CHAPTER XXIV.
It is Sunday evening. Miss Craven has been to church for the firsttime since her _bereavement_, as people call it. She has displayedher crape in all its crisp funeral newness before the eyes of thePlas Berwyn congregation. Also, she has been made the subject ofconversation, over their early dinner, between the imbecile rectorand his vinegar-faced, bob-curled wife; the latter remarking howunfortunately unbecoming black was to poor Miss Craven--reallyimpossible to tell where her bonnet ended and her hair began; and howlucky it was for her that people did not wear mourning for as long atime as they used--three months being _ample_ nowadays, _ample_ fora brother! Esther has sat in their pew for the first time alone: shehas looked at Jack's prayer-book, at his vacant corner under the dustycobwebbed window, with eyes dryly stoic; she has walked firmly afterservice down the church-path, past a grassless hillock, where he whowas her brother lies, dumbly submitting to the one terrific, changelesslaw of decay--the law that not one of us can face, as applying toourselves, without our brains reeling at the horror of it. Oh! thrifty,harsh Nature! that, without a pang of relenting, unmixes again thosecunningest compounds that we call our bodies--making the freed elementsthat formed them pass into new forms of life--makes us, who erewhilewalked upright, godlike, fronting the sun, communing with the highstars--makes _us_, I say, creep many-legged in the beetle, crawl blindin the worm!
It is evening now, and Esther sits, in her red armchair, beside thedrawing-room fire, _alone_ again. The wind comes _banging_ everyminute against the shuttered French window, as one that boisterouslyasks to be let in; the ivy leaves are dashed against the pane, as onethat sighingly begs for admittance. Every now and then the young girllooks round timidly over her shoulder, in the chill expectation ofseeing a death-pale spirit-face gazing at her from some corner of theroom; every now and then she starts nervously, as a hot cinder dropsfrom the grate, or as the small feet of some restless mouse make ahurry-skurrying noise behind the wainscot. As often as she can framethe smallest excuse, she rings the bell, in order to gather a littlecourage from the live human face, the live human voice, of the servantthat answers it.
Around Plas Berwyn also the wind thunders--against Plas Berwynwindows also the ivy-leaves fling themselves plaintively; but therethe resemblance ends. The steady light from the lamp outblazes theuncertain, fitful fire-gleams: at Plas Berwyn there are no ghost-facesof the lately dead to haunt the inmates of that cheerful room. They areall sitting round the table on straight-backed chairs--no lolling inarmchairs, no stealing of furtive naps on the Sabbath--sitting ratherprimly, rather Puritanically, reading severely good books. To Bob'spalate, the _Hedley Vicarsian_ type of literature is as distastefulas to any other young man of sound head and good digestion, but hesuccumbs to it meekly, to please his mother; if Sunday came _twice_ aweek, I think he would be constrained to rebel. From the kitchen, theservants' voices sound faintly audible above the howling wind, singingpsalms. The family are divided between prose and poetry. Miss Brandonis reading a sermon; her sister a hymn. Here it is:--
THE FIRM BANK.[1]
"I have a never-failing bank, A more than golden store; No earthly bank is half so rich, How can I then be poor?
"'Tis when my stock is spent and gone, And I without a groat, I'm glad to hasten to my bank, And beg a little note.
"Sometimes my banker, smiling, says, 'Why don't you oftener come? And when you draw a little note, Why not a larger sum?
"'Why live so niggardly and poor?-- Your bank contains a plenty? Why come and take a one-pound note When you might have a twenty?
"'Yea, twenty thousand, ten times told, Is but a trifling sum To what your Father hath laid up, Secure in God his Son.'
"Since, then, my banker is so rich, I have no cause to borrow: I'll live upon my cash to-day, And draw again to-morrow.
"I've been a thousand times before, And never was rejected; Sometimes my banker gives me more Than asked for or expected.
"Sometimes I've felt a little proud, I've managed things so clever: But, ah! before the day was done I've felt as poor as ever!
"Sometimes with blushes on my face Just at the door I stand; I know if Moses kept me back, I surely must be damned.
"I know my bank will never break-- No! it can never fall! The Firm--Three Persons in one God! Jehovah--Lord of All!"
A charming mixture of the jocose and familiar, isn't it?
