Hugh Crichton's Romance

There were two schoolrooms at Oxley Manor; and in the larger one, in the dusky firelight of a Saturday afternoon, the two young “pupil teachers,” for which simple name Flossy was wont to contend, sat learning some French poetry. Violante did not like learning her lessons, it reminded her too much of learning her parts; but, then, as she reflected, it did not matter nearly so much if she could not say them. She sat on a stool in a corner by the mantelpiece, her face framed in its softly-curling locks, in shadow, and the firelight dancing on her book and on her childish, delicate hands – hands that looked fit only to cling and caress, belying their fair share of deftness and skill. Miss Robertson sat on a chair, and held her book before her eyes, for she was short-sighted. She had chilblains, and occasionally rubbed her fingers. Her companion’s idleness was quite an interruption to her; she felt obliged to keep her in order.

“You don’t seem to get on with your poetry, signorina,” she said, giving the title which attached to Violante as a sort of Christian name.

“No, it is hard.”

“One must give one’s mind to it. I don’t think you take a sufficiently serious view of life, signorina.”

“A serious view?” repeated Violante.

“Well, of work, you know. Look at Miss Florence. What do you suppose makes her so energetic and useful?”

“I suppose,” said Violante, “that she is like my father, and has enthusiasm. And, perhaps, she has not much else to think of. She is very happy.”

“Do you mean that no one should work at what they don’t like?”

“Oh, yes; but it is much harder, especially when there is so much besides,” said Violante. She did not mean to turn the tables on her companion, but merely to state simple fact.

“I don’t see,” said Miss Robertson, “what can be more important than getting ready to earn one’s living.”

“Yes – we must do that – if we can,” said Violante.

“I assure you,” said Miss Robertson, “things would be very different here if it weren’t for Florence Venning. I’ve been at other schools and I know. You and I would not have such good times without her.”

“Oh, she is good and beautiful!” cried Violante. “I would learn lessons all day to please her. Where is she now?”

“She is gone to Redhurst?” said Edith, gravely.

“Redhurst?”

“Yes. Have none of the girls told you about poor Mysie Crofton?”

“No, who is she?”

“She used to come here to school, and – it happened last summer before I came; but they often talk of it – she was drowned.”

“Oh, how sad! Did she fall into the water?”

“She was going to be married, and her lover and his cousin were shooting, and they saw her standing on the lock, and Mr Crichton – ”

“Who?”

“Mr Hugh Crichton. He lives at Redhurst, don’t you know? She was going to marry his cousin, Mr Spencer. Well, they were shooting, and – it was very awful – but Mr Crichton’s gun frightened her, and she fell into the water and was drowned.”

Violante sat in the shadow. Her dead silence might have come from her interest in the story.

“That’s not the worst. They say Arthur Spencer told him not to fire – and he did – ”

“Was he jealous?” suddenly cried Violante.

“Good gracious, signorina! What a horrid – what a ridiculous idea! How foreign! Of course not. He didn’t mean to hurt her. He was half mad with grief. I’m sure now he looks as if he couldn’t smile – and Mr Spencer has been abroad ever since it happened – last August.”

Violante sat in her corner, her heart beating, shivering, her face burning. “He is near – ” Then that wild foolish thought of the poor foreign opera-taught girl gave place to a pang of shame, and then, “He is unhappy.” She had forgotten herself – forgotten where she was; when Miss Florence came slowly into the room in her hat and jacket. She came and knelt down by the fire, looking much graver than usual.

“Frederica comes to school on Monday,” she said, in rather a strained voice.

“How were they, Miss Florence?” asked Edith.

“Oh, I don’t know. Mrs Crichton is very well. They are hardly settled.”

“I was telling signorina,” said Miss Robertson.

Flossy looked at Violante.

“Why, you have frightened her!” she said, “with our sad story.”

Violante could not speak; but something in Flossy’s trembling lips spoke to her heart. She pressed up close to her and hid her face on her shoulder.

“Why, my dear child, how you tremble!” cried Flossy, touched by the action and by the sympathy, as she thought it. “Hush, we have almost left off crying for her!”

“I never thought it would make you hysterical,” said Miss Robertson, rather severely.

