a little--in ordinary society,” said Kate. “Of
course we all smile and say things we don’t mean. And wouldn’t it be
all the more innocent if one had a good motive? You men are so stiff
and so strange. You can put on looks easily enough when it is for your
own ends; and then, when one wants you just to be a little prudent----”

“Happy Mitford!” said Fred. “I should stand on my head, if you took the
trouble to ask me.”

“That is not the question,” said Kate, giving her pretty head a little
toss, as if to shake off the suspicion of a blush which had come
against her will; “why should I ask you to stand on your head? Now
you are vexed,” she added, hastily, seeing his face cloud over. “What
have I done? I am sure I did not mean to vex you. I was only thinking
of--poor John.”

Fred was silent. He had almost betrayed himself, and it was hard
to make any reply. He swallowed his vexation as he best could, and
represented to himself that he had no right to be vexed. Of course it
was John she was thinking of. That fellow! he said to himself, as Mr
Crediton had done; though even in saying so he was aware that he was
unjust. And, to be sure, he had known that John was more interesting to
Kate than he was; yet he felt it hard. He drew back a little, and bit
his lip, and twisted his thumbs, and looked black in spite of himself.

“Don’t, please!” said Kate, carried away by her desire of smoothing
things down and making everybody comfortable. “I have nearly quarrelled
with papa. Don’t you quarrel with me too.”

“I quarrel with you!” cried Fred, leaning forward once more, and gazing
at her with eyes that made Kate quake; and then he paused and added,
in restrained tones that had a thrill of passion in them, “Do anything
with me you like. I will try not to shrink from anything you want me to
do. But Kate, Kate, don’t forget I am a man--as well as John.”

It was a great relief to Kate that Lady Winton came up at that moment
and took a seat near her, and put an effectual stop to any more
whispering. Perhaps it would be nonsense to say that she was very
much surprised by this little outbreak of feeling. It is common to
admire and wonder at the unfathomableness of women; and, like most
other common and popular ideas, it is great nonsense; for women are
no more mysterious to men than men are to women, and both are equally
incomprehensible. But perhaps the sentiments of a young woman in
respect to the man who pays court to her, are really as curious things
as are to be found within the range of humanity. The girl has no
intention to be cruel--is no coquette--and would be astonished beyond
measure if she could fully realise what she is herself doing. And yet
there is a curiosity, an interest, in admiration for itself--in love
(still more) for itself--which draw her on unawares. It requires a
strong mind, or an insensible heart, not to be interested in such an
investigation, and sometimes it goes to the point of cruelty. When
she knows what she is about, of course a good girl will stop short,
and do what she can to show the infatuated one “some discourtesy,” as
Sir Lancelot was bidden do to Elaine; but there are some women, like
Lancelot, who cannot be discourteous, whatever is the cost; and with a
mixture of awe, and wonder, and poignant gratification which is half
pain, the woman looks on while that costly offering is made to her.
It is cruel, and yet it is not meant to be cruel. Such were Kate’s
feelings now. Was it possible that Fred Huntley could be coming to the
point of loving her--the collected, cool, composed being that he was?
What kind of love would his be? How would it move him? Would it be
true love, or only a pretence at it? These questions filled her with a
curiosity and desire to carry on the experiment, which were too strong
to be resisted. She was glad of Lady Winton’s approach, because when it
comes to plain speaking, it is difficult to pursue this subtle inquiry
without compromising one’s self. But she turned half round and gave him
a wondering, anxious look. You poor dear fellow! what can you mean? was
what the look said; and it was not the kind of glance which discourages
a lover either secret or avowed. And then she turned to Lady Winton,
who had established herself at Kate’s other side.

“I have scarcely seen you all day,” she said. “Madeline told me you
were too tired to talk, and that it was best to leave you alone.”

“That was very true,” said Lady Winton, “but I am better now, and I
have something to say to you before I go away. Mr Huntley, will you
fetch me my fan, which I have left on the piano? Thanks. Now we have
got rid of him, my dear, I can say what I have to say.”

“But probably he will come back,” said Kate, with a thrill of fear.

“I don’t think he will. Fred Huntley has a great deal of sense. When I
send him off with a commission like that, of course he knows we don’t
want him here; and I am so glad he is gone, Kate, for it was to speak
of him I came.”

“To speak of--him!”

“Yes, indeed,” said Lady Winton. “Tell me frankly, Kate, as one woman
to another, which is it to be?”

“Which is what to be?--I don’t understand you,” said Kate, flushing
crimson; “which of which? Lady Winton, I can’t even guess what you
mean.”

“Oh yes, you can,” said her new adviser. “My dear, it is not permitted
by our laws to have two husbands, and that makes two lovers very
dangerous--I always warn a girl against it. You think, perhaps, there
is no harm, and that one of them will be wise enough not to go too
far; but they will go too far, those silly men--and when they don’t,
we despise them, my dear,” said the experienced woman. “A woman may
shilly-shally, and hold off and on, and make an entertainment of
it--but when a man is capable of that sort of thing he is not worth a
thought; and so I ask, which is it to be?”

It will be seen from this that Lady Winton, like so many clever women
of her age, was deeply learned in all the questions that arise between
men and women. She had studied the matter at first hand of course, in
her youth; and though she had never been a flirt, she had not been
absolutely devoid of opportunity for study, even in her maturer years,
when the faculty of observation was enlarged, and ripe judgment had
come; and accordingly she spoke with authority, as one fully competent
to fathom and realise the question which she thus fearlessly opened. As
for Kate, she changed colour a great many times while she was being
addressed, but her courage did not fail.

“Mr Huntley is my friend,” she said, facing her accuser bravely: “as
for which it is to be, I introduced Mr Mitford to you, Lady Winton----”

“Yes, my dear, and that is what makes me ask; and a very nice young
fellow, I am sure--a genuine reliable sort of young man, Kate----”

“Oh, isn’t he?” cried that changeable personage, with eyes glowing and
sparkling; “dear Lady Winton, you always understand--that is just what
he is--one could trust him with anything and he would never fail.”

“You strange girl,” said Lady Winton, “what do you mean? Why, you are
_in earnest_! and yet you sit and talk with Fred Huntley a whole
evening in a corner, and do everything you can to break the other poor
fellow’s heart.”

“The other poor fellow is not here,” said Kate, with a half-alarmed
glance round her. If it came to that, she felt that after all she would
not have liked John to have watched her interview with her friend and
his: and then she perceived that she had betrayed herself, and coloured
high, recollecting that she was under keen feminine inspection which
missed nothing.

“Don’t trust to that,” said Lady Winton; “you may be sure there is
somebody here who will let him know. I don’t say much about Fred
Huntley’s heart, for he is very well able to take care of that; but,
Kate, for heaven’s sake, mind what you are about! Don’t get into the
habit of encouraging one man because another is absent and will not
know. Everybody knows everything, my dear; there is no such thing as a
secret; you forget there are more than a dozen pairs of eyes in this
very room.”

“Lady Winton,” said Kate, “I am not afraid of any one seeing what I do.
I hope I have not done anything wrong; and as for Mr Mitford, I know
him and he knows me.”

“Well, well--let us hope so,” said Lady Winton, with a prolonged
shake of her head; “and I hope he is more philosophical than I gave
him credit for; I should not have said it was his strong point. But,
however, as you are so very sure, my dear----”

“Perfectly sure,” said Kate, with dignity; and the moment she had said
it, would have liked to throw her arms round her monitor’s neck and
have a good cry; but that was quite impossible in the circumstances;
and Fred Huntley from afar seeing the two ladies draw imperceptibly
apart, and seeing their conversation had come to an end, approached
with the fan, and took up his position in front of them, and managed
to bring about a general conversation. He did it very skilfully, and
contrived to cover Kate’s annoyance and smooth her down, and restore
her to self-command; and that night Kate was not only friendly but
grateful to him, which was a further step in the downward way.




CHAPTER XXII.


Fred Huntley was a man of considerable ingenuity as well as coolness of
intellect; and it was impossible that he could remain long unconscious
of what he was doing, or take any but the first steps in any path
without a clear perception of whither it led. And accordingly, before
he had reached this point he had become fully aware of the situation,
and had contemplated it from every possible point of view. No feeling
of treachery to John weighed upon him when he thought it fully over.
He had not been confided in by Kate’s accepted lover, nor appealed to,
nor put upon his honour in the matter; and John was not even a very
intimate friend that he should give in to him; nor did it occur to him
to stifle the dawning love in his own heart, and withdraw from the
field, even for Kate’s sake, to leave her tranquil to the enjoyment
of her first love. Such an idea was not in Fred’s way. To secure his
own will and his own happiness was naturally the first thing in his
estimation, and he had no compunctions about his rival. There seemed
to him no possible reason why he should sacrifice himself, and leave
the field clear to John. And then there were so many aspects in which
to consider the matter. It would be much better for her, Fred felt,
to marry himself. He could make appropriate settlements upon her; he
could maintain her in that position to which she had been accustomed;
he could give her everything that a rich man’s daughter or rich man’s
wife could desire. His blood, perhaps, might not be so good as John
Mitford’s blood, if you entered into so fine a question; but he was
heir to his father’s money, if not to much that was more ethereal. And
money tells with everybody, Fred thought; it would tell with Kate,
though perhaps she did not think so. Of all people in the world was not
she the last who could consent to come down from her luxurious state,
and be the wife of a poor man, with next to no servants, no horses,
no carriage, and nothing but love to make up to her for a thousand
wants? Fred Huntley was in love himself, and indeed it was love that
was the origin of all these deliberations; and yet he scoffed at love
as a compensation. By dint of reasoning, he even got himself to believe
that it was an unprincipled thing on John’s part to seek her at all,
and that any man would do a good deed who should deliver her from his
hands. He had reached to this point by the next evening after the one
whose events we have just recorded. Kate had not ridden out that day;
she had been little visible to any one, and Fred had not more than
a distant glimpse of her at the breakfast-table and in the twilight
over the tea, which called together most of the party. Madeline Winton
and her mother had gone away that morning; and Madeline was Kate’s
gossip, her confidential friend, the only one with whom she could
relieve her soul. She was somewhat low-spirited in the evening. Fred
looked on, and saw her languid treatment of everything, and the snubs
she administered to several would-be consolers. He kept apart with
conscious skill; and yet, when he happened to be thrown absolutely in
her way, was very full of attention and care for her comfort. He placed
her seat just as he thought she liked it, arranged her footstool for
her with the most anxious devotion, and was just retiring behind her
chair when she stopped him, struck by his melancholy looks. “Are you
ill, Mr Huntley?” she said, with something like solicitude; and Fred
shook his head, fixing his eyes on her face.

“No,” he said, “I am not ill;” and then drew a little apart, and looked
down upon her with a certain pathos in his eyes.

“There is something the matter with you,” said Kate.

“Well, perhaps there is; and I should have said there was something
the matter with you, Miss Crediton, which is of a great deal more
importance.”

“Mine is easily explained,” said Kate; “I have lost my friend. I am
always low when Madeline goes away. We have always been such friends
since we were babies. There is nobody in the world I am so intimate
with. And it is so nice to have some one you can talk to and say
everything that comes into your head. I am always out of spirits when
she goes away.”

“If the post is vacant I wish I might apply for it,” Fred said, with
exaggerated humility. “I think I should make an excellent confidant.
Discreet and patient and ready to sympathise, and not at all given to
offering impertinent advice.”

“Ah, you!” cried Kate, with a sudden glance up at him. And then she
laughed, notwithstanding her depressed condition. “I wonder what Lady
Winton would say?” she added merrily, but the next moment grew very red
and felt confused under his eye; for what if he should try to find out
what Lady Winton had said?--which, of course, he immediately attempted
to do.

“Lady Winton is a great friend of mine. She would never give her vote
against me,” said Fred, cunningly disarming his adversary.

Upon which Kate indulged herself in another mischievous laugh. Did he
but know! “She is not like you,” said the girl in her temerity; “she
is rather fond of giving advice.”

“Yes,” said Fred, growing bold. “That was what she was doing last
night. Would you like me to tell you what it was about?”

“What it was about?” cried Kate, in consternation, with a violent
sudden blush; but of course it must be nonsense, she represented to
herself, looking at him with a certain anxiety. “You never could guess,
Mr Huntley; it was something quite between ourselves.”

“That is very possible,” he said, so gravely that her fears were quite
silenced; and he added in another moment, “but I know very well what it
was. It was about me.”

“About you!”

“I have known Lady Winton a great many years,” said Fred, steadily. “I
understand her ways. When she comes and takes a man’s place and sends
him off for something she has left behind on purpose, he must be dull
indeed if he does not know what she means. She was talking to you of
me.”

“It was not I that said so!” cried Kate, who was in a great turmoil,
combined of fright, confusion, and amusement. It would be such fun to
hear what guesses he would make, and he was so sure not to find it out!
“When you assert such a thing you must prove it,” she said, her eyes
dancing with fun and rash delight, and yet with a secret terror in them
too.

“She was warning you,” said Fred, with a long-drawn breath, in which
there was some real and a good deal of counterfeit excitement, “not to
trifle with me. She was telling you, that though I did not show many
signs of feeling, I was still a man like other men, and had a heart----”

“Fancy Lady Winton saying all that,” cried Kate, with a tremulous laugh
of agitation. “What a lively imagination you have--and about you!”

“But she might have said it with great justice,” said Fred, very
gravely and steadily, “and about me.”

Here was a situation! To have a man speaking to you in your own
drawing-room in full sight of a score of people, and as good as
telling you what men tell in all sorts of covert and secret places,
with faltering voice and beating heart. Fred was perfectly steady and
still; his voice was a trifle graver than usual--perhaps it might have
been called sad; his eyes were fixed upon her with a serious, anxious
look; there was no air of jest, no levity, but an aspect of fact which
terrified and startled her. Kate fairly broke down under this strange
and unexpected test. She gave a frightened glance at him, and put up
her fan to hide her face. What was she to say?

“Please, Mr Huntley,” she faltered, “this is not the kind of subject to
make jokes about.”

“Do I look like a man who is joking?” he asked. “I do not complain; I
have not a word to say. I suppose I have brought it upon myself, buying
the delight of your society at any price I could get it for--even the
dearest. And you talk to me about another man as if I were made of
stone--a man who----”

“Stop, please,” she said, faintly. “I may have been wrong. I never
thought--but please don’t say anything of him, whatever you may say to
me.”

“You are more afraid of a word breathed against him than of breaking
my heart,” said Fred, with some real emotion; and Kate sat still,
thunderstruck, taking shelter behind her fan, feeling that every one
was looking at her, and that her very ears were burning and tingling.
Was he making love to her? she asked herself. Had he any intention of
contesting John’s supremacy? or was it a mere remonstrance, a complaint
that meant nothing, an outcry of wounded pride and nothing more?

“Mr Huntley,” she said, softly, “if I have given you any pain, I am
very sorry. I never meant it. You were so kind, I did not think I was
doing wrong. Please forgive me; if there is any harm done it is not
with my will.”

“Do you think that mends matters?” said Fred, with now a little
indignation mingling in his sadness. “If you put it into plain English,
this is what it means:--I was something so insignificant to you, taken
up as you were with your own love, that it never occurred to you that I
might suffer. You never thought of me at all. If you had said you had
meant it, and had taken the trouble to make me miserable, that would
have been a little better; at least it would not have been contempt.”

And he turned away from her and sat down at a little table near,
and covered his face with his hand. What would everybody think? was
Kate’s first thought. Did he mean to hold her up to public notice, to
demonstrate that she had used him badly? She bore it for a moment or
two in her bewilderment, and then stretched across and touched him
lightly with her fan. “Mr Huntley, there are a great many people in the
room,” she said. “If we were alone you might reproach me; but surely
we need not let these people know--and papa! Mr Huntley, you know very
well it was not contempt. Won’t you forgive me--when I ask your pardon
with all my heart?”

“Forgive you!” cried Fred; and he raised his head and turned to her,
though he did not raise his eyes. “You cannot think it is forgiveness
that is wanted--that is mockery.”

“Please don’t say so! I would not mock you for all the world. Oh, Mr
Huntley, if it is not forgiveness, what is it?” cried Kate.

And then he looked at her with eyes full of reproach, and a certain
appeal--while she met his look with incipient tears, with her child’s
gaze of wonder, and sorrow, and eloquent deprecation. “Please forgive
me!” she said, in a whisper. She even advanced her hand to him by
instinct, with a shy half-conscious movement, stopping short out of
regard for the many pairs of eyes in the room, not for any other cause.
“I am so very, very sorry,” she said, and the water shone in her blue
eyes like dew on flowers. Fred, though he was not emotional, was
more deeply moved than he had yet been. Throughout all this strange
interview, though he meant every word he said, he had yet been more or
less playing a part. But now her ingenuous look overcame him. Something
of the imbecility of tenderness came into his eyes. He made a little
clutch at the finger-tips which had been held out to him, and would
have kissed them before everybody, had not Kate given him a warning
look, and blushed, and quickly drawn the half-offered hand away. She
would not have drawn it away had they been alone. Would she have heard
him more patiently, given him a still kinder response? Fred could not
tell, but yet he felt that his first effort had not been made in vain.

It was Mr Crediton himself who interrupted this _tête-à-tête_. He
came up to them with a look which might have been mere curiosity, and
might have been displeasure. “Kate,” he said, gravely, “it seems to me
you are neglecting your guests. Instead of staying in this favourite
corner of yours, suppose you go and look after these young ladies a
little. Mr Huntley will excuse you, I am sure.”

“I am so lazy, I am out of spirits; and so is Mr Huntley; we have
been condoling with each other,” said Kate; but she got up as she
spoke, with her usual sweet alacrity, not sorry, if truth were told,
to escape. “Keep my seat for me, papa, till I come back,” she said,
with her soft little laugh. Mr Crediton did as he was told--he placed
himself in her chair, and turned round to Fred and looked at him. While
she tripped away to the other girls to resume her interrupted duties,
her father and her new lover confronted each other, and cautiously
investigated what the new danger was.

“My dear Huntley,” said the elder man, “I am sure your meaning is the
most friendly in the world; but my daughter is very young, and she is
engaged to be married; and, on the whole, I think it would be better
that you did not appropriate her so much. Kate ought to know better,
but she is very light-hearted, and fond of being amused.”

“I don’t think I have been very amusing to-night,” said Fred. “Thanks,
sir, for your frankness; but I am going away to-morrow, and I may claim
a little indulgence, perhaps, for my last night.”

“Going away to-morrow!” said Mr Crediton, with surprise.

“Yes, I have no choice. Shall I say it is sudden business--a telegram
from Oxford--a summons home? or shall I tell you the real reason, Mr
Crediton?” cried Fred, with emotion. “You have always been very good to
me.”

Mr Crediton was startled, notwithstanding his habitual composure. He
looked keenly at the young man, and saw what few people had ever
seen--the signs of strong and highly-wrought feeling in Fred Huntley’s
face; and the sight was a great surprise to him. He had thought the
two had been amusing themselves with a flirtation, a thing he did not
approve of; but this must surely have gone beyond a flirtation. “If
you have anything to say to me, come to the library after they have
gone to bed,” he said. Fred answered by a nod of assent, and the two
separated without another word. Nor did Kate see the new claimant to
her regard any more that night. He had disappeared when she had time
to look round her, and recall the agitating interview which had broken
the monotony of the evening. It came to her mind when she was talking,
returning again and again amid the nothings of ordinary conversation.
How strange it all was, how exciting! what a curious episode in the
tedious evening! And what did he, what could he, mean? And what would
John think? And was it possible that Fred Huntley could feel like
that--Fred, that man of the world? She was confused, bewildered,
flattered, pleased, and sorry. It was a new sensation, and thrilled
her through and through when she was rather in want of something to
rouse her up a little. And she was so sorry for him! She almost hoped
he would spring up from some corner, and be chidden and comforted,
and made more miserable by the soft look of compassion she would give
him--the “Pardon me!” which she meant to say; but Fred made no further
appearance, and the Pardon me! was not said that night.




