CHAPTER XXIXTHE HALF LOAFHARRYwas in a terrible state. Nevertheless, though he kept carefully out of his father’s way, he poured out the tumult of his heart to his mother, for she had told him of her visit to Crishowell, encouraging him to talk, and thinking it better that he should have some sort of safety-valve. And talk he did.Late that night he was pacing about in her dressing-room, that dressing-room which was so often the goal of those who sought to ease their souls. The Squire fumed there, Harry brought various sporting interests for discussion, and Llewellyn would steal up from the smoking-room to thrash out farm perplexities. Bob and Tom, with their regiments in India, found their minds turning sometimes to that particular spot. The carpet was worn and threadbare, worn with the coming and going of many feet.To give up Isoline simply never entered Harry’s head, and, had he been inclined to do so, the opposition he met with would have sufficed to keep his constancy alight. Again and again did he assure Lady Harriet that he would never, never change, breaking between his assurances into rhapsodies over the beauties and graces of his beloved. He heard from her that she had not seen Isoline at the Vicarage, and that though Mr. Lewis had held by the Squire’s decision, he had said nothing about his niece’s feelings. He was not disquieted on that score, for he did not dream that she would not reflect hisown fidelity like a mirror. How could she, having made him such a gift, take it back at the first breath of adversity? To think of such a thing was to insult her.For himself he had no misgivings. It was hard, but what others had done he could do; he could wait, and he would. As soon as he had been to Crishowell—and he meant to go there next day—he would be off to London, where he might cast about for work and take his place among the bread-winners of the world. These intentions in a youth educated to no special calling hardly seemed so absurd then as they would now, for there were more snug places into which an impecunious young gentleman could be hoisted in those days, and he had many influential friends.Lady Harriet did not try to turn him from any of these resolutions, and she kissed him with special tenderness as they said good-night, but her heart sank in her, for she saw that he stood between the devil and the deep sea. There was that in his face which told her that he was harder held this time than he had been by any of his former devotions. To lose his love would go ill with him no doubt, but to win her might even go worse. She went to bed weary in mind and body and with no zest for the morning; the household seemed out of joint, and she missed Llewellyn.Harry reached Crishowell Vicarage next day to find Howlie sitting in an easy-chair at the foot of the garden. He had been allowed to go out for the first time, and was installed near the fence, where he could see the passers-by and talk to strolling acquaintances. His face lit up with interest as he recognized the approaching rider.“Oi can’t ’old the ’orse for yew this toime,” he said, raising his bandaged arms as his friend dismounted.He had never wavered in his allegiance to Harry; though Llewellyn had tended him, fed him, and stayed him up in his hours of suffering, though he depended upon him, trusted him, and had remarked to the cook that he was a “rare good one,” it was “the young general” who had his admiration and whoseimage had never been eclipsed by the younger brother’s more solid qualities.“S’pose yew be come to see miss?” he observed, when the inquiries about the burnt hands were over.Harry did not answer.“Where is Mr. Llewellyn?” he asked.“Gone out. ’E says ’e’s goin’ ’ome to-morrow.”“You will be sorry, I expect,” said Harry.“Oi believe yew. Oi loike ’im an’ ’e loikes me an’ Parson, though ’e don’t think much o’ miss. Be yew come to see ’er?”“Is she at home?” asked the young man, ignoring the other’s persistence.“Settin’ up in ’er room.”At this moment Harry looked up and saw the face of Isoline for an instant at the window; it disappeared immediately, but not before the two pairs of eyes had met.Vexation stood in the feminine pair as its owner drew back her head; she had been tempted to look out by the sound of the voices below, and in that instant her unwelcome lover had seen her. She had spent a great deal of time up-stairs that day, her ears strained for any sound of an arrival. She wore her walking-boots and her hat lay within reach, so that she might run out as she had done before. It was not perhaps the most ennobling way of meeting a difficulty, but it had the merit of being extremely safe.For very shame she could not escape now. She grew quite hot, anger with herself for her carelessness, with circumstances, with her uncle, all welled up in her, and gave her some of the feelings that a rat must have when there is nothing but the bare corner behind him and a dog in front.Harry went up to the house and found the Vicar in the orchard.