"Mother," says Bob, rather abruptly, looking up from a civil-spoken,pleasant little work, entitled "Thou Fool!" which he is perusing (it isgenerally an understood thing that conversation is not to be includedamong the Sabbath evening diversions at Plas Berwyn)--"Mother, do youknow I don't think I shall try for extension, after all?"
The gold-rimmed spectacles make a hasty descent from their elevationupon Mrs. Brandon's high thin nose.
"Dear Bob! why not?"
"Because I don't see why I should," he answers, frankly. "I'mperfectly well: why should I shirk work any more than any other fellow?I might say that I prefer a cool climate to a hot vapour-bath, Englishwinds to oily calms, but I don't suppose that I am singular in that!"
"My dear boy!" says the old woman, tremulously, stretching out herwithered hand across the table to him,--"why did you ever go into thatdreadful profession? Why did not you enter the ministry, like your dearfather, as I so much wished you to do?"
"I'm very glad I didn't, mother!" replies the young man, bluntly; "Ishould have been a fish sadly out of water, and, after all, I hope thatHeaven will not be quite so full of black coats that there will not beroom for one or two of our colour."
"Have you told Essie?" inquires his eldest sister, joining in theconversation.
"Yes, she knows."
"Will she be ready to go with you on such short notice?"
"No."
"You'll leave her behind, then?"
"Yes."
"I thought you always had such a horror of long engagements?"
"So I have, but--but" (involuntarily lowering his voice, and lifting"Thou Fool!" to be a partial shade for his face)--"there is noengagement between us now!"
Six startled eyes fix themselves upon his face. "What!" cry threesimultaneously shrill female voices. "No engagement! Has she thrown youover?"
"No."
"Have _you_ thrown _her_ over?" (with an astonished emphasis on thepronouns).
"No."
"Have you quarrelled, then?" "No, we haven't," answers Bob, wincing."Poor little child! one would hardly choose such a time as this toquarrel with her. Cannot you understand two people coming to theconclusion that they are better apart; better as friends than as--asanything else?"
His three comforters stare at one another in bewilderment; then hisparent speaks, shaking her head oracularly:
"I'm afraid I see how it is, Bob; you have found out that thisunfortunate girl is, in some way, unworthy of you, and you are toogenerous to confess it, even to us."
Bob dashes down "Thou Fool!" in a fury, and his blue eyes shine withquick fire.
"Mother, do you call that the 'charity that thinketh no evil?' I tellyou, Essie is willing to marry me to-morrow, but I--"
"But you are _not_ willing!" interrupts the domestic pack, burstingagain into full cry.
"Tell us something a _little_ more probable, Bob, and we'll try andbelieve it," subjoins Bessy, with a small curling smile.
"It is a matter of perfect indifference to me whether you believe meor not," replies the young man, sternly; keeping under, with greatdifficulty, an unmanly longing to box Miss Bessy's ears. "I only tellyou, _upon my honour_, that Essie is willing to marry me, and thatI--solely for her own sake, solely because I know that an inferiorbeing cannot make a superior one happy--am _not_ willing."
"And a very good thing too," cries Bessy, viciously. "I always thoughtyou were singularly ill-suited to one another
; I always said so tomamma and Jane. Didn't I, mamma?--didn't I, Jane? 'Can two walktogether except they be agreed?' you know."
"Girls," says poor Bob, harried almost beyond endurance, and addressinghis sisters by the conveniently broad appelative which coverseverything virgin between the ages of six and a hundred--"Girls, wouldyou mind going into the dining-room for a few minutes? I want to speakto mother alone."
The "girls" look rebellious, but their rebellion does not break intoopen mutiny. Rising, they comply with his request.
"Of course, what _most nearly_ concerns our _only_ brother cannot besupposed to have any interest for _us_," says Bessy, leaving her stingbehind, like a wasp, and shutting the door with as near an approach toa bang as her conscience will admit.
As soon as they are well out of the room, Bob comes and sits at hismother's feet, and lays his head on her lap, as he used to do when hewas a very little boy. She passes her fingers fondly through his curlyhair.
"This is a severe trial, my dear boy," she says, a little tritely;"but take an old woman's word for it; look for comfort in the rightdirection, and you'll _surely, surely_ find it!"
"_I_ don't want comfort," answers Bob, pluckily; he having by no meansexiled his sisters in order to pule and whimper over his own woes. "_I_do very well."
