Heart and Cross

“She is seven and twenty, Mrs. Crofton—do you mean to reproach her with her age?” said Mrs. Harley, with an angry color rising on her face.

“Reproach her! for what?” said I, constrained to laugh in the midst of my grief. “Why will you tease Alice, and yourself, and me? She is very well—she is,” I added, with a little gulp, swallowing my better knowledge, “quite contented and happy—why will you torture her into marrying? She is quite satisfied to be as she is.”

“Ah, Clare—but I have so many children to provide for!” cried poor Mrs. Harley, with a gush of tears.

This silenced me, and I said no more. But Mrs. Harley had not exhausted her budget of complaints.

“And Maurice,” said this unfortunate mother; “after the education he has had, and all the money and pains that have been expended on him—Maurice, I do believe, Mrs. Crofton, will do something violent one of these days; he will go into business, or,” with another outburst of tears, “set himself to learn a trade.”

“Surely nothing quite so bad as that,” said I, with as much sympathy as I could summon up.

“Ah, you don’t know how he speaks—if you could only hear him; and the troubles in India and this last dreadful news have had such an effect upon Maurice,” said Mrs. Harley; “you would suppose, to hear him speak, that the poor soldiers had suffered all the more because he was doing nothing. Such nonsense! And instead of going into the Church in a proper and dignified manner, like his dear father, I see nothing better for it but that he’ll make a tradesman of himself.”

“But it would be satisfactory to see him doing something for himself—improving his own position; he can never settle and make a home for himself while he has only his Fellowship. Don’t you think Maurice is right?” said I, keeping up the conversation from mere politeness, and already sufficiently tired of the interruption it made.

“He has his mother’s house,” said Mrs. Harley, a little sharply, “and he has the position of a gentleman,” she added a moment after, in a faltering, apologetic tone. Good, troubled woman! She had come to that age of conflicting interests when the instincts of the heart do not always guide true. She wanted—very naturally—to see her daughter provided for; and so, if she could, would have persuaded Alice into an unwilling marriage. She could not bear to see her son derogating from the “position” which his father’s son ought to fill; and as he would not go into the Church, she would fain have condemned the young man to shrivel up into the dreary dignity of a College Don. Poor Mrs. Harley!—that was all that the philosophy of the affections instructed her to do.

She had scarcely left me half an hour when I was startled by the appearance of the Rector. He was grave and pale, held my hand in his tight grasp, and made his professions of sympathy all very properly and in good taste. But his looks and his tone aggravated a sick impatience of sympathy which began to grow about my heart. I began to comprehend how people in deep and real grief, might grow disgusted with the conventional looks expected from them, and learn an almost levity of manner, to forestall those vulgar, dreary sympathies; and this sympathy, too, covered something very different—something a great deal nearer to the Rector’s heart.

“It may seem to you a very indelicate question—I beg your pardon, Mrs. Crofton—I ask it with great diffidence—but I do not hesitate to confess to you that my own happiness is deeply concerned,” said Mr. Reredos, blushing painfully—and I knew at once, and recognized with a certain thrill of impatience and disgust, what he was going to ask; “Miss Harley and the late Captain Nugent were almost brought up together, I have heard; will you forgive me asking if there was any attachment—any engagement between them?”

“Colonel Nugent, please!” said I, I fear rather haughtily; “and it is surely premature to say the late, as I trust in Heaven we shall yet have better news.”

“I beg your pardon,” repeated the Rector, quickly, “I—I was not aware—but might I ask an answer to my question?”

“If there was any engagement between Alice and my dear Bertie?—none whatever!” cried I, with all my might—“nothing of the kind! Pardon me, you have not been delicate—you have not considered my feelings—if Alice has been unfavorable to you, it is for your own merits, and not on his account.”

I was half sorry when I saw the grave, grieved, ashamed expression with which this other young man turned away. He bowed and was gone almost before I knew what I had said—I fear not without an arrow of mortification and injured pride tingling through the love in his heart.

