East returned to his regiment in a few days, and at the end of the month the gallant 101st embarked for India. Tom wrote several letters to the lieutenant, inclosing notes to Harry, with gleanings of news from Englebourn, where his escape on the night of the riot had been a nine-days' wonder; and, now that he was fairly “'listed,” and out of the way, public opinion was beginning to turn in his favor. In due course a letter arrived from the lieutenant, dated Cape Town, giving a prosperous account of the voyage so far. East did not say much about “your convict,” as he still insisted on calling Harry; but the little he did say was very satisfactory, and Tom sent off this part of the letter to Katie, to whom he had confided the whole story, entreating her to make the best use of it in the interest of the young soldier. And, after this out-of-the-way beginning, he settled down into the usual routine of his Oxford life.
This change in his opinions and objects of interest brought him now into more intimate relations with a set of whom he had, as yet, seen little. For want of a better name, we may call them “the party of progress.” At their parties, instead of practical jokes, and boisterous mirth, and talk of boats, and bats, and guns, and horses, the highest and deepest questions of morals, and politics, and metaphysics, were discussed, and discussed with a. freshness and enthusiasm which is apt to wear off when doing has to take the place of talking, but has a strange charm of its own while it lasts, and is looked back to with loving regret by those for whom it is no longer a possibility.
With this set Tom soon fraternized, and drank in many new ideas, and took to himself also many new crotchets besides those with which he was already weighted. Almost all his new acquaintances were Liberal in politics, but a few only were ready to go all lengths with him. They were all Union men, and Tom, of course, followed the fashion, and soon propounded theories in that institution which gained him the name of Chartist Brown.
There was a strong mixture of self-conceit in it all. He had a kind of idea that he had discovered something which it was creditable to have discovered, and that it was a very fine thing to have all these feelings for, and sympathies with, “the masses”, and to believe in democracy, and “glorious humanity,” and “a good time coming,” and I know not what other big matters. And, although it startled and pained him at first to hear himself called ugly names, which he had hated and despised from his youth up, and to know that many of his old acquaintances looked upon him, not simply as a madman, but as a madman with snobbish proclivities; yet, when the first plunge was over, there was a good deal on the other hand which tickled his vanity, and was far from being unpleasant.
To do him justice, however, the disagreeables were such that, had there not been some genuine belief at the bottom, he would certainly have been headed back very speedily into the fold of political and social orthodoxy. As it was, amidst the cloud of sophisms, and platitudes, and big, one-sided ideas half-mastered, which filled his thoughts and overflowed in his talk, there was growing in him, and taking firmer hold on him daily, a true and broad sympathy for men as men, and especially for poor men as poor men, and a righteous and burning hatred against all laws, customs, or notions, which, according to his light, either were or seemed to be setting aside, or putting anything else in the place of, or above, the man. It was with him the natural outgrowth of the child's and boy's training (though his father would have been much astonished to be told so), and the instincts of those early days were now getting rapidly set into habits and faiths, and becoming a part of himself.
In this stage of his life, as in so many former ones, Tom got great help from his intercourse with Hardy, now the rising tutor of the college. Hardy was travelling much the same road himself as our hero, but was somewhat further on, and had come into it from a different country, and though quite other obstacles. Their early lives had been very different; and, both by nature and from long and severe self-restraint and discipline, Hardy was much the less impetuous and demonstrative of the two. He did not rush out, therefore (as Tom was too much inclined to do), the moment he had seized hold of the end of a new idea which he felt to be good forhimand whathewanted, and brandish it in the face of all comers, and think himself a traitor to the truth if he wasn't trying to make everybody he met with eat it. Hardy, on the contrary, would test his new idea, and turn it over, and prove it as far as he could, and try to get hold of the whole of it, and ruthlessly strip off any tinsel or rose-pink sentiment with which it might happen to be mixed up.
Often and often did Tom suffer under this severe method, and rebel against it, and accuse his friend, both to his face and in his own secret thoughts, of coldness, and want of faith, and all manner of other sins of omission and commission. In the end, however, he generally came round, with more or less of rebellion, according to the severity of the treatment, and acknowledge that, when Hardy brought him down from riding the high horse, it was not without good reason, and that the dust in which he was rolled was always most wholesome dust.
For instance, there was no phrase more frequently in the mouths of the party of progress than “the good cause.” It was a fine big-sounding phrase, which could be used with great effect in perorations of speeches at the Union, and was sufficiently indefinite to be easily defended from ordinary attacks, while it saved him who used it the trouble of ascertaining accurately for himself, or settling for his hearers, what it really did mean. But, however satisfactory it might be before promiscuous audiences, and so long as vehement assertion or declaration was all that was required to uphold it, this same “good cause” was liable to come to much grief when it had to get itself defined. Hardy was particularly given to persecution on this subject, when he could get Tom, and, perhaps, one or two others, in a quiet room by themselves. While professing the utmost sympathy for “the good cause,” and a hope as strong as theirs that all its enemies might find themselves suspended to lamp-posts as soon as possible, he would pursue it into corners from which escape was most difficult, asking it and its supporters what it exactly was, and driving them from one cloud-land to another, and from “the good cause” to the “people's cause,” the “cause of labor,” and other like troublesome definitions, until the great idea seemed to have no shape or existence any longer even in their own brains.
