At His Gates. Volume 1

'To vindicate Drummond!' Mr Burton looked up with a sudden start, and then he added hurriedly, with an impetuosity which secured the two women to his side, 'Haldane, you are too good for this world. Don't let us speak of Drummond. I will forgive him – if I can.'

'How much have you to forgive him?' said the preacher. Once more, how much? By this time Mr Burton felt that he had a right to be angry with the question.

'How much?' he said; 'really I don't feel it necessary to go into my own business affairs with everybody who has a curiosity to know. I am willing to allow that my losses are as nothing to yours. Pray don't let us go into this question, for I don't want to lose my temper. I came to offer any assistance that was in my power – to you.'

'Oh, Mr Burton, Stephen is infatuated about that miserable man,' said the mother; 'he cannot see harm in him; and even now, when he has taken his own life and proved himself to be – '

'Stephen has a right to stand up for his friend,' said Miss Jane. 'If I had time I would stand up for him too; but Stephen's comfort has to be thought of first. Mr Burton, the best assistance you could give us would be to get me something to do. I can't be a governess, and needlework does not pay; neither does teaching, for that matter, even if I could do it. I am a good housekeeper, though I say it. I can keep accounts with anybody. I am not a bad cook even. And I'm past forty, and never was pretty in my life, so that I don't see it matters whether I am a woman or a man. I don't care what I do or where I go, so long as I can earn some money. Can you help me to that? Don't groan, Stephen; do you think I mind it? and don't you smile, Mr Burton. I am in earnest for my part.'

Stephen had groaned in his helplessness. Mr Burton smiled in his superiority, in his amused politeness of contempt for the plain woman past forty. 'We can't let you say that,' he answered jocosely, with a look at her which reminded Miss Jane that she was a woman after all, and filled her with suppressed fury. But what did such covert insult matter? It did not harm her; and the man who sneered at her homeliness might help her to work for her brother, which was the actual matter in hand.

'It is very difficult to know of such situations for ladies,' said Mr Burton. 'If anything should turn up, of course – but I fear it would not do to depend upon that.'

'Stephen has his pension from the chapel,' said Miss Jane. She was not delicate about these items, but stated her case loudly and plainly, without even considering what Stephen's feelings might be. 'It was to last for five years, and nearly three of them are gone; and he has fifty pounds a year for the Magazine – that is not much Mr Burton, for all the trouble; they might increase that. And mother and I are trying to let the house furnished, which would always be something. We could remove into lodgings, and if nothing more is to be got, of course we must do upon what we have.'

Here Mr Burton cast a look upon the invalid who was surrounded by so many contrivances of comfort. It was a compassionate glance, but it stung poor Stephen. 'Don't think of me,' he said hoarsely; 'my wants, though I look such a burden upon everybody, are not many after all. Don't think of me.'

'We could do with what we have,' Miss Jane went on – she was so practical, she rode over her brother's susceptibilities and ignored them, which perhaps was the best thing that could have been done – 'if you could help us with a tenant for our house, Mr Burton, or get the Magazine committee to give him a little more than fifty pounds. The work it is! what with writing – and I am sure he writes half of it himself – and reading those odious manuscripts which ruin his eyes, and correcting proofs, and all that. It is a shame that he has only fifty pounds – '

'But he need not take so much trouble unless he likes, Jane,' said Mrs Haldane, shaking her head. 'I liked it as it was.'

'Never mind, mother; Stephen knows best, and it is him that we have got to consider. Now, Mr Burton, here is what you can do for us – I should not have asked anything, but since you have offered, I suppose you mean it – something for me to do, or some one to take the house, or a little more money for the Magazine. Then we could do. I don't like anything that is vague. I suppose you prefer that I should tell you plain?'

'To be sure,' said Mr Burton; and he smiled, looking at her with that mixture of contemptuous amusement and dislike with which a plain middle-aged woman so often inspires a vulgar-minded man. That the women who want to work are always old hags, was one of the articles of his creed; and here was an illustration. Miss Jane troubled herself very little about his amusement or his contempt. She did not much believe in his good-will. But if he did mean it, why, it was best to take advantage of his offer. This was her practical view of the subject. Mr Burton turned from her to Stephen, who had taken no part in the talk. Necessity had taught to the sick man its stern philosophy. He had to listen to such discussions twenty times in a day, and he had steeled his heart to hear them, and make no sign.