CHAPTER XX

And after all, the Rector was premature—we were all premature, lamenting for him over whom we were so speedily to rejoice. When Derwent put the dispatch into my hand (he did not send, but brought it, to make more sure), I could not read the words for tears. My eyes were clear enough when I saw that terrible killed, in which we believed to read Bertie’s fate. But the dear boy’s own message, in rapid reply to one which Derwent, out of my knowledge, had managed to have sent to him, floated upon me in a mist of weeping. The truth came inarticulate to my mind—I could neither see, nor scarcely hear the words in which it was conveyed.

But, alas! alas! it was Captain Nicholas Hughes who had fallen, instead of Bertie. I inquired all that I could learn about this unknown soldier, with a remorseful grief in the midst of my joy, which I cannot describe. I could not join in the tumult of exultation which rose round me. I could not forget that this news, which came so welcome to us, brought desolation upon another house. I could not think of him but as Bertie’s substitute, nor help a painful, fantastical idea that it was to our prayers and our dear boy’s safety that he owed his death. I was almost glad to find that the widow whom he had left behind him had need of what kind offices we could do her for the bringing up of her children, and vowed to myself, with a compunction as deep as it was, no doubt, imaginary, that she should never want while Estcourt remained mine. Was it not their dismal loss and bereavement which had saved the heir of my father’s house?

“It is the fortune of war,” said Derwent, when he learned, to his profound amazement, this idea which had taken possession of me. “It is the will of God,” said Captain Hughes’s pale widow, lifting her tearful face to me, from under the heavy veil of her mourning. So it was—but sharp and poignant is the contest between grief and joy.

“See what your despised telegraph can do, after all!” cried Derwent, rejoicing with all his honest heart over the news he had brought.

“But, ah! if Bertie’s friend had been poor!” said I. “How many souls do we wring with additional pangs, to have our anxiety dispelled the more easily? Think of the news of a battle, with so many killed and wounded—and some dreadful fortnight, or maybe month, to live through before one knows whether one’s own is dead or alive. No, ’tis a cruel earthly Geni, and not a celestial Spirit—it does good now and then, only because it cannot help it—relieves us, Derwent, but slaughters poor Mrs. Hughes.”

“I believe Clare is not half-content—nobody must be killed to satisfy you women—but, unfortunately that will not do in this world,” said Derwent. “We have to be thankful for our own exemption, without entering too deeply into other people’s grief. And most of us find that philosophy easy enough.”

“Most of us are very poor creatures,” said Maurice Harley, sententiously. He came alone to make his inquiries this time. Alice was invisible, and not to be heard of. I could not see her even when I called at the cottage. She had taken overpowering shame to herself, and shrank from my eyes. It was her brother who carried our news to his mother’s house—carried it, as I discovered incidentally, with the rarest and most delicate care for her—rigidly keeping up the fiction of supposing her not to care for it, nor to be specially interested, any more than for her old playfellow. He was ill at ease himself, and distracted with questions no longer of a dilettante kind. In my eyes this increased his kindness all the more.

“Yes, we are poor creatures the most of us,” repeated Maurice, when my husband—who did not notice any particular improvement in the Fellow of Exeter, and was disposed to be contemptuous, as elder men are, of his superiority to ordinary mortals—had sauntered, half-laughing, half-disgusted, out of the room. “Something you said the other day has stuck to my memory, Mrs. Crofton—help me out with it, pray. Are we worth a woman’s tears, the greater part of us? What is the good of us? I don’t mean Bertie, who is doing something in this world, but, for example, such a fellow as me!”

“Take care, Maurice! I see hoofs and a tail upon that humility of yours,” said I. “You, who are so wise, do you not know that women and their tears are no more superlative than men and their doings? Did you think I meant the tender, heroical, sentimental tears of romance, for the sake of which the sublime knight might be content to die? No such thing. I meant only that there seems a kind of pathetic, homely justice in it, when the man who dies—especially the man who dies untimely—has a woman belonging to him, to be his true and faithful mourner; that is all—it is nothing superlative; the sublime men are no better loved than the homeliest ones. Alice, if you asked her, would give you the poetical youthful interpretation of it, but I mean no such thing, Maurice. We want no great deeds, we womenkind; we were born to like you, and to cry over you, troublesome creatures that you are!”

“Ah! that is very well,” said Maurice, who in his heart was young enough to like the superlative idea best. “I wish I had a supreme right to somebody’s tears—but why should anybody cry over me? Am not I foredoomed to shrivel up into a College Don?”