But Hardy's persecution, provoking as it was for the time, never went to the undermining of any real conviction in the minds of his juniors, or the shaking of anything which did not need shaking, but only helped them to clear their ideas and brains as to what they were talking and thinking about, and gave them glimpses—soon clouded over again, but most useful, nevertheless—of the truth; that there were a good many knotty questions to be solved before a man could be quite sure that he had found out the way to set the world thoroughly to rights, and heal all the ills that flesh is heir to.
Hardy treated another of his friend's most favorite notions even with less respect than this one of “the good cause.” Democracy, that “universal democracy,” which their favourite author had recently declared to be “an inevitable fact of the days in which we live”, was, perhaps, on the whole, the pet idea of the small section of liberal young Oxford, with whom Tom was now hand and glove. They lost no opportunity of worshipping it, and doing battle for it; and, indeed, most of them did very truly believe that that state of the world which this universal democracy was to bring about, and which was coming no man could say how soon, was to be in fact that age of peace and good-will which men had dreamt of in all times, when the lion should lie down with the kid, and nation should not vex nation any more.
After hearing something to this effect from Tom on several occasions, Hardy cunningly lured him to his rooms on the pretence of talking over the prospects of the boat club, and then, having seated him by the fire, which he himself proceeded to assault gently with the poker, propounded suddenly to him the question,
“Brown, I should like to know what you mean by 'democracy'?”
Tom at once saw the trap into which he had fallen, and made several efforts to break away, but unsuccessfully; and, being seated to a cup of tea, and allowed to smoke, was then and there grievously oppressed, and mangled, and sat upon, by his oldest and best friend. He took his ground carefully, and propounded only what he felt sure that Hardy himself would at once accept—what no man of any worth could possibly take exception to. “He meant much more,” he said, “than this; but for the present purpose it would be enough for him to say that, whatever else it might mean, democracy in his mouth always meant that every man should have a share in the government of his country.”
Hardy, seeming to acquiesce, and making a sudden change in the subject of their talk, decoyed his innocent guest away from the thought of democracy for a few minutes, by holding up to him the flag of hero-worship, in which worship Tom was, of course, a sedulous believer. Then, having involved him in most difficult country, his persecutor opened fire upon him from masked batteries of the most deadly kind, the guns being all from the armory of his own prophets.
“You long for the rule of the ablest man, everywhere, at all times? To find your ablest man, and then give him power, and obey him—that you hold to be about the highest act of wisdom which a nation can be capable of?”
“Yes; and you know you believe that to, Hardy, just as firmly as I do.”
“I hope so. But then, how about our universal democracy, and every man having a share in the government of his country?”
Tom felt that his flank was turned; in fact, the contrast of his two beliefs had never struck him vividly before, and he was consequently much confused. But Hardy went on tapping a big coal gently with the poker, and gave him time to recover himself and collect his thoughts.
“I don't mean, of course, that every man is to have an actual share in the government,” he said at last.
“But every man is somehow to have a share; and, if not an actual one, I can't see what the proposition comes to.”
“I call it having a share in the government when a man has share in saying who shall govern him.”
“Well, you'll own that's a very different thing. But let's see; will that find our wisest governor for us—letting all the most foolish men in the nation have a say as to who he is to be?”
“Come now, Hardy, I've heard you say that you are for manhood suffrage.”
“That's another question; you let in another idea there. At present we are considering whether thevox populiis the best test for finding your best man. I'm afraid all history is against you.”
“That's a good joke. Now, there I defy you, Hardy.”
“Begin at the beginning, then, and let us see.”
“I suppose you'll say, then, that the Egyptian and Babylonian empires were better than the little Jewish republic.”
“Republic! well, let that pass. But I never heard that the Jews elected Moses, or any of the judges.”
“Well, never mind the Jews; they're an exceptional case; you can't argue from them.”
“I don't admit that. I believe just the contrary. But go on.”
“Well, then, what do you say to the glorious Greek republics, with Athens at the head of them?”
“I say that no nation ever treated their best men so badly. I see I must put on a lecture in Aristophanes for your special benefit. Vain, irritable, shallow, suspicious old Demus, with his two oboli in his cheek, and doubting only between Cleon and the sausage-seller, which he shall choose for his wisest man—not to govern, but to serve his whims and caprices. You must call another witness, I think.”
“But that's a caricature.”
“Take the picture, then, out of Thucydides, Plato, Xenophon, how you will—you won't mend the matter much. You shouldn't go so fast, Brown; you won't mind my saying so, I know. You don't get clear in your own mind before you pitch into everyone who comes across you, and so do your own side (which I admit is mostly the right one) more harm than good.”
Tom couldn't stand being put down so summarily, and fought over the ground from one country to another, from Rome to the United States, with all the arguments he could muster, but with little success. That unfortunate first admission of his, he felt it throughout, like a millstone round his neck, and could not help admitting to himself, when he left, that there was a good deal in Hardy's concluding remark,—“You'll find it rather a tough business to get your 'universal democracy' and 'government by the wisest' to pull together in one coach.”
Notwithstanding all such occasional reverses and cold baths, however, Tom went on strengthening himself in his new opinions, and maintaining them with all the zeal of a convert. The shelves of his bookcase, and the walls of his room, soon began to show signs of the change which was taking place in his ways of looking at men and things. Hitherto a framed engraving of George III had hung over his mantle-piece; but early in this, his third year, the frame had disappeared for a few days, and when it reappeared, the solemn face of John Milton looked out from it, while the honest monarch had retired into a portfolio. A facsimile of Magna Charta soon displaced a large colored print of “A Day With the Pycheley”, and soon afterwards the death warrant of Charles I. with its grim and resolute rows of signatures and seals, appeared on the wall in a place of honour, in the neighbourhood of Milton.