“I expected you,” said the old man as the young one began rapidly to explain his presence.“Mr. Lewis, let me see Isoline.”The Vicar took him by the arm. “You had much betternot, believe me,” he said; “it will do no good, Harry, and it will give you both pain.”“If you think I will ever consent to give her up, you mistake me. You believe you are doing right, I know, but it is no use, sir. I love her and she loves me, and we will never let anything divide us.”The Vicar looked into the honest, excited face, a face full of trust without misgiving or concealment.“I must see her, sir, indeed I must,” Harry continued. “If you were I, you would say the same.”“If I were you,” said the Vicar, “I should do exactly as you are doing. I haven’t always been an old man, and I sometimes fear I have never been a wise one. You can see her, Harry, but if you would only accept this quietly you would spare yourself. She will tell you what I am telling you now; she is an obedient girl, and she knows what your father and I think.”The colour died out of Harry’s face.“You mean that she will give me up?” he exclaimed.“She has told me that she will not engage herself without my consent.”A cold, intangible fear, like a breath from the inevitable, hovered round Harry for a moment, but he would not realize the shock it gave him.“She thinks herself that you had better not meet,” added the Vicar, averting his look and fixing it on a bough where the last blossoms lingered in a ragged brown cluster; the bloom was almost over, and every puff of wind scattered the grass with withering petals.“But I can’t go without a word. Oh, let me see her! Beg her to speak to me, Mr. Lewis. I saw her at the window as I came in. It is only for a moment—it is so little to ask.”“Well, if you must, I will tell her. Oh, Harry, Harry, but you have made a mistake!” exclaimed the Vicar, unable to repress himself entirely as he turned away.“I suppose Mr. Fenton wants to see me,” said Miss Ridgewayas she came down, her face set, in obedience to the summons.“He does, and you must see him,” he replied, with decision. “Go into my study and I will send him there.”She went in, her nostrils quivering; the unfairness of the world had never been so plain to her.“Dearest,” cried Harry, when he had shut the door behind him, “it isn’t true, is it? You can’t mean to break with me altogether?”He came closer to her, and took her two hands; they were quite cold.“Your father has refused his consent,” she said, with a little drawing back of her head, “and so has my uncle.”He let the hands fall.“And so it is all over?” he said almost breathlessly.“It is not my fault. What can I do?”She had entered the room feeling that it would be a simple matter to cut the cord without remorse, for it seemed to her that Harry had cheated her, and her sense of justice smarted. She had shrunk from seeing him, but being forced to do so, she would have small compunction. Now it surprised her to find that her resolution was hardly what it had been before she saw him, they had not met since the day she had accepted him, and his actual presence began to affect her a little. Things are so easy when we rehearse them with only ourselves for audience, but they have a hideous knack of complicating themselves when the curtain is up and the play begins. Isoline realized with a pang that she liked him very much—more than she had remembered, in fact.“And so you do not care for me after all,” he said, looking at her with eyes in which tears had gathered in spite of his efforts to keep them back.“It is not that,” faltered she.“What is it then? Can’t you wait for me? Can’t you trust me? It will all come right in the end if we only have patience,” said the man, who was surely one of the least appropriateapostles of patience in the kingdom. “I can work. I shall have to go to London and see what I can get to do. I would doanythingfor you, Isoline, darling. It would not matter if we began in a humble way, would it, once we had something settled to go upon? We should be much, much happier than many who are rich.”It was hardly the picture to move her.“But your father will not help you.”“No, he won’t. I should have to depend entirely upon my work. If I marry without his consent, he says he will give me fifty pounds a year—not even what I have now. But, once I am married and working for myself, I hardly think he will keep to that. It’s a risk, I know. But I would run any risk, dear. Perhaps it isn’t fair to ask you to do it, though,” he added, with a sigh. “Isoline, you can never love me as I love you.”