“If you please,” said I.

“And if I don’t please?” cried Maurice, starting up, and seizing, after his usual fashion, a book off the table. He made a hurried march about the room, as usual, too; throwing that down; and picking up another to look at its title, then returned, and repeated, with some emphasis—“And what if I don’t please?”

“Why then, please God, you will do something better,” said I; “I hope so sincerely—it will give me the greatest pleasure—but you don’t make any progress by talking of it; that is our woman’s province. Do, Maurice, do! don’t say!”

The young man flashed with an angry and abashed color. “Thank you, I will, if it were to carry a hod. I have not forgotten,” he said, with a little bitter meaning, “that I am a widow’s son.”

“A widow’s son should be the prince of sons,” said I. “You make me preach, you young people, though it is not my vocation. Carry a hod then, if you will, like a gentleman and a Christian, and I, for one, will bid you God speed.”

Maurice put down his book, and came forward to me, holding out his hand. I suspect he liked me, though he had no great reason, and I confess, now-a-days, that I liked him. He held out his hand to say good-bye, and in saying good-bye opened his heart.

“Mrs. Crofton, you preach very well, considering that it is not your vocation; but I begin to think I am coming to that big preacher, Life, whom you once told me of. He is not a college don. Do you know,” said Maurice, with a frank, confused laugh, and rising color, “I’m in love?”

“I suspected as much,” said I. “Is all well?”

“All was ill, what with my own folly, and what with that spiteful little witch at the Rectory,” said Maurice; “but it’s coming right again. If I were to die to-morrow—little as I deserve them—I believe I should have these woman’s tears.”

“My dear boy, be thankful, and go home and live!” said I, with the water in my eyes. I was half inclined to kiss, and bless, and cry over him in the foolishness of my heart.

“I will,” said Maurice, in the fulness and effusion of his; and he kissed my hand with a congenial impulse, and went away abruptly, moved beyond speaking. He left me more profoundly and pleasantly touched than I had been for a long time. Perhaps I thought, with natural vanity, that I had a little—just a little—share in it. Dire must be the disappointment, and heavy the calamity, which should shrivel up Maurice Harley now into a college don.

CHAPTER XXI

Another long period of home quietness, but great anxiety followed this. Bertie, of course, would not return while the crisis of affairs in India had not yet been determined; and we were so much the more anxious about him, since he had been restored to us, as it seemed, out of the very grave. Later he was seriously wounded, threatened with fever, and really in great danger, but got through that as he had through all the other perils of that murderous Indian war. He distinguished himself, too, to our great pride and delight, especially to the boundless exultation of Derwie, and gained both credit and promotion almost beyond the hopes of so young a man. But, in the meantime, we were both anxious and concerned, for we could not induce him to think that he had encountered his full share of the fighting, and might now, surely, with perfect honor and satisfaction bring his laurels home.

“If the women and the babies are all safe on board the ships,” said Derwie, who was almost as reluctant to consent to Bertie’s return before the fighting was over as Bertie himself.

During all this time I scarcely saw Alice; she avoided coming in my way; when we met, avoided speaking to me—avoided looking in my face when that was practicable—could neither forgive herself for having betrayed her feelings, nor me for having witnessed that betrayal. Altogether her feelings towards me and in my presence were evidently so uncomfortable, that out of mere charity and consideration I no longer visited Mrs. Harley’s as I had done, nor invited them to Hilfont. They still came sometimes, but not as they had done before. I began to fear that I had lost Alice, which, to be sure, was unkind of her, considering what very old friends we were; but she could not forget nor forgive either herself or me for those tears out of which she had been cheated over that supposititious grave where Bertie Nugent was not.

So that there occurred an interregnum of information, at least, if not of interest, in respect to the Harleys. Maurice was in London, struggling forward to find what place he could in that perennial battle—struggling not very successfully—for, to the amazement of all, and, above all, to his own, he was not so greatly in advance of other people, when he had done something definite to be judged by, as the Fellow of Exeter had supposed himself. Providence, in quaint, poetic justice, had deprived Maurice, for example, of that faculty of writing which he had, maybe, esteemed too highly. His admirers had prophesied great triumphs for him in the field of literature before he had tried his pen there; but it turned out that Maurice could not write, and the discovery was rather humiliating to the young man. I have no doubt he made an infinitude of other discoveries equally unpleasant. His Fellowship kept him from starving, but it aggravated his failures and the pain of them, and held up more conspicuously than might have been desired, the unexpected imperfections of “Harley of Exeter,” in whom his contemporaries had been disposed to put a great deal of faith. Nevertheless, Maurice held on bravely. I liked him better and better as he found himself out. And he bore the discovery like a man.

