Laura was very much impressed. If scorn, or anger, or incredulity had confronted her, she would have held to her intentions; but this alarm and grief at least had the merit of allowing all importance to the affair, and consequently to her.
Her imagination conjured up visions of her sister-in-law's future years. She saw her always wringing her hands, and she was touched for her. "And then so happy as we meant to be, having a foreign tour, and seeing Paris, and so as we had talked it over together. And such friends as we always are."
This was perfectly true; Mrs. Melcombe and Laura were not of the nagging order of women, they never said sarcastic or ill-natured things to one another, the foibles of the one suited the other; and if they had a few uncomfortable words now and then between themselves, they had enoughesprit de corpsto hide this from all outsiders.
An affecting scene took place, Laura rose and threw herself intoAmelia's arms weeping passionately.
"You'll give it up, Laura dear, for my sake, and for our poor dearPeter's sake, who's gone."
No; Laura could not go quite so far in heroic self-sacrifice as that; but she did promise solemnly, that however many times Joseph might say he was dying for her, she would—what? She would promise to decide nothing till she had been to Paris.
She was very happy that morning; Amelia had not made game of her, and there had been such a scene. Laura enjoyed a scene; and Amelia had pleaded so hard and so long with her for that promise. At last she had given it. If she had not been such a remarkably foolish woman, she would have known she was glad on the whole that the promise had been extorted from her. As it was she thought she was sorry, but after a little more urging and pleading she gave up the precious valentine, and saw it devoured by the flames. It had a Birmingham postmark, and Mrs. Melcombe heard with pleasure that Joseph would be away at least a fortnight.
Laura had wanted a little excitement, just the least amusement; and if not that, just the least recognition of her place in nature as a woman, and a young one. At present, her imagination had not been long at work on this unpromising payer of the tribute. If some one, whose household ways and daily English were like her own, had come forward she would soon have forgotten Joseph; for he himself, as an individual, was almost nothing to her, it was only in his having paid the tribute that his power lay.
Late in the afternoon Mr. Augustus Mortimer arrived. He was received byMrs. Melcombe almost, as it seemed, with the devotion of a daughter.
The room was strewed with account-books and cards. It had been intended that he should make some remark about them, and then she was to say, with careless ease, "Only the accounts of the parish charities." But he courteously feigning to see none of the litter, she was put out.
He presently went to inspect the repairs and restorations, to look over the garden and the stables; and it was not till the next morning that she found occasion to ask some advice of him.
The cottages on the land were let with the farms, so that the farmers put their labourers into them, charged, it is true, very little rent, but allowed them to get very much out of repair. It was the farmers' duty to keep them in repair; but there was no agent, no one to make them do it. Moreover, they would have it that no repairs worth mentioning were wanted. Did Mr. Mortimer think if she spent the money she had devoted to charity in repairing these cottages, she could fairly consider that she had spent it in charity?
It was a nice point, certainly, for it would be improving her son's property, and avoiding disputes with valuable and somewhat unmanageable tenants; and, on the other hand, it would be escaping the bad precedent of paying for repairs out of the estate; so she went on laying this casuistry before the old man while he pulled down his shaggy white brows, and looked very stern over the whole affair. "Some of the poor old women do suffer so sadly from rheumatism," she continued, "and our parish doctor says it comes from the damp places they live in, and then there is so much fever in the lower part of the hamlet."
"You had better let me see the farmers and the cottagers," said old Augustus. "I will go into the whole affair, and tell you what I think of it."
Accordingly he went his way among the people, and if he had any sorrowful reason for being glad of what rendered it his duty to pick up all the information he could, this did not make him less energetic in fighting the farmers.
Very little, however, could be done with them; an obvious hole in a roof they would repair, a rotting door they would replace, but that was all, and he felt strongly the impolicy of taking money out of the estate to do all the whitewashing, plastering, carpenters' work, and painting that were desirable; besides which, he was sure the water was not pure that the people drank, and that they ought to have another well.
When Mrs. Melcombe heard his report of it all, and when he acknowledged that he could do hardly anything with the farmers, she wished she had not asked his advice, particularly as he chose to bring certain religious remarks into it. He was indeed a most inconveniently religious man; his religion was of a very expensive kind, and was all mixed up with his philanthropy, as if one could not be religious at all without loving those whom God loved and as if one could not love them without serving them to the best of one's power.
She listened with dismay. If it was useless to expect much of the farmers, and impolitic to take much out of the estate, what was the use of talking? But Mr. Augustus Mortimer did talk for several minutes; first he remarked on the expressed wish of his mother that all needful repairs should be attended to, then he said his brother began to feel the infirmities of age, and also was a poor man; then he made Mrs. Melcombe wince by observing that the condition of the tenements was perfectly disgraceful, and next he went on to say that, being old himself, he did not wish to waste any time, for he should have but little, and therefore as he was rich he was content to do what was wanted himself.
"This house," he continued, "is a great deal too large for the small income your son will have. Very large sums have been spent, as the will directed, in putting it into perfect repair. I am not surprised, therefore, that you have felt perplexed, but now, if you have no objection, I will have estimates made at once."
Excessively surprised, a little humiliated, but yet, on the whole, conscious that such an offer relieved her of a great responsibility, Mrs. Peter Melcombe hesitated a moment, then said in a low voice—
"Thank you, Mr. Mortimer, but you will give me a little time to think of this."
"Certainly," he answered, with all composure, "till to-morrow morning;" then he went on as if that matter was quite settled, and enough had been said about it. "There is one person whom I should much like to point out to you as an object for your charity—the old shepherd's wife who is bedridden. If you were inclined to provide some one to look after her——"
"Oh, Becky Maddison," interrupted Mrs. Melcombe; "the dear grandmother did not approve of that woman. She used to annoy her by telling an absurd ghost story."
"Indeed!"
"But still, as you think I ought to do something for her, I certainly will."
"I shall go and see her myself this afternoon," answered Mr. AugustusMortimer hastily. "I will not fail to report to you how I find her."
"Her talk was naturally painful to the dear grandmother," continued Mrs.Melcombe.
Mr. Mortimer looked keenly attentive, but he did not ask any question, and as she said no more, he almost immediately withdrew, and walked straight across the fields to the cottage of this old woman.
Nothing more was said that evening concerning the repairs, or concerning this visit; but the next morning Mr. Mortimer renewed his proposition, and after a little modest hesitation, she accepted it; then, remembering his request concerning old Becky, she told him she had that morning sent her a blanket and some soup. "And, by-the-bye, Mr. Mortimer, did she tell you the story that used to annoy the dear grandmother?" she inquired.
Mr. Mortimer was so long in answering, that she looked up at him, and when he caught her eye he answered. "Yes."
"He doesn't like it any more than his mother did," she thought, so she said no more, and he almost immediately went away to give orders about the proposed estimates.