“Let her alone,” said Florence, for all her tenderest strings were still quivering with the renewal of old associations, and somehow this girl, who cried for her dear Mysie, spoke to her heart as no one had done since Mysie’s star had set. Violante clung closer and closer, conscious of nothing but a sense of help and fellowship in the stormy sea that, had suddenly burst in on her. She had lost all sense of concealment, she forgot that Flossy did not know her secret; she was only silent because no words adequate to her bewildered horror suggested themselves. At last she half sobbed out:

“And he killed her – killed her?”

“Oh, no; you must not say that,” said Flossy. “It was a very sad accident, but poor Hugh could not help it, and Arthur never blamed him. She was so good, so sweet. But you must not cry, dear; why are you so startled?” she added, becoming aware that Violante’s agitation was excessive, though, on the score of her Italian actress-ship, she was not prepared to consider it unnatural.

Violante was slowly coming to herself. She sat up and pushed back her hair; while things began to arrange themselves in her mind. Hugh Crichton lived close at hand; she might see him, and he had been in a great storm of trouble – was that why she had heard nothing of him? Then Signor Arthur – she remembered how James Crichton had told Rosa that his cousin’s love was dead. Here was something she could say.

“Signora, I met Signor Arthur Spencer in Italy at Caletto. That was partly – ” She stumbled over the truth so like a lie; but Flossy broke in —

“Saw Arthur? Did you? Oh, tell me – how was he – what did he look like?”

“He was very sad – I knew that, though he used to come and talk and laugh with us. He was travelling. And when I knew we were coming to England I asked him what English girls were like? And, oh, Miss Florence, I knew he spoke of one he loved who was dead. But he told me to be brave. He is so!”

It did not strike Flossy at the moment to be surprised at Violante’s interest in Arthur and his story; the subject was too interesting to herself, but the fact dropped into her mind and was recalled in the future. Now she asked a few more questions about him, and in return told Violante a little of the circumstances of his trouble, till they were obliged to separate to dress for tea. Violante crept away to her room, and as she stood by herself in the dark she felt that she had in a manner deceived Miss Florence. “But,” thought she – “he shall say first he knows me – if he will. When shall I see him? How shall I see him? Oh, never – shut up here! Hugo – ah, Hugo mio!”

Yet she felt full of expectation, full of something like hope. “I will tell Rosa if I see Signor Arthur,” she thought; “but if I tell her who is near she will be angry and foolish and take me away. It will not hurt me.”

So, to excuse herself to her own conscience for thus concealing so important a fact from her sister, she found heart to go through her work as usual, teaching and learning, with one question ever before her, one expectation filling her life. She could tell Rosa when she could talk to her, she thought; but a letter would give a false impression, and make her sister anxious to no purpose.

Part 5, Chapter XXXV

Discords

“Those blind motions of the springThat show the year has turned.”

Redhurst was entirely unused to absenteeism. Mrs Crichton had scarcely ever spent five months together away from it in her life, and now she seemed to have taken with her all the movement and interest of the place. From the time when the little heiress had ridden out with her father on her long-tailed pony, all through the days of her bright, joyous young ladyhood, and happy, active wifehood, she had lived among her own people; and, as she was both an affectionate and conscientious woman, she had fulfilled her duties towards them well, and found and given much pleasure in the fulfilment. Moreover, besides the Rector, the Crichtons had been the only resident gentry in the parish, though there was a large neighbourhood beyond its bounds. Substantial benefits were not intermitted, and Hugh was far too conscientious to neglect his local duties; but kind words and gossip were missing. Mr and Mrs Harcourt seemed to have grown years older; the girls, who had been wont to admire Mysie’s hats and profit by her teaching missed both; and the old women had no one to recount their aches and pains to. Some excitement was, however, derived from the fact that Ashenfold, a large farm-house in the place, had been taken by a Colonel Dysart, in search of a country residence, who brought there a large family of girls and boys – active, helpful, and good-humoured. So the pathway through the fields was trodden by other girlish feet on their way to school; other hands hung up the Christmas wreaths in Redhurst Church; and Mysie’s duties were not altogether left undone. The new folks were grumbled at and sighed over; but they had stirred the dull waters, and on their side, of course, were ready to welcome eagerly the return of the family to the great house – none the less eagerly on account of their mournful story. There would be an acquaintance, for Mr Spencer Crichton had met Colonel Dysart in Oxley, and had left a card upon him. All business matters remaining in Hugh’s hands he had been obliged sometimes to go to Redhurst, and he hardly felt one place to be more dreary than another. Indeed, he was so tired of his self-imposed solitude that he felt glad to think that his mother was coming back again. Perhaps, things would be better, somehow. Still, he could not make up his mind to be there to receive them, but made some excuse of business for the first night, and then rode home the next day, after the banking hours were over, through the cold, frosty evening, as he had done all his life till the last few months, in secure expectation of finding warmth and light, girlish voices, and little bits of news, small matters to be decided, life and comfort; in one word – home. Ah, could that busy, troublesome, foolish home come back how sweet it would have been! What would he find now? His heart beat fast as he rode up to the door, which was quickly opened, and Hugh felt an odd sort of relief at sight of the bright hall fire burning; and in another moment he was in the drawing-room, and held his mother in his arms, in, perhaps, the fondest embrace he had ever given to her since he was a little school-boy.