“It is unkind of you to speak like that,” said she, with an attractive little note of dignity; “if you are in trouble, so am I.”He took her hand again with an exclamation of self-reproach; one of her most useful weapons was her aptitude for making other people feel themselves in the wrong.“Dearest, I forget everything but my own unhappiness,” he said penitently.“It is really dreadful,” exclaimed Isoline. “How happy I was the day that you came here, and now it is all spoilt!”“But it can never be spoilt as long as we love each other,” cried he. “Isoline, darling, only be true to me, and some day we shall be together.”“I can’t promise anything. How can I when my uncle forbids it?”Poor Harry, beating against the door that never resisted, yet never opened, felt helpless. But he gathered himself together.“Then let us do without promising,” he urged, “only tell me this. If anything should happen to make it possible—if I get on—will you let me come back? I shall never lose hopeif you do not forget me, and I can feel there is a chance still.”It is easy enough to promise to remember any one, and this arrangement struck her as very suitable; it was, in other words, almost what she would have proposed herself, for she liked Harry. She assented readily.When they parted he went out to the Vicar, who was still in the orchard.“Good-bye,” he said, holding out his hand, “I am glad I saw her after all. I am much happier now.”And he left the old man wondering at the hopefulness on his face.Presently Isoline stepped out, cool and dainty, into the greenness of the orchard.“I have told him that I cannot bind myself without your consent, uncle,” she said in her clear voice. And the Vicar wondered more.As for Harry, he turned his head towards Waterchurch with a not unhappy heart. Certainly his interview had not been all that he had hoped, but he was brave, and a settled purpose upholds a man much. And, as we all know, half a loaf is better than no bread.
HARRYwas in a terrible state. Nevertheless, though he kept carefully out of his father’s way, he poured out the tumult of his heart to his mother, for she had told him of her visit to Crishowell, encouraging him to talk, and thinking it better that he should have some sort of safety-valve. And talk he did.
Late that night he was pacing about in her dressing-room, that dressing-room which was so often the goal of those who sought to ease their souls. The Squire fumed there, Harry brought various sporting interests for discussion, and Llewellyn would steal up from the smoking-room to thrash out farm perplexities. Bob and Tom, with their regiments in India, found their minds turning sometimes to that particular spot. The carpet was worn and threadbare, worn with the coming and going of many feet.
To give up Isoline simply never entered Harry’s head, and, had he been inclined to do so, the opposition he met with would have sufficed to keep his constancy alight. Again and again did he assure Lady Harriet that he would never, never change, breaking between his assurances into rhapsodies over the beauties and graces of his beloved. He heard from her that she had not seen Isoline at the Vicarage, and that though Mr. Lewis had held by the Squire’s decision, he had said nothing about his niece’s feelings. He was not disquieted on that score, for he did not dream that she would not reflect hisown fidelity like a mirror. How could she, having made him such a gift, take it back at the first breath of adversity? To think of such a thing was to insult her.
For himself he had no misgivings. It was hard, but what others had done he could do; he could wait, and he would. As soon as he had been to Crishowell—and he meant to go there next day—he would be off to London, where he might cast about for work and take his place among the bread-winners of the world. These intentions in a youth educated to no special calling hardly seemed so absurd then as they would now, for there were more snug places into which an impecunious young gentleman could be hoisted in those days, and he had many influential friends.
Lady Harriet did not try to turn him from any of these resolutions, and she kissed him with special tenderness as they said good-night, but her heart sank in her, for she saw that he stood between the devil and the deep sea. There was that in his face which told her that he was harder held this time than he had been by any of his former devotions. To lose his love would go ill with him no doubt, but to win her might even go worse. She went to bed weary in mind and body and with no zest for the morning; the household seemed out of joint, and she missed Llewellyn.