Mrs. Melcombe and Laura made Mr. Mortimer very comfortable, and when he went away he left them highly pleased, for, having been told of their intended journey to Paris, he had proposed to them to come and spend a few days at his house, considering it the first stage of their tour.
So he departed, and no more dirt was thrown at him. The tide began to turn in favour of the Mortimers, people had seen the mild face and venerable gentleness of the Mortimer who was poor, they had now handled the gold of the one that was rich.
"Old Madam was a saint," they observed, "but she couldn't come and look arter ushersen, poor dear. Farmers areallershard on poor folk. So he was bent on having another well atop o' the hill 'stead o' the bottom. Why let him, then, if he liked! Anyhow, there was this good in it—the full buckets would be to carry down hill 'stead of up. As to the water o' the ould well being foul and breeding fevers, it might be, and then again it might not be; if folks were to be for ever considering whether water was foul, they'd never drink in peace!"
The moment he was gone, Mrs. Melcombe turned her thoughts to Laura's swain, and excited such hopes of pleasure from the visit to Paris in the mind of her sister-in-law, that Joseph's devotion began to be less fascinating to her, besides which there was something inexpressibly sweet to her imaginative mind in the notion of being thwarted and watched. She pictured to herself the fine young man haunting the lonely glen, hoping to catch a sight of her, and smiting his brow as men do in novels, sighing and groaning over his lowly birth and his slender means. She wished Joseph would write that her sister-in-law might rob her of the letter; but Joseph didn't write, he knew better. At the end of the fortnight he appeared; coming to church, and sitting in full view of the ladies, looking not half so well in his shining Sunday clothes of Birmingham make, as he had done in his ordinary working suit.
Laura was a good deal out of countenance, but Mrs. Melcombe perceived, not without surprise, that while she felt nothing but a feminine exultation in being admired, the young man's homage was both deep and real. Nothing was either fancied or feigned.
So by Monday morning Mrs. Melcombe had got ready a delightful plan to lay before Laura—she actually offered to take her to London, and fired her imagination with accounts of the concerts, the theatres and all that they were to do and see.
No mortal plumber could hold his own against such a sister-in-law. Laura let herself be carried off without having any interview with Joseph, who began to think "it was a bad job," and did not know how his supposed faithless lady wept during the railway journey. But then he did not know how completely when she went to her first oratorio she was delighted and consoled.
The longer they stayed in London the more delighted they were; so was Peter; the Polytechnic alone was worth all the joys of the country put together; but when they came back again at the end of April, and all the land was full of singing-birds, and the trees were in blossom, and the sweet smiling landscape looked so full of light, and all was so fresh and still, then the now absent Joseph got hold of Laura's imagination again; she went and gazed at the window that he had been glazing, when, as she passed, he lifted up his fine eyes and looked at her in such a particular manner.
What really had taken place was this. Joseph, with a lump of putty in his palm, was just about to dig a bit out of it with a knife that he held in his other hand. Laura passed, and when the young man looked up, she affected to feel confused, and turned away her face with a sort of ridiculous self-consciousness. Joseph was surprised, and the knife held suspended in his hand, he was staring at her when she glanced again, and naturally he was a little put out of countenance.
So Laura now walked about the place, recalled the romantic past, and if Joseph had appeared (which he did not, because he had no means of knowing that she had returned), it is highly doubtful whether Laura would ever have seen Paris.
As it was, with sighs and smiles, with regrets over a dead nosegay that the young man had given her, and with eager longings to see Paris, and perhaps Geneva, Laura spent the next fortnight, and then, taking leave of Melcombe again, was received in due time by Mr. Augustus Mortimer on the steps of his house, his son being with him.
It was nearly dinner-time, she and her sister-in-law were delighted to meet this gentleman, and find that he was going to dine that day with his father. Peter, too, was as happy as a king, for he hoped Mr. John Mortimer would and could give him information concerning all the well-remembered puppies, kittens, magpies, and white mice that he had made acquaintance with during his happy visit to the little Mortimers.
Mr. Augustus Mortimer's house was just outside the small town of Wigfield; it appeared to be quite in the country, because it was on the slope of a hill, and was so well backed up with trees that not a chimney could be seen from any of its windows. It was built with its back to the town, and commanded a pretty view over field, wood, and orchard, and also over its own beautiful lawn and slightly-sloping garden, which was divided from some rich meadows by the same little river that ran nearly two miles further on, past the bottom of John Mortimer's garden. "And there," said John Mortimer, after dinner, pointing out a chimney which could be seen against the sky, just over the tops of some trees—"there lives my uncle Daniel, in a house which belongs to his stepson, Giles Brandon; his house is just two miles from this, and mine is two miles from each of them, so that we form a triangle."
Mr. Mortimer's daughter came the next day to call on the relatives from Melcombe; she brought his step-daughters with her; and these young ladies when they returned home gave their step-brothers a succinct account of the impressions they had received.
"Provincial, both of them. The married one looks like a faded piece of wax-work. Laura Melcombe is rather pretty, but unless she is a goose, her manners, voice, and whole appearance do her the greatest injustice possible."
Mrs. Melcombe and Laura also gave judgment in the same manner when these visitors were gone.
"Mrs. Henfrey looks quite elderly. She must be several years past fifty; but I liked her kind, slow way of talking; and what a handsome gown she had on, Laura, real lace on it, and a real Maltese lace shawl!"
"She has a good jointure," said Laura; "she can afford to dress well. The girls, the Miss Grants, have graceful, easy manners, just the kind of manners I should like to have; but I can't say I thought much of their dress. I am sure those muslins must have been washed several times. In fact, they were decidedly shabby. I think it odd and old-fashioned of them always to call Mrs. Henfrey 'Sister.'"
"I do not see that; she is older than their mother was; they could not well address her by her Christian name. They do not seem to be a marrying family, and that is odd, as their mother married three times. The Grants are the children of the second marriage, are they not?"
"Yes; but three times! Did she marry three times? Ah, I remember—how shocking!"
"Shocking," exclaimed Mrs. Melcombe, "O, Laura, I consider it quite irreligious of you to say that."
Laura laughed. "But only think," she observed, "what a number of names one must remember in consequence of her three marriages. First, there is Uncle Daniel's own daughter, Mrs. Henfrey; I do not mind her; but then there is Mr. Brandon, the son of Aunt Mortimer's first husband; then these Grants, the children of her second husband; and then Valentine, uncle's son and hers by this third marriage. It's a fatigue only to think of them all!"
"People maybe taken inonce, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men. Uncommon parts require uncommon opportunities for their exertion."
Dr. Johnson.