"I thought you had come to your old mother for consolation," answershis parent, a little aggrievedly: naturally somewhat disappointed atbeing balked of the office of Paraclete, so dear to every woman'sheart; "if not, what was it that you wanted to talk to me about thatyou did not wish your sisters to hear?"
"About _her!_" he answers, emphatically, lifting up his head, andreading her face earnestly. "I didn't wish her to be the mark forany more of Bessy's sneers. I wonder," he says, a little bitterly,"that she who is always talking about '_our Great Exemplar_' does notrecollect that _He_ never sneered at any one."
"Did you say that it was Esther Craven that you wished to speak to meabout?" inquires Mrs. Brandon, rather coldly.
"Mother," he says, passionately, "she has not a farthing in the world!What _is_ to become of her?"
"Any one that my dear son takes an interest in will always be welcometo a home with me, for as long as they like to avail themselves of it,"says the old lady, primly.
He shakes his head.
"She would not come," he says, despondently; "she is too proud: shehates to be beholden to any one: she is bent on working for her ownliving."
"And a very proper resolution, too," replies his mother, stoutly, herheart being steeled against Esther by a latent conviction that thatfair false maid has dealt unhandsomely by her son. "Providence isalways more willing to help those that help themselves."
"How _can_ she help herself?" cries Esther's champion, indignantly."What sort of work are those little weak hands, that littleinexperienced head, fitted for?"
"Women with hands as weak and heads as inexperienced have toiled fortheir daily bread before now, I suppose," rejoins Mrs. Brandon, with acertain hardness, foreign to her nature, and arising from that spiritof contradiction, innate in us all, which makes us look coldly upon anyobject that some one else is making a fuss over.
Bob springs to his feet in great wrath, and speaks low and quick:"Mother! I'm sorry I ever broached this subject to you; one takes along time, I see, to get acquainted with one's nearest relatives'characters. If you can see the child of one of your oldest friendsworking her poor little fingers to the bone for the bare necessaries oflife without stretching out a finger to help her, _I_ cannot!"
Speaking thus disrespectfully, he walks towards the door.
"A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree, The more you beat 'em, the better they be."
says the rude old saw. Every woman, from a mother to a mistress,enjoys, rather than otherwise, being bullied.
The old woman half rises, and stretching out her hand to her son, says,"My boy! come back! let us talk rationally: don't quarrel with your oldmother about a person that will never be so good a friend to you as sheis."
He turns, half hesitating: anger's red ensign still aflame on hishonest face.
"Shall I tell you, Bob, why I cannot feel common compassion for--forthis girl?"
"Why?"
"Because," says the old lady, with emotion, Mr. Brandon's imageheaving up and down rather quicklier than usual upon her amplebreast,--"because some instinct tells me that she has not had commoncompassion upon you."
"'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;' in fact," answers Bob,with a sarcasm unusual to him, "you are forgetting, mother, how oftenyou have impressed upon me that we are no longer under the Mosaicdispensation! But why should she have compassion on me, may I ask? Inwhat way do I stand in need for it? _I_'m not a woman, thank God!"
She looks at him, intently, with a steadiness that disconcerts him."Bob, can you look me in the face and tell me that you have not beenunhappier since you knew Esther Craven than ever you were before in allyour life?"
"I have," he answers, simply, "and happier too; so that makes itsquare."
Foiled in this direction, she varies her point of attack a little: "Canyou look me in the face, and tell me that since your engagement she hasbehaved to you as a modest, honourable woman should behave to the manshe has promised to marry?"
He casts his eyes down troubled, and begins to fidget with adilapidated little Chelsea Cupid on the mantelshelf, too truthful tosay "Yes," too generous to say "No."
"She is ready to fulfil her promise," he answers, evasively. "She iswilling to marry me whenever I like, as I told you before--to-morrow!to-night! this instant, if I wish!"
"For a home, of course; one can understand that, in her situation,"says his mother, in a tone of slighting pity.
Bob perceives, and is stung by it.
"No, not for a home!" he answers, indignantly. "Poor soul! she may havethat without paying such a heavy toll for it."
"To what motive, then, do you ascribe her willingness?"