'What would you say to life in the country?' he said. 'The little help I came to offer in these sad circumstances is not in any of the ways Miss Jane suggests. I don't know anybody that wants to take just this kind of house:' and he glanced round at it with a smile. He to know a possible tenant for such a nutshell! 'And I don't know any situation that would suit your sister, though I am sure she would be invaluable. My father-in-law is the man to speak about the Magazine business. Possibly he could manage that. But what I would offer you if you like, would be a lodging in the country. I have a house down at Dura, which is of no use to me. There is good air and a garden, and all that. You are as welcome as possible if you like to come.'

'A house in the country,' said Mrs Haldane. 'Oh, my boy! Oh, Mr Burton! he might get well there.'

Poor soul! it was her delusion that Stephen was to get well. She took up this new hope with eyes which, old as they were, flashed out with brightness and consolation. 'What will all our losses matter if Stephen gets well?' she went on, beginning to cry. And Miss Jane rose up hastily and went away with a tremulous harshness, shutting her lips up tight, to the other side of the room, to get her work, which she had been neglecting. Miss Jane was like a man in this, that she could not bear tears. She set her face against them, holding herself in, lest she too might have been tempted to join. Of all the subjects of discussion in this world, Stephen's recovery was the only one she could not bear; for she loved her brother like a poet, like a starved and frozen woman who has had but one love in her life.

The old mother was more manageable to Mr Burton's mind than Miss Jane. Her tears and gratitude restored him to what he felt was his proper place, – that of a benefactor and guardian angel. He sat for half an hour longer, and told Mrs Haldane all about the favour he was willing to confer. 'It is close to the gates of my own house, but you must not think that will be an annoyance to us,' he said. 'On the contrary, I don't mean to tell my father-in-law till he sees you there. It will be a pleasant surprise for him. He has always taken so much interest in Haldane. Don't say anything, I beg. I am very glad you should have it, and I hope it will make you feel this dreadful calamity less. Ah yes; it is wretched for us; but what must it be for my poor cousin? I am going to see her now.'

'I don't know her,' said Mrs Haldane. 'She has called at the door to ask for Stephen, very regular. That I suppose was because of the friendship between – but I have only seen her once or twice on a formal call. If all is true that I hear, she will take it hard, being a proud woman. Oh! pride's sinful at the best of times; but in a time like this – '

'Mother!'

'Yes, Stephen, I know; and I am sure I would not for the world say a word against friends of yours; but – '

'I must go now,' said Mr Burton, rising. 'Good-bye, Haldane. I will write to you about the house, and when you can come in. On second thoughts, I will not prevent you from mentioning it to Mr Baldwin, if you please. He is sure to ask what you are going to do, and he will be glad to know.'

He went out from Victoria Villas pleased with himself. He had been very good to these people, who really were nothing to him. He was not even a Dissenter, but a staunch Churchman, and had no sympathy for the sick minister. What was his motive, then? But it was his wife who made it her business to investigate his motives, and we may wait for the result of her examination. All this was easy enough. The kindness he had offered was one which would cost him little, and he had not suffered in this interview as he had done in that which preceded it. But now he had occasion for all his strength; now came the tug of war, the real strain. He was going to see Helen. She had been but three days a widow, and no doubt would be in the depth of that darkness which is the recognized accompaniment of grief. Would she see him? Could she have seen the papers, or heard any echo of their news? On this point he was nervous. Before he went to St Mary's Road, though it was close at hand, he went to the nearest hotel, and had a glass of wine and a biscuit. For such a visit he required all his strength.

But these precautions were unnecessary. The shutters were all closed in St Mary's Road. The lilacs were waving their plumy fragrant branches over a door which no one entered. Mrs Drummond was at home, but saw no one. Even when the maid carried his message to her, the answer was that she could see no one, that she was quite well, and required nothing. 'Not even the clergyman, sir,' said the maid. 'He's been, but she would not see him. She is as white as my apron, and her poor hands you could see the light through 'em. We all think as she'll die too.'