Mrs. Henfrey in taking leave of Amelia had expressed her pleasure at the prospect of shortly seeing her again. They were all coming by invitation to lunch, the next day, at her Uncle Augustus Mortimer's house, because in the afternoon there was to be a horticultural show in the town. They always went to these shows, she continued, and this one would have a particular interest for them, as John Mortimer's gardener, who had once been their gardener, was to carry off the first prize. "And if you ask him what the prize is for," said one of the girls, "he will tell you it is for 'airly 'tates.'"
Accordingly the next day there was a gathering of Mortimers and their families. Augustus Mortimer was not present, he generally took his luncheon at the bank; but his son John, to Peter's delight, appeared with the twins, and constituting himself master of the ceremonies, took the head of the table, and desired his cousin Valentine to take the other end, and make himself useful.
Peter asked after his little love, Anastasia.
"Oh, she is very happy," said Gladys Mortimer; "she and Janie have got aWASH."
"Got what?" asked Mrs. Henfrey.
"A wash, sister," said Valentine. "I passed through the garden, and saw them with lots of tiny dolls' clothes that they had been washing in the stream spread out to bleach on the grass."
"It's odd," observed Brandon, "that so wise as children are, they should be fond of imitating us who are such fools."
"Janie has been drawing from the round, in imitation of her sisters," observed John Mortimer. "She brought me this morning a portrait of a flat tin cock, lately bought for a penny, and said, 'I drew him from the round, father.'"
By this time the dishes were uncovered and the servants had withdrawn. Laura was very happy at first. She had been taken in to luncheon by the so-called St. George, he was treating her with a sort of deference that she found quite to her mind, and she looked about her on these newly-known relatives and connections with much complacency. There was John Mortimer, with Amelia at his right hand, in the place of honour; then there were the two Miss Grants (in fresh muslin dresses), with a certain Captain Walker between them, whose twin brother, as Laura understood, had married their elder sister. This military person was insignificant in appearance and small of stature, but he was very attentive to both the young ladies. Then there was Valentine, looking very handsome, between Mrs. Henfrey and Miss Christie Grant, and being rebuked by one and advised by the other as to his carving, for he could not manage the joint before him, and was letting it slip about in the dish and splash the white sauce.
"You must give your mind to it more," said Mrs. Henfrey, "and try to hit the joints."
"It's full of bones," exclaimed Valentine in a deeply-injured voice.
"Well, laddie," said Miss Christie, "and if I'm not mistaken, ye'll find when you get more used to carving, that a breast of veal always is full of bones."
"Nobody must take any notice of him till he has finished," said Brandon. "Put up a placard on the table, 'You are requested not to speak to the man at the veal.' Now, Aunt Christie, you should say, 'aweel, aweel,' you often do so when there seems no need to correct me."
"Isn't it wonderful," observed Valentine, "that he can keep up his spirits as he does, when only last week he was weighed in the columns of theWigfield Advertiser and True Blue, and expressly informed that he was found wanting."
"If you would only let politics alone," observed Mrs. Henfrey, "theTrue Bluewould never interfere with you. I always did hate politics," she continued, with peaceable and slow deliberation.
"They are talking of some Penny Readings that St. George has been giving," said John Mortimer, for he observed a look of surprise on Laura's face.
"'Our poet,' though, has let him alone lately," remarked Valentine. "Oh I wish somebody would command Barbara to repeat his last effusion. I am sure by the look in her eyes that she knows it by heart."
"We all do," said John Mortimer's eldest daughter.
"Ah! it's a fine thing to be a public character," observed her father; "but even I aspire to some notice from theTrue Bluenext week in consequence of having old Nicholas for my gardener."
"I am very fond of poetry," said Laura simpering. "I should like to hear the poem you spoke of."
Thereupon the little girl immediately repeated the following verses:—
"If, dear friends, you've got a penny(If you haven't steal one straight),Go and buy the best of anyPenn'orth that you've bought of late.
"At the schoolroom as before(Up May Lane), or else next door(As last Monday) at the Boar,Hear the Wigfield lion roar.
"What a treat it was, good lack!Though my bench had ne'er a back,With a mild respectful gleeThere to hear, and that to see.
"Sweetly slept the men and boys,And the girls, they sighed meanwhile'O my goodness, what a voice!O my gracious, what a smile!'"
The man with no ear for music feels his sense of justice outraged when people shudder while his daughter sings. Why won't they listen to her songs as to one another's? There is no difference.
With a like feeling those who have hardly any sense of humour are half-offended when others laugh, while they seem to be shut out for not perceiving any cause. Occasionally knowing themselves to be sensible people, they think it evident that their not seeing the joke must be because it is against them.
Laura and Mrs. Melcombe experienced a certain discomfort here. Neither would have been so rude as to laugh; in fact, what was there to laugh at? They were shut out not only from the laugh, but from that state of feeling which made these cousins, including the victim, enjoy it, against one of themselves.
As for Mrs. Henfrey, who also was without any perception of the humorous side of things, she looked on with a beaming countenance; pleased with them all for being in such good spirits, whatever might be the reason, for, as she always expressed it, she did so love to see young people happy.
"It's capital," said John, but not so good as the prose reviewing they give you; and all this most excellent fun we should lose, you know, Giles, if you might have your way, and all sorts of criticism and reviewing had to be signed with the writer's name."
"But it would make the thing much more fair and moderate," said Brandon "(not that I intended to include such little squibs as this); besides, it would secure a man against being reviewed by his own rivals—or his enemies."
"Yes," said Valentine; "but that sort of thing would tell both ways."
As he spoke with great gravity Mrs. Melcombe, mainly in the kind hope of helping dear Laura's mistake into the background, asked with an air of interest what he meant.
"Well," said Valentine, with calm audacity, "to give an example. Suppose a man writes something, call it anything you please—call it a lecture if you like—say that it is partly political, and that it is published by request; and suppose further that somebody, name unknown, writes an interesting account of its scope and general merits, and it is put into some periodical—you can call it anything you please—say a county paper, for instance. The author is set in the best light, and the reviewer brings forward also some of his own views, which is quite fair——"
As he seemed to be appealing to Laura, Laura said, "Yes; perfectly fair."
"His own views—on—on the currency or anything else you like to mention." Here John Mortimer asked Mrs. Melcombe if she would take some more wine, Valentine proceeding gravely: "Now do you or do you not think that if that review had been signed by the lecturer's father, brother, or friend almost as intimate as a brother, it would have carried more weight or less in consequence?"
As several of them smiled, Mrs. Melcombe immediately felt uncomfortable again.
"If what he said was true," she said, "I cannot exactly see——" and here she paused.
"Well," said John Mortimer, observing that the attention of his keen-witted little daughter was excited, and being desirous, it seemed, to give a plainer example of what it all meant, "let us say now, for once, that I am a poet. I send out a new book, and sit quaking. The first three reviews appear. Given in little they read thus:—
"One. 'He copied from Snooks, whose immortal work, "The Loves of theLinendraper," is a comfort and a joy to our generation.'
