Hugh Crichton's Romance

Mrs Crichton was glad of the sunshine. Though rarely nervous she longed for the arrival to be over, and sent her young ladies to meet Frederica as she came from school, so that there was no one to receive her nephew but herself, arrayed in mourning, purposely lightened before his return. She heard him ring the bell, perhaps for the first time in his life, and came out to meet him.

“Well, my dear boy, I hardly expected you so soon; come in – I’m glad to see you.”

Arthur kissed her warmly, and followed her into the drawing-room.

“I think the train was punctual,” he said.

“Are you tired – did you stop in London?”

“Oh, yes, and I saw Jem. He says he will run down soon. I crossed yesterday, so I have had nothing of a journey to-day.”

“And – are you quite well, my dear?”

Mrs Crichton did not mean to make much of the meeting; but she put her hand on his arm and looked at him tenderly, hardly able to speak. Arthur smiled a little.

“Very well,” he said, “and glad to see you.”

Arthur was quite quiet and calm; but he was very grave, and made no attempt to feign an ordinary tone of feeling that could not have been real; he was always entirely genuine, and rarely thought of the effect of his own demeanour. Mrs Crichton looked at him anxiously, he was a good deal tanned and rather thinner than of old; but she thought that he did look well and wonderfully like himself.

“Isn’t Freddie here?” he said.

“Yes – there she is – she has been at school.”

Ah! he went forward rather eagerly to meet her; but Frederica, nervous and excited, and by no means sharing his absence of self-consciousness, kissed him rather boisterously than tenderly, and began to talk fast because she was afraid of crying.

“I suppose Hugh is at the Bank,” said Arthur; but as he spoke there was a rush and a scamper through the hall, and Snap, his terrier, rushed upon him with a welcome in which there was no cloud of embarrassment, and no room for regrets. After that Arthur was glad to get away to look after his luggage, and when he came back afternoon tea was in progress, and he sat down and talked about his journey and the wonders of Rome, and the new coloured curtains Jem had hung up in his highly-decorated rooms. Arthur was a pleasant talker, and they thought how nice it was to have him at home again. But he looked vaguely about the room between whiles, as if its changes perplexed him. He walked over to the window and looked out, where the light was dying away on the garden-paths. He had expected to feel the first sight of home severely – he hardly felt anything except that he had been there for a long time – an interminable number of hours.

Hugh was, perhaps purposely, late, and at length Mrs Crichton proposed going to dress, audibly wondering why he did not come.

“There he is!” said Freddie, as a horse’s hoofs sounded. “Hugh,” she added, throwing open the door, “here’s Arthur!”

Arthur started up and went forward.

“Hugh!” he said with a sort of eagerness:

“Well, Arthur, how d’ye do?” but as Hugh uttered this commonplace greeting his hand was as cold as ice. They exchanged half-a-dozen words as to Arthur’s journey and the weather, and separated in two minutes to dress; and the much-dreaded meeting was over.

Everyone was eager to talk at dinner, and a little bit afraid of home topics, and soon Frederica started what she conceived to be a delightfully safe and interesting subject.

“Oh, Arthur, we have heard of you lately from someone you met in Italy.”

“Really; who is that?”

“Why, a young lady who teaches us Italian – she was at a place called Caletto.”

“Miss Rosa Mattei?” said Arthur. “Has she come here?”

“No – it is her sister. Oh, she is the dearest little thing – her name is Violante – do you remember?”

“Violante! You don’t say so! I remember her perfectly. Is she at Miss Venning’s? Well, that is the most extraordinary chance!” exclaimed Arthur, much interested. “I never thought she would really go to school!”

“Oh, yes; Miss Venning knows her aunt, I believe.”

“Poor little thing!” said Arthur. “I was so sorry for her. She – she lost her voice, you know.”

“Oh, yes, I know all about it. Flossy told me. She likes being at school much better than on the stage.”

“They were very kind to me. It was like a bit of a romance. She used to ask me questions about England. Why, they don’t make her teach, do they? What a shame!”

“Arthur, what nonsense!” cried his sister. “But Violante just bewitches people.”

“Well! she doesn’t look fit to light her way. By the by, Hugh, Jem told me that you and he saw her act. It was rather a failure, wasn’t it?”