CHAPTER XXIII.


It puzzled Kate very much next morning to find that Huntley had not
reappeared. It was not in the nature of things that she could avoid
thinking about him, and wondering over and over again what he could
mean,--whether he was mystifying her--but that was impossible; or if it
was really, actually true? And the fact was that she went down-stairs
a little earlier than usual, with a great curiosity in her mind as
to how Fred would look, and whether she should see any traces in his
face of last night’s agitation. When she had taken this trouble, it
may be supposed that it was hard upon her to find Fred absent; and she
“did not like”--a new expression in Kate’s vocabulary--to ask what
had become of him. She caught herself looking at the door anxiously
every time it opened, but he did not come. Some one at last relieved
her anxiety by asking the point-blank question, “What has become of
Huntley? has he gone away?” It was an idea which never had occurred
to Kate. She looked up in blank dismay at the suggestion, and met her
father’s eye fully fixed upon her, and trembled, and felt that in two
minutes more she must cry--not for Fred, but because he was decidedly
an exciting new plaything, and he had gone away.

“Yes, he has gone away,” said Mr Crediton, “this morning, before some
of us were out of bed. I have his farewells to make. He did not know it
would be necessary for him to go when he left us last night.”

“I hope there is nothing the matter at Westbrook,” said one of Fred’s
intimates; but Kate did not say a word. The room swam round her for one
moment. Gone away! Was it so serious as that, then? The self-possessed
Fred, had matters been so grave with him that flight was his only
refuge? She was so startled that she did not know what to think. She
was sorry, and surprised, and fluttered, and excited, all in a breath.
She did not pay any attention to the conversation for some minutes,
though she was sufficiently mistress of herself to take the usual part
in it, and to go on dispensing cups of tea. Gone away! It was very
fine, very honourable, very provoking of him. She had meant to bring
him down to his level very kindly and skilfully, and cure him of all
hopes, while still she kept him bound in a certain friendly chain. And
now he had cut it all short, and taken the matter into his own hands.
It cannot be denied that Kate was a little vexed at the moment. No
doubt, if she had been left alone she would have got over it in the
course of the day, and recovered her composure, and thought no more of
Fred Huntley than she had done two days ago; but she was not destined
to be left to herself. The first thing that happened was that Mr
Crediton remained in the breakfast-room till everybody was gone, and
called her to him. The most indulgent of fathers was looking somewhat
stern, which was a thing of itself which utterly puzzled as well as
dismayed the girl whom he had scarcely ever thwarted in the whole
course of her life.

“Kate,” he said, “you took no notice when I said Fred Huntley had gone
away--so I suppose he told you why it was?”

“He never said a word to me of going away, papa,” faltered Kate.

“But you know the cause? and I hope it will be a warning to you,” said
Mr Crediton. “I have seen this going on for some days, and I meant to
have spoken to you. A girl in your position has no right to distinguish
a man as you did poor Fred.”

“But, dear papa,” cried Kate, feeling very penitent yet very much
flattered--as if somebody had paid her a very nice compliment, she
said afterwards--“you cannot think it was my fault; I only talked to
him like the rest. If I talked to him a little more, it was about--Mr
Mitford. And he knew all the time. How was I to suppose it could come
to any harm?”

“Don’t let me hear of any other man being taken in by your confounded
confidences--about Mr Mitford,” said her father, with an amount of
rudeness and contemptuous impatience, such as perhaps had never been
shown to Kate before in all her life.

“Papa!” she cried, indignant, drawing herself up; but Mr Crediton
only said “Pshaw!” and went off and left her standing by herself, not
knowing whether to cry or to be very angry, in the great empty room.
He was wroth, and he was disposed rather to heighten than to subdue
the expression of it. He wanted her to feel the full weight of his
displeasure, rather a little more than less. For Fred Huntley would
have suited him well enough for a son-in-law, if it was necessary
to have such an article. He had distinguished himself already, and
was likely still more to distinguish himself. He was thought of by
the borough authorities as the new Member for Camelford. He was very
well off, and could do everything that was right and meet in the way
of providing for his bride. He was in her own sphere. “Confound that
Mitford!” Mr Crediton said to himself as he left his daughter. It
was bad enough to contemplate the possibility of ever resigning his
child to John’s keeping; but to throw aside a man he liked for him,
exaggerated the offence. He went out, kicking Kate’s favourite Skye
terrier on his way, as angry men are apt to do. “As if it was poor
Muffy that had done it!” Kate said, with the tears springing to her
eyes. When she was thus left she called her injured terrier to her, and
hugged it, and had a good cry. “You did not do it, did you, Muffy?” she
said. “Poor dear dog! what had you to do with it? If a man chooses to
be silly, are we to be kicked for it, Muffy _mio_? Papa is a great
bear, and everybody is as unkind as they can be; and oh, I am so sorry
about poor Fred!”

She got over her crying, however, and her regrets, and made herself
very agreeable to a great many people for the rest of the day, and
petted Muffy very much, and took no notice of her father, who, poor
man, had compunctions; but by the time that evening arrived, Kate began
to feel that the loss of Fred was a very serious loss indeed. He had
timed his departure very cleverly. If Madeline Winton had still been
there, it might have been bearable; for she would have had some one
to open her heart to, notwithstanding that even to Madeline she had
not been able to speak of John as she had indulged herself in doing
to her “friend”--John’s friend; somehow that was not the title which
she now thought of giving to Fred Huntley. He had suddenly sprung into
individuality, and held a distinct place of his own in her mind. Poor
Fred! could it be possible that he was so fond of her! he who was not
at all a tragical sort of personage, or one likely to do anything
very much out of the way for love. What could he find in her to be
fond of? Kate said to herself. He was not like John, who was ignorant
of society. Fred Huntley had seen heaps of other girls who were very
pretty and very nice; and why was it that he had set his affections
upon herself, Kate, whom he could not have? It seemed such a pity, such
a waste of effort. “Madeline might have had him, perhaps,” she said to
herself, reflecting pensively in her easy-chair with her fan at her
lips to conceal their movement. Madeline as yet had no lover, and she
was very nice, and rather pretty too. And it would have been perfectly
suitable, “instead of coming making a fuss over me; and he can’t
have me,” Kate added always within herself, with a sigh of suffering
benevolence. It was hard he could not have her when he wanted her so
very much. It was hard that everybody should not have everything they
wanted. And it was odd, yet not unpleasant, that he should thus insist
upon throwing away his love upon herself, who could not accept it,
instead of giving it to Madeline, who might have accepted. How perverse
the world was!

Thus Kate reflected as she sat and mused the evening after he had gone.
She was heartily sorry to cross Fred, and felt the most affectionate
sympathy for him, poor fellow! It was so nice of him to be fond of
her, though she could not give him any return. And if he had stayed
and talked it over, instead of running away, Kate thought of a hundred
things she could have said to him, as to the unreasonableness of
falling in love with herself, and the good sense of transferring his
love to Madeline. Somehow she did not quite expect he would have taken
her advice; but still, no doubt, she would have set it before him in
a very clear light, and got him to hear reason. And then he was very
pleasant to talk to, and more amusing than anybody else at Fernwood.
This feeling had never crept over her in respect to John. When he went
away, she was sorry because he left her half in displeasure, and “had
not enjoyed himself;” but she could not persuade herself that she had
missed his company, missed a hundred things he would have said to her,
as she did now. She was in reality almost relieved to be quit of the
passionate eyes which followed her everywhere, and the demand which
he made upon her for her society, for her very inmost self. But Fred
made no such claims. Fred took what he could get, and was happy in it.
He spared her trouble, and watched to see what her wants were, and
was always ready to talk to her or to leave her alone, as her mood
varied. Poor Fred! she sighed, feeling very, very sorry for him, with
a half-tenderness of pity which young women accord only to those who
are their personal victims. Perhaps she exaggerated his sufferings,
as it was natural to do. She sat and mused over him all that evening
with her fan half concealing her face. “My dear, I am afraid you have
a headache,” one of the elder ladies said to her; and Kate acquiesced
with a faint little smile. “It is the weather,” she said, softly; and
the old lady, taking her cue, sat down beside her, and discussed the
same. “The changes are the worst,” she said--“the thermometer at sixty
one day, and next day below the freezing-point. And then, in an English
house, it is so difficult to keep cold out.”

“I hope your room is warm,” Kate said suddenly, remembering her
hostess-ship. “You must tell me if you find it chilly. There is such a
difference in some of the rooms!”

“It is according to their aspect,” said the old lady; “mine is very
comfortable, I assure you. It is you young ones that expose yourselves
to so many changes. If I were you, I would wrap up very warm, and keep
indoors for a day or two. There is nothing like keeping in an equitable
temperature. I have no confidence in anything else.”

“Thanks,” Kate said, with a feeling of dreariness. Instead of Fred’s
conversation this was a poor exchange. And she grew more and more
sorry for him, and more and more compassionate of herself as the
evening stole on. Several of the people who interested her most had
left within the last few days. There was but the moderate average
of country-house visitors left; people who were not remarkable for
anything--neither witty, nor pretty, nor particularly entertaining--and
yet not to be complained of in any way. She did her duty to them as
became Mr Crediton’s daughter, and was very solicitous to know that
they were comfortable and had what they liked; but she missed Madeline,
she missed Lady Winton, she missed her acrid old godfather, who was
said to be fond of nobody but Kate; and, above all, she missed Fred
Huntley--poor Fred!

A week had passed, somewhat weakening this impression, when Fred
returned, quite as suddenly as he went away. He was seen walking up the
avenue when the party were at luncheon, and Kate’s heart gave a little
jump at the sight of him. “Why, there is Huntley come back again!”
some one cried, but he did not make his appearance at lunch; and it was
only when he came into the drawing-room before dinner that Kate had
any opportunity of seeing what change had been wrought in him by the
discovery of his sentiments towards herself. Fred was playing a part;
but, like every other actor in life who plays his part well, had come
to believe in it himself, and to feel it real. He came up to her with a
certain confused but melancholy frankness. “Miss Crediton,” he said, “I
am afraid you cannot like to see me, but I have come about business. I
would not for the world, for any other reason, have brought what must
be an annoyance upon you.” And then Kate had lifted to him a pair of
very sympathetic, almost tender, eyes.

“Indeed I don’t know why I should not like to see you,” she said,
quietly. “You have always been very kind to me.”

“Kind!” he had answered, turning away with a gesture of impatience,
and not another word passed between them until the evening was almost
over, and all opportunity past. He was so slow, indeed, to take
advantage of any opportunity, that Kate felt half angry--wondering had
the man quite got over it? had he ever meant anything? But at the very
last, when she turned her head unthinking, all at once she found his
eyes upon her, and that he was standing close by her side.

“I suppose I must not ask for my old situation,” he said, softly. “I
have been a fool and forfeited all my advantages because I could not
win the greatest. You used to speak to me once--of the subject most
interesting to yourself.”

“I don’t think it would be in the least interesting to you _now_,
Mr Huntley,” said Kate, not without a little pique in her voice.

“Ah, you don’t know me,” he said. “I think I could interest myself in
anything that was interesting to you.”

And then there was silence, in which Kate began to feel her heart beat,
and wondered if this man could be an oyster, or if he could really
be so inconceivably fond of her as to be thus concerned in all that
concerned her happiness. It sounded like something in a romance; and
yet Kate knew enough of life and society to know that romance sometimes
gave but a very colourless picture of the truth.

“I hope you have heard lately,” he went on, with a voice which was
elaborately and yet not unnaturally subdued--for, as has been said,
Fred had fully entered into the _rôle_ he was playing--“and that
all is going well.”

Kate blushed, perhaps, more violently than she had ever blushed in her
life before. If he were making this sacrifice of his feelings for her,
surely she ought to be true and sincere with him; but what she had to
say was mortifying to her pride. She looked at him stooping over her,
and tried to read his face, and asked herself, with a simplicity that
is natural to the sophisticated, whether here, once for all, she had
found _the_ friend who is equal to utter self-abnegation, and of
whom in books one sometimes reads. A more simple-minded girl, probably,
would not have looked for so self-sacrificing a lover, but Kate had
been brought up with a persuasion of her own power to sway everybody
to her will. “Mr Huntley,” she said, hurriedly, “I don’t think I ought
to speak to you on such a subject; but, indeed, I feel anxious, and I
don’t know what to do.”

“Then do speak to me,” he said, bending over her. “Do you think I care
what happens to myself if I can be of use to you?”

There are sentiments of this heroic description which we would see
the fallacy of at once if addressed to others, which yet seem natural
spoken to ourselves. And Kate had always been so important to everybody
about her. She looked up at him again, she faltered, she half turned
away, and then, after all, she spoke.

“I don’t know why I should tell you. I don’t know what it means. I have
not heard a single word from him, Mr Huntley, since he went away.”

A sudden gleam of light came into Fred’s eyes, but he was looking down,
and she only saw a ghost of it under his lowered eyelids. “That is very
strange,” he said.

“Do you think he can be ill? Do you think anything can have happened?”
asked Kate.

“He is not ill, he is at home at Fanshawe, and his burns are getting
better. I saw him yesterday,” said Fred.

“At home! and he never told me. Oh, how unkind it is! It used to be
every other day, and now it is nearly a fortnight. But why should you
care?” cried Kate, really moved with sharp mortification, and not quite
aware what she said.

“I care a great deal,” he said, very low, and sighed. And Kate’s heart
was sore, and she was angry, and wounded, and for almost the first time
in her life felt that she had a little pride in her nature. Did the
other despise her to whom she had given her heart? Did he think she
was not worthy even of courtesy? though other people were so far from
thinking so. Kate’s impatient heart began to beat high with anger and
with pain.




CHAPTER XXIV.


The first great apparent change in a life is not always its real
beginning. It may be but the beginning of the beginning, as it were,
the first grand crash of the ice, the opening of the fountain. There
is more noise and more demonstration than when the full tide of waters
begins to swell into the broader channel, but it is not the great
crisis which it has the look of being. It is the commencement of a
process of which it is impossible to predict the end. This had been
emphatically the case with John Mitford when he was suddenly swept
out of his father’s house and out of all the traditions of his youth.
It seemed to him and to everybody that his life had then taken its
individual shape. When he returned to Fanshawe Regis, he went about
with new eyes, curiously observing everything which before he had
accepted without observation. Was it that he felt the new better? Was
it that he hankered after the old? These were questions which he could
not answer. The only thing he was quite sure of in respect to himself
was that he was uncertain about everything, and that life was no longer
sweet enough to make up for the darkness and troubles in it. With
this feeling in his mind he listened to his father’s sermons, seeing
everything in a different light, and went with his mother on her parish
work, carrying her basket, gazing wistfully in at the cottage windows,
wondering what was the good of it all. He had never questioned for a
moment the good of at least his mother’s ministrations until now. When
she came smiling out of one of the cottages it cast a gloom upon her
to find her boy, who had always been full of faith in her at least,
standing unresponsive, waiting for her outside. She looked him in the
eyes with her tender smile, and said, “Well, John?” as she gave back
the little basket into his hand.

“Well,” he said, with a sigh, “my good little mother! do you think it
is worth all the trouble you are taking, and all the trouble you have
taken since ever I remember?--that is what I want to know.”

“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford, “that and a great deal more. Oh,
John, if I could feel that but one, only one, was brought back to God
by any means!”

“I think they are all very much the same as they used to be,” said
John. “I recollect when I was a small boy, there was always something
to be set right _there_.”

“That was the father, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford. “He was very
troublesome. He took more than was good for him, you know; and then he
used to be very unkind to his poor wife. Ah, John, some of these poor
women have a great deal to bear!”

“But the blackguard is dead now, heaven be praised!” said John.

“Oh, hush, my dear, hush, and don’t speak of an immortal soul like
that! Yes indeed, John, he has gone where he will be judged with
clearer sight than ours. But I wish I could hope things were really
mended,” said Mrs Mitford, shaking her head. She went on shaking her
head for a whole minute after she had stopped speaking, as if her hope
was a very slight one indeed.

“What is the matter now?”

“The boys are very tiresome, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford, with a sigh.
“Somehow it seems natural to them to take to bad ways. You can’t think
how idle and lazy Jim is, though he used to be such a good boy when
he was in the choir, don’t you remember? He looked a perfect little
angel in his white surplice, but I fear he has been a very bad boy; and
Willie and his mother never do get on together. He is the only one that
can be depended upon in the least, and he talks of marrying and going
away.”

“You have not much satisfaction out of them,” said John, “though I know
you have always kept on doing all sorts of things for them. They ought
at least to be grateful to you.”

“Well, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford, with anxious gravity, “I don’t like
to blame her--but I am afraid sometimes their mother is not very
judicious, poor woman. It sours one sadly to have so much misfortune.
She is always contradicting and crossing them for things that don’t
matter. I don’t like to blame her, she has had so much to put up with;
but still, you know--and of course it is discouraging, whatever one may
try to say.”

“And then there are the Littles,” said John, leading his mother on.

“Oh, the Littles, dear! I wish you would not speak of them. Every month
or so I think I have just got their mind up to the point of going to
church. If you but knew the number of bonnets that woman has had, and
shoes for the children, and even your papa’s last old greatcoat which
I got the tailor to alter for Robert. But it is never any good. And
though I pay myself for the children’s schooling, they never go. It is
enough to break one’s heart.”

“And Lizzie’s people are always a trouble to you,” said John.

“Ah, my dear, but then the old woman is a Dissenter,” said Mrs Mitford,
with alacrity; “and in such a case what can one do?”

“But, mother dear, with all these things before you, does it sometimes
strike you what a hopeless business it is?” cried John. “You have been
working in the parish for twenty years----”

“Twenty-five, my dear boy--since before you were born.”

“And what is it the better?” said John; “the same evils reappear just
in the same way--the same wickedness, and profanity, and indifference.
For all the change one can see, mother dear, all your work and fatigue
might never have been.”

“I must say so far as that goes I don’t agree with you at all, John,”
cried his mother, with a certain sharp ring in her voice. The colour
came to her cheeks and the water to her eyes. If it had been said to
her that her life itself had been a mistake and failure, she could not
have felt it more. Indeed the one implied the other; and if there was
any one thing that she had built upon in all her modest existence, it
was the difference in the parish. John’s words gave her such a shock
that she gasped after them with a sense of partial suffocation.
And then she did her best to restrain the momentary sharp thrill of
resentment; for how could she be angry with her boy? “My dear,” she
said, humbly, with the tears in her soft eyes, “I don’t suppose I have
done half or quarter what I ought to have done; but still if you had
seen the parish when we came---- If I had been a woman of more energy,
and cleverer than I am----”

“You cannot think it was that I meant,” cried John. “How you
mistake me, mother! It is because your work has been so perfect, so
unwearied--because it ought to have wrought miracles----”

“Oh, no, no, not that,” she said, recovering her tranquillity, and
smiling on her boy. “It has been very humble, my dear; but still, if
you had seen the parish when we came--the alehouse was more frequented
than the church a great deal--the children were not baptised--there
were things going on I could not speak of even to you. That very Robert
Little that we were speaking of--his father was the most inveterate
poacher in the whole country, always in prison or in trouble; the
eldest brother went for a soldier, and one of the girls---- Oh, John,
Fanshawe Regis is not Paradise, but things are better now.”

“My dear little mother! but they are not as good as they ought to be
after the work of all your life.”