Squire Brown was passing through Oxford, and paid his son a visit soon after this last arrangement had been completed. He dined in hall, at the high table, being still a member of the college, and afterwards came with Hardy to Tom's rooms to have a quiet glass of wine, and spend the evening with his son and a few of his friends, who had been asked to meet “the governor.”
Tom had a struggle with himself whether he should not remove the death-warrant into his bedroom for the evening, and had actually taken if down with this view; but in the end he could not stomach such a backsliding, and so restored it to its place. “I have never concealed my opinions from my father,” he thought, “though I don't think he quite knows what they are. But if he doesn't, he ought, and the sooner the better. I should be a sneak to try to hide them. I know he won't like it, but he is always just and fair, and will make allowances. At any rate, up it goes again.”
And so he re-hung the death-warrant, but with the devout secret hope that his father might not see it.
The wine-party went off admirably. The men were nice, gentlemanly, intelligent fellows; and the Squire, who had been carefully planted by Tom with his back to the death-warrant, enjoyed himself very much. At last they all went, except Hardy; and now the nervous time approached. For a short time longer the three sat at the wine-table while the squire enlarged upon the great improvement in young men, and the habits of the University, especially in the matter of drinking. Tom had only opened three bottles of port. In his time the men would have drunk certainly not less than a bottle a man; and other like remarks he made, as he sipped his coffee, and then, pushing back his chair, said, “Well, Tom, hadn't your servant better clear away, and then we can draw round the fire, and have a talk.”
“Wouldn't you like to take a turn while he is clearing? There's the Martyr's Memorial you haven't seen.”
“No, thank you. I know the place well enough. I don't come to walk about in the dark. We sha'n't be in your man's way.”
And so Tom's scout came in to clear away, took out the extra leaves of the table, put on the cloth, and laid tea. During these operations Mr. Brown was standing with his back to the fire, looking about him as he talked. When there was more space to move in, he began to walk up and down, and very soon took to remarking the furniture and arrangements of the room. One after the other the pictures came under his notice. Most of them escaped without comment, the Squire simply pausing a moment, and then taking up his walk again. Magna Charta drew forth his hearty approval. It was a capital notion to hang such things on his walls, instead of bad prints of steeple-chases, or trash of that sort. “Ah, here's something else of the same kind. Why, Tom, what's this?” said the squire, as he paused before the death-warrant. There was a moment or two of dead silence, while the Squire's eyes ran down the names, from Jo. Bradshaw to Miles Corbet; and then he turned, and came and sat down opposite to his son. Tom expected his father to be vexed, but was not the least prepared for the tone of pain, and sorrow, and anger, in which he first inquired, and then remonstrated.
For some time past the Squire and his son had not felt so comfortable together as of old. Mr. Brown had been annoyed by much that Tom had done in the case of Harry Winburn, though he did not know all. There had sprung up a barrier somehow or other between them, neither of them knew how. They had often felt embarrassed at being left alone together during the past year, and found that there were certain topics which they could not talk upon, which they avoided by mutual consent. Every now and then the constraint and embarrassment fell off for a short time, for at bottom they loved and appreciated one another heartily; but the divergences in their thoughts and habits had become very serious, and seemed likely to increase rather than not. They felt keenly the chasm between the two generations. As they looked at one another from opposite banks, each in his secret heart blamed the other in great measure for that which was the fault of neither. Mixed with the longings which each felt for a better understanding was enough of reserve and indignation to prevent them from coming to it. The discovery of their differences was too recent, and they were too much alike in character and temper, for either to make large enough allowance for, or to be really tolerant of, the other.
This was the first occasion on which they had come to outspoken and serious difference; and though the collision had been exceedingly painful to both, yet when they parted for the night, it was with a feeling of relief that the ice had been thoroughly broken. Before his father left the room, Tom had torn the facsimile of the death-warrant out of its frame, and put it in the fire, protesting, however, at the same time, that, though “he did thist out of deference to his father, and was deeply grieved at having given him pain, he could not and would not give up his convictions, or pretend that they were changed, or even shaken.”
The Squire walked back to his hotel deeply moved. Who can wonder? He was a man full of living and vehement convictions. One of his early recollections had been the arrival in England of the news of the beheading of Louis XVI, and the doings of the Reign of Terror. He had been bred in the times when it was held impossible for a gentleman or a Christian to hold such views as his son had been maintaining, and, like many of the noblest Englishmen of his time, had gone with and accepted the creed of the day.
Tom remained behind, dejected and melancholy; now accusing his father of injustice and bigotry, now longing to go after him, and give up everything. What were all his opinions and convictions compared with his father's confidence and love? At breakfast the next morning, however, after each of them had had time for thinking over what had passed, they met with a cordiality which was as pleasant to each as it was unlooked for; and from this visit of his father to him at Oxford, Tom dated a new and more satisfactory epoch in their intercourse.
The fact had begun to dawn on the Squire that the world had changed a good deal since his time. He saw that young men were much improved in some ways, and acknowledged the fact heartily; on the other hand, they had taken up with a lot of new notions which he could not understand, and thought mischievous and bad. Perhaps Tom might get over them as he got to be older and wiser, and in the meantime he must take the evil with the good. At any rate he was too fair a man to try to dragoon his son out of anything which he really believed. Tom on his part gratefully accepted the change in his father's manner, and took all means of showing his gratitude by consulting and talking freely to him on such subjects as they could agree upon, which were numerous, keeping in the back-ground the questions which had provoked painful discussions between them. By degrees these even could be tenderly approached; and, now that they were approached in a different spirit, the honest beliefs of the father and son no longer looked so monstrous to one another, the hard and sharp outlines began to wear off, and the views of each of them to be modified. Thus, bit by bit, by a slow but sure process, a better understanding than ever was re-established between them.