As no one had expected Hugh to take any particular interest in this conversation his dead silence surprised no one. A great fern hid him from his mother, and no one else looked at or thought of him. He answered Arthur, mechanically:

“I believe it was considered so.”

“But was her voice so lovely?” said Freddie.

“They said so, I think.”

“Oh, Hugh!” said his mother, laughing, “what opportunities you throw away. We must ask Jem, Arthur?”

“Ay, I should think Jem would have been enraptured. I thought of him when I saw her in the golden sunshine piling up the grapes, and they gave me coffee because I was tired and thirsty. I can’t believe she could do anything so prosaic as teach.”

The subject in its various branches lasted for some time, and when the ladies went away Arthur continued it:

“I don’t suppose Freddie does know all about her. You know she was engaged to the manager of the opera-house there, and he threw her over when she lost her voice. So the poor little thing was fretting her heart out.”

“How do you know?” said Hugh, with a sense of being suffocated.

“Oh, there was an old cantatrice who had charge of the sisters, and she used to talk to me. And one could see the poor child was unhappy – indeed, she owned as much.”

“She would be quite pleased to see you again.”

“Well, I daresay she would,” said Arthur, carelessly; “but I don’t suppose Miss Venning would allow – ” He stopped, as the words suggested a different recollection, and after a moment went on, gravely:

“Hugh, I don’t want to lose any more time. You will let me begin work to-morrow?”

“If you wish it,” said Hugh, without looking at him. “You can do as you wish always.”

“Thanks; you’re very good, Hugh. I’ll do my best. You’ll be patient?”

Poor boy, he was naturally outspoken, and wanted, perhaps, a word of sympathy and support in this painful home-coming; but Hugh only answered, as they left the room: “I could not be otherwise,” and the coldness of the tone neutralised the kindness of the words. He lingered behind as Arthur turned towards the drawing-room, and went into his study. He would not have believed beforehand how little he would have thought about his cousin on that first day of meeting, which he had dreaded so much beforehand. His cold, short answers had come, not from embarrassment, but because he was wholly absorbed in something else. Had he avoided Violante to find her close at his side? Had he really passed her every morning and evening? Ah – and the violets – he had thrown them away! Perhaps this fact gave to the sensible Mr Spencer Crichton the keenest sense of lost opportunity that he had ever experienced. She had not, then, forgotten him. Had she come there knowing of his neighbourhood? Or had she really never cared for him at all? Arthur confirmed her engagement to the manager, and seemed well-informed, much too well-informed as to her sentiments with regard to the breach of it. Hugh was not naturally trustful, and through all his passion he had never trusted Violante, never forgotten that she was a foreigner and of altogether different training from his own. Besides, she had been false to him. He had seen her with the diamonds on her neck – he had been deceived by her confiding softness – hadn’t she been just as ready to tell her troubles to Arthur as to himself? At home Hugh was much more convinced of the unsuitableness of his choice than he had been in Italy; and now, after all that had passed, what right had he to create such a family convulsion as would be caused by any renewal of it? His love remained, but the charm of it seemed to have faded. The bitter hours he had lately passed had half awakened him from his dazzling holiday dream, taking from it the force it might else have had to bend his pride to own what had been passing in his mind all the summer, and to shake the conviction that had a sort of uncomfortable attraction to him – that he had lost the right to choose his own happiness against the pleasure of his family. How could he say to his mother now, “Consent to this – I cannot live without her,” – when, through him, Arthur must live without his love? To do so he must have been careless and selfish – and Hugh was neither, in intention, or he must have been able to sound the depths and rise to the height of a humility of which he could not even conceive. Besides, this unlucky love paid the penalty of all feelings that are unlikely and, as it were, against the nature and the circumstances of those who experience them. It was sweet and enticing, but it was insecure and beset by doubts and misgivings.