“Don’t speak of me, my dear boy, as if I were everything,” said Mrs
Mitford; “think of your papa--and oh, John, think of what is far
beyond any of us. Think whose life it was that was given, not for the
righteous, but to save sinners; think who it was that said there was
joy in heaven over one that repented; and should we grudge a whole
lifetime if we could but be sure that one was saved? I hope that is
what I shall never, never, do.”

John drew his mother’s hand through his arm as she looked up in his
face, with her soft features all quivering with emotion. What more
could he say? She was not clever, nor very able to take a philosophical
view of the matter. She never stopped to ask herself, as he did,
whether this faulty, shifty, mean, unprofitable world was worth the
expenditure of that divine life eighteen hundred years ago, and of the
many lives since which have been half divine. All that;--and nothing
better come of it than the vice, and the hypocrisy, and mercenary
pretences at goodness, and brutal indifference to everything pure
and true, which were to be found in this very village, in the depth
of the rural country, in England that has been called Christian for
all these hundreds of years. So much--and so little to result from
it. Such were the thoughts that passed through John’s mind, mingled
with many another gloomy fancy. Adding up long lines of figures was
scarcely more unprofitable--could scarcely be of less use to the world.
When he thought of his father’s precise little sermons, his feelings
were different; for Dr Mitford spoke as a member of the Archæological
Society might be supposed to speak, being compelled to do so, to a
handful of bumpkins who could not, as he was well aware, understand a
word he said--and was content with having thus performed the “duty”
incumbent on him. _That_ might be mended so far as it went; but
who could mend the self-devotion, the unconscious gospel of a life
which his mother set before the eyes of the village? They knew that her
charity never failed, nor her interest in them, nor the tender service
which she was ready to give to the poorest, or even to the wickedest.
Twenty-five years this woman, who was as pure as the angels, had been
their servant, at their call night and day. Heaven and earth could not
produce a more perfect ministration, her son said to himself, as he
watched her coming and going; and yet what did it all come to? Had Mrs
Mitford seen the thoughts that were going on in his mind, she would
have shrunk from him with a certain horror. They were hard thoughts
both of God and man. What was the good of it? Nobody, it appeared to
John, was the better. If Fanshawe Regis, for one place, had been left
to itself, would it have made any difference? Such thoughts are hard
to bear, when a man has been trained into the habit of thinking that
much, almost everything, can be done for his neighbours if he will
but sufficiently exert himself. Here was a tender good woman who had
exerted herself all her life--and what was the end of it? Meanwhile
Mrs Mitford walked on cheerfully, holding her son’s arm, with a little
glow of devotion about her heart, thinking, what did it matter how much
labour was spent on the work if but the one stray lamb was brought back
to the fold? and pondering in the same breath a new argument by which
Robert Little, in the Doctor’s greatcoat, and his wife in one of her
own bonnets, could be got to come to church, and induced to send their
children to school.

Sometimes, however, John’s strange holiday, which nobody could quite
understand, was disturbed by immediate questions still more difficult.
Mrs Mitford did not say much, having discovered in her son’s eye at
the moment of his return that all was not well with him; but she
looked wistfully at him from time to time, and surprised him in the
midst of his frequent reveries with sudden glances of anxious inquiry
which spoke more distinctly than words. She did not mention Kate,
which was more significant than if she had spoken volumes; and when
the letters came in, in the morning, she would turn her head away not
to see whether her son expected anything, or if he was disappointed.
A mixture of love and pride was in her self-restraint. He should not
be forced to confide in her, she had resolved; she would exercise
the last and hardest of all maternal duties towards him, and leave
him to himself. But Dr Mitford had no such idea. He was busy at the
moment with something for the 'Gentleman’s Magazine,' which kept him
in his study for the first few days after John’s arrival; but as soon
as his article was off his mind, he began to talk to his son of his
prospects, as was natural. This happened in the library, where John was
sitting, exactly as he had been sitting that first morning when Kate
peeped in at the door and all the world was changed; though I cannot
tell whether the young man at first remembered that. Dr Mitford was
seated at the other end of the room, as he had been that day. A ray of
October sunshine shone in through one light of the great Elizabethan
window and fell in a long line upon the polished oak floor, on the
library carpet, on Dr Mitford’s white head, and as far as the wall on
the other side of him--a great broad arrow of light, with some colour
in it from the shield in the centre of the glass. Behind this was the
glimmer of a fire, and John, lifting his weary eyes from his book, or
his eyes from his weary book, he could scarcely have told which, became
suddenly aware of the absolute identity of the outside circumstances,
and held his breath and asked himself, had he dreamed it, or had that
interruption ever been? Was the door going to open and Kate to peep
in breathless, shy, daring, full of fun and temerity? or had she done
it, and turned all the world upside down? When he was asking himself
this question Dr Mitford laid down his pen; then he coughed his little
habitual cough, which was the well-understood sign between him and his
domestic world that he might be spoken to; then he was fretted by the
sunshine, and got up and drew the blind down; and then, having quite
finished his article, and feeling himself in a mood for a little talk,
he took a walk towards his son between the pillars that narrowed the
library in the middle, and looked like a great doorway. He did not
go straight to John, but paused on the way to remark upon some empty
corners, and to set right some books which had dropped out of their
exact places.

“I wish the doctor would return my Early English books,” he said,
approaching his son; “one ought to make a resolution against lending.
You might give me a day, John, just to look up what books are missing,
and who has them. I think you know them better than I do. But, by the
by, you have not told us how long you can stay.”

“I don’t think it matters much,” said John.

“You don’t think it matters much! but that looks as if you were not
taking any great trouble to make yourself missed. I don’t like that,”
said Dr Mitford, shaking his head: “depend upon it, my boy, you will
never secure proper appreciation until you show the people you are
among that another cannot fill your place.”

“But the fact is that a dozen others could fill my place, sir,” said
John, “quite as well as--very probably much better than I.”

“What! with Mr Crediton? and his daughter?” said Dr Mitford. He
thought he had made a joke, and turned away with a mild little laugh
to arrange and caress his folios. Then he went on talking with his
back to John--“I should be glad to know what you really think of it
now that you have had time to make the experiment. I don’t understand
the commercial mind myself. I don’t know that I could be brought
to understand it; but the opinion of an intelligence capable of
judging, and accustomed to trains of thought so different, could
not but be interesting. I should like to hear what you think of it
frankly. Somebody has made dog’s ears in this Shakespeare, which
is unpardonable,” said the Doctor, passing his hand with sudden
indignation over the folded edges. “I should like to know what your
opinion is.”

“I think I can get it straight, sir,” said John, “if you will trust the
book to me.”

“Thanks--and put a label on it, 'Not to be lent,'” said Dr Mitford.
“It is not to be expected, you know, that the most good-natured of men
should lend one of the earliest editions. What were we talking of? oh,
the bank. I hope you are quite satisfied that you can do your duty as
well or better in your own way than in the manner we had intended for
you. Nothing but that thought would have induced me to yield. It was
a disappointment, John,” said his father, turning round with a tall
volume in his hand--“I cannot deny that it was a great disappointment.
Do you really feel that you are able to do your duty better where you
are?”

“What is my duty, father?” said John, with a hoarseness in his voice.

And then it was Dr Mitford’s turn to show consternation. “Your duty,”
he faltered--“your duty? It does not say much for my teaching and your
mother’s if you have to ask that question at this time of day.”

This, it will be easy to see, was a very unsatisfactory sort of answer.
John got up too, feeling very heavy about the heart. “Relative duty is
easy enough,” he said; “but absolute duty, what is it? is there such a
thing? Is it not just as good both for myself and other people that I
should live for myself as I am doing, instead of living for God and my
neighbour like my mother? So far as I can see, it comes to exactly the
same thing.”

Dr Mitford looked at his son with an absolute astonishment that would
have been comical had John been able to see it. But then it was not so
much his son’s perplexity the Doctor thought of as that curious, quite
inexplicable reference. “Like your mother!” the Rector of Fanshawe
Regis said, with utter amazement. It took away his breath. He could not
even notice his son’s question in his consternation. “Yes,” said John,
not in the least perceiving the point, “what is the good? That is what
one asks one’s self; it does not seem to make any difference to the
world.”

Dr Mitford turned, and put up the dog’s-eared folio on its shelf. He
shook his head in his bewilderment, and gave a sigh of impatience.
“You young men have a way of talking and of thinking which I don’t
understand,” he said, still shaking his head. “I hope to goodness,
John, that you have not been led astray by those ridiculous fallacies
of Comtism. You may suppose that as you are not to be a clergyman
it does not matter what your opinions are; but it always matters.
A private Christian has as much need to be right as if he were an
archbishop; and I confess, after your careful training, I little
expected----a mere farrago of French sentiment and nonsense. Your
mother! what she has to do with the question I can’t understand.”

“And I am sure neither do I, sir,” said John, moved to a laugh, “nor
why you should set me down as a Comtist. I am not an anythingist, worse
luck--for then, perhaps, one might see a little more plainly what to
do.”

“If a young man, with the best education England can give, and friends
to consult, who, I flatter myself, are not idiots, cannot see what to
do, it does not say much for his sense,” said Dr Mitford, with some
indignation. “I suppose by all this I am to understand that you are
tired of the office drudgery and beginning to repent----”

“I don’t know that I have anything to repent of,” said John, who under
this questioning began to get rebellious, as sons are wont to do.

“I advise you to make up your mind,” said Dr Mitford, not without a
half-tone of contempt. “I never thought you were adapted for business.
If experience has shown you this, it is best to take steps at once. You
might not like, perhaps, to return to your original destination----”

“Father, this discussion is quite unnecessary,” said John, growing
red. “I am not tired of office drudgery. No trade, I suppose, is very
delightful just at first; and when one begins to think for one’s self,
there are many questions that arise in one’s mind. Yes, mother, I am
quite ready. I have been waiting for you this half-hour.”

“But not if your papa wants you, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford, in her
white shawl, standing smiling upon them at the door.

“I can look after the Shakespeare when I come in,” said John. That
was exactly where Kate had stood peeping--Kate, who, when she was
old, would be just such another woman. Would she grow so by his side?
Could it ever be that she would come, in all the soft confidence of
proprietorship, and look in upon him as his mother did? All at once
it flashed upon him that such a thing might have been, in this very
place, in this very way, had he kept his traditionary place. He might
have been the Rector, putting up his folios, and she the Lady Bountiful
of the parish, as his mother was. This flashed across his mind at the
very moment when he was asking what use it was, and feeling that a life
spent in doing good was as much thrown away as a life spent in making
money. Strange inconsistency! And then he went and took the basket,
with its little vials of wine and carefully-packed dainties, out of his
mother’s hand.

Dr Mitford watched them going away with feelings more odd and strange
than he recollected to have experienced for years. He waited till the
door was closed, and then he turned abruptly to his books; but these
were not satisfactory for the moment, and by-and-by he gave them up
and walked impatiently to the window, and saw his wife’s white shawl
disappear from the garden gate, with her tall boy by her side shadowing
over her in the October sunshine. “His mother!” Dr Mitford said to
himself, with a certain snort of wonder and offence--and then went back
to his writing-table, and wrote a note to accompany his article to
Sylvanus Urban, who was a more comprehensible personage on the whole
than either wife or son.




CHAPTER XXV.


John remained rather more than a fortnight at home. His arm healed
and his health improved during this interval of quiet. But he did not
relieve his mind by any disclosure of his feelings. Indeed, what was
there to disclose? He asked himself the question ten times in a day.
He had come to no breach with Kate, he had not quarrelled with her
father; he had, on the contrary, increased his claims upon Mr Crediton
by actual service; and the something which had sprung up between Kate
and himself was like a wall of glass or of transparent ice, changing
nothing to outward appearance. He spent his time in an uneasy languor,
sometimes roused to positive suffering, but more generally in mere
discomfort, vague as his thoughts were, as his prospects were, as
all the world was to him. It seemed even a thing of the past that his
feelings should be very vehement about that or any other subject. He
had gone through a great deal of active pain, but now it seemed all to
be passive, and he only a kind of spectator. A host of questions had
widened out like circles in the water round the central question. What
was life worth? was it any great matter how it was spent? The banker
among his manifold concerns, or Mr Whichelo among the clerks, or the
Rector of Fanshawe Regis in his library--did it matter to any mortal
creature which was which? The one was laying up money which a great
fire or a scoundrel at the other end of the world might make an end of
in a moment; the other was laughed at behind his back, and outwitted
by the young men whom he thought he had so well in hand; and the
third--what was the parish the better for Dr Mitford? And yet John had
to face the matter steadily, as if it were of the greatest importance,
and decide which of these pretences at existence he would adopt. He got
no letter during this curious interval. The outer world kept silence
and did not interfere with his ponderings. Heaven and earth, and even
Kate and his mother, left him to take his own way.

It was not until the last morning of his stay that Mrs Mitford said
anything to John on the subject. She had gone down to breakfast a
little earlier than usual, perhaps, with a little innocent stealthy
intention of looking at the letters, and making sure what there was
for her boy; and there was one little letter lying by John’s plate
which made his mother’s heart beat quicker. Yes; at last it was
evident Kate had written to him; and if there had been any quarrel
or misunderstanding, here surely must be the end of it. She watched
for his appearance with speechless anxiety; and of course he was late
that morning, as was to be expected. And it was very easy to see by
his indifferent air that he was not looking for any letter. When he
perceived it he gave a little start, and his mother pretended to
be very much occupied with the coffee. He read it twice over from
beginning to end, which was not a long process, for it only occupied
one page of a small sheet of note-paper; and then he put it into his
pocket and began to eat his breakfast and talk just as usual. Mrs
Mitford, anxious and wondering, was brought to her wits' end.

“You had better order the phaeton, John,” said Dr Mitford, “if you are
going by the twelve train.”

“I need not go till the evening,” said John; “and my mother means to
walk there with me; don’t you, mamma?”

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs Mitford, smiling upon him. She had been looking
forward to this last heartrending pleasure, and thinking that then he
would perhaps tell her something, if indeed there was anything to tell.

“Then let the phaeton take your portmanteau and bring your mother
home,” said the Doctor, “if you insist on taking her such a long walk.
For my part I can never see the good of such expeditions. It is much
better to say good-bye at home.”

“But I like the walk,” said Mrs Mitford, eagerly; and the Doctor, who
did not quite approve of the pair and their doings, shook his head,
and gathered up his papers (he had no less than two proof-sheets to
correct, and a _revise_, for he was very particular), and went off
to his work. “You will find me in the library whenever I am wanted,” he
said, as he withdrew. He thought his wife was spoiling her son, as she
had spoiled him when he was ten years old, and he did not approve of
it; but when a woman is so foolish, what can the most sensible of men
and fathers do?

And then the mother and son were left alone, with that letter in John’s
pocket which might explain so much of the mystery. But he did not
say a word about it, nor about Kate, nor anything that concerned his
happiness; and when Mrs Mitford talked of his new shirts and stockings
(which was the only other subject she found herself capable of entering
upon), he talked of them too, and agreed in her remarks about the
negligence of washerwomen, and all the difficulty of keeping linen a
good colour in a town. “As for your socks, my poor boy, I never saw
such mending,” she said, almost with the tears in her eyes. “I must
take it all out and darn it over again as it ought to be. When darning
is nicely done, I never think the stocking looks a bit the worse; but
how any woman could drag the two edges together like some of these, I
can’t understand.”

“It is always hard work dragging edges together,” said John, getting up
from the table. “I think I’ll go and say good-bye to old Mrs Fanshawe,
mother. It is too long a walk for you.”

“I could not go there and to the station too,” said Mrs Mitford, “and
I ought not to neglect the schools because I am so happy as to have my
own boy. Yes, dear; go and see the old people: you must keep up the old
ties for our sakes, even though they are to be broken off so far as
the Rectory goes;” and she smiled at him and gave a little nod of her
head dismissing him, by way of concealing that she wanted to cry. She
did cry as soon as he was gone, and had scarcely time to dry her eyes
when Jervis came in to clear the table. Mrs Mitford snubbed him on the
spot, with a vehemence which took that personage quite by surprise. “I
observe that Mr John’s things have not been laid out for him properly,
as they ought to have been,” she said, suddenly, snapping his nose off,
as Jervis said. “I trust I shall find everything properly brushed and
folded to-day. It is a piece of negligence, Jervis, which I don’t at
all understand.” “And Missis give her head a toss, and walks off as
if she was the queen,” said the amazed man-of-all-work when he got to
the kitchen, and was free to unburden himself. After this Mrs Mitford
had another cry in her own room, and put on her bonnet and went across
to the schools, wondering through all the lessons and all the weary
chatter of the children,--Oh, what was the matter with her boy? oh, was
he unhappy? had they quarrelled? must not his mother know?

Meanwhile John strode across the country to Fanshawe to bid the old
squire and his old wife good-bye. He went, as the crow flies, over
the stubble, and by the hedge-sides, never pausing to draw breath.
Not because he was excited by his departure, or by the letter in his
pocket, or by any actual incident. On the contrary, he was quite
still, like the day, which was a grey autumn morning, with wistful
scraps of blue on the horizon, and a brooding, pondering quiet in the
air. All is over for the year, nature was saying to herself. Shall
there be another year? shall old earth begin again, take in the new
seeds, keep the spring germs alive for another blossoming? or shall all
come to a conclusion at last, and the new heavens and the new earth
come down out of those rolling clouds and fathomless shrill breaks of
blue? John was in much the same mood. Kate’s little note in his pocket
had a kind of promise in it of the new earth and the new heaven. But
was it a solid, real promise, or only a dissolving view, that would
vanish as he approached it? and might not an end be better, and no more
delusive hopes? Mrs Fanshawe was very kind when he got to the hall. She
told him of poor Cecily, just nineteen (Kate’s age), who was dying at
Nice, and cried a little, and smiled, and said, “Oh, my dear boy, it
don’t matter for us; we can’t be long of going after her.” But though
she was reconciled to that, she made a little outcry over John’s
leave-taking. “Going so soon! and what will your poor mother say?”
cried the old lady. “I am afraid you think more of one smile from Miss
Crediton than of all your old friends; and I suppose it is natural,”
she added, as she shook hands with him. Did he care more for Kate’s
smile than for anything else? He walked home again in the same dead
sort of way, without being able to answer even such a question. He did
not care for anything, he thought, except, now that he was at Fanshawe,
to get away; and probably when he got to Camelford his desire would
be to get back again, or to Fernwood, or to anywhere, except just the
place where he happened to be.

It was evening when he set out to go to the station, with his mother
leaning on his arm. The evening comes early in October, and it was
necessary that she should get back to dinner at seven. Twilight was
coming on as they walked together along the dewy road, where the
hedgerows were all humid and chill with the dew, which some of these
nights would grow white upon the leaves before any one knew, and make
winter out of autumn. A sort of premonition of the first frost was in
the air; and the hawthorns were very rusty and shabby in their foliage,
but picked out here and there by red flaming bramble-leaves, which
warmed up the hedgerows notwithstanding the damp. The mother and son
walked slowly, to spin out the time as long as might be. To be sure
they might, as Dr Mitford said, have just as well talked indoors; but
then the good Doctor knew nothing about that charm of isolation and
unity--the silent world all round about, the soft, harmonious motion,
the tender contact and support. They could speak so low to each other
without any fear of not being heard. They could look at each other if
they would, yet were not compelled to any meeting of the eyes. There
is no position in which it is so difficult to disagree, so natural to
confide and trust. Mrs Mitford’s very touch upon her son’s arm was in
itself a caress. My dear, dear boy, her eyes said as she looked at him.
She had carried him in those soft arms, and now it was her turn to lean
upon him. This thought was always in her mind when she leant upon
John’s arm.