Harry reached Crishowell Vicarage next day to find Howlie sitting in an easy-chair at the foot of the garden. He had been allowed to go out for the first time, and was installed near the fence, where he could see the passers-by and talk to strolling acquaintances. His face lit up with interest as he recognized the approaching rider.
“Oi can’t ’old the ’orse for yew this toime,” he said, raising his bandaged arms as his friend dismounted.
He had never wavered in his allegiance to Harry; though Llewellyn had tended him, fed him, and stayed him up in his hours of suffering, though he depended upon him, trusted him, and had remarked to the cook that he was a “rare good one,” it was “the young general” who had his admiration and whoseimage had never been eclipsed by the younger brother’s more solid qualities.
“S’pose yew be come to see miss?” he observed, when the inquiries about the burnt hands were over.
Harry did not answer.
“Where is Mr. Llewellyn?” he asked.
“Gone out. ’E says ’e’s goin’ ’ome to-morrow.”
“You will be sorry, I expect,” said Harry.
“Oi believe yew. Oi loike ’im an’ ’e loikes me an’ Parson, though ’e don’t think much o’ miss. Be yew come to see ’er?”
“Is she at home?” asked the young man, ignoring the other’s persistence.
“Settin’ up in ’er room.”
At this moment Harry looked up and saw the face of Isoline for an instant at the window; it disappeared immediately, but not before the two pairs of eyes had met.
Vexation stood in the feminine pair as its owner drew back her head; she had been tempted to look out by the sound of the voices below, and in that instant her unwelcome lover had seen her. She had spent a great deal of time up-stairs that day, her ears strained for any sound of an arrival. She wore her walking-boots and her hat lay within reach, so that she might run out as she had done before. It was not perhaps the most ennobling way of meeting a difficulty, but it had the merit of being extremely safe.
For very shame she could not escape now. She grew quite hot, anger with herself for her carelessness, with circumstances, with her uncle, all welled up in her, and gave her some of the feelings that a rat must have when there is nothing but the bare corner behind him and a dog in front.
Harry went up to the house and found the Vicar in the orchard.
“I expected you,” said the old man as the young one began rapidly to explain his presence.
“Mr. Lewis, let me see Isoline.”
The Vicar took him by the arm. “You had much betternot, believe me,” he said; “it will do no good, Harry, and it will give you both pain.”
“If you think I will ever consent to give her up, you mistake me. You believe you are doing right, I know, but it is no use, sir. I love her and she loves me, and we will never let anything divide us.”
The Vicar looked into the honest, excited face, a face full of trust without misgiving or concealment.
“I must see her, sir, indeed I must,” Harry continued. “If you were I, you would say the same.”
“If I were you,” said the Vicar, “I should do exactly as you are doing. I haven’t always been an old man, and I sometimes fear I have never been a wise one. You can see her, Harry, but if you would only accept this quietly you would spare yourself. She will tell you what I am telling you now; she is an obedient girl, and she knows what your father and I think.”
The colour died out of Harry’s face.
“You mean that she will give me up?” he exclaimed.
“She has told me that she will not engage herself without my consent.”
A cold, intangible fear, like a breath from the inevitable, hovered round Harry for a moment, but he would not realize the shock it gave him.
“She thinks herself that you had better not meet,” added the Vicar, averting his look and fixing it on a bough where the last blossoms lingered in a ragged brown cluster; the bloom was almost over, and every puff of wind scattered the grass with withering petals.
“But I can’t go without a word. Oh, let me see her! Beg her to speak to me, Mr. Lewis. I saw her at the window as I came in. It is only for a moment—it is so little to ask.”
“Well, if you must, I will tell her. Oh, Harry, Harry, but you have made a mistake!” exclaimed the Vicar, unable to repress himself entirely as he turned away.