This beginning of a better state of things in his relations with his father consoled Tom for many other matters that seemed to go wrong with him, and was a constant bit of bright sky to turn to when the rest of his horizon looked dark and dreary, as it did often enough.
For it proved a very trying year to him, this his third and last year at the University; a year full of large dreams and small performances, of unfulfilled hopes and struggles to set himself right, ending ever more surely in failure and disappointment. The common pursuits of the place had lost their freshness, and with it much of their charm. He was beginning to feel himself in a cage, and to beat against the bars of it.
Often, in spite of all his natural hopefulness, his heart seemed to sicken and turn cold, without any apparent reason; his old pursuits palled on him, and he scarcely cared to turn to new ones. What was it that made life so blank to him at these times? How was it that he could not keep the spirit within him alive and warm?
It was easier to ask such questions than to get an answer. Was it not this place he was living in and the ways of it? No, for the place and its ways were the same as ever, and his own way of life in it better than ever before. Was it the want of sight or tidings of Mary? Sometimes he thought so, and then cast the thought away as treason. His love for her was ever sinking deeper into him, and raising and purifying him. Light and strength and life came from that source; craven weariness and coldness of heart, come from whence they might, were not from that quarter. But precious as his love was to him, and deeply as it affected his whole life, he felt that there must be something beyond it—that its full satisfaction would not be enough for him. The bed was too narrow for a man to stretch himself on. What he was in search of must underlie and embrace his human love, and support it. Beyond and above all private and personal desires and hopes and longings, he was conscious of a restless craving and feeling about after something, which he could not grasp, and yet which was not avoiding him, which seemed to be mysteriously laying hold of him and surrounding him.
The routine of chapels, and lectures, and reading for degree, boating, cricketing, Union-debating,—all well enough in their way—left this vacuum unfilled. There was a great outer visible world, the problems and puzzles of which were rising before him and haunting him more and more; and a great inner and invisible world opening round him in awful depth. He seemed to be standing on the brink of each—now shivering and helpless, feeling like an atom about to be whirled into the great flood and carried he knew not where—now ready to plunge in and take his part, full of hope and belief that he was meant to buffet in the strength of a man with the seen and the unseen, and to be subdued by neither.
In such a year as this, a bit of steady, bright blue sky was a boon beyond all price, and so he felt it to be. And it was not only with his father that Tom regained lost ground in this year. He was in a state of mind in which he could not bear to neglect or lose any particle of human sympathy, and so he turned to old friendships, and revived the correspondence with several of his old school-fellows, and particularly with Arthur, to the great delight of the latter, who had mourned bitterly over the few half-yearly lines, all he had got from Tom of late, in answer to his own letters, which had themselves, under the weight of neglect, gradually dwindled down to mere formal matters. A specimen of the later correspondence may fitly close the chapter:—
“Dear Geordie—I can hardly pardon you for having gone to Cambridge, though you have got a Trinity scholarship—which I suppose is, on the whole, quite as good a thing as anything of the sort you could have got up here. I had so looked forward to having you here though, and now I feel that we shall probably scarcely ever meet. You will go your way and I mine; and one alters so quickly, and gets into such strange new grooves, that unless one sees a man about once a week at least, you may be just like strangers when you are thrown together again. If you had come up here it would have been all right, and we should have gone all through life as we were when I left school, and as I know we should be again in no time if you had come here. But now, who can tell?
“What makes me think so much of this is a visit of a few days that East paid me just before his regiment went to India. I feel that if he hadn't done it, and we had not met till he came back—years hence perhaps—we should never have been to one another what we shall be now. The break would have been too great. Now it's all right. You would have liked to see the old fellow grown into a man, but not a bit altered—just the quiet, old way, pooh-poohing you, and pretending to care for nothing, but ready to cut the nose off his face, or go through fire and water for you at a pinch, if you'll only let him go his own way about it, and have his grumble, and say that he does it all from the worst possible motives.
“But we must try not to lose hold of one another, Geordie. It would be a bitter day to me if I thought anything of the kind could ever happen again. We must write more to one another. I've been awfully lazy, I know, about it for this last year and more; but then I always thought you would be coming up here, and so that it didn't matter much. But now I will turn over a new leaf, and write to you about my secret thoughts, my works and ways; and you must do it too. If we can only tide over the next year or two we shall get into plain sailing, and I suppose it will all right then. At least, I can't believe that one is likely to have many such up-and-down years in one's life as the last two. If one is, goodness knows where I shall end. You know the outline of what has happened to me from my letters, and the talks we have had in my flying visits to the old school, but you haven't a notion of the troubles of mind I've been in, and the changes I've gone through. I can hardly believe it myself when I look back. However I'm quite sure I havegot on; that's my great comfort. It is a strange blind sort of world, that's a fact, with lots of blind alleys, down which you go blundering in the fog after some seedy gaslight, which you take for the sun till you run against the wall at the end, and find out that the light is a gaslight, and that there's no thoroughfare. But for all that one does get on. You get to know the sun's light better and better, and to keep out of the blind alleys; and I am surer and surer every day, that there's always sunlight enough for every honest fellow—though I didn't think so a few months back—and a good sound road under his feet, if he will only step out on it.