“I should not wonder,” she said, cunningly, leading up to her subject
with innocent pretences of general conversation, “if we had frost
to-night.”

“The air is very still, and very cold: it is quite likely,” said John,
assenting, without much caring what he said.

“And actually winter is coming! after this wonderful summer we have
had. What a summer it has been! I don’t remember such a long stretch of
bright weather since the year you went first to school. I was so glad
of the first frost that year, thinking of Christmas. You will come home
for Christmas, John,” said Mrs Mitford, suddenly, with a tighter clasp
of his arm.

“I cannot tell, mother. I don’t seem to realise Christmas,” said John.

“Well, dear, I won’t press you for any promise; but you know it will be
a very poor Christmas without you. Life itself feels poor without my
boy. There! I did not mean to have said it; but I am a foolish woman,
and it is quite true.”

“Life is so poor in any case. I don’t know how it can matter one way or
another,” said John, with a shrug of his shoulders. He was not touched
so much as impatient; and unconsciously he quickened his pace and drew
her on with him, faster than it was easy for her to go.

“We are in plenty of time for the train,” Mrs Mitford said; “not so
quick, if you please, my dear. Oh, John, it is so strange to hear you
say that life is poor! Have you nothing to tell me, my own boy? I have
never asked a question, though you may think my heart has been sore
enough sometimes. What is the matter? won’t you tell me now?”

“There is nothing to tell--nothing is the matter,” said John.

“But you are not happy, my dear boy. Do you think your mother could
help seeing that? Oh, John, what is it? Is it her father? Do you feel
the change? It must be something about Kate?”

“It is nothing at all, mother,” said John, with hasty impatience; and
then it suddenly occurred to him that he was going away into utter
solitude, and that here was the only being in the world to whom he
could even partially open his heart. She felt the change of his voice,
though she had no clue to the fitfulness of his thoughts. “It is quite
true,” he continued, “there is nothing to tell; and yet all is not
well, mother. I can’t tell you how or why. I am jangled somehow out of
tune--that is all; there is nobody to blame.”

“I could see that, my dear,” she said, looking wistfully at him; “but
is that all you have to say to your mother, John?”

“There is nothing more to say,” he repeated. “I cannot tell you, I
can’t tell myself what is the matter. There is nothing the matter. It
is a false position somehow, I suppose--that is all.”

“In the bank, John?”

“In the bank, and in the house, and in the world, mother,” he cried,
with sudden vehemence. “I don’t seem able to take root anywhere;
everything looks false and forced and miserable. I can neither go on
nor go back, and I stagnate standing still. Never mind; I suppose it is
just an experience like any other, and will have to be borne.”

Then there passed through Mrs Mitford’s mind as quick as lightning that
passage about those who put their hand to the plough and draw back.
But she restrained herself. “I suppose it is just the great change, my
dear,” she said, faltering, yet soothing him, “and all that you have
given up--for you have given up a great deal, John. I suppose your time
is not your own now, and you can’t do what you like? And sitting at
a desk--you who used to be free to read, or to walk, or to go on the
river, or to help your papa, or see your friends--it must make a great
difference, John.”

“Yes, I suppose that is what it is,” he said, feeling that he had
successfully eluded the subject, and yet celebrating his success with a
sigh.

“But I hope it is made up to you in another way,” Mrs Mitford said,
suddenly, looking up into his face. He thought he had got off, but she
did not mean to let him off. She was a simple little woman, but yet not
so simple but what she could employ a legitimate artifice, like the
rest of her kind. “You had a letter from Kate this morning, dear. I saw
her little handwriting. I suppose she makes up for everything, John?”

They were drawing near the station, and she spoke fast, partly from
that reason, partly to make her attack the more potent, and to leave
him no time to think. But he answered her a great deal more readily
than she had expected.

“Is it fair upon a girl to expect her to make up for all that?” he
asked. “Mother, I ask myself sometimes, if she gave up her own life for
me as I have done for her--no, not altogether for her--could I make it
up to her? Is it fair or just to expect it? Life means a great deal,
after all--more than just what you call happiness. You will think I am
very hard-hearted; but, do you know, it almost appears to me sometimes
as if a man could get on better without happiness, if he had plenty of
work to do, than he could without the work, with only the happiness to
comfort him. Is it blasphemy, mother? Even if it is, you will not be
too hard upon me.”

Mrs Mitford paused a little to think over her answer; and perhaps
anybody who takes an interest in her will be shocked to hear that
she was rather--glad--half-glad--with a kind of relief at her heart.
“John,” she said, “I don’t know what to say. I am--sorry--you have
found it out, my dear. Oh, I am very sorry you have found it out--for
it is hard; but, do you know, I fear it is true.”

“I wonder how my mother found it out,” he said, looking down upon
her with that strange surprise which moves a child when it suddenly
suspects some unthought-of conflict in the settled immovable life
which it has been familiar with all its days, and accepted as an
eternal reality. He had propounded his theory as the very worst and
very saddest discovery in existence, and lo! she had accepted it as a
truism. It bewildered John so that he could not add another word.

“One finds everything out if one lives long enough,” she said,
hastily, with a nervous smile. “And, my dear, this is what I always
thought--this is why I always disapproved of this bank scheme. You were
hurried into it without time to think. And now that you find it does
not answer, oh, my boy, what is to be done? You should not lose any
time, John. You should come to an understanding with Mr Crediton and
Kate----”

Heavy as his heart was, John could not but smile. “You go so fast,
mother dear, that you take away my breath.”

“So fast! what can be too fast, when you are unhappy, my dear? One can
see at a glance that you are unhappy. Oh, John, come back! Believe
me, my own boy, the only comfort is doing God’s work; everything else
is unsatisfactory. Oh, my dear, come home! If I but saw you taking to
the parish work, and coming back to your own life, I should care for
nothing more--nothing more in this world.”

“Softly, softly,” said John. “My dear mother, I was not thinking of
the parish work--far, very far from it. I cannot tell you what I was
thinking of. I may find what I want in the bank after all. Here is the
train, and James waiting for you with the phaeton. Let me put you in
before I go away.”

“But oh, John, if it cannot be for the present--if you cannot come
back all at once--now that your mind is unsettled, dear, oh think it
carefully over this time, and consider what I say.”

“_This time_,” John said to himself, when he had bidden his mother
good-bye and had thrown himself into a corner of the railway carriage
with his face towards Camelford--“think it carefully over _this
time_.” The words filled him with strange shame. He had made one
disruption in his life, it was evident, without sufficient care or
thought. Was he one of the wretched vacillators so contemptible to a
young man, who are always changing, and yet never come to any settled
determination? His cheeks flushed crimson, though he was all alone, as
the thought came into his mind. No; this time he must make no hasty
change; this time, at least, no false position must be consented to.
He must put Kate out of his mind, and every vain hope and yearning
after what people call happiness. Happiness! most people managed to
do without it; even--could it be possible?--his mother managed to do
without it; for happiness, after all, is not life. _This time_
there must be no mistake on that head.

It was night when he reached his lodging; and his mind was as doubtful
and his thoughts as confused and uncertain as when he had left it. He
went into his dreary little parlour, and had his lamp lighted, and
sat down in the silence. He had come back again just as he went away.
The decision which he had to make seemed to have been waiting for him
here--waiting all these days--and faced him the moment he returned.
What was he going to do? He sat down and listened to the clock ticking,
and to now and then an unfrequent step passing outside, or the voice
of his landlady talking in the little underground kitchen. His
portmanteau, which he had brought in with him, was on the floor just
by the door. The thought came upon him in his unrest to seize it again
in his hand, and rush out and jump into the first cab, and go back to
Fernwood; not that he expected any comfort at Fernwood, but only that
it was the only other change possible to him. If he arrived there late
at night, when nobody expected him, and went in suddenly without any
warning, what should he see? The impulse to make the experiment was so
strong upon him that he actually got up from his seat to obey it, but
then came to himself, and sat down again, and took out Kate’s little
letter. It was very short, and there was nothing in it to excite any
man. This was all that Kate said:--

 “DEAREST JOHN,--Why don’t you write to me? You used to write
 almost every day, and now here is a full fortnight and I have not
 heard from you. I think it so strange. I hope you are not ill, nor
 anybody belonging to you. It makes me very anxious. Do write.

  --Ever your affectionate                              KATE.”

That was all. There was nothing in it to open any fresh fountain in his
breast. He folded it up carefully and slowly into its envelope, and put
it back into his pocket. Write to her! why should he write? It was not
as if he wanted to upbraid her, or to point out any enormity she had
done. She had not done anything; and what could he say? The future was
so misty before him, and his own heart so languid, that her appeal
made no impression upon him. Why should he do it? But he stopped again
just before he put the letter in his pocket, and gave another glance at
his portmanteau. Should he go, and carry her his answer, and judge once
again what was the best for her and for himself? He gave up that fancy
when the clock struck eight slowly in his ears. It was too late to go
to Fernwood that night; and yet there were hours and hours to pass
before he could throw himself on his bed with any chance of sleeping;
and he had no business to occupy him, or work to do--and how was this
long, slow, silent night to be hastened on its tardy wing? John rose at
last, with a kind of desperation, and went out. He had nowhere to go,
having sought no acquaintances in Camelford. There was nobody in the
place that he cared to see, or indeed would not have gone out of his
way to avoid; but the streets were all lit up, and some of them were
noisy enough. John wandered through them in the lamp-light with strange
thoughts. He seemed to himself like a man who had lost his way in the
world. He was like Dante when he stood in the midst of his life and
found that he had missed the true path. To go on seemed impossible;
and when he would have turned back, how many wild beasts were in the
way to withstand him! Was there anybody, he wondered, who could lead
him back that long, long roundabout way through Hell and Purgatory and
Heaven? With such a question in his mind, he wandered into places such
as he had never entered before; he watched the people in the streets,
and went after them to their haunts. A strange phantasmagoria seemed to
pass before his eyes, of dancers and singers, and stupid crowds gaping
and looking on, amid smoke and noise and sordid merrymaking. He heard
their rude jests and their talk, and loud harsh peals of laughter; he
listened to the songs they were listening to with the rough clamour
of applause in which there was no real enjoyment. He followed them
mutely--a solitary, keen-eyed spectator--into the places where they
danced, and where they drank, and where they listened to those songs,
with a strange sense of unreality upon him all the while. They were as
unreal as if they had been lords and ladies yawning at a State ball.
And then all at once John found himself in a dreary half-lighted room,
in the midst of a Wesleyan prayer-meeting, where half-seen people,
like ghosts in the halflight, were calling to God to have mercy upon
them. He gazed at the prayer-meeting as he did at the music-hall,
wondering what all the people meant. Would they go on like that till
death suddenly came and turned the performance into a reality at last?
He had no Virgil to guide him, no _Donna sceso del cielo_ to be
his passport everywhere. And he scarcely knew what were the doubts he
wanted to be solved. “Now I shall sleep at last,” was all he said to
himself as he went in when the night was far advanced, having spent it
in visiting many places where Dr Mitford’s son should not have entered.
Was he taking to evil ways? or was there any chance that he could solve
his own problem by means such as these?




CHAPTER XXVI.


Next morning John did not permit himself any musings; he got up with
the air of a man who has something to do for the first time for many
weeks. There was nobody to do anything for him in his poor lodging; no
Jervis to unpack his things and put them in order. He had opened his
portmanteau to take out what he wanted from it, but he had not unpacked
it. It stood open with all its straps undone, and everything laid
smooth by the careful hands at home, and John closed it once more and
left it in readiness to be removed again when he went out. It was quite
early in the October morning, which was bright, and sharp, and frosty,
with patches of white rime lying in the unsunned corners, and great
blobs of cold dew hanging from the branches of the suburban trees. “My
mother has had her frost,” John could not help saying to himself, as he
went out. And all the world was astir, looking as unlike that feverish,
noisy world which had smoked and cheered at the music-halls last night,
as could be supposed. When he saw the people moving about so briskly
in the sharp, clear air, he could not but ask himself, were they the
same? Was that the man who had thumped with hands and feet, and roared
open-mouthed, at the imbecility of the comic song? or was that he who
led the chorus of exclamations at the prayer-meeting? John was in so
strange a state of mind that the one was to him very much as the other,
both phantoms--one coarsely making believe to be amused, the other
coarsely pretending to pray. He went to the bank first, where all the
clerks had just settled down in the first freshness of morning work. He
went in at the swinging doors with the early public, and stood outside
the counter looking for some one to address himself to. In his first
glance round he saw that his place at the desk in the window from which
he had so often watched Kate was filled by another; which was a small
matter enough, and yet went through him with a sudden thrill, adding
firmness to the resolution which began to form in his mind. After a
moment Mr Whichelo rose from his desk, and came forward, holding out
his hand, to meet him. “How are you, Mr Mitford? I hope I see you quite
recovered: how is the arm?” said Mr Whichelo, with bustling cordiality;
and John had to pause to explain how it was that he was able to do
without his bandages, and no longer required to wear the injured arm in
a sling.

“Mr Crediton has not come in to-day. I don’t suppose we are likely to
see him to-day; but you must know better than we do, Mr Mitford, for I
suppose you have just come from Fernwood?”

“No, it is some time since I left Fernwood. I have been at home,” said
John.

“Dear me!” said the head clerk, raising his eyebrows. Mr Whichelo
thought there was no such place as Fernwood in the kingdom, and was
naturally astonished that any man could relinquish its delights. But
then he added, with condescending moral approval, “And quite right,
too, Mr Mitford; when there is anything the matter with you, there is
no place like home.”

Then there was a momentary pause; the public were coming and going, in
small numbers as yet, but still enough to keep the doors swinging and
the clerks at the counter employed. But Mr Whichelo and John stood in
the centre, between the two lines of desks, taking no notice of the
public. John would have known quite well what to say to Mr Crediton had
he found him there, but it was more difficult with his head clerk.

“Ah, I see,” said Mr Whichelo; “you always had a very quick eye, Mr
Mitford--you perceive the change we have made.”

“I perceive you have filled up my place,” said John.

“No, no--not filled up your place; I have put in a junior temporarily
to do the work. My dear Mr Mitford,” said the head clerk, with a smile,
“if you were only an ordinary _employé_ like one of the rest----”

“I should not be worth my salt,” said John, with an attempt at a laugh.

“Very far from that; you are only too good for us--too good for us,
that is all. It seems a shame, with your education, to see you making
entries that any lad could make. But of course, Mr Mitford, you occupy
a very different position. We are all aware of that.”

“A false position,” said John. “Don’t disturb the young fellow for
me. No, I have not come back to work. I want to see Mr Crediton if I
can. You don’t expect him to-day? nor to-morrow? Then I must see him
somewhere else----”

“At Fernwood,” said Mr Whichelo; “you can always see him at Fernwood.”

“Very well,” said John. He felt as if he had got his orders when these
words were said. Of course it was to Fernwood he must go to see if
any comfort was to be had there. Fanshawe threw no light upon what he
ought to do, neither did Camelford; and Fernwood was the only place
that remained. He shook hands with Mr Whichelo again, and went out with
a certain alacrity. The junior at his desk in the window no longer
troubled him. Yes; no doubt the boy would sit there, and see Kate
come and go, and take no thought. The beautiful Miss Crediton, with
all her gaieties and splendour, would be nothing to him: far better
that he should fill that corner and make his entries, than that John
should sit there consuming his heart. Fernwood was ten miles off, but
it was a bright day, and to walk there was the best thing he could
do. It gave him time to think, and it kept up a certain rhythm of
movement and action about him which prevented him from thinking--and
that on the whole was the best. The long road spun along like a thread,
lengthening and lengthening as he went on, moving as if off a wheel,
with half-stripped trees and falling leaves, and brown hedges, and
here and there the russet glory of a bramble-branch trailing over the
humid grass. Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, he seemed to hear some one
singing as he went on and on; and the gleaming line of path spun out,
circling out of the horizon on one side, back into it on the other,
and there seemed no reason why it should ever come to any pause. His
brain was giddy, and spun, too, as the road did. He went on with a
buzzing in his ears, as if he too were on the wheel, and was winding,
winding, and revolving with it, now up, now down, going on and on. What
the end was, or if there was any end, he did not seem to know. It was
the measured chant, the circles woven by mystic feet, never ending,
still beginning. He had come to the very park of Fernwood before he
roused himself from this strange dreamy sense of movement. It was a
brilliant autumn, and already the beech-trees and the oaks were dressed
in a hundred colours. The gentlemen of the party would of course be
among the covers--and the ladies---- Here John paused, and began to ask
himself what his meaning was. Was it Kate he had come to see? was it
into her hands that once more, once again, like a fool, he was going to
put his fate?

He stopped, and leaned upon a great beech, which stood with a little
forest of juniper-bushes round it, withdrawn from the road. It was on
the outskirts of the park, just where two paths met--one starting off
into the wilder tangled ground beyond the open; the other leading up
towards the house on a parallel with the avenue which John had just
left. He was crossing through the brushwood to gain this footpath, when
he stopped there against the beech-tree to collect himself, feeling
giddy. It was a huge beech, with a trunk vast enough to have hidden
a company of people, and great russet branches sweeping down, and
the juniper in circles, like the stones of the Druids, making a sort
of jungle round it. Was it an evil or a good fate that brought him
there at that moment of all others? He had scarcely stopped, and the
sound of his foot crushing down the juniper could not have ceased in
the still air, when his eye caught a gleam of colour and some moving
figures passing close to him on the other side of the beech. He stood
like one bewildered when he saw that it was Kate. She was walking
along slowly at a very meditative pace, with her head drooping and her
eyes cast down, so far occupied with her thoughts that she neither
heard nor saw nor suspected the presence of any observing bystander.
And she was not alone. Walking by her side, with his eyes upon her,
was Fred Huntley. She was gazing on the ground, but he was gazing at
her. Her face was abstracted and full of thought; but his was eager,
flushed with wishes and hopes and expectation. They were not saying
anything to each other. John did not hear a word as they went slowly
past; but imagine how it must have felt to wake up out of a feverish
haze of doubt and inquietude and unreality, and suddenly open his eyes
on such a sight! He stood spell-bound, scarcely venturing to breathe,
and heard the rustle and sweep of her dress over the grass, and her
sometimes faltering, unsteady step, and Huntley’s foot, that rang firm
upon the path. Their very breathing seemed to come to him in the air,
and the faint violet scent, which was Kate’s favourite perfume, and the
movement and rustle of her going. They passed as if they had been a
dream, and John held his breath, and all his life concentrated itself
into his eyes. Her figure detached itself so against the still autumnal
landscape, her grey dress, the blue ribbons that fluttered softly
about her, the soft ruffled feathers, lightly puffed up against the
wind in her hat--and the man by her side, with his eyes so intent upon
her. It was an affair of a moment, and they were gone; and as soon as
they had passed out of hearing, and were about to disappear among the
trees, they began to talk. He heard their voices, but could not tell
what they said; but the voices were low, toned to the key of that still
landscape, and of something still more potential than the landscape;
and John turned from the scene, which was stamped on his memory as if
in lines of fire, and looked himself as it were in the face, feeling
that this at last was the truth which had burst upon him, scattering to
the wind all his dreams.

He turned without a word, and walked back to Camelford. There seemed
no more doubt or power of question in his mind. He did not even feel
as if any painful accident had happened to him; only that it was all
over--finished and past, and the seal put to the grave of his dreams.
He even walked back with more assured steps, with less sense of a
burden on his shoulders and a yoke about his neck. It had been very
sweet and very bitter, delightsome and miserable, while it lasted; but
now it was over. And it never occurred to him that the conclusion which
he thus accepted so summarily was as unreasonable as the beginning. No;
the time of dreaming was over, he thought, and now at last there stood
revealed to him the real and the true.