'Does she read the papers?' said Mr Burton anxiously. He was relieved when the woman said 'No.' He gave her half-a-crown, and bade her admit none to the house till he came again. Rebecca promised and curtsied, and went back to the kitchen to finish reading that article in the Daily Semaphore. The fact that it was 'master' who was there called 'this unfortunate man' and 'this unhappy wretch,' gave the strongest zest to it. 'La! to think he could have had all that on his mind,' they said to each other. George was the only one who considered it might be 'a made-up story,' and he was believed to say so more from 'contrariness,' and a desire to set up for superior wisdom, than because he had any real doubt on the subject. 'A person may say a thing, but I never heard of one yet as would go for to put it in print, if it wasn't true,' was Rebecca's comment. 'I'm sorry for poor master, all the same,' said Jane the housemaid, who was tender-hearted, and who had put on an old black gown of her own accord. The servants were not to get mourning, which was something unheard of; and they had all received notice, and, as soon as Mrs Drummond was able to move, were to go away.

For that matter, Helen was able to move then – able to go to the end of the earth, as she felt with a certain horror of herself. It is so natural to suppose that physical weakness should come in the train of grief; but often it does not, and the elastic delicate strength of Helen's frame resisted all the influences of her sorrow. She scarcely ate at all; she slept little; the world had grown to her one great sea of darkness and pain and desolation: and yet she could not lie down and die as she had thought she would, but felt such a current of feverish energy in all her veins as she had never felt before. She could have done anything – laboured, travelled, worked with her hands, fought even, not like a man, but like twenty men. She was conscious of this, and it grieved and horrified her. She felt as a woman brought up in conventional proprieties would naturally feel, that her health ought to have been affected, that her strength should have failed her. But it had not done so. Her grief inflamed her rather, and set her heart on fire. Even now, in these early days, when custom decreed that she ought to be incapable of exertion, 'keeping her bed,' she felt herself in possession of a very flood of energy and excited strength. She was miserable, but she was not weak. She shut herself up in the darkened house all day, but half the night would walk about in her garden, in her despair, trying to tame down the wild life which had come with calamity. Poor little Norah crept about everywhere after her, and lay watching with great wide-open eyes, through the silvery half-darkness of the summer night, till she should come to bed. But Norah was not old enough to understand her mother, and was herself half frightened by this extraordinary change in her, which affected the child's imagination more than the simple disappearance of her father did, though she wept and longed for him with a dreary sense that unless he came back life never could be as of old, and that he would never, never come back. But all the day long Mrs Drummond sat in her darkened room, and 'was not able to see any one.' She endured the vigil, and would have done so, if she had died of it. That was what was called 'proper respect:' it was called the conventional necessity of the moment. Mr Burton called again and again, but it was more than a fortnight before he was admitted. And in the mean time he too had certain preparations to go through.