“Oh, mother, I’m glad you’re come home!” he said. Frederica came up promptly to kiss him, and he felt that it was all very comfortable and pleasant, and much more cheerful than he had expected. He had retained the impression of the sorrowful faces and heavy mourning of their last parting. Now there was white about his mother’s dress, and Freddie’s hair was tied with violet ribbons. He could have dispensed with the presence of the two Miss Brabazons, whose acquaintance had been made at Bournemouth; but, perhaps, as Mrs Crichton had thought, they helped to fill up blank spaces. Hugh was not a very observant person, but as he glanced round the room he saw that it had a different aspect; the coverings were of another colour, the tables and sofas had been moved, the lamp stood in a new part of the room; there seemed to be no well-known corner or combination left.

“The place looks different,” said Hugh, who was not easily affected by externals.

“Ah, yes,” said his mother, “it was best to make a few changes.”

Hugh shivered, and seemed to see the old scene through the new.

“You don’t look very well, my dear,” said Mrs Crichton. “Have you been working too hard?”

“Oh, no, mother, thank you; I’m well enough. I’ll go now and dress for dinner.” The changes in the drawing-room had caused Hugh to look out for old associations; but his mother followed him upstairs.

“You see, Hugh,” she said, “for all the young ones’ sakes it was necessary to get over old impressions. You know this old door was shut up” – suddenly opening it – “and, by closing the other, and changing the furniture, there is nothing to recall our darling’s room.”

Hugh shrank back. He saw vaguely that it all looked very different; but he could not cross the threshold.

“Yes, mother, I daresay you’re right,” he said, hurriedly; “it may make a difference.”

“And, Hugh, we must not let the house be mournful. When Arthur comes back it will be much better for him to find us cheerful.”

Hugh made no reply. He could not contemplate the thought of Arthur’s return. How had any of them come back, he thought, as he dressed hastily and went downstairs. At dinner his mother asked him if he had seen anything of the new comers to Ashenfold.

“Yes, I have seen Colonel Dysart. He is a gentleman. There are a great many of them.”

“I must go and call. Didn’t you tell me, Freddie, that some of them were going to Miss Venning’s?”

“So Flossy said in her letter,” returned Freddie.

“They have been kind and helpful, I hear. It is a great thing to have that house occupied.”

“We did very well with the old Horehams,” said Hugh, “though Colonel Dysart is likely to be a good neighbour. Have you been to the Rectory?”

“Oh, yes, we went over at once. I think the dear old folks want us back again. You should have looked in on them now and then on a Sunday, Hugh.”

“It is you they want, not me,” he said. “I went to Oxley parish church generally. You have not seen the town yet, I suppose, Miss Brabazon?” he added, to change the conversation.

Before the evening was over, Hugh was doubtful whether the cheerfulness around him was not dearly bought by the effort to join in it. There was no want of affectionate feeling in Mrs Crichton; she missed Mysie every hour, and acknowledged their loss to the full; but she was determined that it should be regarded as nothing more than a loss, and that, as she phrased it, “no morbid feelings should be allowed to exist;” and she would not acknowledge that Hugh had any special occasion for sensitiveness. Being, with all her good-nature and easiness of discipline, a person of strong will she was determined to create external cheerfulness. Frederica, who had now, of course, become a more important element in the household, was reserved by nature, and, like many young girls, afraid of the force of her own emotions. She could not bear to speak or hear of Mysie, so she turned vehemently to other things; while, the more her high spirits regained their sway, the less she liked any infringement on them.