CHAPTER XXVII.


It was late in the afternoon when John reached Camelford. He had
stopped to rest at a roadside public-house, where he ate and drank,
as a man might do in the exhaustion of grief coming home from a
funeral. He had sat before the rustic door, and watched the carts that
went slowly past with heavy wheels, and the unfrequent passengers;
and he had felt very much as if he had been at a funeral. It was a
long walk, and he was very footsore and weary when he reached his
lodgings. He was out of training, and the fire and his accident had
impaired his strength, and his heart was not light enough to give
him any assistance. When he shut himself once more into his little
parlour, he was so much worn out that he had no strength to do
anything. He had meant to return only for the sake of the portmanteau,
which imagination represented to him lying open on the floor of his
bedroom, all packed, which it was a comfort to think of; but after his
twenty-miles walk he had no longer the energy to gather his little
possessions together. He laid his aching limbs on the sofa and tried
to rest. But it was very hard to rest; he wanted to be in motion all
the time; he did not feel able to confront the idea of spending all
the gloomy evening alone in that dreary little room. Home, home, his
mind kept saying. It would not be cheerful at home. He did not know how
he was to bear the stillness, and his mother’s cry of wonder, and his
father’s questionings. But yet a necessity was upon him to go on and
make an end of the whole matter. After his first pause of weariness, he
sprang up and rang his bell, and told his landlady he was going away.
“Get my bill ready, please,” he said; “and if you will put my things
together for me, and send for a cab for the eight o’clock train----”
“Lord, sir, I hope it aint nothing in the rooms! they’re nice rooms as
ever could be, and as comfortable as I could make them, or any woman,”
she said. John comforted her _amour propre_ as well as he could,
with a tale of circumstances that compelled his departure, and felt as
if he had been addressing a public meeting when his short colloquy was
over. Never in his life before had he been so tired--not ill nor sad to
speak of--but tired; so fatigued that he did not know what to do with
himself. But it was still only four o’clock, and there were four hours
to be got through, and a great deal to do. He got his writing things
together with as much difficulty as if they had been miles apart, and
threw himself on the sofa again, and wrote. The first letter was to Mr
Crediton, and over that the pen went on fluently enough.

 “DEAR SIR,--I think it right to let you know at once--as
 soon as I am perfectly sure of my own mind--that I feel obliged to
 relinquish the post you kindly gave me three months ago in the bank.
 Early training, and the habits belonging to a totally different kind
 of life, have at last made the position unbearable. I am very sorry,
 but it is better to stop before worse come of it, if worse could come.
 I do not suppose that the suddenness of my resolution can put you
 to any inconvenience, as I saw, on visiting the bank this morning,
 that my place had been already filled up. I meant to have seen you,
 but found it impracticable. I hope you will accept my apologies for
 any abruptness that there may be in this letter, and regrets that I
 have not been able better to make use of the opportunity you afforded
 me----”

Here John came to a stop--opportunity for what? Opportunity of
winning your confidence--opportunity of gaining an acquaintance with
business--of proving myself worthy of higher trust? He could not adopt
any of these expressions. The shorter the letter, the least said, the
better. He broke off abruptly without concluding his sentence. He had
very little to thank Mr Crediton for; but yet he could not, with any
regard to justice, blame him. Kate’s father, though he had done little
for, had done nothing absolutely against him. It was not Mr Crediton
he found fault with--Mr Crediton was very justifiable; and was it,
could it be, that he was about to find fault with Kate?

He began to write to her half-a-dozen times at least. He began
indignantly--he began tenderly,--he upbraided--he remonstrated--his pen
ran away with him. He had meant to use one class of words, and under
his very eyes it employed another. He wrote her ever so many letters.
He set before her all his passion--all his readiness to sacrifice
himself--all the tortures he had suffered at the window of the bank
seeing her come and go and having no share in her life. He told her
what a chill blank had come over him at Fernwood--how he had felt that
he was nothing to her. He told her what he had seen that morning. He
was eloquent, pathetic, overwhelming. His own heart felt as if it must
burst while he wrote; but as he read over each completed page, John
had still so much good sense left that he dragged his stiff limbs from
the sofa and put it in the fire. It was thus he occupied almost all
the time he had to wait; and it was only just before his cab came to
the door that he put into its envelope this letter, in which it will
be seen he neither remonstrated nor upbraided, nor even gave her up.
He could not give her up, and how could he accuse her? He accuse Kate!
If she was guilty her heart would do that--if not---- But alas! the
latter alternative was impossible; only for “utter courtesy,” for utter
tenderness, he could not blame the woman he loved.

 “I do not know how to write,” he said, “though you tell me to write.
 Dear Kate, dearest Kate--you will always be dearest to me.--This may
 pass over, and be to you as the merest dream; but to me it must always
 be the centre and heart of my life. I don’t know what to say to you.
 I have not written, not out of lack of love, but lack of hope. If I
 could think I was any way necessary to you--if I could feel you wanted
 me--but your sweet life is so complete; and what is mine to be tacked
 on to it? I don’t know what to say. Silence seems the best. Dear!
 dearest! you are so bright that my heart fails me when I look at
 you. I drop down into the shade, and there seems nothing left for me
 but to keep still. I try to rouse myself with the thought of what you
 say--that you want me to write, that _you are anxious_--anxious
 about me! And you mean it, dear--you mean it, I know; but the words
 have a soft meaning to you different from their meaning to me. And you
 have no need of me, Kate. I feel it, and that takes the words out of
 my mouth, and all the courage out of my heart.

 “I was at Fernwood to-day, and saw you, though you did not see me. You
 were walking in the little footpath near the avenue. Ah, Kate! but for
 that I think I could have gone to you, and said some things I cannot
 write. Do not be grieved in your kind heart because I am leaving
 Camelford. It was a mistake, but I was to blame. I am going home,
 and I don’t quite know what I shall do; but time, perhaps, will make
 the way clear. Dearest, if ever you should want me--but how should
 you want me? God bless you! I have no claim to make, nor plea to put
 forth; but I am always and ever yours--always and for ever, whatever
 may happen--yours and yours only to command,

                                                        “JOHN MITFORD.”

He put the two letters into their envelopes, and sealed and put
them into the post with his own hand as he went to the station. He
carried all his possessions with him--not merely the portmanteau;
and he was dead tired--so tired that he would have passed Fanshawe
station and gone on perhaps to London--for he had dropt asleep in the
train--but for the guard, who knew him. When he found himself on the
little platform at Fanshawe, chilly and stupid as a man is who has
just awakened from sleep, the only strong feeling in his mind was an
overwhelming desire to get to bed. He did not seem capable of realising
that he had got home again, after his disastrous voyage into the
world--he only thought of going to sleep; and it was not his mother’s
wondering welcome he was thinking of, or the questions they would ask
him, but a pleasant vision of his own room, with the fire burning in
the grate, and the white fragrant sheets opened up and inviting him to
rest. He felt half asleep when he crossed the threshold of the Rectory,
and walked into the drawing-room to his mother, who gave a shriek of
mingled delight and alarm at so unlooked-for an apparition. “John, you
are ill; something has happened,” Mrs Mitford cried out, in an agony
of apprehension. “I am only sleepy, mother,” he said. That was all
he could say. He sat down and smiled at her, and told her how tired
he was. “Nothing particular has happened, except in my own mind,” he
added, when he came to himself a little, “and not much even there. I
am awfully tired. Don’t ask me anything, and don’t be unhappy. There
is nothing to be unhappy about. You shall know it all to-morrow. But
please, mother, let me go to bed.”

“And so you shall, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford; “but, oh, my own boy,
what is the matter? What can I say to your papa? What is it? Oh, John,
I know there is something wrong.”

“Only that I shall go to sleep here,” he said, “and snore--which you
never could endure. There is nothing wrong, mamma, only I have walked
twenty miles to-day, and I am very tired. I have come home to be put to
bed.”

“Then you are ill,” she said. “You have caught one of those dreadful
fevers. I see it now. Your eyes are so heavy you can scarcely look at
me. You have been in some of the cottages, or in the back streets,
where there is always fever; but Jervis shall run for the doctor.”

“A fire in Mr John’s room directly, Jervis--directly, mind; and some
boiling water to make him a hot drink--he has caught a bad cold. Oh, my
dear, you are sure that is all? And, John, you have really, really come
home--to stay? You don’t mean to stay?”

“I don’t know what I mean,” he said. “I have left Camelford. I have
come back like a piece of bad money. But, mother, don’t ask me any
questions to-night.”

“Not one,” she answered promptly; and then besieged him with her
eyes--“Twenty miles, my dear boy! what a long walk! no wonder you are
tired. But what put it into your head, John? Never mind, my dear. I
did not mean to ask any more questions. But, dear me! where could you
want to go that was twenty miles off? That is what bewilders me.”

“You shall hear all about it to-morrow,” said John, rising to his
feet. He was so tired that he staggered as he rose, and his mother
turned upon him eyes in which another kind of fear flashed up. She grew
frightened at his weakness, and at the pale smile that came over his
face.

“Yes, my dear, go to bed--that will be the best thing,” she said,
looking scared and miserable. And it went to John’s heart to see the
painful looks she gave him, though it was with a mixture of indignation
and amusement that he perceived the new turn her thoughts had taken. He
could not but laugh as he put his arm round her to say good-night.

“It is not that either,” he said; “you need not mistrust me. Staying in
Camelford will not answer, mother. I must find some other way. And I
have had a long walk. I am better now that my head is under my mother’s
wing. Good-night.”

“I will bring you your hot drink, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford. She
followed him in her great wonder to the foot of the stairs, and watched
him go up wearily with his candle, and then she returned and made the
hot drink, and carried it up-stairs with her own hands. Was it all
over?--was he hers again?--her boy, with nobody else to share him? “If
he only escapes without a heartbreak, I shall be the happiest woman in
the world,” she said to herself, as she went down-stairs again, wiping
tears of joy out of her eyes. Without a heartbreak! while John laid his
head on the familiar pillow and felt as if he had died. He had no heart
any longer to break. He must have something to do, and no doubt he
would get up next day and go and do something, if it was only working
in the garden; but as for the heart, that which gives all the zest and
all the bitterness to life, that was dead. His life was over and ended,
and it seemed to him as if he could never come alive again.




CHAPTER XXVIII.


Life at Fernwood had been going on much the same as usual during these
days which were so decisive to John. It was Fred Huntley’s inquiry as
to when she had heard from John which had inspired Kate’s note to him.
She had been half unhappy before, and full of wondering thoughts; but
that question roused her. She could not let her love glide away from
her without a word; she did not want to lose him; she could not believe
it possible that there was any danger of losing him. All the rest were
very well to talk to, or to flirt with, or dance with, or make useful.
But John was John, and she had no desire to put any one else in his
place. Kate said this to herself, and then she went down-stairs and
yawned behind her fan at the other people who had so little to say,
and was glad when Fred Huntley--but not till half the evening was
over--came to her side to talk to her. He was a clever talker, and
managed her very skilfully; and Kate could not make out how it was
that all the other people were so stupid. She gave her father a little
defiant glance when she caught his eye. “Papa seems to think I have no
right to talk to any one now,” she said, half to herself, thus making
Fred her confidant unawares.

“Does he say so?” asked Fred.

“Oh no, not in so many words--but he watches me as if I could not take
care of myself. It is too bad. I don’t think he ever made himself so
disagreeable all my life before. I had a great deal better stay in my
own room where nobody need see me. To think of papa, you know, growing
jealous for John----”

She was so thoughtless that the idea had begun to move her to
amusement; when she suddenly remembered words which Fred himself had
said to her not so very long ago, and stopped short suddenly, growing
very red, and naturally giving double point by her full stop and her
blush to the suggestive words. “I mean it is so odd not to be able
to do and say what one likes,” she went on hurriedly, faltering, and
growing redder and redder in her consciousness. Fred was standing
before her, leaning over the back of a chair, and looking very
earnestly in her face.

“So far as I am concerned,” he said, with a smile, “I will not have
your liberty curbed. You must do and say what you like without any
thought of me.”

“Of you, Mr Huntley!” said Kate, with some confusion. “What should
papa’s nonsense have to do with you?”

“Miss Crediton,” said Fred, seriously, “don’t you know me well enough
to be frank with me at least? I might pretend to think I had nothing
to do with it, but I should not deceive you. Mr Crediton is concerned
for his guest and not for his daughter; but, I repeat, so far as I am
concerned, you are not to be curbed in your freedom. I prefer rather to
be tortured than to be sent away.”

“Tortured!” Kate echoed, under her breath, growing pale and growing
red. It was wrong to permit such things to be said to her, and she had
already reproved him for it. But still there was something which half
pleased her in words which meant so much more than they said. She had
a little struggle with herself before she could make up her mind to
resist temptation, and withdraw from this dangerous amusement; and when
at length she did so, and plunged into conversation with the nearest
old lady, Kate felt that nothing less than the highest virtue could
have moved her to such a sacrifice. It was a great deal more amusing to
sit and listen to Fred Huntley’s talk, and watch him gliding along the
edge of the precipice, just clearing it by a hair’s-breadth, filling
the air with captivating suggestions of devotion. Could it be possible
that he was so fond of her--a man of the world like Fred? Kate was one
of those women who feel a kindness for the men who love them. It may
be love out of place--presumptuous, uncalled-for, even treacherous;
but still, poor fellow, how sad that he should be so fond of me! the
woman says to herself, and is softly moved towards him with a kind of
almost affectionate pity. This was heightened, in the present case, by
the fact that Fred Huntley was not at all a man likely to yield to such
influences; and then he too was making a struggle against temptation in
which surely he deserved a little sympathy. If at any time he should be
overcome by it, and speak out, then of course she would be compelled to
give him a distinct answer and send him away. It would be a pity, Kate
thought, with a sigh; but in the mean time he was very interesting, and
she was sorry he should be so fond of her, poor fellow! Thus it will be
seen that she had not consciously faltered in her allegiance. She meant
to say No to Fred, firmly and clearly, if ever he should speak to her
in unmistakable words; but in the mean time she was interested in him,
and very curious to know what next he would say.

It was thus without any sense of wrong-doing that Kate found herself
walking along the footpath with Fred Huntley by her side on the October
noon when John saw them. She was quite innocent of any evil intention.
He had disappeared with the rest of the gentlemen in the morning,
and Kate had not asked either herself or any one else what had become
of him; and she had undertaken to walk down to the row of cottages
outside the park gates as a matter of kindness to the housekeeper,
who was busy. “I will go,” she had said quite simply, when Mrs Horner
apologised for not having seen and given work to a poor needlewoman
there. “Oh, Miss Kate, that will be so good of you--and it is just a
nice walk,” the housekeeper had said; so that nothing could be more
virtuous than the expedition altogether. Kate had not even meant to
go alone; her companion, one of the young ladies of the party, had
failed her at the last moment by reason of a headache, or some other
young-lady-like ailment, and how could Kate tell that she should meet
Fred Huntley coming out of the wood just as the trees screened her
from the windows of the house? But she was not sorry she had met him.
Walking along by herself in the silence, she had grown a little sad
and confused in her mind about John and circumstances generally. She
had not much time to think, with all the duties of mistress of the
house on her head. But when she was alone she could not elude the
questions--What did John mean by his silence?--was he unhappy, poor
fellow? Was it her fault or his fault? Would the time ever come when Mr
Crediton would consent, and everything would be arranged? Should she be
able to make him happy if they were married? All these questions were
passing through Kate’s mind. “He takes everything so seriously,” she
said to herself; “he thinks one means it, and one so seldom means it.”
This she said with a little plaint within her own bosom. And, if it
must be confessed, a momentary comparison passed through her mind. Fred
Huntley would be so very, very much easier to get on with; he would
demand nothing more than she could give, whereas there was no limit to
John’s demands. The comparison was involuntary, and she was ashamed of
herself for making it, but still it had been made; and the next moment
Fred Huntley himself had appeared to her stepping over the stile out of
the wood.

But the grave look that was on her face, and the silence so unusual to
her, which John had seen and taken for symptoms of other feelings,
were in reality caused by the gravity of her thoughts about himself
more than by any other cause. She had been almost glad to have her
solitude interrupted in order to escape from her thoughts, but they
were still in possession of her mind; and when John had heard their
voices in the distance, the two were but beginning to talk. Their
conversation was quite unobjectionable: he might have heard every
word, as she said afterwards. It was kind of Fred Huntley, seeing her
so serious, to try to take her mind off her own troubles. He did not
launch forth into foolish talk, such as that which he permitted himself
sometimes to indulge in, when their _tête-à-tête_ went on under
the eyes of a roomful of people. He began to tell her about his own
prospects and intentions; how he had made up his mind to offer himself
as a candidate to represent Camelford at the next election. He had
been asked to do so, and he had given a great deal of thought to the
subject. “It binds one, and takes away one’s personal liberty,” he
had said; “but, after all, one never has any personal liberty--and
something certain to do, that one can take an interest in, is always, I
suppose,” he added, with a sigh, “next best.”

“Next best to what?” cried Kate, but fortunately for herself left him
no time to answer. “I never pretended to be strong-minded,” she ran
on; “but to help to govern one’s own country must be the finest thing
in the world. Oh, please, don’t smile like that. You think so, or you
would not make up your mind to take so much trouble for nothing at all.”

“Much the member for Camelford will have to do in the governing of the
country!” said Fred; “but still it is true enough: and I suppose when a
man is bored to death on a committee, he has as fine a sense that if he
die it is in the service of his country, as if he were burrowing in the
trenches somewhere. Yes, I suppose when there is nothing pleasanter in
hand it is the right sort of thing to do.”

“I don’t know what pleasanter sort of thing you could have in hand,”
said Kate.

“No, perhaps not; but I do. I can fancy quite a different sort of
life--something out of my reach as far as that branch is,” said Fred,
carelessly catching at a high bough which seemed to hang miles over his
head against the smiling blue. “Hollo! it is not so far out of reach
neither,” he added with a quick glance at her, and speaking half under
his breath.

“I wish it had been out of your reach,” said Kate; “just look what you
have done! sprinkled me all over and spoiled my ribbon; and the dew is
so cold,” she said, with a little shiver. “Mr Huntley, I think I should
prefer Parliament if I were you.”

“It will be the wisest way,” said Fred, momentarily roused out of his
good temper; and then he expressed a hundred regrets, and made his moan
over the blue ribbon, which, however, it was decided, would be dried by
the breeze long before they reached the cottage, and was not spoiled
after all.

“What a pity there is a penny post!” said Kate; “how we should have
teased your life out to give us franks, as people used to do for their
letters. An M.P. was worth something in those days; but when there is
anything going on, of course you can get us tickets and good places
everywhere. The first time you make a speech, I shall go to the
ladies' gallery. I wonder what it will be about!”

“And so do I,” said Fred; “but I fear it will be inaudible in the
ladies' gallery. When you are all enjoying yourselves at home after the
fatigues of the season, will you compassionate an unhappy man in town
in August for the sake of his country? Do you think it is worth such a
sacrifice?”

“What a different life it will be!” said Kate, with a half-sigh. “It is
all very well to laugh, but how odd it is to think what different lives
people have--some in the world and some out of it! I should like to go
into Parliament, and be a great potentate too. I daresay it sounds very
ridiculous, but I should. I am not so clever as you are, and I have no
education; but I hope I understand things better than old Mr Vivian, or
Sir Robert, papa’s great friend. And yet I shall never have anything
better to do than giving things out of a store-room, and spending as
little money as possible. How very funny it is!”

“Do you give the things out of the store-room, and keep accounts of the
tea and sugar? I acknowledge that must be very funny,” said Fred.