"Two. 'He has none of the culture, the spontaneity, the suavity, the reticence, theabandon, the heating power, the cooling power, the light, the shade, or any of the other ingredients referred to by the great Small in his noble work on poesy,'
"Three. 'This man doesn't know how to write his own language.'
"As I am a poet, fancy my state of mind! I am horribly cast down; don't like to go out to dinner; am sure my butler, having read these reviews, despises me as an impostor; but while I sit sulking, in comes a dear friend and brother-poet. 'How do you know,' says he, 'that Snooks didn't write number one himself? Or perhaps one of his clique did, for whom he is to do the same thing.' I immediately shake hands with him. This is evidently his candid opinion, and I love candour in a friend; besides, we both hate Snooks. 'And it is a well-known fact,' he continues with friendly warmth, 'that Small's great work won't sell; how do you know that number two was not written by a brother or friend of the publisher's, by way of an advertisement for it?' By this time I am almost consoled. Something strikes me with irresistible force. I remember that that fellow Smith, who contested with me the election for the borough of Wigfield in eighteen hundred and fifty or sixty, has taken to literature. He was at the head of the poll on that occasion, but my committee proving that he bribed, he lost his seat. I came in. It was said that I bribed too; but to discuss that now would be out of place. I feel sure that Smith must have written number three. In fact he said those very words concerning me on the hustings."
"Gladys," said Brandon, observing the child's deep attention, "it is right you should know that the brother-poet had written a tragedy on tin-tacks. Your father reviewed it, and said no family ought to be without it."
"But you didn't bribe father, and you didn't copy from Snooks, I am sure," said Gladys, determined to defend her father, even in his assumed character.
"What was the name of yourthing, papa?" asked Barbara.
"I don't know, my dear, I have not considered that matter."
"It was called 'The Burglar's Betrothal,'" said Valentine.
"And do you think that Snooks really wrote that review?" she continued, contemplating her father through her eyeglass, for she was shortsighted.
"If you ask my sincere opinion, my dear, I must say that I think he did not; but if some other man had signed it, I should have been sure. Which now I never shall be."
Here the door was slowly opened, and the portly butler appeared, bearing in his own hands a fine dish of potatoes; from the same plot, he remarked to John, with those that had obtained the prize. The butler looked proud.
"I feel as much elated," said John, "as if I had raised them myself. IsNicholas here?"
"Yes, sir, and he has been saying that if the soil of your garden could only be kept dry, they would be finer still."
"Dry!" exclaimed Valentine, "you can't keep anything dry in such a climate as this—not even your jokes."
"Hear, hear," said John Mortimer; "if the old man was not a teetotaler, and I myself were not so nearly concerned in this public recognition ofourmerits, I should certainly propose his health."
"Don't let such considerations sway you," exclaimed Valentine rising. "Jones, will you tell him that you left me on my legs, proposing his health in ginger-pop—'Mr. Nicholas Swan.'"
Mr. Nicholas Swan. Not one word of the ridiculous speech which followed the toast was heard by Laura, nor did she observe the respectful glee with which the butler retired, saying, "I think we've got a rise out of theTrue Bluenow, sir. I'm told, sir, that the potatoes shown by theother side, compared with these, seemed no bigger than bullets."
Mr. Nicholas Swan. A sudden beating at the heart kept Mrs. Melcombe silent, and as for Laura, she had never blushed so deeply in her life. Joseph's name was Swan, and it flashed into her mind in an instant that he had told her his father was a gardener.
She sat lost in thought, and nervous, scarcely able to answer when some casual remark was made to her, and the meal was over before she had succeeded in persuading herself that this man could not be Joseph's father, because her coming straight to the place where he lived wastooimprobable.
"There goes Swanny across the lawn, father," said one of the twins, and thereupon they all went to the bow-window, and calling the old man, began to congratulate him, while he leaned his arms on the window-frame, which was at a convenient height from the ground, and gave them an account of his success.
They grouped themselves on the seats near. Mrs. Melcombe took the chair pushed up for her where, as John Mortimer said, she could see the view. Laura followed, having snatched up a book of photographs, with which she could appear to be occupied, for she did not want to attract the gardener's attention by sitting farther than others did from the window; and as she mechanically turned the leaves, she hearkened keenly to Swan's remarks, and tried to decide that he was not like Joseph.
"The markiss, sir? Yes, sir, his gardener, Mr. Fergus, took the best prize for strawberries and green peas. You'll understand that those airly tates were from seedlings of my own—that's where their great merit lies, and why they were first. They gave Blakis the cottagers' prize for lettuce; that I uphold was wrong. Said I, 'Those lettuce heads that poor Raby shows air the biggest ever I set my eyes on,' 'Swan,' says Mr. Tikey, 'we must encourage them that has good characters.' 'Well, now, if you come to think, sir,' says I, 'it's upwards of ten years since Raby stole that pair of boots,' and I say (though they was my boots) that should be forgot now, and he should have the cottagers' prize, but stealing never gets forgiven."
"Because it's such an inconvenient vice to those that have anything to lose," said Miss Christie.
"Yes, that's just it, ma'am. You see the vices and virtues have got overhauled again, and sorted differently to suit our convenience. Stealing's no worseproblyin the eyes of our Maker than lying and slandering; not so bad, mayhap, as a deepsweer. But folks air so tenacious like, they must have every stick and stone respected that they reckon theirs."
"We shouldn't hear ye talking in thispheelosophicalway," said Miss Christie, "if yere new potatoes had been stolen last night, before ye got them to the show."
Laura took a glance at the gardener, as, with all the ease of intimacy, he leaned in at the window and gave his opinion on things in general. He was hale, and looked about sixty years of age. He was dressed in his Sunday suit, and wore an orange bandana handkerchief loosely tied round his neck. He had keen grey eyes. Joseph's eyes were dark and large, and Joseph was taller, and had a straighter nose.
"Swan's quite right," remarked Valentine; "we are a great deal too tenacious about our belongings. Now I've heard of a fellow who was waiting about, to horsewhip another fellow, and when this last came out he had a cane in his hand. His enemy snatched it from him, and laid it about his back as much as he liked, split it and broke it on him, and then carried off the bits. Now what would you have done, Swan, in such a case?"
"Well, sir, in which case? I can't consider anyhow as I could be in the case of him that was whipped."
"I mean what would you have done about the cane?—the property? A magistrate had to decide. The man that had been horsewhipped said the other had spoilt his cane, which was as good as new, and then had stolen it. The other said he did not carry off the cane till it had been so much used that it was good for nothing, and he didn't call that stealing."
"Well, sir," said Mr. Swan, observing a smile on the face of one and another, "I think I'll leave that there magistrate to do the best he can with that there case, and I'll abide by his decision."