Hugh was away at the Bank on the day that Flossy came to see them: but she, too, nervous, and inwardly agitated, was glad to talk of external things – about the new people, and their girls coming to school, and the dear little signorina of whom she was growing so fond, and whose wonderful sweet face was like a poem or a picture.

“You must bring her to see us, Flossy, when Freddie asks some of her schoolfellows,” said Mrs Crichton.

So, little pleasant plans were made, and Redhurst came back into Flossy’s life. Yet, as she walked home through the cold afternoon, the tears rolled down her cheeks. It seemed cruel for the home to be regaining its cheerfulness while Arthur was away, solitary and unhappy. Yet she, herself, how full her life was; how fast the world went on!

“And we forget because we must And not because we will,” thought Flossy, and in this mood Violante’s tears had surely met with warm sympathy.

Colonel and Mrs Dysart were called upon, and the family proved to be what is called in country neighbourhoods an “acquisition.” They had done up their house. Colonel Dysart hunted and was anxious to get some shooting. There were four sons and five daughters, all between nine and twenty-eight, ready to be sociable. Two of the girls went to school with Freddie; one of the elder ones was useful in the village; some among them rode, sang, and drew – it was worth while being attentive to them; and a promising acquaintance began to spring up. Even old Mrs Harcourt found visits from the children enlivening to her, and liked to give them winter apples and Christmas roses. It was a good thing, too, to have someone to take an interest in the choir, and the curate, whom Mr Harcourt’s age had recently rendered necessary, found work for the young ladies; while they spoke together with a certain tender curiosity of her whose sweet life and sad fate was already becoming a tradition, to give to the scenery of the tragedy a certain mournful interest, and to make the touching of Mysie’s doings and the taking-up of her duties something of a rare privilege. So, new lives and new possibilities were springing up, slowly and naturally, as the snowdrops began to peep on Mysie’s grave.

Hugh did not see much of the new comers; he was away all day, and did not always come out from Oxley in the evening; and he paid so little attention to the talk going on around him that he neither discovered the names and ages of the Dysarts, nor heard anything of the charms of Freddie’s new Italian teacher, whose youth and gentleness excited her surprise and delight. But one sunny morning, as he rode into Oxley, a little incident occurred to him. He was passing Oxley Manor, riding slowly under its ivied wall and thinking of nothing less than of its inhabitants, when, from one of the upper windows that looked out close on the road, something fell on his horse’s neck, and then down into the dust at his feet. Hugh looked down – it was a little bunch of violets; then glanced carelessly up at the windows with a laugh. “Those girls must be very hard up! What would Flossy say?” he thought. But no one peeped out to see what had become of her violets, and he rode on, amused as he recalled various boyish pranks of Jem’s and Arthur’s, and left the violets lying in the dust.

When he came back that afternoon his mother called him into the drawing-room. “Hugh,” she said, eagerly, “here is a letter from Arthur, which greatly concerns you.”

With the curious sense of reluctance with which he always received anything connected with his cousin, Hugh took the letter, and read —

“Rome, January 28, 18 —

“My dear Aunt Lily, – I am glad to hear you are at home again; I did not like to think of the place being empty. This is a wonderful city, and it is impossible even to mention all the objects of interest it contains. I wish Jem was near to enjoy them. If I tried to describe them it would be like copying a guide-book, and I would rather tell you something of what I have seen when me meet; and I hope that will be soon, for, my dear aunt, I think I have led this wandering life long enough. I have been thinking over things of late, and I wish, if you and Hugh consent, to come home again, and take my place in the Bank, as was originally proposed, and try and do as well as I can. I am very tired of travelling; and, as for choosing any other profession, I don’t feel that I can turn my mind to anything fresh, and something I must settle upon. Give my love to Hugh, and tell him I hope I shall be able to make myself useful to him. I shall be very glad to see you all again; and, though life is for ever changed to me, all that is left to me is at Redhurst with you and my sister and my brother – my brothers, I should say, for so Hugh and Jem have been and must be. I hope and pray not to be idle or useless for her sake.