“Of course I don’t do it _now_. There is Mrs Horner to take all
the trouble; but, you know--hereafter----” When she had said this, Kate
stopped with a sudden blush; of course he knew that John Mitford’s wife
would have no housekeeper, and would be obliged to spend as little
money as possible. But somehow the contrast galled her, and she stopped
short with momentary ill-humour. Why should fate be so different?
Why should one be so well off and another so poor? Kate felt it as
much for the moment as if she had been a poor needlewoman, making
gorgeous garments for a fine lady. It gave her a little angry sense of
inferiority; could it be that she might look up to Fred Huntley and
consider his acquaintance as an honour in the days to come? She was
angry with him for his hopes and his ambition, notwithstanding that he
had said it would but be _next best_.

“Hereafter----” said Fred, “how little any of us know about it! but
if there is one creature in the world who can choose her own future,
and make it what she pleases, it must be you,” he continued, in a low
hurried tone. Kate walked on silent as if she had not heard him. They
had reached the lodge gates, and were close to the cottage where she
was going. She made no reply, took no notice, but she had heard him
all the same. She went into the cottage without any suggestion that he
should accompany her, and Fred wisely disappeared, leaving her to walk
home by herself. This was one great difference between him and John.
John would not have left her, would not have dreamed of sacrificing
the delight of her society for any piece of policy. But Fred was
clear-sighted, and felt that for his ultimate success this was the
best. She was half disappointed, half satisfied to find that he was not
waiting for her. She had so many things to think of, and there were
so many things she did not want to think of. All the delights of the
election time which was coming on dazzled Kate. She had only to say a
word and she would be the queen of the occasion, in the heart of all
the delightful bustle and excitement and hope and fear. She could not
go into Parliament in her own person and help to govern her country,
but the next to that would be doing it in the person of her husband.
And where was there any likelihood that John would ever give her such
a gratification? What he would give her would be the soberest domestic
life, weighing out of tea and sugar from the store-room, and much
trouble over the necessary economies. “Provided that we are so well
off as to have a store-room!” she said to herself. But Fred Huntley’s
wife would have no such necessity. She would have plenty to spend
and something to spare. She was not thinking of herself as Mrs Fred
Huntley; she was rather contrasting that fortunate woman with Mrs John
Mitford, who would not be nearly so well off. It would be so droll,
Kate thought, to see that lady in the prettiest costumes possible,
coming to call upon herself, who probably for economy would find it
best always to wear a black silk gown. And then it would be so much
easier for the other to get on. Her husband would be so manageable in
comparison. He would be good-tempered and polite, and would never dream
of taking offence; whereas John’s wife would have to watch his eye, and
demean herself accordingly. Kate had given more than one sigh before
she got home, of half envy. Life would be so much more easy for Mrs
Fred. She would have it in her power to skim lightly over the top of
the waves as Kate loved to do, instead of sounding all kinds of depths.
She sighed, not because she was faithless to John or had ceased to love
him, but only at the thought of how much easier a life that other woman
would have; and an easy life was pleasant to Kate.

I don’t know if it was this conversation which made Fred Huntley so
over-bold; but in the evening he spoke as he had never yet ventured
to speak. It was the evening which John spent in his dismal little
parlour, weary, and wrapt in the stillness of despair, writing his
letters before he went home. At Fernwood the young people had got up
an impromptu dance. There were a few people to dinner from some of
the neighbouring houses, and this infusion of novelty stimulated the
home party. And the wind had changed, and all the frost in the air
had disappeared, or at least so the foolish boys and girls, heated
with dancing, chose to believe; and they had opened the door of the
conservatory, and even strayed out into the moonlight between the
dances, without paying the least attention to any warning. However
strong the reasons had been which led Kate to decline all private
conversation with Fred Huntley, she could not possibly refuse to dance
with him, nor could she refuse to take a turn with him through the
conservatory, as all the others were doing. And it was there, in the
semidark, with the moonlight shining in through the dark plants and
unseen flowers, that he spoke out, no longer making use of any parable.
He told her in so many words that he was a more fit mate for her than
John. He argued the question with her, point by point, for Kate was not
wise enough to take refuge in a distinct, unexplained No, but went on
the foolish idea that he was her friend, and John’s friend, and that
she ought to convince him that he was wrong. “Oh don’t!” she said,
“please, don’t. We have always been such friends. Why should you break
it all off and make me a kind of an enemy now at the last? You never
used to care for me in that way. Oh, please, let us forget it was ever
said.”

“But I cannot forget it, though you may, Kate,” he said, in a voice
which was so full of feeling that Kate’s curiosity was vividly
awakened: (I never thought he would have felt anything so much, she
said to herself, flattered and wondering; and rather anxious to know
how far this unlooked-for sentiment would carry him). “Kate, we can’t
go on just being friends. If you knew what I have suffered to see you
belonging to another man! I have not a word to say against him. No, I
hate him for your sake; but there is not a word to be said against him.
The only thing I wonder is, how a fellow so honourable and high-minded
should have asked you when he knew he had nothing to offer you. It
would have been more like John Mitford to have broken his heart and
held his peace.”

A strange little cry came from Kate’s lips. “Oh!” she said, with a
startled look in his face, “how strange that you should be trying to
undermine him, and yet know him so well as that!”

“I am not trying to undermine him; I believe in my heart that I would
rather the one of us had you who could make you the happiest. It sounds
strange, but it is true. If I grant that he loves you as well as I do,
would not that be allowing a great deal? but, Kate, think what a change
it would be for you; and he would not know so well as I should how to
make you happy,” Fred added, bending over her, and pressing close to
him the hand which still rested on his arm. It was wrong of Kate not
to have withdrawn her hand from his arm. She tried to do it now, but
it was held fast, and a piteous prayer made to her not to go from him
as if she were angry. “You don’t dislike me for your friend,” Fred
pleaded, “and why should you be angry because I cannot help loving you
beyond friendship?--is it my fault?”

“Oh, please, don’t talk like this,” cried Kate, in her distress. “I am
not angry. I don’t want to be unkind. I want you to be my friend still.
This is only a passing fancy. It will go away, and we shall be just as
we were. But it is wrong, when you know I am engaged to him, to try to
turn me against John.”

“It would be if you were married to him,” said Fred; “but, Kate,
because I love you, must I be blind to what is best for you? He is not
like you, neither am I like you; we are neither of us worthy to kiss
the hem of your dress----”

“Nonsense!” cried Kate, vigorously, almost freeing herself; for this
was so much out of Fred’s way, that it moved her in the midst of so
grave a situation almost to the point of laughter.

“It is not nonsense; I know what you think. You think it is the sort of
thing that lovers say, and that I don’t mean it; but I do mean it. We
are neither of us good enough; but I understand you best, Kate--yes,
don’t deny it. I know you best, and your ways. I should not tease you.
I should not ask too much. And with me you would have the life you
are used to. With him you don’t know what kind of life you may have,
and neither does he. Kate, there are women who could bear that sort of
thing, but not you.”

“Mr Huntley, I cannot discuss it with you,” said Kate, half in despair;
“pray, pray, let me go!”

“You are angry,” he said--“angry with me who have known you all your
life, because you have found out I love you too well.”

“I am not angry,” she cried; “but oh, please, let me go. You know I
ought not to stand here and listen to you. Should you like it if you
were him? Oh, let me go!”

“Kate,” he cried in her ear, “don’t hate me for what I am going to say;
if I were him, and knew you had listened to another, I should feel how
it was, and accept my fate.”

Kate’s hot spirit blazed up, and the tears sprang to her eyes. She drew
her hand away almost violently. “That is well,” she cried--“that is
well! that you should be the one to blame me for listening; but I shall
do it no more.”

“It is because you are driving me half mad,” he said.

And what was Kate to do? It was such a strange sensation to see Fred
Huntley, a man of the world, standing there pleading before her, driven
half mad. Was it possible? If it had been any other man indeed. But
Fred! And his voice was full of emotion, his hands trembled, he pleaded
with an earnestness that filled her with mingled pity and curiosity and
amaze. “Oh, hush, and don’t think any more of it,” she said. “If you
will forget it, I shall. Am I one to make people unhappy? Give me your
arm back to the drawing-room, and let us say no more about it. I must
not stay longer with you here.”

“I will take you back to the drawing-room,” he said, “and if you say I
am to give up hope, I will do it; but, Kate, don’t fix my fate till you
know a little better. I am so willing, so very willing, to wait. All I
want is that you should know I am here utterly at your command--and you
won’t wring my heart talking of _him_? Yes, do--wring my heart as
you please, but don’t send me away. I am willing to wait for my answer
as long as you have the heart to keep me--only don’t send me away.”

“Oh! how can you speak of an answer?” cried Kate, under her breath.
They were on the threshold of the lighted drawing-room by this time,
and perhaps he did not hear that faint protestation. He took her to
her seat, not with the covert care which he had been lavishing upon
her for so long, but with all the signs of the tenderest devotion. She
herself, being excited and distracted by what had just passed, was not
aware of the difference; but everybody else was. And they had been a
long time together in the conservatory, quite too long for an interview
between an engaged young lady and a man who was not her betrothed. And
there was a flush upon Kate’s cheeks, and Fred was eager and excited,
and kept near her, without any pretence of making himself generally
agreeable. And she looked half afraid of him, and would not dance any
more--two signs which were very striking. “Depend upon it, something is
going on in that quarter,” one of the elder ladies said to the other.
“Little jilt!” said the second; and if Lady Winton had been there,
who felt herself entitled to speak, Kate would no doubt have heard a
great deal more about it before she escaped to her own room to try and
realise what it was.




CHAPTER XXIX.


It would be vain to attempt to give any panorama of Kate’s thoughts
when she had finally taken refuge in her room, and shut out even her
maid. The first fire of the season was chirruping in the grate, and
there were a good many candles about, for Kate was fond of a great
deal of light. She threw herself into her favourite easy-chair by
the fire, and clasped her hands across her forehead, and tried very
hard to think. There are many girls, no doubt, who would have felt
that Fred Huntley had insulted them by such a declaration, with his
full knowledge of all the previous circumstances. But Kate could
not cut the knot in that summary manner. He was not insulting her.
Before he had said a word, had not she herself taken that alternative
into consideration? It was but this very day that she had made that
half-envying comparison between herself and the problematical Mrs Fred
Huntley; and people do not make such comparisons without some faint
notion that a choice might be possible. Besides, Kate was not the kind
of girl to be insensible to the reason of the matter. It was perfectly
true what Fred Huntley had said. In every way in which the question
could be looked at, he was more suitable to her than John. And he would
be a great deal easier to get on with. He would not ask so much; he
would be quite content with what she could give: whereas the question
was, would John ever be content? And Fred would satisfy Mr Crediton,
and make everything easy; and nobody knew better than Kate how unlikely
it was that John could ever satisfy her father, or that their marriage
should take place by anything less than a miracle. The reader will
think that she was thus giving up the whole question, but this was not
the fact. She was as far from giving John up as she had been a month
before, when she went to see him in Camelford; but she had a candid
mind, and could not help considering the question on its merits.

And then it would be impossible to deny that she had a kindness for
Fred. He had been very “nice” all this autumn--very attentive and
assiduous, and anxious to smooth her path for her. To be sure he had
not been quite disinterested; but then, when is a man disinterested?
One does not expect it of them, Kate reflected; in short, perhaps one
prefers, on the whole, that they should look for a reward, to be given
or withheld as the idol wills. This sense of power was very strong
in Kate’s mind. She liked to think that her hand could dispense life
and death; and though the alternative was very thrilling, and made
her heart beat loudly, and the blood rush to her face, yet it was not
exactly a painful feeling. And then she was very sweet-tempered and
sympathetic: it was hard for her to make up her mind to disappoint
and grieve any one. She would be sincerely sorry for the man she was
obliged to refuse; and if she could have managed it so that Madeline
Winton, or any other nice girl with whom she was intimate, should have
suited the taste of that man, it would have been a great relief to her.
This thought flashed across her mind more than once in her disquietude;
a fact which sufficiently shows how different were the feelings with
which she regarded the two candidates for her favour. Such a transfer
of affection would have been out of the question with John; but it
would not be out of the question with Fred.

Then Kate took to thinking of his earnestness, of the look almost of
passion in his face. Fred Huntley to look at any woman like that--to
say that he was being driven mad--to plead with such humility! No doubt
it was a very astounding thought, almost more extraordinary than any
amount of devotion from John, who was a passionate being by nature.
And then it would be so easy to get on with Fred! he would understand
without difficulty those tastes and habits to which John could never
do more than assent with a sigh. What a dilemma it was for a girl
to be placed in! Kate had clasped her hands over her eyes that she
might think the better, and let her fire go out, and was stopped in
her cogitations by the chill which stole over her. When she roused
herself up the hearth was quite black, and seemed to be giving forth
cold instead of warmth--and the candles were all burning silently,
with now and then a little twinkling of the small steady flames, as
if they were sharers in her secret, and knew more about it than she
did. She crept to bed very cold and disturbed and uncomfortable,
saying to herself now, Poor John! and now, Poor Fred! with painful
impartiality. I think, for my own part, that it said wonders for her
real faithfulness that she was thus impartial in her thoughts; for Fred
was so much more eligible in every way, so much more suitable, more
likely to please everybody, more easy to get on with, that there must
have been a wonderful balance of feeling on the other side to keep
the scales even. John was a very troublesome, unmanageable lover; he
ruffled her by his passion, his fondness, his susceptibilities. She
could not marry him except by the sacrifice of many things that were
very important to her, and after going through all the agonies of
a long, stormy, much-interrupted engagement; whereas everything was
smooth and pleasant on the other side. And yet her heart, if it stood
tolerably even between them, had not yet swayed one step further off
than the middle from her uncomfortable lover; which, considering all
Fred’s unmistakable advantages, surely said a great deal for Kate.

She got up in the morning with a headache, and without having come
to any decision. The thought of meeting Fred calmly before the eyes
of all those people, as if nothing had passed, had a curious kind of
excitement in it. It was not her fault; and yet she looked forward to
meeting him with a certain flutter of semi-agitation, which was not
diminished by the fact that he was more assiduous in his attentions
than he had ever ventured to be before, or had any right to be.
After breakfast Mr Crediton sent to her to go to him in the library,
which was a very alarming summons. She grew pale in the midst of her
companions when it was delivered to her. “Kate, I know you are going to
be scolded,” said one of them; “I declare she is trembling. Fancy Kate
being frightened for her papa.” “I am sure she deserves to be scolded,”
said an elder young lady, gravely. “Do I?” cried poor Kate; and she
went away half crying, for it was hard upon her to be blamed. She could
not bear it, even when she was indifferent to her censors. It hurt
her--she who had always been petted by all the world. She went away
as near crying as it is consistent with the dignity of a young lady
of nineteen to be; and if either of the two had crossed her path and
proposed instant elopement, I almost think she would have consented.
But John was at Fanshawe, separated from her by more than distance; and
Fred’s good angel had not whispered to him to throw himself at that
moment in her way.

Mr Crediton received her with a certain solemnity, and with a very
grave countenance. He made her sit down opposite to him, and looked her
in the face. “Kate,” he said, “I have sent for you to have some very
serious talk with you. You have got yourself into a grave dilemma, and
I think you want my advice.”

Kate was very much frightened, but she was not a girl to lose her head
even at such a crisis. She faced the foe courageously, though her cheek
grew pale. “I must always be the better for having your advice, papa,”
she said; “but I don’t know of any dilemma. Everything is exactly as it
was.”

“I don’t see how that can be,” said Mr Crediton, quietly. “Kate, Fred
Huntley has been with me this morning. He is perfectly honourable and
straightforward in his mode of action, but I am not so sure about you.
He tells me he has asked you to marry him--and notwithstanding that he
has got no definite answer, he thought it right to come to me.”

“Answer!” cried Kate; “what answer could I give? He knew I was engaged
as well as you do. Is it my fault, papa? Can I keep a man from making a
fool of himself? He knew of my engagement as well as you.”

“Yes,” said Mr Crediton; “and he knew that John Mitford went away
hurriedly after a three-days' visit, and that there has been no
communication between you for some time. Oh, I am not the culprit.
I don’t examine your letters. It appears you told him; and, as a
justification of what he has done, he repeated it to me.”

“Then it was very, very nasty of him,” said Kate, with tears in her
eyes; “and I will never tell him anything again as long as I live.”

“I hope at least you won’t talk to him on this subject,” said her
father, gravely. “I have let you have your own way heretofore, Kate.
I have given Mr Mitford the best chance I could of proving what was
in him; and if you like to persevere, I shall not interfere. But if
you don’t care to persevere, it is a different matter. Huntley seems
to think you will not. Wait a little, please, till I have said what I
have to say. There cannot be a moment’s doubt as to which of the two I
should prefer for a son-in-law. Fred Huntley has distinguished himself
already, though he is so young. He could surround you with every luxury
and give you a good position, and everything that heart can desire. And
he suits me. He is thoroughly sensible, and full of good feeling; but
he is not highflown. I should get on a great deal better with him than
I ever could do with Mitford; and, I believe, so would you.”

“Papa!” This exclamation was not surprise, but a deprecating, pleading,
remonstrating protestation. She made him no further answer, one way or
another; but only looked in his face with wistful eyes.

“I believe you would,” said Mr Crediton, stoutly. “You must have felt
already, however you may hesitate to say it, that in certain matters
this whole business is a great blunder. I am not saying a word against
Mitford. We have the greatest reason to be grateful to him. But, Kate,
great mistakes have been made out of gratitude--the very gravest
mistakes; and you may be sure that your engagement is to him a very
equivocal advantage. He feels it, though he cannot be the first to
speak.”

“What does he feel? how do you know?” cried Kate; and there came such
a sudden chill over her, that the very blood in her veins seemed
frozen--a sensation she had never experienced before in all her life.

“It is quite clear what he feels,” said Mr Crediton; “he feels that you
are out of his sphere. He sees what kind of a life you live here, and
he is bewildered. How is he to give you all that, or a shadow of it?
It is not difficult to divine what he feels; and the thought makes him
half morose, as he was when he was here. He cannot bear to lose you, I
believe; and yet he is gradually making up his mind that he must lose
you. Poor fellow! I for one am very sorry for him; and unless you open
a way to him out of it, I don’t see what he is to do.”

“Papa,” said Kate, with her cheeks flaming, “if he has ever given you
any reason to think that he wants to be out of it, you have only to let
me know.”

“I don’t want to be unjust,” said Mr Crediton, “to him or to any one.
He has never spoken to me on the subject. It is not likely he should.
No man could come to your father, Kate, and say, 'I have made a
mistake.' I should kick him out of the house, probably, however glad I
might be to hear it. And John Mitford is not the man to do anything of
the kind; but his feelings may be easily divined for all that.”

Kate sat silent, with her eyes cast down, and twisted her handkerchief
in her fingers. Her cheeks were burning, her eyes hot, her heart
beating loud. Perhaps it might be true. While she had been calmly
comparing her two lovers, feeling herself elevated in a sweet supremacy
over them, and free to make her choice, it was possible that her chain
had become bondage to one of them. He had gone away hurriedly, it
was true. He had spoken very strangely when he went away, and he had
not written to her for two long weeks. So long, indeed, had he kept
silence, that she had written to him making a kind of appeal. These
facts, no doubt, strengthened every word her father said, and gave to
them a certain appearance of reality. Her cheeks burned, and seemed
to scorch all the moisture out of her eyes; and yet she felt that
only the strongest effort kept her from bursting into tears. It was
a kind of relief to her when the door opened, and a man came in with
Mr Crediton’s letters. At least they prevented the necessity of any
answer. She sat absorbed in her own thoughts, examining closely, as if
it were a matter of the last importance, the embroidered cipher on her
handkerchief, while her father was thus occupied. Kate took no notice
how many letters he read--they were nothing to her; nor did she observe
the keen glance upward which he gave at her when he had read the first
he opened. She did not even remark that the crackling of the paper
ceased, and there was an interval of complete stillness. When he spoke
to her she started, and came back as if from a long distance. “Yes,
papa,” she said, mechanically, without lifting her eyes.