"When ye come out in the character of Apollo," said Miss Christie to Valentine, "ye should compose yourself into a grander attitude, and not sit all of a heap while ye're drawing the long-bow. Don't ye agree with me, Mrs. Melcombe?"
Mrs. Melcombe looked up and smiled uneasily; but the gardener had no uncomfortable surmises respecting her, as she had respecting him, and when he caught her eye he straightened himself up, and said with pleasant civility, while putting on his hat on purpose to touch it and take it off again, "'Servant, ma'am; my son Joseph has had a fine spell of work, as I hear from him, at your place since I saw you last autumn, and a beautiful place it is, I'm told."
Mrs. Melcombe answered this civil speech, and John Mortimer said, "How is Joseph getting, on, Swan?"
"Getting on first-rate, thank you kindly, sir," replied Swan, leaning down into his former easy attitude, and keeping his Sunday hat under his arm.
"That boy, though I say it, allers was as steady as old Time. He's atBirmingham now. I rather expect he'll be wanting tosettleshortly."
As he evidently wished to be asked a further question, Mrs. Henfrey did ask one.
"No, ma'am, no," was the reply; "he have not told me nor his mother the young woman's name; but he said if he got her he should be the luckiest fellow that ever was." Here, from intense confusion and shyness, Laura dropped the book, St. George picked it up for her, and nobody thought of connecting the fall with the story, the unconscious Nicholas continuing. "So thereby his mother judged that it would come to something, for that's what a young chap mostly says when he has made up his mind; but I shall allers say, sir," he went on, "that with the good education as I gave him, it's a pity he took to such a poor trade. He airly showed a bent for it; I reckon it was the putty that got the better of him."
"Ah," said John Mortimer, "and I only wonder, Swan, that it didn't get the better of me! I used to lay out a good deal of pocket-money in it at one time, and many a private smash have I perpetrated in the panes of out-houses, and at the back of the conservatory, that I might afterwards mend them with my own putty and tools. I can remember my father's look of pride and pleasure when he would pass and find me so quietly, and, as he thought, so meritoriously employed."
And now this ordeal was over. The gardener was suffered to depart, and the ladies went up-stairs to dress for the flower-show.
"Oh, Amelia!" exclaimed Laura, pressing her cold hands to her burning cheeks, "I feel as if I almost hated that man. What business had he to talk of Joseph in that way?"
Amelia, on the contrary, was very much pleased with Swan, because he had clearly shown that he was ignorant of this affair. "He seems a very respectable person," she replied. "His cottage, I know, is near the end of John Mortimer's garden. I've seen it; but I never thought of asking his name. It certainly would be mortifying for you to have to go and stay there with him and Joseph's mother. I suppose, though, that the Mortimers would have to call."
Amelia felt a certain delight in presenting this picture to Laura.
"I would never go near them!" exclaimed Laura, very angry with her sister-in-law.
"Why not?" persisted Amelia, determined to make Laura see things as they were. "You could not possibly wish to divide a man from his own family; they have never injured you."
"Oh that he and I were on a desert island together," said Laura. She had often said that before to Amelia. She now felt that if Joseph's father and mother were there also, and there was nobody else to see, she should not mind their presence; besides, it would be convenient, they would act almost as servants.
Amelia very seldom had intuitions; but one seemed to visit her then. "Do you know, Laura, it really seems to meless shockingthat you should be attached to Joseph (if you are, which I don't believe), than that you should be so excessively ashamed of it, with no better cause."
This she said quite sincerely, having risen for the moment into a clearer atmosphere than that in which she commonly breathed. It was a great advance for her; but then, on the other hand, she had never felt so easy about the result as that old man's talk had now made her. Laura never could do it!
So off they set to the flower-show, which was held under a large tent in a field. Laura heard the hum and buzz about her; the jolly wives of the various gardeners and florists admiring their husbands' prizes; the band of the militia playing outside; Brandon's delightful voice—how she wished that Joseph's was like it!—all affected her imagination; together with the strong scent of flowers and strawberries and trodden grass, and the mellow light let down over them through the tent, and the moving flutter of dresses and ribbons as the various ladies passed and repassed, almost all being adorned with little pink and blue flowers, if only so much as a rose-bud or a forget-me-not—for a general election was near, and they were "showing their colours" (a custom once almost universal, and which was still kept up in that old-fashioned place).
Wigfield was a droll little town, and in all its ways was intensely English. There was hardly a woman in it or round it who really and intelligently concerned herself about politics; but they were all "blues" or "pinks," and you might hear them talk for a week together without finding out which was the Liberal and which was the Conservative colour; but the "pinks" all went to the pink shops, and the "blues" would have thought it WRONG not to give their custom to those tradesmen who voted "blue."
You might send to London for anything you thought you wanted; but the Marchioness herself, the only great lady in the neighbourhood, knew better than to order anything in Wigfield from a shop of the wrong colour.
The "pinks" that day were happy. "Markiss," in the person of his gardener, had three prizes; "Old Money-Bags" (Mr. Augustus Mortimer's name at election time) had two prizes, in the person of his son's gardener; in fact, the "pinks" triumphed almost at the rate of two to one, and yet, to their immortal honour, let it be recorded that the "blues" said it was all fair.
John Mortimer shortly went to fetch his father, and returned with him and all his own younger children. Mr. Mortimer had long been allowed to give three supplementary prizes, on his own account, to some of the exhibitors who were cottagers, and on this occasion his eyes, having been duly directed by his son, were observed to rest with great admiration on the big lettuces. Raby's wife could hardly believe it when she saw the bright sovereign laid on the broad top of one of them; while Mr. Swan, as one of the heroes of the day, and with Mrs. Swan leaning on his arm, looked on approvingly, the latter wearing a black silk gown and a shawl covered with fir-cones. She was a stout woman, and had been very pretty—she was supposed by her husband to be so still. On this occasion, pointing out the very biggest and brightest bunch of cut-flowers he saw, Mr. Swan remarked complacently—
"They remind me of you, Maria."
"And which on 'em came from our garden, dear," said Mrs. Swan, meaning which came from Mr. John Mortimer's garden.
Swan pointed out several. "Mr. Fergus came to me yesterday, and said he, 'We want a good lot of flowers to dress up the tent. You'll let us have some?' 'Certain,' said I; 'we allers do.' Then he marches up to my piccotees. 'Now these,' said he, 'would just suit us. We could do very well with pretty nigh all of 'em.' 'Softly,' said I; 'flowers you'll have; but leave the rest to me. If I'm to have one of my teeth drawn, it's fair I should say which.' Yes, William Raby air improved; but I shall allers say as nothing ever can raise that idle dog Phil. Raby. I don't hope for folks that take parish pay."
The said William Raby came in the evening and brought the big vegetables, wrapped in an old newspaper, for Mr. Mortimer's acceptance, and when the old man came out into his hall to speak to him, Raby said—
"It wer' not only the money. My wife,herfeels, too—when a man's been down so long—as it does him a sight o' good to get a mouthful o' pride, and six penn'orth o' praise to make him hold his head up."