As for Johnnie, poor boy, who had, all uneducated and without training as he was, just that gift of putting his mind into words which his brother lacked—he had not yet come to the bitter ending of his boyish dream. He was busy with his second book, in high hope and spirits, thinking himself equally secure of fame and of love. The poor lad had forgotten entirely the difference between the present time and that past age in which literature, fresh and novel, took its most sovereign place. He thought how Fanny Burney was fêted and applauded for her early novel; he thought of Scott’s unrivalled influence and honor; and he forgot that a hundred people write books, and especially write stories, now-a-days, for one who wrote then—and that he himself was only the unconsidered member of a multitudinous tribe, over whose heads Fame soared far away. It was not wonderful—he was scarcely one and twenty yet, though he was an author, and Miss Reredos’s slave. He meant to make the lady of his love “glorious with his pen,” as Montrose did, and expected to find an equal monarchy in her heart. Poor cripple Johnnie! a sadder or more grievous folly never was.

But it surprised me to find that he, poor fellow, was never the object of his mother’s anxiety. She was sorry, with a sort of contempt for his “infatuation,” and could not for her life imagine what men could see in that Miss Reredos. Mrs. Harley was a very kind and tender mother, ready at any time to deny herself for any real gratification to her boy; but she did not make much account of his heartbreak, of which “nothing could come.” For all practical purposes Johnnie’s love-tale was but a fable—nothing could ever come of it. Anything so unlikely as that Miss Reredos would marry the cripple never entered anybody’s mind but his own. And Mrs. Harley accordingly took it calmly, save for a momentary outburst of words now and then against the cause of Johnnie’s delusion—that was all. Nothing save the bitter disappointment, the violent mortification, the youthful despair, all augmented and made doubly poignant by the ill health and infirmities of this unfortunate boy, could result from his unlucky love-fever. So his mother was calm, and made no account of that among her may troubled and anxious concerns.

As for Alice, she was still Mrs. Harley’s greatest grievance, though I was not trusted with the same confidences, nor implored to use my influence, as before. Alice was more capricious, more tantalizing, less to be reckoned on than ever. She had, I suppose, dismissed Mr. Reredos with less courtesy than the Rector believed due to him, for he went about his duties with a certain grim sullenness, like an injured man, and never permitted himself to mention her name. I was in the Rector’s ill graces, as well as in those of Alice. He could not forgive me any more than she could, for the confidence themselves had bestowed. It was rather hard upon me to be thus excommunicated for no ill-doings of my own; but I bore it as best I could, sorry for Mr. Reredos, and not doubting that, some time or other, Alice would come to herself.

It was thus, in our immediate surroundings, that we spent the time until Bertie’s return.

CHAPTER XXII

It was once more spring when Bertie returned. Spring—Easter—that resurrection time which came to our hearts with a more touching force when we received home into our peaceful house—so pale, so worn out, and yet so sunburnt and scarred with violent labors past—that Bertie, who had gone from us so strong and so bold. He had been repeatedly wounded—had suffered more than once from fever—had felt, at last, that his health was broken, and that there was little more use in him while he remained in India, and so was persuaded to come home. Derwent, kindest of friends, went to meet him at Southampton, and brought him home as tenderly as any nurse, or rather far more tenderly, with a tenderness more considerate and requiring less response than that of a woman. To see our young hero an invalid, overpowered me entirely. I quite broke down under it, comparing him with what he was, and fearing everything from the mortal paleness, thrown by his sunbrowned complexion into a ghastly yellow, which sometimes overspread his face. Derwent judged more justly—he held up his finger to me when he saw the exclamation of dismay and grief that trembled on my lips.

“He’s tired, Clare,” said my husband. “A bright fire, and an English bed and rest—that’s all Bertie wants to-night. He’ll answer all your questions to-morrow. Come, old fellow, you know your way to your old room.”