But yet, when he and Arthur rode away together the next morning, Hugh’s sense of being alone with his cousin was lost in the knowledge that he must pass Oxley Manor. He looked up at it, and his heart thrilled; but no face was at the window, no violets, cool and fragrant, touched his hand. Where was she? What was she doing? He was absorbed in the present, full of an excitement which enraged him, but which made life worth having after all. Arthur, by his side, had his own vision, but it was back in the past. Those walls held no imprisoned princess for him. That little green gate could never open again and show her standing under the ivy, with her happy eyes and brisk light tread. During his long absence Arthur had felt continuously that he had lost Mysie; he began now to realise that the world was going on without her. He found the home life hard. He had never expected to be other than sad; but he had not foreseen that one thing would be worse than another, that there would be some paths that he dared not tread, some faces that he could not bear to see. When, as he strolled through the garden after breakfast, he suddenly felt that he could not turn down the path towards the river, when he counted with nervous dread each familiar object yet to be met, he was surprised and vexed with himself. He had thought that everything that recalled his darling must be sweet: what was the meaning of this horror which he tried to forget in taking part in the family talk and life around him; when his natural cheerfulness asserted itself, and Hugh looked at him with wonder? And then, when he fancied that he should rather like some occupation or amusement, why did he suddenly break down in the attempt to share in it, and only long to get away by himself? Even his work at the Bank – which was less trying, since it was entirely new – was sometimes a great burden to him after his long desultoriness; but in this case there was something definite to struggle with, and he could succeed in conquering himself; but at home he could not tell what was the matter with him, and no one helped him to find out – his aunt continuously ignoring his fluctuating spirits, and congratulating herself when he was lively and talkative; while Hugh, seeing that the cheerfulness was spontaneous when it came, marvelled at it, and, while he could not bear to see him dispirited, wondered what his world would think if he showed his moods so plainly. Nevertheless, he was not always even-tempered, and, as Arthur had lost his careless good-humour, Hugh would be shocked to find himself arguing hotly or speaking sharply to one with whom he was bound to have entire patience; and Arthur would wonder why, with such a weight at his heart, things should seem all out of joint – not because Mysie was dead – but because Hugh frowned, or Freddie laughed, or some trifle put him out of his way. He had returned home on a Tuesday, and by the end of the week had grown fairly perplexed with himself. On the Saturday afternoon, however, he walked out early from Oxley by himself, and, taking a roundabout way through some of the woods belonging to Ashenfold, felt soothed and cheered by the pleasant light and air of the early spring. When he was thus alone, and could let quiet thoughts of Mysie have their way unchecked and undisturbed, he lost the sense of discord and trouble; and, as was, perhaps, too much his wont, the sensations of the hour obliterated all others, and he stood leaning over a gate, watching the faint, pinky tints on the woods, and listening to a robin singing close at hand. Suddenly, in the copse beside him, there was a sharp noise – the report of a gun. Arthur started, as if he had been shot himself, his heart beat violently; he caught at the gate, and held it hard; the sound struck his ears like a repetition of that one fatal shot. It was some minutes before he recovered himself sufficiently to be conscious of anything but his own sensations, and when he looked up at last and drew breath he was fairly exhausted. He had thought so little of himself, and so much of his sorrow, that he had had no conception how severe the shock to his nerves had been. He was annoyed with himself and very thankful that no one had been there to see, so that he carefully concealed the incident from everybody; but it set him on the look-out, as it were, for his own feelings; and, while it certainly roused him to attempt to conceal them, he so dreaded a recurrence of the shock, and was so ignorant as to what might cause it, that he shrank from many old associations which he had previously never thought of avoiding. The sound rang in his ears, and he tried vehemently to distract his mind from it by talking and laughing with his aunt’s guests; and when Hugh saw him playing bezique he wondered whether he was to envy him for heroic self-control or for boyish carelessness and reaction.

Part 5, Chapter XXXVII

Faint-Hearted

“The grave of all things hath its violet.”

The Redhurst drawing-room was looking uncommonly cheerful on the Saturday week after Arthur’s return; and Jem, recently arrived, was enjoying an unwonted tête-à-tête with his mother. It would be, perhaps, untrue to say that a person with affections so even as Mrs Crichton’s had a favourite son; but there was much in Jem’s ways that suited her, and he had the charm of novelty. He was strolling about the room, criticising the alterations somewhat unfavourably.

“I say, mamma, what did you buy this thing for?” touching the chintz. “I could have chosen you a much better one. Why didn’t you write to me?”

“Really, my dear, I didn’t think of asking you to choose my drawing-room furniture. Why don’t you like it?”

“Why don’t I like it? Why, it’s altogether incorrect. Those autumn leaves are false art.”

“Dear me, don’t you like my leaves? They’re so natural you might sweep them up.”