"St. George was dull yesterday," observed John Mortimer, when he and his father were alone the next morning in the bank parlour. "He was not like himself; he flashed out now and then, but I could see that it was an effort to him to appear in good spirits. I thought he had got over that attachment, for he seemed jolly enough some time ago."
"When does he sail for Canada?" asked the old man.
"At the end of this week, and I believe mainly for the sake of having something to do. It is very much to be lamented that my uncle did not manage to make him take up some profession. Here are his fine talents almost wasted; and, besides that, while he is running about on his philanthropic schemes, Valentine steals the heart of the girl he loves."
"But," said his father, "I think the young fellow is quite unconscious that St. George likes her."
"My dear father, then he has no business to be. He ought to know that such a thing is most probable. Here is St. George shipwrecked, floating on a raft, and half starved, when this impudent little yacht, that seems, by the way she flies about, to know the soundings of all harbours by special intuition—this impudent little yacht comes and looks round the corner of every wave, and actually overhauls the high seas till she finds him, and there the first time he opens his eyes is that sweet, quaint piece of innocence leaning over him. He is shut up with her for ten days or so; she is as graceful as a sylph, and has a tender sort of baby face that's enough to distract a man, and I don't see how he could possibly leave that vessel without being in love with her, unless some other woman had already got hold of his heart. No, even if St. George did not know himself that he cared for her, he ought to have been allowed time to find it out before any one else spoke. And there is Val in constant correspondence with her, and as secure as possible!"
Conversation then turned to the Melcombes. Old Augustus spoke uneasily of the boy, said he looked pale, and was not grown.
"He gets that pallor from his mother," said John. "I should not like to see any of my children such complete reproductions of either parent as that boy is of her. Family likeness is always strongest among the uncultivated, and among lethargic and stupid people. If you go down into the depths of the country, to villages, where the parents hardly think at all, and the children learn next to nothing, you'll find whole families of them almost exactly alike, excepting in size."
His father listened quietly, but with the full intention of bringing the conversation back to Peter as soon as he could.
"It is the same with nations," proceeded John, "those who have little energy and no keen desire for knowledge are ten times more alike in feature, complexion, and countenance than we are. No! family likeness is all very well in infancy, before the mind has begun to work on the face; but as a man's children grow, they ought to be less and less alike every year."
"That little fellow," said the father, "seems to me to be exactly like what he was a year ago."
"I observe no change."
"Do you think he is an average child, John?"
John laughed. "I think that little imp of mine, Hughie, could thrash him, if they chose to fight, and he is nearly three years the younger of the two. No, I do not think he is an average child; but I see nothing the matter with him."
Grand was not exempt from the common foibles of grandfathers, and he was specially infatuated in favour of the little Hugh, who was a most sweet-tempered and audacious child, and when his son went on, "Those two little scamps are getting so troublesome, that they will have to be sent to school very shortly," he said, almost in a grumbling tone, "They're always good enough when they're withme."
So, in course of time, Mrs. and Miss Melcombe set forth on their travels; it was their ambition to see exactly the same places and things that everybody else goes to see, and they made just such observations on them as everybody else makes.
In the meantime Brandon, not at all aware that several people besides John Mortimer had noticed that he was out of spirits—Brandon also prepared to set forth on his travels. He had persuaded several families to emigrate, and had also persuaded himself that he must go to their destination himself, that he might look out for situations for them, and settle them before the winter came on. He was very busy for some days arranging his affairs; he meant to be away some time. Mr. Mortimer knew it—perhaps he knew more, for he said not a word by way of dissuasion, but only seemed rather depressed. The evening, however, before Brandon was to start, as, at about eight o'clock, he sat talking with his step-father, the old man lifted up his head and said to him—
"You find me quite as clear in my thoughts and quite as well able to express them as usual, don't you, St. George?"
"Yes," answered the step-son, feeling, however, a little dismayed, for the wistful earnestness with which this was said was peculiar.
"If you should ever be asked," continued Daniel Mortimer, "you would be able to say that you had seen no signs of mental decay in me these last few months?"
"Yes, I should."
"Don't disturb yourself, my dear fellow. I am as well as usual; better since my illness than I was for some time before. I quite hope to see you again; but in case I do not, I have a favour to ask of you."
The step-son assured him with all affection and fervour that he would attend to his wish, whatever it might be.
"I have never loved anything that breathed as I loved your mother," continued the old man, as if still appealing to him, "and you could hardly have been dearer to me if you had been my own."
"I know it," said Brandon.
"When you were in your own study this morning at the top of the house——"
"Yes, my liege?"
"I sent Valentine up to you with a desk. You were in that room, were you not?"
"Oh, yes."
"A small desk, that was once your mother's—it has a Bramah lock."
"I noticed that it had, and that it was locked."
"What have you done with it?"
"Valentine said you wished me to take particular care of it, so I locked it into my cabinet, where my will is, as you know, and where are most of my papers."
"Thank you; here is the key. You think you shall never forget where that desk is, Giles?"
"Never! such a thing is quite impossible."
"If I am gone when you return, you are to open that desk. You will find in it a letter which I wrote about three years ago; and if I have ever deserved well of you and yours, I charge you and I implore you to do your very best as regards what I have asked of you in that letter."
"The log's burn red; she lifts her headFor sledge-bells tinkle and tinkle, O lightly swung.'Youth was a pleasant morning, but ah! to think 'tis fled,Sae lang, lang syne,' quo' her mother, 'I, too, was young.'
"No guides there are but the North star,And the moaning forest tossing wild arms before,The maiden murmurs, 'O sweet were yon bells afar,And hark! hark! hark! for he cometh, he nears the door.'
"Swift north-lights show, and scatter and go.How can I meet him, and smile not, on this cold shore?Nay, I will call him, 'Come in from the night and the snow,And love, love, love in the wild wood, wander no more.'"
An hour after the conversation between Brandon and old Daniel Mortimer, they parted, and nothing could be more unlike than his travels were and those of the Melcombes. First, there was Newfoundland to be seen. It looked at a distance like a lump of perfectly black hill embedded in thick layers of cotton wool; then as the vessel approached, there was its harbour, which though the year was nearly half over, was crackling all over with brittle ice. Then there was Halifax Bay, blue as a great sapphire, full of light, and swarming with the spawn of fish. And there was the Bras d'Or, boats all along this yellow spit of sand, stranded, with their sails set and scarcely flapping in the warm still air; and then there was the port where he was to meet his emigrants, for they had not crossed in the same ship with him; and after that there were wild forests and unquiet waters far inland, where all night the noise of the "lumber" was heard as it leaped over the falls; while at dawn was added the screaming of white-breasted fowl jostling one another in their flight as they still thronged up towards the north.