“Talking of blind alleys puts me in mind of your last. Aren't you going down a blind alley, or something worse? There's no wall to bring you up, that I can see down the turn you've taken; and then, what's the practical use of it all? What good would you do to yourself, or anyone else, if you could get to the end of it? I can't for the life of me fancy, I confess, what you think will come of speculating about necessity and free will. I only know that I can hold out my hand before me, and can move it to the right or left, despite of all the powers in heaven or earth. As I sit here writing to you, I can let into my heart, and give the reins to, all sorts of devil's passions, or to the Spirit of God. Well, that's enough for me. Iknowit of myself, and I believe you know it of yourself, and everybody knows it of themselves or himself; and why you can't be satisfied with that, passes my comprehension. As if one hasn't got puzzles enough, and bothers enough, under one's nose, without going a-field after a lot of metaphysical quibbles. No, I'm wrong,—not going a-field,—anything one has to go a-field for is all right. What a fellow meets outside himself he isn't responsible for, and must do the best he can with. But to go on for ever looking inside of one's self, and groping about amongst one's own sensations, and ideas, and whimsies of one kind and another, I can't conceive a poorer line of business than that. Don't you get into it now, that's a dear boy.
“Very likely you'll tell me you can't help it; that every one has his own difficulties, and must fight them out, and that mine are one sort, and yours another. Well, perhaps you may be right. I hope I'm getting to know that my plummet isn't to measure all the world. But it does seem a pity that men shouldn't be thinking about how to cure some of the wrongs which poor dear old England is pretty near dying of, instead of taking the edge off their brains, and spending all their steam in speculating about all kinds of things, which wouldn't make any poor man in the world—or rich one either, for that matter—a bit better off, if they were all found out, and settled to-morrow. But here I am at the end of my paper. Don't be angry at my jobation; but write me a long answer of your own free will, and believe me ever affectionately yours,
Miss Mary Porter was sitting alone in the front drawing-room of her father's house, in Belgravia, on the afternoon of a summer's day in this same year. Two years and more have passed over her head since we first met her, and she may be a thought more sedate and better dressed, but there is no other change to be noticed in her.
The room was for the most part much like other rooms in that quarter of the world. There were few luxuries in the way of furniture which fallen man can desire which were not to be found there, but over and above this, there was an elegance in the arrangement of all the nick-nacks and ornaments, and an appropriateness and good taste in the placing of every piece of furniture and vase of flowers, which showed that a higher order of mind than the upholsterer's or housemaid's was constantly overlooking and working there. Everything seemed to be in its exact place, in the best place which could have been thought of for it, and to be the best thing which could have been thought of for the place. And yet this perfection did not strike you particularly at first, or surprise you in any way, but sank into you gradually, so that, until you forced yourself to consider the matter, you could not in the least say why the room had such a very pleasant effect on you.
The young lady to whom this charm was chiefly owing was sitting by a buhl work-table, on which lay her embroidery and a book. She was reading a letter, which seemed deeply to interest her; for she did not hear the voice of the butler, who had just opened the door and disturbed her solitude, until he had repeated for the second time, “Mr. Smith.” Then Mary jumped up, and, hastily folding her letter, put it into her pocket. She was rather provoked at having allowed herself to be caught there alone by afternoon visitors, and with the servants for having let anyone in; nevertheless, she welcomed Mr. Smith with a cordiality of manner which perhaps rather more than represented her real feelings, and, with a “let mamma know,” to the butler, set to work to entertain her visitor. She would have had no difficulty in doing this under ordinary circumstances, as all that Mr. Smith wanted was a good listener. He was a somewhat heavy and garrulous old gentleman, with many imaginary, and a few real troubles, the constant contemplation of which served to occupy the whole of his own time, and as much of his friends' as he could get them to give him. But scarcely had he settled himself comfortably in an easy chair opposite to his victim, when the butler entered again, and announced, “Mr. St. Cloud.”
Mary was now no longer at her ease. Her manner of receiving her new visitor was constrained; and yet it was clear that he was on easy terms in the house. She asked the butler where his mistress was, and heard with vexation that she had gone out, but was expected home almost immediately. Charging him to let her mother know the moment she returned, Mary turned to her unwelcome task, and sat herself down again with such resignation as she was capable of at the moment. The conduct of her visitors was by no means calculated to restore her composure, or make her comfortable between them. She was sure that they knew one another; but neither of then would speak to the other. There the two sat on, each resolutely bent on tiring the other out; the elder crooning on to her in an undertone, and ignoring the younger, who in his turn put on an air of serene unconsciousness of the presence of his senior, and gazed about the room, and watched Mary, making occasional remarks to her as if no one else were present. On and on they sat, her only comfort being the hope that neither of them would have the conscience to stay on after the departure of the other.
Between them Mary was driven to her wits' end, and looked for her mother or for some new visitor to come to her help, as Wellington looked for the Prussians on the afternoon of June 18th. At length youth and insolence prevailed, and Mr. Smith rose to go. Mary got up too, and after his departure remained standing, in hopes that her other visitor would take the hint and follow the good example. But St. Cloud had not the least intention of moving.
“Really, your good-nature is quite astonishing, Miss Porter,” he said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and following the pattern of one of the flowers on the carpet with his cane, which gave him the opportunity of showing his delicately gloved hand to advantage.
“Indeed, why do you think so?” she asked, taking up her embroidery and pretending to begin working.