“Exactly. You might as well be out in the garden. Now, there’s a thing up in one of the spare bed-rooms. It’s yellow, with a faint brown pattern.”

“That, Jem! Why, it belonged to your grandmother Spencer, and was moved here when she came and spent her last year with us. It’s hideous. I was going to have it taken down.”

“It’s about the best thing in the house,” said Jem, critically. “You should have it made up for this room.”

“Ah, my dear fellow, I hope your wife will have some taste of her own.”

“I hope she’ll leave it to me. I shall stipulate she does when I marry and settle.”

“I am afraid, my dear, life in London doesn’t lead young men to marry and settle.”

“Well, mamma, I’m sure I don’t know about that,” said Jem, sitting down on the obnoxious chintz and stroking his beard. “Girls look out for so much now-a-days.”

“I hope, my dear, you haven’t been falling in with any girl,” said Mrs Crichton, composedly – for she was not excitable – but a little struck by Jem’s manner. “You make so many acquaintances. When you were abroad I was quite anxious.”

“I assure you, mamma, I was a miracle of discretion when I was abroad – couldn’t have been better with you at my elbow,” said Jem, unable to resist a little emphasis.

“Well, I am sure, I wonder you did not make a heroine of that little Italian girl, Arthur’s acquaintance. Hugh said you met her.”

“Hugh said I met her!” ejaculated Jem, “Well, if that isn’t cool!”

“Why, something was said of seeing her act, and, of course, my dear boy, I didn’t suppose Hugh had been the one to discover her merits.”

“I assure you, mother, I was quite as discreet as Arthur or Hugh either. But what made Mademoiselle Mattei a subject of conversation?”

“Why, she is at Miss Venning’s at school.”

“Good heavens!” ejaculated Jem, utterly off his guard; then, catching himself up: “At school! Extraordinary!”

“Yes, but I believe there’s nothing extraordinary about her. So pray, my dear, don’t go and do anything foolish.”

“Why am I always to be the black sheep?” said Jem, in an injured tone, but with inward laughter. “Hugh and Arthur saw quite as much of her as I did.”

“Well, we may put poor Arthur out of the question, and as for Hugh, do you think I’ve any reason to be anxious in that way about him?”

“So you wouldn’t like an Italian daughter-in-law?”

“My dear, don’t be absurd,” said Mrs Crichton, contemplating her wool-work. “How can you talk of such a thing? I should like to see both you and Hugh married, but I dread your doing something foolish when I think of the number of times you have been on the verge of it – and as for Hugh – ”

“Well, as for Hugh?”

“I really despair of his ever turning his thoughts in that direction.”

“How are you all getting along together?” said Jem, rather glad to change the conversation.

“Oh, pretty well,” said Mrs Crichton, sighing. “Of course, Arthur, poor dear boy, has ups and downs; but he is very cheerful, in and out, and I make a point of going on as usual.”

“And he and Hugh get on comfortably?”

“Yes. I tell Hugh it is absurd to expect that he should not flag sometimes. Now, Sunday was a trial. He went to church in the morning, but he was more knocked up afterwards than I have seen him at all; but the next day he was quite ready to be interested in these pleasant Dysarts who have come to Ashenfold. Hugh was quite angry with me for making him come in to see them; but we can’t shut ourselves up, and I must ask them to dinner in a quiet way. It is much better for Arthur. Then, there was another thing. I wanted him to come to the Rectory with me – to get it over, you know – but Hugh interfered, and said no-one should urge him to make such an effort, in such a peremptory way I had to give it up.”

“I should avoid discussions,” said James.

“It’s hard work for them both. By the way, mamma,” he added, having conducted the conversation well away from its former matrimonial channel, “do you know that there is going to be a great choir festival at H – , in the cathedral in Easter week – shall you go?”

“Is there? Oh, no, I hadn’t thought of it.”

“I expect it will be rather fine. I shall run down, and if you did care about taking Freddie I daresay the Haywards would get you good places.”

“The Haywards?”

“The Archdeacon, you know. He is a Canon of H – . Young Hayward’s in the War Office. I know him. There are some daughters.”

“Oh, I know Mrs Hayward very well. She was at the only ball to which I ever took dear Mysie at H – , with her daughters; tall, fine girls, rather insipid.”