We almost always think of Canada as a cold country. Its summer counts for little; nor meadow-grass waist deep, over which swarms of mosquitoes hover, tormenting man and horse; nor sunshine that blisters the face, nor natural strawberry-grounds as wide as Yorkshire, nor a sky clearer, purer, and more intensely blue than any that spans Italian plains. No; Canada means winter, snow, quivering northern lights, log-fires, and sledge-bells!
Brandon found Canada hot, but when he had finished his work there, he left it, and betook himself to the south, while it became the Canada of our thought.
He went through the very heart of the States, and pleased himself with wild rough living in lands where the rich earth is always moist and warm, and primeval forest still shelters large tracts of it.
Camping out at night, sometimes in swampy hollows, it was strange to wake when there was neither moon nor star, and see the great decaying trees that storm had felled or age had ruined, glow with a weird phosphorescent light, which followed the rents in them, and hovered about the seams in their bark, making them look like the ghosts of huge alligators prone in the places they had ravaged, and giving forth infernal gleams. Stranger yet it was to see in the dark, moving near the pine-wood fire, two feeble wandering lights, the eyes of some curious deer that had come to gaze and wonder, and show its whereabouts by those soft reflections.
And then, when he and his companions wanted venison, it was strange to go forth into the forest in the dark, two of them bearing a great iron pot slung upon a long rod, and heaped with blazing pine-cones. Then several pairs of these luminous spots would be seen coming together, and perhaps a dangerous couple would glare down from a tree, and a wounded panther would come crashing into their midst.
After that, he went and spent Christmas in Florida. He had had frequent letters from home and from his step-father. He wished to keep away till a certain thing was settled one way or the other, but every letter showed that it was still unsettled; the sea-nymph that he had been wasting his heart upon had not yet decided to accept his brother's, but there was every likelihood that she would.
As time went on, however, he felt happy in the consciousness that absence was doing its work upon him, and that change had refreshed his mind. He was beginning to forget her. When the woman whom one loves is to marry one's brother, and that brother happens to be of all the family the one whom one prefers, what quality can be so admirable as inconstancy?
Still, for a man who was really forgetting, he argued the matter too much in his mind. Even when he got far south, among the Florida keys, and saw the legions of the heron and the ibis stalking with stately gait along the wet sand, and every now and then thrusting in their "javelin bills," spiking and bringing out long wriggling flashes of silver that went alive down their throats, he would still be thinking it over. Yes; he was forgetting her. He began to be in better spirits. He was in very good spirits one day in January when, quite unknown to him, the snow was shovelled away from the corner of a quiet churchyard in which his mother slept, and room was made beside her for the old man who had loved him as his own.
Old Daniel Mortimer had no suchfollowingas had attended the funeral of his mother, and no such peaceful sunshine sleeping on a landscape all blossom and growth. The wind raged, and the snow whirled all about his grave and in it. The coffin was white before the first clod of earth was thrown on it, and the mourners were driven out of the churchyard, when the solemn service was over, by such gusts of storm and whirling wind as they could hardly stand against.
His will was read. He had hardly anything to leave. His directions were very simple and few, and there was a little desk locked up in a cabinet that nobody thought about, and that the one person who could have opened it supposed to concern exclusively himself. So when he came, six months after, and looked about him with regretful affection; when he had put the old man's portrait up in a place of honour, and looked to the paying of all the debts, for everything, even to the furniture, was now his own; when he had read the will, and sealed up all such papers as he thought his half-brother Valentine might afterwards want to refer to—he betook himself to his own particular domain, his long room in the top of the house. There, locking himself in, he opened his cabinet, and taking out the little desk, sat down to look for and read this letter.
The desk was soon opened. He lifted one half, saw several old miniatures which had belonged to his own father's family, a lock of his father's hair which he remembered to have seen in his mother's possession, and one or two trinkets. No letter.
It was not without some slight trepidation that he opened the other side, and there, nothing else being with it, a large letter sealed with black and directed to himself in his step-father's well-known hand, it was lying.
As he took the letter up, a sensation so faint, so ethereal that it is hard to describe or characterize it, but which most of us have felt at least once, came over him, or rather came about him, as if something from without suggested a presence.
He was free from any sensation of fear, but he chose to speak; lifting up his face as if the old man had been standing before him, he said aloud, "Yes, I promised." The feeling was gone as he spoke, and he broke the seal.
A long letter. His eyes, as it was folded, fell first on these surprising words, "I forbade my mother to leave her property to me," and then, "I have never judged her," the aged writer continued, "for in her case I know not what I could have done."
Brandon laid the letter down, and took a moment for thought, before he could make up his mind to read it through. Some crime, some deep disgrace, he perceived was about to be confided to him. With a hurried sense of dislike and shrinking from acquaintance with it, he wondered whether his own late mother had known anything of it, then whether he was there called upon to divulge it now, and to act. If not, he argued with himself, why was it to be confided to him?
Then he addressed himself to his task, and read the letter through, coming to its last word only to be still more surprised, as he perceived plainly that beyond what he could gather from those two short sentences already quoted, nothing was confided or confessed, nothing at all—only a request was made to him, and that very urgently and solemnly, but it concerned not himself, but his young brother Valentine, for not content with repudiating the family property for himself, the old father was desirous, it was evident, through his step-son, to stand in the way and bar his own son's very remote chance of inheriting it either.
A thing that is very unexpected and moderately strange, we meet with wide-opened eyes, with a start and perhaps exclamations; but a thing more than strange, utterly unaccounted for, quite unreasonable, and the last thing one could have supposed possible as coming from the person who demanded it, is met in far quieter fashion.
Brandon leaned back in his chair and slowly looked about him. He was conscious that he was drawing deeper breath than usual, and that his heart beat quickly, but he was so much surprised that for the moment his thoughts appeared to scatter themselves about, and he knew not how to marshal them and make them help him as to what this might mean.
Mystery in romance and in tales is such a common vulgar thing, in tragedy and even in comedy it is so completely what we demand and expect, that we seldom consider what an astonishing and very uncommon thing it is when it appears in life. And here in a commonplace, well-conducted, happy, and united family was a mystery pointing to something that one of its best-loved members had never had a hint of. Whatever it was, it concerned a place little more, than fifty miles off, and a man in whose presence he had lived from his early childhood; the utmost caution of secrecy was demanded, and the matter spoken of entirely changed the notions he had always held concerning his step-father, whom he had thought he knew better than any man living. When one had believed that one absolutely understood another, how it startles the mind to discover that this is a mistake! A beautiful old man this had been—pious, not very worldly-wise, but having a sweetness of nature, a sunny smile, and a native ease about him that would not have been possible without a quiet conscience. This he had possessed, but "I forbade my mother to leave her property to me." His step-son turned back the page, and looked at those words again. Then his eyes fell lower. "In her case I know not what I could have done." "When did he forbid this—was it ten years ago, twenty years, fifty years? He was really very well off when he married my mother. Now where did he get the property that he lost by his speculations? Not by the law; his profession never brought him in more than two hundred a year. Oh! he had it from the old cousin that he and Grand often talk of, old John Mortimer. And that's where the old silver plate came from. Of course, and where John got his name.