"She told me that she liked me better than any one else in the world,"he answers, with the reluctance of one who is making a statement thathe believes will not be credited by the auditor to whom it is addressed.
"My poor simple boy! and you believed her?" (with a sort ofcompassionate scorn).
He hesitates. "I believe that she meant what she said at the moment,"he replies, doubtfully.
"If there was such perfect harmony of opinion between you, why was theengagement broken, may I ask?" she inquires, a little sharply.
No answer, except quickened breathing, and a frown slightly contractinghis climate-bronzed forehead.
"Was it--oh, my dear boy! if it was so, no one can respect yourscruples more than I do--was it because you were not quite sure thatshe was one of the Lord's people?"
"Oh, dear, no," answers the young man, quickly, with scarcely repressedimpatience in his tone--"nothing of the kind. God forbid my being sopresumptuously uncharitable! How am I to know who is, or who is not?All I know is that if she is not, neither am I; and I trust, mother,that you will find, by-and-bye, that they are not quite such, a scantynation as you seem to imagine."
"A higher authority than I am has expressly designated them 'a littleflock,'" says the old woman, sententiously, pursing up her mouth;"but far be it from me to wish to judge, whatever you may imply. ButI am still waiting to hear what your motive was for breaking yourengagement, a motive which you seem to have such an unaccountabledifficulty in telling me."
He looks down, for an instant or two, biting his lips, then speakspetulantly:
"Why should I tell you, mother?--why should I tell any one? A man's_motives_ are his own concern, whatever his actions may be; if mine arestrong enough to satisfy myself and her, surely that is enough."
"Oh, of course," answers his mother, rather nettled at what sheconsiders a want of confidence; "only that, unless I am put inpossession of the circumstances of the case, I really don't see how Ican be expected to give advice----"
"I don't want advice," interrupts the young man,
eagerly. "I want amuch better thing--assistance."
"Assistance in what?"
"Why, in hindering that poor girl," he says, with warmth, "from beingthrown upon the world penniless, helpless, and without a friend, as shewill be after the sale at Glan-yr-Afon."
"Not without a friend, as long as you are alive, Bob; one can answerfor that!" rejoins his mother, rather tartly.
"I count for nothing," says Bob, quietly. "A man's friendship can beof no service to a woman, unless he is in some authorised position ofrelationship or connection with her; otherwise he does her more harmthan good. What she needs, and what I hoped she would have found inyou, mother, is a woman-friend."
"If," replies his mother, drawing herself up and looking verystiff--"If she is, as you say, _too proud_ to avail herself of the homethat I am, _for your sake_, willing to offer her, she is likely to be_too proud_ to consent to be befriended in any other way."
Brandon looks at her for a moment with something akin to indignantscorn in his face, dutiful son as he usually is; then, repenting,throws himself on his knees beside her, and clasping his arms abouther withered neck, says, entreatingly: "Mother, why are you so hardupon her?--what has she done to you? Just think, how would you haveliked Jane or Bessy, when they were her age, to have been driven outinto the world to make their own way, without a single soul to say akind word to them, or give them a helping hand; and," he continues,musingly, "they never could have been exposed to the temptations shewill be--they never were beautiful, like her!"
He had never spoken truer words in all his life, but the truth is notalways the best to be spoken.
"At all events," says the old lady, with emphasis, freeing herselffrom his arms, and getting rather red in the face--"At all events,Bob, however disparagingly you may speak of them, they were and aregood, modest, pious girls, that would not trifle with an honest man'saffection for their own amusement, as handsomer ones have done beforenow."
"I never heard of any honest man having given them the chance," retortsBob, sarcastically, quitting his caressing posture, with a revulsion offeeling as sudden as it was complete.
"The servants are assembled," says the youngest, best, modestest,piousest of the girls, opening the door, and putting in her little drabface. "Must I tell them to go back to the kitchen for a quarter of anhour, or has Bob nearly finished his _private communication?_"
"Quite!" replies Bob, emphatically.
He is standing leaning against the chimneypiece, his colour heightened,and a sorely angered look on his open simple face.
"You need not wait for me, mother," he continues, seeing his parentlook inquiringly towards him, as she moves with the slowness of age andportliness to the door; "I shall not come to prayers to-night. When oneprays, one ought to be in charity with all the world, ought not one?And I am not."
[1] A real Revivalist hymn.