“Have I not good reason, after sitting this half-hour and seeing you enduring old Smith—the greatest bore in London? I don't believe there are three houses where the servants dare let him in. It would be as much as their places are worth. No porter could hope for a character who let him in twice in the season.”
“Poor Mr. Smith,” said Mary, smiling. “But you know we have no porter, and,” she suddenly checked herself, and added gravely, “he is an old friend, and papa and mamma like him.”
“But the wearisomeness of his grievances! Those three sons in the Plungers, and their eternal scrapes! How you could manage to keep a civil face! It was a masterpiece of polite patience.”
“Indeed, I am very sorry for his troubles. I wonder where mamma can be? We are going to drive. Shall you be in the Park? I think it must be time for me to dress.”
“I hope not. It is so seldom that I see you except in crowded rooms. Can you wonder that I should value such a chance as this?”
“Were you at the new opera last night?” asked Mary, carefully avoiding his eye, and sticking to her work, but scarcely able to conceal her nervousness and discomfort.
“Yes, I was there; but—”
“Oh, do tell me about it, then; I hear it was a great success.”
“Another time. We can talk of the opera anywhere. Let me speak now of something else. You must have seen, Miss Porter,—”
“How can you think I will talk of anything till you have told me about the opera?” interrupted Mary rapidly and nervously. “Was Grisi very fine? The chief part was composed for her, was it not? and dear old Lablache—”
“I will tell you all about it presently, if you will let me, in five minutes' time—I only ask for five minutes—”
“Five minutes! Oh, no, not five seconds. I must hear about the new opera before I will listen to a word of anything else.”
“Indeed, Miss Porter, you must pardon me for disobeying. But I may not have such a chance as this again for months.”
With which prelude he drew his chair towards hers and Mary was just trying to make up her mind to jump up and run right out of the room, when the door opened, and the butler walked in with a card on a waiter. Mary had never felt so relieved in her life, and could have hugged the solemn old domestic when he said, presenting the card to her,
“The gentleman asked if Mrs. or you were in, Miss, and told me to bring it up, and find whether you would see him on particular business. He's waiting in the hall.”
“Oh, yes, I know. Of course. Yes, say I will see him directly. I mean, ask him to come up now.”
“Shall I show him into the library, Miss?”
“No, no; in here; do you understand?”
“Yes, Miss,” replied the butter, with a deprecatory look at St. Cloud, as much as to say, “You see, I can't help it,” in answer to his impatient telegraphic signals. St. Cloud had been very liberal to the Porters' servants.
Mary's confidence had all come back. Relief was at hand. She could trust herself to hold St. Cloud at bay now, as it could not be for more than a few minutes. When she turned to him the nervousness had quite gone out of her manner, and she spoke in her old tone again, as she laid her embroidery aside.
“How lucky that you should be here! Look; I think you must be acquainted,” she said, holding out the card which the butler had given her to St. Cloud.
He took it mechanically, and looked at it, and then crushed it in his hand, and was going to speak. She prevented him.
“I was right, I'm sure. You do know him?”
“I didn't see the name,” he said almost fiercely.
“The name on the card which I gave you just now?—Mr. Grey. He is curate in one of the poor Westminster districts. You must remember him, for he was of your college. He was at Oxford with you. I made his acquaintance at the Commemoration. He will be so glad to meet an old friend.”
St. Cloud was too much provoked to answer; and the next moment the door opened, and the butler announced Mr. Grey.
Grey came into the room timidly, carrying his head a little down as usual, and glancing uncomfortably about in a manner which used to make Drysdale say that he always looked as though he had just been robbing a hen-roost. Mary went forward to meet him, holding out her hand cordially.
“I am so glad to see you,” she said. “How kind of you to call when you are so busy! Mamma will be here directly. I think you must remember Mr. St. Cloud—Mr. Grey.”
St. Cloud's patience was now quite gone. He drew himself up, making the slightest possible inclination towards Grey, and then, without taking any further notice of him, turned to Mary with a look which he meant to be full of pitying admiration for her, and contempt of her visitor; but, as she would not look at him, it was thrown away. So he made his bow and stalked out of the room, angrily debating with himself, as he went down the stairs, whether she could have understood him. He was so fully convinced of the sacrifice which a man in his position was making in paying serious attention to a girl with little fortune and no connexion, that he soon consoled himself in the belief that her embarrassment only arose from shyness, and that the moment he could explain himself she would be his obedient and grateful servant. Meantime Mary sat down opposite to the curate, and listened to him as he unfolded his errand awkwardly enough. An execution was threatened in the house of a poor struggling widow, whom Mrs. Porter had employed to do needlework occasionally, and who was behind with her rent through sickness. He was afraid that her things would be taken and sold in the morning, unless she could borrow two sovereigns. He had so many claims on him, that he could not lend her the money himself, and so had come out to see what he could do amongst those who knew her.
By the time Grey had arrived at the end of his story, Mary had made up her mind—not without a little struggle—to sacrifice the greater part of what was left of her quarter's allowance. After all, it would only be wearing cleaned gloves instead of new ones, and giving up her new riding-hat till next quarter. So she jumped up, and said gaily, “Is that all, Mr. Grey? I have the money, and I will lend it her with pleasure. I will fetch it directly.”
She tripped off to her room, and soon came back with the money; and just then the butler came in with tea, and Mary asked Mr. Grey to take some. He looked tired, she said, and if he would wait a little time, he would see her mother, who would be sure to do something more for the poor woman.