“I did not think it would have come so soon,” said Mr Crediton; “and it
is very strange that it should have come at this moment. He has decided
the question for himself, Kate, as, one time or other, I thought he
would. Look here.”

It was John’s letter he pushed across the table to her, with a feeling
that it had arrived at the very moment it was wanted, at the handiest
moment. And Mr Crediton was glad; but at the same time he was struck
with a little compunction when he saw how eagerly Kate clutched at
it, and how the colour went and came on her face. She read it without
a pause, flashing her eye over its contents in a way very different
from Mr Crediton’s deliberate reading. She had grown breathless in
her eagerness. She threw it down on the table, yet did not leave her
hold of it, and stretched across to look at the little heap of letters
which remained before him. “There must be one for me,” she cried; “of
course he must have explained all this in his letter to me.” When she
saw that there was none for her, she rose hurriedly and rang the bell,
her father all the while looking on with an amazement which he could
not express in words. Was this Kate, this hasty excited creature, full
of anxiety and suspense? “Go and see if there are any letters for
me,” she said, imperiously, to the servant who answered the bell. She
would not believe it; she stood angry and feverish, leaning against
the mantelpiece with John’s letter in her hand. “The letters have been
taken up-stairs, ma’am, but there are none for you,” said the man,
re-entering with a tray in his hand on which were several bundles of
papers carefully separated. She rushed across the room to look at
them. There were half-a-dozen at least for Fred Huntley, and some for
the other members of the party who were out shooting, but nothing for
Miss Crediton. Kate dismissed the servant with a little wave of her
hand and walked back to the fire, and stooped down over it to warm
herself. She was utterly dismayed, and the ground seemed suddenly cut
away from under her very feet. Her heart beat so that she could not
speak a word. Was it true, then, all this that had been said to her?
Her father turned his chair towards her, and the sight of his child
thus stupefied with sudden pain, and half incredulous of the shock she
had just received, went to his heart. But yet in his heart he believed
it was best for him to drive the stroke home, and not to soothe her by
suggestions that the explanation might yet come, such as occurred to
him in the first softening of his thoughts.

“My darling!” he said, “of course you feel it. I feel it so much for
you, Kate, that I could almost grieve, though I know it to be for the
best. Make up your mind at once to think no more of him. It will be
better for you both. It is a shock, but you must have been prepared
for the shock. You have trifled with Fred Huntley’s feelings for a
long time, as you ought not to have done had you not been more or less
prepared for this. And, Kate, there is no reason why you should not
reward him now.”

“Reward him! when it is he who has done it,” said Kate, under her
breath.

“That is not the case; you must be aware that is not the case. I have
watched you all too closely to believe in that. You have done it
yourself, Kate; and, if you would believe me, this is the very best
thing that could have happened. The slight must hurt, of course, at
first----”

“Slight! papa, do you know what you are saying? It is worse than a
slight. Oh, how shall I bear it?” said Kate, crushing up John’s letter
in her clenched hands.

“So I think, my dear,” said Mr Crediton, quietly. “I could not have
supposed Mitford capable of anything of the kind. But it is best that
he should have done it in this decisive way--better than hanging you
up for months, or years, if he had his way. And the very best answer I
can make is to tell him that--that you have listened to Fred. My dear,
don’t turn away so impatiently. You have used him very badly if you
mean anything else. He is very fond of you, poor fellow! And, Kate,
I can’t tell how deeply, how much, it would gratify your father,” he
added, putting his arm round her, and drawing her close to him. Kate
had gone through all the stages of passion--she had been agitated,
disturbed, startled, driven into amazement and indignation and rage.
She was trembling all over with excitement; and now, in the course of
nature, it was time for tears to come to relieve her hot eyes. She felt
herself drawn into her father’s arms, and then the storm broke forth.
She could never lose her father, whoever she might lose. She leant her
head upon him, and covered her face with her hands, and sobbed upon
his breast. “Papa, let me stay with you: I care for nothing but you,”
she cried, with a broken voice like a child’s; and he heard her heart
beating in the pain of this first grand emergency, like some violent
imprisoned thing labouring to escape out of its cage.

“My poor child!” he said, holding her close. He was glad of it, and yet
it hurt him too because it hurt his daughter. At that moment he could
almost have called John back, pleased as he was to have him gone. He
held her close, patting her softly with his hand, saying nothing till
the outburst was over; and then, when he felt her stir in his arms and
lean less heavily against him, he bent down and kissed her and spoke.

“My own Kate,” he said, “take your father’s advice for once. Let it
be you to make the change, and not him. Let me call poor Huntley and
make him happy. You like him, though you may not think it: you have
chosen his society more than that of any one here. Do you think I have
not watched you? and I know. My dear, your delicacy is wounded, your
feelings have had a great shock; but you will soon learn it is for the
best, and Fred will make you happier than you ever could have been.
Let me call the poor fellow now.”

“No, no, not now,” cried Kate, with her face hidden--“not now. Papa, it
is with you I want to stay.”

“With me and with Fred,” said Mr Crediton. “He will be a son to me,
Kate. He will not take you away from me. It is what I have wished for
years. You will make us both very happy, my darling,” her father went
on pleading. “Let me call him now.”

“Oh, papa, let me go! He is out,” said Kate, in a kind of despair,
raising herself from his arms. She wanted to get away to be by herself,
to think what it all meant, and scarcely knew or understood what she
said.

“He cannot be far off. Let me go and find him,” said Mr Crediton; “you
would make me so happy, Kate.”

“Oh, papa, don’t kill me!--not now. I would do anything to make you
happy; but not now--I cannot bear any more.”

“Then, my darling, I will not press you; but later--when you have had
time to think--say at five o’clock; come to me at five o’clock. You
have made him very wretched and treated him very badly, and me too; but
you will make it up to us, my own Kate?”

“Please let me go,” she said, wearily, drawing herself out of his arms,
and making visible a face which was no longer flushed and beautiful,
but very pale, scared, marked with tears, and reluctant to face the
light.

“You shall go,” said her father, tenderly, leading her to the door.
“But remember at five o’clock--promise that you will come at five
o’clock.”

“Whenever you please--what does it matter?” sighed poor Kate. He
repeated the hour again in his anxiety, but she paid no attention. She
ran up-stairs as soon as she had escaped from him, a little palefaced
woe-begone ghost. Some one met her on the stairs, but she did not stop
to see who it was. She did not even care to have her emotion perceived,
as she would have done under other circumstances. She did not care
for anything but getting to a shelter and hiding herself, and asking
somebody (was it herself or some hidden counsellor she should find
there?) what did it all mean?

Kate had never been very unhappy before all her life, and she did
not know how to be very unhappy. She pulled all the blinds down
impatiently, thinking it was wicked that the day should be so bright,
and then threw herself upon her little white bed. It was not that she
wanted to lie down, or to be in darkness, but only that the crisis
was so strange, and she felt it necessary to conform to it. She had
been thinking of John when she rose that morning, but thinking of him
in such a different way, measuring him with Fred Huntley, then asking
herself if it would be most for her own good to keep him or to put him
aside. And lo! in a moment, here were the tables turned. He had not
even the grace to deliberate or give her warning what he was going to
do, but did it on the moment. She could not even upbraid him, for he
had gone without saying where he was. He had plucked himself out of her
fingers while she had been weighing him, balancing him. Was it not a
just punishment? But he did not know that, and she had done nothing,
so far as he was aware, that could give him any warrant to treat her
so summarily. She lay there and shut her eyes, and rocked herself, and
moaned a little. And then she opened them very wide, lay still, and
gazed at the drawn blinds with her heart fluttering loudly, scarcely
able to keep still with mortification and suppressed rage. Yes, he
might give her up; but if he had word sent to him that she was engaged
to Fred Huntley, he would feel it--oh, he would feel it! trust him for
that. And Kate repeated to herself with feverish eagerness, “At five
o’clock.” She longed for the hour to come that she might give him this
return-blow; and then she turned and rocked herself and moaned again,
feeling such a dreadful pain--a pain she could not account for in her
perverse little heart.

When the bell rang for luncheon Parsons came into the room, bouncing,
as Kate thought, with her ribbons and her black silk apron, humming
a song to herself. “Goodness gracious me!” she cried, suddenly
restraining her sprightly steps when she became conscious of her
mistress’s presence. “I did not know as you were here, Miss,” said
Parsons; “I beg your pardon, I am sure. Is it a headache, Miss?”

“Oh, go away and don’t bother me; don’t you see I am not fit to talk to
anyone?” cried Kate.

“If it’s a bad headache, Miss, there is nothing like lying down, and
to bathe the head with a little eau-de-Cologne and water. It’s what
I always do when I have the headache,” said Parsons, bustling and
pouring out into a basin the pungent fragrant water. Kate allowed
herself to be ministered to without any visible impatience. She did not
feel so abandoned by the world when even her maid was by her. And the
eau-de-Cologne, she thought, did her a little good.

“That is the bell for lunch, Miss,” said Parsons; “and master will
be in such a way! Shall I go and tell him you have the headache very
bad--or what shall I say?”

“Never mind him,” said Kate, faintly; “what does it matter about them
and their lunch? Oh, Parsons, I am so very miserable!” sobbed the
poor girl. No, she did not mean to betray herself; but still a little
sympathy, though not enough to touch the very skirts of her grievance,
she must have.

“Are you indeed, Miss?” said Parsons. “I am sure I’m very, very sorry;
but if it’s only the headache it can’t last. There, I’ll put a wet
handkerchief on your poor head; perhaps that will do it good.”

“It is too deep for anything to do me good,” said Kate; but she
suffered the handkerchief to be placed on her forehead, and put up
with all those mysterious manipulations of the pillow and the hair and
the patient which are orthodox in the circumstances. She lay with her
eyes closed and the wet kerchief on her forehead, and her hair spread
over the pillow, making her face look all the paler in comparison;
her pretty mouth drawn down at the corners, her pale lips and closed
eyelids, a very image of youthful misery. Her heart was broken, she
thought; and oh, how her head ached!

“Did you get your letters, Miss?” said Parsons softly, drawing out
her bright hair, and bending over her sympathetically. But Parsons
recoiled in another moment, giving the hair a tug in her consternation,
as Kate suddenly stood before her, all blazing and glaring like an
avenging angel, with one hand grasping her shoulder and the other
clenched menacing in her face.

“My letters!--oh, you wicked miserable woman, it is you who have made
me so unhappy! My letters! what do you know of them?” cried Kate.

“Lord, Miss!” said Parsons in dismay, backing before her. And then she
began to cry. “I thought as you’d rather I brought ’em up-stairs. You
weren’t in the drawing-room, nor nowhere to be seen. I meant it for
the best,” cried Parsons, backing to the wall with such a terror of
the clenched hand as was quite out of proportion to the powers of that
little weapon of offence.

“Give them to me,” cried Kate; “draw up the blinds--make haste and
throw this wet thing away. My letters, my letters!--oh, if you only
knew what harm you have done! Give them to me----”

She sat down on the sofa under the window, which, after being veiled so
carefully, now poured in upon her all the light of the full sunshiny
October day. There was a note from Madeline Winton, a notification
about millinery from Camelford, something else equally unimportant,
and the letter from John, which she ought to have had three hours ago.
She paused as she took it up, and turned to Parsons, who was still
fluttering about the room in her alarm: “Go away,” said Kate, solemnly;
“you can say I have a headache and am lying down; and, please, don’t
come near me any more to-day.”

“Let me come and dress you, Miss, as usual. Oh, goodness gracious me!
as if I meant any harm.”

“You need not stop to cry,” said Kate, severely; “but go away. You
wicked woman! I owe all my trouble to you.”

And then as soon as she was alone she read John’s letter--the letter he
had written in his desolate room before he left Camelford. It went to
Kate’s heart. She read it and she cried, and she kissed the insensible
paper, and her load seemed lifted off her mind. She had been miserable
half an hour ago, and now she was happy. It was such an answer to all
her questionings as nothing else could have given. She cried, and the
colour came back to her cheek and the light to her eyes. “I am not the
bank,” she said to herself, with a return of her old levity. “It is not
me he means to give up; he must never, never give up me.” And then she
kissed the letter again. She had never done such a thing all her life;
but she did it now without stopping to think, and she read over the end
of it, “yours, and only yours, whatever may happen,” with a gush of
warmth and gladness at her heart. “Dear John! poor John! he is so fond
of me. Why is he so fond of me?” she said to herself with sweet tears.
And then all at once it struck her as with a great chill that there was
more than mere fondness in this letter of John’s. “If you should ever
want me.” “This may pass over and be to you as if it had never been.”
How could that be? Was not he hers and she his as of old?

Just then there came a knock to the door, and two little notes were
handed in to her. Another cold thrill went over her as she saw them.
One was from her father, and the other from Fred Huntley. “My dear, I
am grieved your head aches,” wrote the first, “but I don’t wonder. Keep
quite quiet till five, and then come down to the library and make two
men very happy. My pretty Kate! Your fond father,

                                                                 J. C.”

The other was shorter still. “I dare not think or speak, or allow
myself to be glad till I see you,” said the other; “but my fate is in
your sweet hands.” Such were the communications that were brought to
her from the outer world. Kate gazed at them with open mouth and eyes
aghast. Then it all came to her mind. She had promised to go to these
men and satisfy them, to give Fred Huntley her hand and her promise,
and put her seal to it, that her love for John was over for ever. And
yet the touch of her mouth was wet upon John’s dear letter, and she
hated Fred Huntley as she had never hated any one in her whole life.
She sat with the daylight pouring in upon her, and those tokens of
fate about her, and despair in her pale and ghastly face. Kate to be
ghastly, who had never known what such a word meant! She was getting a
wild look like a creature driven to bay. Now and then when she heard
the sound of a voice or step in the house--people coming up-stairs or
down, somebody passing along the long passage--she gave a shiver, as a
hare might shiver at the baying of the hounds. She sat motionless, it
seemed to her for hours, in this torpor, and then it was Fred’s voice
that roused her. He was down below in front of the house, talking to
some one, and she could hear him through the open window. “I am going
to the stables to look at the new horses,” he said, “but I shall be
back before five o’clock.” Five o’clock! There was a ring in his voice
of conscious triumph. He was coming back to take possession of his
victim. At that moment, as Kate sat with the trembling of despair upon
her, there suddenly rang out upon her ear the sound of the railway
bell at the station, which was always considered such a nuisance at
Fernwood. The railway itself was a great convenience, only a quarter
of a mile from the lodge gates; but the bell and the whistle and the
rumbling of the train were very objectionable. When Kate heard it she
roused herself with a low cry. She thrust John’s letter into her dress,
and tore the others up in little pieces, and then she sat still, with
bright awakened eyes for half an hour more. By that time her resolution
was formed. She was miserable and impatient of her misery, and every
way of escape seemed shut off except this one, and it was something to
do which soothed her excitement. It was not with any such thought that
she had sent Parsons away. Nothing had been settled in her mind, or
even thought of, till Fred Huntley’s voice and the railway bell thus
succeeded each other. In circumstances so desperate there is nothing
like a sudden inspiration. Four o’clock! the big clock sounded from the
stables, and a succession of fairy chimes rang from all the rooms of
the house. Four! and no more time to think--for there was not another
moment to lose.




CHAPTER XXX.


Kate had never gone anywhere alone before. She was nothing but one
big beating heart, beating so that the little body that contained it
could scarcely breathe, when she slipped down the back-stairs and out
at the side-door. She put on a great waterproof cloak, one of those
garments which are next thing to the domino of the drama as a means
of disguise, and a black hat, and a great veil tied over her face as
fashion permits. A mask could not have been a greater protection.
She was, indeed, masked from head to foot, and except by her gait or
outline of her figure could not have been recognised. It seemed to her
as if the beating of her heart must have been heard through all the
house, bringing everybody out to see what such a noise meant; but it
was not so. In her proper person, and with her pretty face open to the
light, Kate Crediton was as courageous as any girl could be, and that
is saying a great deal; but masked and cloaked as she was, and running
away, she was all over abject terror. She trembled when the railway
porter came to tell her about the train; her voice was scarcely audible
when she got her ticket; she shrank away to the farthest corner, and
hid herself for the few horrible moments that she had to wait. And no
words can express the sense of guilt and fear and forlorn loneliness
with which she contemplated all the varieties of the journey which she
had undertaken. To get out of the carriage by herself at Camelford,
to steal across the crowded railway station, a little shrinking black
figure in the lamplight, to take another ticket, and have herself put
into another train, and then to look forward to the long walk in the
dark, the country road, the stillness and loneliness and suspicious
looks of everybody who should meet her! Her own opinion was that two or
three times over she had nearly died of it; and, to tell the truth,
she was not far wrong. The weather had grown milder, but she shivered
in her excitement; and it was very cloudy and damp, with occasional
showers, and little light in the pale sky. How was she to do it? And
what reception was she likely to meet with at the end? And her father,
what would his feelings be? All these things seized upon Kate, and
caught her in their clutches, and hung about her like ghosts as she
pursued her lonely journey. Sometimes her natural courage made an
effort to assert itself, but the courage of a girl of nineteen is but
little able to sustain her under the sense of secrecy and flight and
loneliness and the darkest of country roads.

When she had arrived at the conclusion of her journey, the poor child
set out half-a-dozen times from the little lighted station which was as
an oasis in the desert of darkness, and as many times crept back again
to the shelter of the friendly lights. She leant against the paling
of the station-master’s cottage opposite the window, where there was
protection, and cried. Darkness that she could feel crept and rustled
about her; and silence, which she could feel too, penetrated to her
very soul. She did not dare to ask the porter who had looked at her so
curiously, to go with her. He might kill her on the road, and leave her
lying there all covered by the darkness, to be found out when it was
too late. Kate cried over this picture of herself. They would all be
sorry then; they would be grieved that they had driven her desperate;
and there was one that would never, never recover it all his life. Oh
that he were only there now with his strong arm to support her--oh
John, John, John! And all this time his heart was aching too, thinking
she had forsaken him. Where was he? Like herself out somewhere in the
night full of despairing thoughts. And here was still this dreadful
passage to be crossed before she could even hear of him where he was.

At Fanshawe the scene was very different. Mrs Mitford was seated by the
lamp, with her basket by her full of things to mend; but her hands had
fallen into her lap, and there were signs of agitation in her face.
There was a fire burning at the other end of the room, which gave it
a different aspect, but she had not yet given up her summer-seat, and
the window was open as of old. In the shade behind the lamp, some one
was walking up and down--up and down, filling the room with a sense of
restlessness and restraint. The two were talking in hushed tones as
if something had happened. And not long before, Dr Mitford had flung
away out of the room in anger which could scarcely find strong enough
expression, “You should have thought of all this sooner. What! leave
the bank? Quarrel with your good fortune and all your prospects! No, I
have no patience. He has behaved like a fool, and ought to be treated
as such,” the Doctor had cried. He was ashamed of his son and of sundry
little brags of his own, which John’s fine prospects had called from
him; and he did not know how to face the Fanshawes and all the rest of
the parish, and allow that John had thrown all his advantages away. He
had been struggling, as a weak hot-tempered man is apt to struggle,
against the inevitable, that whole day: he had been endeavouring to
drive John back to a sense of his duty, to Camelford and the bank. “If
you had taken my advice you never would have gone into it,” he cried;
“but now that the sacrifice has been made, to draw back! I have no
patience with such folly.” John had not said a word in self-defence.
He said, “I have been a fool; it is quite true, mother,” when Mrs
Mitford tried to defend him: and the day had been wretched enough to
all concerned. What was he going to do with himself now he had come
home? Did he think he could be kept in idleness at his time of life?
Such were the galling questions that had been put to John all day long.
He had made little answer, and his mother believed he was as much in
the dark as she was herself. And naturally, though she could not have
taunted her boy as her husband did, still the question was to her, as
to him, a very serious one. He could not live at home doing nothing. He
had thrown away one hope for the future, and now another; and what was
he to do?