"We always knew, I think, that there was an aged mother; now why did I take for granted that she must be in her second childhood? I wonder whether John put that into my head. I think I did remark to him once when I was a boy and he was living at home, that it was odd there was no portrait of her in either of the houses. (But no more there is of Grand now I come to think of it; John never could make him sit.) Before the dear old man got so infirm he used generally to go out about once a year and come back in low spirits, not liking to be questioned. He may have gone then to see his mother, but I know sister used to think he went to see the relations of that wretched woman, his first wife. Who shall say now?"
And then he sat down and thought and thought, but nothing came of his thinking. Peter Melcombe, so far as he knew, was perfectly well; that was a comfort. Valentine was very docile; that was also a comfort; and considering that what his father had wished for him nearly four years ago was actually coming to pass, and everything was in train for his going to one of the very best and healthiest of our colonies, there seemed little danger that even if Melcombe fell to him he should find the putting it from him a great act of self-denial.
And what a strange thing it was, Brandon thought, that through the force of circumstances he himself should have been made to bring about such an unlikely thing! That so young a man should want to marry was strange enough. It was more strange that he should have fixed on the only woman in the world that his brother wanted. This said brother had thought it the very climax of all that was strange that it should have devolved on him who had command of money and who knew the colonies, to make this early marriage possible. But surely the climax of strangeness was rather here, that he had all this time been working as if on purpose to bring about the longing desire of his old step-father, which till then he had never heard of, depriving Valentine as much as was possible of his freedom, shutting him up to the course his father wanted him to follow, and preparing to send him as far as in this world he could be sent from the dreaded precincts of Melcombe.
Brandon had devoted out of his moderate patrimony a thousand pounds each to his step-brother and his step-sisters. In the case of Valentine he had done more; he had in a recent visit to New Zealand bought some land with a dwelling-house on it, and to this place it was arranged that immediately on his marriage Valentine should sail.
Brandon felt a strong desire to go and look at Melcombe, for his step-father's conduct with regard to it kept coming back to his mind with ever-fresh surprise; but though he searched his memory it could yield him nothing, not a hint, not a look, from any one which threw the least light on this letter.
"But that there's crime at the core of it, or some deep disgrace," he soliloquized, "appears to me most evident, and I take his assurance in its fullest meaning that he had nothing to do with it."
The next morning, having slept over the contents of the letter, he went to his upper room, locked himself in, and read it again. Then after pausing a while to reconsider it, he went up to the wall to look at a likeness of Dorothea Graham. Valentine had a photographing machine, and had filled the house with portraits of himself and his beloved. This was supposed to be one of the best. "Lucky enough that I had the sense to leave this behind me," thought Brandon. "Yes, you sweet thing, I am by no means breaking my heart now about you and your love for that boy. You are sure to marry him; you have a faithful heart, so the best thing for him will be to let you marry as soon as possible. I'll tell him so as we walk to John Mortimer's to-day. I'll tell him he may do it as soon as he likes."
Accordingly as about six o'clock he and Valentine walked through a wood, across a common, and then over some fields, Brandon began to make some remarks concerning the frequent letters that passed between these youthful lovers. "It is not to be supposed," he observed, "that any lady would correspond with you thus for years if she had not fully made up her mind to accept you in the end."
"No," answered Valentine with perfect confidence; "but she knows that I promised my father to wait a few months more before I decidedly engaged myself, but for that promise I was to have had an answer from her half a year ago."
Brandon fully believed that Dorothea Graham loved his brother, and that her happiness was in his own hands. He had found it easy to put the possibility of an early marriage in Valentine's way, but nothing could well go forward without his sanction, and since his return he had hitherto felt that the words which would give it were too difficult for him to say. Now, however, that remarkable letter, cutting in across the usual current of his thoughts, had thrown them back for awhile. So that Dorothea seemed less real, less dear, less present to him.
The difficult words were about to be said.
"If she knows why you do not speak, and waits, there certainly is an understanding between you, which amounts almost to the same thing."
"Yes," said Valentine, "and in August,as she knows, I shall ask her again."
"Then," said Brandon, almost taking Valentine's breath away with sudden delight, "I think, old fellow, that when she has once said 'yes,' you had better make short work with the engagement; you will never be more ready to marry than you are now; you are a few months older than John was when he went and did it; and here you are, with your house in New Zealand ready built, your garden planted, a flock of sheep bought, and all there is to do is to turn out the people now taking care of the place, as soon as you are ready to come in."
Brandon was standing on a little plank which bridged a stream about two feet wide; he had turned to say this, for Valentine was behind him.
Valentine received the communication first with silence, then with a shout of triumph, after which he ran completely round his brother several times, jumping over the stream and flourishing a great stick that he held, with boyish ecstasy, not at all dignified, but very sincere. When he had made at least three complete circles, and jumped the stream six times, Giles gravely walked on, and Valentine presently followed, wiping his forehead.
"Nobody could have expressed my own sentiments in more charming English," he exclaimed; "I never heard such grammar in my life; what a brick you are, St. George!"
Giles had great faith in his theory that absence always cured love, also in his belief that his was cured and half forgotten. At that moment he experienced a sharp pang, however, that was not very like forgetfulness, but which Valentine converted almost into self-scorn when he said—
"You know, Giles, she always did show the most undisguised liking for me from our first meeting; and then look how constant she has been, and what beautiful letters she writes, always trying, too, to improve me. Of course I cannot even pretend to think she would not have engaged herself to me months ago if I might have asked her."
"All true, perfectly true," he thought to himself; "he loves her and she loves him, and I believe if she had never met with Valentine, she would still never have married me. What a fool I am!"
"Why wouldn't you take this view of things yesterday, when I tried to make you?" asked Valentine.
"I was not ready for it," answered Giles, "or it was not ready for me."
Thereupon they passed through a wicket-gate into a kind of glen or wilderness, at the end of John Mortimer's garden, and beyond the stream where his little girls acted Nausicaa and his little boys had preserves of minute fishes, ingeniously fenced in with sticks and fine netting.
"There's Grand," exclaimed Valentine, "they've brought him out to look at their water-snails. What a venerable old boy he is! he looks quite holy, doesn't he?"
"Hold your tongue," said Brandon, "they'll hear you. He's come to see their newts; they had a lot yesterday at the bottom of the punt. Little Hugh had one in his hand, a beast with an orange breast, and it was squinting up at him."