Grey had risen to leave, and was standing, hat in hand, ready to go. He was in the habit of reckoning with himself strictly for every minute of his day, and was never quite satisfied with himself unless he was doing the most disagreeable thing which circumstances for the time being allowed him to do. But greater and stronger men than Grey, from Adam downwards, have yielded to the temptation before which he now succumbed. He looked out of the corners of his eyes; and there was something so fresh and bright in the picture of the dainty little tea-service and the young lady behind it, the tea which she was beginning to pour out smelt so refreshing, and her hand and figure looked so pretty in the operation, that, with a sigh of departing resolution, he gave in, put his hat on the floor, and sat down opposite to the tempter.
Grey took a cup of tea, and then another. He thought he had never tasted anything so good. The delicious rich cream, and the tempting plate of bread and butter were too much for him. He fairly gave way, and resigned himself to physical enjoyment, and sipped his tea, and looked over his cup at Mary, sitting there bright and kind and ready to go on pouring out for him to any extent. It seemed to him as if an atmosphere of light and joy surrounded her, within the circle of which he was sitting and absorbing. Tea was the only stimulant that Grey ever took, and he had more need of it than usual, for he had given away the chop, which was his ordinary dinner, to a starving woman. He was faint with fasting and the bad air of the hovels in which he had been spending his morning. The elegance of the room, the smell of the flowers, the charm of companionship with a young woman of his own rank, and the contrast of the whole to his common way of life, carried him away, and hopes and thoughts began to creep into his head to which he had long been a stranger. Mary did her very best to make his visit pleasant to him. She had a great respect for the self-denying life which she knew he was leading; and the nervousness and shyness of his manners were of a kind, which, instead of infecting her, gave her confidence, and made her feel quite at her ease with him. She was so grateful to him for having delivered her out of her recent embarrassment, that she was more than usually kind in her manner.
She saw how he was enjoying himself; and thought what good it must do him to forget his usual occupations for a short time. So she talked positive gossip to him, risked his opinion on riding habits, and very soon was telling him the plot of a new novel which she had just been reading, with an animation and playfulness which would have warmed the heart of an anchorite. For a short quarter of an hour Grey resigned himself; but at the end of that time he became suddenly and painfully conscious of what he was doing, and stopped himself short in the middle of an altogether worldly compliment, which he detected himself in the act of paying to his too fascinating young hostess. He felt that retreat was his only chance, and so grasped his hat again, and rose with a deep sigh, and a sudden change of manner which alarmed Mary.
“I hope you are not ill, Mr. Grey?” she said, anxiously.
“No, not the least, thank you. But—but—in short, I must go to my work. I ought to apologize, indeed, for having stayed so long.”
“Oh, you have not been here more than twenty minutes. Pray stay, and see mamma; she must be in directly.”
“Thank you; you are very kind. I should like it very much, but indeed I cannot.”
Mary felt that it would be no kindness to press it further, and so rose herself, and held out her hand. Grey took it, and it is not quite certain to this day whether he did not press it in that farewell shake more than was absolutely necessary. If he did, we may be quite sure that he administered exemplary punishment to himself afterwards for so doing. He would gladly have left now, but his over-sensitive conscience forbade it. He had forgotten his office, he thought, hitherto, but there was time yet not to be altogether false to it. So he looked grave and shy again, and said,
“You will not be offended with me, Miss Porter, if I speak to you as a clergyman?”
Mary was a little disconcerted, but answered almost immediately,—
“Oh, no. Pray say anything which you think you ought to say.”
“I am afraid there must be a great temptation in living always in beautiful rooms like this, with no one but prosperous people. Do you not think so?”
“But one cannot help it. Surely, Mr. Grey, you do not think it can be wrong?”
“No, not wrong. But it must be very trying. It must be very necessary to do something to lessen the temptation of such a life.”
“I do not understand you. What could one do?”
“Might you not take up some work which would not be pleasant, such as visiting the poor?”
“I should be very glad; but we do not know any poor people in London.”
“There are very miserable districts near here.”
“Yes, and papa and mamma are very kind, I know, in helping whenever they can hear of a proper case. But it is so different from the country. There it is so easy and pleasant to go into the cottages where everyone knows you, and most of the people work for papa, and one is sure of being welcomed, and that nobody will be rude. But here I should be afraid. It would seem so impertinent to go to people's houses of whom one knows nothing. I should never know what to say.”
“It is not easy or pleasant duty which is the best for us. Great cities could never be evangelized, Miss Porter, if all ladies thought as you do.”
“I think, Mr. Grey,” said Mary, rather nettled, “that everyone has not the gift of lecturing the poor, and setting them right; and, if they have not, they had better not try to do it. And as for the rest, there is plenty of the same kind of work to be done, I believe, amongst the people of one's own class.”
“You are joking, Miss Porter.”
“No, I am not joking at all. I believe that rich people are quite as unhappy as poor. Their troubles are not the same, of course, and are generally of their own making. But troubles of the mind are worse, surely, than troubles of the body?”
“Certainly; and it is the highest work of the ministry to deal with spiritual trials. But you will pardon me for saying that I cannot think this is the proper work for—for—”
“For me, you would say. We must be speaking of quite different things, I am sure. I only mean that I can listen to the troubles and grievances of anyone who likes to talk of them to me, and try to comfort them a little, and to make things look brighter, and to keep cheerful. It is not easy always even to do this.”
“It is not, indeed. But would it not be easier if you could do as I suggest? Going out of one's own class, and trying to care for and help the poor, braces the mind more than anything else.”