“I suppose Mr. Fenton wants to see me,” said Miss Ridgewayas she came down, her face set, in obedience to the summons.
“He does, and you must see him,” he replied, with decision. “Go into my study and I will send him there.”
She went in, her nostrils quivering; the unfairness of the world had never been so plain to her.
“Dearest,” cried Harry, when he had shut the door behind him, “it isn’t true, is it? You can’t mean to break with me altogether?”
He came closer to her, and took her two hands; they were quite cold.
“Your father has refused his consent,” she said, with a little drawing back of her head, “and so has my uncle.”
He let the hands fall.
“And so it is all over?” he said almost breathlessly.
“It is not my fault. What can I do?”
She had entered the room feeling that it would be a simple matter to cut the cord without remorse, for it seemed to her that Harry had cheated her, and her sense of justice smarted. She had shrunk from seeing him, but being forced to do so, she would have small compunction. Now it surprised her to find that her resolution was hardly what it had been before she saw him, they had not met since the day she had accepted him, and his actual presence began to affect her a little. Things are so easy when we rehearse them with only ourselves for audience, but they have a hideous knack of complicating themselves when the curtain is up and the play begins. Isoline realized with a pang that she liked him very much—more than she had remembered, in fact.
“And so you do not care for me after all,” he said, looking at her with eyes in which tears had gathered in spite of his efforts to keep them back.
“It is not that,” faltered she.
“What is it then? Can’t you wait for me? Can’t you trust me? It will all come right in the end if we only have patience,” said the man, who was surely one of the least appropriateapostles of patience in the kingdom. “I can work. I shall have to go to London and see what I can get to do. I would doanythingfor you, Isoline, darling. It would not matter if we began in a humble way, would it, once we had something settled to go upon? We should be much, much happier than many who are rich.”
It was hardly the picture to move her.
“But your father will not help you.”
“No, he won’t. I should have to depend entirely upon my work. If I marry without his consent, he says he will give me fifty pounds a year—not even what I have now. But, once I am married and working for myself, I hardly think he will keep to that. It’s a risk, I know. But I would run any risk, dear. Perhaps it isn’t fair to ask you to do it, though,” he added, with a sigh. “Isoline, you can never love me as I love you.”
“It is unkind of you to speak like that,” said she, with an attractive little note of dignity; “if you are in trouble, so am I.”
He took her hand again with an exclamation of self-reproach; one of her most useful weapons was her aptitude for making other people feel themselves in the wrong.
“Dearest, I forget everything but my own unhappiness,” he said penitently.
“It is really dreadful,” exclaimed Isoline. “How happy I was the day that you came here, and now it is all spoilt!”
“But it can never be spoilt as long as we love each other,” cried he. “Isoline, darling, only be true to me, and some day we shall be together.”
“I can’t promise anything. How can I when my uncle forbids it?”
Poor Harry, beating against the door that never resisted, yet never opened, felt helpless. But he gathered himself together.
“Then let us do without promising,” he urged, “only tell me this. If anything should happen to make it possible—if I get on—will you let me come back? I shall never lose hopeif you do not forget me, and I can feel there is a chance still.”
It is easy enough to promise to remember any one, and this arrangement struck her as very suitable; it was, in other words, almost what she would have proposed herself, for she liked Harry. She assented readily.
When they parted he went out to the Vicar, who was still in the orchard.
“Good-bye,” he said, holding out his hand, “I am glad I saw her after all. I am much happier now.”
And he left the old man wondering at the hopefulness on his face.
Presently Isoline stepped out, cool and dainty, into the greenness of the orchard.
“I have told him that I cannot bind myself without your consent, uncle,” she said in her clear voice. And the Vicar wondered more.
As for Harry, he turned his head towards Waterchurch with a not unhappy heart. Certainly his interview had not been all that he had hoped, but he was brave, and a settled purpose upholds a man much. And, as we all know, half a loaf is better than no bread.