CHAPTER XIV

Mr Burton was a man who was accustomed in his own house to have, in a great degree, his own way; but this was not because his wife was disinclined to hold, or incapable of forming, an opinion of her own. On the contrary, it was because he was rather afraid of her than otherwise, and thought twice before he promulgated any sentiments or started any plan which was likely to be in opposition to hers. But he had neither consulted her, nor, indeed, thought much of what she would say, in the sudden proposal he had made to the Haldanes. He was not a hasty man; but Dr Maurice's indignation had made an impression upon him, and he had felt all at once that in going to the Haldanes and to Helen, he must not, if he would preserve his own character, go with merely empty sympathy, but must show practically his pity for them. It was perhaps the only time in his life that he had acted upon a hasty idea without taking time to consider; and a chill doubt, as to what Clara would say, was in his mind as he turned his face homewards. Dura was about twenty miles from town, in the heart of one of the leafiest of English counties; the station was a mile and a half from the great house, half of which distance, however, was avenue; and Mr Burton's phaeton, with the two greys – horses which matched to a hair, and were not equalled in the stables of any potentate in the county – was waiting for him when the train arrived. He liked to drive home in this glorious way, rousing the village folks and acting as a timepiece for them, just as he liked the great dinner-bell, which the old Harcourts sounded only on great occasions, to be rung every day, letting the whole neighbourhood know that their local lord, their superior, the master of the great house, was going to dinner. He liked the thought that his return was an event in the place almost justifying the erection of a standard, as it was erected in a royal castle not very far off, when the sovereign went and came. Our rich man had not gone so far as yet, but he would have liked it, and felt it natural. The village of Dura was like a collection of beads threaded on the long white thread of road which ran from the station to the house – and occupied the greater part of the space, with single houses straggling at either end, and a cluster in the middle. The straggling houses at the end next the station were white villas, built for people whose business was in town, and who came home to dinner by the same train which brought Mr Burton, though their arrival was less imposing; but where the clump of dwelling-places thickened, the houses toned down into old-fashioned, deeply-lichened brick, with here and there a thatched roof to deepen, or a white-washed gable to relieve, the composition. At the end nearest the great house the village made a respectful pause, and turned off along a slanting path, which showed the tower of the church behind over the trees. The rectory, however, a pretty house buried in shrubberies, fronted the high road with modest confidence; and opposite it was another dwelling-place, in front of which Mr Burton drew up his horses for a moment, inspecting it with a careful and anxious eye. His heart beat a little quicker as he looked. His own gate was in sight, and these were the very grounds of Dura House, into which the large walled garden of this one intruded like a square wedge. In front there were no shrubberies, no garden, nothing to divide it from the road. A double row of pollard limes – one on the edge of the foot-path, one close to the house – indicated and shaded, but did not separate it from the common way. The second row of limes was level with the fence of the Dura grounds, and one row of white flagstones lay between them and the two white steps, the green door, and shining brass knocker of the Gatehouse. It was a house which had been built in the reign of the first George, of red brick, with a great many windows, three-storied, and crowned by a pediment, with that curious mixture of the useful and (supposed) ornamental, which by this time has come to look almost picturesque by reason of age. It had been built for the mother of one of the old Harcourts, a good woman who had been born the Rector's daughter of the place, and loved it and its vicinity, and the sight of its comings and goings. This was the origin of the Gatehouse; but since the days of Mrs Dunstable Harcourt it had rarely been inhabited by any of the family, and had been a trouble more than an advantage to them. It was too near the hall to be inhabited by strangers, and people do not always like to establish their own poor relations and dependents at their very gates. As the Harcourts dwindled and money became important to them, they let it at a small rate to a maiden household, two or three old ladies of limited means, and blood as blue as their own. And when Dura ceased, except on county maps, to be Harcourt-Dura, and passed into the hands of the rich merchant, he, too, found the Gatehouse a nuisance. There had been talk of pulling it down, but that would have been waste; and there had been attempts made to let it to 'a suitable tenant,' but no suitable tenant had been found. Genteel old ladies of blue blood had not found the vicinity of the Burtons a comfort to them as they did that of the Harcourts. And there it stood empty, echoing, void, a place where the homeless might be sheltered. Did Mr Burton's heart glow with benevolent warmth as he paused, drawing up his greys, and looked at it, with all its windows twinkling in the sun? To one of these windows a woman came forward at the sound of his pause, and, putting her face close to the small pane, looked out at him wondering. He gave her a nod, and sighed; and then flourished his whip, and the greys flew on. In another moment they had turned into the avenue and went dashing up the gentle ascent. It was a pretty avenue, though the trees were not so old as most of the Dura trees. The sunset gleamed through it, slanting down under the lowest branches, scattering the brown mossy undergrowth with lumps of gold. A little pleasant tricksy wind shook the branches and dashed little mimic showers of rain in the master's face: for it had been raining in the afternoon, and the air was fresh and full of a hundred nameless odours; but Mr Burton gave forth another big sigh before he reached the house. He was a little afraid of what his wife would say, and he was afraid of what he had done.