“You ought to know my cousin Katie,” said Mary, glad to make a diversion; “that is just what she would say. Indeed, I think you must have seen her at Oxford; did you not?”
“I believe I had the honor of meeting her at the rooms of a friend. I think he said she was also a cousin of his.”
“Mr. Brown, you mean? Yes; did you know him?”
“Oh, yes. You will think it strange, as we are so very unlike; but I knew him better than I knew almost any one.”
“Poor Katie is very anxious about him. I hope you thought well of him. You do not think he is likely to go very wrong?”
“No, indeed. I could wish he were sounder on Church questions, but that may come. Do you know that he is in London?”
“I had heard so.”
“He has been several times to my schools. He used to help me at Oxford, and has a capital way with the boys.”
At this moment the clock on the mantel-piece struck a quarter. The sound touched some chord in Grey which made him grasp his hat again, and prepare for another attempt to get away.
“I hope you will pardon—” He pulled himself up short, in the fear lest he were going again to be false (as he deemed it) to his calling, and stood the picture of nervous discomfort.
Mary came to his relief. “I am sorry you must go, Mr. Grey,” she said; “I should have so liked to have talked to you more about Oxford. You will call again soon, I hope?”
At which last speech Grey, casting an imploring glance at her, muttered something which she could not catch, and fled from the room.
Mary stood looking dreamily out of the window for a few minutes, till the entrance of her mother roused her, and she turned to pour out a cup of tea for her.
“It is cold, mamma dear; do let me make some fresh.”
“No, thank you, dear; this will do very well,” said Mrs. Porter; and she took off her bonnet and sipped the cold tea. Mary watched her silently for a minute, and then, taking the letter she had been reading out of her pocket, said, “I have a letter from Katie, mamma.”
Mrs. Porter took the letter and read it; and, as Mary still watched, she saw a puzzled look coming over her mother's face. Mrs. Porter finished the letter, and then looked stealthily at Mary, who on her side was now busily engaged in putting up the tea-things.
“It is very embarrassing,” said Mrs. Porter.
“What, mamma?”
“Oh, of course, my dear, I mean Katie's telling us of her cousin's being in London, and sending us his address—” and then she paused.
“Why, mamma?”
“Your papa will have to make up his mind whether he will ask him to the house. Katie would surely never have told him that she has written.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Brown were so very kind. It would seem so strange, so ungrateful, not to ask him.”
“I am afraid he is not the sort of young man—in short, I must speak to your papa.”
Mrs. Porter looked hard at her daughter, who was still busied with the tea-things. She had risen, bonnet in hand, to leave the room; but now changed her mind, and, crossing to her daughter, put her arm round her neck. Mary looked up steadily into her eyes, then blushed slightly, and said quietly,
“No, mamma; indeed, it is not as you think.”
Her mother stooped and kissed her, and left the room, telling her to get dressed, as the carriage would be round in a few minutes.
Her trials for the day were not over. She could see by their manner at dinner that her father and mother had been talking about her. Her father took her to a ball in the evening, where they met St. Cloud, who fastened himself to them. She was dancing a quadrille, and her father stood near her, talking confidentially to St. Cloud. In the intervals of the dance, scraps of their conversation reached her.
“You knew him, then, at Oxford?”
“Yes, very slightly.”
“I should like to ask you now, as a friend—” Here Mary's partner reminded her that she ought to be dancing. When she had returned to her place again she heard—
“You think, then, that it was a bad business?”
“It was notorious in the college. We never had any doubt on the subject.”
“My niece has told Mrs. Porter that there really was nothing wrong in it.”
“Indeed? I am happy to hear it.”
“I should like to think well of him, as he is a connexion of my wife. In other respects now—”
Here again she was carried away by the dance. When she returned, she caught the end of a sentence of St. Cloud's, “You will consider what I have said in confidence?”
“Certainly,” answered Mr. Porter; “and I am exceedingly obliged to you.” And then the dance was over, and Mary returned to her father's side. She had never enjoyed a ball less than this, and persuaded her father to leave early, which he was delighted to do.
When she reached her own room, Mary took off her wreath and ornaments, and then sat down and fell into a brown study, which lasted for some time. At last she roused herself with a sigh, and thought she had never had so tiring a day, though she could hardly tell why, and felt half inclined to have a good cry, if she could only have made up her mind what about. However, being a sensible young woman, she resisted the temptation, and hardly taking the trouble to roll up her hair, went to bed and slept soundly.
Mr. Porter found his wife sitting up for him; they were evidently both full of the same subject.
“Well, dear?” she said, as he entered the room.
Mr. Porter put down his candle, and shook his head.
“You don't think Katie can be right then? She must have capital opportunities of judging, you know, dear.”
“But she is no judge. What can a girl like Katie know about such things?”
“Well, dear, do you know I really cannot think there was anything very wrong, though I did think so at first, I own.”
“But I find that his character was bad—decidedly bad—always. Young St. Cloud didn't like to say much to me, which was natural, of course. Young men never like to betray one another; but I could see what he thought. He is a right-minded young man and very agreeable.”
“I do not take to him very much.”
“His connexions and prospects, too, are capital. I sometimes think he has a fancy for Mary. Haven't you remarked it?”
“Yes, dear. But as to the other matter? Shall you ask him here?”
“Well, dear, I do not think there is any need. He is only in town, I suppose, for a short time, and it is not at all likely that we should know where he is, you see.”
“But if he should call?”
“Of course then we must be civil. We can consider then what is to be done.”