“Ever your loving nephew, —

“Arthur Spencer.”

Hugh read the letter through, and it touched him to the heart – the exceeding sadness that the writer could hardly disguise, the unwonted profession of affection for himself, and yet the coupling of his name with Jem’s, as if to hide that there was any reason for such profession. He saw how conscientiously Arthur was endeavouring to act, and yet the proposal was terrible to him.

“Well, Hugh,” said his mother, after a long pause, “it is the best thing for the poor boy, isn’t it?”

“Of course, mother,” said Hugh, slowly. “Arthur must do exactly as he pleases, have everything as he wishes it; but – but – I think he is mistaken.”

“Mistaken, how?”

“I think he is trying to do what he will not be equal to. How can he bear this place?” said Hugh, in a passionate undertone. “Every day would be an agony to him. It is – it would be to me!”

“Of course,” said Mrs Crichton, “there will be much that is painful at first; but he will get over it, and he cannot be banished for ever. Depend upon it, Hugh, the truest kindness will be to let everything be as much a matter of course as possible. The world could not go on if everyone shrank from the scenes of their misfortunes. Arthur is perfectly right, and I am sure he will be much happier in having something to do; and you’ll find his natural cheerfulness will help him through. We must make it as pleasant and easy as possible.”

Hugh rose and gave the letter back to his mother. “Tell him it shall be as he wishes,” he said; “but tell him also that if ever he changes his mind I will not hold him to his word;” and, without waiting for an answer, he went hurriedly away to his own room. How should he bear Arthur’s presence, how endure the sight of his sorrow? Could he ride into Oxley with him every day, when every weary look and dispirited tone would be like the thrust of a dagger. The more generous and unselfish Arthur was, the bitterer seemed the reproach. The idea of constant association was so terrible to him that, just in judgment as Hugh was, it almost seemed to him as if a choice so unlike his own must be dictated by feelings less intense and a memory less keen. “How can he bear the sight of me?” he thought. “I would have gone to the ends of the earth sooner than come back. If he has any feeling he will not be able to endure it! However, it doesn’t matter what it is to me!”

Hugh honoured the sacrifice, and yet half despised his cousin for the power of making it. He would have considered it his duty to yield up his most cherished feelings for Arthur, and yet he regarded him with a shrinking that, in so passionate a nature, was almost hate. Truly, his mother was right in thinking that such morbid feelings, did not deserve encouragement. And then there was the constant haunting belief that he was enduring in silence a loss and a want similar to that for which everyone was pitying his cousin. And when Hugh’s thoughts took that turn he sometimes felt as if he were making a sort of secret atonement. But all this was in the depths of Hugh’s soul; his sensible outer judgment knew the probable risk of reaction for so young a man as Arthur, and felt that home and work were his best safeguards. And Hugh remembered that he had still his rooms at the Bank House, where a press of business might always detain him if Redhurst became quite unendurable. When Frederica went to school the next morning she told Flossy, as she came into her Italian class and was waiting for some of her companions, that Arthur was coming home.

“Signor Arthur?” said Violante, who was standing by.

“Yes,” answered Frederica, who, of course, had been informed of the meeting at Caletto; “he will be surprised to see you, signorina. He is coming back and going to begin at the Bank, and go on as usual.”

“I hope – it will do,” said Flossy, rather tremulously. Violante glanced at her and began to read herself, as the girls came in and took their places; and Miss Florence let her take the lead, and neither asked nor answered a question for full five minutes.

End of the Second Volume.

Part 5, Chapter XXXVI

Beginning Afresh

“When all the world is old, lad,And all the trees are brown,And all the sport is stale, lad.And all the wheels run down.”

It was on a soft mild afternoon early in February that Arthur came home – an afternoon with a pearly sky and gleams of pale spring sunshine to light the starry celandines and budding palms. Spring was coming – there were lambs in the meadows, and birds in the hedges, the gaily-painted barges floated down the slow water, children and young ladies tripped along the path – nothing was changed. Redhurst, always a cheerful place, was at its brightest, fresh and spring-like, yet familiar as the golden crocuses in the garden-beds.