“A thing may be very imperfect, very unsatisfactory, not much good that
one can see; and yet it may be the best thing in the world.”

This was what John said, breaking the stillness after a long interval;
and he paused in his walk and stood still in the shaded part of the
room, behind his mother’s chair.

“I don’t know what you mean, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford. “How can a
thing be unsatisfactory and yet the best thing in the world? And oh, my
own boy, what has that to do with you and me?”

“It has a great deal to do with you and me,” he said, behind her chair.
“I could not answer my father’s questions. It was hard enough to listen
to them and keep my patience; but, mother, dear, I can’t shut my heart
to you. I am not going to live upon you in idleness. I am going back to
the work you have trained me for all my life.”

“John!” said his mother, with a bewildered cry of joy. She held out
her arms to him, and he came and knelt down by her, and they held each
other close. “Oh my boy, my boy, my son!” she murmured over him, as she
had murmured over his cradle. She could find no other words; but as
for John, his decision was no joy to him. He had nothing to say to add
to the importance of the moment. Thus it must be, and there was a sense
of repose in his mind now that he had decided. It was not so great a
work, perhaps, as she thought; but still it was the best in the world;
and whether hopefully or sadly, what did it matter? a man could do his
duty in it. There was no more to be said.

“But oh, John,” said Mrs Mitford, raising her head at last with tears
of mingled joy and pain in her eyes, “that will make but little
difference now, so far as this world is concerned. It will not make
your poor papa less angry, as it would have done three months ago. Mr
Fanshawe has promised the living to his nephew. It is a family living,
you know; and it was only because they were so fond of us--I mean of
your papa--that you were to have it; and I was so happy always to
think you would take up our work. My dear boy! if you are thinking of
Fanshawe, that is all over now.”

“So much the better, mother,” said John; “I was not thinking of
Fanshawe. I will take a curacy in a town where there is plenty of work
to do, and fight the devil if I can. People say there is no devil; but
I think I know better. We can fight him still, please God!”

“God bless my boy! God bless my dearest boy!” cried the mother, with a
poignant thrill of delight and disappointment. It was the desire of her
heart that was being given to her; but yet so strangely transmogrified,
so warped out of the fashion in which she had prayed for it, that it
was hard to tell whether it was most pain or joy. And it was after this
moment of agitation that her hands had fallen into her lap, though she
had a great deal of work to do; and that John had resumed his walk with
a relieved mind on the dark side of the room. He was relieved, and yet
his heart was so heavy that it made his step heavy too. It sounded like
the meditative pace of some old man burdened with care, instead of the
elastic step of youth.

And then, as silence, unbroken except by that step, came over them
again, there fell into the quiet a sudden little sharp sound like the
click of a latch. Mrs Mitford only heard it, and pricked up her ears
with the quick alarm of a dweller in the country. “I wonder if the
garden-gate is locked,” she said, softly; “it ought to be locked, now
the nights are so dark.”

John made no answer, he had not even remarked the sound; but his mother
held her breath and listened with some uneasiness. Nothing followed for
many minutes. Stillness as perfect as the darkness seemed to settle
outside; but yet what was that?--a step upon the gravel? Mrs Mitford
gave a nervous start, and then commanded herself. She had so often
thought she heard steps on the gravel. “I think the window should
be shut--it grows so chilly,” she went on; but she spoke very low,
and still John took no notice. His step went on and on like a kind
of chorus. Even his mother, although so near him, saw but a shadowy
something walking up and down, and did not derive all the comfort she
might have done from his presence. She would have risen to close the
window herself, but a certain terror prevented her; and he took no
notice, being absorbed in his own thoughts.

At last Mrs Mitford’s nervousness got the better of her. She put out
her hand and caught him as he passed behind her chair. “John,” she
said, in a whisper, “listen. I think I hear some one in the garden.
Hark! I am sure that was a step on the path.”

“It is only fancy, mother,” said John.

“But hush, hark!” she said, holding him fast; and he stood behind her
chair, a mere shadow, and they listened, holding their breath. Silence,
rustling, creeping, full of secret stirs and movements; and then
there was a louder rustle, and a little trembling frightened voice,
like a lost child, cried “Mamma!” The voice seemed to come out of the
rose-bushes close to the window, plaintive, complaining, feeble, like a
voice in a dream--“Mamma!”

“Oh, who is that?” cried Mrs Mitford, all trembling. “Is it a spirit?
Who is it that calls me mamma?”

John stood still, spellbound. He could not move, nor believe his ears.
And then his mother rose up, though she could scarcely stand. “Nobody
calls me mamma but one,” she cried; “only Kate! Oh my good Lord,
something has happened to Kate!”

And then, all at once, the darkness stirred, and a little black figure
formed itself out of the night, and glided into the window. Was it
a ghost? was it she, killed by unkindness, come to pay them a visit
on her way to heaven? The mother and son thought so for one dreadful
moment. Her face was as pale as death; her dress all black as the night
out of which she came. Mrs Mitford gave a wild shriek, of which she was
not sensible, and fell back on her son, who held her, and gazed and
gasped. But Kate did not think it strange. It was natural his mother
should shrink from her, she thought, and she did not see John in the
shadow. She was not thinking of John then. She came in with her little
soft quiet step, and threw herself down at Mrs Mitford’s knee.

“Yes, it is me,” she said; “it is Kate. Mamma, save me; oh take me
in and save me! I have nobody to come to but you. They want me to be
untrue to my John,” she cried, suddenly, with a shrill break in her
voice; “and he has deserted me. Oh, mamma, whom can I come to but you?”

John dropped his mother into her chair. He made one stride round the
table, and clutched at the kneeling creature. He took her up in his
arms like a child, and turned her wan face to him, holding it in his
hand. He was almost rough with her in the anguish of his eagerness.
“It is Kate,” he said, with an unintelligible cry, and kissed her, and
burst out weeping with a great sound, which seemed to fill the whole
house. “It is Kate!” raining down kisses upon her hair and her upturned
face; and so stood with her little figure lifted in his arms, mad with
the wonder and the misery and the joy--till suddenly the pale little
face drooped unconscious, and she hung a dead weight on his arm. “I
have killed her now,” he cried out, with a sharp voice of anguish, and
stayed his kisses and sobs to look at her lying motionless upon his
breast.

“It is nothing; she has fainted,” cried Mrs Mitford, who had been
slowly coming to herself, and whom this emergency fully roused. “Lay
her down on the sofa; bring me some water; ring the bell. Oh my poor
child! how she must have suffered! how pale she is! Don’t touch her,
John; let her lie still. Oh Kate, call me mamma again, my darling!
Softly, softly; take off her cloak. Water, Lizzie; and keep quiet. Now
she will soon come to herself.”

But it was some time before Kate came to herself; and the whole house
was roused by the news which Lizzie, between the production of two
bottles of water, flashed into the kitchen. Dr Mitford came and looked
at her as she lay, pale and motionless as if she were dead, on the
sofa. He walked round it, and took off his spectacles, and looked upon
the strange scene with a puckered and careful brow. “Have you sent for
the doctor? Have you loosed her stays?” he asked his wife. “They say
it is often because of tight stays;” and then he shook his head at the
sight. Mrs Mitford was kneeling by the side of the sofa, bathing Kate’s
forehead. And John stood at the foot, watching with an anxiety which
was uncalled for, and out of all proportion to so common an accident.
But how was he to tell, in the great excitement of that wonderful
moment, that she was only fainting and not dead?

By-and-by, slowly and feebly, Kate opened her eyes. “Yes,” she said,
and at the first whisper of her voice they all crowded round with
eager ears: “yes; I am not dead, papa, though I think I ought to have
been dead! Was it the horse that took fright? Did it happen just now?
I thought it was long ago. But here she is putting the water on my
forehead, and there are his eyes looking at me--such kind eyes! And
she calls him her John. But I feel as if he were my John too. Is this
_now_, or is it long ago? Mamma!”

“My darling!” said Mrs Mitford, with her lips on Kate’s cheek.

“Are you my mamma? I can’t remember. Or was it just to-day it all
happened, and he saved me and you took me in? Ah, no! there is Dr
Mitford, and Lizzie, and I have only been dreaming or something; for if
it was the first day I should not have known who they were. And I can
sit up,” said Kate, making a feeble effort to raise herself. She got
half up on her elbow, and looked round upon them all with a face like
death, and the feeblest of smiles. And then she sank back, and said
pettishly, “John need not stand there as if it were that first day. If
I were he, and there was somebody lying here who had been very unkind
to me, I would come and give her a kiss, and say 'I am not angry,
Kate.'”

John was on his knees by the sofa before she had done speaking; and
everybody in the room wept except Dr Mitford, who shook his head and
went as far as the mantelpiece, where he stood and warmed himself, and
could not but mark how foolish most people were: but still even he was
too curious to go back to his study and his work, which would have been
the most reasonable thing to do.

The doctor came presently, having been summoned in haste, and decided
that Kate must be put to bed and kept very quiet. She was lying with
her arm round John’s neck in the candour of reconciliation, terribly
pale, but quite at ease. “May I have my old room?” she said, “and will
you stay with me, mamma? I have not brought a thing, not so much as a
pocket-handkerchief.” Kate was Kate again, notwithstanding the dreadful
ordeal through which she had passed.

When the unlooked-for visitor had been installed again, an invalid, in
the room from which she had sallied forth to invade and transmogrify
life at Fanshawe, Mrs Mitford was called outside to speak to John. She
found him with his hat in his hand, ready to go out. “I must go to
Fernwood instantly,” he said; “I shall be in time for the last train
from Camelford. Her father must know without delay.”

“Do you suppose he does not know?” cried Mrs Mitford. Such an idea had
not occurred to her dutiful mind. “But, my dear, surely to-morrow will
do.”

“I don’t think I should lose an hour in letting him know she is in
safety. Mother, you will not leave her; you will be very, very good to
her--for my sake.”

“Oh, my dear, and for her own too,” said Mrs Mitford, with tears.
“Listen, she is calling me. She cannot bear me out of her sight.”

Upon which John took his mother in his arms, and kissed her as he had
not done for long, and hurried out with tears in his eyes, and a heart
as light as a feather. How the whole world had changed! He looked up
at the light in her window as he sped along towards the station, and
his whole being melted in a flood of tenderness. She was not a lady of
romance--not a peerless princess above all soil of human weakness--but
one that did wrong and was sorry, and would do wrong again, perhaps,
and yet win a hundred tender pardons. Her very sin against him was
only another sweetness. But for that she would never have come to him,
never have thrown herself thus upon his love. John skimmed along the
dark road which Kate had trod so dolefully, scarcely feeling that he
touched the ground. He was too happy even to think. It seemed to be
only about two minutes till he was in Camelford, the lights flashing
past him through the night. He went across the station hastily towards
the platform, which was swarming with the crowd that always made a rush
for the last train. The London train, which was the one that passed
Fanshawe, left in about a quarter of an hour, and John was aware that
it would be impossible for him to get back that night. But midway
between the two, among the porters and the luggage, and all the prosaic
details of the place, he ran against some one who called him sharply by
his name. And then his shoulder was clutched and himself brought to a
sudden standstill. It was Mr Crediton in search of Kate.

“Where are you going?” he asked, imperiously. But John had begun to
tell his tale without waiting to be questioned. “I am on my way to
Fernwood,” he said, “to let you know. Mr Crediton, Kate is with my
mother.” And then there was a pause, and the two looked into each
other’s faces. They confronted each other in the midst of the most
ordinary prose of life, one the victor, the other the vanquished, with
supreme triumph on one side and mortification on the other. John could
afford to be friendly and humble, being the conqueror, but Mr Crediton
in the darkness set his teeth.

“Well,” he said, with a long-drawn breath, “things being as they are,
perhaps on the whole that is best.”

“Mr Crediton,” said John, “you cannot expect me to say I am sorry. God
knows how happy and proud I am; but yet I can understand how you should
be reluctant to give her to me----”

“Reluctant!” cried her father, between his set teeth; and then he
stopped short, and made a supreme effort. “What are you going to do?”
he said. “Your train is just starting--unless I can offer you a bed for
the night.”

“Will not you come to Fanshawe with me?”

“It is useless now. I am glad she is safe--that was all I wanted to
know,” said Kate’s father, with a thrill of pain in his voice. He stood
still a moment longer, gazing blankly at John without seeing him, and
then added, “Of course after this there is nothing more to be said.”

“I think not,” said John, humbly. It is so easy to be humble when one
has the victory. He looked wistfully at his adversary, longing to say
something friendly, something comforting. “There is nothing in the
world I would not do for her happiness,” he added. “I would have given
her up; but I thank God that is over now.”

“Of course it is over,” said Mr Crediton. “If you choose to return to
the bank different arrangements shall be made. Of course I have nothing
for it but to acquiesce now;” and he turned away his head and stood
mute, in an attitude which went to John’s heart.

“I am sorry you don’t like me,” he said, involuntarily; “but when you
see her happy--as please God she shall be happy----”

“That will do,” said Mr Crediton, waving his hand; “you will lose your
train--good-night.” He turned and moved a few steps away and then came
back again. “If your mother will be so good as to bring up my child to
me as soon as she is able--to-morrow if she is able--I shall be much
obliged to her; and in the morning, if you like, I shall be glad to see
you at the bank.”

“I will come,” said John; and then he asked more humbly than ever,
“Will you send no message to Kate?”

“Message! what message could I send her? I have been the most indulgent
of fathers, and she deceives me. I have kept her as the apple of my
eye, and she runs away from me to you. What does she know of you that
she should put you before me?” cried the father, with sudden passion:
and then he stopped again with that sense of the vanity and uselessness
of all passion which comes natural to a man of the world. “Tell her I
am glad she has taken no harm, and that I expect her to be at home at
Fernwood when I return to-morrow,” he added, in his hardest, calmest
voice: “good-night.”

If there had been anybody there strict to interpret the bye-laws of
the railway company, no doubt John Mitford would have suffered for
it--for he made a spring into the train when it was fairly off, aided
and abetted by a Fanshawe guard, who shouted “Here you are, sir!”
in defiance of all by-laws. Mr Crediton went back to his house in
Camelford, to the great amazement of the housekeeper, and sat half
through the night thinking it over, trying to make the best of it.
There was nothing further to be said. From the moment when Kate’s
little note was delivered to him by the frightened Parsons before
dinner, he had felt that the matter was settled and could not be
reopened. “Papa, he has not given me up, and I will not give him up,
and my heart is broken, and I am going to Mrs Mitford at Fanshawe,”
was what Kate said. It had been supposed by Fred Huntley and himself
that her failure at five o’clock was the result of her headache, or of
a little perversity, and it was not till just before dinner that the
note was found on her dressing-table. Mr Crediton sat at the foot of
his table and made-believe to eat his dinner, and explained that Kate
had a bad headache; and as soon as the ladies had left the table made
some excuse of urgent business and hastened to Camelford. He had handed
the note to Fred first, who received it after the first shock as became
a man of the world. “I will stay and do what I can to amuse the people
to-night,” he said, “and to-morrow morning I will go. Thanks for all
you would have done for me. Perhaps we pressed her too hard at the
last.”

“You are a good fellow, Fred,” said Mr Crediton; “God bless you! I can
never forget how well you have behaved. You can scarcely feel it more
than I do,” he added, with something rising in his throat. Huntley
wrung his hand, but shook his head a little and did not speak. They
were in the wrong, and Fred had been almost a traitor; but yet they
had their feelings too, and he felt it more than the father did--who
had not lost her, and would come round and forgive--more than anybody
could have supposed Fred Huntley would feel anything. The people in the
drawing-room said to each other how pale he was. “Is it all because
Kate has a headache?” they asked each other; but he did his best to
replace the missing host, and went off in the morning without saying a
word to anybody. “I am not much of a good fellow,” he said to himself
bitterly, “but still I am not such a cad as to shriek out when I am
beaten; and I am beaten, worse luck!” Thus Fred Huntley disappeared
and was seen no more.

Next morning John was allowed to go in under his mother’s charge to
Kate’s room, where she sat up in her bed, still pale, but growing red
as a rose at the sight of him, wrapt in Mrs Mitford’s dressing-gown.
The kind woman had a little doubt whether it was quite right; but as
she was present every moment of the time, and heard every word they
said, there could not be any great harm done: and it was right that she
should know all that her father had said. “Must I go back to-day? am I
able?” she said, with supplication in her eyes, looking at Mrs Mitford;
but soon was quite diverted from that subject by hearing of John’s
appointment for that morning to meet her father at the bank.

“I wonder what different arrangements he will make,” she said, looking
up in her lover’s face, and pressing in her little hand the big fingers
which held hers. Her face grew solemn gazing up at him. If she could
but have gone with him, stood by him, made sure that there would be
nothing to vex him. Kate had been down to the lowest depths last
night, and had sought help, and knew herself incapable of giving it;
but in the morning Kate was a different woman, and longed to interfere
and defend her own, and take into her hands once more the guidance of
affairs.

The mother and the son looked at each other, and then Mrs Mitford
spoke. “My dear,” she said, faltering, “I hope you will not be much
disappointed. You can see yourself that the other way did not bring a
blessing. Kate, before you came last night, John had made up his mind
to be a clergyman after all.”

As for John, he took both her hands in his and watched with unspeakable
anxiety the expression of her face. But Kate drew her hands away and
listened, not looking at him,--not taking in at first, he thought, the
meaning of what was said. Then all at once she sat upright and threw
her arms round his neck. I am not sure that she ought to have been so
demonstrative; but she was. “I am so glad!” she cried--“I am so glad!
Oh, you dear old John, that will set everything right!”

“But, Kate,” remonstrated Mrs Mitford, utterly bewildered by this
inconsistency, “you used to say----”

“Mamma,” said Kate, solemnly, pushing her lover away from her, “I know
I was meant, from the first moment I was born, to be a clergyman’s
wife.”

To this solemn protestation what could anybody reply?

And the curious fact was that it turned out quite true. It was her
natural business in this world to manage everybody--the parish and the
poor, and a whole little kingdom; and it was something utterly new
and delightful, and gave full scope for all her powers. Mr Crediton
resisted, as was natural, and the Fanshawes held out a little about
the nephew to whom they had promised the living; and John had his
own difficulties, of which, after all this, he spoke but little: but
everything came right in the end. My own belief is that a curacy in a
town would have been a great deal better for him to begin with, and
that was his own opinion; but nobody else was of the same mind: and
even in the country, in the village, there is scope enough to show,
as John said, that though the work may be sadly imperfect, sadly
unsuccessful and unsatisfactory, it was still the best that is to be
had in this imperfect world.

And I hope they will be very happy, now all their troubles (as people
say) are over. But it is very hard to make any prediction on such
a subject, and one cannot help feeling as Mr Crediton felt, and as
Kate herself even was so candid as to allow, that but for that very
confusing condition called Love, which puts out so many calculations,
Fred Huntley would have been a much more suitable match for her after
all.


THE END.


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