“I should think so, indeed—and thank God I am at home,” cried Bertie, with his familiar voice. With a thrill of anguish I restrained my salutations and followed quietly to see that all was comfortable for him. He protested that it was nonsense, that he could come downstairs perfectly well, that Mr. Crofton only wanted to humble his vanity; but at the same moment drew up his foot wearily upon the sofa, with a gesture that showed better than words his need of rest.

“Alas, Derwent, has it come to this?” said I, as we went downstairs.

Derwent turned round upon me, put his big hands upon my shoulders, and thrust me in before him to the handiest room. “Now, Clare,” he said, with comical solemnity, “if we are going to have any nonsense or lamentations, I’ll shut you up here till my patient’s better. The boy is as sound as I am, and would be able to ride to cover in a fortnight, if any such chances were going. Now don’t say a word—I am speaking simple truth.”

“I must trust my own eyes,” said I; “but you need not fear my indiscretion. See how I have refrained from agitating him now.”

“Agitating him! Oh!” cried Derwent, with a good-humored roar. “What stuff you speak, to be sure! He is quite able to be agitated as much as you please—there is nothing in the world but wounds and fatigue the matter with Bertie. I am afraid you are only a woman after all, Clare; but you’re not to interfere with my patient. I’ve taken him in hand, and mind you, I’m to have the credit, and bring him through.”

“But, oh, Derwent,” said I, “how pale he is!”

“If I had seen as many dreadful sights as he has, I should be pale too,” said Derwent. “Seriously, he is tired and worn out, but not ill. Don’t be sorry for him, Clare—don’t put anything in his head. Talk pleasantly. I don’t forbid the subject, for example,” said my husband, looking at me with a certain affectionate cloudy mirth, as if he had known my secret all along, “of Alice Harley, if you choose.”

I put him aside a little impatiently, and he followed me into the very late dinner, which had been deferred for the arrival of the travellers, and where Bertie’s empty chair struck me again with a little terror. But I was wise for once, and yielded to Derwent’s more cheerful opinion. On the next morning Bertie was better—he went on getting better day by day. Derwent took care of him, and attended him in a way which took me by surprise; never teasing him with questions—never gazing at him with his heart in his eyes, as we womanish creatures do, to mar the work we would give our lives to accomplish; but with his eyes always open, and his attention really missing nothing that happened, and taking account of all.

A week after his arrival, Bertie, who hitherto had been telling me, as he could, his adventures in India—dread adventures, interwoven with all the thread of that murderous history—at last broke all at once into the full tide of home talk.

“And dear old Estcourt, Cousin Clare,” said Bertie, “stands exactly as it was, I suppose; and Miss Austin as steadfast as the lime trees—and the children to keep the old park cheerful—all as it was?”

“All as it was, Bertie; but the other house ready and waiting for you.”

I looked up with a little anxiety to see the effect of what I said. Distracted with a disappointed love, Bertie had left us—ill and languid he had returned. I thought my words might recall to his mind at once his old dreams and his present weakness; and with some terror I glanced at his face. He was lying on the sofa in that bright morning room with the great bow window, from which, shining afar like a great picture, he could see all the peaceful slope of our low-country, with the river glistening in links and bends, and the cathedral towers far off, lending a graceful centre and conclusion to the scene.

Bertie did not return my glance; he lay still, with a languid ease and satisfaction in his attitude which struck me for the first time—as if he was profoundly content to be there, and felt his fatigues and pains melt away in that warmth of home. As I looked at him a warmer color rose over his brown-pale face, a pleasant glimmer woke in his eye—his whole aspect warmed and brightened—a half conscious smile came playing about his parted lips. Whatever Bertie thought upon, it was neither disappointment nor broken health.

There was a long pause—the silence was pleasant—broken only by the soft domestic sounds of a great house; brightly lay that pleasant landscape outside the window, all soft and sweet with spring; tender and pleasant was the contrast of all the scene, the care and love surrounding the soldier now, with the burning plains and cruel contests from which he had come; and thoughts, dear, warm, and tender, arose in Bertie’s heart. He paused long, perhaps, with a simple art, to conceal from me a little the link of pleasant association which had directed his thoughts that way—then, with that wavering, conscious smile, spoke—