“They’re very superior,” said Jem, in an odd, meek voice; but, as he was not much in the habit of admiring superior young ladies, his mother only said:

“Are they? Their mother is a very ladylike woman. Well, I should not mind going over if Freddie wished it. I daresay Flossy Venning might like to go with us.”

“Oh, thank you,” began Jem. “I mean the organist is a friend of mine. Oh, there’s Hugh. How d’ye do?”

“I didn’t know you were here, Jem,” said Hugh, as he came into the room.

“I came by the early train. Where’s Arthur?”

“He preferred walking. How long shall you be here, Jem?”

“Till Tuesday.”

“Oh, then,” said Mrs Crichton, “Hugh, I think I shall ask the Dysarts to excuse a short notice and come here quite quietly on Monday night. As it is Lent, that is a reason for having no party.”

“There can be no reason wanted for that,” interrupted Hugh. “Mother, how can you think of such a thing? It is not suitable, and must be intolerable to Arthur.”

“Really, Hugh,” said his mother, for once offended, “I am the best judge of what is suitable. You talk as if I wished to give a ball; and Arthur does not dislike a little society.”

“If he does not,” said Hugh, and then broke off, “Perhaps he does not.”

“Why don’t you ask him?” suggested James.

“Because he has never shown any of this foolish reluctance,” said Mrs Crichton; “and, indeed, my dear, I can’t give into you about it.”

She rose and went away as she spoke, and James said:

“How’s this, Hugh? Things going all crooked?”

“Of course they are,” said Hugh, bitterly. “How could they go right? As for Arthur, I don’t profess to understand him. I daresay he does like amusement, but he can’t bear this place. How they can say he is less altered than they expected! I can feel the chance allusions stab him!”

“Then do you think he is putting a great force on himself?”

“No, no,” said Hugh, in an odd, restless tone. “It’s just as it comes, I believe. But they say he bears it beautifully, because his spirits come back in and out. He is boyish enough still. I daresay in a year’s time it will all be pretty well over.”

“It strikes me, Hugh, you are more out of sorts than Arthur.”

“I?” said Hugh. “If Arthur feels one half – No, he could not choose to be always with me.”

Hugh knitted his brows and walked over to the window. His was the perplexity of an erring, earnest nature watching another live over a difficult piece of life, by means of a more gracious temperament, succeeding, as he felt, without the struggles that went towards his own failures. Arthur behaved much better to him than he did to Arthur, but he did not take half so much pains about it. This is always an unsatisfactory consciousness, and in Hugh’s case it was intensified by the morbid interest that he was forced to take in his cousin.

“Mother’s been telling me all the news,” said James, to change the subject.

Hugh understood his marked tone at once.

“Remember, Jem, that is closed for ever,” he said. “If you breathe one word of the past, in joke or earnest, to my mother or Arthur, it will be past forgiveness.”

“I’m sure I don’t want to stir it up,” said Jem; “but it is a strange turn of fate.”

“It will make no difference,” said Hugh, in a tone that meant “it shall not.”

James was silent. Hugh’s resolve was exactly what he had always counselled him to make, yet he could not help thinking of Violante’s look of joy at seeing him, and wondering whether that light was quenched in her soft eyes for ever.

In the meantime, Arthur had not taken his solitary walk without a purpose. However far Hugh might be right in supposing that he allowed his feelings to drift as they would, he was becoming conscious that there was some cowardice in shrinking from anything that could excite them. He must stand by Mysie’s grave – and he must stand there alone; for on Sunday he had not dared to lift his eyes as he walked down the path. She was buried in a corner of the churchyard where it was especially green and still close by the wall of the Rectory garden, over which a bright pink almond-tree was visible. Snowdrops and violets were thrusting their heads through the short turf between the graves, and were blooming in sweet abundance round the white cross that marked where she lay, while several half-faded wreaths were placed above them. There was nothing here to make Arthur nervous, – he wondered why he had stayed away so long. He was full of grief, yet something of the peaceful spirit of the past came shining back into his heart as he knelt there in the spring sunshine, and kissed the letters of Mysie’s name. It was better, he thought, than being far away. He had risen to his feet, and was still dreamily gazing, when he heard a startled step at his side, and, turning, saw Florence Venning, bright, tall, and blooming, with a basket of flowers in her hand.