He did not say anything about it, however, till dinner was over. The most propitious moment seemed that gentle hour of dessert, when the inner man is strengthened and comforted, and there is time to dally over the poetic part of the meal – not that either of the Burtons were poetical. They were alone, not even the children being with them, for Mrs Burton disapproved of children coming to dessert; but all the same, she was beautifully dressed; he liked it, and so did she. She made very little difference in this particular between her most imposing dinner parties and those evenings which she spent tête-à-tête with her husband. When her aunts, who had old-fashioned ideas about extravagance, remonstrated with her, she defended herself, saying she could afford it, and he liked to see her well dressed. Mr Burton hated to have any scrap of capital unemployed; and the only interest you could get from your jewels was the pleasure of wearing them, and seeing them worn, he said. So Mrs Burton dined with her husband in a costume which a French lady of fashion would have considered appropriate to a ball or royal reception, with naked shoulders and arms, and lace and ornaments. Madame la Duchesse might have thought it much too fine, but Mrs Burton did not. She was a pale little woman, small and thin, but not without beauty. Her hair was not very abundant, but it was exquisitely smooth and neat. Her uncovered shoulders were white, and her arms round and well-formed; and she had clear blue eyes, so much brighter than anybody expected, that they took the world by surprise: they were cold in their expression, but they were full of intelligence, and a hundred times more vivid and striking than anything else about her, so that everybody observed and admired Mrs Burton's eyes.

'What has been going on to-day? What have you been doing?' she asked, when the servants went away. The question sounded affectionate, and showed at least that there was confidence between the husband and wife.

'Very much as usual,' Mr Burton said, with colloquial ease; and then he stopped and cleared his throat. 'But for my own part I have done something rather foolish,' he said, with an almost imperceptible tremor in his voice.

'Indeed?' She gave a quick glance up at him; but she was not excited, and went on calmly eating her strawberries. He was not the kind of man of whose foolish actions a wife is afraid.

'I have been to see the Haldanes to-day,' he said, once more clearing his throat; 'and I have been to Helen Drummond's, but did not see her. The one, of course, I did out of regard for your father; the other – I was so distressed by the sight of that poor fellow in his helplessness, that I acted on impulse, Clara. I know it's a foolish thing to do. I said to myself, here are two families cast out of house and home, and there is the Gatehouse – '

'The Gatehouse!'

'Yes, I was afraid you would be startled; but reflect a moment: it is of no use to us. We have got nobody to occupy it. You know, indeed, how alarmed you were when your aunt Louisa took a fancy to it; and I have tried for a tenant in vain. Then, on the other hand, one cannot but be sorry for these poor people. Helen is my cousin; she has no nearer friend than I am. And your father is so much interested in the Haldanes – '

'I don't quite understand,' said Mrs Burton, with undisturbed composure; 'my father's interest in the Haldanes has nothing to do with the Gatehouse. Are they to live there?'

'That was what I thought,' said her husband, 'but not, of course, if you have any serious dislike to it – not if you decidedly object – '

'Why should I decidedly object?' she said. 'I should if you were bringing them to live with me; but otherwise – It is not at all suitable – they will not be happy there. It will be a great nuisance to us. As it is, strangers rather admire it – it looks old-fashioned and pleasant; but if they made a squalid place of it, dirty windows, and cooking all over the house – '

'So far as my cousin is concerned, you could have nothing of that kind to fear,' said Mr Burton, ceasing to be apologetic. He put a slight emphasis on the word my; perhaps upon this point he would not have been sorry to provoke his wife, but Clara Burton would not gratify her husband by any show of jealousy. She was not jealous, she was thinking solely of appearances, and of the possible decadence of the Gatehouse.

'Besides, Susan must stay,' he continued, after a pause; 'she must remain in charge; the house must be kept as it ought to be. If that is your only objection, Clara – '

'I have made no objection at all,' said Mrs Burton; and then she broke into a dry little laugh. 'What a curious establishment it will be – an old broken-down nurserymaid, a Dissenting minister, and your cousin! Mr Burton, will she like it? I cannot say that I should feel proud if it were offered to me.'